Tears of the Neko (9 page)

"Come on," Damien rose quickly, causing
Kayden to flinch again before he rose gracefully.

This time Damien reached his hand out slowly,
and Kayden didn't startle when the large hand curled around his
neck.

"Look at me."

****

Damien waited for the large emerald eyes to
rise to meet his. He slowly smoothed his hand over the silky locks
of the young neko, barely brushing against the sensitive ears,
carefully and soothingly. The boy was extremely skittish, he'd
realized. In just the last few minutes, he had flinched at least
three times, and it suddenly dawned on Damien that the boy expected
to be hit. He vaguely wondered what had happened to this slave to
make him so anxious.

"Kayden," he breathed softly, keeping his
voice low and even, and he could feel the boy relax into the hand
petting his head. "Look, we will be spending a lot of time together
over the next month. If you are good and behave, keep quiet and out
of my way, you have nothing to fear from me. Okay?"

The green eyes seemed to glisten as he nodded
his understanding. Damien sighed as he realized the boy wasn't
going to speak unless directly asked a question he couldn't answer
with a nod or a shake of his head. Well, at least the boy had the
quiet part down.

"Good," Damien ruffled the ebony locks and
smiled as he handed Kayden a roll. "Here, take this. You can eat on
the way to my office."

Damien had to glance back over his shoulder
to be sure the small neko was following him, he was so quiet. Once
he got to his office, he settled in his chair at his huge mahogany
desk. He grabbed his accounting book and started reconciling
figures.

He'd gotten back into his work so quickly
that he hadn't even noticed that the little black-haired neko had
settled onto his knees next to his right elbow, until he'd moved
abruptly to reach for another pencil and he saw the boy jerk in
fear.

He sighed as he cast his glance over the thin
black ears and small body holding itself as still as possible next
to him, before he resolutely decided to ignore him. Maybe if they
ignored each other, he wouldn't be totally annoyed by having
another body constantly in his office.

However, it seemed that every time Damien
moved suddenly after working quietly, the boy flinched, startling
both him and Damien, who'd nearly forgotten he was there.

The front door suddenly slammed open, causing
one of the servants to drop the silver tea tray she was carrying to
the parlor. It clattered to the floor with a loud bang.

There was a sudden hiss, and Damien felt his
knees bang against his desk as Kayden darted by them to the small
space under his desk.

"Ow! Shit!" Damien yelled, rubbing his
bruised knee.

"Why the hell wasn't I told?" he heard Roman
yell out in the hall.

"Damn it," Damien cursed again, as he rose
from his chair. "Roman! What the hell is all the noise about?" he
snapped, annoyed that his brother had startled the slave into
running into his legs.

Roman appeared in the doorway, and Damien
heard a soft hiss from under his desk.

"No one told me that your little brat was
found," he snapped. "I was still out on my horse with the dogs
searching."

"Well, I appreciate your help in searching,"
Damien said, "But you didn't need to bother yourself with that; I'm
sure the slaves and servants would have been able to find him, had
he actually run off."

"What do you mean? Where was he?"

"He was still in his room. Under the
bed."

"Hiding, huh," Roman surmised. "Not
surprising."

Damien chose to ignore his brother's comment,
as he saw Harrison run in from the parlor.

"What's wrong?" Harrison asked
breathlessly.

"Nothing's wrong. Roman was just a little
upset that he got the news about Kayden a little later than the
rest."

"Oh, I see," Harrison breathed easier. "I was
with Miss Penelope in the parlor and we heard the crash, which I
assume was our tea."

Roman grinned guiltily. "Sorry about
that."

Harrison turned to leave to go back to his
guest but stopped. "Speaking of your little gift, isn't he supposed
to be with you, according to the bet?"

Damien growled. "He is with me."

Both his brothers raised their eyebrows as
they glanced around the room, even peering behind the desk by the
window.

At his brothers' suspicious looks, Damien
sighed. "He's under the fucking desk, thanks to Roman's noise in
the hall. Nearly took off my knee trying to get there."

