Their hunger sated, Lucas and Victus retired to their shared room.  As they passed the negin’s private suite, the sound of a child’s giggly laughter reached them through the closed door.  Lucas raised an eyebrow.  “He has kids?”

“No,” Victus said, trying very hard to keep judgment from his voice.  “He has whores.”

Lucas stopped in his tracks, looking horrified.  Victus cut him off before the man’s outrage could build steam.  “Their documentation assures us that they are all of legal age.”

“Which is what?”  Lucas demanded

“On this planet?  Twelve.”

Lucas looked at Victus like he was astoundingly stupid.  “Twelve?”  he said.  “You’ve gotta be shitting me.”  He moved toward the door, only to be stopped in his tracks by the iron-hard grip of the Kenzine.  

“No,” Victus said, quietly.  “While what Mal does is morally repugnant, it is also completely legal.”

Lucas was furious.  “So you’re just going to sit back and listen while he rapes little girls?”

Victus took the other man by the upper arm and forcibly steered him into their room as he talked.  “What he is doing is not rape, any more than it is rape to marry and have sex with a post-pubescent girl on any of a dozen of the fundamentalist Islamic worlds, or to have conjugal relations with a wife and all of her sisters on Dynax or Syrilla.”

“That’s…”  Lucas sputtered.  

“Do not bother saying that this is different, because it is not,” Victus growled, his voice ominously low. “I do not know how you were raised, but you must recognize that you can not force your own moral sensibilities on other people.”  

“I was raised Chicago, and what he’s doing would get him thrown into prison there, or on any civilized planet in this galaxy,” Lucas protested, doggedly. 

“We are not on a civilized planet, we are on Galise.” Victus looked at him coldly and added,  “Whatever you did was sufficiently uncivilized to get yourself incarcerated, so you have little room to look down upon the indiscretions of others, do you?”

A stunned Lucas looked as if he'd just been slapped, and although his ears lay back in what could have been shame or regret, his eyes still burned with fire. "You have no idea what happened to me," he said, his voice low and husky with emotion. "I don't have a god-damned thing to feel guilty about."

Victus stared back for a moment, then lowered his eyes. "I apologize, Lucas," he said, finally.  "But you -- No." He shook his head, stopping himself before he could continue this pathetic justification for his words. He started over. "I apologize.  Perhaps you could tell me why you were incarcerated, so I can understand."

"Not on your life," Lucas fumed, pushing his way past Victus. "I'm gonna take a shower, and then I'm going to get as much sleep as I can before I..." he looked around for a moment, taking in the room's furnishings for the first time since he'd arrived. "Where's the bed?"

Victus pointed at the his bed mat, neatly rolled up and pushed back against the wall. "We sleep on mats."

"I was on a bed when I woke up," Exhaustion caused Lucas's voice to rise sharply. "Where's the fucking bed!"

"They wheeled it back into the infirmary, which is now locked," Victus explained.  "The mat is not uncomfortable, and it is better for your back."  The look in Lucas's eyes warned Victus that the inevitable argument was going to be an ugly, irrational one, so he forestalled it.  "This problem will not be solved in the next few minutes.  I will see what I can do while you are taking your shower."

Lucas looked like he might still push the issue, and when Victus put a hand on his shoulder to guide him to the bathroom he shrugged it off.  He stalked into the bathroom and shut the door firmly behind him, and a few seconds later Victus heard water running in the shower. 

When Lucas emerged from the steam-soaked bathroom, an apology was on his lips. "Look, man, I'm sorry," he said, before the door was completely open. "I'm tired and cranky, and I just wanted..." The sight that greeted him in the bedroom stopped him in his tracks. Victus, the ultimate Kenzine killing machine, was fluffing the pillows on a neatly-made bed that hadn't been there ten minutes earlier. "...a bed to sleep in," he finished, dully.  "Where did that come from?"

