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Kaz Brekker removed his hat as he entered the back room of the tailor’s shop and rested it deferentially against his chest. He was dressed to the nines, and with the stillness he adopted, he could have been one of the wicker mannequins out front.
Nina had been pleased with the location when Kaz had showed it to her. The bolts of cloth stored on shelving lining the room would do a lot to dampen the sound, and the dart wheel she’d spotted on the cutting table had given her a number of ideas.
She considered him from one of the two armchairs to either side of a small table housing a basket full of half-used spools of thread. He kept his eyes downcast, trained on the foot she bounced rhythmically back and forth, her legs crossed primly at the knees. She let him wait, eager to see how long he would remain well-behaved. He swallowed thickly, the bob of his throat pressing visibly against his tie knot, sensing her scrutiny.
Eventually, she relented.
“Take off your clothes.”
Nina had been assigned to the Ravkan Embassy. Her newfound powers were of limited use in her previous line of work hunting Grisha living in hiding. Now, she hunted dead ones. There were plenty of slaves buried discreetly on mercher estates and out in the Kerch countryside. Her powers let her sense their bones, no matter how long ago they had been interred. So far, Nina had found a depressing number of bodies.
She had taken to buying hot chocolate from a vendor near the Goedmedbridge. There was a bench with a view up the West Stave into the beating heart of the Barrel where she could watch the crowds begin to converge. The colors of their Komedie-inspired costumes, their Barrel flash, the expensive dresses of the merchers’ wives brave enough to adventure out for a night of debauchery bled into an ever-shifting kaleidoscope. The occasional trumpet of laughter broke through the din of conversation and music from the brothels. The House of the White Rose wasn’t visible from this angle, not even during the calmest hours, but Nina had been by since her return to Ketterdam to reassure herself that the husk of the building was being restored.
It was only because she was gazing in that direction--the direction of her one-time home--that she saw the dark-garbed figure push his way through the crowd. She’d recognize that stupid haircut anywhere.
Kaz was moving toward her, albeit on the other side of the canal. It was the most direct route back to the Slat or even further south to the Crow Club, but it wasn’t the fastest. It’d be more expedient to loop through the wide streets of the Lid then back down the East Stave, where barkers hustled people out of the streets and into the gambling halls.
If that were the only thing that stood out to her, she would have let him go about his business unmolested, but Nina’s mind had grown accustomed to assembling clues. Kaz was hatless--and caneless. The first was a breach of propriety, the second of practicality. It was likely that he had been disguised shortly before she caught sight of him, possibly in the Imp costume he favored. Yet, there was something about the tension in his shoulders and the stiffness of his limp which gave her pause.
Nina had become familiar with Kaz’s unique gait over the years they had known each other. She knew how it changed when he pushed himself too hard, spending too long on his feet or walking too far without his cane. She knew how his strides lengthened, his joints loosened, after a hot soak or a rare good night’s rest. Depending on who asked, she’d tell them it was a byproduct of falling into friendship with the man or the truth--that her military training had made it second nature to catalogue anything that would make a dangerous and reserved associate easier to read.
What she observed now was pain.
She was on her feet and halfway to the nearest bridge before she realized she still clutched the hot chocolate vendor’s mug in her hand. She left it carelessly on the bridge railing; it would either make its way back to the vendor or someone else would make use of it.
Ahead of her, Kaz turned into one of the alleys leading east through the center of the Barrel. From there, it was an easy trek to the Crow Club.
She ducked into the alley to meet a pistol pointed at her middle.
For a heart-stopping moment, her vision tunneled to the muzzle of the gun, even as her hands twitched with the frustrated urge to freeze the gloved finger on the trigger.
“You’re lucky I like to know who’s following me before I shoot them,” Kaz rasped. He stowed the pistol in the holster tucked under his arm and began rebuttoning his suit jacket. He quirked an eyebrow at her as if to say, “Well?”
Indignation, Nina had found, was the best response to being flustered. She planted her hands on her generous hips. “I wasn’t following you. I was trying to catch up to you.”
“I’m not sure I see how those are different.”
He was being even more cagey than usual. A different approach then: “I was worried about you. You looked like you’d been hurt.”
