Archangel's Heir

Chapter 1

     Dimitri laid thirteen white roses on the grave. Dry leaves rustled in the chill breath of autumn. Escape from his watchers had been impossible before now, even though he'd tried to place his offering as near to Sharm Lord's Day as he could. A child's tear, worthless as always, spilled down over his cheek.
     Autumn sunlight splintered into impossible rainbows with his tears. Unmourned, the solitary grave mocked the gold and red glory of the leaves soon to bury the plain black placque. "Mikhail Chernoye, 978" There was nothing to speak of the wonderful art he'd created. The joy he'd given four generations of nobility. The beauty he'd given the world.
     His throat too tight for song, Dimitri waited, listening to the wind. At last he could sing and raised his voice in praise of the mad artist. With a high, true, treble, he sang his grief in the loss of his friend. Two years ago, on Sharm Lord's Day, the ancient renSime's heart had given out in transfer. Two years ago, Dimitri had lost his closest friend of all time. Two years ago, he'd lost his own last outlet for the images, dreams and songs crowding his mind to overflowing.
     "I miss you." Dimitri bowed his head to the stone. The words seemed tawdry and cheap. No one knew how old Mikhail had been at the time of his death. Arkay knew Mikhail was older than he was. And Arkay was the oldest person Dimitri knew. Over a century, some said. The black archangel, some called him, had personally watched the rise of the greatest golden age Rodina had seen since the first Sergei took her seat and the last time Fatima sat on Rodina's throne.
     Dimitri traced the simple letters carved into the black granite. So little left of such a great man. Hardly more than a handful of brushes and cheap ceramic containers of pigments. Now they sat beneath Dimitri's bed, as no one else had wanted them. At least no one wanted them for more than the minutes they'd fetch in the market.
     The old rag seller had been far kinder than he would have guessed. Either that or he'd been wanting the child's motley off Dimitri's back in trade for the shabby remnants of the old artist's life. Now the silver day Dimitri'd stolen from his father, that had not been earned. But he couldn't have let Mikhail's things be scattered to the wind.
     "Enough."
     Dimitri turned to see his father looming over him. Not just any of his fathers, his blood father. Rarely had anyone mentioned to him the fact Diomid was his blood father, but he couldn't help but know. Everyone else did. Putting his mask back in place, he let the muscles around his eyes tighten into the beginning of a grin.
     "Don't lie." Diomid's huge hands, so much like Dimitri's own were wrapped around an ancient wax tablet.
     "Of course not." Dimitri let his treble chime. "I was just wondering who'd left these here."
     "Dimitri," his father's blue eyes darkened. There was no way the man could tell Dimitri's true feelings. Not until he established. And most likely not even then. He dropped his gaze as any other child would. "I never knew him."
     Stunned, Dimitri jerked his head up. No child would act so hurt, he chided himself. With what was left of his wits, he turned the gesture into a slip. Pain shot through his arm as his elbow cracked on the hard stone. With a wince, he turned his attention to the injury.
     "Let me look." Diomid knelt at Dimitri's side.
     "I'm fine. Just banged the nerve." Dimitri'd been studying medicine since he'd been able to read. Long before he knew how strong a healer he was suppose to be. At his side, he could now see the tablet Diomid had been carrying. Three images, unmistakably Chernoye's, were imprinted on the fixed wax. A winged angel, a swaddled child, and a man with the look of Sergei.
     "I found it in my father's desk." Diomid's fingers traced the lines of nerve and muscle. Dimitri struggled not to squirm. Something was happening under the skin, as if his body could react to an adult. "Oh yes, a child's body can, under enough pressure."
     "I didn't know that." Diomid kept his eyes wide, letting his lip tremble a bit. The way Diomid had picked up on his inner thoughts gave him plenty of reason to look pained. Was he going to establish soon? He prayed not. There were still things he wished to do. Being locked down into another half dozen years of lessons was not something he truly looked forward to. These last few, between his childhood schooling and establishment, had been a preview of heaven.
    
     Something was making Diomid uneasy. Well used to listening to such inner voices, he pulled back from Dimitri. His firstborn had always been reserved, far more than any of his parents. Suddenly he wished he had Sevrin here. Grabbing the fields, he backed away from the lad.
     A great ebony dragon rose out of the ground between them. Fear tightened his belly as he retreated further. Never before had he seen or felt anything like this. Dimitri's eyes were white as he raised his hands to the creature. One glittering eye reflected the amber colored wax tablet.
     "Stop." Dimitri raised one hand. The huge creature hissed, arching its neck. A tendril of slaver bridged its wide open jaws. Diomid was having a hard time believing this. Usually a Sharm Lord's manifestation was not a separate creature from its person! Had he accidentally Induced Dimitri? All the Gods help him if he had.
     The dragon gained solidity with each passing moment. Cupped in one webbed wing, Dimitri's field spiraled upward. He looked up at last to the beast he'd conjured out of pure selyn. Diomid sucked in a deep breath. Sweat trickled down his jaw.
     Dimitri's eyes returned to normal, even as the dragon rested his jaw across the young man's lap.

Chapter 2

     Dimitri stroked the creature's head. Something in him knew this new being was part of himself, but when it relaxed with a great rustle of scales and a sigh of dry skin on dryer leaves, Dimitri couldn't believe it. "What's your name?"
     "Dimitri, I think." One great golden eyeball glanced upward. "You could scratch ... oh, yes, right there." The thick eyelid closed again as Dimitri found the soft skin right behind the creature's ear hole.
     "You're awfully substantial for a figment of my imagination." Dimitri wondered for a moment what his father thought of all this. But his new friend was far more interesting at the moment.
     "You have a very substantial imagination."
     "I would say so, yes." His father's deep baritone broke in. "You are, as usual, quite unique."
     Dimitri looked up to see his father whiter than the roses he'd laid on Mikhail's grave. "You weren't just saying that to make me feel good?" His voice broke dramatically in the middle of the sentence. Ears burning with shame, he bowed his head over his friend's.
     "You could call me Mitka if it makes it easier."
     He gasped, pulling back a bit. "I prefer Mitka."
     "Are you really so surprised?" The dragon snorted, sending up a wisp of some sort of gray fog from his nostrils.
     "I don't suppose I should be." Dimitri stroked Mitka's head, returning his attention to scratching around Mitka's crest.
     "No, I don't lie." With more than a few creaks and pops, his father squatted down with them.
     Dimitri shook his head. That wasn't true.
     "I don't." Somehow, Diomid knew about Mitka and rubbed him under the jaw. A huge yawn on Mitka's part made Dimitri giggle behind his hand. "Hard work being born, isn't it, m'lad." Then Dimitri got a good look at Mitka's teeth!
     "Of course they're sharp." Mitka's tongue flicked out to swipe him from forehead to chin. "What good would they be if they weren't sharp?"
     "Not a whole lot, I suppose." Dimitri gulped. "Who, excuse me, what do you plan on biting with them?"
     "Your sire if he doesn't get his hands out of my range." The loud crack as Mitka's jaws snapped shut startled Dimitri out of his reverie.
     "I don't feel very well either, papa." Actually he felt as if he were about to vomit, but that would never do in a graveyard. "I wish I could have zlinned you." He turned back to the gravestone. A burning sense of loss wrenched loose any thought of control he might have had. "Come back to me, my otyet, my Mikhail!"
    
     Diomid turned his face away from the scene before him. He couldn't help but sense his son's overwhelming loss and sorrow, now with his field growing to adult proportions with terrifying speed, but even still, to intrude would have been unthinkable. A low, vibrating croon came from Mitka, who had to be the quasi-physical manifestation of Dimitri's nager, but how, Diomid had no idea.
     He put his fingers to his lips as Mikhail Fatima and his partner, Tzer came down the path. Chernoye had been buried at Fatima as he's spent his last decade as an often indigent guest of Arkay, Sharm Lord Fatima. Now Diomid wondered just how indigent he'd been. For his hands and remaining tentacles had still been as dexterous as ever, even though he'd been completely blind for over twenty years. Not that such a thing would ever slow down someone like Chernoye. The only reason Diomid had known of it was because Arkay had told him.
     "You didn't like him." Mitka hissed, fangs showing longer and sharper by the moment.
     "He was a distraction." Diomid kept his voice down. "Domi had to study."
     "He doesn't like that name." Gold eyes turned brassy as Mitka rose up over Dimitri.
     "He's never said anything." Diomid refused to wipe away the sweat beading his brow. "If he didn't like it, why didn't he pick a better one?"
     "He did." Mitka rose to nearly three meters, towering over everything and everyone.
     "Is that what I think it is?" Mikhail had his head craned around to see the now long, slender form shadowing all three of them.
     "A dragon," Diomid shook his head. This was all such a mess. "We have to talk, Mitka."
     "I'm sick of talking." Dimitri spun around, his eyes wide with madness. "You've ..." he slumped in on himself. Mitka struck at Tzer, who dodged behind a headstone.
     "And you meant to do that?" Tzer did offended well. One silver eyebrow raised. For a moment Diomid wondered if it was sire or son standing before him.
     "No, not really," Mitka lowered his head, now rocking it back and forth over Dimitri's form. Diomid felt his heart stop for a moment. Was he breathing? "You idiot." Mitka scowled.
     "So I am." Diomid shook his head. Of course Dimiri was still alive or Mitka wouldn't be glaring at the three of them.
     "Am I hearing this exchange or imagining it?" Mikhail was staring up at Mitka, who hadn't quite relinquished his position, but was getting close. Tzer dusted off the knees of his breeches.
     "And why were you so rude to me?" He, like his father, had the ability to completely stun almost any animal with his charm, human or otherwise. Diomid still wasn't sure what Mitka counted as.
     "Human, I'd hope." He didn't take his eyes off Tzer.
     "I'd hoped you wouldn't hear me." Diomid was not used to being overheard.
     "Then quit babbling at us."
     He waved to Tzer to see if he could get to Dimitri.
     "And you expect me to brave our fine scaled friend?" He'd managed to end up nose to nose with him.
     "You did." Those great gold eyes softened a bit. "I like you. I'm sorry I hit you."
     "You didn't hit me. I ducked fast enough." Tzer managed to scratch the creature over both eyes, where the eyebrows should have been. The lids drooped closed. "Besides, you didn't mean to hurt me, did you, pretty one?"
     "Noooooo," he purred, leaning into the caress. "You aren't bad. You're good."
     "So is Dimitri's father." Tzer shook his head when Diomid tried to move forward. Dimitri was pasty white, his nails turning blue with cold and slowing circulation as Diomid watched.
     "He's freezing, Mitka!" Diomid leaned forward, desperately wanting to help, even if it meant damaging Dimitri's governors. "Let me touch him!"
     "You'll hurt him!" Mitka was fading with each moment that passed.
     "Let him, my friend." Tzer stroked Mitka's crest with his tentacles. "I'll take care of you."
     "NO!" Mitka pulled loose of Tzer, a mere wisp of selyn and thought.
     "He'll die!" Tzer slid beneath Mitka's claws and lifted Dimitri off the cold earth. "He's frozen, Diomid."
     "I can't do anything from here." He clenched and unclenched his hands. "Help him."
     "I'm doing the best I can." Tzer looked to Mikhail.
     "Do it." With what had become a characteristic jerk, Mikhail tipped his head back.
     "You can't induce him." Diomid's blood ran cold in his veins.
     "I can't let him die." Mikhail walked beneath Mitka's claws, just as his lover had. Diomid was left outside, watching, as he'd done all these years of Dimitri's life.