Victus stood straighter, as if he hadn’t wanted Lucas to catch him being so domestic. "I pulled it from one of the guest rooms," he said, sounding uncomfortable.  He quickly changed the subject.  "It is mine to apologize.  I just got finished lecturing you on not imposing your cultural values upon others. It was good advice, which I would do well to heed. This," he motioned to his own unrolled sleeping mat, "is from my culture, and it was shortsighted of me to expect that you would embrace it."

Businesslike again, Victus moved away from the bed and to the room’s small closet, from which he removed a small garment. “Your clothing does not appear to have arrived, so perhaps these will fit.”  He handed them to Lucas.  “Try them on.”

Too tired for conflict, Lucas pulled the unfamiliar underwear over his feet and around his waist.  “They’re a bit tight, but they’ll work,” he said, biting back a yawn. 

“They’re on backwards,” Victus said, with a brotherly smile.  

“Huh?”  Lucas looked down and saw where he’d gone wrong.  “Oh.  Shit,” he said, as he pulled the garment off and rotated it a hundred and eighty degrees, “I usually wear boxers.”

“I’ll requisition your underwear tomorrow,” Victus promised.  “Any particular color?”

“Whatever doesn’t show skid marks,” Lucas replied, no longer attempting to hide his yawn. “Size thirty-eight.”

“Go to bed,” Victus directed.  “We wake in eight hours and begin our formal training.”  He took Lucas’ place in the bathroom and swung the door mostly shut, but did not latch it behind himself.   He had no fear that Lucas would run off while he was in the shower, for the man had no place to run.  If he tried to leave the house while wearing the collar he’d be shocked senseless before he reached the property line, and could be tracked no matter where he tried to hide.  Negin Mal was safe behind locked doors, and Victus himself was certainly in no danger from the man.

His shower was leisurely, not only to work the tightness out of his muscles but to emphasize to Lucas that he had no need to hurry. Some lessons, he knew, were best delivered quietly.  The steam from the shower pelted against his fur before soaking in and washing away the sweat of their intense training session.  As his handpaws lathered and scrubbed his fur down to his skin, Victus reflected upon what he had seen in his new charge.  

The man had proved to be as able a fighter as he had witnessed in the ring.   Lucas had received some previous training in the martial arts, probably while in the military, since his knowledge was limited to stiffly-made offensive moves.  Of defensive techniques, he knew virtually nothing.  What he’d shown Victus had appeared to be based on ancient tae kwon do techniques, and those could be built upon.  Although his moves were quick, his reaction speed was pitifully slow by Kenzine standards.  Still, they were far better than any sapiens he’d trained, and would not have embarrassed a fellow varius.  

What was concerning Victus most wasn’t the man’s fighting abilities, it was his heritage.  He was mixed breed, exhibiting traits of both rottweiler and shepherd canines.  Although this sort of mix conferred no genetic instability that Victus was aware of, it did pose social challenges.  He was aware that both of those varius sub-clans had rather strict social prohibitions against interbreeding with others outside their clan.  That Lucas’ parents had bridged that social chasm and produced a mixed-breed child would have posed a significant challenge to Lucas in his youth, and might well account for his excessively masculine posturing.  Victus knew the pressures that came with having to prove yourself to your peers over and over again.   He had escaped the scars of social rejection because the environment of Kenzine tolerance did not permit children to be ostracized for being different.  Had Lucas escaped?  

The man had certainly not appeared to lack self-confidence where nudity was concerned.  Victus worked soapy water through the length of his braid and felt the corners of his mouth lifting in a smile.  The look on the fighter’s face when he’d learned that he was going to have to parade around naked had been classic.  But it was something that had to be done, and Victus would not shirk from his duties, even where the comfort of another was concerned.  Lucas McKenzie had to accept him as alpha, or this would never work.  Not as a co-worker, not as an equal, but as an alpha.   Once he had been trained to an acceptable degree they could work on being friends.  Right now it was far more important that Victus be his boss and nothing less.