Not delicate enough--his face closed off entirely, and he turned away from her to continue jerkily down the alley. “I’m fine,” he shot back in a tone that brooked no argument, not bothering to glance at her over his shoulder.
“Kaz,” she huffed, hurrying after him, “let me take a look at your injuries. I may not be able to heal them, but I can still do basic first aid and let you know if you should have a Healer check them over.” She held up a finger to forestall his protest. “Don’t. I’m not an idiot, and I'm not one of your lackeys. You’re not going to convince me to drop it.”
For a moment he looked like he wanted to shout out her, to say something vicious and cutting, but then the fight left him in one big, frustrated puff of air. “Fine,” he ground out, turning back toward the Club.
Kaz turned now to hang his hat on the peg by the door. His jacket quickly followed it. The gloves next, and Nina was struck again by how naked he looked without them. Taking away those meager scraps of leather armor was all it took to make the Bastard of the Barrell look vulnerable. Of course, Nina knew he wasn’t. She didn’t understand his affectation in wearing them, but it wasn’t as though they had any bearing on his deadliness.
He caught her staring at his pale, deft fingers and paused briefly in unbuttoning his waistcoat, his mouth twisting self-consciously before turning back to the task she’d given him.
The waistcoat and shirt went neatly over the back of the chair opposite her and his shoes under it. Kaz slid the braces off his shoulders, and though he didn’t make a show of it, Nina enjoyed watching all the same.
He paused with his hands on the hem of his undershirt. “Exactly how much did you want me to remove?”
She shot him an unimpressed look. “Is that really how you want to start off?”
“Apologies,” he said with a grimace. “How much did you want me to remove, Gospoza?”
“Better. Take off that shirt and then whatever else you feel comfortable with.”
He obeyed, and Nina took a minute to revel in having this dangerous, headstrong creature at her command. Even as a lieutenant under Per Haskell he’d always been in charge of his own schemes; Nina doubted the former Dregs boss had ever ordered Kaz to do something he hadn’t planned to do anyway. And here he was, placing that control at her feet. She did not take the responsibility lightly.
The last person he’d trusted with this hadn’t taken it seriously. As he turned away from her to shuck his slacks, Nina spotted the barest blush of the bruising that still lingered on Kaz’s back. When she’d seen the damage weeks ago, the marks had covered his shoulders and ribs, dipping dangerously close to his kidneys.
She’d been quiet too long, absorbed in the sight of the red welts that covered Kaz’s back, overlapping in a way that couldn’t have been comfortable.
“Are you finished? Can I put my clothes back on?” he asked darkly, not waiting for her to answer to grab his button-down, forgoing the undershirt that had made him wince when he’d lifted it over his head.
“Whoever did this to you didn’t know what they were doing.”
Kaz made a noise of agreement. “They left me alive for one thing.”
But these weren’t the marks of a back-alley beatdown, Nina knew. For starters, Kaz didn’t have any defensive marks on his arms where he would have deflected any incoming blows. Perhaps more damningly, those bruises--from a leather-covered baton, if she had to guess--were concentrated only on his back, never once aimed for his more vulnerable head or stomach. The evenness on both sides of his spine indicated he’d willingly stood there and taken the thrashing, entirely disproving his story of a scrap with a pair of unknown assailants.
Besides, it wasn’t as though Nina was unfamiliar with where a person could get marks like that if they were looking for it. She’d doled out her fair share herself.
“I mean it. The person who did this doesn’t know what they’re doing. You shouldn’t go see them again.”
She let it hang in the air between them. Kaz didn’t flinch at the implication that she knew he had sought out this treatment--requested it-- but he didn’t brush her comment off or try to further deflect her concern either.
The weight of it eventually dragged the rest of her thoughts out of her. “It’s not safe.”
“It’s also none of your business,” Kaz snapped.
“It is when someone is hurting my friend!” She waved her hands frustratedly to clear the air of the obvious absurdity of that declaration. “Look! Look. The marks on your lower back are way too close to your kidneys, especially for using that amount of force. A blow that hard even half an inch further over could have caused internal bleeding. Given how close some of those strikes landed to your spine and the sloppiness of the overlapping ones, I don’t think whoever you were with was trying to flaunt their precision.” She took a deep breath and continued less scathingly, “I know they used to keep a healer on staff at the Willow Switch, but she put in her papers to return to Ravka months ago--she’s long gone.”
