The Traitor’s Mercy by Iris Foxglove

Chapter 8

Why did the king set your debt at fifteen hundred crowns?

It took Laurent a moment to understand the question—to say he was distracted was an understatement. Sabre was tied up by his hair, and if he only knew how beautiful he looked like this, one of the old stories about sacrifices left for the gods of the sea, beautifully dressed and presented in due reverence for the old ones to drag down into the dark and devour.

Even if he couldn’t quite remember that story, or why he knew it. The capital of Staria was at least a day’s hard ride to the coast, more if you were going north, and their stories were more about noble knights than sea gods. Maybe he’d heard it from Rose, in one of her books. Either way, it didn’t change that Sabre looked like an offering, displayed and adorned as he was.

Sabre’s debt was astronomical. It was one reason why Laurent thought his house would be the only one to help him achieve it, but he’d thought that was the point. Not that there was an actual reasoning behind Emile setting it at that exact number. Laurent was having a difficult time thinking about that, though, because he was only thinking about Sabre as the sacrifice and he, Laurent, as the monster.

But he wasn’t, not now. This was Isiodore’s night, bought and paid for, and from the look of it, Sabre was going under even despite his clear distress...or perhaps because of it. And that’s how it should be. Laurent had chosen well, and they were gorgeous together. Sabre, trembling in his delicious fear with his cock rising from between his legs, and Isiodore, as put together as ever, his sharp features composed, his commands falling nearly with the same weight as the king’s.

“Oh, I do, Your Grace,” Laurent said, shaking himself for a moment. “They did him a disservice, didn’t they, not sending him to the houses sooner? Think how easier it would have been, for him. No weight of expectations, just the weight of a man’s cock in his mouth.”

“He would have taken to the training with a bit more grace, I think, than he did to nobility. A pity no one saw to him, he could have been married off to some adoring noble, kept safe from the perfidy and machinations of the Court.” Isiodore did something with his hand holding the knife that made Sabre gasp and twitch, hanging there, and Laurent was momentarily impressed at Isiodore’s ability to hold a conversation with a knife under an attractive man’s cock, who was panting and so close to begging already. “But that’s always been the way they failed you, hasn’t it, Sabre? They never did want to take you as you were. Sent you to me, thought perhaps your innate desire to serve would impress me.”

“My father,” Sabre whispered. “He…he always said that…”

“What’s that?” Isiodore pulled the knife back, traced it up Sabre’s chest, the silver flashing against his skin. “Finish your sentences, I’ve no use for whores who can’t carry a conversation.”

Laurent wondered if, perhaps, he could hire Isiodore to give lessons. Probably not possible, given the man was a duke, but gods, if he could bottle that dom energy and present it alongside Charon’s? Laurent would be richer than the king. Though perhaps that would be far too dangerous to his continued health, even though Emile, for all his paranoia and the way he wielded his dominance and absolute power like a cudgel, was not known for being ostentatious—almost the opposite. Laurent had heard more than once that the king, who favored simple attire and wore his reddish-brown hair tied back, was most recognizable by his cold blue eyes and tendency not to blink.

“My father called you his friend,” Sabre said.

“Your father was my friend,” Isiodore replied. “And I do not say that easily about anyone. And he would have said the same, that you belonged in lessons with the prince, learning to kneel for the ones who would take you, keep you safe. But your father trusted the wrong people and paid the price for it, and you paid the price for other things, and there is little to be done about it now.” He stroked the blade of the knife against Sabre’s throat. “Show me your throat, then. Your father never learned to be sensible enough to do the same for a dominant that deserved it, not the first bitch who let him mount her. Does that make you angry? Hearing me speak of your dead mother like that? I was there, that day. I saw her neck break. I was sorry for your sister but I knew her a lost cause. Your mother was a viper and your sister would have been the same.”

“Stop,” Sabre gasped. “Please. They were my family.”

“They did not know the meaning of the word, Bumblebee,” Isiodore said, with an odd little smile on his face. “Ask me what you want to know. Give up what ties you here, this pit where you have never belonged.”

Sabre sobbed; something about the nickname was making him thrash, unheeding of the delicate way he was bound. “I can’t.” He tried to look at Laurent.