Victus rinsed the last of the soapy water from his coat and squeezed the excess water from his fur. A quick pass with a hygroscopic towel and a trip through the water reclaimer left him dry enough. The fur dryer would have eliminated the last of the dampness, but it also tended to dry out his skin if used every day.

He had thought to use his nonchalance about leaving Lucas alone in the room as a lesson, but it was lost on the other man. When he emerged from the bathroom, Lucas was already snoring soundly on his small but comfortable bed, one hand under the pillow and the other tucked securely between his thighs. Victus smiled and shook his head, marveling at how winsome this man could be when he wasn’t hiding behind his facade of masculine bravado.

The next morning saw a Lucas in better spirits.  Eight hours of sleep had done much to salve his injured pride and bank the fires of his moral outrage. He still thought that what Mal was doing was disgusting, but acknowledged to himself that it would be a waste of time and energy to invest his energies in fighting something that was impossible to change.

One thing that had definitely not changed was his willingness to wear the training harness that Victus was again holding out to him.  “I wore one when I was an acolyte," the Kenzine explained.

Lucas dismissed the idea with repulsed grunt.  “Still ain’t gonna happen.”

Without judgment, Victus put the harness on the bed.  “As you wish.”  Lucas was a grown man and was free to make his own choices, even if those choices caused him pain.  He walked to the door and opened it expectantly.

Lucas glanced around for the thin robe he’d worn the evening before, but it was gone.  “The chambermaids remove our used clothing and launder it,” Victus told him,  He didn’t think it necessary to tell the fighter that he’d been careful to make certain that Lucas’s robe had been in the pile of laundry before he placed it outside their door. 

“The hell with the robe,” Lucas fumed.  “I just want some fucking pants!”

Victus closed the door and stared at his charge, a single raised eyebrow saying all that needed to be said.

Lucas sighed and rolled his eyes so severely that he might have seen his own brain.  “May I please have some pants, sir, that I might clothe my shameful nudity?” he asked, infusing his voice with as much sarcasm as it would hold. 

“Of course,” Victus answered, moving promptly to the closet. He rooted in one drawer for a moment, then closed it and pulled a formal-looking white garment out of the drawer beneath it.  “I don’t have any training pants in your size, but I do have some formal garb that will serve you well until your own clothing arrives.”  He extended the thick, cotton pants to Lucas.  “Try these on.”

“They look too big,” Lucas complained.  But large or not, they were better than nothing.  He could always cinch them at the waist, should that prove necessary. 

While he worked his feet through the legs, Victus continued to hunt through the small closet.  “I would have sworn I had the jacket to match....Aah!  There it is.”  He turned to hand the jacket to Lucas, in time to fend off a punch which had been aimed at his solar plexus. He saw the motion out of the corner of his eye and easily grabbed Lucas’s wrist, not putting any more force on the joint than was necessary to stop the blow from connecting. He immediately released his grip and nodded approvingly at the pants. “Those look better on you than they do on me.”

“They do, huh?” Lucas glowered, unsure whether he was more annoyed that Victus had so easily deflected his attack, or that the man was acting as if he had just been set upon by a playful cub.  He’d been wanting to make his point with that single punch, knocking the pompous Kenzine on his ass and following it up with a smarmy “you must always be prepared” of his own.  A point had indeed been made.  Lucas was physically the lesser of the two men, and both of them now knew it. 

Although fashion was hardly at the forefront of his mind, Victus had to admit that the pants looked much better on Lucas than they did on himself. They had been a gift from Master Franchesca years earlier, and the look of unblemished affection on her face when he had unwrapped them made it as impossible for him to dispose of them as it was for him to wear them comfortably. They had been sized so ambitiously large that he could only wear them to formal occasions where strenuous movement was not required, and their bunching at the waist could be concealed by the jacket.  

