Wesley tensed as his father came up to her, a new look in his eyes.

“That was the damnedest thing I ever saw in my life,” he said, glancing between Nora and Bastinado.

“I hope he’ll be okay.” Nora slowly met the older man’s eyes.

“I suppose I should say thank-you.” Wesley’s father held out his hand to shake. Nora only looked at it before giving him a slight and dangerous smile.

“At least now you know that when I have to…I can be very serious.”

NORTH

The Past

Kingsley wouldn’t believe it until he saw her. Over a year had passed since he’d seen his sister, since their grandparents had wrenched him from Marie-Laure’s grasp at their parents’ funeral. How had Søren done it…arranged for her to come all this way to see him? Søren claimed to have money, and from what Kingsley had heard, that claim was something of an understatement. Søren’s father had married money, then taken the family fortune and with ruthless business acumen trebled it in twenty years.

Money was the least of Søren’s allure for Kingsley. Had he been poor as a church mouse, Kingsley still would have slept at his feet, kissed his hands and crawled on command across burning coals if Søren asked that of him.

It wasn’t the cost of bringing Marie-Laure to visit him that engendered such disbelief in Kingsley. During their nights together, when Kingsley knelt at Søren’s feet or lay beneath him or submitted to his discipline, Søren always told him how little he mattered, how little he was worth. Kingsley knew he was nothing but a body to Søren, a body to be used and abused and discarded when he’d had his fill. So why…why would Søren do this kindness for him?

It made no sense.

And yet…

A black car wove its careful way down the one road that led from the narrow highway to the school. Kingsley stood alone in the bitter December air, waiting for its arrival. Søren had played a thousand terrible mind games with him since their first night together at the hermitage. Some days Søren would refuse to acknowledge his existence. Kingsley would speak to him and Søren would carry on with whatever he was doing as if Kingsley were some kind of ghost trying and failing to connect with the living. Other days Søren would watch his every move, watch and criticize. Kingsley’s shoes would have to be retied, his homework rewritten in a neater hand, his clothes changed for no reason other than Søren ordered it of him. Once, at the hermitage, Søren had told Kingsley that he no longer wished to continue this game together, that he’d tired of it, tired of him. Kingsley had dropped to his knees in dismay and pleaded with Søren to give him another night, another chance. Tears lined the corner of Kingsley’s eyes until he’d noticed the subtlest of smiles playing at the corner of Søren’s lips. In fury, he had come to his feet and thrown a punch at Søren. Søren had caught it with shocking strength and deftness.

“Temper, Kingsley,” he had whispered as Kingsley had struggled to wrest himself from that iron grip.

“I hate you.” Kingsley said the words in English. They were too ugly for French.

“I know. I know you hate me. But I don’t hate you. Hate is far too strong a word to describe what I feel for you.”

“Why…why do you do this to me?”

At that Søren had released his hand. Kingsley rushed at him again and Søren had kicked him hard in the thigh and sent him sprawling across the floor. He’d started to stand, unwilling to give up the fight even though he knew how useless the struggle was. But Søren straddled him at the knees and pushed him back to the floor. Digging his hands into Kingsley’s hair, Søren held him immobile against the cold hardwood.

“I do it for one reason and one reason only…” Søren hissed into his ear. Kingsley’s body tensed with fury and the far more unwelcome rush of desire that he could never defeat when Søren touched him. “I enjoy it as much as you do.”

And that night, as Søren beat him and f**ked him over and over again, he had done so in complete silence, even as Kingsley begged for the grace of a single word. Only at dawn had Søren spoken to him again, and then only one word.

Goodbye.

So it wouldn’t have surprised Kingsley at all if the promise of a visit from his sister had been nothing but an elaborate ruse on Søren’s behalf. Somewhere in one of the buildings, Søren stood at a window watching the scene unfold, Kingsley was certain. The car would pull up in front of Kingsley and stop, and someone—a priest, a nun, a rabbi for all Kingsley knew—would get out and look at him in surprise. And no Marie-Laure. Why he even bothered going through with the charade was beyond him. But Søren had arranged this joke and Kingsley would do anything for Søren—even debase himself by standing in the freezing cold and waiting an hour for his sister, who would never come.

The car drew nearer and nearer. Kingsley dug his hands deeper in his pockets. Glancing around, he saw faces at the windows of the classroom building, the offices, the library…his classmates, all waiting in the warmth and comfort indoors, watching him. He tried to prepare himself for the humiliation he’d feel when Marie-Laure’s visit was revealed to be nothing more than a mind game of Søren’s. Søren...Kingsley saw the face of the pianist he’d come to hate as much as love waiting in the uppermost room of the classroom building. Kingsley exhaled and wrenched his eyes from Søren’s perfect face and back to the car. It had slowed almost to a stop. But it hadn’t stopped. Not yet. And still the passenger door started to open and two small feet in black shoes with ribbons that laced around the ankles appeared.