Chapter 10:

Something clinked against glass and the sound seemed to ricochet off Kurt's pounding head as he dragged his eyes into focus and glanced furtively around the room. The first thing his blurred vision lighted on was the heavy velvet draped curtains of his bedchamber, drawn but not quite fully, so a shard of white was just visible through the crack, indicating it was still daylight outside. Blinking painfully, the movement sending jolts of fire into his head again, Kurt shifted slightly so his gaze could move further around the room. He knew he was back in the mansion and the gilded furniture he swept his eyes across only served to add to the churning, sinking feeling in his stomach. He'd been so close to getting away. So resigned to a different fate and now he was back. Back where he'd started, with nothing left of himself and a broken body to add to it all. His eyes closed again and a silent, helpless tear dropped onto the pillow beneath his head.

"Sir, you need to be checked out by the doctor!"

The hushed voice coming from the doorway was unmistakably that of Seth, and Kurt kept his eyes firmly shut in an attempt to remain unobserved; the hissed "Sir" was definitely not directed towards Kurt and he wanted to hear Blaine's response.

"Seth, I've told you, I'm fine. Just tired and a bit cold." Blaine sounded irritated and impatient but the rasping quality of his voice indicated he wasn't perhaps as fine as he proclaimed. There was the sound of footsteps coming closer to the bed and Kurt could feel someone looming over him. He stayed still, keeping his breathing regular to suggest he was sleeping.

"What were you thinking Blaine?" Seth's voice was quiet but ominously dark and it made Kurt's skin prickle and crawl. "He's a goddamn Sub for Christ's sake. You could have died, Blaine. For a Sub. For a fucking Sub!" Seth's voice was hard and cold.

"You said yourself that if it had got out that my Sub had escaped, my reputation would have been ruined."

"Yes but Jesus, Blaine, he was damn-near dead! We could have covered it up. He's nothing. We'd have easily got a replacement and come up with a decent story." something heavy slammed against the bedside table making the bed shake slightly. "Why did you go out after him, Blaine!? The guards would have found him. Why did YOU go?!"

A sigh was heard audibly beside him and Kurt felt something shift as an arm lent against the left side of the bed, near his fingers. Blaine's voice was weary and small and so unlike the Lord that Kurt felt his breath stutter slightly in his own chest. "I had to find him, Seth." was all he said.

"My Lord...."

"......go please. Now, Seth. I want to be alone."

The command was firm, but for a moment Kurt wondered if the advisor was about to contest it. He could hear the older man click his tongue in ill-disguised disgust and felt the two men held in silent conflict, before eventually hearing the heavy, receding footsteps of the other man.

"He's nothing, Blaine. Don't forget that. He's nothing...." there was a brief pause where the air shifted suddenly and Kurt felt another chill, totally unconnected to his condition, ripple through him. "He's nothing.....but he could ruin you if you allow it!"

The door slammed loudly and Kurt couldn't help but flinch at the searing pain that pounded into his body yet again. Blaine must have noticed because he felt warm fingers wrap around his wrist before a significantly more gentle voice murmured "You can open your eyes now."

Turning his head slightly, Kurt took an unsteady breath and blinked Blaine back into his eye line. He was momentarily startled by his Lord's appearance and couldn't help it when he reached out his fingers to trace the deep scratches that sliced across the other man's deathly pale face.

"Tree branches and ice are a dangerous combination" Blaine said, shrugging and then wincing slightly.

His lips were cracked and bloodless and his arms were equally as scarred as his face, Kurt noted as he let his eyes glide over the rest of the man beside him. The forest had certainly had its triumph. His hand dropped limply back against the bed sheet as a tumult of emotions poured through him; emotions he had no strength left to deal with or attempt to rationalise at present. Instead, he tried to sit up, grimacing at the throbbing hurt that seared inside with every movement. Blaine moved quickly to aid him, reaching his arms out carefully underneath his shoulders and gently settling him against the pillows.

"How are you feeling?" The question was hesitant and small again. Kurt peered at his Lord quizzically, trying to reconcile this caring and clearly nervous stranger with the callous and heartlessly assured man from the evening before; a man, he reminded himself quickly, who had allowed other men to paw at him and violate him. He swallowed hard, the coldness seeping back in. Turning away from the open and searching golden eyes, Kurt shrugged off the gentle fingers stroking against his wrist, not seeing the hurt that flickered across his Lord's face.

They sat in silence, both men lost to each other and their conflicted feelings as Kurt let his eyes drift closed again.

*******
Seth was pacing, something he'd been doing far too often in the last two days. He wasn't used to the restlessness; Seth Schoen thrived on order, control and certainty and his usually so malleable little protégée was thoroughly unsettling everything.