The pants' oversized waistline made him look shapeless and sloppy, but they seemed far more at home wrapped around Lucas McKenzie’s larger thighs.  The jacket of the gi draped comfortably around Lucas’s shoulders, and Victus changed his mind.  He would gift this pair to Lucas, and requisition another, properly-fitted pair for himself. “Breakfast awaits,” he said, again opening the door. “Straighten your back.”

As they walked to the kitchen, Victus brought Lucas up to speed on their daily schedule.  “After we eat we must attend the morning meeting, and if there are no other tasks to participate in, we shall stretch and meditate until the negin wakes up and exits his rooms.” 

The kitchen was a beehive of activity.  They sat down at the same table they’d eaten at the night before, and Lucas took a few moments to look around them.  He loved to eat, but cooking for himself had never really seemed worth the effort.  Watching so many people working so hard for so long to create food that would be polished off in ten minutes seemed like a huge waste of time. 

His eyes lit on the digital clock hanging on the wall, and his eyes bugged out.  “Four and a quarter?” He stared daggers at his companion.  “Why the hell did you drag me out of bed at four in the fucking morning?”

Victus was unperturbed.  “As a guard, you will have more work to do than you ever did as a fighting slave. You must keep abreast of current events to know what might pose a danger to your client.  You must conduct sweeps of your surroundings to be sure that surveillance devices have not been planted.  You must research the most current trends in both protection and malfeasance if you expect to stay ahead of those who wish your client to die.  

“This is… correct your posture,” he said, and waited for Lucas to comply.  

Before he could continue, a short, white canine varius whose fur had been curled and teased to resemble a poodle’s approached their table.   “Good morning, Protector Victus,” she said, her voice hesitant and shy.  

“Good morning, Pearlie,” he replied, the hint of a smile teasing the corners of his lips.  “I hope you are having a pleasant day.”

Lucas noticed that her accent placed her from one of the puritanical perimeter worlds, one whose austerity made the filth-ridden mudball of Galise look like a pleasure planet in comparison.  “There’s a dinner party tonight so we’re already very busy,” she said, “but not so busy that I can’t spare a few minutes to serve you breakfast.” 

 Her gaze had grown more assured as she spoke, and as she finished she dared a slight smile of her own.  Leaning over the men, she pulled two glasses out of the rack on the wall and placed them both in front of Victus.  She retrieved a metal pitcher which had rivulets of condensation dripping down the sides, and filled both glasses, again conspicuously directing her attention to the Kenzine.  “What can I get you?” she asked.  “Oats and fruit with grass juice, again?

Sparing a glance at Lucas, Victus noticed that although he was maintaining his affable expression, his ears now had an ever-so-subtle twist to them.  He was annoyed, but hiding it. “You trained well yesterday,” he said.  “When faced with unfamiliar circumstances you remained composed and followed instructions well.  And your complaints at dinner…” he paused, as if editing himself. “...were minimal.   Keeping in mind that shortly we will be training again with equal vigor, what would you like to eat?”

Lucas’s ears immediately sprang back to their upright, locked positions.  “Bacon,” he said, “With six scrambled eggs and coffee.  And toast.   And...uh, do you have any kind of fruit juice?”

Victus returned his gaze to Pearlie, only to see her holding a stylus in one hand and a blank pad in the other, staring back at him expectantly.  “Will you remember all that?” he asked, thinking to himself that Pearlie was as forgetful as she was shy.

Her brow wrinkled in confusion.  “But...you haven’t said anything, sir.”

Victus thought back to her earlier suggestion and parrotted it back to her.  “Yes, I’d like the oats, with some chopped fruit, but please bring me some warm green tea instead of the grass juice today.”

She scribbled some quick notes on her pad.  “I’ll get this right out to you, sir,” she said, turning to leave.  

“Pearlie,” Victus stopped her mid-step.  “What about Lucas’s order?”