Both Harrison and Roman burst out into loud
hysterical laughter. When they settled enough to talk, Harrison
said, "You're just lucky there wasn't a tree nearby."

Damien's hands rose to his hips. "What's that
suppose to mean?"

"When I first brought him home, Arnett was
trying to collar him, but you apparently were shooting skeet. The
shots scared him and he ran up the tree in the slave yard,"
Harrison explained.

"Took over twenty minutes to get the little
brat down," Roman sneered disdainfully. "Then he attacked me when
we tried to collar him."

"Up a tree? Attacked you?" Damien
frowned.

But Harrison glared at Roman. "He
scratched
you when one of Damien's shots scared him," he
amended Roman's version of the story.

Damien was shaking his head and then waved
the brothers away. "You know what, I don't care. I don't have time
for this. The king's delegate will be here shortly to discuss some
things for the legislative meeting next week. Just go, both of
you."

"I could stay and help you," Roman offered.
"I'd like to keep more informed of what's going on."

"Very well, stay if you'd like," Damien
waved, then bent down to peek under his desk.

"Come on out from under there, kitten." He
waved for the little feline to dispatch itself from under the
desk.

Damien watched him slip out and kneel next to
his leg. Roman stepped closer, and Damien noticed the small
creature's ears flatten and his body leaned into Damien's leg.

His brother's eyes narrowed, as Damien sat
back in his chair. "Sit down, Roman," he ordered his brother,
"Kayden, go sit somewhere else," he waved the young neko away. "I
don't want you distracting me during my meeting."

The boy quickly surveyed the area as he rose
fluidly to his feet, finding a spot in the sunshine behind Damien's
desk in the corner. He knelt down and sat carefully on his
heels.

"You don't have to kneel all the time,
Kayden. Just sit, relax, lay down, whatever. You can sit over in
the chairs or on the couch too," Damien stated.

But the boy didn't move, except to shift his
position to sit on his bottom, pulling his knees up in front of
him. Once Damien and Roman started talking, Damien watched from the
corner of his eye as the boy's gaze shifted to the window.

Throughout his meeting and later in the
afternoon, Damien smiled as he noticed Kayden continue to shift his
position to be more comfortable, even if he kept his limbs tightly
tucked close to his body in an almost protective way. Eventually,
he was curled up against the wall, but his tail flicked lazily in
the sun.

He ducked, huddling into the ground, when the
loud shot rang out over his head. He heard the laughter of the men
around him. They always thought it funny to practice their hunting
skills by aiming at spots over the place where he and the others
were chained.

The iron collar bit into his neck as he
pulled harder to get as close to the ground as possible. When
they'd killed his parents and captured him, he'd had no idea who
they were or what was going on. He was only twelve years old and
had lived all his life in the quiet of the forest. He knew about
what his parents called 'cities', but they had never been
interested in going there.

"See if you can get him to flinch again,
Ehern," one of the men cajoled the other.

Kayden tensed, expecting the loud noise over
his head. When it didn't come, he peeked up.

The shot shattered on the post over his back,
splintering wood that rained down over his spine. He jolted in
terror and buried back into the ground.

"Haha! Did you see that, Theo?" Ehern
laughed. "I got him good."

He whimpered.

"He's more fun than the others," Theo
agreed.

"Too bad he's so little," another stated.
"Don't think we'll get much for him. We can't sell him to the mine
owners like we usually do. They won't take one that small. He'd be
dead in a week."

"Yeah, Ehern," Theo agreed, "what are we
going to do with that one? If we sell him anywhere but the mine,
they'll know we captured him, that he wasn't our property. At least
Laos at the mine keeps the ones we catch chained and silent, so no
one knows what we do."

Ehern, who appeared to be the leader of the
hunters, rose and stretched. "We keep him. We get him so trained
and submissive that he'll never be able to survive on his own.
He'll have no choice but to be begging to stay a slave."

Kayden heard the men moving around the camp,
but he didn't dare move, too afraid that another loud blast was
going to ring out near his sensitive ears.