Isiodore used nothing but the press of the tip of the knife on Sabre’s cheek and the quiet dominance in his voice to bring his focus back. “I’ll tell him to leave, Bumblebee. Your lord might be a lord, but I am a duke and he will not put the safety of his house at risk to disobey me. Lord de Rue, do I lie?”

“No, Your Grace. I am aware of the balance of power, here,” said Laurent, which was true.

“I fucked him, a time or two,” Isiodore said, to Sabre. He was tracing Sabre’s mouth with the knife, and Sabre was panting, his cock so hard it looked painful. “Your lord. Do you remember, Lord de Rue, what I told you, that first time?”

Laurent did remember. “You told me that playacting would get me escorted home, Your Grace.”

“I did. I knew you were no submissive, and I liked that you knew that I knew, and putting you in your place was still very satisfying because you fought it, and yet I knew you weren’t lying when you moaned under me. I am surrounded by enough liars in the court, I don’t want it in my bedroom. Did you know I took him, your lord, did he tell you?”

“I,” Sabre said. “I figured. You always liked sharp, elegant things. Like, like my lord.”

Laurent smiled, pleased at the compliment.

“Indeed,” said Isiodore. “Do you think you are either?”

“No, my lord,” Sabre said. “I am not a dominant. And I am not, not elegant, like Lord de Rue.”

“Neither was your father,” Isiodre said, in a soft voice. He flipped the hilt of the knife around, and pressed it into Sabre’s mouth. “And I fucked him. Did you know that, Bumblebee? I fucked him, and I told him not to marry your scheming bitch of a mother, and he did not listen and thought it a good match. And he was so very, very wrong.”

“Mmph.” Sabre started to struggle, as Isiodore pressed the hilt in a little more.

“I will speak of this once, and only once, Sabre. You swore your oath to Emile, and the worst of it is, that you meant it. Just like your father’s wedding vows. You don’t know how to lie that way. With your whole body. If Emile had let you swing with your mother and sister, you would have been the only true noble to die that morning.”

He pulled the hilt out of Sabre’s mouth, and dragged it wet over his cheek, smearing the tears that have spilled over Sabre’s eyes. “Ask me if they were traitors, Sabre. Ask me how your father died. If you want the truth, you may have it. It will break you, Bumblebee. Let it.”

Sabre raised his head. Tears dripped from his chin, but Laurent saw it, then. The power all submissives had, inherent in their nature, to bend and break but never shatter, not completely. To withstand the cruelty, the sadism, the control and take it all, twist it into something lovely, make a dominant kiss them sweetly and thank them when it was over. Submissives were not weak, and the ones who understood that were worth their weight in gold.

“Why,” Sabre asked, misery in every lovely line of his body, shaking his head and making the bells jingle in his hair. He arched his back and went up on his toes, and Laurent’s breath caught at how he so effortlessly made it look beautiful. “Why is my debt fifteen hundred crowns?”

Isiodore smacked him, hard, across the face. Then he smacked Sabre’s cock, too, then used the blade to tease the head of his cock, which took an astounding amount of precision and control. “It’s the amount your traitorous bitch of a mother paid assassins to see the king dead.It includes the amount she paid to have a footman undo the straps of your father’s saddle so he’d fall during a hunt. It includes the dowry for your sister, who she intended would marry Adrien after his father was killed. The only thing it doesn’t include, Sabre, is the money she would have paid to see you and Adrien dead in the north sea, if you didn’t behave. That, your sister promised, but she didn’t have the time to see it done.”

* * *

For a long,agonizing moment, Sabre could only hear the ragged inhale of his own breath.

When he was still young, Sabre was caught brawling with the oldest son of Lord Chastain. He’d flown at him for making a snide remark about the late queen in front of Adrien, who just stood there with his chin raised and his eyes glittering, fighting back tears. They were both a mess by the end of it, but Sabre had broken the little weasel’s nose, and he had to be dragged before the king for brawling on the palace grounds.

“You can’t fight everyone who offends you, Sabre,” his father said, later, still trying not to look like he was laughing. “You’re loyal to Adrien, and that’s good, but you have to think it through, first. Be practical. All you did today was make a potential enemy.”