Chapter 3

     Dimitri became aware of the vile taste in his mouth long before he heard anything going on outside his door.
     "Wake up." A very hard nose inserted itself between his ribs.
     "I am awake." He muttered, rolled back over, and wished it weren't true.
     "If you don't want Diomid to see you in dishabille again, you'd better really wake up."
     In an instant, Dimitri pulled the blankets up under his chin and put his hands over his chest as neatly as any corpse in a coffin.
     "Quit that." His favorite father, Vayer made shooing gestures at the door. "I hear you're taking after my father these days."
     "Yeah, something like that." He blushed furiously. Mitka buried his head under the blankets. Most of the rest of him too. Except where he spilled over through the gaps between various silk coverlets. "Although he doesn't have a figment of his imagination tickling his toes."
     "That's me." Vayer winked, running his hands over the various humps of Mitka that stuck up. "Make your nager run his tongue up the arch of your feet."
     Dimitri bit back a howl as Mitka did just that. "Don't encourage him!"
     "Why not? I'm a Sime. I can encourage your field as much as I like until Darya gets a hold of me." The wicked twinkle in his father's eye set little tiny butterflies wandering through Dimitri's belly. For the first time in his life Dimitri became very aware of his own bare arms compared to his father's. He rubbed on hand over the opposite forearm. "I see you're learning to flirt already."
     "I didn't mean it." He put his hands down. Mitka'd escaped from the blankets and was looming over Vayer as if he would bite.
     Vayer looked back over his shoulder and flipped his tentacles at Mitka. The dragon's eyes widened, as did Dimitri's. Brilliant tendrils of light were twining around Vayer's forearms and lithe tentacles. "You like these?" One of those tentacles reached out and brushed Mitka's nose, the soft, warm, delicate sensation sent a quiver all the way through Dimitri, from scalp to toes.
     "Why don't you, well, aren't you bothered by Mitka?" Dimitri did his best to change the subject. He didn't want it any closer. Odd things were growing and stretching in his mind. Until he knew what was happening, he wanted the space of still being a child. One of Vayer's eyebrows rose.
     "Because your mother's field is also very active." He said. Mitka was fascinated, butting his forehead into Vayer's hand. "Yes, I'll pet you, you silly creature. With tentacles even."
     Dimitri closed his eyes and leaned back against the headboard. Without the input of his own vision, the world faded to a chaotic wealth of information.
     "You'll never have to ask anyone the state of your nager." Vayer's voice came through the random colors and scents which had to be coming from Mitka.
     "Because Mitka can see us?" Dimitri shook his head at the thought and opened his eyes again. The odd images of light and shadow surrounding everything were still there, but damped by what he knew to be real. Excepting Mitka, of course.
     "Oh, he's as real as you are." Vayer's dark blue eyes crinkled at the corners, deepening the already darkly drawn lines in the skin. "Don't you wonder I can hear your thoughts?"
     "You'd tell me when I was ready." Dimitri slapped his hand over his mouth. Usually he wasn't so forward with any of his parents, even Vayer.
     "You're a young man, Dimitri. Things will fall out of your mouth at random." Dark blue eyes twinkled. "The trick is learning to deal with it gracefully."
     "I'd rather still be a child."
     "So would I." Before he could move, Vayer had slid around and put his arm around Dimitri's shoulders. "I'd much rather be able to run off and play with my friends whenever I wanted. I'd much rather be able to read all the books I wanted every winter. I'd much rather be able to ride out into the forest without thinking of who would miss me." The warmth of his father next to him was the same as it always had been, but now there was a comfort to it, a softness that told him even more than the familiar touch or smell, that he was safe here.
     "I don't want more lessons and more teaching."
     Vayer chuckled softly. "You'll need them." The adult use of the term 'need' brought Dimitri to heel. "Yes, need."
     "Are you going to tell me about Simes and Gens now?" Dimitri gulped. He'd heard all sorts of stories, and none of his family had been so shy about larity he didn't know the difference, but even still.
     "If you're ready." For the first time since he could remember, Vayer was quiet and not rushing off. "It was my place to go attend to business. This morning ..."
     "I'm your business." Came out far more bitter sounding than he wished.
     "Yes." Vayer tempted Mitka into resting his chin across their knees with a few well placed caresses of a tentacle. "Also I feel calmer to you because your body is compensating for my own hyperactivity. A child can not do that."
     "Can most young Gens?"
     "No." The harsh honesty brought Dimitri to heel again. "Not that I'd call you a Gen."
     "Then what am I?" He put out his arms.
     "A Sharm Lord ... or Inducted."
     Vayer knew quite well Dimitri wasn't going to be able to deal with large crowds for months, if ever. Not as a Sharm Lord. Mitka, as he preferred to be called, was too uncontrollable. Beneath his hands, he felt the selyn gathering in Dimitri's body, manifesting itself as poison in Mitka's jaws. Would he kill uncontrollably if he ever touched a Sime in transfer? There were myths of Sharm Lords who had done so in Rodina's past.
     What Vayer did know was he had absolutely no interest in Dimitri for transfer. Far above and beyond the fact the young man was his son! Mitka was beautiful and as deadly as any viper. Right now he was quiet, still calm with his recent arrival into the world.
     "What do you want to do?" Vayer still remembered all too well his own change over, and how everyone pushed at him until he was ready to go crazy.
     "Begin my lessons." Dimitri tried to chirp. Between his voice shattering, Mitka hissing, and his whole body tensing up, Vayer could well determine this was a lie.
     "I'll pretend I didn't hear that." He leaned back with a sigh. He'd missed Aliana's change over and had always regretted the fact. It was her life to live, but a large part of why he hadn't wanted her to leave home so young was so he could see her grow up. But children grew up at their own rate, he'd learned himself, the hard way.
     "Its what you want." Came out in Dimitri's beautiful treble. Vayer covered a smile at his own memories of his own voice traipsing all over the landscape.
     "That wasn't what I'd asked." He kept his own field as calm as possible. Vayer well knew the benefits of being calm and quiet around animated fields. Darya's would have turned his nager into goo long ago. "I'd asked what you want, not what you think I want." He plucked a silver hour out of his pocket. "Do you want another one of these?" Mitka dove under the blankets as Dimitri peeped in shock. "I'm not stupid, Dimitri."
     "Never thought you were." Came out without a tone at all. "I bought Chernoye's pigments with it."
     "I'd wondered what happened to them." He sighed. "He'd never relax around me, or I think anyone at all late in his life."
     "Are you saying he was paranoid?"
     "He was mad, Dimitri." His own eyes stung a bit a the memory of dealing with him. "We all did our best for him, particularly your uncle, but he wasn't lucid much of his last years."
     "Yes he was." Dimitri jumped out of bed, as if he were still a boy and fished around under the bed. Bits of parchment, wax tablets, a few straggly brushes and a couple of dust kittens tumbled out. His behind nearly fell out of his trousers. Yes, he was growing up. Vayer remembered all too well when he'd come in late one night unable to even button his own trousers. It had been very bad timing.
     Although this time was different, Mitka had joined him. As far as Vayer could tell, to Mitka, nothing was really solid but stone, metal and silk, but he could chose to act as if other things had an effect on him. Right now he was looking under Dimitri's bed, side by side with him. Coils draped all over Dimitri's lanky frame. He was going to be a big man, like his father and his uncle. Probably at least as heavy as the former and as tall as the latter.
     "Here it is." Dimitri pulled out yet another wax tablet. Mitka stayed behind, looking at the detritus. His feet didn't seem to actually touch anything, even though Vayer thought he saw a few bits of parchment move, but maybe that was the breeze.
     Vayer looked at the tablet. The hand was not Chernoye's. Sketches of birds bathing in the bath outside the main doors at Fatima were next to snippets of leaves and plants scattered around the grounds. Dimitri pulled out another one. This one showed Shanir at Darya's breast, looking around as if to try to figure out what devilment he'd planned next. Then a third, of Vayer himself riding Chernye through the barley planting.
     "These are very, very good." A sad smile lifted the corners of his mouth. "Why do you say Chernoye did them?"
     "He did!" Dimitri insisted, Mitka turning to gaze at both of them. It was not a friendly look.
     "Through someone else, if he did." Vayer put all the pieces together. "You did these."
     "No!" Dimitri pulled back. Mitka licked his lips, baring his formidable fangs.
     "Why are you trying to hide it?"
     "Because he was my friend!" Dimitri turned his face away. With his long, silvery tongue, Mitka licked Dimitri's cheeks.
     "Then why are you ashamed to be his heir?"
     "Because I can't be." Still bony shoulders slumped. "I have years more schooling. I have to apprentice to Diomid."
     "And you don't get along with him very well, do you?" It wasn't much of a question. The one thing Vayer regretted was the fact Diomid and his firstborn seemed to be as miscible as oil and water. It wasn't that they hated each other, but one would say white and the other had to say red.
     "I should." His finger brushed over the image of Darya and Shanir.
     "I'd like a fixed copy of this." Vayer studied it. The picture was more true to life than even the photographs of the West. The slightly harried look on Darya's face was identical to the one she had until she pawned off Shanir on his fathers. And the look of mischief on Shanir's face was captured in its entirety. Not only had the lad learned to run at ten months, but he'd started babbling, in Russian, not too long thereafter.
     "For an hour?" Mitka's eyes gleamed.
     "With interest." He pulled out a gold month. Vayer knew his children. There were few things they responded to better than hard cash. Either owing or owed.
     "You want me in your debt." Mitka was breathing down his neck.
     "Its worth at least a month. More if you are willing to paint it."
     "How do you know I paint?"
     "I'm not stupid." Vayer flicked a tentacle at Dimitri's hands. No matter how well scrubbed, remnants of paints and ink remained.
     "Then how do you know I paint well?"
     "I trust my son." He met Dimitri's eyes. In them was reflected Mitka, in all his glory, meters tall and as brilliant as ever his mother had been and still was. "I love thee, child of my heart, never forget it." Vayer pressed a gold year into his son's hand.
     "Mikhail was given one of these by Sharm Lord Sergei."
     "Then perhaps you should think of what he managed to do with it."

Chapter 4

     Mitka took a deep breath. Blowing it out through his nostrils helped ... some. He didn't like the smell of alcohol and sickness.
     "Come now Tasha. You can tell me." Dimitri stroked his hand over the young woman's forehead.
     "I can't, I can't!" She gasped, thrashing her head from side to side. The contractions were getting heavier with every moment. If she didn't relax soon, she'd wear herself out long before her body would be ready to push the baby out.
     Dimitri nodded, so slightly no one else could see it. Mitka slithered over the bed and placed his long, taloned claws along side Tasha's body. Inside his belly, his guts were squirming into knots. Tasha's eyes looked like they were about I pop out of her head. Mitka didn't really want to hurt anyone. Not really. He rubbed his aching jaw against Tasha's breast.
     "Take it away, I'll tell. It was Lord Gregori." Tears burned in Mitka's eyes. It wasn't supposed to be like this. He wasn't supposed to make people afraid. He wished he could wrap himself around Tasha and help her feel better. Through eyes blurring with tears he looked up to see Dimitri smiling sadly at him, shaking his head no. Mitka slid off the table and under it. Wrapped around Dimitri's feet, he sobbed silently.
     Dimitri held the woman's hands as she finally managed to relax. Lord Gregori, Lord Gregori, why did the name sound so familiar? He pried loose one hand from her tentacles to pet Mitka. "You're crying." There was something more to it than the fact he was Diomid's second here at Sergei.
     "She hurt me." Mitka kept looking at the floor.
     "No more." Dimitri promised. "We'll stop after this one."
     "You can't." Mitka looked up at him, huge gold eyes overflowing with silvery tears. "They require you."
     "You need me." Dimitri told him, realizing just how little attention he'd been able to pay Mitka these last couple weeks. "There you are!" He looked over his shoulder to see Gregori saunter in. Mitka roared out from under his hiding place. "What have you been doing?"
     "What's going on here?" He ran over, running his tentacles through his thinning red hair. Then it dawned on him.
     "You're Kirovich! Why in hell didn't you tell me?"
     Without waiting for a response, he shoved half the blankets off Tasha and put his ear to her belly. He didn't have time to find his damned stethoscope. The child was squirming so madly he could hardly make enough contact to hear.
     "Not like that!" A huge hand pulled him away. Dimitri found himself on his butt looking up at his blood father, lightly running his fingertips over Tasha's belly. He reached for the syringe of keurvon Dimitri'd prepared in case of stillbirth.
     "You'll kill him." Dimitri slapped it out of his father's hand. Glass shattered on the far wall. "He's Kirovich." He pointed at Gregori.
     "What does that have to do with it?" Tasha blinked. Gregory looked like someone had hit him on the back of his head with a board. Then Tasha's field flared into the visible as her son yanked hers down into attrition.
     "Shen!" Dimitri body slammed his father, Mitka following him in pinning his much heavier father. "Give me your hands." He didn't wait. Tasha lunged off the bed with a snarl like ripping canvas. Steel bands wrapped around his wrists. The last thing he saw was Mitka wrapping his wings around Tasha from behind before her lips touched his.
     Before Diomid could recover from the shock of being thrown to the floor like a rag doll, Tasha'd made lip contact. None of them had dared tell the lad he was more than ripe for his first transfer, for fear he'd try to find a Lord to satisfy the need he had to be feeling. The fear, Diomid knew, wasn't necessarily for Dimitri, but quite likely his partner.
     "At least she won't be wanting him to bed her." Diomid snorted to himself, prying his well worn behind off the floor. It was getting harder and harder to recover from these little adventures as he aged. Joints creaked and popped, threatening mutiny. "Thanks." He accepted Gregori's hand.
     "I didn't think to push the point." He stood back, away from Tasha and Dimitri. The lad still had his arms around her, as if he were trying to devour her in reality.
     "Why don't you?" Diomid didn't want to startle Dimitri too badly, but if Tasha were carrying a Kirovich child, they couldn't dawdle too long. And she'd require another transfer within moments of the child being born if her progress so far were any indication.
     "You're the physician!"
     "Just do it." He gave the man a shove. Usually Gregori was as stable and reliable as the rocks under Kirov. It was why Diomid had picked the man as his second. But today he was winning no points for organization or stability. Much less having the sense the gods gave a goose.