Kaz was silent, undoubtedly considering whether he could talk his way out of admitting she was right. Whether it was safe to admit that vulnerability to her. Finally, he said in a low, flat voice, “He’s the only one there I can trust to follow my rules to the letter. I don’t have any other options.”
“I could do it for you.” Somehow the words slipped off her tongue before she had made up her mind to say them. She hurried to backtrack, “If you want. In a platonic context only.”
He considered her offer, his expression nearly too close to his scheming face for her comfort. Nina tried to project an air of confidence, but her palms sweated where they rested on her thighs.
“Okay,” he decided.
Kaz’s rules were simple:
1) Nina was not allowed to use his real name. “Little Crow” was preferable; it was what Kaz went by at the club. “Pet” was acceptable, if she must. No sweetnames. No sweetness in general. He wanted to be treated roughly.
2) They would keep it platonic. Kaz’s genitals were off limits, even over his undergarments, and she would keep her clothes on. There would be no sexual dirty talk. If Kaz got hard, neither of them would comment on it. In place of aftercare, they agreed that Nina would leave the room after the scene and whatever urgent first aid was needed to let Kaz deal with any lingering arousal how he wished.
3) Most importantly: no touching. Kaz didn’t offer any explanation, but the intensity of his gaze made it clear that this point was non-negotiable.
Luckily, she didn’t need to understand to agree.
Nina led him over to where she had set up a sawhorse, normally used to store lengths of fabric the tailor wanted at easy access, now wrapped in layers of felt to pad the hard edges. She’d set it near a bit of exposed piping on the wall opposite the armchairs.
She pointed at the figure-eight loops of soft rope she’d secured to the pipe and directed Kaz to slip his hands through. She’d chosen a set of knots she’d learned at the Little Palace which were used to create simple rope handcuffs. The design allowed her to tighten the restraints around Kaz’s delicate wrists without worrying about brushing his skin simply by tugging the trailing ends on either side of the loops.
“The second your skin brushes mine,” he had said, “even accidentally, the scene is over, and I walk.”
Nina intended to take every precaution against forcing him to end the scene early.
The position stretched his arms nearly to their full length, angled slightly above his head, and required him to lean his hips across the sawhorse. Nina hoped it would help take some of his weight off his bad leg, with the added benefit of keeping him from locking his knees and fainting. And, as she noted the curve of his pert backside, the view wasn’t bad either.
“Do you want the blindfold?” Nina asked from beside him. They’d discussed sensory deprivation but elected to leave it until the moment of for Kaz to decide if he felt comfortable with it.
He considered it for a moment then shook his head minutely. Nina was hardly surprised that he chose to forgo it this first time around.
“Then you’ll keep your head and eyes forward,” she commanded.
To Nina’s pleasure, he immediately snapped his gaze to the wall. She hadn’t expected him to be so obedient, but then again, Kaz was always good at playing whatever part needed to get what he wanted.
Too bad he would have to wait.
She crossed out of his sight to where she had stowed her pack behind her chair. She retrieved a thermos of hot water, two identical mugs, and a satchel of tea. She poured the steaming water into both mugs and placed the tea in one of them to steep. Then, she began to set out the rest of her equipment on the tailor’s workbench--a riding crop, a knife in case she needed to cut Kaz loose in a hurry, the dart wheel she had found, her first aid kit. That done, she settled back into her chair.
It didn’t take Kaz long to grow restless.
“Be still,” she barked, halting his fidgeting. “You need to learn some patience, Little Crow. Tonight progresses on my schedule, not yours.”
“Sorry, Gospoza,” he ground out, close enough to contrition for her to ignore the petulance.
She let him stew for another minute, while her tea cooled enough to sip. She tested the water in the second mug--first with her fingers, then with against the sensitive skin of her inner wrist. Hot enough to be a shock but not enough to scald.
Without warning, she splashed the contents across Kaz’s bare back.
Kaz yelped and jerked against his restraints as he instinctively tried to twist away from the sudden jolt of pain. Nina waited for him to settle then blew a stream of cold air onto his wet skin, sending a shiver racing down his spine at the abrupt change in temperature.
