Chapter 5: Mine

"You smell it," Oren said.

He was still gripping the table, and his voice came out cracked and furious.

"You've smelled it for three days."

Benedikt stood very still with the bandaged hand held against his chest.

"Yes," he said.

"Mate." Oren spat the word. "Fated. The one in a hundred thousand. The one nobody buys and nobody sells."

"Yes."

"Egon knew."

Benedikt watched him steadily.

"I think he did."

Oren laughed, high and ugly.

Egon had picked the one man in the city whose scent would bring him to his knees, and then handed him a vial.

Egon had known exactly what he was doing.

He would stand in the doorway on the night it ended and watch a man poison the other half of himself.

"I'm going to be sick," Oren said.

"You're not."

"Don't tell me what I'm going to be."

"Then be sick." Benedikt's voice dropped, rough and low. "But do it in front of me. Don't go off in the dark with it."

Oren looked up.

There was no pity in the gray eyes.

There was something worse, naked and steady, that he had no name for.

He crossed the kitchen in two strides and shoved both hands into the front of Benedikt's shirt.

"You think you know what I am."

"I know what you smell like."

"I'm a present." Oren's mouth shook. "I'm the finest thing the house ever produced. I do what I'm told."

"No."

"Yes, sir."

The words dropped into the room.

Benedikt's jaw went tight.

"Don't."

"Yes, sir. Whatever you want, sir." Oren pushed him back until his spine hit the wall. "Isn't that what you paid for?"

"I paid nothing."

"Then I'll earn it."

He dropped to his knees on the tile.

Benedikt's hand came down and caught his jaw.

"Look at me. No sir."

"Then make me stop."

For a moment they stared at each other.

Then the hand in his hair tightened, and the other, the bandaged one, slid carefully under his arm and hauled him up.

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