“Who?” she asked, conspicuously not-looking at the man seated across the table from Victus. 

“Lucas McKenzie,” Victus introduced his companion, “who is the newest member of our security detail.”

“Oh.”  Pearlie’s eyes darted back and forth as she furtively noted the location of every person in the room who was in a position to make her life more difficult.  When she again faced Victus, her expression bore marks of confusion and worry.  “But…”she whispered, acutely  uncomfortable to admit having noticed even this much about the man, “he wears the collar.” 

“I’m sitting right here,” Lucas said, having lost some of the perkiness brought on by the prospect of bacon. 

“That does not make him any less important to me, or to the negin, or to you, Pearlie,” Victus said.  “Is it not true that God made all of his children in his own image?”  he asked.  She quickly bowed her head and nodded meekly.  “And since God is perfect, the images he has created of himself must be perfect as well?”  He paused significantly and waited for her response.

“Yes, sir.”  Her voice was so low it was almost a whisper. “I just...don’t want to get in trouble.”

She looked so miserably conflicted that Lucas actually felt sorry for her. “Is there anything I can say here?” he asked, sarcastically.

“Yes, there is.”  Victus put a comforting hand on Pearlie’s arm but his eyes rested on Lucas.  “Do you want white or wheat toast?”

“Wheat,” Lucas said.  He shrugged.  “Can’t be unhealthy all the time, right?”

“Wheat toast,” Victus urged the girl, moving the hand holding her stylus closer to the pad.  "And a half dozen scrambled eggs, and four strips of bacon, coffee, and fruit juice, if any is available today.” 

He waited until the scribbling noises stopped, then said, “And when you bring out the meal, it will be quite crowded if you put it all in front of me, so please distribute the food around the table.”  He quietly pushed his eating utensils across the table to Lucas and said, “I seem to have dropped my silverware.  Could you bring me another set-up, please?  And two straws, in case I drop one?”

“Of course.” She escaped with a curt nod of her head, looking relieved to have not been forced to speak to the sullied man wearing the collar. 

“Do you really believe that stuff?” Lucas asked, looking askance at Victus after Pearlie had gone. “About God making man in his image?”

“No,” Victus said, without hesitation.  “I believe that there is a constructive force in the universe, but man's understanding that force is as unlikely as a worm understanding theoretical physics.”

“Then why did you say that to Pearlie?”

“Because she believes it,” Victus stated.  “It is usually far more helpful to understand other people’s beliefs than it is to make them understand yours.”

“Huh,” Lucas grunted.  “So what do you think this 'constructive force' of yours does to us when we die?” he asked.  “Does it put us in a heaven it constructed for us, or what?”

“I have seen mathematical models suggesting that the energy which makes our consciousness possible does not simply fade away,” he said. "They suggest that the energy of our consciousness temporarily disperse into the pool of energy when we die, to be reembodied when the resonances are correct."

"Reincarnation?" Lucas scoffed. "Like, I might come back as a toad if I'm not a good boy?"

"I do not see why an irresponsibly lived life should move you up the evolutionary ladder," Victus said, seriously, "but yes, I think the essence of your being continues on in some fashion."

Lucas brightened, then pushed himself away from the table and started looking around underneath it.   “Did you drop something?” Victus asked. 

“No,” the fighter said, as he looked back and forth, “I’m looking for the stick that just fell out of your ass.” He grinned.  “You told a joke!  I’m proud of ya, boy!”

Victus frowned.  He realized that their conversation had gotten off track and consciously steered it back. "But as I was saying, you will have limited preparation time each day before the negin arises, and you must make best use of it. It is the only time you will have to yourself, and I strongly encourage you to use it to your best advantage."

"Doesn't leave much time for a social life,does it?" Lucas remarked, wryly.

"You have no social life," Victus said, bluntly. "This is not the sort of life you can lead while pursuing external goals."

