Ascension - Book Eight - Man x Man

Chapter 81

The honey-colored eyed rest on my own, examining me, glancing back and forth between the way that Verando positions himself in between the two of us and the determination on my face. "You talk to me like you know me." Adriam mumbles, relaxing his shoulders just slightly. "Seems you've gone and meshed your loyalties elsewhere in your travels... two days and you're standing between your family and a stranger." 

Snatching the gray haired man's face, he stares up into the intense, light gaze of my youthful warlord. "You don't even look high."

It physically makes me flinch, I hate that it was such a part of his life, I was ready to stop being reminded that I would have to leave him in this broken place to endure another life time of suffering before he'd get to me. 

"Fix up his leg enough so that he can travel. I need to take him home." The tone is softer, lower, a plea more than a command. If nothing else, Adriam had helped to raise him and the effect the youth had on him was noticeable by the obvious eye roll that the french man responded with. 

"Talk to me like I'm some sort of magician... perhaps take him to the mage. She seems fond of you." He brushes the man off, returning to my side to tighten the splints on my leg. I nearly black out, but it was better than yesterday. "You're healing extradoinarily fast. It's creepy. I want you out of this house, out of my life. Do not come back, gypsy. Do you understand?"

Pursing my lips, I nod once. "You never did like me."

"Cryptic. Creepy." Pulling the cords of my splint nearly to tight, he offers me a irritated smile with a slight curl of one nostril. "You sure do tether yourself to oddities. At least this one is curiously male, not some loose quim." Glancing back over his shoulder, Adriam glares towards Verando. "Police are everywhere and you're going to limp through the city with a red headed cripple and your reputation?"

Verando shrugs. "I was intending on stealing your horse."

"You don't even like horses!" Adriam sighs, exasperated before pinching the bridge of his nose and muttering to himself in french. My small french vocabulary suggests it was a flurry of cursing. If I weren't so irritated by the insults, I'd chuckle. Getting under his skin was something I hadn't gotten to do enough of in our time together, perhaps I was already sewing the suspicion, we couldn't erase everyone's memories, surely? 

Checking his pocket watch, Adriam pulls out a bag, setting it in my lap and instructing me roughly to hold the sides the stabilize it. Pulling out a syringe and needle, he draws some sort of liquid from a vile and shoves my pants down to expose my thigh. Verando shudders as he jabs me roughly, a needle did little to impress me. "For the pain." he mutters. 

I feel the crude leather under my fingers, worn, dark but faded. The bag was filled to the brim with medicine from European to more herbal measures. I take a curious sniff, amused by the smell of potions. "Not a magician but you have magic in your bag?"

Glancing up, Adriam pulls his lips into a thin, tired line as he rubs the injection site. "Magic is startlingly cheaper than any medicine, not that a variety of magic users would trust anything from a man such as me. But. Put it in a potion and they'll scarf it down, quite the marvel. You didn't even question what I stuck you with."

"I trust you." I tell him firmly. 

"Or you're a royal who hasn't had to worry about being poisoned. Perhaps you've been jabbed before... a fever as a child." Pushing my sleeve up to inspect me, he gasps at my scars and I pull my hand away with a frown. "Solomonari, explains the hair." Adriam sighs, shaking his head, disappointed but not in me. "The bodies your schools produce. Interesting that you're here, I thought you were peaceful creatures."