The Rutherford's ballroom was a dramatic change from the previous soiree at the Buckley's winter wonderland. Gone were the white chandeliers and immaculately dressed waiting staff, instead replaced by dimly lit corners and thickly draped red velvet curtains. The floor was black marble this time, polished and oceanic and giving a deceptive illusory quality to the reflected figures that floated across its surface. A cloying smell of lilies perfumed the air and the heady scent seemed to suck down into Kurt's lungs every time he tried to breathe.

The collar around his neck had been pulled tighter by Blaine when they were in the taxi, the careless, slightly rough touch of the fingertips being the only attention Lord Anderson had afforded him since the meeting in the study, and Kurt coughed slightly at his restricted airway.

He shifted uncomfortably and felt his skin prickle with goosebumps at the cool temperature in the room which wrapped around his exposed flesh. His ‘outfit' that evening was more revealing that the night before, as he'd expected after his insolence, but he was aware it could have been significantly worse.  The leather trousers were ripped this time, displaying several rows of taught creamy white thigh beneath his buttocks and groin area, and his top half had been left naked again, save for the obligatory collar. He had been mildly disgusted by his relief at having to wear such an ensemble, and the realisation of how warped his new moral compass had become had crushed him. 

They'd arrived an hour ago and so far Blaine had said nothing to him, had thrown no glance, no touch, no order in his direction leaving him mutely trailing behind the Lord as he greeted and conversed with several of the other men in the room. Kurt didn't want to admit to himself how much the cool indifference radiating off Blaine felt like punishment in itself. What was wrong with him that he longed for the Lord's possessive hand on his back or the greedy way that he had looked at him the previous night? He shivered again at his twisted feelings towards the darkly dangerous man and tried to focus on their conversation. It was business mostly from what he could make out; talk about productivity of the workforce and cutting labour costs during the recession. He'd heard Blaine mention earlier to a squat, chubby little Lord with wire-rimmed spectacles that one of the other Lords, a man by the name of Harding, was in financial difficulty and had been forced to sell a proportion of his company to Lord Anderson who was now in the final stages of a full hostile takeover. It seemed that the Andersons were immune to the rest of the country's economic problems, Kurt mused.

While the silence and disregard from Blaine left Kurt feeling empty and cold, it did grant him time to fully study the enigma of the man in his role as Lord. Although Blaine Anderson was only just eighteen and still had all the outward appearances of youth and inexperience, he conducted himself with laudable poise and assuredness. His diminutive stature seemed irrelevant as he stood powerfully in control when conversing with the other Lords and his level, calm and deeply commanding voice left some of the men they spoke to stammering and quite noticeably caught off guard. Kurt felt something like pride bubble inside him and squashed it down again in horror. He realised that he knew nothing about the man he saw in that room; the man he'd allowed into every part of himself and opened himself up to without question or force was an utter mystery to him, and both desire and shame burned under the surface of his skin.

He felt a small tug at the back of his neck, bringing him sharply back into the room. Blaine was looking at him, eyes flashing and probing.

"Lord Sedley asked you a question, Kurt. Answer him." His voice was threatening as he hooked his finger under the band of the collar and pulled it sharply again making Kurt cough with the increased pressure. Kurt looked at the Lord opposite, for the first time taking in his aquiline nose and thin tight lips which were now sneering at the disobedient Subordinate in front of him.

"You've really got to train him to listen better, Blaine" he said darkly, "I'm not used to having to repeat my order to a Sub." The word was spat out in disdain and Kurt knew he was expected to respond, but he had no idea what would appease the situation or what Blaine wanted him to do. Instead his eyes just became wider and a little more panicked at the situation spiralling out of his control. Without warning or words, Blaine yanked on the collar harshly, sending Kurt careering to the floor, his knees connecting painfully to the hard marble beneath. Shame surged through him at the forced position and Kurt looked up to his Lord with tears stinging his eyes. Blaine looked back with something dead and unrecognisable in them, as if he was somewhere else, away from the room and Kurt. His voice was distant and unfeeling when he spoke again.

"He asked you if you liked being a Sub, Kurt. What do you say to that?" his face remained impassive and absent.

Kurt knew he was expected to respond or the humiliation may continue far further than simply being forced into a submissive pose, but his voice seemed caught and trapped in his throat. He tried to speak but all that was produced was a squeak of air breathed out through his bloodless lips. The collar constricted again as Blaine jerked it yet another time. Swallowing and closing his eyes briefly, Kurt cleared his throat and tried once more.

"Yes." he whispered, his eyes falling in mortification at the lie.

The other man smiled lustily and slid his pink tongue out to swipe grotesquely at his lips. "Would you allow me to touch him, Lord Anderson? In front of you of course and only where you deem appropriate." he said greedily.