"Excellent!" Lucas enthused. "No pay doesn't matter because I have nothing to spend it on, no social life because I have no time for it, and I can't even piss when I want to."

"But large men will not be attempting to kill you on a daily basis," Victus reminded him, "and you do occasionally get bacon."

Lucas sighed. "That's better than nothing, I suppose."

They were on their way out to the front lawn to stretch and meditate when the motion sensor in the negin's suite alerted Victus that he was up and moving. "He's getting an early start today," he warned Lucas, turning back into the house and breaking into a jog.   

They were almost at the negin’s quarters when Victus saw Leland exiting the room and closing the door behind him. The man was wearing his most deferential expression until the door clicked shut, at which point his face went totally blank.  “The negin wishes his privacy,” he said, acting as though there were not insane giggling noises coming through the door of the room behind him.  “Morning meeting in thirty minutes.”

Victus thought this seemed unusual.  “What is he -”  he broke off when his comm vibrated in the pattern he had assigned to the negin.  Flipping open the protective shield, Victus viewed the message.  When he saw the photograph the negin sent him he looked away and snapped the lid shut, as if to seal it inside where it could not pollute the air around him with its foul smell.  “I wish he would not do that.”

Leland’s shoulders slumped minutely in sympathy.  “I apologize for his behavior,” he said, sincerely.  “Be thankful you did not have to witness it in person.”  He straightened his back and pulled the wrinkles out of his vest.  “We have much to discuss,” he said, “Don’t be late.”

“What?” Lucas said, his eyes gleaming.  “What did he send you?”

“The negin finds it amusing to send me pictures which he asserts will expand my horizons,” he explained.  When Lucas looked confused, Victus elaborated, “Pictures of his sex acts.”

Lucas felt ill. 

Victus turned to leave, but stopped when Lucas protested.  “Hey!” he hissed, uncertain of how loud he could get before the negin would hear him.  “What if he comes out?  Aren’t you supposed to stand outside his door, or something?”

Victus sighed. “That would be reasonable, yes.  But he finds it unsettling to have me stand watch and has forbidden me to do so.”  He motioned to Lucas.  “Come on.  From the front lawn we can be back here in fifteen seconds, should his alarm go off.”

An hour later, the negin had still not emerged from his room.  Victus had hoped to instruct Lucas on the basics of meditation while they waited, but that had not gone smoothly.  The fighter was apparently incapable of sitting still for more than five minutes unless asleep, and Victus had put an end to their efforts after a half hour of instruction. They had spent the rest of their time outdoors practicing basic yoga postures, and were now back in their room awaiting Mal’s emergence. 

Lucas came out of the bathroom naked from the waist down and closed the door behind him.  “You don’t want to go in there,” he advised, looking quite pleased with himself.  Victus had split the wall screen of their bedroom into quadrants, and four different news channels running simultaneously. “What are you doing?”

“Listening to the news,” Victus replied.  “The negin’s desire for privacy gives us the opportunity to catch up on daily events which might affect his safety.”

“Like what?” Lucas looked more closely at the screens.  “You can’t be really paying attention to all four of those at once,” he said, dubiously.  “Shit,” he pointed to the lower-left quadrant, “that one’s in Chinese, for fuck’s sake!”

Victus sighed.  “The Chinese have the most up-to-date information on financial matters,” he said, then gave his attention to Victus.  “On the upper-right hand side, Maria Hickney has just finished giving an in-depth report on the Galisian social scene.  Merideth Warner has just succeeded her father to head house Warner, after her brother Dexter’s untimely death in a duel with house Winthrop’s champion.  It is suspected that she had everything to do with both men’s demise, but nobody close to them is foolish enough to say anything.  This puts her ascension ceremony within a week of Negin Mal’s, and may cause considerable conflict between the two. 

“The upper left corner is a science program which has uncovered several new uses for the meta-substance Pentathium.  House Mal is not a producer of Pentathium, but they do produce Dalterium, which is essential to the production of Pentathium.  Depending on what happens with this new material, the Negin may become even richer than he is right now. 