She retrieved the dart wheel next. The little tool consisted of a polished wooden handle attached to a sharp-spiked wheel that rotated like a bootspur. The device was designed for use in tracing patterns onto cloth, but Nina had other plans for it. She had spent the time waiting for Kaz experimenting with it on her own skin and found it left a delightful trail of scratches that resembled a procession of ants. The spikes were sharp enough to easily break the skin if she pressed with any real force, but--as much as she suspected Kaz would enjoy it--Nina didn’t feel comfortable getting blood on someone else’s tools.
She started at his deltoid, pressing just hard enough to make the muscle under the skin jump at the unexpected prick. She wheeled the spur down his arm, ghosting over the faded “R” stained on his shoulder, over the meat of his forearm, to his wrist. She gave him a moment to study the tool before pulling it out of sight once again.
“I think you'll enjoy what I have in store for this little thing. But since it's new for both of us, you remember what to say if you don't like it?”
“Yes, Gospoza.”
“And what is that?”
“Dime Lions, Gospoza.”
“Very good,” she purred. “Let's begin.”
Nina swept a slow arc from the top of one shoulder blade to the middle of his back on the other side and then down to his tailbone. She repeated the motion on the other side.
Kaz was quieter than she expected, barely making a sound beyond the occasional hitch of breath. Nina supposed she shouldn't have been surprised, considering Kaz's normal poise and pride. It wouldn't last. After all, they were only getting started.
She used the wheel to trace between his ribs, the backs of his knees, his calves—everywhere she wouldn't be able to get with her crop—paying extra attention to the spots that made him squirm and grunt. After one last graze of a particularly ticklish spot just behind his armpit that made him twitch against his restraints with the instinct to pull his elbow back, Nina set the wheel aside and picked up her riding crop.
The crop was an elegant black that looked even more starkly pleasing against Kaz's pale skin. Small bits of decorative white stitching along the tress and the leather wrapped handle gave it a touch of flair. Nina felt a thrill as she ran her fingers along the shaft, testing its give and bend. She knew the crop intimately—she'd never use one she hadn't practiced with in a scene—but she liked to take a moment to reacquaint herself with it each time.
She stood to one side and placed the stiff flat of the tress—the business end of the crop—on the nape of Kaz's neck and slid it gently down his spine in a caress of leather on skin. Nina would have preferred to use a different crop, one with a more flexible tress, for warm-ups so that she could have used it to pet his skin given the limitation of not using her hand. Kaz, however, had requested one that would deliver a heavier impact rather than a sharp sting, and Nina was pressed enough to transport one riding crop across town with not a horse in sight, let alone two.
The clench of Kaz's jaw gave away his impatience. This was the part of the evening that his previous Dom had neglected. He seemed to have learned his lesson from earlier, so Nina decided not to punish him. Instead, she began a rhythm of light taps over the muscled areas of his back.
The force was just enough to sting a little, small easy, little bursts of pain that made Kaz sigh. The way he relaxed under her ministrations, his head gradually drooping between his elbows, sent a little snake of arousal slithering through Nina's gut. She pushed it aside to deal with later, after she had retired to her bunk for the night. This was Kaz's time, and she wouldn't let herself be distracted. Even so, the sight of Kaz so blissed out, his body devoid of its usual tension despite the strenuous position, tugged at Nina's core. She wished she could run her fingers through his hair, yanking the strands loose from their pomade just to watch the vulnerable curve of his throat or scritching her nails tenderly through the short fuzz around his ears.
But since she couldn't touch him, she would have to give him the attention he craved in other ways.
Nina continued her tapping pattern over Kaz's rump and the backs of his thighs. Soon enough, the warm-up had done its job: Kaz's skin flushed with blood pooled under the surface.
“Look at you, Little Crow,” she cooed, “turned such a pretty pink for me. I'm half tempted to keep you just like this all night.”
She let the subtle threat that this would be all he got hang in the air. She continued, changing nothing in the rhythm she played across his back, until the thought seemed to finally sink through his haze, as judged by the way Kaz raised his head attentively.
Before he had a chance to protest, she bent her arm at the elbow and brought the crop down hard under his shoulder blade.
Kaz swore violently.
Nina waited a moment for him to collect himself, then tutted disapprovingly. “You're forgetting yourself already.”
Kaz blew a harsh sounding breath between his teeth. “One,” he gritted out. “Thank you, Gospoza.”