"How do you want to take care of that old
one?" he heard Theo ask their leader. Kayden peeked briefly up to
see the two men standing nearby, indicating the two slaves tied to
the post next to his.

"Don't want the blood in camp. Feed him. The
stuff is in my tent."

Then he felt a boot kick the side of his
ribs, and his chest exploded in bruising agony.

"Eat!" one of the men growled as he put a
crust a bread and a cup of water on the ground next to him.

Kayden glanced up as the man moved on to the
next neko and human chained to the post next to his. They were both
much older than he was--the neko being at least a full grown adult.
But the human seemed even older, gray-haired and wrinkly.

The orange haired neko gave him a pitying
look, but neither of them said anything to each other with the men
nearby.

Kayden watched as the other two were fed. The
neko received the same bread and water that he did, but the human
got a bowl of what appeared to be oatmeal. Kayden frowned as to why
the human had gotten better food as the hungry man started chowing
down on it.

Kayden could smell an odd bitter scent from
the man's oatmeal and figured maybe it was something that humans
enjoyed. The orange-haired neko looked like he was about to yell at
the man, but then stopped when he'd seen the man gulp down several
bites. Kayden frowned when the other neko looked sadly at the human
before eating his own meal.

Kayden ate his own meal as the men slowly
made their way to their tents. He could finally relax a little,
knowing the men were going to sleep now.

He was half asleep when he heard a strange
gasping noise nearby. He woke to see the orange haired neko sadly
holding the older human who appeared to be having a seizure and was
convulsing erratically.

"He's been poisoned," the orange haired neko
whispered when Kayden met his gaze. "I smelt it in his
food--cyanide, I think it's called, but he'd already started to eat
it."

And Kayden remembered thinking that the man's
food smelled funny, like bitter almonds.

"But why--?" Kayden cried out, terrified.

"Shhh!" the older neko hushed him, looking
around at the tents carefully before speaking again. "He's too old
to sell to the mines. He was captured by accident with me, and they
couldn't let him go because he could tell about their illegal
operation here." He looked down at the old man. "It's probably
better this way, quicker. He wouldn't last in the mines
anyway."

Kayden whimpered as the old man stilled in
the other neko's arms. He felt his breathing increase as he started
to panic. He jumped to his feet and yanked at the chain, crying.
"No, no, no...."

"Stop," the older neko hissed at him, his
fangs showing as he tried to quiet the terrified younger neko,
glancing at the tents warily.

But it was too late. Theo stomped from his
tent, scowling at the little noisy neko who was making so much
racket.

"No! Let me go!" Kayden yelled, fearing he'd
be fed the poison as well.

"Good little slaves are QUIET!" he snapped
angrily, as he backhanded the young boy, sending him splaying
across the ground. "I'll teach you to not make any noise!"

Kayden felt himself hauled to his feet,
receiving a sad look from the older neko as he was unchained and
hauled across the camp. He was thrown across the rough wooden table
the men had sat around earlier and his arms were tied around the
table legs.

He heard the loud whistle through the air
before he felt the pain explode across his back. He screamed as the
cane landed again on his shoulders.

"Until you are silent, this is what's going
happen," Theos growled as he snapped the cane repeatedly on his
back.

Kayden fought the urge to cry out, but he
couldn't fight the agony searing across his spine, hips, and
buttocks, and continually lost the fight to be quiet.

The entire camp was awake from his screams.
And he was vaguely aware of the other men gathered around watching,
laughing. He could feel the trickle of blood down his sides,
slicking the table under him.

When he finally was able to stay silent,
mostly out of sheer exhaustion, the hunter stopped beating him with
the cane. Tears streaked down his face as he started to succumb to
the pleasant darkness of unconsciousness.

A hand grabbed him by the back of the hair,
yanking up his head. He almost cried out, but his voice was already
hoarse and gone.

"Now, do you have anything to say?" Theo
sneered.

Kayden resolutely shook his head, vowing not
to say another word.