The Traitor’s Mercy by Iris Foxglove

Chapter 7

If Laurent had half the sense he liked to think, he’d call for Charon. Charon would handle Sabre with his calm indifference, hurt him to the point where Sabre lost that sheen of terror in his eyes and then gentle him into sleep. He wouldn’t mind it, either. He’d done it for everyone in the house, a time or two. Even Laurent, once or twice.

But he knew he wasn’t going to. Sabre looked too beautiful like this, sobbing and broken, begging in his noble’s voice for Laurent—Laurent, an orphan from some unknown land who couldn’t remember a day before his tenth birthday, who didn’t even know what his real name was—to settle him, to be good.

He could tell himself he was going to do it for the House, hell, he could say he was going to do it for Sabre—because of course he was going to do it—but he was honest enough to admit that he wanted to give Sabre what he was asking for so prettily, and it had nothing to do with anything other than the simple fact that he wanted to.

“Come up here.” Laurent sat up. The truth was he himself had yet to fall asleep, sensitive to every twitch and soft sound of misery coming from the floor. “The lead is long enough.”

Sabre said, “I can’t move. I can’t move.”

Laurent got out of bed. He walked over and knelt by Sabre, and he couldn’t deny he was affected by the sight. He’d seen a lot, in his time at the House of Gold. Courtesans ill-suited to the job, terrified what might await them if they didn’t take to it anyway. Courtesans who were no longer in demand and who hadn’t yet made their house debt, frantic at the thought of their debt being sold to some lower-tier house, or worse, to the quarries. He’d seen children as young as six, dropped off by desperate parents who thought their children had no future beyond growing up in a pleasure house, learning how to one day be a whore. It was equally as awful when the children were accepted, as when they weren’t.

There were other houses, the ones the minnow-catchers worked for, that weren’t quite so picky. And they didn’t always follow the rules of age of majority, either.

He’d seen miserable courtesans, plenty of times. Even ones that were doing well. The House of Gold had been a hotbed of competitiveness and underhanded dealings, with all of them vying for attention that would pay out their debt faster, get them noticed by a noble who might want to sponsor them, install them in some side-chamber in one of their estates and at least remove them from the constant competition and fear of being surpassed by someone else.

The smart ones knew it was temporary, in the House of Gold. Laurent knew it, the House’s former top earner before him knew it, and the one after Laurent probably did, too. Being installed as some aging noble’s plaything in a country estate sounded like a fate worse than death to Laurent, but for some, it was the only reasonable goal they had. Of course, even then, you could be returned. It happened sometimes, a sobbing courtesan brought back, a whole new debt added to the old. Out of the limelight long enough that no one remembered who you were. The sound of the quarry cart trundling up to the House at dawn, the pleading that never once managed to change the house lord’s mind.

But he was almost certain he’d never seen anyone as miserable as Sabre de Valois, sobbing his fear and loneliness out on Laurent’s floor. Plagued by nightmares from almost being hanged and hearing the king give the command to have his family die. Everything torn from him, ripped away, and Laurent using it for his own means, his own house’s infamy. At least that was the litany singing through his head as he looked at Sabre there, on the floor. Undone by cruelty and kindness both.

Laurent went down on his heels. He tipped Sabre’s face up to his, and wondered if he should ask him about the herbs, again. Or just bring them anyway, let him feel safe for a bit, slip into better dreams and not be torn out of them.

He sighed. “You have no idea how you look right now. I’ve never seen anyone so broken look as beautiful as you do. And I should, if I were a better man, do something for you. Something more than teach you how to take their cruelty and disdain and drink it like fine wine. But other than deliver you sweetly into death, all I can do is this.”

“They’d know,” Sabre said, as Laurent drew him close. “If it was peaceful. It would be your house that suffered and I don’t want that.”

Laurent thought of him, then, as the noble he might have been. At what an evening would be like, if Sabre had hired him, begged to be taken and hurt. “That you would think of that, first, shows you are a good man. But ah, I am not, my Sabre. I’m ruthless and I’m using you, and I’d like to tell you that it’s because I know it will help you, but it might just be because I like seeing you hurt.”

