Not long after I started chasing the tracks, Ion rushed towards me. The horse wasn’t harmed, but the fact that Baal wasn’t on him unnerved me greatly.

“Where is he, boy? Take me to him.”

I got on Ion, the horse galloping fast further up the road.

The sound of metal clashing with metal reverberated in the air. In the distance, I could see Baal holding off his ground perfectly against Freckles. They had found a nice spot against a mountain wall with a good drop to oblivion on the other side. Baal wasn’t really giving it his all, but he swung his sword around enough to convince anyone else that he really was. Freckles kept up perfectly, he would give my prince a good fight were they both to take things seriously. Unlike his fellow knights, this red head was seasoned and knew all too well what it meant to make a single mistake. Sparks of pink flashed as Belial made contact with Freckles’ long sword. Between the high-pitched sounds of metal against metal I could discern Belial laughing in utter joy.

Baal looked so awfully attractive, his purple eyes calculating and focused on his opponent. I got off Ion and neared them without saying a word, anything from me and it might end up distracting Baal long enough for him to get hurt.

“You’ve grown slow your Highness, haven’t been training much?”

“Don’t make me laugh, I’m not trying to hurt you, Sasha. Please cease this and let me go!”

“Your parents, the Queen and King, want you to return home. I want you to come home, why did you even run away?”

“Are you really going to pretend you don’t know? They arranged it so I would get married to someone else and that would’ve been okay... if Naomi hadn’t tried to murder me!”

“I didn’t know about any of that! Why didn’t you tell me…?”

“Oh, of course! Why did I think you wouldn’t notice something like your best friend almost getting killed by your fiancée? It’s not like my sister doesn’t have you all wrapped up around her little, delicate, snake fingers anyways!”

Uh oh, Freckles had managed to piss off Baal. Aleksandr’s pace had diminished and Baal’s had gotten quicker. The balance was tipping to Baal’s favor very fast.

“Baal I—”

“Shut up! You were more than my best friend! You knew I loved you! And what do you do? You choose Naomi over me, and you know what? That’s fucking fine!”

Baal disarmed him in a heartbeat. He pushed Freckles down to the ground placing Belial’s blade against his throat. The pink blade glowed eerily. Bad sign. That meant Baal’s anger was allowing freedom enough for the demon inside the sword to get in his head.

“You dare ask me to return? You can go back to Naomi’s pussy knowing I will never go back home!”

“Baal,” I spoke up and my partner’s eyes moved to rest on me.

Belial stopped glowing and Baal calmed down a little. Despite his mood simmering down, his body didn’t relax. He held the tip of his sword to Freckles’ throat while the cornered man held his breath as he stared at Baal with a hurt expression.

“Luke…”

I walked over to the pair of men and kicked Freckles’ long sword away to make sure he wouldn’t reach for it quicker than what we could react. Baal returned his gaze to Freckles. He glared at his opponent and seemed as if he might push down Belial to finish him. The blade glowed faintly again while Baal’s body shivered. Anger was making him shake, not the cold. Belial’s voice might’ve been tempting him to kill Freckles, but he was fighting against it.

“I took care of the cavalrymen. They shouldn’t have time to follow after us,” I sheathed my own sword before placing the hand that had held my blade over my partner’s own. “He won’t move, let him go.”

I was sure Baal wouldn’t forgive himself if he killed his best friend on an anger impulse, even if he acknowledged he was being influenced by a demon. Baal breathed out and put his sword away. I held his hands and walked him away from Freckles. Once we put some distance between us and the shocked Aleksandr, Baal unexpectedly hugged me as strong as he could.

“That went well, you okay?” I asked him as I got over my surprise so that I could hug him back.

“Yeah, I am a little emotionally drained but otherwise fine.” He replied pressing his face against my chest.

I held him in my arms and stroke the back of his head reassuringly.

“Sorry you had to find out about me like this…oh fuck, I’m still so pissed off…”

“It’s okay, it’s not like it wasn’t one of my many theories about you.” Prince of the Silver Clan was certainly NOT on my list of theories. Royalty status was. Close enough. “You’ve got every right to be utterly pissed off, don’t feel bad.”

I was compelled to kiss his forehead, the moment seemed to be asking for it, but I wasn’t sure I was allowed that level of emotional interaction right now.

That’s why I found it really awkward when he looked up to smile at me. I hated myself for not having the guts enough to tell him I didn’t wish to just date him anymore, I wanted to be his real lover. That smile was something I wanted to make mine and only mine.

“You can stay angry a little while longer. I could help you simmer down once we’ve made it further up the mountain… shall we leave?” I asked him.

“Yeah, let’s be on our—”

Baal looked back at Freckles and made me realize I had completely let my guard down. Freckles did seem to not want to move, he was shocked, Baal had almost killed him. That was enough to make someone reason it was a bad idea to try to fight again, right? I wasn’t suspecting he might snap out of it this quickly and, much less, attack us.

“I’m sorry Baal, but I can’t just leave you here with him!”  Freckles made his statement as he threw a dagger aimed at me.

Now, something like that would have done absolutely nothing other than spill my blood. Sure, it would place everyone in a pretty big range in danger, but all I’d have to do was heal my gash and burn whatever blood came out, no biggie.

Something else occurred, though.

Baal knew what would happen before I could do anything about the puny blade. He pushed me down and the dagger grazed the side of his torso. Quick as lightning, Baal recovered as Freckles remained frozen on his spot surprised he had missed. Apparently, he wasn’t accustomed to missing. The break he took to process that allowed my partner enough time to stop him from going for a second dagger. Baal hit the man’s dominant hand hard using his sword’s sheath before kicking him mercilessly on the face. Aleksandr fell on his back unconscious, his nose bleeding and his eyes rolled to the back of his skull.

