Duck! Read online

  The bright sunlight flooding into the kitchen dazzled him. He lifted a hand to shield his eyes.

  More blood. That was the first thing he saw as he turned toward the kitchen table. More blood.

  Raynard focused on pushing the sickening scent out of his head, praying that would enable his brain to work. A bowl of blood-stained water rested on top of the pine boards. Lengths of bandage littered the well-scrubbed surface, some stained with red, others still pristine.

  A sound on the other side of the room pulled Raynard’s attention away from the carnage before him.

  Ori stepped into the kitchen from the corridor leading toward his bedroom. He obviously hadn’t heard a maniac race down the stairs. He stopped short when he saw Raynard.

  “What the hell did you do?”

  Ori’s eyes opened very wide, but Raynard couldn’t have kept the words serene if his life had depended on it.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Ori whispered. “I’m on my way to clean it up now.”

  He hurried forward, his face deathly pale. When he reached out to pick up the bowl of blood-stained water, his hands were shaking.

  Raynard caught Ori’s shoulder and pushed him roughly toward one of the kitchen chairs before he collapsed all over his nicely mopped floor. One of Ori’s arms was heavily bandaged. Raynard couldn’t take his eyes off the lengths of white material binding the limb, couldn’t force the image of glass cutting into Ori’s skin out of his head.

  He could have been killed.

  For a long time, silence reigned over the room. Several minutes passed before Raynard dragged his gaze up to Ori’s face.

  “What happened?” Even to his own ears, he sounded completely calm now—in the way a man only could manage if he’d gone straight through panic and emerged on the other side.

  “I was cleaning the cabinet in the dining room, sir. I slipped and…”

  Raynard’s mind flashed back to the view in the upstairs room. He’d been standing on top of the stool, which he’d balanced on top of the chair, and he probably still hadn’t been tall enough to reach the top of the ancient monstrosity. He’d have had to have gone up on his toes, leaning and stretching to reach the corners of the cabinet.

  “What possessed you to be so…?” Raynard shook his head as he spun away from Ori and paced toward the other side of the room.

  He could have been killed.

  Raynard reached the far wall and swung back around to face Ori. The bandage on his arm extended all the way down to his wrist. How close had the shards of glass come to his veins? How close had he come to bleeding out before he’d managed to stem the flow? Questions ricocheted around in Raynard’s head. For the first time he could remember, true terror swirled inside him, and it was all about what could have happened, at the scene he could have walked in on when he came home.

  His gaze snapped up. He met Ori’s eyes.

  He could have lost him. Raynard had never known fear like it.

  “I…” Ori’s words faded away. He dropped his gaze. “I’ll clean up the mess, sir.”

  “You think that will fix everything?” Raynard demanded, striving to keep the volume down, but once more unable to make the words gentle.

  Ori stared mutely at the table.

  “Your behaviour today has been entirely unacceptable,” Raynard threw at him. “Clearing away the evidence will change nothing.”

  Ori’s gaze dropped even lower, until it was impossible to tell if his eyes were open or closed.

  Raynard parted his lips to make his views on the risks Ori had taken completely clear, but the harsh clang of a bell rang through the air before he even got started.

  Ori’s attention went to the line of bells displayed next to the door leading up to the main house. Raynard followed his gaze to the label indicating that this particular summons came from the front door.

  Ori rose unsteadily to his feet and stepped forward.

  “Stay where you are.” Raynard’s words cracked like a whip, echoing off every hard surface in the kitchen.

  Ori fell still.

  Raynard looked to the bandaged arm, trying to push his anger aside to deal with the most pressing matters first. “The bleeding has stopped?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Completely?” he demanded.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Raynard nodded as he tried to force his mind back into some sort of working order. The doorbell rang again. Ori tensed as he barely resisted the urge to fulfil his duties.

  “Go to your room.”

  For the first time Raynard could remember, Ori hesitated to follow one of his commands. The moment was brief, but after so much instant obedience, it was a vivid and unmistakable deviation from normality. Another moment passed when Ori did nothing but stare at the floor in front of Raynard’s feet.

  “Yes, sir.” He turned and went, his bare feet moving rapidly across the tiles as he scurried for cover.

  Raynard stood in the kitchen for several long seconds, until the doorbell rang out for a third time and snapped him from his thoughts. Making his way upstairs, he answered the door and signed for the parcel the postman was so intent on delivering to him.

  Back in his office, Raynard tossed the package onto his desk and sank into his chair. Resting his elbows on the table, he let his head fall forward into his hands as he took a deep breath and let it out very slowly.

  What had happened that day couldn’t be changed. But it was never going to happen again. He could see to that. Raynard straightened his back. Several more deep breaths and some semblance of thought indicated the best way for him to ensure that it never happened again.

  The idea of going down to the kitchen and seeing Ori’s blood turned Raynard’s stomach. Far better to call Ori upstairs and deal with the situation with what calm he’d been able to muster in those few quiet moments, than to go through the bloody kitchen and feel the anger pour back into his veins, hot and more uncontrollable than he’d ever believed possible.