“That’s.” Sabre drew in a breath, pushing against Laurent’s hand on his head. “Fine.”

Laurent almost laughed. “Come up with me, to bed. I’ll settle you. But I don’t want you to think I’m something I’m not.”

Sabre blinked at him, and Laurent decided this wasn’t the time to assuage his own guilt at what he was doing. So he drew Sabre up to the bed, kept his hands cuffed in front of him and unclicked the lead, just to wrap it firmly around his own wrist. “Did you like it when they called you a whore, a slut?”

“Yes,” Sabre said, staring as Laurent unbound his hair, letting it fall in soft, red-gold waves around his face.

“They’ll call you that a lot. They’ll say those terrible things, and most of them will hurt at first, deliciously, you’ll feel like you’re kneeling on glass, like every snide word is a whip, fire-tipped.” He pushed Sabre to his back, leaned over them. “They won’t know that you like the way it feels. They want to hurt you.”

“Yes,” Sabre said, again, starting to writhe.

“Focus on that, when it gets mixed up with what really happened. Everyone here hides behind something, you’ll need to find it, too.” Laurent kissed him, took his time with it, overwhelmed him. Bit his lip, hard enough to get Sabre moaning.

“It will grow dull. You’ll hear those things, terrible words about your family, about the king, about their pleasure in watching the worst thing that ever happened to you. You will playact, as all of us do, even Yves who seems content to be nothing but a noble’s plaything. Don’t ever let them know, your clients, that it stopped hurting like you want it to. That you’re bored. Earn your debt and have a life somewhere else, where your nightmares are your own and your pain isn’t fodder for some bored nobleman’s lust.” Laurent caught himself, recognizing the impending dominant-drop after years of suffering it post-assignation, when he wasn’t allowed to be what his nature had already decided he was. “What hurt you more, pet? Your old friend threatening to hire you for an evening and making it clear he never liked you, or de Mazet’s sincerity when he apologized for what happened to your family?”

Sabre twisted on the bed beneath him. “That—that did.”

“That’s why you won’t go the prince, or de Mazet, or anyone who meant you well.” Laurent shifted on top of him. “You used to fence with de Mortain. He’s a cold man. Exacting. Not known for his empathy. I chose well for you. You’ll thank me, when you come back, and he’s hurt you, fucked you under.”

“Yes, I—I will, I’ll be good for you, I just want to be enough.”

“You are what I say you are,” Laurent said. He smacked Sabre across his pretty, miserable face. “And I am not going to tell you that again. You’ll be good because I say you are.” He rolled on top of Sabre, let him feel how hard Laurent was, knowing it was overwhelming, the full press of his naked body where before he’d always been dressed. “You have me hard for you, do you think that isn’t enough?”

“Ah, my lord—” Sabre pushed his hips against him, his cock as hard as rock, more even than Laurent’s.

“Shh. I’ll hear you moan and beg when I’m ready for it, but you’ll let me settle you. You’ll stop fighting.” Laurent bit him on the shoulder, the neck. Forced his mouth open, spit it into it, smacked him over and over until Sabre swallowed and tears spilled prettily from his bright gold eyes.

There was really only so much Laurent could do, as turned on as he was, as Sabre was, with his first night promised to someone else. He thought about straddling Sabre while he lay there beneath him, choking him with his cock, but what he wanted to do was fuck him.

So instead, he grabbed his hair and choked him a little above his collar and thought how it was all wrong, should be sleek and black, something that was his, not the king’s. And that way lay danger, the same kind that sent Sabre’s mother and sister to the gallows. Laurent pinned him down and rutted his cock against Sabre’s, and the room was thick with the sounds of their breathing. Laurent did not fuck his courtesans. But he wanted to fuck this one.

Sabre was undone there on the bed, lost in being put under by casual cruelty and Laurent’s firm dominance. He was gasping and arching, trying almost shyly to rub himself against Laurent, give him pleasure, let himself be used, useful.

Laurent groaned. “Gods, how I want to fuck you.”