Chapter 5

     "There you go, pretty one." Dimitri stroked his face against Tasha's wonderful soft cheek. There was something in the back of his mind, something he had to do. But right now he couldn't think of anything but the amazing sensations running up and down his spine. Her tentacles clamped down again, past the point of pain. He hissed, shocked back into awareness.
     "Ah yes, there we were." As if he'd done it tens of times before, he softened his awareness to feel Tasha's child finally settling down to be born. Dimitri had no idea how he'd known to calm him, or even give transfer, but it seemed he'd done it. A quiet hissing chuckle came from near his feet. He had to look down, and even then, Mitka was as pale as morning mist. A huge yawn cracked open his jaws and he collapsed into a boneless heap of wings and other limbs.
     Dimitri didn't have to look to see Tasha's distended middle contract yet again. But this time her breath came easy with the effort, no longer fighting her son trying to kill her. He was certainly protesting the crushing pressures, but not grabbing at her very life. Much better.
     "Can I cut in?" Gregori tapped him on the shoulder.
     "About time." Dimitri sniffed, giving the older man a wink. Then a yawn cracked open his jaws. Why was he so tired? He'd only been working for about four hours so far today. A little voice in the back of his mind said, twenty-four hours, thirty two minutes and fifteen seconds. Close enough, he figured, sagging against the high bed. His eyes were trying to droop shut even as his skin seemed to tingle happily with some odd sensation he had no name for.
     "Come away," Diomid tugged at his sleeve. Dimitri staggered as he tried to turn. "I'll catch you." His father's blue eyes bore into his own. In them he could see infinite reflections of his own.
     "Will you?" He tried to give a wry grin. It didn't quite come out.
     "Yes," he nodded. "Even if you did knock me down."
     "Oh," Dimitri blushed. "I couldn't let you interfere."
     "I am the senior Sergei around here."
     "But it would have killed the baby!"
     "Come on." Diomid tugged him out of the room. "I think they can manage from here. At least for a few minutes." The door clicked shut behind them. For the first time since Sharm Lord's Day, Dimitri was alone. Mitka was still curled up asleep. The quiet of being alone again rang in his ears. He shook his head, trying to clear the sensation. It only made his head spin like the top he'd made as a child, all lopsided and off balance. "All three of them. You're field is sound asleep at the moment."
     "What happened?" Dimitri tried to lean against the wall. Tried being the operative word, as it slid out from behind him and dropped him on the floor.
     "Well, you saved Tasha's life, gave your first transfer and now have to deal with a possible rape charge." Diomid raised one eyebrow. Dimitri'd always wished he could do that. It was such a useful expression of doubt. Then his father's words sank in!
     "Rape!" He squeaked, his voice cracking all over the scales. "I didn't rape anyone?" Despite his extensive technical knowledge, the concept of sex was still purely academic as far as Dimitri was concerned. And at the moment, he far and away preferred it that way.
     "Yes, you raped Tasha." Diomid frowned.
     "But I saved her life, and the life of her child!" Strength was coming back to Dimitri's legs. He levered himself off the floor. Already he was considerably taller than his father. On the floor he was far too much shorter. "Doesn't that count for anything?"
     "It would if you were actually Sergei." Again the eyebrow. From this perspective, it looked like a silver threaded caterpillar. Dimitri wondered if it would be possible to paint that expression. It was one his father often did give him. That way all he'd have to do was look at the picture and not worry about the words. Diomid snorted and rubbed his face with his hand. "You aren't Sergei, however. You haven't been presented to any Demense."
     "Then present me to Sergei and be done with it." This seemed like a perfectly sensible solution to Dimitri.
     "As what?" He tipped his chin to the door. "A Sharm Lord?"
     "Why not?"
     "You aren't ready." Those blue eyes blazed. The precursor to a fit of anger Dimitri well recognized.
     "If I'm executed or put under ban for rape, then I won't get the chance to be ready, either. Besides, doesn't Tasha have anything to say on the matter?" He was grasping at seconds. There had to be a way out of this. "Aren't the Inducted exempt from some of the rules? At least if you were willing to admit you induced me."
     Diomid went dead white. "Never." He hissed, "I'd rather present you to Sergei as a Gen than Inducted!"
     Dimitri blinked a few times. "You don't have to be ashamed of what you did."
     "Shut up." A loud crack broke the hissed words. Dimitri reached up and touched the handprint Diomid had left on his cheek. Never, never before had anyone struck him on the face. On the butt, yes, countless times, but never like this. "You will do what you are told!"
     "What in hell are you doing, Diomid?"
     "Papa!" Dimitri threw himself into Vayer's arms. Vayer staggered backwards a step. Oops, he'd forgotten how big he'd grown. "Oh papa, papa!" This was safe. He knew Vayer would never punish him for doing the right thing.
     "Again, what is going on?" Vayer tucked Dimitri's head under his chin. His father's broad, strong hands against his back soothed the shaking in his body. "What did you do to him?"
     "He raped Natasha Riayanovna Sergei."
     "Oh, shen!" Vayer leaned back. "Is this true?"
     "Why are you asking him?"
     "Because he's the one accused of the crime."
     "I was there." Diomid growled. "He never once asked if she'd accept his selyn."
     "She was in hard labor and the baby had already taken all the selyn she'd stored." Dimitri tried to defend himself. "She grabbed me."
     "Did she?" Vayer asked over Dimitri's head·
     "He's not Sergei."
     "He was functioning as a Sergei healer."
     "Without my permission."
     "You can't give or withhold permission from the Inducted like that."
     "I'm not Inducted!" Dimitri insisted. "I'm just ... well, there's Mitka." He looked down at the sand on the floor.
     Vayer sighed heavily. "Unless you are Inducted, I'm going to have to say you're responsible. And if you aren't a member of Sergei, under Diomid's aegis, then you're guilty. So which will it be?"
     Dimitri thought long and hard. A baby's cry startled him out of his introspection. Without thinking about it, he went back into the delivery room. Tasha was looking down at her newborn son with the amazing smile all new mothers gave their children. He couldn't help but smile with her. "Thank you." She looked up at him.
     "He did the work." He nodded to Gregori, nearly as blown as his lady. "But since he did, what is his name?" Behind him, his fathers both drew in a deep breath. This wasn't the time or place to bring up capital charges. Tasha had no control over his fate, only himself.
     She glanced quickly at Gregori, who took the child. The youngster howled loudly enough to shatter glass. From here, Dimitri could see the sheen of fire still wreathing the tiny figure. He'd be a strong Lord, nearly as strong as Nashen. For a moment he wondered what it would be like to have a partner like that. Tasha had been sweet, but had only touched the fringes of what he could guess would be possible in transfer.
     Then, before he could duck, Gregory held out the youngster to him. In awe, Dimitri hushed the child gently with a thought. Huge blue eyes stared up into his. He nuzzled the wrinkled red brow, knowing how soon it would change to a pale, luminous pink. Warmth surrounded the youngster, the warmth of a fire on an autumn night or the warmth of the midsummer sun.
     "I name thee, child of my heart and my body, Mitkya Gregorovich Sergei."
     Tears burned Dimitri's eyes and blurred the image of the baby he held. Even if this was the only child he delivered, to have been the source of his name was an honor he'd never forget. "Thank you." His voice cracked through a throat gone tight. "I can't say how much I appreciate this." He brushed little Mitkya's cheek with one thumb. The little one turned to the pressure. But even still, beneath the awakening hunger, he could sense the bright spark of life growing so fast it made his heart nearly stand still.
     "We'll talk later." Vayer's voice came from far away. Dimitri nodded, not wanting to leave just yet.
     "You can't." Diomid's protest was cut off halfway.
     "This is neither the time or the place to speak of such things. We have time later." The door finally closed behind the older men. Dimitri sat on the edge of the bed, still holding Mitkya. At last he had to give him back to his mother.
     "I thought you'd never give him up." Gregori's hand landed on his shoulder.
     "I'll never have a child." He turned from the sight and buried his face in Gregori's tunic. Of all the Sharm Lords Dimitri had known, only Gregori always looked as if he were ready for a formal dinner in his underclothes. Sobs knotted behind his breastbone, nearly breaking it in two.
     "Hush," Gregori stroked his back, "hush. Someday you'll find a Lord to partner you."
     "Not with Mitka." He glanced down to see Mitka still curled up, sound asleep. "Never will anyone accept all of me."
     "The Veiled will."
     "But then I could never have a child."
     "No, you couldn't, nor if you were proclaimed Inducted." Gregori rocked him slowly in his arms. "Thank you for saving Tasha's life, and Mitkya's. I didn't think to remind her I was Kirovich." He shook all over for a moment, the chill of remembered fear spreading through the tiny room on the ambient.
     "You are all fine now." Dimitri reassured him, even as his own fear rose sharp enough to wake Mitka. "Now I have to see what our Lord and Ruler has to say to me."
     "For what its worth, you have my permission for transfer with my partner, if necessary." Gregori's eyes were shadowed to gray. He knew what had gone wrong.
     "Thank you, I appreciate it." Dimitri pulled his tattered dignity around him like an oversized kador. "I do." He didn't have to add, for all the good that it would do.
    
     Diomid waited and waited. Vayer paced the room, not stopping for a breath in his tirade. "How could you possibly think of condemning your own child to the ban." He snarled, turning on Diomid like a great hunting cat.
     "You did!" Diomid snarled right back. He'd had enough of everyone's attitude about Dimitri. Yes, certainly he was a very talented young Gen, but in no way ready for the responsibilities of a Sharm Lord. "The first time we tried to put a kador on him, that nager of his nearly ripped my own to little shreds."
     "Mitka likes me." Vayer shrugged.
     "You give it a name like a separate person." Diomid seethed. "Its nothing more than a manifestation of will and energy, Vayer. It isn't alive!"
     "Diomid, I've known you all of my life, and I've never known you to be so irrational." Vayer stopped in his pacing. "Why are you so upset about this?"
     "Because its my son that's gone and committed the crime!"
     "Only if you insist its a crime." Vayer crossed his arms over his chest, rejecting this idea entirely.
     "There's one law for everyone."
     "Except the Velied, the Inducted, and your own people, Sharm Lord Sergei."
     "Dimitri isn't a child of Sergei."
     "Only because you haven't accepted his oath."
     "He's Inducted."
     "Only if you insist on it."
     "Stop this." The door slammed against the stop. Mitka looked as if he'd had a very rough night of it, clinging to Dimitri's shoulder and sagging down to his chest. One eye opened blearily and then shut again. Dimitri caught him on the way to the floor and held the creature as he'd held Mitkya. "Go ahead and rest here, I'll take care of you." His body language said. Only the very faintest flickers of a normal field surrounded the young man.
     "What do you have to say in your own defense, young man?"
     "The only thing I have to say is that I have both Gregori's and Tasha's permission."
     "Now." He growled, feeling the burn of anger returning. How could the little bastard be so indifferent to his own fate? Even if Dimitri was Diomid's bastard child.
     "Yes, now." He tipped his chin up. "Without asking for it, without reminding them." His lips were drawn into a tight line. It was like talking with a child still, all but for the creature he held in his arms and the knowledge Diomid could see lurking through the features so much like his own.
     "That won't ..."
     "Shut up, Diomid!" Vayer's nager cracked like a whip between them. Mitka flashed out of Dimitri's arms and hissed from behind his ear. "I didn't mean to wake you, Mitka, sorry." The creature blinked a couple of times as he swallowed another hiss. But that didn't make him stop glaring, at Diomid.
     "Ok, so here's what we're going to do. You, Diomid, aren't going to say a thing about Dimitri's little adventure today. He got permission, however it happened. That's the end of it."
     "How very Fatima." He felt his own eyes narrow.
     "Yes, it is." Vayer put his hand on his sword hilt. This time Mitka wasn't the only one who hissed, but Dimitri did as well, but in shock. "Are you saying there is something wrong with Fatima's methods or one of her children?"
     "You are no longer one of Fatima's children."
     "But I am a child of Peace, as well as the leader of Peace." With his reminder of the meaning of his Demense, Mir, or literally peace, Dimitri's shoulder's went back again.
     "You're giving him ideas, Vayer. You can't let him get away with this."
     "Oh yes I can and I'm going to encourage him to follow his talents."
     "You're just soft on Dimitri because he's Gen. If he were Sime, like Tzer ..." The hard slap rocked him back on his heels.
     "I did not put Tzer under ban because he was Sime or give Dimitri special privileges because he's Gen. I am willing to let Dimitri go because he helped people today, even if he broke the literal law in the process. No one has to know he did so, as I doubt Tasha is even aware of his transgression."
     "Then how did she know to give Dimitri permission after the fact?"
     "Because Gregori knew what I'd done to save the life of his lord and child, even when he'd nearly caused their deaths by his own negligence." Dimitri drew himself up to his full height, already taller than his sire by a good six cents. He was going to be a tall man, which only added salt to the wounds he'd received today.
     "How dare you speak so of my second?!" Diomid wiped away a bit of spittle that had escaped from his lips.
     "You are insane." Vayer growled, a cent of seel showing next to the hilt of his sword. "You will accept your own son and heir into Sergei and then step aside when the time comes."
     "I will not, unless he chooses to challenge."

