He stalls, eyes wide as he lets me through the door temporarily replacing the one the fire service has broken down. It’s already secured with thick steel bolts, as if Corvus is expecting a deadly break-in any day. That, or maybe he’s just that protective of all his expensive possessions. It’s not like I have a point of reference for any of that.
“That whole thing... I admit it’s regrettable,” he mutters, hanging up his coat and toeing off the shoes.
“What, the human hunt you Van der Horns have been doing for the past hundred years?” I quip.
He whips his head around, dead serious. “No. I just don’t believe you should have been a part of it in the first place. Someone made a mistake.”
This shouldn’t be funny, because my life was on the line back there, but maybe all the painkillers got me giddy. “A clerical error, nothing to worry about. I’ve been in my share of fights to the death.”
The interior looks almost normal. The floor is stained from the dirty snow that surely clung to the shoes of the people who saved me, and the air’s unpleasantly cold, as if all the windows were open with no regard for it being winter, but there are no soot stains in sight, and unless the kitchen itself is a complete mess, nothing seems to have changed. He leads me straight to the dining room and starts placing all the food on the table between us. There’s tea, and chicken soup. Seeing it makes me all warm inside before I even have any.
“What? Aren’t you exaggerating a bit? I know cage fights are dangerous, but it’s not like people die every day, do they?” Corvus asks, pushing the soup toward me.
I grab a spoon and dig in. “I mean, yeah, but I took part in somespecialfights. My dad, he… have I mentioned he was a gambler? I was good at fighting, had the wrestling experience, did MMA, and a friend of his suggested underground fights were where the stakes are higher, and you could win big.
“We already argued like hell back then, but suddenly, money could be made, and he was able to overlook that I was gay. Most of the fights were just brutal, with the risk of death, sure, but without it being the aim. But as things escalated, we got deeper into that scene, and new doors opened up.”
I drift off a little in my mind as the dark cloud of memories gathers over me. “It’s during one of those fights I killed someone for the first time. It wasn’t the best time in my life in general, but Dad was betting big, we were raking in the cash, and I just… I don’t know. I lived one day at a time.”
Corvus is very quiet, and he doesn’t even touch his sandwich as he watches me, eyes pinned to my face as if he suspects I might disappear if he takes them off me. “Are you shitting me?” he eventually asks. “Your father gambled with your life in fights to the death?”
I slurp more soup as I mull over the question. “It does sound really bad when you put it like that. But I was good at it, so I guess it made sense to him, since I didn’t really finish high school. I do wish he put away some of the money, but no, he lost so much of it I couldn’t keep track. So, for my last fight of that kind, we had this whole scheme of faking my death. It actually worked. We split the cash with my opponent, left Nevada, and never looked back. It was about time too, because you make enemies with fights like that no matter if you win fairly or not—” I stall, and cock my head. “So maybe… I do have enemies?”
Corvus is holding on to the edge of the table, as if the floor’s shaking under us. His brows sit low over his eyes, and just before I can open my mouth and ask him what’s wrong, he grabs my forearm and squeezes it tightly. “No, it does not make sense. At all. What the hell? Who gambles with their kid’s life?” His nostrils flare as he takes a deep breath and meets my eyes again. “Where is that bastard now?”
I slouch over my soup, holding back a cough building in my chest to not worry Corvus over nothing. “Oh, he’s dead. Just months after we moved, he got really drunk, fell down a flight of stairs, andbam, dead. I… He was not a good guy. Is it wrong that I’m glad he’s dead? I finally got my life together once he was out of the picture, even if it took me a year to pay off his debts.”
I don’t know Corvus well yet, but I recognize the way his shoulders relax almost immediately. “I would have preferred to hunt him down next Christmas, but I suppose it’ll have to do. Eat your soup,” he adds, finally digging in himself.
I wink at him. “Aww, you care. Or does the soup have dexo-sexo?”
He stills, then very slowly turns his head toward me, which looks rather comical when his mouth is full of bread and meat. “You need rest,” he mumbles.
“I rested in the hospital.” But I do eat faster, because the soup is delicious. “Hope my story didn’t make you lose your appetite? I figured with your line of work, I can be honest about this stuff.”
“Yes, of course. There is no need to keep secrets from me. And while we’re on that subject… I won’t use anything on you again. Not without your permission,” he adds with a sincerity I didn’t expect.
“Why would I give you permission to give me some weird sex drug? Are you into that? Those sex-enhancing drugs?”
Corvus swallows his next bite and wipes his mouth with a napkin. “No, but you might technically wish to gain immunity to certain poisons. My father exposed me to several while I was quite young.”
He laughs, moves his gaze from me to the window, and shrugs. “Mother wasn’t thrilled about it all, since I kept getting sick for a while, until my body got used to the toxins.”
“Wow, what a truckload of daddy issues between us. Mine rented me for fights to the death, yours microdosed you with poisons.” I reach for his hand over the table. “I hope it had no lasting negative effects?”
He’s like a statue, so elegant, poised, and strong. He’s Corvus Van der Horn, a man with a torture chamber in his basement. I wasn’t expecting this vulnerable side of him, and it makes me want to hug him close. The best I can do with the table between us is squeeze his hand.
“Only the positive ones. I’m now harder to kill.” Corvus offers me a smile, but then his gaze drifts past my shoulder. “My father was a stern man, difficult to live with, but he did all that to prepare me for a tough life.”
I get all fuzzy inside when he squeezes my hand back and I won’t be letting go, so I awkwardly unwrap my sandwich with one hand. “I mean, he did do one thing right, that’s for sure, since his creation is pretty stunning.”
Corvus coughs, but he swallows the rest easily once he takes a sip of the chicken soup. “I suppose it didn’t require much hard work, considering both he and Mother were attractive people. But he really did mold me into someone who can survive the life of a Van der Horn man. The cookbook you tried to follow used to be his, and I’m one of the only two people who can read it the way it’s meant to be,” he adds with pride.
“So it’s not actually his famous chicken-cinnamon-oregano-pancakes?” I’m all ears though. I’m like a sponge to soak up all things Corvus.
Corvus squeezes my hand back, and once again his expression relaxes. He might be handsome with that permanent frown, but it can’t hold a candle to the way his smiles make me feel. “It’s a book of poisons. Written in code. It’s meant to be easy to overlook.”
That makes a lot of sense. Not only because the recipe seemed like poison even at face value. I feel kinda special that he’s telling me this, despite it meaning he’ll probably need to kill me if I ever try to leave.