“Not like I wanted him to be my friend,” Sabre said, and his father had laughed at that, pulled him into a one-armed hug and kissed his forehead. “I just don’t know why everyone thinks the king killed her.”

“Because the truth is harder,” his father said, lowering his voice. “Because when we learn of a terrible thing, our minds try to patch it up. The queen is dead, and the king is...behaving strangely, so the king must have killed her. The king killed her, so she must have betrayed him. We try to justify what sickens us, Bumblebee. It’s better than admitting that sometimes, terrible things just happen.”

His father died a few weeks later, while Sabre was staying in the residential wing of the palace. He could still remember the look on Isiodore’s face when the message runner interrupted their lesson, the fleeting look of pain, the slow, deliberate way he moved.

Had he known, then? Sabre always knew Isiodore kept an eye on most of the comings and goings of the noble classes. It was like he was an invisible man at a card game, passing behind the other players, always aware of what they held. Had he known that Sabre’s father—Had he suspected that—

He could feel his thoughts trying to fill in the gaps. His mother didn’t kill his father. She loved him. She mourned him. Except—except she’d worn her mourning colors as briefly as possible, when other widows and widowers kept colored bands on for years to mourn the dead. And she’d never spoken of him, except to say how much Sabre was like him, when he’d talk back at tea or ask to stay with Adrien for a week in his house in the country.

She’d always despised the king. She and Sabre’s father used to fight over it at night, their voices whisper-soft but sharp as a nail boring through the walls, with Sabre trying to distract Elise in the nursery. There was a reason, Sabre realized, that his father made Sabre swear not to tell his mother about the queen, or Adrien. There was a reason Sabre never broke that vow, even if he didn’t have the words for it at the time.

And Isiodore de Mortain never lied.

“I always thought.” Sabre’s hands were limp behind his back, sliding out of their perfect form. “After he died, someone petitioned for me to move to the palace. I thought it was Adrien, because mother was...”

Starving him, he didn’t say. He didn’t have to. After a few days of locking himself in his room, Sabre’s mother ordered the servants to stop leaving food at his door. It took Adrien, turned away at the front gate for three days in a row, sneaking into the garden to see Sabre lying dead-eyed in his bed, barely rousing to glance at whoever was trying to wrench the window open, for anything to be done.

“Yes, I can see how you’d think that,” Isiodore said. “But you told the king it wasn’t necessary. In your mother’s words, I think. Am I right?”

Sabre wanted to cover his face. He wanted to crawl under the benches, disappear, tear out the bells that still shivered and sang in his hair.

He could still remember the look on his mother’s face when he asked to leave. It was like a door closing, a window shuttering. The light stamped out forever.

“Yes,” he said, in a broken voice.

“You could have seen her for what she was,” Isiodore said. He grabbed Sabre’s face as he tried to look away, held it in place. Sabre’s breath quickened. “You had years to learn what we knew when that snake killed your father, and you closed yourself to the truth. Lived in that house with a murderer and her little protege.”

“You knew,” Sabre said.

“I suspected, first. You were given the opportunity to learn. And now you’re here.”

He cut through the rope tying Sabre in place, and Sabre dropped to his hands and knees. His hands crept towards his face, but Isiodore kicked them away.

“The king should have sent you away years ago,” Isiodore said, and Sabre let out a cry that felt like it was wrenched from his stomach as Isiodore lay a boot on his shoulder, pressing him down. He held himself up by the arms, and when he finally sobbed, it came out low and anguished, the cry of a boy who’d lost his father.

“Now you know,” Isiodore said, and there was no cruelty there, no pity, just the truth, hard and terrible as it was. This must have been what Adrien saw in his vision, the pain that made him march across the city in the middle of a storm. “And you don’t even hate them, do you? Not yet.”

Sabre swallowed tears. “Your Grace.” The boot shifted on his back, and the pressure lifted enough for Sabre to breathe again. “Thank…” It was hard, harder even than kneeling for the king with his sister and mother on the gallows. “Thank you, for telling me the truth, when I asked. I would like to.” He sat up on his knees, tears still hot on his cheeks, shivering from the touch of the knife. “I would like to be someone who…isn’t Sabre de Valois, right now. Please.”