Chapter 6

     "I Challenge thee, Sharm Lord Sergei, for bed, board and Lord!" The words came out unbidden.
     "I am unable to accept." His father looked down his nose at Dimitri, as he always had.
     "You must." Vayer's voice came from behind him. "I am his second."
     "Challenge can only be fought at Midwinter and Midsummer."
     "Then next year, at Midsummer, you will meet me in the circle, Sharm Lord Sergei!" Dimitri prayed he'd get the extra months.
     "To the death?!" He'd gone pale beneath his late fall tan.
     "For Sergei." Dimitri growled, backed by Mitka.
     Then he began to laugh, throwing back his head and giving over his whole body to the exercise. "You little fool. Such extremes, Dimitri. You know I wouldn't actually put you under the ban."
     "Yes you would, if you thought you could get away with it. You're afraid of me. Afraid of what we represent." He scratched Mitka's crest for a moment. "You see your own mortality in Mitka's jaws."
     "I see Rodina's mortality in monsters like you." He hissed, the white around his eyes showing bright in the early morning sunlight. Dimitri'd been up all night with Tasha and now he was about to collapse.
     "She needs strong Lords and Sharm Lords." Dimitri swayed on his feet. "There aren't enough strong ones alive anymore." He left out the phrase, to replace Lords or even Sharm Lords who can no longer hold their places.
     "How dare you?" Pure crimson rage hammered through the room. A vase shattered on the mantle and the only pet Dimitri'd manage to find so far, a very old, tired and peaceful queen bolted from the room.
     "You will not speak so to me in my own rooms." They weren't much by any Sharm Lord standards, but they were the first place he'd had all to himself in his life. "Get out, Diomid." Dimitri pointed to the door. He wanted to reassure Byela that the big bad bogeyman wasn't going to really hurt her.
     "You will give me the respect I deserve."
     "I'm not kicking you in the ass." Dimitri growled, opening the door for his sire. "Now out!" He gave the twist with his mind Arkay'd taught him last week. On unwilling feet, Diomid stumbled to the door.
     "You will regret this."
     "If I live long enough." He sagged against the doorframe as soon as he'd closed the door. "You're still here." He continued the downward path. His butt hit the floor. This was a good place for it.
     "Do you want me to leave too?" Vayer reset his sword in its sheath. "I think you did quite well, actually."
     "I made a fool of myself." Dimitri readied himself to lever his way off the floor. But it was so, well, still. His feet hurt horribly. With a hiss of pain, he tried yanking his new boots off.
     "Hold still, youngster." Vayer knelt down and tugged off his boots, one at a time. "Ouch." His hands ran over Dimitri's feet, a few cents away. If he'd actually touched them, the Gens in the sharm would have been able to hear him scream.
     "Yeah, ouch," he hissed as the warmth from Vayer's hands irritated the open blisters on Dimitri's right heel.
     "Hold still." Vayer pushed him back against the wall as he tried to get up. "I'll be right back."
     "You don't have to do this." He protested from his slump on the floor. Water ran in the bathroom. "Hey, I'll be fine."
     "Let me teach you how a Sharm Lord should be treated." Vayer came back out with a basin full of water and put it at the foot of Dimitri's favorite chair. It was a huge old thing, stuffed with horsehair, and ugly as sin, but even more comfortable. Before he knew it, Vayer had augmented and picked him up.
     "Won't mama get upset."
     "She told me to come take care of you." Vayer set him down, then put Dimitri's feet, blood caked socks and all, into the hot water. Dimitri bit off a scream. "She knows better than to try to deal with her grown Sharm Lord children."
     "As Diomid doesn't?" Dimitri gripped the arms of his chair so tightly his fingers turned white.
     "Exactly." Vayer grimaced as he removed the first sock, the one that had cut into Dimitri's toes. "Who made these?"
     "I did." Dimitri matched his father's grimace. "Didn't do a very good job of it, did I?"
     "No," he shook his head in sympathy. "Buy the next pair."
     "I didn't have the money. And I thought we were supposed to make things like socks."
     "I think Tzer could have knit a better pair, and he has tentacles to get in the way now." Vayer turned the foot from side to side. Knotted muscles in Dimitri's calves tried to snap under the tension. "You, my lad, need a Lord."
     "Not likely to get one here." He looked down into his father's startled gaze. "Do you really think a Lord who could take my whole field would take Mitka with it?"
     "If they are the right one for you, then they would want him as well." One of Vayer's tentacles quivered as he spoke the words.
     "You wouldn't."
     "Of course not, I am your father, after all." Vayer snorted and removed the other sock. This one was stuck worse and Dimitri couldn't help but yelp as it came loose from the new scabs. Raw, weeping flesh opened into the water and stained it pink immediately. "You could have asked your mother for socks."
     "I didn't want to." Dimitri's cheeks burned in a violent blush. For some reason he didn't even want to go near Darya now. It was as if he got too close and all his insides churned themselves into butter.
     "She is your mother." Vayer gave him another of those looks.
     "I didn't want to get into a fight."
     "Not all Sharm Lords will see you as a threat. Particularly not if you ask them politely about things."
     "I don't mean to provoke Diomid." Dimitri wailed, the pain of his blistered feet and exhaustion releasing the last of the restraints on his tongue. "I love him, papa, really I do."
     "I know, but you are too much alike." Vayer's dark blue eyes were so kind Dimitri wanted to loose himself in them, as he had so many times as a child.
     "Why couldn't you have been my sire?" Tears streamed down his face. Dimitri sniffled and rubbed his nose on his sleeve.
     "Have a handkerchief." Vayer handed him one. Dimitri sniffled again before using it. Tears starred his vision. "Because then I'd probably be acting the idiot over you, and you'd be wondering if someone else were your sire."
     "Oh," Dimitri could see the logic in this. "Good thing you raised me, not Dimitri."
     "Indeed," he chuckled. "Although all Sergeis can be a bit difficult when they get their pride up."
     "You're Sergei."
     "Only by blood, and even then I don't have the gift." Vayer shrugged. "Oh, I can heal, certainly, but I can't heal minds and I can't step outside time."
     "What?" Dimitri sat bolt upright.
     "I can't see a time I haven't lived." Vayer caught his eyes again. "As you and your sire can."
     "Can Arkay?"
     "Now," Vayer grinned. "Its not easy and you have to be listening for it. As you did with Tasha today."
     "How did I do that?" Dimitri was shocked. He didn't think he did anything that spectacular. "Any trained healer would have done what I did."
     "No." Vayer shook his head. "Not any trained healer. Only one who could see the course of action and words that would eventually produce the desired result."
     "Its possible to learn how to do that." Dimitri refused to look at what Vayer was doing with his injured feet. He knew it had to be messy and awful.
     "No, not really." Vayer shrugged. "My mother tried, but she doesn't have the gift. All she can do is go on what she's learned. She can't know things she hasn't seen before."
     "That's just talent."
     "Like a talent for arguing with your father?" Vayer chuckled. "No, don't protest. Its good to see you growing strong and straight, my lad."
     "Am I your lad?" The tears were coming back. Dimitri blamed them on his injuries, even though they seemed to be nearly gone. He looked down to see Vayer taking Dimitri's feet from the water and drying them off with a soft towel. They were bright pink from the heat of the water, and increased blood circulation, but there was nothing left of the horrible blisters covering them from toe to heel. The last three days of ill fitting socks, little sleep, and new boots had chewed them up so badly Dimitri hadn't dared to even take off his socks. All he'd been able to do was put salve on his feet and bury himself in his work so far he forgot about them.
     "You will always be my beloved son, Dimitri." Vayer put the basin aside and picked Dimitri back up.
     "I'm too big to be carried like this." But it felt so good to have strong Sime arms around him all he could do was relax into his father's hold. Memories of being so tiny he fit in the crook of his father's arm came back to him, as did images of suckling at Darya's breast and the sweet taste of her milk filling his mouth. Dimitri tried to shake away the frighteningly vivid pictures.
     "Hush," Vayer kissed his brow, as he'd done so many times when Dimitri'd crawled into his lap for a good night story and a cup of milk. "Yes, I can see you remembering your childhood."
     "Its too bright, too clear!" He buried his face in his father's chest. "I couldn't remember things like this before."
     "I know." He murmured, stripping the filthy clothes from Dimitri's body. It had been far too long since he'd had time for a bath, or even to sluice off in the shower. "I'm not going anywhere, my lad."
     "I'm filthy, I stink, go away." The dark shadows of what he now knew had been need returned with frightening force.
     "No," Vayer took off his heavily decorated overclothes until he was down to a simple pair of breeches. Then he closed the blinds and Dimitri could hear him slip out of even those. "Relax against me, my lad." He crawled into bed and wrapped himself around Dimitri's still ungainly body. Mitka crawled in with them, twining around them as if he belonged to both.
     "Mama will be jealous." Dimitri tried his last defense.
     "Never, as you are both our lad." Vayer murmured in his ear. "Nashen slept with me my first night as an adult. Mikhail slept with Tzer. I've even heard Jarmin slept with Aliana."
     "Aliana has a mate?!"
     "Yes," Vayer chuckled softly. "She has a mate, even though she has problems too. Diomid is going to fix them, if he can, this winter."
     "Sergei will need a Sharm Lord." Dimitri breathed.
     "Yes he will." Vayer crooned a lullaby in Dimitri's ear. "You sleep now, held safe in your father's arms, and I'm sure you and Mitka will find your path."
     "Even Mikhail Chernoye found a way."
     "Yes he did." Vayer murmured, still crooning that song Dimitri now could remember with the same clarity as if it had only been yesterday, not fifteen years ago, that he'd first heard it.
    