Kurt held his breath, not daring to look up at the man above him but knowing that something had entirely shifted between them. A tiny bit more of him broke into scattered fragments on the floor as the bored and harsh affirmation eased out of his Lord's throat. "Do what you want with him." he said, staring blankly around the room, and turned away from the sight with his jaw clenched.

Tears shimmered in his eyes but Kurt fixed his gaze on a distant spot in front of him, refusing to give them the satisfaction of having been broken. He focussed instead on being somewhere else as the wrinkled and chapped fingers of the older man slid dryly across his shoulders and trailed lower over his nipples and ribcage; he closed his eyes and drifted away back to his father's workroom in the garage as someone's hand yanked him back to his feet and gripped harshly against his waist, rubbing along the top of his leather trousers and threatening to reach lower. He sought out the comforting scent of oil and petrol on his father's stained coveralls, pretending he could feel the arms encased in the material wrapping around him instead of the press of the strangers hands on his behind, squeezing and pawing at him. Kurt fixed on the lie, willing it to transport him far, far away.

________________________________________________________________________

Once again, Kurt found himself heaving over the golden toilet bowl in his bedroom. His hands gripped the sides of the enamel as he wretched continuously, nothing but bile rising to the surface and his stomach aching with the constant convulsions. He could still feel it, the pressure of the stranger's hands kneading his skin, each touch cutting chunks of his dignity from his flesh and leaving him simply a hollow carcass in human form. Breathing through the final twinges in his belly, he rose unsteadily to his feet and stared at himself in the mirror again. His eyes were dead. There was no trace of his former self imprisoned within the ethereal white face, no sign of his father or his former life. He felt fear grip his insides as his father's words shot through him again.

"Every time they make you do something, you'll be losing a little piece of yourself."

His eyes drifted closed as the face flittered across his vision, calming his heart and settling deep inside him. Don't let them take you. Don't give them all of yourself. Kurt turned on the tap and splashed his face with cold water, watching it drip off his chin and taking the tears with it. When he looked back his eyes had a tiny, distant speck of light glimmering in the depths.

Kurt needed out.

_______________________________________________________________________

Blaine Anderson once again had his head in his hands as he sat on the edge of his bed. His head swirled with a startling mix of emotions and feelings that he couldn't identify or distinguish, each one jumbled and incomplete. Why was his stomach twisting so uncomfortably? Why did he have such a strong urge to vomit whenever he pictured Kurt on his knees being touched by the other Lord? Why did he feel something akin to pain when he saw the beautiful pale eyes blink out the last of the light they'd previously held? He groaned aloud, pulling sharply on his hair trying to refocus himself. He was Lord. Kurt had needed to be punished and he had done exactly what any other Lord would have. He'd done what was expected.

So why when he looked at himself in the mirror did he feel disgust?

When Seth had mentioned Subordinates several months before, just after his father had passed away, Blaine had felt rather distant from it all and mildly embarrassed. Despite years of tutelage on power and the Lord's business, the young teenager had been relatively sheltered from the additional side of the Lord's adult world and had blushed at the mention of having what Seth had called a ‘sexual servant'. Blaine had known which way his preferences lay for several years but had been relatively discreet about it in front of his father and Seth, concerned it might be seen as some kind of weakness in him as a man. The night when Seth had brought him into the drawing room and presented him with six very young, very beautiful and very naked men had left Blaine in little doubt as to the Advisor's views on his sexuality; Fuck who you want but make it impersonal. 

He thought back to the faces of the young boys positioned in front of him, eyes down and standing with their legs slightly spread. He remembered their skin standing out harshly against the bright artificial light in the room and the way the whole selection procedure had felt so cold and clinical. Seth had motioned for him to pick one, having previously explained about how Subs worked and Blaine had finally allowed his eyes to rove over the bodies laid bare before him. He had been irritated by his own blush, the outward mark of the slipping control he usually held so assuredly and poised. He'd been annoyed at his obvious embarrassment and inexperience of sex and how weak that made him look in Seth's eyes, but mostly he'd been ashamed at his own inability to feel arousal at the naked forms before him. Instead of feeling the expected surge of heat and pleasure, Blaine had felt his stomach churn slightly and a sour taste had spread across his tongue. It was mechanical and devoid of anything other than physicality and it had left Blaine cold. He'd forced himself to dismiss them with practiced indifference, pretending they were just not good enough to be his Subordinate, but the reality of his deeper feelings had wounded him.

The self-disgust that had bubbled beneath the skin for days afterwards left Blaine battling with his own emotions. He was to be Lord. He was to be powerful and controlled and respected and yet he couldn't even take something that was offered to him so readily. Having thought little about sex previously, suddenly it became everything to the young Lord. Library books and the internet were devoured for hours; from the romanticism of D. H. Lawrence which left his mouth curling in disdain to the debased practices of Sade, Blaine Anderson learnt everything the world had to offer about sex and domination and the power it could assert. By the end of the week, Lord Anderson stood calm and composed, silk ties in hand and erection straining in his suit trousers as the first young man bent over in front of him.

