“Karina!” Kors shouted, not recognizing his voice, and his daughter hissed back, her mouth full of small but sharp teeth curved like hooks.
“What happened to you?! Daughter! What's with your eyes?”
“Love is blind,” Karina hissed, turning away and bending to the furry legs-paws of Lis, began to lick them with a long and thin tongue. And Lis barked hoarsely:
“I am the king, you see, Kors?” And he laughed terribly, his head shook, and another piece of bloody flesh fell off his “crown”, revealing a black horn.
Kors gasped with disgust and nausea, backed away and woke up, he opened his eyes, he was really sick.
He didn’t remember how he fell asleep the day before, where he was this time, in his room, or… He looked around in confusion and saw that he was still in the bedroom of Nikto and Arel, in his clothes, only the sleeve of his shirt was rolled up strongly and his jacket was lying on the floor. With surprise, Kors realized that Nikto was lying next to him. Nikto was lying on his side, on the still unmade bed, uncovered, fully clothed, he was sleeping peacefully, his eyelids with traces of almost worn-out arrows twitched slightly. Such thick and long dark eyelashes lay on pale skin, he breathed measuredly and calmly in his sleep, and Kors saw now that thick rings inserted into his nose closed his nostrils no worse than Arel’s ring. Only it seemed that it didn’t interfere with Nikto, unlike with the prince. Arel was lying right behind Nikto on the edge of the bed, hugging him. Arel put his hand on Nikto, and Kors noticed that on his long and thin hand, there were already three phalanges blackened with “rings”, on three fingers. And Kors couldn’t understand when Nikto had time to make them to him. He didn’t remember how he passed out, what happened later. Kors got up heavily, he was shaking, he literally crawled to the bathroom, he felt nauseous, and nausea came to his throat. Fortunately, Verniy was not there, the household dog had apparently already fled somewhere on business. Only in the corner, wrapped in a torn blanket, sat, huddled in a ball, the slave of Prince, Valentine. Hearing Kors’ footsteps, he stirred awkwardly as he crawled out of his cocoon. Naked and covered with whip scars, the boy turned his face towards the front door. One of his eyes was swollen, closed, with a purple hematoma on it. The second, covered with a white albugo, stared blankly at Kors. So Arel beat his boy again, and when he managed to do it, Kors couldn’t understand either. He suddenly thought that he had never seen Valentine’s face and didn’t know what he looked like without an iron muzzle that completely covered his nose and lower part of his face. Kors bent over the bathroom, nauseated, and involuntarily made several convulsive movements, but he never vomited. He tried to put two fingers in his mouth to finally free himself from this debilitating nausea. If the assault began, he would not be able to raise his sword and fight. “The gods will kill me today, I cannot fight,” thought Kors, “why did I take this drug, Gods, why? But it was so good!”