     Vayer was not at all tired, but Dimitri's exhaustion was catching. He'd dreamed of holding his first Gen child as they came into their maturity, but hadn't dreamed it would be anything like this.
     He knew well, from far too personal experience, the stresses a parent could put on their own child. Vayer had done his best to give his children as much freedom to be themselves as was possible in this world of theirs. Tzer had found his love and life partner in one, even as Vayer had nearly destroyed them both in the process.
     Aliana had fled only months before her own change over. He'd nearly worn out the path between Mir and the Cathedral with his constant demands for updates until the Veiled had slammed the door in his face. Then he'd managed to get a sensitive of his own who could at least eavesdrop on some of his brother Severin's mail.
     When Aliana and Jarmin had vanished without a trace even Tzer could find, Vayer nearly pulled all his hair out. He knew something had gone wrong. So he'd had Diomid track them down, threatening the older man with dismemberment. Well, not literally. But he'd wanted to.
     When Diomid had told him of how close Aliana had come to suicide, Vayer had been ready to jump on the next plane to the West and to be damned with his responsibilities. But Diomid had held him back and told him to wait. He wasn't waiting well.
     Vayer nuzzled Dimitri's neck, trying to get him to sleep and recover some. Without a Lord around, he knew the young man had to be going through hell with his body trying to attract a partner.
     But as he trusted Diomid to know if Aliana would survive her growing up, he wished Diomid would trust him with his child. Dimitri finally sighed and settled into a deep sleep. Mitka was a boneless lump draped over both of them. Boneless but for this tip of one wing digging into Vayer's collarbone. How something so insubstantial could be so bony Vayer wasn't going to question, but rather simply moved the wingtip to a better position.
     Now, after having spent some time with Mitka, he wasn't at all afraid of Dimitri's nager. Actually Mitka was a lot better behaved than Darya's nager, which had an unfortunate tendency to get a bit too playful with his arms at times. Mitka never licked his forearms in hard need or nibbled on his toes in the middle of the night when it was time to roll over because he was snoring. Of course the fact he didn't normally sleep with Dimitri probably helped the latter.
     For a moment Vayer wondered what their other two children were going to turn out like and then quickly quashed the thought. Shanir was Mikhail and Tzer's problem, thank Allah, and Visarin was still very young. Although all three children of that round of fervid breeding were looking to be handfuls. Vayer was not at all sure if his brother was quite up to Sivaya or worse, Viasha coming into their maturity. The two of them were as thick as thieves and with Visarin nearly the same age, well, it was going to be exciting. Vayer was getting old for exciting.
     Dimitri was a soft, cool, trusting weight in his arms again, as he'd been so very often as a child. Quieter than the rest of the thundering herd, Vayer often wondered if he truly were a cookoo. But he certainly looked like Diomid. And he'd been in with Darya in catching Diomid so post he couldn't tell Gen from Sime. Which was what it had taken to get him to have sex with a Gen. Allah only knew how many other Gens had tried to catch Diomid over the years and failed.
     But they'd managed it and Dimitri was the end result, a Sharm Lord so brilliant and strong Vayer felt a lump of pride grow so thick in his throat he nearly cried. As he did so often with Darya, he resettled himself gently around his partner. The soft movements seemed to reassure her he was still there, and watching over her. Maybe it was fantasy on his part, but he liked to think so anyway.
     Dimitri murmured something insensate and settled one bony seatbone even harder against his thigh. Females were a bit more comfortable, Vayer had to admit. But then Darya was quite nicely padded for even a female Gen. Vayer nudged Dimitri into a better spot and got a wing over his face for his trouble. He blew it out of the way and Mitka wrapped it over the top of his head.
     Vayer sighed silently, even as he tried not to chuckle. It would take these two a bit of practice to be able to sleep in company. And he was quite happy to teach them. With his own transfer coming up in about a week, he had utterly no interest in anything but Dimitri's field, and even that was rather academic, as he was fairly low at the moment. But he did enjoy zlinning the lad sleeping so deeply even the quiet intrusion was ignored.
     Oh, some day Dimitri would give some Lord a chase so long and hard they wouldn't know a nager from the sun in the sky. And Vayer prayed to Allah he'd be there to hand the winner his son. For he knew, when Dimitri finally found his Lord, he'd never, ever let go, not even for all the gold in Kirov's vaults.

Chapter 7

    Dimitri had never been a one to quite enjoy getting up in the morning. Mikhail had never liked mornings, even though he'd been a Sime, so if he'd wanted to spend time with the old RenSime, he'd learned to stay up late. This morning was no exception.
     "Good morning, sleepy." And a cold, wet tongue behind the ear, however, were plenty to launch him out of bed. Well, over onto his stomach. This didn't work very well, even in a featherbed. He tried rolling back over and putting his arm over his eyes. "I see you really are growing up."
     Dimitri's face burned with his blushes. It didn't mean anything. He knew that. It was only hydraulic pressure. He'd experienced this before, as a true child, but now it was a bit shocking. "I need to use the bathroom." He growled, not thinking about anything more than how far it was to the facilities.
     "Oh?" Vayer was far too chipper. It must have been a Sime thing. Then he realized what he'd said.
     "I have to use the bathroom."
     "I'm not stopping you."
     "I'm naked." This morning was definitely not starting out well.
     "It isn't like I haven't seen you that way before." The laughter hadn't gone away.
     "But I'm ..." Dimitri really didn't want to say it.
     "I've seen that, too." This time he did chuckle. "Come on with you." The blankets vanished. Dimitri yelped and grabbed one corner. Or at least he tried. If waking up early meant he hurt from his hair to his toenails, he was definitely going into a different line of work. One on the night shift.
     Something was snuffling around his groin. Mortified, he looked down to see Mitka sniffing at his rock hard morning erection. "Oh Gods." He tried pulling him away.
     "You're a little young to be masturbating in the morning."
     Dimitri contemplated slapping his own father and decided he'd probably miss, which would be even more embarrassing.
     "Good morning!" His mother walked in. Mitka forgot all about his investigations. Hissing and flapping his wings, he hovered over Vayer, still completely recumbent. All of him, Dimitri noticed with a growl.
     "Mat'!" Dimitri was going to die of embarrassment.
     "Yes?" She pulled a pair of neatly knitted socks out of the sleeve of her kador. "I am."
     "Don't tease the lad." Vayer chuckled. "Off to the bathroom with you, youngster. You'll feel better once you get cleaned up."
     Darya glanced down and blinked. "He is still too young, isn't he?" For the first time Dimitri could remember, she bit at her lower lip.
     "I'm your love, my black one." His father crooned, sitting up, and in the process knocking Mitka into a heap of wings. "I thought Dimitri might like some company after his first transfer, no matter how it came about."
     "Good for you." The rustling sound of her heavy kador brought back more of those painfully sharp memories. Dimitri knew he'd tugged at them, when they were black, begging for sweets in the market one time so often she gave in to him. To disastrous results. He'd rarely been so sick in his life. "Oh lad," she sat on the edge of the bed and brushed his hair back from his forehead. It was all gummy and greasy with neglect, adding to his unease.
     Mitka was having none of this. Hissing and spitting he lunged for Dimitri's mother, jaws wide open. They snapped shut, cents from her skin. Mitka blinked a couple of times and shook his head. Then he tried it again, missing by only a fraction of a hair this time. Sensing opportunity at claw, he gnawed desperately at the shield surrounding her.
     "You hadn't told me he was cute!" She cooed, somehow managing to scratch the dragon under the chin. This didn't seem to sit well with Mitka. He tried to bite her fingers. "Oh, how adorable."
     Mothers could be far worse than fathers. Particularly when they refused to notice that something was trying to bite their arm off.
     "I don't know if I would call Mitka cute." Vayer was staring at the whole interchange with that bemused look Dimitri had come to know as his "I'm not going to say anything and get myself into more trouble." expression.
     "He is!" Darya grinned, still molesting Dimitri's nager.
     "Mother!" Dimitri wailed, feeling entirely put upon and not at all happy with this turn of events.
     "Sorry," she winked, now scritching a very subdued Mitka. "But I do know how to deal with animate nagers."
     "Oh?" He managed to pry himself out of bed at last. It looked like Mitka was going to desert him again, this time for a set of long fingernails. Then he took a good look at his mother through Mitka's eyes. A dark cloud was twining around her and Mitka. It seemed to be moving of its own accord, giving Mitka a poke and a prod wherever it seemed to feel like it. Mitka squirmed when the cloud began edging under his draped wings.
     "Sorry, didn't mean to tickle."
     It had almost felt like that, but Dimitri was trying not to squirm away for other reasons. "I'll be right back."
     "Would you like your back scrubbed?" Vayer stood up, entirely unconcerned about the fact he wasn't wearing a stitch of clothes. Dimitri snuck a glance downward, trying not to look too obvious about it. This was the first time he'd had a chance to look at a Sime since he'd established. And even if Vayer was his father, he was still curious.
     "I think so, yes." This was the polite answer, anyway. "Please." The thought did have merit. He itched, as well as ached.
     "You're going to spoil him, love." His mother continued to pet Mitka.
     "No, his first true Lord is going to spoil him. I'm just continuing my work as his father to teach him the fundamental ideas of how he's going to be spoiled." Vayer winked at him. "Besides, you're spoiling his nager something rotten over there."
     "Mitka is it?" She cocked her head to the side.
     "Yes, Mitka," Dimitri grinned at his nager, now sprawled over his mother's lap. So much for the big, vicious dragon.
     "I'm utterly fascinated to see another nager so much like my own, but with even more personality." She stroked her hand along Mitka's flank. "Besides, not all Sharm Lords are going to get their fields in a knot over him, nor are all Lords, you just have to find the good ones."
    
     Mitka did wonder sometimes what Dimitri was thinking of. At the moment it didn't seem to be very effective, whatever it was.
     "And then you Challenged him?" The silly little lord squeaked, holding her throat in a melodramatic gesture, entirely unnecessary to her point. Whatever that might have been. Mitka didn't get this whole court thing. It was too stuffy in here, with far too many people crowded into the room.
     He looked up at the rafters again, wondering if he could go hide up there and have a snooze. His jaws hurt again, as they had before his namesake's birth. He wondered how little Mitkya was doing. The lad was undeniably adorable, all warm and wonderful to cuddle around. He'd gotten to do so a couple of times when Dimitri was visiting with Gregori, trying to set up his temporary hold on Sergei.
     Mitka didn't understand why Dimitri didn't just take the Demense and be done with it. Together they were certainly stronger than that old twit Diomid. Ok, so he was Dimitri's sire, but that didn't mean Mitka had to respect him. Mitka respected and loved his real parents, Vayer and Darya.
     "I didn't have a whole lot of choice." Dimitri sipped at the water Mitka had talked him into. He knew better than to drink Starka. He wasn't stupid. Mitka didn't have to find out what a hangover was like to know he didn't want one. "It was that or the ban."
     "But you helped Tasha!" The young lord Trina waved her drink around so fast it nearly splashed all over another young sharm lord.
     "What's this?" Sharm lord Kail looked down his long, bridged nose at the two of them.
     "He's been trying to get into Trina's sleeves for months now." Mitka whispered in Dimitri's ear. Trina backed up a step, right into Kail's arms.
     "I was accused of rape." Dimitri's body went tense beneath Mitka's claws. "For helping deliver a baby."
     "Did you get in Sharm Lord Sergei's way in a delivery?" Kail's eyes widened. "You know he's so shenned possessive of all pregnant lords in Sergei we never are allowed to get near them."
     "I was there. I'd been there all night with her and the baby was nearly dead because she didn't have enough selyn for both labor and him." Dimitri sighed, his eyes closing for a moment. "I couldn't do anything else."
     "No, you couldn't." Kail looked over both of their heads. "And if he does try to press charges, its going to be more than Gregory and Tasha standing up for you."
     "I'm not a member of Sergei."
     "Like shen you aren't." Lord Azov had somehow managed to sneak up on all of them. "And who's this delightful creature?" He reached out and instantly found the delicate ridges over Mitka's eyes to scratch. "Oh you like being scratched, and given attention, don't you?" His falsetto croon was too perfect. Mitka drooped all over Dimitri's shoulder. "Oh, I melted you."
     "You were saying?" Uncle Val could be more than a bit of a Sharm Lord at times, particularly where animals were concerned. Not that Mitka truly thought of himself as an animal, well, when someone was soothing those horrible itches he got.
     "Oh, you're Sergei, whether or not Dimitri decides to pull his head out of his ass." Val's language had not improved any with the time he'd spent with his partner, Sharm Lord Alexandrya. "Sorry, youngsters, I suppose I should present a better example." He winked at Dimitri.
     Chuckling, Dimitri just shook his head. "Yes, but we all know about following examples. Some of them are negative as well as positive. And my sire has been an excellent Sharm Lord for Sergei."
     "You don't think you will be?" Tzer inserted himself into the conversation, even as the lesser lords and sharm lords vanished back into the crowd. Mitka didn't miss them much. They weren't as bright and shiny as the big ones. "Other than Mir, which is a new Demense anyway, all the other Demense have new leaders."
     "Yes, but in your cases your parents stepped down." He grimaced.
     Mitka didn't like thinking of that part of this whole affair either. He didn't want Diomid dead. He just wanted the silly fool out of his way.
     "Not mine." Nivanya had her hand on Ilyan's forearm. This conversation was beginning to go over Mitka's head. He launched himself off Dimitri's shoulder and landed on Val's. This would be a good place to watch. And Val had such a wonderful, delicate touch. He purred, enjoying the attention the pretty Lord kept giving him and listened for a while.
    
