Crimson part 2
Jun. 10th, 2008 07:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maculategiraffeGosh, it's hard to write somebody else's character. I don't know how you regular fanficcers do it.
Background
Part One
The next morning at breakfast, Crimson was wearing only his tunic and whatever might be under it, but he didn't even lift his eyes to the table before he sank to his knees at Holden's feet. Holden put his plate on the floor; Greta didn't look under the table to see how he was eating.
She did notice the kid, before he disappeared under the table and after he emerged, casting longing looks at Holden, which made Greta uncomfortable. Obviously the kid was desperate for affection and approval-- maybe as desperate as Bran had been when he first came here-- and it seemed to her that the last thing they needed was yet another cute kid falling in love with the master. Not that Holden was acting anywhere near as lovable with Crimson as he had with Bran, but apparently if you were desperate enough there wasn't much difference.
After Alix had left for a business meeting of some kind at Argounov's, Holden took both Crimson and Bran up to the training room, and Greta and Yves retired to the lounge, where Greta, nursing a slight headache and feeling generally out of sorts, alternately dozed and knitted lace while Yves did the accounts at Holden's desk.
Less than an hour later, Bran and Crimson came into the lounge, looking rather self-conscious, and no wonder; they were chained together, with one wrist each in a steel cuff, linked by a light steel chain short enough not to drag on the ground when they stood close together.
"The master wants you in your room," Bran told Yves, who stood up immediately, smiling indulgently at the two boys.
"Been wearing him out, haven't you?" he said to Crimson, who flashed a sudden, adorable smile up at him. "Is Bran supposed to keep you out of trouble?"
Crimson nodded, dropping his eyelids. When Yves ran a hand over his hair in passing, Crimson moaned softly and and tried to step forward to follow the touch, but Yves kept moving, and when the chain jerked Bran's wrist, Crimson stopped.
"Come on," said Bran softly, tugging the chain to pull Crimson over to the couch, and Crimson followed obediently. Bran sat down, and when Crimson gave him an imploring look, held out his arms; Crimson fairly leaped into his lap, snuggling and burrowing against Bran's shoulder as if he'd been freezing to death and needed the other boy's body heat to live.
Greta caught Bran's eye, more or less by accident, and he gave her a humorous, rather long-suffering smile that made him look older than she was used to thinking of him as being.
"Hey," she said, her curiosity getting the better of her instinct not to meddle in Holden's affairs. "So the chain..."
"It's just a reminder," said Bran matter-of-factly.
Crimson looked up eagerly, his cheeks pink now as if he'd had a long draught of something warming, and smiled brilliantly at her.
"I'm being good," he told her. It was the first time she'd heard him speak; his voice had a sweet timbre that emphasized his youth.
Bran grinned too, the grin that melted everyone despite themselves, Greta being no exception.
"He's being very good," he agreed. "For a whole five minutes now."
"If you keep cuddling me, I'll be good forever," Crimson offered, and Bran laughed.
"So all you need to be good is to have someone there to cuddle you every second?" he asked.
"Well, no," said Crimson frankly. "I mean, that would be nice, but I still probably couldn't be good."
"Why can't you be good?" Bran asked, lifting his unchained hand to stroke Crimson's hair back from his face.
"I dunno," Crimson said vaguely, wiggling around in Bran's lap; as he squirmed, he got what would probably be best described as a diabolical grin on his face, and started to squirm in a much more methodical and focused way.
"Hey!" said Bran sharply, pushing Crimson off his lap, hard.
"What?" Crimson, displaced, managed to look piteous and indignant at the same time. "The master said we could!"
"He said we could if you didn't start acting up."
"I wasn't acting up!"
"You heard what he said, Crimson," said Bran, shaking his head. "No sex play. Just cuddling."
"So I was cuddling your hard-on with my ass," said Crimson sulkily, and Greta, taken by surprise, let out an unladylike snort of laughter. Crimson looked up at her, grinning angelically, before turning back to Bran.
"I'm a sex slave," he argued. "I'm supposed to do things like that."
"Not without the master's permission, you're not," said Bran firmly.
Crimson sighed. "But it's the only thing I'm good at."
"That's what he's trying to fix," Bran explained, stroking Crimson's hair. "It's okay, Crimson. I had a lot of learning to do when I first came here, too."
"What learning did you have to do?" Crimson asked curiously. "I mean, you're pretty much the best boy ever. You're better than Sasha."
