“Don’t give me that blank look,” the Imperial Prince said to Sila, coming to a stop at his brother’s side, close enough that his chest grazed Rin’s arm. “In fact, how about dropping the act all together, hm? We all saw what you did to the professor here. You’re not the friendly, boy next door you peddle to the masses.”
Sila cocked his head. “You say that as if you didn’t already know as much. I’m curious, out of the two of us, which do you think—”
“That’s enough of that,” Bay stated tersely, slipping into the role of professor with ease, even in the presence of Kelevra. “The two of you aren’t doing anyone any good by teasing one another. Let’s focus on what’s important, shall we?”
“Like how you’re getting dicked down by your student?” Kelevra said.
Rin elbowed him in the stomach.
“There are no rules in the handbook stating it’s against school policy,” Bay stated, holding his ground.
That was a far cry from all the whining Bay had done with Sila about getting caught, but whatever. He certainly wasn’t going to be the one to point it out, at least not in front of all these people.
People Sila really wished would vanish so he could be alone with his kitten. They were all way too close—especially Berga. Berga needed to back the hell up before Sila made it so that Baikal was going to have to find himself a new Butcher.
“Relax, Professor,” Kel rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to tell on you.”
“You were poisoned,” Berga stepped in then, clearly wanting to put an end to all of this as well. “By noxious, actually.”
Sila rested his head back against the wall and smirked. “No shit?”
“You should be dead,” he agreed, picking up on the fact that’s where Sila’s mind had immediately gone. “Your quick Tiberan healing is the only thing that saved you. That, and the fact you were brought to the hospital so soon.”
“Isn’t noxious slow acting?” The drug was highly illegal and hard to get your hands on. Once it entered a person’s system, it took anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks to get to the point where their life was in peril. “I felt fine this morning.”
“Yesterday morning,” Bay corrected. “You’ve been out for a while.”
“You should be out still,” Rin crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. “You need to rest. They saved your life, but you’re not fully functional.”
“There are still traces of the poison in your system,” Berga explained. “But I’m working out a way to purge it from you. The doctor is overseeing it as we speak. It should be done shortly.”
“What should?” Sila asked, just for clarification.
“The antidote.”
“Which you made for me…why?”
Berga frowned at him. “Because you’re Bay’s…” He turned to the professor. “What are the two of you, exactly?”
“I own him,” Sila stated. “So back off.”
“Mr. Varun—” Bay began, only to suck in a breath when Sila sent him a dark look.
“Mr. Varunme again and I’ll finger fuck you and leave you wanting in front of everyone here.”
Berga quirked a brow, but something on Bay’s face stopped him from coming to his friend’s defense. Instead, he nodded as though he’d just found the solution to an impossible math equation he’d been working on for months. Then he clapped his hands together to regain everyone’s attention.
“The reason the poison worked through you so quickly is because it was able to enter your body through the cut on your hand. Typically, noxious is a fine powder that seeps through the victims’ pores and enters the bloodstream that way.”
“So it was already on me before then,” Sila surmised. He tried to think of anyone he’d come into contact with prior to meeting with Bay, but aside from his brother and Kelevra at their apartment, and then being alone at the shuttleport, there’d been no one.
“It was on your car,” Berga said. “I tested the handle and it was smeared all over. You wouldn’t have been able to see it.”
“Just the driver’s side too,” his brother added. “You were the target.”
“We just need to figure out—”
“It was Haroon Caddel,” both Sila and Bay cut Berga off.