     "Is this a meeting of the Demense?" Dimitri hadn't known they'd been invited, not that any invitation was truly necessary for low court, but it was traditionally only for the members of the individual Demense, in this case, Sergei.
     "Informally," Nivanya flicked her crimson hair back from her shoulders. She was the least stable of the three young leaders, often running headlong into trouble while Uncle Ilyan had all he could do to try to rein her in. "I like Diomid, truly I do."
     "But if he's going to refuse you membership in Sergei, I'd like to get my bid in." Tzer winked at him.
     "I was here first." Val tried to glare out at Tzer. It didn't work very well, particularly not with Mikhail quietly watching the proceedings over his partner's shoulder. Everyone knew as soon as Vayer felt he was ready, Mikhail would be the next Lord and Ruler of Russia.
     The first sweep of politics was as heady as the way he'd given over the burning heat choking him last month. Soon it would be time to try that again too, perhaps this time with a bit more long term success. Mitka's jaws, right were Val was rubbing him, were already so swollen and hot to the touch, Dimitri could hardly stand it.
     "So who is going to run the auction?" After countless hours in front of the mirror, Dimitri'd finally figured out how to raise just one eyebrow.
     "Do you want me to?" Vayer's hand landed on his shoulder.
     "You'd sell off you own son like a Gen in the souk?" He put his own broad hand over his father's.
     "I can't have you." He kissed the top of Dimitri's head. "Hey, I won't be able to do that for too much longer."
     "Not very long at all." Val looked him up and down. "Hey, Lexi!" He shouted over the crowded room. His partner tipped her head to the old lord she'd been chatting with and wandered over, stopping to trade witticisms with a stunning redhead Dimitri'd missed in his first scan of the room. Val's chuckle brought his attention right back to where it had been.
     "Darya, what's your brother doing here?"
     "My brother?" She yelped, turning in place. "Khristov!" She ran across the room, nager lancing ahead of her to jump into an older Lord's arms. It was only then that Dimitri realized the other man was tiny. Not even bigger than Nivanya, who was the smallest adult Dimitri'd ever met.
     The two pounded each other on the back and danced around in circles. It was as if they hadn't seen each other in years. Who was he?
     "Vayer, Dimitri, everyone, I'd like you to meet my brother, well, half-brother, well, one of my half-brothers, Gregori being the other one, Khristov." Darya was breathless and her nager twining to the ceiling in great spirals of glee. Mitka launched himself from Val's shoulder to join it. Khristov glanced upward, zlinning the two nagers creating everchanging patterns of shadow against the white tile ceiling.
     "Lord Khristov?" Dimitri bowed hesitantly, trying not to let Mitka's little cousins twining in his middle get the best of him. Something strange, something he didn't recognize at all, was going on.
     "Yes, Veiled Lord Khristov Kirovich," he held out his arms. Dimitri winced, turning his face away.
     "Oh, it was many years ago, my young friend." His voice was a surprisingly deep tenor. As if someone had put the voice of a much larger man into the small body in front of him. "Many, many years."
     "What are you doing above?" Darya still held her brother's shoulders and was grinning like a cat with a whole buttery full of cream. "You took the Veil."
     "We too are looking for a Sergei." This time his voice held echoes of many voices, all piled on top of each other. "Tzakiran had no heir."
     "I'm not taking it." Dimitri stepped back, fear twining around his arms like Mitka's claws.
     "Will you say as much when the only Lord for you is as I am?" He held out his hands.
     "You're here now." He called Mitka down, even as he grasped Khristov's hands. "Are you going to refuse me like this?" Dimitri licked his lips, even as Mitka wrapped himself around the Lord.
     "Neither of us are in hard need." Eyes the color of newly forged steel bore into his.
     "I called my brother first back home to Fatima." Tzer put his hand over theirs.
     "I have the need to take him." Nivanya put her hand in.
     "I will need him for truth." Val nodded to Lexi, already beginning to show in pregnancy, again. And she was not a young Sharm Lord, not for a third child. Dimitri's heart began to pound in his wrists.
     "And we will always have room for our children." Vayer put his hands on both of Dimitri's shoulders. "Mir is their home, always." He bent down, his warm breath sending a shiver up Dimitri's arms. "Be very sure, my son. They play for keeps."
     "I'm too young!" Dimitri wanted to wail. Mitka stared into his eyes, his venom laden jaw against Khristov's. Again those steel gray eyes caught his. Khristov could satisfy his need, but anything else? "I will not take the Veil."
     "Not yet," Khristov's gaze didn't waver a mil. "You will."
     "I know I won't."
     "You can't see for yourself."
     "Ah, but I can see for my family." He trembled all over, inside and out. "I see no great loss for them." Dimitri had no idea if this were true or not, or if he were just making it up.
     "You are but yet a child." Khristov's voice was as seductive as the dark shadows beginning to fill Dimitri's vision. "When it is time, you will know."
     "Never," he pulled against Khristov's hold. Tentacles of pure selyn held them bound. "I will never take the Veil." He held the image of the Archangel's mutilated arms in the front of his mind. "Mikhail Chernoye wasn't forced to the Veil."
     "No, he was executed." Khristov's smile held nothing of joy, only secrets. "Oh yes, we know of Mikhail Chernoye, The Black Archangel. He should have been one of us. Creating his beauty for all time for the Veiled and the Way of the Rus."
     "He was freed by my grandfather, Sharm Lord Sergei and his heir shall remain free." Dimitri swore on the graves of them both. "I will not let their legacy die for my pleasures."
     "You no longer paint or draw, Sergeyevich. Do you not wish to?"
     "I don't have the time." His heart shattered in his chest. He had betrayed Mikhail, in his yearning to prove himself to his sire.
     "Don't do it, Dimitri. I know." Vayer murmured in his ear. Mitka was slavering selyn all down Khristov's tunic.
     "You betray your own oaths to us?" Light and fire outlined Khristov's tentacles sheaths.
     "Madness," Nivanya hissed, her own arms turning crimson with matching Kirov power.
     "No, my mother was no Rus." He continued to stare into Dimitri's eyes. "I will not show the madness."
     "But you carry it."
     "I do." He set his jaw. "Which is the other reason I took the Veil."
     "The first being." Dimitri saw the ancient shame and hatred chase each other to the madness Khristov denied.
     "I was young." Red hot tentacles of pure fire laced Dimitri's arms. But they didn't hurt, selyn flowed over into the visible, twining around both of them and reaching for the sky.
     "As am I." Dimitri closed his hands over Khristov's wrists, accepting him, for now.

Chapter 8

     Still a bit bemused, Dimitri watched Khristov investigate their rooms with undivertable Sime curiosity. The tiny Lord looked out between the drawn blinds and gave a quick shudder. "Its so open."
     "I don't like living below." Dimitri shrugged, settling back into his chair. It was his chair now, no one else's.
     "I've never known anything else." Quick footsteps danced across the still bare floor. Dimitri hadn't had time to make rugs, or the selyn to buy any. All his monthly stipend went for the bare maintenance necessary on the place.
     "You've spent all your time below?" Now a shudder of disgust ran through Dimitri's body. He couldn't stand being locked up in the darkness, no matter how many lights were on. It just was wrong, in his opinion. And now that he was living alone, well, had been living alone, he hadn't had to ask anyone else their opinion.
     "Yes," Khristove nodded and then looked into the bathroom. This wasn't the biggest suite above at Sergei, but it did have a good bathroom. There were some luxuries Dimitri refused to live without, as well as the luxury of living above. "You don't have to share this one?"
     "Only with you." Dimitri coaxed Byela into his lap and began brushing out her long, white coat. It had become horribly snarled with the time he'd been spending elsewhere, mostly chasing down seconds in Sergei's account books. He missed having Kirina around, if nothing else for her extraordinary skill with the accounting. No, that wasn't at all true. He did like his other mother. Often enough in summer, he's spent the long sunny days with Kirina, Miran and Tzanya. In Sergei, unlike any other Demense, his Lord got stuck with the child rearing duties, since his Sharm Lord led the Demense.
     Right now he wondered what Kirina thought of this whole situation, if she even knew. Dimitri had heard rumors of Diomid's often disturbing tendency to not tell his Lord all the things she should be aware of. Particularly as he hadn't seen her once since he established and now she was gone with Diomid to the West, to try to help Aliana. Both Diomid and Kirina had helped raise Dimitri's older sister as well, often enough more than with him. But then she wasn't blood related to him.
     "Indeed," gray eyes twinkled in Khristov's pale face. "I'm sorry I came onto you so hard earlier."
     "You got my attention." He admitted, still brushing Byela, even as Mitka inserted himself as well beneath the bristles. "You can't share with another living thing, Mitka."
     "I can do as I wish." He sniffed, curling up into a ball, occupying the same physical space as the cat.
     "You'll get long white hairs all over your wings." He warned, the cat's soothing purr easing the tension in his body, and his nager as well, from Mitka's reaction.
     "I've never heard a Sharm Lord talk so intelligently with their nager." Khristov was zlinning them, his laterals peeking from their sheathes. Dimitri bristled, feeling as if he were being fondled in a way he didn't much care for. Or maybe it was the way Khristov continued to speak of Mitka as if he didn't have ears to hear with or a brain of his own. "I meant no offense!"
     "You gave it anyway." Mitka raised his head, looking at the Lord with those gold eyes going hard. "I'm not a thing."
     "Didn't mean to imply you were." Khristov raised a hand, nageric tentacles spread in supplication. The thick white knots of scar tissue where his physical tentacles had been only mocked their absence. Dimitri shivered at the thought of the pain that had to have gone into such mutilation. "It was done before they broke out."
     "You didn't even know what first transfer was like!" Dimitri was horrified. "How could anyone do that to you?"
     "I asked for it." He turned his face away, cheeks reddening with ill-hidden shame.
     "As a child?" Dimitri wanted to weep for the loss Khristov had taken, so willingly.
     "It was known that Kirovich was my sire. It was known I'd go mad before my thirtieth birthday. It was known that the only place safe for me to grow up was the veil." The sobs of need choked sorrow were as dry as the winter killed leaves outside. "I didn't!"
     "Then why did you stay?" Dimitri shooed the occupants of his lap out. "Come here."
     "I won't!" He spun, fire again lacing the air with its deadly promise, but never over the edge to actual harm. "I won't hurt you."
     "I know." Dimitri patted his knee. "Come sit with me, Khristov and tell me your tale."
     "Its not very long. The Veiled accepted my oath before my tentacles broke out and they were burned before I could become a danger to others, or myself."
     "But you didn't."
     "No, I didn't." Khristov turned his face back to the window. "They offered to let me go. Offered me my freedom. Freedom after twenty years among the communion of the Veiled. Do you know what it means to be offered freedom when all you want is comfort?"
     "Yes," Dimitri said softly, still holding out his offer. "I do."
     "Oh, you think that being offered the status of Inducted you were being given a great gift?" He sneered, before going back to his pacing. "I don't want to be here!"
     "You do." Dimitri rested his chin on his hand. "You wouldn't be here otherwise. Tzakiran would have killed you."
     "How in shen do you know?" Again that so beautiful fire rose up between them, twining their souls together in a way Dimitri didn't even truly understand.
     "Because I am Sergei." Dimitri stood, going to his new partner, his first Lord.
     "Your Uncle Arkay wouldn't have even known that."
     "Uncle?" Dimitri blinked, suddenly taken aback. Then it all clicked into place. "He's Diomid's brother, isn't he?" Shocked, he stood still for a moment, letting the information come to him. "And Diomid's Uncle."
     "Yes." Khristov went dead white. "There's no way you could know these things."
     "And that Nashen's mother's dam was also her sister. And that Tzer's firstborn will be out of his sister." Dimitri reached for the door to stop the horror of what he saw. A tiny child, nearly left for dead, and then not, to suffer so horribly, as Tzakiran had. A male Fatima Sharm Lord. "My Gods," he put his hands to his head. "What is happening to me?"
     "You are Sergei." Khristov had backed into the window. "A monster!"
     "No," he shook the images out of his mind. "I simply have a better memory than most." Cold sweat had trickled down the inside of his kador, making him feel more than a bit ill. "I have to get a shower, at least." He pulled off his kador with an ease many older Sharm Lords would envy.
     "How do you do that?" Khristov was coming out of his funk. Dimitri hoped he wouldn't stay like this, but Dimitri was also learning not to look. The answers were often more unsettling than the questions.
     "What?" He put the garment on its stand. It was one he'd borrowed from the old Sharm Lord's closet. It didn't irritate Mitka the way a sharm lord's kador did and all of his sire's were too short one direction and too long the other.
     "Get out of a kador so easily." Khristov seemed honestly impressed.
     "Just know." He plucked at the front of his undertunic. It was soaked through, and far too fragrant. The sink would be getting a workout tonight. "Join me or not, as you choose." Dimitri tossed the poor tattered thing into the sink. It would have done well as a rag, but it was generally Dimitri shaped and so would do.
     "Why are you dressed in rags under thousands of days of diamond and platinum embroidery?" Khristov had followed him, like a puppy after a ball.
     "Because I didn't buy the overtunic." Dimitri stripped off his breeches before he realized this might not be the wisest move. He'd been naked in front of his parents before, and with his weird memory, he knew how normal it was. But Khristov was no kind of relative at all. Well, he was Dimitri's Uncle in a roundabout way. But then nearly everyone above the rank of lord or sharm lord was, it seemed. "Why do you keep asking me questions?"
     "Because I don't know the answers." He snarled right back. "Ok, so I'm ignorant as a renSime and haven't got the sense the Gods gave one either, but I am curious."
     "I noticed." Dimitri was taken on the curb this time. "What did you do for the Veiled?"
     "Mostly kept those who did the work entertained." His nager with dark with some hidden shame.
     "You were kept?" Dimitri looked at the Lord's forearms.
     "Yes, shen you to hell." He put his hands over his own wrists. "They kept me around to have some place to put their selyn when they weren't using it. I was ..."
     "You were used." Dimitri put his hands over Khristov's. "They used you like a pet."
     "Yes," Khristov turned his face away. "They needed, so it was good old Khristov to strip another Sharm Lord. I was the only one with enough speed and strength to keep some of them even marginally sane."
     "How did you talk them into letting you go?" Dimitri decided getting cleaned off was a bit more important at the moment than standing around looking like an idiot, but first he ran some hot water into the sink. His only shirt wasn't going to get clean this way.
     "I didn't." Khristov's expression said as plainly as words.
     "You escaped?!" Dimitri splashed water all over the place. "From the Veiled? How in hell did you do that? Why did you do that?"
     "Now you're asking the questions." Khristov sat on the side of the tub, getting his breeches wet. They were far better than Dimitri's own, being all in one piece to start with.
     "Although I do have to say I'm flattered you came to me." Dimitri put down the warmth in his cheeks to the water he was sitting in.
     "I couldn't resist." Khristov brought Dimitri's hand to his mouth and kissed it.
     "Better than the Veiled Sharm Lords?" Dimitri regretted his question the moment he said it.
     "There is no comparison." Khristov held his eyes again, as he'd done earlier. "And I do know how to pleasure a Sharm Lord." His hot Sime tongue flicked gently over his knuckles, making all the hair on his arms stand on end. The promise inherent in the gesture was as sensual as it was wicked. "I'm ignorant, not stupid."
     Dimitri tried to catch his breath. "You ran away from the Veiled. They could do anything to you."
     "After transfer with you, it will be worth it." Khristov held Dimitri's eyes with that incredible knowing gaze. "Trust me."
     "I'll have to." Dimitri tried to pull away. "Its your nager, after all."
     "Never has been before." He stood and broke the eye contact. The simple Kirov crimson silk overtunic was laid on the edge of the sink, along with the wrapped shirt and woolen breeches.
     "You could have stolen better clothes."
     "These where what I wore when I swore to the Veiled." Khristov's nager was as still as ice in midwinter.
     "How old were you?"
     "Thirteen," he shrugged, then he put his feet in the water.
     "Come in." Dimitri invited him, wondering at the control. "And you haven't grown since then?"
     "No," he flicked his hair to the front and Dimitri couldn't help but zlin years of deep scars crossing and recrossing the man's shoulders and back. "I wasn't always in hard need when it was convenient."
     "Why did you let them do this?"
     "I asked for it." Khristov met his gaze, with only the faintest sheen of green crossing the gray of his eyes. "I thought it would keep me from going insane, to know what the whip and the branding iron felt like."
     "It didn't." Dimitri dared put his hands on those slender shoulders. "It simply stunted your growth so badly you, well, you never physically matured entirely."
     "I did in the important ways."
     "Sexually?"
     "Yes," he nodded, hair coming forward to cover his face. "It was inevitable, I suppose."
     "And they used you for their gratification in bed as well."
     "Yes," he nodded, shoulders bowing under the invisible weight of it all. "I accepted it. I didn't protest."
     "But did you ask for it?" Dimitri cursed how close he'd come to rape, and even still it had been nothing like this.
     "When ..." his voice cracked and then he straightened up. "I've never talked about this with anyone, Dimitri."
     "I'd be surprised if you had." He rubbed his knuckles against Khristov's face. "It isn't exactly the sort of thing you'd discuss with the creature about to rape you."
     "It wasn't rape." He turned to Dimitri, jaw set. "It wasn't. I asked for it."
     "Not knowing anything else." Dimitri ran his thumb over Khristov's cheek.
     "Don't pity me, Dimitri." His nostrils flared. "I'm as human as thee."
     "Why did you think the fact your mother acceded to her own rape you had to?"
     "Why are you doing this to me?" Khristov snarled, his temper spilling over again into literal flames.
     "Because I like this?" Dimitri held up a tongue of fire, twining it around his fingers before it vanished. Khristov laughed, a dry brittle sound lacking life with the nearness of true need. "No, because you need it."
     "You're as bad as your grandsire."
     "Or as good." He never had met the old Sharm Lord Sergei, but in a way he felt as if he did know him. The overtunic in the other room winked at him its bright white light. Sergei was his, and would be for life, someday.
    