Bran smiled as he shook his head. "No I'm not. I'm a runaway."
"You ran away?" Crimson sat up, suddenly appearing to lose all interest in Bran's lap. "From him? What did he do to you?" He sounded somewhat awed, whether at Bran's daring or-- perhaps, considering Holden's treatment of Crimson himself so far-- the fact that Bran was still alive.
"From here, and from two other masters before I got sold here," said Bran. "And I'd rather not talk about it. What did Lord Durnovo do to you when you ran away?"
"I didn't run away," said Crimson immediately, scowling; it was obviously a sore point. "I came back, didn't I? But he spanked me anyway."
Bran shook his head. "He spanked you, huh? Poor baby."
"Don't make fun of me," said Crimson, and Greta startled; his odd reddish eyes had narrowed, his voice was strained, and he was rubbing at his cuffed wrist, violently but absently, as if it itched. "Just because-- just because--"
"Crimson," said Bran, clearly and firmly, tugging at the chain, "remember what he said would happen if you had a temper tantrum while we were chained together?"
Crimson focused on Bran, and sat still looking at him for a moment before he dropped his arms into his lap as if he were sick of them and slumped, the same defeated slump he'd had when Holden had first brought him home.
"It's not fair," he said after a moment, and then, "Sorry."
"It's okay," said Bran, putting his hand on Crimson's back. "See, you are a good boy. You just have to remember to behave. You'll get better at it."
"What's the point?" said Crimson to his knees.
Bran stroked his back. "The point is that if you behave, you get to enjoy yourself, and if you don't, you get hurt. Seems pretty simple to me."
"Like hell," said Crimson. "Masters don't have to have a reason to hurt you."
Though he spoke simply and without self-pity, Greta suddenly felt a little like crying.
"I know," said Bran quietly. "I belonged to a couple of those. But not all of them are like that. Lord Durnovo didn't hurt you except when you acted up, did he?"
"No," said Crimson. "He cuddled me." The rancor in the word was so incongruous Greta had to try not to laugh before Crimson added, "And then he sold me. So whatever."
The attempt at toughness in his voice made him sound even younger than the sweetness had. Greta wanted to cuddle him, but she was also beginning to see what Jer meant about kittens and the unpredictability of their claws.
"Well, my master isn't going to sell you until he's satisfied with your behavior," said Bran, slapping Crimson gently on the back and making Crimson squeak slightly and collapse towards Bran, dropping his head and shoulders into Bran's lap.
"And then he will," he said against Bran's thigh. "Can't win for losing, can I?"
Bran slid a hand through Crimson's russet hair. Crimson stared at nothing, his eyes open and fixed in an expressionless face.
"What's he doing with Yves?" he asked after a moment.
"I don't know," said Bran.
Greta thought maybe she knew. Crimson seemed like a fairly stressful sort of delinquent, and Holden's favorite place to put excess physical frustration was Yves' back. Poor Yves.
Greta was feeling some excess physical frustration in her own back, a familiar stiffness and tension; she had always held stress and anxiety between her shoulder blades, though it was getting worse now that she was getting older. She shifted and rolled her head from side to side on her neck, pulling her shoulders back and wincing at the faint crackling sound.
"May I rub your back for you, Greta?" Bran asked shyly, and Greta looked up and smiled at him. Sometimes it was easy enough to see why Holden hadn't been able to let him go.
"Would you?" she asked.
Bran put a hand on the couch next to him, and Greta came to sit down with her back to him; Bran lifted his hands, the chain apparently long enough for that, and started massaging her shoulders and neck as Greta groaned quietly with pleasure.
"Greta?" said Crimson suddenly, and Greta made a vaguely interrogative "mmm?" of acknowledgement without turning around, Bran's strong thumbs kneading and digging into the knots above the points of her collarbone and releasing her tension in little crackling bursts of warmth. "You don't like the master much, do you?"
Greta stiffened again, and Bran's hands paused, then started working again, more gently and tentatively.
"I like him fine," she said shortly, thinking, Shit. It really wasn't a good thing if such a casual observer was able to read her responses so easily. Holden wasn't an idiot; he'd figured out that she was pregnant before Alix had, after all.
