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The older brother and former heir, Damen well knew, was dead.
The older brother and former heir, Damen well knew, was dead.
“I hear the King of Akielos has sent me a gift,” said the young man, who was Laurent, Prince of Vere.
“I hear the King of Akielos has sent me a gift,” said the young man, who was Laurent, Prince of Vere.
Damen had gathered all his good intentions about himself and endured it. But the Prince—Laurent’s particular blend of spoilt arrogance and petty spite—had been unbearable.
Damen had gathered all his good intentions about himself and endured it. But the Prince—Laurent’s particular blend of spoilt arrogance and petty spite—had been unbearable.
The irony was that in some ways, Radel’s description of his situation as privileged was correct. This was not the rank cell he had inhabited in Akielos, nor was it the drugged, hazily remembered confinement aboard the ship. This room was not a prison room, it was part of the royal pet residences.
learning the words of an enemy was as important as learning the words of a friend.
“They are natural hot springs,” Radel explained, as though to a child. “The water comes from a great underground river that is hot.” A great underground river that is hot. Damen said, “In Akielos, we use a system of aqueducts to achieve the same effect.” Radel frowned. “I suppose you think that is very clever.”
Damen had felt proud. He had thought, I am thirteen and a man, Kastor fights me like a man. Kastor had not held back against him, and he had been so proud of that, even as the blood pushed out from beneath his hands. Now he remembered the black look in Kastor’s eyes and thought that he had been wrong about many things.
Radel’s eyes widened. When Damen took a step forward, Radel took an involuntary step back.
He realised that this aspect of his captivity, this danger, despite Laurent’s threats, had not previously been real.
Damen saw an older man in the stands with a young child beside him, a proprietary arm around the boy, perhaps a father who had brought his son to view a favourite sport.
There was something obscene about someone with a face like that speaking those words in a conversational voice.
“Why not?” said Damen. “I don’t share your craven habit of hitting only those who cannot hit back, and I take no pleasure in hurting those weaker than myself.” Driven past reason, the words came out in his own language.
“You look surprised . . . were you hoping to enjoy that boy after all? You had better get used to it. The Prince has a reputation for leaving pets unsatisfied.”
No idea how the Prince got him in the ring, but that one would do anything to piss off his uncle.” And then, seeing Damen’s expression: “What, you didn’t know who he was?”
Maybe he just wanted another chance to fight something. Preferably an insufferable yellow-haired princeling.
Laurent smiled. “Did you fight at Marlas?”
Another man might. Another man might think that the inevitable retribution—some sort of public execution, ending with his head on a spike—was worth it for the pleasure of wringing Laurent’s neck.
The methodical ritual of unlacing made Damen wonder, scornfully, if Veretian lovers suspended their passion for a half hour in order to disrobe.
Damen’s flinty dislike of Laurent forestalled his usual reaction to a well-shaped body. If not for that, he might have experienced a moment of difficulty.
In a moment of oversight, they forgot the blindfold.
Probably everything in Vere looked like part of a harem.
And now here he was, for no better reason than that Laurent, possessing a pleasing shape, had left off talking just long enough for Damen’s body to forget his disposition.
A Veretian who treats honourably with an Akielon will be gutted with his own sword. It’s your countryman who taught me that. You can thank him for the lesson.”
“The Prince really . . . did this?” “Who else?” Damen said. Radel had stepped forward and slapped Damen across the face; it was a hard slap, and the man wore three rings on each finger. “What did you do to him?” Radel demanded.
The concern for his back also struck him as funny.
Laurent’s feud with his uncle they took up wholeheartedly; there were deep schisms and rivalries between the Prince’s Guard and the Regent’s Guard, apparently.
“No one of high birth invites the abomination of bastardry,” said Jord, matter-of-factly. Female pets were kept by ladies, male pets were kept by lords.
“Ten months before his ascension . . . is it really a wise time to chastise your nephew?” Audin spoke from behind the silk.
“I didn’t think you’d mind. I know you are not so subservient towards Akielos that you would want the slave’s actions to go unpunished just because he is a gift from Kastor.”
“You don’t have a very good sense of self-preservation, do you, little pet? Bleating to my uncle was a mistake,” said Laurent. “Because you got your hand slapped?” said Damen. “Because it’s going to anger all those guards you’ve taken so much trouble cultivating,” said Laurent. “They tend to dislike servants who place self-interest above loyalty.”
He almost told himself that this was not the pet’s fault, except that, in large part, it was.
Damen looked down at him and could not have felt less aroused. Even under the best of circumstances, green-eyed, red-haired Ancel was not his type.
If there was anything explicit on view, it must be the absence of all desire to be where he was.
On the other hand, the aloof, untouched Laurent was at this moment delivering a precise treatise on cocksucking.
“He cares for your pleasure,” explained Erasmus.
He didn’t like the idea that Erasmus and the others were rendered doubly powerless by an inability to speak or understand what was being said around them.
Damen had seen what had happened to the closest of his personal slaves. They had been killed.
“I wish I could believe you,” said Erasmus. “You talk like a master. But you are a slave, like I am.”
It wasn’t possible that something like this was going to happen—that this court was so depraved that a mercenary could rape a royal slave a scant distance from the gathered court.
And what did it mean, to be a prince, if he did not strive to protect those weaker than himself?
Slaves are trained to obey in all things, but their submission is a pact: They give up free will in exchange for perfect treatment. To abuse someone who cannot resist—isn’t that monstrous?”
He realised that at some point he had begun to think of being alone in a room with Laurent as dangerous.
He was not inclined to believe that cruelty delivered with one hand was redeemed by a caress from the other,
“You’re my pet. You outrank others. You do not need to submit to the orders of anyone except myself and my uncle.
He didn’t reprimand Damen. He didn’t seem particularly displeased with barbaric behaviour, as long as it was directed outward. Like a man who enjoys owning an animal who will rake others with its claws but eat peacefully from his own hand, he was giving his pet a great deal of license.
“What impression did you have of Kastor?” asked Laurent. “A complicated man,” said Torveld. “Born in the shadow of a throne. But he does have many of the qualities needed in a king. Strength. Judiciousness. Ambition.” “Is ambition needed in a king?” said Laurent. “Or is it simply needed to become king?”
I saw Kastor in his grief. It was genuine.