     Khristov had never met anyone like young Sharm Lord Sergei. For even if he weren't in name, he was Sergei's Lord in truth. Diomid was an excellent Sharm Lord, but had no where near the power of his son.
     Most of the Sharm Lords Khristov had known were far older, set in their ways, and often not at all tolerant of any sort of forwardness in their Lords. Not that he could even physically manage to be forward, lacking handling tentacles or even any idea of how to use them.
     Sometimes, in the dark of the night, he wondered what it would have been like, if he hadn't forced himself on old Master Tzakiran. The irascible old Fatima Sharm Lord had cared for his Lords, he just hadn't expected much of them but bed pleasure and the occasional errand above. For Tzakiran had been bound deep inside the honeycomb labyrinth where the Veiled lived by the congestive selyn disorder which had finally taken his life.
     Then Dimitri cheated. With strong, broad fingers he began kneading at the snarled muscles beneath the scarred skin of Khristov's shoulders. Khristov remembered every whipstroke, every line of fire traced across his flesh. Some of the Sharm Lords he served truly were mad, drinking in Khristov's pain and submission with unholy glee.
     But then Khristov had not been complaining at the time, either. Then it had felt good to be the center of someone's, anyone's, undivided attention. And he knew he had it when he was bound to the whipping cross or over the wooden table.
     "I could work out some of the worst of these scars." Dimitri's soft voice, still uncertain with youth, came through his musing. Khristov had to swallow back selyn filled saliva brought forth by his own musing on past transfers. "I see you are thinking about things other than your past."
     "Actually I was." He arched his neck in the gesture of submission so many Sharm Lords had adored.
     "Ahhhhh," Dimitri breathed, both cooling and warming the skin at the back of Khristov's neck. "So I zlin." He kissed the sensitive nape, the exact spot a Sharm Lord would use to kill. The mixture of promise and threat, so very familiar and yet at the same time, so very naive coming from one so young, made Khristov's roniplin glands fill to overflowing. "I've never known, truly, a complete transfer."
     "You aren't a virgin." Khristov dared zlin again, checking to be sure of what he'd zlinned the first time. No, Dimitri's field didn't have the rapid upward spiral of a Gen who'd never given away their selyn. That particular climbing rate was only seen once in anyone's life.
     "Only sexually. But my first was in practice." He chuckled.
     "It was a strip?" Khristov was aghast. He'd at least had a real transfer for his first, from a very kind Sharm Lord who'd let him wallow in the experience as best as he could until he needed more selyn to finish healing the burns on his arms.
     "No, but it was during the delivery of a baby. My sire called it rape because I didn't risk the woman's life by waiting for her to remember I was there. Besides, she jumped me." Dimitri chuckled, in Khristov's presence, beginning to truly feel need for the first time in his life. "I figured that was good enough."
     "Good enough for anyone but your father, I suppose." Khristov leaned back into the caress. Few people had ever touched him this gently.
     "Oh, my father defended me." Dimitri snorted. "It was my sire who kept trying to get him to put me under ban."
     "For saving a life?" Khristov turned back to look at Dimitri. Blue-gray eyes, the perfect color of ice, looked back at him. Dimitri nodded once. "What a fool."
     "He didn't beat me and he didn't get what he wanted."
     "I heard you Challenged him."
     "Yes," again the nod. Khristov couldn't zlin a thing Dimitri didn't want him too. Even Mitka, his nager, was as unreadable as stone. "I had to. He wouldn't back down."
     "Will you?" Khristov wondered how likely it was that a Sharm Lord Dimitri's age could face down their own sire. In Russia's past, the children always waited longer, even when it cost lives to do so. Valentine, the last Lord Kirov should have killed his own sire years before he managed the feat, but as it happened, only his Sharm Lord's resemblance to Valentine's mother had saved them at all. Valentine had given his own life to his daughter, not fighting her more than his own madness demanded.
     Khristov gulped down the fear he'd lived with all his life, that he'd turn, like his sire and brother, against all he knew and loved.
     "You won't." Dimitri told him, as if telling him it was snowing outside.
     "How do you know? Even Sevrin couldn't read my geneprint well enough." Khristov snarled in the frustration of it all. No one had known for certain if he'd go mad. Even though Kirov Lords always did. But Khristov's dam was from far to the west, beyond the tribes and over the sea. A redhead, like he was and his brother's dam, but she carried no talents beyond those of needlework and knitting. She'd born Lord Kirov three children with Sharm Lord Kirov's connivance. Khristov was the only survivor. Not that he'd ever known any more of her than this.
     "Hush," Dimitri pulled him back into his arms. "I can hear your worries and concerns." He stroked Khristov's arms as if he still had all his tentacles. "Relax against me a moment."
     "I'm not a toy to be played with." As soon as the words were out his body betrayed him by relaxing, as it had been trained to do.
     "I know." Dimitri spoke with more than words in the way he released Khristov. "Do you want peace?"
     "I want to be free." He put his face in his hands, unable to cry for need, unable to scream for the conflict choking his voice. "Who am I, Dimtiri?"
     "Always a good question." Something older, and far wiser than any human lurked behind Dimitri's youthful eyes. "Perhaps a place to start might be learning to become friends."