"Relax, Greta," Bran whispered, and Greta tried, taking deep breaths, but she was afraid, and angry at herself for being afraid-- as if she hadn't had long enough to get over her fear of Holden, as if he were still the enemy, after-- everything. And he wasn't her enemy; he hadn't been since-- well, since before Valor. Holden had tended her as carefully as Alix had through the pregnancy, rubbed her belly with cocoa butter and made sure she took vitamins and ate balanced meals, held her hand and counted with her through the birth pains, and had never lifted a hand or spoken harshly to her since then. There wasn't much more a girl could really ask, especially a girl who didn't particularly want to have the signs of Holden's especial favor inflicted on her.
Why was the way Holden was treating Crimson getting to her so badly, anyway? Crimson was cute and sweet, but he was obviously trouble-- he admitted it himself-- and it wasn't as if he acted particularly broken or terrified. Alix was right; if Holden was being particularly harsh with him, he probably needed it.
Bran's careful fingers were working out the kinks and knots in her back, and she was starting to relax a little more, when Holden walked in and she tensed so hard that Bran's hands jumped away in surprise. Crimson sat up.
"Everything okay?" Holden asked curiously, and Bran answered, "Yes, master. Crimson's being very good."
"Good," said Holden. "And aren't you the sweet one, giving Greta a backrub." He sat down on Crimson's other side; Crimson was sitting very still, not meeting his master's eyes.
"If I let you sit in my lap," Holden said to Crimson, not ungently, "can you stay still?"
"Yes, master," said Crimson quietly.
"If you start squirming, you know what happens."
"Yes, master," Crimson repeated.
Holden reached out and hauled Crimson into his lap, and Crimson went absolutely limp, draped against Holden with his eyes half closed and a blissful little grin on his face. Holden smiled indulgently, cuddling the languid young body closer.
"Cute," he told Crimson. "Very cute. You're good at being cute, aren't you?"
"Yes, master," said Crimson placidly, without moving.
"Good skill to have," said Holden. "Not good for it to be your only one. But don't worry, we'll get you some more."
He looked up and met Greta's gaze, too suddenly for her to school her features, and his black brows shot up. Greta dropped her gaze and laced her fingers tightly together in her lap to stop them from shaking.
"Everything okay?" Holden asked her rather pointedly, and she murmured, "Yes, master."
He wasn't fooled, she knew, although he wasn't going to push it. Shit. The nightmare of her life when her master had loathed her pushed in on her: the edge of terror that had never gone away, even with her mistress' protection; the fear of being left alone by her mistress, the fear that today would be the day Holden's dislike of her would overcome his love for Alix; the attempts to submit calmly to his controlled embraces, to his cock pumping inside her as if he were hammering in a sign: Property of Holden Larssen.
And wasn't thinking about this just the absolute smartest thing she could do to make sure the peace was kept between them.
"Master?" said Crimson, and Greta had a moment of sheer panic, convinced he was going to follow it up with, "Greta doesn't like you, does she?"
"Yeah, kid."
"I like being chained to Bran," Crimson said pensively. "It's like being chained up all over."
"Good," said Holden, pulling Crimson back and cupping his face with a slim-fingered hand. "And why is it like that?"
"I dunno," said Crimson, and squirmed restlessly closer, then froze, staring up at Holden with enormous, frightened eyes.
"Good boy, for remembering so quickly," said Holden softly, tracing the line of Crimson's tensed jaw with a finger. "But not quite good enough."
He produced a key from a breast pocket and unlocked the manacle from around Bran's wrist, then relocked it around his own. Crimson, flushed and glassy-eyed, meekly stood up and backed away to let his master rise, as well.
Holden glanced up at Greta again, but she was ready this time, with a placid, impartial smile that she hoped completely concealed the complicated boil of her emotions. Anyway, Holden didn't raise an eyebrow at her before he turned away and led Crimson by the chained hand out of the room.
Bran put a tentative hand at the back of her neck again, and she smiled at him, which he took as a cue to resume his rubbing, but Greta was almost too perturbed to enjoy it. She would have liked to say something to Bran about what had just happened, but she already knew what he'd say, and it wasn't what she wanted to hear.
If she could just talk to someone.
When Alix came home, obviously tired out, Greta maneuvered her upstairs to the master bedroom, massaged her carefully till her shoulders were relaxed and her face tranquil, and then crawled to her mistress' feet, rubbing them and her ankles and calves and pressing soft kisses to them until Alix said gently, "Darling, do you have a favor you need to ask?"
Greta nodded without raising her eyes to her mistress' face.
