Prince Of Stone - A Captive Prince Fanfiction

XI. Dangerous Games

The length of Laurent's body was pressed against Damen as Laurent pinned him to the wall of the balcony. They had only just made it out onto the balcony in time before the door had swung open and Govart and another man had entered.

At the sound of the second man's voice, even muffled through the glass of the balcony door, Damen shuddered. It was the same voice which, not one night ago, had beckoned to Damen to join in as the man and another had tried to bend Laurent over in the bushes outside the frat house.

Damen found his hands balling themselves into fists. In front of him, Laurent's face was pressed into his chest. This close, Damen could smell the scent of him--shampoo and something crisp, bitingly clean. It was not cologne. Laurent was vain, but he didn't strike Damen as the perfume type. For a brief moment, Damen allowed himself to muse on what he may have gifted Laurent had they been an actual sugar daddy couple.

A sharp intake of breath from Laurent jolted him out of it. "They're coming towards the balcony," Laurent said in a hushed tone, glancing through the shutters of the glass doors into the interior. "We have to move. Now."

Damen cast his gaze around. There was another balcony nearly five feet away, and between them a steep five-story drop to the street below.

"Go!" Laurent said.

"Go where?"

But Laurent was already readjusting the shoulder strap of his briefcase, then swinging his leg over the balcony.

Damen's heart leapt into his throat. He had done a few stupid things in his day--most of them motivated by flat beer and the drunken encouragement of Nikandros--but this really topped the list.

He watched as Laurent swung over the side of the balcony, hands curling around the base of the iron railing. Then he let go.

Damen leaned over the side in time to see Laurent slow his descent by grabbing onto the rail of a balcony one story down. He let out a muffled cry as the momentum wrenched at his arm, then seemed to remember they were making an escape.

"Get down here," he hissed up at Damen, before dropping out of sight.

When Damen landed on solid ground, it was not the pavement of the street below but the glass awning that overhung the entrance to the hotel. Laurent already crouched there, squinting up through the darkness towards the window that was The Regent's balcony.

"What are you doing?" Damen mouthed at him from where he stood, plastered against the side of the building. "Get out of sight! Govart could look down and see you!"

It was Laurent's edged smile that told Damen that this was not going to be simple. "It's no fun if we get away that easily," Laurent said. Above them, shouts could be heard. Govart alerting the hotel staff to the theft of whatever Laurent had taken.

Laurent motioned for Damen to follow and then took off running across the glass awning. Damen pushed off the side of the building, following Laurent at a run. He was glad for the sturdy glass below, supporting his weight as they tore across the city just above street level.

When the awning ended, Laurent took a running leap, landing on the glass awning of the next block of buildings. But their luck didn't hold for long. The sounds of pursuit could be heard behind them; sirens and shouts. And then the buildings came to an end as they faced an intersection.

Laurent turned and gave Damen one boyish grin, edged with mischief, before he crouched and jumped.

Idiot. The breath left Damen's lungs, and then returned just as forcefully as he saw Laurent had landed safely on the sidewalk below.

Damen was not dressed for this.

Shedding his suit jacket, he threw himself over the side of the awning, tumbling with somewhat less grace than Laurent into the street below.

Exhilaration caused his heart to soar as he grinned at Laurent, and Laurent grinned back.

Then came a voice like lead from behind them: "Monsieur le Roi." Govart.

Their luck had run out.

~

Damen sat handcuffed in the back of the van. Had he not been taken by surprise, it would have been a matter of greatest ease to resist the three thugs accompanying Govart as they attempted to wrestle Damen into the van.

Laurent sat across from him on a chair that had seemingly been shoved into the transport as an afterthought. It was clear that Govart had not planned for them to get so far--had anticipated detaining them while still inside the hotel.

Damen remembered all he'd heard about abductions and secondary locations, then found himself trying very hard to think of anything else. Knitting seemed a good idea, just then.

"It was a legal document," Laurent said abruptly, startling Damen from his escapist fantasies about knitting blue scarves.

Damen regarded him intently, knowing his silence would encourage Laurent to continue.

He did. "The reason I had to break into my uncle's hotel room--he had a legal document that would be very inconvenient for me. He's been holding it over me for some time."

"Would this have any relation to the holdings your father's will left to you? The ones The Regent is trying to take away?"

Laurent laughed without amusement. A hollow sound. Beneath them, the floor of the van pitched slightly as they rounded a corner.

"I was young. I didn't know any better, and I trusted my uncle. I truly thought--I thought he wouldn't hurt me." A pause. "I signed the document when I was fourteen, just after my father died. Legally, I gave over all my inheritance from my father's will to my uncle for safekeeping, until I turned twenty-one."

Damen sucked in a breath. "Let me guess. You turned twenty-one, and your uncle didn't give the inheritance over to you like he promised."

Laurent smiled and said in a self-deprecating tone, "You'd think I would have anticipated it. But I really did trust him, for a time. I was younger then, foolish. I had no idea what it was to be taken advantage of." His eyes widened then, as if having just revealed too much.

Damen looked away, and Laurent fell silent.

The moment stretched between them, the weight of what had been left unsaid a cloying presence in the room.

Damen said, "What will he do with us? Your uncle?"

Laurent pondered this. "Kill us, most probably. We have proven to be too inconvenient to keep around. That night at the party, when someone slipped drugs into my water--he was behind it, I'm sure. I think he wanted to blame it all on you, when I turned up dead in some back alley the next morning."

"He would do that?" Damen's voice sounded shocked even to his own ears.

Laurent's gaze was dull. "I have been dealing with my uncle for a very long time. I know how he works."

Damen raised his chin. "I'm not dying today. I am a normal college student, damn it. I am going to finish my master's and then get a real job and live in a nice apartment and get a dog and--"

Laurent's nose wrinkled. "A dog?"

Damen didn't have time to defend himself. The van jolted to a halt, and there came the sound of a key scratching in the lock.

The van doors swung open.