“Yes, oh, yes, please, my lord, I—please, please,” Sabre begged, and there was no artifice, nothing in it but want.

He pushed his face into Sabre’s neck and shoulder. “That doesn’t—belong to me.”

“I belong to you,” Sabre said, as if it was scripted, so perfect that it seemed almost as if he’d always been born to be a whore, not a useless noble no one took the time to settle properly.

Laurent fumbled for the oil by his bedside, kneeling up on the mattress as he opened the bottle. Sabre panted up at him and spread his legs, and Laurent threw his head back and groaned, grabbing the base of his cock to keep from coming all over himself and Sabre.

He backhanded Sabre. It split his lip, and Sabre—trapped on his back with his hands bound before him—cried out and begged, “Please let me come, my lord.”

If he’d had one less ounce of self-control, Laurent would have done it. Fucked him hard, right then and there and damn all the consequences. But instead, he spilled the oil on Sabre’s firm, pale thighs, ruining the sheets, and fell almost gracelessly on top of him. “Not yet, no, tighten your legs for me.”

Sabre did it, head thrashing on the pillow, and Laurent fucked himself to a blinding, shuddering orgasm there between his slicked up thighs. It took no time at all, and when he growled out, “Beg me to let you come, now,” Sabre tightened his legs even more and did it, begged desperately and without hesitation.

“Please, please, my lord, oh, please—Laurent—”

And that he shouldn’t allow, but instead he bit Sabre hard enough above his collar to break the skin and snarled, “Do it,” and felt Sabre go tense beneath him, shuddering in pleasure as he came, rubbing himself desperately against Laurent’s stomach and spilling warm and wet between them.

By the time Laurent moved away, Sabre was a mess—his face flushed and tear-streaked, panting, his hair everywhere, covered in oil and their combined release. But his eyes were soft and unfocused, clear, and there was a little smile on his face, and a smear of blood above the bright gold of his collar, like a sunset.

Laurent stroked his hair and waited for his heart to stop pounding. It took a long time. When he could finally rouse himself and stand on legs that were also unsteady, Sabre was asleep. His breathing was deep and even, and if he had nightmares, they did not wake him.

Laurent could tell, because he lay there, unable to sleep, until dawn.

* * *

“Honey,you can’t keep doing this.”

Sabre grimly washed his mouth out with some of Gwydion’s tooth-cleaning solution, which was bright green and vaguely suspicious, but made his mouth taste like he hadn’t just thrown up his lunch for the second time that day. Gwydion himself stood in the back, fixing loose threads on a mask, while the entirety of the House crowded up between him and Sabre.

“I’m fine,” Sabre said.

“Of course you are,” Simone said, running a comb through his hair. “We were all nervous before our First Night, weren’t we?”

“Mine wasn’t even special,” Nanette said. She was sitting on the sink, a pot of black face paint in one hand, brush in the other. “Just the House lord, believe it or not. He claimed every courtesan’s First Night, and he didn’t even pay us for it.”

“I feel like that should be illegal,” Simone said. Nanette snorted.

“Yeah. Well. You wonder why I moved here?”

“Because Lord de Rue doesn’t force you to wear dresses,” Yves said, hauling in a bag full of clothes.

“That’s just a perk,” Nanette said. “Open your eyes wide, Sabre-baby. Do you want this guy to see you cry, or do you want to look, what’s the word…”

“Dishabille,” Simone said.

“Yeah. That.”

Sabre felt a little lightheaded. “I don’t think he’s ever seen me in makeup.”

“Ohh, then let’s be dramatic,” Nanette said, swooping in with the brush.

It had been like that all day. The dread of the First Night had faded in the chaos of cooking breakfast for the regular gossip crowd, cleaning the baths, scrubbing out couches, hanging up clothes to dry, and the countless other chores necessary to keep the House running. He’d almost forgotten it until that morning, when he woke up, stared at himself in the mirror of Laurent’s baths, and retched water and bile into the sink.

In only a few hours, he was going to be kneeling for Isiodore. He almost wished that the House of Onyx was like the House of Iron, and Laurent could claim his First Night. He’d know what to do. What to say. How to make Sabre feel like he didn’t want to crawl out of his own skin.