"Yes, mistress," she said. "I'd like to see Kai."
Background
Part One
The next morning at breakfast, Crimson was wearing only his tunic and whatever might be under it, but he didn't even lift his eyes to the table before he sank to his knees at Holden's feet. Holden put his plate on the floor; Greta didn't look under the table to see how he was eating.
She did notice the kid, before he disappeared under the table and after he emerged, casting longing looks at Holden, which made Greta uncomfortable. Obviously the kid was desperate for affection and approval-- maybe as desperate as Bran had been when he first came here-- and it seemed to her that the last thing they needed was yet another cute kid falling in love with the master. Not that Holden was acting anywhere near as lovable with Crimson as he had with Bran, but apparently if you were desperate enough there wasn't much difference.
After Alix had left for a business meeting of some kind at Argounov's, Holden took both Crimson and Bran up to the training room, and Greta and Yves retired to the lounge, where Greta, nursing a slight headache and feeling generally out of sorts, alternately dozed and knitted lace while Yves did the accounts at Holden's desk.
Less than an hour later, Bran and Crimson came into the lounge, looking rather self-conscious, and no wonder; they were chained together, with one wrist each in a steel cuff, linked by a light steel chain short enough not to drag on the ground when they stood close together.
"The master wants you in your room," Bran told Yves, who stood up immediately, smiling indulgently at the two boys.
"Been wearing him out, haven't you?" he said to Crimson, who flashed a sudden, adorable smile up at him. "Is Bran supposed to keep you out of trouble?"
Crimson nodded, dropping his eyelids. When Yves ran a hand over his hair in passing, Crimson moaned softly and and tried to step forward to follow the touch, but Yves kept moving, and when the chain jerked Bran's wrist, Crimson stopped.
"Come on," said Bran softly, tugging the chain to pull Crimson over to the couch, and Crimson followed obediently. Bran sat down, and when Crimson gave him an imploring look, held out his arms; Crimson fairly leaped into his lap, snuggling and burrowing against Bran's shoulder as if he'd been freezing to death and needed the other boy's body heat to live.
Greta caught Bran's eye, more or less by accident, and he gave her a humorous, rather long-suffering smile that made him look older than she was used to thinking of him as being.
"Hey," she said, her curiosity getting the better of her instinct not to meddle in Holden's affairs. "So the chain..."
"It's just a reminder," said Bran matter-of-factly.
Crimson looked up eagerly, his cheeks pink now as if he'd had a long draught of something warming, and smiled brilliantly at her.
"I'm being good," he told her. It was the first time she'd heard him speak; his voice had a sweet timbre that emphasized his youth.
Bran grinned too, the grin that melted everyone despite themselves, Greta being no exception.
"He's being very good," he agreed. "For a whole five minutes now."
"If you keep cuddling me, I'll be good forever," Crimson offered, and Bran laughed.
"So all you need to be good is to have someone there to cuddle you every second?" he asked.
"Well, no," said Crimson frankly. "I mean, that would be nice, but I still probably couldn't be good."
"Why can't you be good?" Bran asked, lifting his unchained hand to stroke Crimson's hair back from his face.
"I dunno," Crimson said vaguely, wiggling around in Bran's lap; as he squirmed, he got what would probably be best described as a diabolical grin on his face, and started to squirm in a much more methodical and focused way.
"Hey!" said Bran sharply, pushing Crimson off his lap, hard.
"What?" Crimson, displaced, managed to look piteous and indignant at the same time. "The master said we could!"
"He said we could if you didn't start acting up."
"I wasn't acting up!"
"You heard what he said, Crimson," said Bran, shaking his head. "No sex play. Just cuddling."
"So I was cuddling your hard-on with my ass," said Crimson sulkily, and Greta, taken by surprise, let out an unladylike snort of laughter. Crimson looked up at her, grinning angelically, before turning back to Bran.
"I'm a sex slave," he argued. "I'm supposed to do things like that."
"Not without the master's permission, you're not," said Bran firmly.
Crimson sighed. "But it's the only thing I'm good at."
"That's what he's trying to fix," Bran explained, stroking Crimson's hair. "It's okay, Crimson. I had a lot of learning to do when I first came here, too."
"What learning did you have to do?" Crimson asked curiously. "I mean, you're pretty much the best boy ever. You're better than Sasha."
Bran smiled as he shook his head. "No I'm not. I'm a runaway."
