Servitude [BoyxBoy]

Chapter 16

When I turned around, they were both staring at me curiously.

Ah, here it is.

"Nothing," I answered honestly and felt their eyes pierce through me like hot pokers.

"You... volunteer?" Luke asked naively, and I sighed, shaking my head.

"No, I'm a slave." Grimm's eyes darkened. "Slaves don't earn money for the work they do-"

Grimm's fist slammed against one of the counters, making Luke and I jump. He stared right at me, his chest heaving in anger.

"I know what a fucking slave is, halfbreed—"

"—Hey, now—" Luke attempted to interject, his hands both thrown up weakly at his sides in surrender, but his voice fell on deaf ears.

"—I just can't believe that I'd ever in my lifetime take orders from one. Or be talked to like that by one." Grimm's voice was getting louder by the second, and I shrank back against the counter.  It reached out and bounced back from the cold stone bricks of the kitchen, resulting in the sinister echo which left me cringing in a mix of embarrassment and fear.  He took slow steps towards me as he spoke like he was working his way up to hitting me.

"Hell," He shouted with a sharp laugh, but it was cold and angry. It made me wince, and my legs trembled weakly in fear. "How can you even look me in the eye, huh?" Now he was standing inches away from me, leaning down as I tried desperately to break away from the counter, but his arms were pinning me there.  As if to prove a point, he brought a heavy paw up to push at my chest, and I let my body fall back against the counter behind me.

Angry men were not new to me, don't get me wrong. If there is anything I can handle, it's an angry man. That wasn't the issue here, though.

Grimm wasn't a man. He was a monster.

I could see it from the dull gloss of his eyes, from the bulging veins on his neck and forehead.  I knew the look of a warrior, trained to kill and spit on the corpses of those he slaughtered.  He had been taught that he deserved respect from those without that same power, and unfortunately, he had believed it.

"Answer me!" He roared in my face, his voice so loud that it made my ears ring, and I screwed my eyes shut in hopes that he would leave me be.  If I retaliated, everything would become so much worse.

"Accept my apologies, sir," I mumbled, turning my face so that I wouldn't have to look him in the eye.  Grimm was so close that I could feel his breath fan unpleasantly against my face.  He let out a displeased snort, and for a moment I thought that he would let me go.

That moment was short-lived.

Grimm grabbed the back of my shirt and lifted me from the ground until my feet dangled and kicked desperately in search of ground.  The front of my collar dig into my neck where it had been buttoned and cut off my breathing so that any cries of surprise of pain could only come out in choking, gargled scraps of sound.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Luke making for the doorway, presumably to get help.  I muttered a quick plea to the oak it had been fashioned with and watched as it swung shut.  Luke tried the handle but gasped when it wouldn't budge.

Grimm seemed to notice as well and turned to see what I had done.  My hands reached up to tug at my shirt, frantically trying to unfasten each button from the bottom upwards and finally meeting the one at my collar.  With shaking fingers, I tried to pry the button out of my shirt, only to find that there was too much pressure on it to move it in any direction.

In my frustration, I cried out, feeling my head get lighter as my lungs aches and begged for air.  Grimm turned back around to frown at me.

"Filthy elven magic, slave?  If the Elders heard about all the rules you've been breaking—"

"Do what you wish to me," I managed, hooking my hands around Grimm's arms to pull myself up for a few sweet gulps of air. "But Silvian doesn't get involved."

The man's eyes narrowed in confusion and anger, clearly taken aback by the fact that a slave was once again giving him orders. They lit up, though, as he decided to lift me as high as he could by the front of my collar, one arm extended high above him.

In an instant, I was thrown across the kitchen, straight into the shelves full of pots and pans and plates. I felt the wooden boards break against my weight, and landed on the tiled floor, looking straight upwards.

Frozen, I watched as plates fell down on top of me, hitting my body and smashing against the floor beneath me. One landed on my head, sending a roaring pain into my skull that had me writhing and hissing like a snake on fire.

Then the pots came, huge iron cast things which fell from the highest shelf. One crushed my leg, and I felt the bone of my shin splinter under the force of it - a sickening snap resounding through my body. Another landed on my stomach, crashing through my ribs before rolling off of me and settling into the floor.

The wind was knocked out of my lungs. Blood spurted up from my wounds. My head swam with dizziness and pain and a resounding question which I had asked myself countless times throughout this sorry excuse for a life I had been given.

Why.

It all happened in a span of around five seconds, but time seemed to slow, mocking me cruelly.

Afterwards, I rolled onto my side, feeling chips of pottery shifting and sliding around my body, and coughed blood onto the floor.

It's scary how in moments of great pain or significance, we seem to distance ourselves from the reality of what is happening.

I would have liked to say that in that moment, I was thinking of one thousand ways to take revenge on Grimm.  Of the last time I'd seen Silvian, or how awful it would be for me to die underneath a pile of pots and pans in the staff kitchen of an infamous vampire slash eccentric scientist.

But instead, I was thinking of what a pain it would be to clean all of this mess up.  I hoped that Luke wouldn't be the one doing it.  He'd only manage to make it worse...

"Not a word," I felt like I was whispering, but it sounded like shouting.  "To Silvian."

With my last few conscious breaths, I whispered a quick healing spell, and let my eyelids fall shut.  In that small bubble of pain and darkness I had created for myself, I could concentrate more on what was around me.

The wood in the kitchen buzzed with excitement, recalling the days it had been a mighty forest and seen countless battles, all just as gory as what they had seen today. 

As I fell asleep, they whispered of what was to come.  They talked of a new world and an old world.  In hushed cries of delight, they spoke of...  brothers.

Brothers of our new, old king.

Yes, Soleil speaks to kitchen counters now.  I'm not even mad.

At this point, these things are expected.