“What,” said Percival, in a horrified tone, “is that.”

Margritte, who Sabre had only seen in passing a handful of times, held up a pile of gray rags with a slightly bewildered look.

“But he’s trying not to be a noble,” she said.

Yves sighed. “This is why you leave the clothes to me.”

“The man who wears skin tight shorts with the words Daddy’s Boy embroidered in silver,” Percival drawled. “No. I’m supervising.”

“Shouldn’t I get a say in what I wear, though?” Sabre asked.

They all stared at him for a moment.

“Right,” Yves said, like he hadn’t spoken. “So I was thinking gold.”

“Let them fuss,” Simone whispered, braiding small silver bells in Sabre’s hair. “It’s their way of showing they care.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Sabre whispered back.

Simone smiled at him through the mirror. “This is one of the only Houses in the district that isn’t full of people trying to cut each other out of a noble’s favor. We’re all…unusual, here. Too old.” She winked. “Too strange. Too dominant, for some. The only person you might want to watch out for is Yves, and there’s still too much of the farmboy in him for him to be truly ruthless in his ambition. So perhaps we have a fondness for hopeless cases.”

“I don’t know if I should be insulted or not,” Sabre said.

“That’s how it always is with Simone,” Nanette said. “Hold still, I need to fix your eye.”

When they were done with him at last, Sabre almost didn’t recognize himself. His hair jingled softly when he moved. His eyes were lined, his freckles made more prominent by the small amount of powder Nanette had used to draw attention to them, and he was wearing one of Yves’ robes, silver and soft as silk, tied just so that his chest kept slipping in and out of view.

“Oh,” he said, quietly.

“What do you think?” Simone asked. “Will he ruin it properly?”

“I think so,” Sabre said.

“Good, because that’s the point. It’s like knocking over a sandcastle. Deeply satisfying, however brief.”

“You,” Percival said, narrowing his eyes. “You’re one of those people.”

“Of course I am, darling.”

“Uh.” Sabre ran a finger under his collar, which was the only thing that didn’t match, stark gold against all the silver. “Thank you, for doing this.”

“Oh, I’ll cry,” Yves said, utterly dry-eyed. He reached out and squeezed Sabre’s hand. “You’ll tell us how it went, right?”

“And I have time, after,” Charon said, from the corner where he’d been reading through the entire afternoon. “Should you need it.”

Sabre opened his mouth to say he’d probably ask Laurent, actually, and closed it again. He couldn’t keep depending on Laurent for everything. It wasn’t fair to Laurent, who likely had better things to do with his time, even though Sabre could have sworn he’d been looking at him, when Sabre wasn’t paying attention. There was hunger there, just for a moment, but every time Sabre thought of asking, it disappeared behind Laurent’s careful mask.

Laurent met him downstairs, dressed in a slightly subdued suit of the latest fashion, shades of black and deep violet that brought out the strange color of his eyes and the pallor of his skin. He raised his brows when Sabre headed down the stairs, and Rose, who was doing sums from a large book on the couch, whistled.

“You look like the moon prince,” she said. “Doesn’t he, Laurent?”

“Yes,” Laurent said, with a flash of that hunger again, hastily snuffed out. “Close. We’ll have to leave now if we’re to make it to the palace in time.”

“We?” Sabre asked. There was a little too much hope in his voice, he knew, but he couldn’t help it. “You’re coming?”

“You’ve been asked to come to the palace, away from any security measures we have in place at the House. Of course I’m coming—I need to protect my investments.”

Rose snorted, and Laurent glared at her. “And that’s why I can’t come, I guess,” she said.

“You wouldn’t want to,” Sabre said.

“You’re both so boring,” Rose muttered, marking something on her notes. “Off to the palace while I do math.”

“Truly, yours is a life of suffering,” Laurent said, taking Sabre by the shoulder. “I’ll light a candle in your honor.”

Rose flipped him a rude gesture, and Laurent laughed softly as Sabre followed him through the foyer. He kept his hand on Sabre’s back, and Sabre only hesitated for a breath before he stepped outside and into the carriage waiting for them. It had the royal crest on the side, outlined in gold as bright as Sabre’s collar, and Sabre lifted his braided hair over his shoulder as he sank onto the bench.

He would find out tonight. Isiodore had no reason to lie about Sabre’s family—He’d been friends with Sabre’s father, and saw Sabre make his fumbling vow to the king at thirteen. He wouldn’t couch it behind compassion, either. Just the truth. Your mother and sister were innocent, and the king killed them anyway.

“I’d probably be in the military, by now,” Sabre said. “I was planning to wait until after Elise’s birthday to give them the news.”

“I don’t see you killing anyone,” Laurent said, crossing his legs. He propped his chin on his knuckles, looking Sabre over.

“I don’t know if I could, either,” Sabre admitted. “I can fight well enough if I have to, but seeing one dead body in my lifetime is more than I need.” Laurent raised his brows. “Not my sister, or mother. I never actually saw them, after.”

“Ah. Your father, then.”

Sabre almost said no, that he hadn’t been there when his father died, but that would have meant admitting that he’d seen the queen in the throne room, her blood staining the marble. He shrugged, and his voice came out oddly hollow, false. “He died on a hunt. Something caught his saddle. It happens.”

He’d been almost inconsolable when his mother gave him the news. Sabre and his father were always close. Sabre’s father had practically grown up with the king, and Sabre, with Adrien clinging to him like a post in a storm, followed his father in the vain hope that they would end up the same. That if he could be enough of a bulwark, he could protect Adrien from the centuries of tradition he had to contend with between him and the throne.

Now, he was cast out to sea himself, and anyone foolish enough to reach for him would drown.

“I don’t know how much of myself I can hold in reserve, tonight,” he said. The sun was starting to set over the city, slashes of violet and red flickering between buildings.

“He’ll know if you are, I suppose,” Laurent said. “He knows you well enough.”

“Maybe. Only through training. He knows what it takes to fell me. Oh.” The palace rose above them, framed by the high walls where traitors were displayed. There was nothing there, just a stained and empty patch of stone, but that didn’t mean his mother and sister hadn’t been hanged from the edge. The king always took down bodies when nobles complained of the smell.

“Careful,” Laurent said. The carriage was almost entirely dark.

“They weren’t up there,” Sabre said. “It’s fine. It’s all right.”

“Remember to breathe.”

Sabre took a long, shaky breath. The carriage rolled to a halt, and Laurent stepped out first, looking utterly at home in his fine suit and cloak. Sabre followed after him, dressed like a painted whore, and looked down, breath catching in his throat.

They had to walk through the main hall to reach the residential branch of the palace, and Sabre kept his eyes lowered, following at Laurent’s heels. He could hear whispering as he passed, and his hands locked behind his back despite himself, an old habit that brought more fear than comfort, now that he couldn’t shake the feel of rope around his wrists. His cock stirred, and he knew they could see it, the nobles watching him, following the traitor’s son as he was delivered to Isiodore.

“Is he here, my lord,” Sabre whispered.

“No,” Laurent said. “Or I’d be obligated to bow.”

Sabre could already feel the pressure to slip under before he’d even crossed the hall. The residential wing wound up a stair on the right side of the gates, but Sabre kept his hands behind his back, his gaze lowered, following the path more through muscle memory than by sight. Laurent stopped him at Isiodore’s suites, and tipped his head up by the chin.

“You won’t leave?” Sabre asked.

Laurent brushed his mouth with a thumb, almost gently. “No.”

“Thank you,” Sabre said, so soft he couldn’t tell if Laurent could even hear. “My lord.”

Laurent held his gaze for a moment longer, then turned to knock on the door of Isiodore de Mortain’s suites.

Isiodore didn’t open the door for them, of course. They were greeted by a terrified maid, who took one look at Sabre, fumbled over what honorific to use, and settled for not addressing him at all. Which was fine, really. Sabre felt half in a daze already, pulled along after Laurent by an invisible tether, and when he was led to the training room and left there, Sabre went calmly to the center of the room and glanced back at Laurent.