"You ran away?" Crimson sat up, suddenly appearing to lose all interest in Bran's lap. "From him? What did he do to you?" He sounded somewhat awed, whether at Bran's daring or-- perhaps, considering Holden's treatment of Crimson himself so far-- the fact that Bran was still alive.
"From here, and from two other masters before I got sold here," said Bran. "And I'd rather not talk about it. What did Lord Durnovo do to you when you ran away?"
"I didn't run away," said Crimson immediately, scowling; it was obviously a sore point. "I came back, didn't I? But he spanked me anyway."
Bran shook his head. "He spanked you, huh? Poor baby."
"Don't make fun of me," said Crimson, and Greta startled; his odd reddish eyes had narrowed, his voice was strained, and he was rubbing at his cuffed wrist, violently but absently, as if it itched. "Just because-- just because--"
"Crimson," said Bran, clearly and firmly, tugging at the chain, "remember what he said would happen if you had a temper tantrum while we were chained together?"
Crimson focused on Bran, and sat still looking at him for a moment before he dropped his arms into his lap as if he were sick of them and slumped, the same defeated slump he'd had when Holden had first brought him home.
"It's not fair," he said after a moment, and then, "Sorry."
"It's okay," said Bran, putting his hand on Crimson's back. "See, you are a good boy. You just have to remember to behave. You'll get better at it."
"What's the point?" said Crimson to his knees.
Bran stroked his back. "The point is that if you behave, you get to enjoy yourself, and if you don't, you get hurt. Seems pretty simple to me."
"Like hell," said Crimson. "Masters don't have to have a reason to hurt you."
Though he spoke simply and without self-pity, Greta suddenly felt a little like crying.
"I know," said Bran quietly. "I belonged to a couple of those. But not all of them are like that. Lord Durnovo didn't hurt you except when you acted up, did he?"
"No," said Crimson. "He cuddled me." The rancor in the word was so incongruous Greta had to try not to laugh before Crimson added, "And then he sold me. So whatever."
The attempt at toughness in his voice made him sound even younger than the sweetness had. Greta wanted to cuddle him, but she was also beginning to see what Jer meant about kittens and the unpredictability of their claws.
"Well, my master isn't going to sell you until he's satisfied with your behavior," said Bran, slapping Crimson gently on the back and making Crimson squeak slightly and collapse towards Bran, dropping his head and shoulders into Bran's lap.
"And then he will," he said against Bran's thigh. "Can't win for losing, can I?"
Bran slid a hand through Crimson's russet hair. Crimson stared at nothing, his eyes open and fixed in an expressionless face.
"What's he doing with Yves?" he asked after a moment.
"I don't know," said Bran.
Greta thought maybe she knew. Crimson seemed like a fairly stressful sort of delinquent, and Holden's favorite place to put excess physical frustration was Yves' back. Poor Yves.
Greta was feeling some excess physical frustration in her own back, a familiar stiffness and tension; she had always held stress and anxiety between her shoulder blades, though it was getting worse now that she was getting older. She shifted and rolled her head from side to side on her neck, pulling her shoulders back and wincing at the faint crackling sound.
"May I rub your back for you, Greta?" Bran asked shyly, and Greta looked up and smiled at him. Sometimes it was easy enough to see why Holden hadn't been able to let him go.
"Would you?" she asked.
Bran put a hand on the couch next to him, and Greta came to sit down with her back to him; Bran lifted his hands, the chain apparently long enough for that, and started massaging her shoulders and neck as Greta groaned quietly with pleasure.
"Greta?" said Crimson suddenly, and Greta made a vaguely interrogative "mmm?" of acknowledgement without turning around, Bran's strong thumbs kneading and digging into the knots above the points of her collarbone and releasing her tension in little crackling bursts of warmth. "You don't like the master much, do you?"
Greta stiffened again, and Bran's hands paused, then started working again, more gently and tentatively.
"I like him fine," she said shortly, thinking, Shit. It really wasn't a good thing if such a casual observer was able to read her responses so easily. Holden wasn't an idiot; he'd figured out that she was pregnant before Alix had, after all.
"Relax, Greta," Bran whispered, and Greta tried, taking deep breaths, but she was afraid, and angry at herself for being afraid-- as if she hadn't had long enough to get over her fear of Holden, as if he were still the enemy, after-- everything. And he wasn't her enemy; he hadn't been since-- well, since before Valor. Holden had tended her as carefully as Alix had through the pregnancy, rubbed her belly with cocoa butter and made sure she took vitamins and ate balanced meals, held her hand and counted with her through the birth pains, and had never lifted a hand or spoken harshly to her since then. There wasn't much more a girl could really ask, especially a girl who didn't particularly want to have the signs of Holden's especial favor inflicted on her.
Why was the way Holden was treating Crimson getting to her so badly, anyway? Crimson was cute and sweet, but he was obviously trouble-- he admitted it himself-- and it wasn't as if he acted particularly broken or terrified. Alix was right; if Holden was being particularly harsh with him, he probably needed it.
Bran's careful fingers were working out the kinks and knots in her back, and she was starting to relax a little more, when Holden walked in and she tensed so hard that Bran's hands jumped away in surprise. Crimson sat up.
"Everything okay?" Holden asked curiously, and Bran answered, "Yes, master. Crimson's being very good."
"Good," said Holden. "And aren't you the sweet one, giving Greta a backrub." He sat down on Crimson's other side; Crimson was sitting very still, not meeting his master's eyes.
"If I let you sit in my lap," Holden said to Crimson, not ungently, "can you stay still?"
"Yes, master," said Crimson quietly.
"If you start squirming, you know what happens."
"Yes, master," Crimson repeated.
Holden reached out and hauled Crimson into his lap, and Crimson went absolutely limp, draped against Holden with his eyes half closed and a blissful little grin on his face. Holden smiled indulgently, cuddling the languid young body closer.
"Cute," he told Crimson. "Very cute. You're good at being cute, aren't you?"
"Yes, master," said Crimson placidly, without moving.
"Good skill to have," said Holden. "Not good for it to be your only one. But don't worry, we'll get you some more."
He looked up and met Greta's gaze, too suddenly for her to school her features, and his black brows shot up. Greta dropped her gaze and laced her fingers tightly together in her lap to stop them from shaking.
"Everything okay?" Holden asked her rather pointedly, and she murmured, "Yes, master."
He wasn't fooled, she knew, although he wasn't going to push it. Shit. The nightmare of her life when her master had loathed her pushed in on her: the edge of terror that had never gone away, even with her mistress' protection; the fear of being left alone by her mistress, the fear that today would be the day Holden's dislike of her would overcome his love for Alix; the attempts to submit calmly to his controlled embraces, to his cock pumping inside her as if he were hammering in a sign: Property of Holden Larssen.
And wasn't thinking about this just the absolute smartest thing she could do to make sure the peace was kept between them.
"Master?" said Crimson, and Greta had a moment of sheer panic, convinced he was going to follow it up with, "Greta doesn't like you, does she?"
"Yeah, kid."
"I like being chained to Bran," Crimson said pensively. "It's like being chained up all over."
"Good," said Holden, pulling Crimson back and cupping his face with a slim-fingered hand. "And why is it like that?"
"I dunno," said Crimson, and squirmed restlessly closer, then froze, staring up at Holden with enormous, frightened eyes.
"Good boy, for remembering so quickly," said Holden softly, tracing the line of Crimson's tensed jaw with a finger. "But not quite good enough."
He produced a key from a breast pocket and unlocked the manacle from around Bran's wrist, then relocked it around his own. Crimson, flushed and glassy-eyed, meekly stood up and backed away to let his master rise, as well.
Holden glanced up at Greta again, but she was ready this time, with a placid, impartial smile that she hoped completely concealed the complicated boil of her emotions. Anyway, Holden didn't raise an eyebrow at her before he turned away and led Crimson by the chained hand out of the room.
Bran put a tentative hand at the back of her neck again, and she smiled at him, which he took as a cue to resume his rubbing, but Greta was almost too perturbed to enjoy it. She would have liked to say something to Bran about what had just happened, but she already knew what he'd say, and it wasn't what she wanted to hear.
If she could just talk to someone.
When Alix came home, obviously tired out, Greta maneuvered her upstairs to the master bedroom, massaged her carefully till her shoulders were relaxed and her face tranquil, and then crawled to her mistress' feet, rubbing them and her ankles and calves and pressing soft kisses to them until Alix said gently, "Darling, do you have a favor you need to ask?"
Greta nodded without raising her eyes to her mistress' face.
"Yes, mistress," she said. "I'd like to see Kai."