“You haven’t been de Valois since your mother paid assassins to kill the king.”

“Yes, but Your Grace, I need to be something…else.”

“And this is it,” Isiodore said. He ran a thumb through the mess of Sabre’s makeup, smearing it over his cheek.

“Please,” Sabre whispered.

* * *

The way Sabe looked,begging—ah, well, that’s what he saw, wasn’t it, when he took Sabre home to the House of Onyx? This was going exactly like it should, and Laurent could tell it wasn’t just Sabre who was affected. He knew what a dominant who was edging into top space looked like—he knew what Isiodore looked like, heading into top space—and Isiodore’s usually cool gray eyes were burning bright like starfire.

“You sound much better begging like a whore than calling me sir and trying to match me with a blade. Come with me, Sabre. When you leave in the morning, you won’t remember the shape you used to be, when you were here before.” He tugged Sabre’s hair, nodded once, and stood up. Then he kicked Sabre over onto his side, and his eyebrows went up when Sabre moaned.

He turned to Laurent. “I knew he was a submissive, but what a delight that he’s such a slut for pain.”

“He’s one of the few I’ve ever seen handle Charon,” Laurent said, rising from the bench. He gave a cursory glance around the room—only the highest-ranking noble in the Starian court would have a full sparring ring in his suite in the palace.

“Is that so?” Isiodore kicked Sabre again, like he was an errant piece of laundry. “I’ve heard tell of him, your Arkoudai whore. They’re not much given to the arts of pleasure, are they?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Laurent demurred. “It’s just a certain kind of pleasure. Sabre enjoyed it.”

“Hmm,” said Isiodore, and there was a smile there, brief and fleeting, so much so that Laurent thought perhaps he imagined it. “Heel, little whore, and follow.”

Sabre struggled in all his messy glory to his hands and feet, and Laurent noticed that as unpracticed as he was at it, it still looked gorgeous. He took note of how artfully his makeup was smeared from his tears, the tangle of his hair in the braids and bells, the sounds he made as he carefully made his way along the polished wood and cold tile to the plush carpet of Isiodore’s bedchamber.

Laurent remembered it well. It had a large bed with cotton sheets so soft they felt like silk, and an adjoining bathing suite with a deep-water pool made of marble. He’d taken Laurent there, after, let him ease the soreness and gave him sweet wine and chocolate, watched him with a little satisfied smile before his eyes went sharp and his tone polite, distant. The way he fucked Laurent made him think the duke was under quite a bit of stress, perhaps more than the king.

Sabre stopped near the bed, kneeling with the sort of poor form that would have had Laurent punished at the House of Gold—shoulders hunched, hands on his thighs, breathing uneven.

Isiodore pulled him up by the hair. “Lord de Rue, if you’d like to sit there, on the chair. I know the custom of First Night involves a witness, yes?”

“Yes,” Laurent said. He settled in the chair, a comfortable chaise, and it was sort of hard to imagine Isiodore de Mortain sprawled out in it, dressed in pajamas and reading some kind of torrid novel.

Laurent, though. He might get one. He settled back and watched as Isiodore pulled Sabre up and pushed him on the bed. Sabre was naked, hard, and when he tossed his messy hair back out of his face the gesture was both unpracticed and incredibly arousing, enough that Isiodore stared at him for a long minute, then glanced at Laurent.

Laurent shrugged. “He’s a natural, isn’t he? A better whore than a noble submissive.”

“It would appear so,” Isiodore said. He slipped off his coat and climbed on the bed, kneeling in front of Sabre, and kissed him. “Don’t touch me unless I tell you that you may.”

He’d given Laurent the same instructions, and he’d never undressed fully until they went to the baths, after.

Sabre went pliant in Isiodore’s firm grip, and Laurent watched them, pushing aside the simple enjoyment of seeing a dominant handling a submissive—always arousing—and the vague stirrings of something possessive that he absolutely couldn’t indulge in, with Sabre, who was just starting out and would be taking many more clients before his astronomical debt to the crown was satisfied. Instead, he tried to remain impartial and take notes for later, which was part of why the House Lord served as witness for these assignations. Sabre would be a unique asset to the house, and while his performance didn’t need to be perfect, there were always things clients liked.