  He tugged the bell pull hanging down the wall behind his desk, knowing the sound would echo through to the butler’s room. It didn’t take Ori long to respond to the new summons. A gentle tap fell on the study door.

  “Enter.”

  Ori pushed open the door and slipped through the gap he’d created. Raynard directed him to stand before the desk with a glance.

  He hadn’t thought it possible for Ori to become any paler than he had been in the kitchen. The fledgling looked terrified. Raynard couldn’t bring himself to believe that was entirely inappropriate.

  The scene Raynard had arrived home to was never going to be repeated. He wanted that knowledge to have an important place inside Ori’s mind. If he ever thought of doing something so reckless again, Raynard wanted him to remember how it had felt to stand in front of his master, and he wanted him to think better of it.

  For the first time in what felt like years, Ori wasn’t even vaguely hard in Raynard’s presence. Pushing aside his desire to run his hands all over Ori and ensure that he was truly fine, Raynard forced himself to remain in his seat and be content with merely scanning Ori’s body in as thorough a visual inspection as possible.

  “Do you have any questions?” he bit out, making no attempt to gentle his voice.

  Ori’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he seemed to struggle to get his words past his emotions.

  Raynard waited.

  “May I know if I’m permitted to return to the nest, sir?”

  For a moment, Raynard thought he’d misheard the whispered words—or maybe he simply wanted to believe that he’d misheard them. Eventually, he had to admit, to himself at least, the syllables were what they were.

  Ori was probably still in shock. It was silly to think that a fledgling could stand firm in the face of his master’s anger after everything he had gone through that day. Raynard still couldn’t help but be just a little disappointed with the realisation his little duckling would turn tail and fly away from his m
aster so easily.

  “Is there an explanation to go with that request?” Raynard asked, his voice somehow remaining level.

  Ori swallowed again. His hands clenched into fists at his sides. The bandage moved around his left arm with the motion, but no red seeped through. He hadn’t opened the wound with his fidgeting.

  “I…” Ori closed his eyes briefly, before trying again. “I only overheard part of your conversation with Mr Hamilton, sir. But, I thought, perhaps even if I’m found unacceptable to serve you here, I might still be considered an acceptable servant at the nest.”

  He thought he was being dismissed.

  As Raynard stared across the desk at him, there wasn’t room for another thought inside his head. Ori thought he was being dismissed.

  He wasn’t running away, he was…Raynard’s eyes narrowed as he studied Ori’s expression more carefully. He was…holding himself together by the skin of his teeth, fighting against his instincts and somehow forcing himself to accept his master’s desertion of him.

  “Upon what grounds do you think you’re being dismissed?” The words were even harsher than all those that had gone before.

  Ori frowned slightly. His whole body trembled as he took a shaky breath. “The cabinet, sir. I know it’s not the… I…”

  Raynard stared at Ori, completely speechless. It obviously didn’t occur to the boy that his master could be worried about the damage to something far more important to him than any bit of furniture.

  Some of Raynard’s anger drained away—or at least found a new direction. If that’s what Ori believed, it was because that’s what he’d been taught to believe—at the nest, at those foster homes. A fledgling couldn’t be blamed for that.

  Raynard turned his chair to the side. “Come here.”

  From the look on Ori’s face, anyone would have thought Raynard had asked his submissive to crawl over broken glass to reach him. Yet, Ori still obeyed the command. He walked very slowly around to stand before Raynard.

  At any other time, Raynard had no doubt that Ori would have immediately dropped to his knees, the way he always did when Raynard called him to that side of the desk. Right then, he didn’t. Raynard had to look pointedly at the floor by his feet before Ori finally lowered himself.

  The moment his knees hit the floor, Ori’s hand went to his collar. He turned it around so the buckle faced Raynard. Even now, he was trying to serve—even if it meant helping Raynard take back the mark he’d given him.

  Raynard tucked his knuckle under Ori’s chin as he realised exactly why he had struggled to circle the desk. “Is that really what you’ve been taught to expect from me, fledgling?”

  Ori frowned as if he didn’t understand the question. “I know you’ve been very tolerant of my clumsiness, sir. I can’t blame you for finally losing patience and—”

  Raynard covered Ori’s lips with his palm. “That’s enough.” He caught hold of the tag on Ori’s collar with his free hand. “When I gave you this what did I tell you it means?” He took away his hand to permit an answer.

  “That I belonged to you, sir.”

  “You’re still wearing it. Correct your tenses,” Raynard snapped.

  The collar moved around Ori’s throat as he swallowed. “That I belong to you, sir.”

  “And do you think a good master would disown a man on a whim?”

  Ori shook his head.

  “Do you really think I’d disown you over an accident?”

  “You said…” Ori frowned and looked away as if the memory of the words was too painful for him to echo.

  “That your behaviour today was unacceptable,” Raynard finished for him, refusing to flinch away from the statement. “It was. That doesn’t mean you’ll be disowned—it means your behaviour will be corrected.”

