<span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#666600">And just like that, Viktor released him just as the defiance really started to flame in his eyes. It was a look the warlord had seen in countless other men and women through the years. They thought that their way of life was better, the correct way to do things, from all walks and cultures. They wore their pride stark naked on their face just as this one did in the bed that Viktor had provided to the boy. Just as he assumed that because he had been upheaved from his home he was entitled to the food that settled in his belly, to fair treatment, to being seen as something more than a tool.<br/>
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It was that entitlement that would eventually fade. It always did and always would; the things that the boy spat now in his face were things that needed to be earned from this point on. And that was the reason he was there tonight: no more and no less.<br/>
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Dark eyes pierced the softer brown of the boy’s, no matter that they were lit from their depths like burning hot coals. Viktor’s own stare was that of a burning hot coal, smoldering, eating away at the delicate exterior that his fingers now traced since he had released his hold on the boy’s hair, on his neck, so that he was again free to breathe. The touch contradicted the stare, or perhaps accented it, as the rough pads of his fingers climbed across the high cheekbones that fled down into a stronger jaw that framed the generous mouth he had swiped. Pretty – yet distinctly male. <br/>
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“So you want to be free, then, boy?” Dark and almost sensual. Certainly, the voice that permeated the darkness was at least provocative with the way he spoke the question. “Then walk out. You are not held by any chains and there is no lock on your door, no bars on your windows. You were not chained when you traveled here, nor have you been chained since arriving. You do, however, disobey my Maester and ignore my artisans who have summoned you to work. Does that make your word false then? Did your tongue make a mistake when it spoke the words? Or has your mind changed and you would prefer to serve another, and not the House?”<br/>
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Viktor moved quickly, fluidly, until his weight was no longer sinking into the bed, and only left the echo of his touch behind on Mischa’s cheek. Back on his face, the hard lines that chiseled his own face barely flinched even as his eyes stroked the boy from head to toe, taking note the state of undress he was in. As dispassionate as his expression might have been, the look told a different story. “If you are to stay <i>here</i>, you must serve some function to the House. My suggestion would be to earn your name back as a craftsman, build your trade. You created things, did you not, from where you came from? If you still refuse...” There was a hint of a smile, just as dispassionate as the expression still molded on his face, as he trailed off. “There are other things that you may do to serve the House.”<br/>
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He paced away from the bed then – or more like prowled – until the broad expanse of his back was facing Mischa. The light from the bonfires outside cast shadows that flickered over the lines and planes, accentuating the definition of the warlord’s body, but also tracing the myriad of scars that glared suddenly white and obvious in the expanse of sun bronzed flesh. “I am not here to <i>break </i>you. Broken things, I have found, are useless and incapable. To mold, to grow, to cultivate… these are things that the House does. You will learn or you will not. Either way, you will make a decision. Your past is done; you must not have your pride so open, or else you remain a boy who cannot grow into a man.”</span></span>