He choked when Isiodore fucked his mouth, his head tipped back and his hands clasped behind his back without the need for restraints—that, Laurent knew, wasn’t done to spare Sabre the trauma of remembering his moments on the gallows, but because Isiodore liked to be obeyed without them. Sabre didn’t fight being used roughly, and Isidore's harsh breathing and occasional murmur, along with Sabre’s choking sounds, were the only noises in the room.

Laurent could feel his cock grow hard as he watched them, remembering how it felt to take Sabre’s mouth like that. He knew he shouldn’t have done that, really—given how Sabre’s inexperience was supposed to be part of his appeal—but he couldn’t regret it, even as he told himself he needed to not let it happen again. Sabre would need to find his comfort with those in the house who could give it to him, not with Laurent. Maybe if he repeated enough, he’d believe it and actually be strong enough to refuse, if Sabre came to him again, seeking to be settled.

“There you go, pretty thing, look at you,” Isiodore murmured, only the slight huskiness in his voice belying how affected he was to have his cock thrusting in and out of Sabre’s mouth. “Did you used to think about this, hmm, when I had you kneel after training?”

Sabre tried to nod, and Isiodore laughed softly, ran his fingers through Sabre’s hair a moment in an oddly fond gesture before pulling, hard. Sabre moaned, and Laurent shifted on the chair.

“I thought perhaps you might have,” Isiodore said, still so proper. “Did you go home, lock yourself in your room, touch yourself while you thought about me putting you in your place?”

“Didn’t—ah. Make it home, my lord. Your Grace. My family had a suite in the palace, I...went there, sometimes, to do that.”

“How flattering,” Isiodore said, and pushed him away. “Get the oil, then, and I’ll take you like you wanted me to.”

According to a conversation they’d had shortly after Sabre arrived, this was not the first time he’d been taken. Most courtesans trained for that with glass toys and oil and lessons, and more often than not they indulged with one of their fellow courtesans long before the negotiations for their First Night were complete. You put that many attractive people in one small space and had them practice and think about nothing but sex for the majority of their waking hours, and it was bound to happen. For most, the additional practice wasn’t seen as anything but a bonus, but Sabre was, of course, a bit different.

Despite having had some experience, Sabre was clearly overwhelmed by having a man he’d fantasized about take him; he was on his hands and knees at Isiodore’s instruction after he’d fetched the oil, shaking, staring down at the covers of Isiodore’s bed. Isiodore had him facing Laurent, kneeling behind him, and grabbed his hair again to pull his head up so that Laurent wouldn’t miss the exact moment he pushed himself inside Sabre, because apparently Isiodore had some talent with theatrics that Laurent had missed, before.

Sabre was grasping the coverlet in his hands, tight and white knuckled, and wasn’t breathing. But the look on his face had Laurent inhaling slowly, counting, trying to keep his hand from pressing on his cock, which was uncomfortably hard now in his pants.

“You may attend to yourself if you wish, Lord de Rue,” Isiodore said, only a little breathless as he eased himself in, slow and steady. “I certainly won’t mind.”

Of course he wouldn’t. Starian nobles were, as a rule, full of themselves. Even Isiodore, who wasn’t nearly as ostentatious or obnoxious about his status as most, hadn’t entirely escaped that ingrained arrogance. Laurent had a title, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever manage to sound like he was born to one, quite like Isiodore.

It did rankle, a bit, to have Isiodore treating him like a submissive. Laurent gave an easy shrug, reminding himself firmly that Isiodore treated everyone that way, possibly even the king, and said, “Thank you, but I’m here as a witness. It does speak to your prowess, Your Grace, that you’ve managed to rouse us both.”

Isiodore outright snorted. “A flatterer to the end, aren’t you. Very well. Sabre.” He smacked Sabre hard on the flank. “I’m going to fuck you and you’re going to take it. You’re also going to be loud for me, just like a good whore should when he’s being fucked like he deserves. And if you come without permission, I’ll be very disappointed in you, do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” Sabre whispered, and Isiodore didn’t even correct him for the address.