  Ori looked up at him. Raynard watched as Ori’s expression turned from uncertainty, to hope, to relief. He nodded, a jerky little motion that promised acceptance of anything and everything that might entail.

  “What do you think that means?” Raynard asked, not about to take anything for granted right then.

  “A punishment, sir.”

  Raynard leaned back in his chair, taking his touch away from Ori. The duckling didn’t falter without his master’s hand under his chin to steady him. The strength seemed to have poured back into him with the simple knowledge that his collar wasn’t under threat.

  “You’ve been punished before?”

  Ori nodded again, a far more certain gesture now.

  “At the nest?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How?”

  Ori looked down for a moment, then back up to him. “The whip, sir.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Sometimes they spoke about extra duties as a punishment, sir.”

  “You disagreed?”

  “I was there to work, sir,” Ori said, an uncertain frown lurking around his eyes.

  And they both knew he wasn’t afraid of hard work. “Anything else?” Raynard prompted.

  Ori seemed to think carefully about the subject. “It wasn’t always a whip, sir—sometimes it was a crop or a paddle.”

  “But always a physical punishment?” Raynard pushed.

  Ori nodded. “Yes, sir.” As if he had no idea there could be any other sort.

  Raynard knew then what had to happen next. It was time Ori learnt exactly how different a punishment could be when it was delivered by an avian who truly understood what dominance and submission meant.

  Taking a thick pad of lined paper out of his desk drawer, Raynard set it on the desktop. Pen in hand, he stared at the blank page.

  He could sense Ori’s eyes on him, feel the confusion pouring off Ori as he tried to work out what was going on. The boy still had so much to learn about the difference between serving at the nest and serving one man—between being a servant and a submissive.

  Raynard tapped the end of his pen against the desk. No doubt he had a lot to learn himself—about how to care for a submissive who he had no intention of ever releasing from his protection—a man he cared about as well as one he owned.

  It only took Raynard a few seconds to scrawl the words across the top of the page once he’d decided what they were to be. Turning in his seat, he handed the pad to Ori.

  “One thousand.”

  Ori took the pad from him. His right hand appeared uninjured by his fall. Raynard offered him the pen. He took that as well.

  “Lines…?”

  Raynard didn’t bother to agree with a statement of the obvious. Ori looked from the paper, to him, and back again.

  “I…”

  Their eyes met. Raynard raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes, sir.” Ori just sounded more confused than ever. He was silent for a few seconds.

  “You may use that table.” Raynard pointed to the other side of the study.

  “Yes, sir.” Ori continued to kneel there, staring at the papers in his hand.

  “Start now.”

  “Yes, sir.” He still didn’t move. A full minute passed before he rose to his feet. He took a few steps away before turning back to Raynard. “Just this, sir?”

  “Just that,” he agreed, somehow still managing to sound insanely calm.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ori sat down at the table on the other side of the room. Raynard looked back to his own desk. There seemed very little for him to do but get on with some work. There was certainly enough of it crammed into his briefcase. He automatically reached for it.

  The briefcase wasn’t in its usual place at the side of his desk. For a few seconds, Raynard stared at the empty patch of floor, with just as much confusion as Ori had stared at his stack of lined paper.

  Of course, his briefcase would be in the hallway where he’d left it. Shaking his head at himself, Raynard went to retrieve it.

  Ori looked up as he walked past, but he didn’t speak. When he saw Raynard carry the briefcase back into the room,
he bowed his head guiltily over his work, as if there had been some occasion between Raynard arriving home and that moment when he should have found time to move it for him.

  Settling himself at his desk, Raynard calmly worked his way through the first file—mostly. There were just a couple of occasions when he found his attention wandering across to the big mahogany table on the other side of the room.

  If Ori found Raynard’s presence as distracting as Raynard found the fledgling’s, Raynard never caught him at it. Whenever his gaze strayed toward Ori, the boy’s head was bowed industriously over his work, his hand making steady progress across, and gradually down, the page.

  Ori held his injured arm absentmindedly cradled to his chest as he wrote. He was still pale, his skin barely distinguishable from the bandage, but Raynard doubted he’d remain that way for long. After the tumble he’d taken, he’d probably be black, blue, and lots of other interesting colours by the next morning.

  He could have been killed.

  Raynard swallowed down the bitter taste the thought left in the back of his throat.

  He could have been killed.

  Raynard mentally rolled his eyes at himself. Ori was right there, and he was fine. He was being kept right there, making a start on his punishment, when it would have been far more logical for him to finish clearing up after the accident, principally because it allowed Raynard to keep him safe and within sight while he gave his own panic time to fade.

  Ori was fine.

  Except, he could have been killed.

  Pushing his first file into one of the trays on his desk, Raynard reached for his mobile phone. Ori had obviously had a very eventful day. There were certain routine duties that hadn’t been performed as a result. It was lucky then, that Raynard still remembered all the take-away numbers that had been his very good friends before the duckling joined his household.

  Order placed, Raynard looked across the room. Ori’s head was still bowed over the papers, but his hand wasn’t moving. Raynard watched him for a few moments, but Ori remained frozen in place.