“The lower right corner has given me no useful information, but the lower left, the one speaking Chinese, has just announced the hostile takeover of a company in which Negin Mal owns a one point two percent stake.”

“And all this comes across the infoweb, just as you need it?” Lucas scoffed.  

“No,” Victus said, returning his attention to the sword he was holding in his lap.  “About half of the news I absorb comes from the Kenzine council.  They have personnel who curate the newsfeeds and transmit the useful ones to me.  The other half I look up on my own.”

“Right, “ Lucas said, losing interest.  He looked down at what was occupying Victus.  “Hey, what’s that?”

“It is my sword,” Victus replied, as he soaked a rag in a savory smelling oil and applied it to the blade.

“No shit,” Lucas said, rolling his eyes.  “I mean, is is that a real Kenzine sword?  You know, all samurai and shit?”

Patiently, Victus looked up at the other man.  “I am Kenzine, so any sword I own is a Kenzine sword.”  He paused for only a moment before adding, “and put some pants on.”

What?” said Lucas as he opened his arms wide.  “What’s wrong with walking around like this in the room. I thought you liked me being naked.”

“You never know when you’ll be needed for duty, so prepare.”

“Is that ancient Kenzine wisdom?” said Lucas as he turned his back towards the bed set up on his side of the room and the fresh clothes that awaited him.

Victus dabbed powder onto his sword in a ritual older than written history. “It is common sense.  You will discover that the Negin is capricious, and you may be needed at a moment’s notice to escort him."

“Yeah, yeah.  Okay.” Despite his words, Lucas did not move to put on his pant, but chose to stare out the window at the open sky beyond.

Victus looked up from his work and watched his student with greater interest than he’d shown his swords. After a moment of silent observation, he asked, “What are you looking at?”

Lucas sighed. “The sky. After a couple of years only seeing the sky through chain link, you start to forget how big it looks.” His voice grew so quiet that even Victus had trouble hearing his next words.  “You have no idea how good it feels to be free of those fucking pits.”

“You are not yet free,” the Kenzine replied while closing his sword cleaning kit. “You are still under the control of House Mal, and you’d do well to remember that.”

Lucas stopped his revelry for the moment, putting his hands to his neck and running his hands over the explosive collar.  His ears didn’t lower, but he did sigh in exasperation.  “You can be a real downer, you know that?”

“Never forget where you are, and never forget where you came from,” said the Kenzine.  “I’m just trying to keep you grounded in the reality of your situation.”

Lucas tapped a claw against the collar’s hard surface. “It’s sorta tough to forget with this piece of shit hanging around my neck.” He forced a smile and swung a paw at the room around them. “Still, this gilded cage of ours is better than the ring and it sure beats the hell out of the mines.”  He picked up the shirt on his bed, focusing his attention on the House Mal logo embroidered on the shirt he was about to put on.  “If that’s because some rich fuck wants to make me his attack dog who am I to...OW!”

Lucas snapped his head around to see Victus standing directly over him, pulling a paw back from flicking his ear.  “Wrong intention.  Your job is to guard, not attack.”

Lucas batted Vic’s paw away.  “What the hell, man!  That hurts!”

“Our job is to protect the Negin.  Just because you’re canine doesn’t give you free rein to “sic ‘em” and leave your charge unguarded.”   

“Okay, okay.” Lucas frowned. “It was just a figure of speech.” Vic’s demonstration of speed was unnerving, as was the fact that he hadn’t even heard him approach.

Lesson delivered, Victus went back to putting away his cleaning supplies.  His comm vibrated in the negin’s pattern and he suppressed a wince.  He read the message in silence, then flipped the cover shut.  “Remove the clothing you just put on and get back into your training uniform,” he told Lucas.  “The negin wishes to evaluate his investment.”