“He usually has me stand, when we spar,” he said.

“Then kneel,” Laurent said.

Sabre went to his knees as clumsily as ever, more painful than with any grace. There wasn’t any doubt, when he risked a look at Laurent, that Laurent knew he hadn’t knelt for Isiodore. Not exactly.

The door opened, and Sabre looked down at his knees. Heavy footfalls made the ground tremble, slightly, and Sabre saw the familiar leather of Isiodore’s boots, smartly polished and buckled.

“Hm.” Isiodore took Sabre by the hair and pulled his head back. He was dressed simply, his hair pulled back, just as he would during any of their sparring lessons. “You did this for me, did you? Dressed yourself like a whore?”

Sabre had to take a moment to gather the breath to speak. “Yes, sir. Ah, I mean—”

Isiodore backhanded him so hard that only his grip on Sabre’s hair kept him upright.

“Yes,” Sabre said.

“And is that what you are?” Isiodore leaned down to tug the sash holding Sabre’s robes closed, revealing his half-hard cock. Isiodore nudged it with a boot, and Sabre hissed out a breath. “A whore?”

Sabre glanced at Laurent, sitting on the bench at the edge of the training circle, and Isiodore jerked his head to the side.

“Don’t answer him. He isn’t the one who asked you a question. Are you a whore?”

“Yes, sir.”

Isiodore slapped him again, and Sabre tasted blood on his tongue. “No. You aren’t one. Not yet. Stand up.”

“Ah, yes m—” Sabre gasped as he was hauled up by the neck, scrambling for purchase. For a terrifying moment, he dangled from Isiodore’s hand, then he was set down and left staring wildly as Isiodore took out a length of rope.

“Ask me to put it on you,” Isiodore said.

Sabre’s tongue felt like it was made of lead. “Please. The rope…”

“Where do you think I’ll tie it?” Isiodore asked. “Your hands? You’re keeping them too still. Your neck?” He stepped behind Sabre, and smacked him on the thigh. “What did I tell you? Hold still.”

“Yes, sir, sorry, sir,” Sabre said, automatically.

“Can’t have you falling to your knees at a little pain,” Isiodore said, which was laughable, because he knew exactly how much Sabre could take. He tugged at Sabre’s hair, and it wasn’t until the bells started to jingle and the pain became just short of too sharp that Sabre realized he was being held up by it, the rope wound in with the ribbons and bells and tied firmly to a hook in the ceiling. If Sabre stood on his toes, the pain lessened, but he didn’t know how long he could manage before he started to shake.

“These, you’ll remember,” Isiodore said, and Sabre only just stopped himself from twisting on the rope to look. He waited for Isiodore to walk around him, and couldn’t hide the way his cock hardened at the sight of the knife Sabre had given him for a years-end gift not long before. It was part of a set—they were expensive, functional, and were said to keep their edge long after other knives went dull. The blade shone wickedly in the lamplight, and Sabre tensed, rising on his toes.

“Hold position,” Isiodore said, and Sabre clenched and flexed his hands as he stood on his toes, watching Isiodore bring the edge of the blade to Sabre’s throat, just below the collar.

He was trembling with the effort of holding himself up by the time the blade slid over his belly, curving towards his inner thigh. Isiodore only just pressed the edge of the knife to Sabre’s thigh, so close to his flushed, hard cock, and Sabre made a soft sound in the back of his throat.

“Your Grace, please.”

Isiodore brought the knife closer, letting the flat of it rest under Sabre’s cock. “Vague questions get unpleasant answers,” he said. “What is it you want of me? Answers? Release?”

Sabre shook on his toes as the knife was withdrawn. “I don’t know.”

“Why don’t I give you the question, first,” Isiodore said, lifting Sabre’s chin. “Why did the king set your debt at fifteen hundred crowns?”

Sabre blinked, slowly. “What?”

“You aren’t ready for the answer, yet. I’ll have to break you for that. But you want it, don’t you? You want it so badly, it burns at you. To be broken. To be made a whore. Don’t you agree, Lord de Rue?”