When Blaine had fled the house the previous night, Seth had been left with the embarrassing fallout; the house-keepers and servants were already starting to talk and the advisor was under no illusions as to the efficiency of the gossip wires that seamlessly connected all of the Lord's properties. Within hours, Seth was assured that Lord Anderson's pathetic disregard for propriety and his evident weakness for his Sub would be made very much public knowledge, and he alone knew how damaging this information could be in the wrong hands.

"Just find them!" he'd barked in the face of the quickly assembled security team, knowing that time was of the essence if they were to squash this before it got out of hand. As the hours had ticked by however, Seth's expensive bottle of scotch seemed to mirror his rapidly diminishing hope that the two young boys could be returned quickly and quietly. He'd been on the verge of concocting some elaborate spin that might have helped explain the pair's untimely deaths to the elements, when news came of a sighting at the edge of the forest. The staggering form of Blaine, clutching his Sub to his chest and carrying him cradled like a child emerging from the bank of trees made the bile rise in Seth's throat. It was such a pathetic sight and witnessed by so many, Seth seethed with anger and shame.

He'd gritted his teeth; eight hours of exposure should have been time enough to  kill them both.

Disgust ripped through the advisor again as he recalled the young Lord's desperate pleas to stay with Kurt and to 'fix him' when he'd collapsed on the marble tiles of the hallway, unwilling to allow the physician to even look at his own injuries. Seth had had to physically pry the limp Sub away from Blaine's arms in order to allow the doctor to tend to either one, and in doing so had acknowledged the tear tracks and puffed, red rimmed eyes that betrayed the young Lord.

For the first time in the Anderson residence, Seth saw Blaine as the eighteen year old child he really was.

The image both disgusted and terrified him.

Slamming the whisky tumbler rather too heavily against the glass desk in his office and wincing at the echoingly loud clink, Seth snatched at the telephone receiver. His tongue clicked against the roof of his mouth in impatience as he listened to the incessant dial tone before it was finally answered.

"It's time." was all he said before replacing the receiver and reaching once again for the bourbon.

*****

Kurt slept fitfully, drifting in and out of consciousness as the fatigue took possession of his body. The young Lord could only watch helplessly as his pale limbs jerked violently, wracked with shivers but simultaneously slippery with sweat every time he reached to wrap his own fingers around the boy's clammy skin.

"What's wrong with him?" he spat at Dr Reynolds the second time he came to check on Kurt's progress and had simply nodded with an uncommunicative hum that set Blaine's teeth grinding against his jaw. "Why aren't you doing more?"

Reynolds, used to the aggressive nature of the young Lord barely flinched at the disrespectful tone. "Medically, he's stable. He has a slight fever but it could have been considerably worse after exposure for that long. I've given him a slight sedative to allow his body to recuperate but he seems uneasy. It will pass, I assure you sir."

There was a pause where Blaine turned back to Kurt who was whimpering quietly in his sleep, unaware of the doctor's pale eyes taking the scene in. He'd been the Anderson's physician for years; had been there when the young Lord had broken his arm falling down the concrete steps of the rose garden aged five, had treated his father's regular angina attacks in the years before his heart finally decided enough was enough, and he'd been the one to delicately pry the sixteen year old Blaine's clenched white fingers from the already cold body of his mother. He knew this household, and for the most part he'd kept a very reserved distance; the Lords' business was little to do with him and providing he got paid, he remained resolutely silent.

Now though, watching with fascination as the young Lord gently, almost delicately adjusted the blanket wrapped around the fitful Sub, Dr Reynolds didn't recognise him. The only other time he'd ever seen the young boy unravelled like this was two years ago at the foot of the stairs, surrounded by blood. The change in the Lord was unmistakable. The fact that it had been brought on by concern for a Sub was unprecedented. Dr Reynolds stroked absently at the wiry black hairs on the back of his hand, keeping his thoughts firmly to himself. He'd not failed to notice the glint of disgust in Seth's narrowed eyes when the two bodies had been dragged in and a small part of him felt a flicker of fear for the young Anderson.

As if suddenly aware of the unspoken psychoanalysis, Blaine turned and brought his eyes level with Reynolds'. "If there's nothing else you can do, then leave." he ejected coldly, the emotionless glass sheen returning to his face. The physician twitched slightly at the restored familiar countenance of the Lord and then dropped his gaze. "I'll check back in two hours." he said, before clicking the door shut behind him.

Pausing momentarily at the top of the staircase, the doctor felt a chill creep over him that had little to do with the snow and far more to do with the sound of Seth in the study below. Glass clinked against glass and there was the unmistakable sound of a receiver being quietly replaced.

He glanced behind him at the solid wooden door imprisoning the two boys inside the bedroom and drew in a shaky breath. Thoughts whirred in his brain along with the more forceful familiar tone of his wife's voice telling him to stay well out of it. Shaking his head slightly and clutching the leather handle of his bag a little more tightly, he pulled himself away from the door and the voices, and the dark nameless oppression of mansion.

Yes, Dr. Reynolds knew this house better than he'd ever wanted to.