“I might still consider you my friend, but you try to kill him again and it’ll be the last thing you ever attempt in your fucking life.”

Whoa! Goddess dammit he was so sexy!

I got up on my feet and ran towards Baal, hoisting him up before I kissed him on the lips with desperation.

“Goddesses, you’re so perfect.” I blabbed eliciting a wave of laughter from the other man. Good, his mood got a lot better! “I’m serious! I’m so turned on right now...”

“That’s a first, if I had known seeing me fight would get you this horny I would have come up with a plan sooner.” Baal pulled me in for another kiss.

It didn’t matter it was cold and snowing, I was probably black all over thanks to the lust-thriven heat in me.

“We have to go.”

“Mhmm, we do.” I chuckled as his lips hung close to mine, his warm breath mixing in with my own.

“Bet we could defrost a patch of snow somewhere… and maybe you could suck me off…” Baal whispered seductively before he licked my lips. “Speaking of which, aren’t you thirsty?”

“I would love some of your sweet blood…” I let my mouth wander to the side of his neck.

I breathed in his scent and almost lost it to the intense need to bite down on his flesh. Knowing I had to stop because the other goons might find us in a moment of weakness, I decided to cut our rather suggestive talk short. I put him down and stood with a smug smile before him.

“…do you think your friend will be okay?”

“Yes, Sasha is very hard to kill. He’ll be fine as soon as he wakes up from his nap.”

“You kicked him on the face.”

“Pssh, totally fine.” Baal said giving a small jump to peck me on the lips before he held on to me as if he had lost the strength in his feet.

“Umm, we’re supposed to get going…” I told him noticing he wasn’t budging. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I think I might’ve worked out a little too hard with Sasha…” he straightened up but still held on to my shoulders. He looked a little strained. “I’ll be fine after a while.”

“Baal, you weren’t being serious. There’s no way that could’ve tired you. Are you hurting?” I looked at him from head to toe and stopped at the graze on his torso. “Baal…”

Baal looked down and took his hand to the graze. It came off stained in red and he looked at me weirded out. The area around his wound was stained with blood, a graze shouldn’t be able to bleed that much. And why wasn’t his scent registering in my nose? I dropped to my knees, Baal keeping himself on his feet with some work. Now that I was closer to his wound I noticed his blood lacked scent and that the wound per se smelled like dead flowers.

“Do you know if your friend coats his weapons in something?”

“Not to my knowledge…” Baal looked down just when I started licking his wound.

“Kyack! That tickles!” He giggled as I continued running my tongue over his wound again and again.

With the help of my saliva his wound seemed to heal a bit before it simply refused to close up. That was weird, there was no way my saliva wouldn’t be enough to heal his sort of wound. The blood on the graze tasted weird too. That only meant the dagger’s edge had been poisoned. No problem, there were other ways to cleanse out poison and seal a wound.

“Baal this might feel a little hot,” I warned as I let angelic energy build up in my core.

“Okay…?”

I placed my hands over the graze and concentrated my thoughts on healing the gap. Energy flowed from my core straight to my hands and from there to Baal’s body. Baal gripped on my shoulders hard. He was uncomfortable and that was a bad sign. The angelic energy seemed to be seeping out of him once I pushed it into the gap. The wound remained unhealed. I cursed standing up and held my chin as I thought about what kind of poison did this.

“Where’d that dagger go?” I asked looking around for wherever the culprit behind Baal’s gash had landed.

Glinting on top of the snow, a few feet away from us, lay the small weapon I had been looking for. The object had some of Baal’s blood still stuck on it. I picked it up and smelled the blade. Ignoring the scent of Baal’s blood on it, I recognized a different herbal scent. Herbal, flowery… what kind of flower poison would be able to null all sorts of healing? I took the dagger, enchanted the blade to protect whatever was left of the poison and stashed it inside our bags not before covering it with a spare cloth.

“What’s going on?”

I decided to search Baal’s unconscious friend after asking Ion to come closer so Baal could hang on to him instead. No sign of him holding an antidote, what kind of idiot would go around with poisoned daggers and not have the antidote for it?

“We have to get you to the Temple of Cael now.”

I took him up into my arms, he held unto my neck as a natural reflex. I searched for possible matches to the poison in the back of my head. What poison nulls blood’s scent…? Oh shit. No fucking way.

I got Baal on the horse before I mounted it myself. I used my belt to tie Baal to me as he sat behind me. His arms wrapped around my waist, I gave his hands a squeeze before beckoning Ion to go forward at the fastest pace possible.

“You said Freckles doesn’t coat his weapons with anything, but that dagger was coated in what I believe was Veritas poison.”

“…Veritas?” Baal tensed, he knew what it meant. “Luke, I don’t think—”

“I’m sure that the priests can help me make an antidote, don’t you dare give up on me.”

Veritas was a very potent toxin that changed blood composition and ate away at the body’s nervous system. Depending on the concentration, it could kill you in a few minutes if you were human. Baal was Silver Clansmen, and the concentration wasn’t high enough, so my companion had at most two days to live.

“…okay.”

That was an obvious lie. He probably thought that Veritas would kill him before an effective antidote could save his life. We might not have enough of the poison to start an antidote. Time wasn’t on our side either. It could take far more time to make an antidote than what Baal would have once we reached the Temple.

“You’ll be fine, you’ll see.” I was lying to myself as well. This wasn’t something I could deal with on my own, and it was terrifying. “I won’t let you die.”