Chapter 9

     Nervous enough to have a litter of kittens right in the middle of the hallway, Dimitri waited for an answer. "Come in, come in!" Avilan called out, his voice still as youthful as ever it was. Dimitri knew Arkay aged, as did all people, but it seemed Avilan never did. "And I see you've brought your prey with you." Khristov blanched and nearly made his own hole in the door, running back out.
     "Don't mind him." Dimitri stage whispered. He wanted Avilan to hear him. "He's just jealous."
     "With her on his arm?!" He squeaked, still backing up. "I don't think so."
     "Isn't he a little, well, old?" Avilan's frown turned Khristov into a huddling heap of pure terror on the floor. "Oh, lad, you aren't as old as I am." He knelt with numerous pops and clicks. From this angle, Dimitri could clearly see the thick silver streaks in Avilan's gold hair, almost completely replacing the gold. "Come now, I won't bite you."
     "No, I taught him better." Karola put her hands on her hips. For a brief moment, Dimitri wondered if his father had ever had a chance at her, and if so, if he'd fared well enough to give his son a chance. Karola threw back her head and laughed so hard tears came from her eyes. "I've never been quite so flattered, youngster. And you do have great big brass bracelets, even if they aren't visible on your wrists yet."
     "Don't know how much it would have hurt to ask until I did it?" He added a wicked grin he didn't entirely feel. "Besides, I might have gotten lucky."
     "Oh you have as smooth a tongue as your sire." Her violet eyes twinkled with mirth.
     "So he did catch you." Dimitri let his unworldly knowledge come to the fore. "Twice."
     "Ah, but you have yet to learn to guard your tongue, young Sergei." Her expression went hard for a moment and Dimitri well knew the force of will it had taken to raise nine of her own children, and countless others.
     "You, of all people, would appreciate the truth." He offered in riposte.
     "Nicely done, very nicely." She gave him a half smile. "And if you weren't the age of my own grandchildren, and male to boot, I'd take you up on the offer, youngster."
     "Oh?" He leaned on the word. "And you assume I'd have you?"
     Avilan choked heavily, turning around and looking as if someone had smacked him on the back of the head with a board ... hard enough to crack the board.
     "As you're running your nager under my tunic I assume the intent is there."
     "Get back here Mitka!" He yanked at his field with all his might. Mitka was playing deaf again. Avilan snickered. "Get out of Karola's clothes. She fills them quite nicely without your help." At this everyone stopped what they were doing and stared. "Now I bet you all are wondering why I've called you here today?"
     After a moment's stunned silence, Karola broke up laughing again. This was enough of a change Dimitri could get Mitka's attention back. Grabbing his nager by the scruff of the neck, he yanked him out of Karola's clothes and held him up in front of his face. "What have I told you about climbing into people's clothes?"
     "That I shouldn't do that when people are wearing them?" He blinked, obviously trying to look innocent.
     "Then why were you slithering around all over Karola's chest, under her clothes?" He'd learned to be direct with Mitka. As direct as a sharp stick. He shook his nager again, demanding an answer. "Well?"
     "I hurt." He whined, a single silver tear pooling in one golden eye.
     "I know sweetheart. You won't hurt soon. You'll feel really good. I just want to be sure no one gets hurt."
     "I already hurt."
     "Let him come here." Karola held out his hands.
     "Please?!" Mitka begged, a tear tracking down his face. Dimitri brushed his hand over Mitka's swollen jaws. They were burning hot and felt as if they'd burst any moment. "I hurt."
     "I know. If she says its all right." He looked at Karola. She nodded, still holding out her hands. The instant he let go of Mitka, his nager curled up like a child in Karola's arms. She did know what to do with a Sharm Lord in need. There was no sensation of hardship leaving him there, but rather a feeling of peace and quiet. Dimitri gave Karola a grateful smile as he turned his attention back to Khristov.
     "After that little display of nageric obedience, I'm not at all sure why you wanted my help." Avilan stood, again creaking rather badly.
     "As an excuse for me to get my hands on you." The aching joints Dimitri could now sense were driving him crazy.
     "Arkay said he couldn't do anything more." Avilan shrugged. "It isn't too bad, as long as I stay warm." He winked at Karola. "Someone I know very well is excellent at keeping me warm."
     "See, you don't know everything." Khristov stage whispered back.
     "How old are you?" Avilan tapped at his ear, as if knocking something out of it.
     "Fourty going on fourteen." Dimitri provided, knowing full well why Khristov was so odd. "It isn't exactly something to worry about."
     "And you are sixteen going on sixty, like your sire."
     "I simply hope I am not too much like my sire and more like my father." Dimitri was not liking the way this conversation was going.
     "Oh, I've learned a few things over the years, youngster. And one of them is to let the future do what it will, even if you know what its going to be." Avilan opened the door to the hallway. "We have to go take a walk. If you could brink Mitka down to the conservatory, if he decides to stay with you, in about an hour, I'd really appreciate it."
     "You're retired!" Karola growled, still cuddling up to Mitka as she had to so many children, long white fangs, slavering selyn and black scales notwithstanding. "He is young, Dimitri." She went over to a carafe on the table. "Just the thing." She wet a napkin with the moisture beading the outside and held it to Mitka's jaw. The pleasure of the sensation tightened the skin of Dimitri's arms so hard and so fast he gasped. "I think you'd better hurry."
     "I think so." Avilan seemed to look through Dimitri for a moment. "Yes, definitely. Follow me."
    
     Avilan looked up to the hidden artificial sun, waiting for the answers to come to him. They always did, eventually. Occasionally too late, but eventually. "So you've been living with each other for close to a week now and haven't killed each other yet."
     "But I don't know what I'm doing." Dimitri's hands clutched at his knee so hard the fingers turned white. Avilan saw him swallow again. He was certainly ready for transfer, even if his mind was holding him back.
     "Then don't think about it." He put his hand over Dimitri's. The age spots and lines didn't bother him anymore. At least not after Karola had pinned him to the sheets and proven to him they didn't matter to her. "If you think about it, then it won't work." How to explain to a sixteen year old, with all the Sergei gifts of knowing both past and future, that there were some things that could never be known, only experienced? "Trust me."
     "I do." He ducked his head, then looked to Khristov. "But I'm afraid."
     "And that will kill one or the other of you." Avilan stated the blunt truth. "More likely Khristov than you, I'm afraid."
     "Me too." He reiterated, a glint of black humor tracing over his field. "Isn't there anything you can do to be sure I don't ..."
     "No," he squeezed Dimitri's hands gently. "The only way to be sure is not to act." There was something even darker about Khristov.
     "Why are you here?" The answer he got was one that shocked him to the core. The verbal words that came later were less than useless. "No, Khristov, don't lie to me. You want peace."
     "I do." He admitted, turning his face away. "Is that so wrong?"
     "You would destroy Dimitri's life if he killed you today. How can you be so cruel?"
     "Because all he's ever known is cruelty." Dimitri retrieved one hand and put it over his putative lover's wrist and began sliding up the sleeve. Avilan had wondered why a Lord would be wearing sleeves down to their hands. Now he knew. Khristov had been Veiled. "He was their creature."
     "Now he's yours?"
     "Not if I can help it." Dimitri's remaining nager, only the faintest echo of a normal adult's, was as irresistible as the great river Moskva in flood. "He's Khristov Kirovich. Lord Khristov."
     "No," he shook his head. Karola appeared at the top of the path. This was going to be their best chance. He waved her forward and spread her hands. She cast of Mitka as if he were the world's largest falcon. He loomed over all over them, towering over four meters high now and still growing. Dimitri tipped Khristov's chin up.
     Avilan was still worried, but prayed with all his might nothing would break into the sequence he knew was as inevitable as water rushing downhill ... he hoped. Before it could break the mood, Avilan gently brushed Khristov's sleeves up past the wreck the veiled had made of his forearms.
     In the background, he could hear Karola's intake of breath. Avilan nodded to her, knowing through their long marriage, she'd know to hold the fields steady and unzlinnable to any outside observer. He had to watch the two young men for the first sign of hesitation.
     Khristov tipped his chin, as a Sharm Lord would do, submitting himself to Dimitri's lead. Not experienced enough to know better, the first backwash of shen began in Dimitri's mind. *Like this* Avilan sent the image of how very wet and sweet Khristov's lips looked in the cool, misty light. Dimitri leaned forward, catching up the lost thread and opened himself the first fraction to Khristov's need.
     It was a nightmarish whirlwind of night and fear, pain and blood spilled for too many hells. Avilan clamped down on his shock, praying to all the gods Dimitri wouldn't see it. *I know.* Dimitri sent, as if he were simply taking a walk in the park, not trying to give transfer to a suicidal Sime with all the demons of hell raging in his mind.
     "Be careful." He said out loud, knowing this was the last moment either of them could hear anything. Thier lips touched at last and Khristov's hands shot up to grab Dimitri's arms. Avilan had never seen a Veiled Lord take transfer, but the awkward position make his own wrists ache in emptiness. He brushed his fingertips over the backs of Khristov's hands, hoping he could manage to reposition him before his laterals came out.
     Slowly, ever so slowly, they moved back down. Karola came down and knelt beside the three of them. Then she reached around Khristov and put her hands over his. In a flash of light and heat, her tentacles matched the ephemeral ones of Khristov's and Dimitri yanked back. Selyn slammed into the dark night as Mitka struck at Khristov with all his might, sinking half meter long fangs deep into the Lord's chest. A scream echoed off the high stone walls, again and again and again.

Chapter 10

     Dimitri dared open his eyes. Khristov blinked back at him, looking dazed and definitely not sure of where he was or when it was, but alive at least. Mitka was no where to be seen. Fear shattered what little peace he'd gathered from knowing he hadn't killed.
     "He's still here." Someone murmured in his ear as Khristov's back arched in sheer panic.
     "No, no," he tightened down his fingers. Another scream, this time from a voice gone harsh, echoed off the stone walls. A flock of water birds, which had almost settled, rose again in a great pounding of wingbeats.
     "Let him go, Dimitri." Avilan's voice was as flat as the night he'd sensed and Mitka had quenched his fangs in. "Don't hold him so tight."
     "No use." He glanced down, unable to sense fields at all now. But there was no use in being able to do so either.
     "Damn it, heal him." Karola snarled, putting Dimitri's bloody hands back where they'd been.
     "Not without his permission." He kissed Khristov's brow as the older man's eyes slipped closed at last. "I did so once."
     "He didn't ask for peace." Avilan shook him. "Do it. Gods, Dimitri, don't let him die like this! In pain. At least do it right."
     "I don't have the field." His heart ached at the pain written in Khristov's face, now so close to death Dimitri felt Azrael's wings brush his own cheek. This was truly what he'd wanted. "He doesn't want to be here, Avilan."
     "Shen you to hell, Dimitri. Save him. He's your mother's brother." Karola's violet eyes blazed over Khristov's shoulder. "He deserves better than this."
     Thoughts of the images he'd gotten from the older man. Of having been beaten, raped, burned, even cut for various Sharm Lord's pleasure burned in his mind.
     "Do you really want to be like them?" She asked, her fury so harsh her teeth ground together. "I can't heal him. Not at this point. He's too far gone."
     "Since I crushed his laterals." Shame at what he'd done gripped him in talons of ice.
     "No, since Mitka manifested so strongly he pierced his vriamic node and nearly cut it in two in the process. Now grow up and fix what you've done."
     "Shen!" Dimitri swore, realizing how badly he'd misjudged himself. Dropping back into the world of selyn, he saw Mitka, as pale as ice, trembling over Khristov's body.
     "I didn't mean it. Oh Gods, Khristov, stay with me. Oh, I'm so sorry. I hurt so bad and I didn't know what I was doing. Khristov. Oh, please, don't go." Silver tears streamed over Khristov's chest. Here, Dimitri could see the two huge rents going all the way through his nager. Selyn pooled in the holes Mitka had disrupted in the man's nager, even as they flowed smoothly everywhere else. Even on his forearms, where Dimitri had been stupid enough to mistake roniplin for blood.
     Swearing at himself for being a right fool, he put his hands, front and back over the wounds Mitka had left. "Get me a thoracic pack, a ten cent spool of silk-linen wrap, harduran and enough khasti to float a small boat!" Dimitri prayed Karola still knew Azov's infirmary well enough to get the harduran, since she'd have to get into the drug vault for it.
     "I'll get you a drink too, if you pull this one off." Avilan was shaking at his side.
     "Make yourself useful and put your hands over mine." Dimitri's head was spinning so badly he knew he wasn't going to be wanting that drink when he was done, he was going to be noisily sick all over his own shoes. Knowing the future was sometimes such wonderful fun.
     "Don't count your ruined shoes until you've vomited on them." Avilan's blue eyes were dead steady as he looked into Dimitri's. Dimitri winced at the black humor, but it did get him going again.
     "Oh shen, I should have asked for some of the jarli as well." If Khristov survived, he'd have one shidoni of a headache.
     "I always have some with me." Avilan tipped a small vial out of one sleeve. "Want some."
     "I'll want all of that ... when I'm done." Either way it turns out, Dimitri told himself. Gods the transfer had felt so good, with the horrible burning ache threatening to drive both of them mad easing with pulse after pulse of pure pleasure streaming through their bodies. He could remember each frantic strike of Mitka's jaws as he worked the selyn deep into Khristov's body, inadvertently ripping the nageric representation of the core of his selyn system to tatters. If Dimitri could keep the leakage down to a minimum, and slow Khristov's selyn consumption to near child levels, the man might have a chance to heal enough of the damage to get another transfer into him and so heal fully. A normal transfer this time. Not Mitka's idea of a transfer.
     "I really didn't mean to hurt him." Mitka whined, putting his cheek over the wound he'd made. "He called me in. He wanted me. I didn't force him."
     "You did though." Dimitri shivered at how much damage Mitka had done. Together, he and Avilan were stemming the worst of the selyn loss Khristov was suffering, but it wasn't enough. If Karola didn't get back soon, they were going to loose him, no matter what Dimitri did.
&n