She grinned wickedly, and though Kaz couldn't see it, she knew it would color her voice. “I'll forgive it this time, but if you make any other slip-ups, you'll be tacking extra punishment onto the end.”
He nodded stiffly.
“Twenty-five strokes. You're at one,” she reminded indulgently.
Nina rained blows down on Kaz's back, the sensitive skin at the tops of his thighs, his ass. The technique she used didn't require her to wait long between strikes, so she set her pace by Kaz's count.
Somewhere around the tenth stroke, his panting turned into chest-deep groans of satisfaction between frankly creative swears. When the force of a particularly had swat to the crest of his ass thrust his hips roughly against the padded sawhorse supporting his weight, pulling a strangled and heady moan from him, Nina realized Kaz must have gotten hard at some point. While she was glad he was enjoying himself, she moved her attentions to another area for the time being; though, she noted that he leaned a little more heavily against the bar after that.
On the final stroke, Kaz hesitated a moment before shakily saying, “Twenty-five.”
Nina paused to see if he would finish the count properly. She was secretly pleased when he didn’t, taking advantage of the loophole she’d left in case Kaz decided he wasn’t ready for the scene to end when they reached their agreed upon count. Outwardly, she adopted a stern tone: “You forgot to thank me.”
Breathlessly, he apologized.
“Unfortunately, disrespect can’t go unpunished.” Kaz nodded frantically at that. “How many more lashes do you think you deserve?”
“Five more,” he answered with an uncharacteristic little waver in his voice.
“So few?” she teased with mock disappointment. “Where will they hurt the most?”
She watched Kaz’s face as he struggled to bring his brain back online enough to decipher what she meant and then how much of the decision was truly in his hands. Taking pity on him, she elaborated, “Since you think you only deserve five more, we better make them count. You tell me where they’ll hurt the most, and that’s where I’ll deliver them.”
“My back,” he said. His voice was even rougher than normal, utterly wrecked by his screams. “Three on the left, two on the right.”
This time, when the leather tongue made contact, Kaz keened.
He was trembling when she went to cut him down at the end of the scene, enough so that she tapped the back of his fist with the hilt of her knife to get his attention. “Kaz?” When he raised his head to stare at her blearily, she continued, “I need you to hold still long enough to slice these ropes. The knots are too tight for me to untie without touching you.”
He took a few fortifying breaths and planted his feet more firmly. Still, she didn’t trust him not to topple over if she cut where the restraints were tied to the piping. She was thankfully able to slip the thin blade between his wrists and the cording, slicing through the latter easily--first one wrist, then the other. Kaz caught himself against the saw horse and used it to lower himself to the ground. He winced visibly when his ass hit the carpet, and Nina grimaced in sympathy.
She squatted down beside him and peered at the irritated red bands rubbed into his wrists. “It doesn’t look too bad. The skin’s not broken. There’s some ointment in the first aid kit. Put that on before you bandage them. On the rest of your skin too. How’s your leg?”
“Fine,” Kaz croaked. However ravaged his voice was, the evenness of his gaze did nothing to give away what they had been up to for the last bell. “It hurts less than usual, but that will be the adrenaline. They’re just a little shaky right now.”
That was to be expected. “There’s some food and water for you in my pack,” she said, pointing to where she’d left it for him by the chair. “Just some fruit and nuts. Eat some before you head out.” Kaz nodded but made no move to lever himself off the floor. “Did you want me to stay?”
Kaz shot her a pointed look. “Definitely not.”
“Alright. I’ll be within shouting distance if you need me.”
Nina exited to the shopfront and found a stool to perch on. She rotated her dominant shoulder in hopes of relieving some of the overworked soreness that was gathering there as her endorphins cooled. Luckily, it was nothing a hot bath and some sleep wouldn’t fix. She studiously tried to ignore the sounds of Kaz rustling about in the next room and gazed out at the gloom through the wide shopfront windows, feeling awkward as she realized that anyone walking by would see her.
Some thirty minutes later, Kaz finally emerged, looking not the least bit rumpled. He handed her satchel over, everything neatly repacked. She took it with a tiny smile of thanks.
“We still meeting for lunch the day after tomorrow?”
“Of course,” he said, holding the front door for her to exit. “The deal is the deal.”