Ви Корс - The Mist and the Lightning. Part 17

And Kors, swallowing the mockery, silently took the sheet.

22

Free will

Kors, Nikto and Arel settled together in the luxurious apartments of the Rainbow Palace.

They now had a huge living room, dining room, several bedrooms and bathrooms. However, Kors was accustomed to luxury, and Nikto and Arel seemed indifferent to everything. They perceived the objects around them exclusively from a functional point of view, without paying any attention to aesthetics.

“Nik, eat,” said Kors and pushed the plate towards him. They were sitting at a set table, and Nik was still sleepy, because Kors woke him up and pulled him out of bed, and Arel stayed to sleep.

“I don’t want to, I can’t eat a morsel in the morning.”

“It's two o'clock in the afternoon.”

“I don’t want.”

“Please. Well, please me!”

“Vitor…”

And, since Nik didn’t take the cutlery in his hands and didn’t touch the food, Kors moved his chair closer to him, and, taking a fork, pricked a piece from the plate on it, handed it to Nik:

“Open your mouth, take it.”

Nik turned away:

“I’m sick even from the very sight of this food, and don’t stick that damn fork in my face! I'm afraid of it!”

They laughed.

“Nik, I'm asking you.”

“What is it?”

“Stew with vegetables and spices of the reds. Beef. It is soft, it literally melts in your mouth. Very tasty. You need to eat meat.”

Kors put down his fork, and took a piece of meat with his hand, handed it to Nik:

“Will you take it from my hands? Well, please!”

Nik quietly, barely audible and shortly growled and doomedly allowed Kors to put a piece of meat in his mouth, swallowed it with difficulty, almost not chewing.

Kors took the following one:

“I will hand feed you, my love. But you will finally get better and gain weight.”

Nik again joylessly, but obediently took the food, took it, along with Kors’ fingers, taking them into his mouth up to the very golden rings with which his hands were humiliated. A precious ring shone on each finger, and each one was worth a fortune. Kors closed his eyes slightly and breathed deeper:

“No, no… don't distract me.”

“I don’t want more, Vitor…”

“Don't growl. The last, last piece. I promise this is the last one.”

Nik obediently took another piece from his hands.

“Well, at least something,” Kors wiped his fingers with a napkin and handed him a glass of wine, “at least you have eaten a little. I’ll feed you more in the evening.”

“Oh!”

“I can’t see how your ribs are sticking out!”

“There, as if behind them, it hurts a lot, I can't eat…”

“This is hepatitis, you need to be treated,” Kors's face showed an undisguised frustration.

He looked at his pale Nik.

“Do you still love me, Nik? Haven’t you stopped loving me?” And in Kors’ voice there was some anxiety.

“I love you very much,” Nik answered simply.

And Kors smiled, pleased:

“Really?”

“Really, Vitor, I love you very much.”

“And I love you!”

“You treat me like a child.”

“Are you unpleased?”

“I’m pleased. But I’m not a child.”

“For me, you are my child. And I am your father.”

Nik bowed down and kissed his hand, kissed the precious rings.

Kors let him do it, slightly closing his eyes in pleasure.

“Why did you tell Igmer that I am your son?”

“I didn’t have to say that?”

“It is possible, but… now others can learn about it.”

“Who? Igmer is red, whom will he tell? Why would he discuss our relationship with the blacks? He didn't attach any importance to my words.”

“Well, I don't know… Vitor, this is…”

“You don’t want to be my son?”

“I really want, and I’m yours, I have written about it on my face, no?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“But I'm worried about your reputation.”

“There is no need to worry. I wanted to, and I said it. Fox now has a father, and you too!

“I hope the black people don’t know about it.

“Blacks think that you are my lover, whom I torture and keep in slavery.”

“Yes, everything is very confusing and I don't like it. One thing falls on another, these rumors around us…”

“Eh, no one really cares, Nik. Only Zagpeace digs under us, the main thing is that Peace doesn’t learn about us, and that’s it.”

“Peace is the one who knows,” said Nik and looked at Kors very seriously, and, as it seemed to him, a little guilty.

“WHAT?!”

“He guesses, or rather, he is sure of it, but so far he keeps it to himself.”

“Who had told him ?! Unclean ones?”

Nikto shook his head.

“No, of course, the unclean ones will never say anything to people.”

“Who then?”

“He guessed it himself. We are still alike, but he is attentive. Nobody saw your Iness, but everyone sees me next to you all the time. You shouldn't have brought me to them, but I shouldn’t have listened to you and took off the mask.”

Kors covered his face with his hands.

“And he realized that you are my son, and thinks that I am fucking my own son?”

“Yes,” Nik nodded, “that’s exactly what he thinks.”

“And how does he imagine it? Does he think I'm completely finished?! That I made my own son a slave and fuck him?! Is he nuts in his fantasies?”

“He thinks that your wife Iness was your white slave, and an incomplete half-blood child from a white slave – he is like trash, not important for a true black, he believes that you don’t hold me for a man. Usually, such children are simply drowned, like kittens, after birth. And that’s why you treat me this way, even though I'm your son.”

“Tell him that you are a Demon!”

“I can’t. Zagpeace hates everything Leonardo does, all these rituals, witchcraft and appeal to Demons. He hates Demons. He won’t help us, but on the contrary will interfere. It will get worse!”

“Much worse! Oh-oh-oh, fuck! What to do?”

“Nothing!”

“It’s good for you to say so, you are poor and unfortunate, you are my victim. And I am a monster, a filthy pervert! He'll put me in jail for rituals with Leonardo, for Kamiel Varah and for incest!”

Kors walked around the room from corner to corner:

“And you were silent! You didn’t tell me anything!”

“I knew that you would start to get nervous from scratch.”

“From scratch?!”

“Nothing will happen, Zagpeace won’t do anything to you and won’t put you anywhere!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. And now he has no time for us at all, he is looking for those reds who held him captive.”

Kors shook his head.

“If I ask you not to communicate with black people, not to talk to Zagpeace anymore, if I ask you not to approach people and not talk to them, will you do it for me?”

“Yes. I promised you this even earlier.”

“And you haven’t forgotten your promise?”

“No, Vitor, I haven’t forgotten.”

“Are you with me? Tell me? Are you with me?!”

“Yes.”

“Say: “Yes, father. I promise you not to get close to people.”

“Yes, father, I promise.”

“I promise you…”

“I promise you.”

“Not to get close to people.”

“Not to get close to people.”

And Kors, in a joyful fit, hugged him:

“Just you and me, without unnecessary people, right?”

“Yes.”

Kors gently kissed him on the cheek, on his own letter, then pulled back:

“It’s almost worn out,” there was some regret in his voice, and Nikto noticed it. He took a pencil from his jacket pocket and handed it to Kors: