The click of the door and a low, rhythmic squeak like wheels in need of oiling, roused Lucian from his meditation. His eyes slid over his shoulder to find Willow pushing a cart laden with covered trays and food towards the bed.

Before he could return his focus back within, Willow interrupted.

"Dinner," he snapped. "If you want any. Not that I care one way or the other." With clinks and clatters of dishes, glasses, and other table servicings, the slave rummaged through the cart like a beggar who hadn`t eaten in weeks.

Bringing his awareness fully to the physical, a quick assessment determined he did, indeed, need nourishment. The events of earlier had made it so. If his meditation in the garden hadn't been interrupted... Well, regardless of how he acquired it, his body required fuel as much as his mind.

"Thank you,' he replied as he slowly stood.

"Wow, he speaks!" Willow sneered. "And moves. I`m amazed." The little slave dropped onto the edge of the bed with a slight bounce. Snatching a roll from the cart, he warily eyed Lucian over the rounded crust as he nibbled. "You better take what you want now, because I won't leave any for you."

Lucian replied with an unconscious nod. His eyes roamed the silver trays, evaluating the nourishment value of the food displayed; or, in the case of the sweet cakes and puffed, cream pastries, their lack.

After placing several suitable selections on a wooden plate, he knelt down to the carpet and began to eat. Each portion of food passed his lips with no more of his interest from first to last. Although the tastes changed, he took no notice. Afterall, it was what the food provided that was important, not a frivolous thing as taste.

Willow shifted on the bed, drawing a knee casually to his chest, as he licked honey off his fingers from one of the cakes smothered in it. The beginnings of a smirk curved the boy's lips.

Lucian decided to ignore the strange scrutiny. Bowing his head, he continued to eat in silence, as he usually did.

"I can't believe it!" the boy broke the silence with a sarcastic chuckle. "You even eat boring."

"It is just food," Lucian found himself replying. It wasn't the words themselves that surprised him, for they were the truth; it was that in just one day with a slave boy who couldn't stand his presence, he had spoken more than even in all his time with his much more sociable student. Perhaps the difference dwelt in Vandar's respect for his solitude which Willow did not have.

"Just food?" The slave shook his head. "Well, I guess a bastard like you wouldn't know what it's like to be beaten so badly you can't eat solid food for a month. And don't even think about food this rich!" Willow snarled slamming his plate onto the cart with a clatter of shaken trays, lids, silverware and glass. He grasped for a dark bottle and, his hands trembling, sloppily poured its deep red wine into a glass.

Lucian stared as Willow emptied his glass in one gulp. "Who... who would do such a thing to you?" he asked quietly. Again, the words came before he realized.

"Who do you think!" The slave poured himself another glass. "But the whole lot of you all want the same sick shit!"

"Me? I want nothing. I told you so."

"Yeah right," Willow sneered with a roll of his eyes. "You're all the same, just different packaging."

Lucian studied Willow, ignoring the barrier of spite blockading the pale face blushed with wine and fear. And anger, yet an anger focused on another. "That man, Vaneau. He did such things to you?" he finally stated, not really a question at all.

"Shit, why else you think I hate him so much!"

Lost in thought, Lucian dropped his gaze to his lap, watching his finger absently trace the delicate carving of a willow tree on the glazed surface of his plate. How could such brutality be allowed to continue? Wasn't the Palace supposed to be a place of pleasure? From what he understood of the useless emotion, it shouldn't include pain. Unless. Could a man find pleasure in the pain of another? And if Willow hated the one who brought such pain-pleasure, then he couldn't be willing. Could he?

"I see," Lucian whispered as he raised his eyes to the little slave swallowing another glass of wine. The boy appeared almost fragile as Lucian saw past the fierce, red glare.

"Do you?" Willow spat, then took another gulp of wine. "Do you really? How can you? How can any of you!

"I am not like that." Lucian's gaze remained steady, holding the boy's defiant eyes.

A white brow twitched. "Oh? And why not?"

"To use power to abuse, to prey on others, particularly those weaker than oneself, are the acts of a dishonorable coward. And I am neither. "

"Is that all?" The angry fire of Willow's eyes flared, but his wine-stained lips trembled from fear not anger. "Just , `you're honorable`?"

"It is all I am. What more can there be, but honor and duty?"

"Pain, torment... fear."

Lucian became silent. Willow hadn't meant to be so honest with how he felt, especially not to a master, who would use his vulnerability against him. To admit pain or fear was nearly the worst mistake he could have made. But the warm fuzziness the wine had wrapped around his mind steadily shoved him towards the edge of sense and sanity. His confusing master only compounded the danger of his tongue, yet again, plummeting him into another burst of stupidity.

Willow didn't dare speak. He merely watched his master watching him, a curious glint in his ice blue eyes. Suddenly, a golden veil shuttered those chilling eyes, chilling more out of the depth they could promise than the seriousness they usually held. The blond leapt to his feet, still graceful but cold and determined, and strode to the bath room without even a backward glance.

Damn! He practically spills his guts, reveals his secrets, open and bleeding, and the bastard just up and left. Willow wanted to be furious, to rage and rant in a colorful burst of insults. However, all he did was curl onto his side and cry.

To Willow, it seemed like hours had passed, but the coolness against his flushed cheek from the slight dampness on the black satin coverlet, told that it hadn't been even half an hour. He trembled from the faint chill and, more, from dread that his master would see him so weak. He fought back any remaining tears, and his shuddering, but his fear and his efforts were unnecessary.

Lucian emerged from the other room. As if Willow not only wasn't there, but didn't exist, he walked directly to the corner he seemed so fond of, a slender black case clutched in one hand.

Willow sat up shakily, watching Lucian roll a small woven mat before him as he knelt. The slave brushed the back of his hand across a cheek, halting the fall of another tear. He turned, grasping his empty wineglass from where it had dropped beside him on the bed, and poured himself more wine. He ignored his unsteady hands, somehow managing to refill his glass without spilling a drop.

He had been foolish to think anyone would care. Maybe Lucian didn't desire to hurt and abuse him like all his other masters had, but it didn't mean the cold beauty cared.

Turning back, his reddened eyes watched in fascination as Lucian dipped a strange brush into a vial of ink, and, with a steady hand, bled graceful black strokes onto the white paper. Willow couldn't tell from the distance between them what the marks were, if anything, but the precision and control they were placed with implied they were more than meaningless lines.

Willow's gaze roamed from the black forms on white paper to the black cloth on pale skin and the far more beautiful form it covered. The toned muscles of his master's smooth stomach rippled and tensed with his every breath. The rhythm intoxicated like the wine staining his own lips. Damn, Lucian was so beautiful it hurt; A hurt he had never known or felt before.

He took another swallow of the wine, hoping to drown the feeling crawling inside him and curling around his soul. But as it had been since Lucian entered his room, and his life, nothing went as it should or he expected it.

Willow peered shyly over the rim of his glass. A bright flush heated his cheeks, a deep pink like the traces of wine in the bottom of his glass.

"Did you mean what you said before?" he asked quietly.

"Before?" Lucian's hand continued it's even, precise strokes with the fine brush, the black ink forming on the pale parchment in elegant characters Willow had never seen before, while his other hand clenched almost imperceptively on his lap in the black folds of his pants.

"...About not owning people?"

"Of course. I would not have said it otherwise."

"But..." Willow paused, confused. "But, then why are you here? If that's what you think?"

At that, Lucian finally looked up from his calligraphy, his aqua eyes cold, expressionless, as always. "My student has a peculiar sense of humor. He probably thinks there is something here I need."

Willow swallowed. "Is there?" he asked, fearful of the answer. Almost more afraid he would say `no`. `Yes' merely meant more of the same that encompassed all the life he could remember. But 'no'...

"No. He is wrong. And that is why he is the student."

Willow's gaze dropped to his shaking hands, a strange tightness behind his eyes. `No`. Why did 'no' hurt? He could try to blame his training, that he must please his master, and he had failed. Yet he knew it wasn't the case at all.

"It's not true, you know," Willow mumbled, cheeks blushing pink as he peeked through the veil of his braids.

Lucian merely stared at him with piercing ice-blue eyes.

Tears bombarded his control, head throbbing with the thundering in his chest. Willow couldn`t bear Lucian's gaze another moment and with a unconscious shudder, focused on his hands as they nervously coiled a few white braids around his slender fingers.

Not that it would make a difference if Lucian knew, but Willow longed that it could. It was a sick sort of irony that the one master he could grow to want, maybe even withstand the suffering his existence always brought, and that master didn't want him. Didn't need him. Barely even noticed him. Perhaps his training had succeeded after all, but only in turning away the one person he could possibly want close.

Yet, why would fate, which had been so cruel before, suddenly change? If it wouldn't grant him the simplest freedoms, like wandering through the gardens or just leaving his room more than a few times in his life, why would it grant him his deepest dream? Even if he had fallen into some wonderful novel, why would someone like Lucian want someone like him? Willow was just slave trash. And Lucian was beautiful, and strong, and brave, and kind, and...

"That I hate you. It's not true."

Silence.

... a lie.

Willow sat silently in the darkness, arms curled around his legs, chin rested on his knees, watching. Watching the dim silvery light caress the golden strands sprawled across the pillow beside him. He envied the light. He ached to feel that soft gold on his fingers, brush it against his cheek. His chest tightened as he fought back the urge.

So he just continued to watch his sleeping master. Lucian seemed so innocent and somehow more human in sleep. His gentle features were softened from the icy mask of wakefulness and the result was breathtaking. A handsome prince and Sleeping Beauty in one.

Willow's chest ached even more, too weary to dream of princes or knights. Lucian may be some sort of knight, as he claimed, and may have rescued him from an evil beast, but that didn't make him his knight or his prince. And he never would be. Gentleness, kindness, ....love, were all just stories, fairy-tales, no matter how much Lucian's angelic face contradicted that truth.

But what harm was there in pretending? Lucian shifted in his sleep, a hand limply grazing Willow's ankle, the satin coverlet sliding from a strong, bare shoulder, soft lips parting in a quiet breath, and the slave's troubled heart twisted and pounded. Willow trembled, Lucian's barely open lips perfect and inviting. So inviting. He unwrapped himself and leaned forward, slowly. His heart drummed in his ears as his blood crashed in hot waves through every inch of his body.

He had to touch him, taste those lips. He could pretend, had to pretend; it was becoming more difficult to resist the want that grew with each hour, each minute, each moment with his mesmerizing master, even in spite of knowing the truth.

He bent over Lucian, not daring to breathe, his red eyes transfixed, watchful of any movement. Nothing.

Wine still faintly lingering in his mind and on his tongue, Willow pressed his lips gently to his master's. A pleasant chill shivered his skin as he savored the sweet lips beneath his. Lucian may finally beat him for this, but he didn't care. This was the closest to a real kiss he had ever been, teetering on the edge of a first kiss, for it was the first he had ever truly wanted.

Golden lashes flashed open, startled ice blue eyes shining lavender in the dim light. They stared into his with the first expression of any emotion he had seen. Shock, confusion,... fear. But Lucian remained still, frozen, his emotions swimming in his eyes. Willow whispered more passion into the kiss, soft lips wetly kneading soft lips, as he slipped a hand into the baby-soft golden hair, smooth silk caressing his fingertips.

He lost himself in the moment, in the feel of his master's flesh against his own, savoring. Regardless of the imminent punishment he knew would be certainly severe, the closeness of the touch, fleeting and hollow as it may be, Willow already found worth whatever abuse Lucian could dispense.

After what seemed like fractions of a second and eternity in one, Lucian grasped Willow by the arms and forced him away. His pale-blue eyes still perfect mirrors of the feelings rumbling inside him, Lucian was shivering. His mouth stammering, desperate to find his voice, Lucian scrambled off the bed, falling, tumbling, to the floor, even in awkwardness managing grace.

"Wh....what?" he croaked, stumbling backwards towards the door. "Why?"

"W... why?" A sharp gasp flew from his lungs as his shoulders crashed against the wall. Fumbling frantically for the doorknob, he tore it open. In a blur of gold, pale flesh, and black, he was gone. The door bounded against the wall, and swung back with a sudden click, leaving Willow alone.

Willow stared at the door, confused, a sadness tangling in his throat. Lucian had looked frightened, terrified, confused; not angry. And those eyes. Those beautiful eyes, usually so cold and emotionless, had melted into something else. So full of feeling Willow could have tasted it. But the feelings were not what he expected,... or wanted. Those eyes reminded him of....

... His own.

What had he done?

He slid to the floor, the satin coverlet slipping with him and falling across his shoulders. Snatching his teddy bear from its secret place, he crushed it to his chest, curled into a tight ball on the carpet, and cried.