Claimed by the Twin Kings

There was a deafening silence in the room, which was oppressed with the odour of old money and powder. It was not the quiet of a deserted library, but it was the suspension of a breath before the firing of a gun. Elara roused herself slowly, her mind struggling slowly out of the syrupy depths of a drug-induced sleep. She had not felt pain, but her body had ached with a dull and throbbing beat. The texture under her cheek was silk, cold, greasy, unbelievably costly. She woke up with a blinking against the low, diffuse light that was coming through the sheer, floor-to-ceiling curtains. She was lounging on a small boat of a chaise lounge, which was draped in ivory velvet. Her ceiling was a fresco of naked nymphs and blue sky, and was surrounded by gold ornamentation. It was beautiful. It was grotesque. She sat herself up, the fabric slipping down her naked shoulders. She wore a gown of which she was not aware, a sheer white, which seemed to adhere to her body as a second lining to her flesh. Panic was burning, stinging, flashing, but down she pushed it, bile that chokes the throat. Panic was for the victims. Elara Volkow no, Elara Kincaide, she, herself, desperately thought was a survivor. She stood with her legs a little tremulous. It was a prison-room, though of gold. The windows had no bars and as she rushed to the glass and peeped out her stomach sank. She was elevated, indeed impossibly elevated, standing on the verge of a precipice that looked over a foaming, grey sea. Beyond, ragged masses crashed on the wave. The only way out was the door. The door was heavy, in double oak, cut in with snarling wolves. As the handle turned she turned around. A clicking like a c*****g revolver sounded in the mechanism. The door did not creak, it swung, move, and opened with oiled smoothness. A man stepped in. The room air appeared to cool by ten degrees. He was long and filled the doorway with something that was not human but rather a force of nature. His suit, which certainly cost more than her father's, was cut to fit broad shoulders and a slim waist. He was jet black, with his hair swept back most sternly, and his eyes, dear God, his eyes, were pale blue, without an atom of warmth, and tallied her value in milliseconds. Damian. She had heard of him in the news photographs, in the dossier her father had buried under the floorboard. The Strategist. The cold prince of the west wing. "You’re awake," he said. His voice was deep, rumbling over gravel. He didn't smile. He didn't blink. Elara supported herself until her knees touched the chaise lounge. "Where am I?" "Home." Damian continued to enter the room, the sound of his well-polished leather shoes playing time. He was holding a silver tray in one hand. It was covered with a teacup and a small plate of fruit. "Or, it will be. Eventually." I want to go, I do hate the tremble of my voice, she said. Damian halted at the base of the lounge. He gently placed the tray on a low table that was low and his movements were accurate and practiced. "That isn't an option. You know why you’re here, Elara. Your father owed a debt. A debt he couldn't pay in cash. He paid it with blood, and now he pays it with assets. "I am not an asset." A ghost of a smirk had been touching him about the lips, but it never went all the way to his eyes. It was a dreadful expression. "Aren't you?" He circled the table, reducing the gap between them. He had not touched her, yet he did not need to do it. The warmth that emanated from his body was stifling. His fingers were almost touching her face. She shuddered, but she stood her ground. He stroked a strand of her hair behind her ear. His fingers were cold. You are the gate-key of the city, little bird. The East wants you dead. The West desires you to be controlled. And I..." He bent over, and she smelled of his scent, sandalwood and gun oil. "I intend to keep you." He walked back and brushed her off like she was a piece of furniture that he had moved about. "Eat. The tea is chamomile. It will assist in the residual impacts of the tranquilizer. "I'm not hungry." I did not want to know what you were, I said, turning my back on her. "I gave you an order. We are not savages in the West Wing, Elara. We have rules. We have structure. You will know how to love the order. "I won't be a pet," she spat. Damian looked over his shoulder and profiled his high, aristocratic nose. "We shall see. Remember always that it is better to have a devil that you know than one in the East. Thus warning mysteriously, he went. The door closed, and the lock was locking itself. Like her heart against her ribs, Elara gazed at the wood. She looked at the tea. She looked at the window. She was locked in a house with a monster talking in riddles and dressed in Armani. Then there was a sound which broke the silence. It was on the opposite side of the room, some thudding at the glass, and then the very special sound of a lock being picked with a metal instrument. Her head turned toward the door onto the balcony. The curtains were blowing in the wind, and the doors were open. With a grunt, a man fell through, onto the plush rug. He was the complete opposite of Damian. Where Damian was clean, this man was anarchy. His white shirt was already open halfway down his chest, and a tattoo of a skull appeared that appeared to be smiling at her. his sleeves bare, and with his forearms bound up with muscle, smeared with... fresh blood. He leaped to his feet with a smiling face and wiped the back of his hand on his cheek, smearing it over his skin. "Kael," she whispered. "The one and only, sweetheart." He walked swaggeringly forward, smelling of whiskey, cigarettes, and adrenaline. His eyes were nearly black and feverishly glowing. "Did I miss the ice prince? Did he bore you to death yet?" He was in her space in a second, too near, in her personal space, and he did so with such a nonchalant lack of respect that it was nearly breathtaking. He caught hold of her wrist, and his hold was coarse and burning and jealous. This was not cold like the touch of Damian. You are bleeding, she said waveringly. Occupational hazard, Kael laughed a low, rasping sound. The way he looked her up and down, his eyes lingering on the sheer white dress and sliding over her curves more like a physical action. "He dressed you like a ghost. Boring. You should be ruined as you do. Elara jerked back her wrist, but was held by him, drawing her in. Under the perfume, she could trace the copper scent of blood. "Let go of me." Make me, he said, trying his face close to her. I would bet you are fire under all that ice. My brother is a playful person. Control. Strategy. Boring shit." His lips brushed the tender skin of her ear, and he leaned in. "I like to break things." He got into his pocket and took out a knife. It was a switchblade, battered and scratched. Elara’s breath hitched. The fear made Kael grin, and with a practiced flick, he opened the blade. But he didn't hurt her. He caught the end of her dress and cut a straight cut along the side, and the cloth separated. There, he said to himself, looking at the bareness of her thigh. "Much better. Debow, now you are like you were in the Wolf's Den. "Kael!" The voice in the hallway, as heard by Damian, was roaring, muted by the thick door, and felt through the floorboards. Kael rolled his eyes. "Party pooper." He turned and stared at Elara, and, as though the world were coming to an end, he looked very serious, nearly desperate. "Listen to me, little bird. He desires you to be in a glass box. I want to set you free. But it is a dangerous thing, Elara, freedom. You might get burned." The handle of the door was rattling. "I have to go," Kael whispered. He pressed his wet and hot kiss to her palm and caused his blood to stain her skin. "Keep the knife. Just in case you get lonely." He thrust the handle of the switchblade in her hand and ran out to the balcony. Leaping wildly, he ran over the railing down into the mist, before the oak doors were thrown open. Damian walked in with his mask of frozen rage. He looked around, his eyes falling on the open doors to the balcony, the curtains fluttering in the wind, and lastly, Elara. There she stood shaking, holding the bloody knife, her dress ripped to the hips, and her heart racing like a scramble. Damian scowled, and his eyes fixed on the knife that she was holding. Then slowly his eyes moved towards the smear of blood on her palm, the blood left there by Kael. He made a step toward her, and the air in the room had become glacial. He didn't ask what happened. He didn't need to. So, said Damian, in his deathly quiet, which was horrifyingly soft. The mongrel has already been branded. He rolled up his jacket and took a gun. He did not aim it at her, but at the floor, in which he casually held his finger on the trigger. Put off the knife, Elara, put off, he said, and never took his eyes off her. "Dinner is in ten minutes. And you think you can sit between us to-night smelling like him... You have no idea what to expect. He walked out, turning his back and leaving the door open. The knife in her hand felt hot. Elara looked at it. She gazed at the open door to the West and the open balcony to the East. She was caught in the middle of two storms, and her first thought was that it was not the danger. It was that somewhere in her tiny little body, a little bit was not desirous of running. She used the knife even more firmly and cut into her palm, and trailed Damian into the dark.