The meetings were cold and impersonal like Seth had wanted. Blaine felt nothing but the physical pull of the orgasm as they were brought to him. Each one was exquisite in their own way, willing and pliant and always responsive to his touch and caress but he'd shared no kisses, no words, no murmurs of feeling. They were nothing to him. Vessels of empty flesh that had bucked beneath each stroke and allowed him total access before he callously discarded them immediately after.

But Kurt had been so different.

When he'd seen the young, fragile boy on the stairs his heart had pumped faster and he'd immediately felt a surge of heat to his groin, flowing directly from his veins. The flush of shame across the beautiful white cheeks had stirred something inside him, an aching want he'd never felt before and this time his gut had twisted in excitement. He'd needed Kurt as his Sub the moment he'd seen the trembling, yet still passionately defiant eyes flick up to him from the hallway below.

Staring back at his reflection in the mirror again, he dimly registered the slightly colourless pallor of his usually so tanned skin and swallowed another lump that had risen in his throat at the thought of Kurt on that first night.

He'd been so untouched. So entirely at Blaine's mercy and so utterly opposite to the hard-faced youths he'd had before. This boy was fragile and breakable and yet held a fire within him that had sparked a tiny electrical current in Blaine leaving the other man tingling. A possessive need had surged through Blaine when he'd first claimed his Subordinate, and the thought of others touching him had left him growling with undisguised jealousy. When Kurt had turned his tear-stained, lust-blown eyes up to Blaine in the back of the car the night before, the young Lord had started to feel every ounce of control and carefully constructed disdain slip rapidly away from him and just for one night, he'd not cared.

But today he'd clawed it back. The power. He'd let the cold hard truth of day seep into his skin and burrow underneath, and with each new revelation the day had brought, another piece of Blaine's unfeeling resolve had slotted back into its well-conditioned place until he found himself watching, detached and absent while his beautiful Sub kneeled for another.

His eyes stung and he blinked rapidly several times. Downing his second glass of whiskey, Blaine clenched his hands against the sink and hung his head. For the first time since his father died, he felt like a boy again; inexperienced and unsure, and it hurt. A sudden noise startled him from his tumultuous thoughts, sending the glass clattering into the basin.

Seth burst into the room, wildly searching around the space before his eyes lit upon Blaine in the en-suite bathroom.

"Lord Anderson - he's gone!"

Blaine felt the words searing into his head without clarity and moved unsteadily into the main bedroom to face the slightly panicked and very much foreign look stretched across his Advisor's face. "What do you.....who?"

"Kurt. He's run away. The maid went to turn down his bed and he was missing." He ran his fingers through his hair and fixed his eyes solidly on the young Lord. "Blaine," he said sternly, "if he cannot be found we could lose everything. All your show of power will be seen to be weak....the business, the take-over, the house. Everything will be threatened."

Blaine had stopped listening at ‘he's run away', was distracted by the sight outside the window which made his chest tighten in something that felt like fear. A snow storm was whipping up outside the window and he watched in mounting horror as he realised a blizzard was about to strike. Kurt was out there, in that. He swallowed the lump that had wedged in his throat as he realised how unprepared Kurt was for the elements. His clothes, his limited provisions in his room....they'd left Kurt with nothing in order to prevent this exact situation, but now.....

He'd gone anyway.

The mansion was miles from the nearest residence, situated in dense woods, and the road in this snow would be unrecognisable, the forest impassable. Kurt must have known it was suicide to venture out in this. He must have seen what could happen to him. Kurt could die.

But he'd gone anyway.

Clamping his jaw closed at his somersaulting stomach and the raw ache inside him, Blaine pushed past Seth who was still speaking, his words failing to penetrate the white noise that was forming its own blizzard inside the young Lord's head. He didn't think. He didn't have any sense of what he was really doing as he rummaged around in the wardrobe and grabbed his flashlight and thick woollen jacket.

"My Lord? What the ...what are you doing?" spluttered Seth beside him, finally registering that the younger man was not listening to him. He tried to grab his arm but Blaine shook him off, agitated. "You can't possibly go out in this yourself. Get security to go. He'll not have gone far."

"He's my Sub and we need him back. You call security, but I'm going." Blaine insisted sharply, once again employing his powerful controlled voice and watching Seth twitch uncomfortably at the tone. Not waiting to see if his orders would be followed through, Blaine surged from the room and down the stairs, hauling on his heavy snow-boots as he went and wilfully ignoring the little voice beating icily in his head repeating the need to remain controlled and that Kurt was nothing to him. Just a lost possession. He meant nothing.

Instead, a heady mantra had seemed to push its way in, one that was more powerful and beat a rhythm against his skull incessantly.

Kurt might die. It's your fault. Kurt might die.

Without pausing to look back, Blaine Anderson wrenched open the front doors and forged his way into the white haze of the night.