Isiodore looked mostly in control, though his hair did escape his queue and lend him a bit of an attractively disheveled look while he started fucking Sabre there, one hand around the back of his neck above the collar, the other holding Sabre’s hip. Fucking was fucking, and most people looked the same when they were doing it, but Laurent noticed that there was something...remote, about Isiodore, almost distracted. He clearly enjoyed it, but while Sabre was moaning and pushing back and gasping, Isiodore reminded Laurent of one of the machines in the training room—methodical, impersonal, even as it certainly got the job done.

I don’t think he really wanted to fuck him, Laurent realized. What he wanted was to tell Sabre about his family, so that when the nobles tried to use them against him, Sabre would have something to guard against it. Anger, maybe, that his family really were guilty of treason. That his mother had his father killed.

“Does that feel good, pretty little whore?” Isiodore asked, and Sabre moaned his assent and nodded, but Laurent had checked out of enough sexual encounters of his own to recognize when someone else was doing it.

He wondered idly what really would do it for Isiodore, get him to lose his cool, calm and collected facade. He’d been more turned on, Laurent thought, by putting Sabre in the hair rope bondage, by using the knife. Breaking him, not fucking him.

Sabre, though. He was clearly having a teenage fantasy come to life, and Laurent couldn’t blame him for enjoying it. “Please, my lord,” he begged, shifting, hands fisting in the bedding.

“You won’t come yet, but by all means, keep begging,” Isiodore said, slamming his hips forward and pushing Sabre forward on the slick silk coverlet.

But as Isiodore increased his pace and fucked Sabre harder, pulling his hair—Sabre lifted his head, opened his wide, glassy copper-bright eyes and stared right at Laurent. “Please, fuck me, harder, please—”

Laurent grabbed the sides of his chair, fingers curled around the upholstered edges as tightly as Sabre was grabbing the bedding. He should have looked away, but he didn’t.

“Please,” Sabre whispered, and Laurent’s equilibrium shifted, dangerously. “My lord.”

Isiodore shoved him down on his stomach, held his hips in both hands and fucked him with sharp, hard thrusts. Sabre was whimpering, and Laurent had to give in and rub his hand over himself a few times because Sabre was still trying to lift his head, to look at Laurent while he begged Isiodore to let him come.

Which Isiodore didn’t. He eventually pulled out and shoved Sabre on his back, knelt over him and came all over his face. His head tipped back and he gasped, softly, but other than that he remained as restrained and in control even in the throes of his release as he had during the whole thing.

He stayed kneeling on the bed and dragged Sabre to his knees again, turned him to face Laurent and then whispered something Laurent couldn’t hear while his hand expertly stroked Sabre’s cock.

What he did hear, though, was Isiodore saying in a wicked purr, “Ask your lord if you performed well enough to come.” His other hand rested right above Sabre’s collar, squeezing gently. “Ask him if you’ve proven yourself a better whore than a noble.”

Sabre, who was clearly already under and was, probably, the second Isiodore told him the truth of his family, said, “Yes, sir,” and then blinked his hazy eyes open and focused on Laurent. “My lord, please may I come?”

Laurent almost told him no, just because this really wasn’t supposed to be how it worked, a First Night with a witness. But Sabre was different, this whole situation was different, and Laurent was perhaps trying to justify it but he wanted to see it, to see Sabre come apart and know that maybe there was a small part of it that was for him.

This is dangerous and you need to stop it, Laurent said, firmly, to himself. But the voice of reason was overcome by the voice of lust, and Laurent said, “Yes, you’ve done well, go on,” and watched with rapt attention as Sabre shook and shuddered out his release with a loud, gasping cry.

Isiodore de Mortain’s eyes were on Laurent the whole time, a little smile on his face that said, quite clearly, that Laurent hadn’t fooled him one little bit.

* * *

For the secondtime in his life, Sabre was well and truly under. He knew that grief was threatening to creep its way through like an oncoming tide, but Sabre was too far down to notice, yet, drifting on a different current.

Laurent was watching him. He could feel Laurent’s gaze even as Isiodore rolled him onto his back again, and tipped his head back to make sure he was still there.

“Yes, I know,” Isiodore said, so softly only Sabre could hear. He kissed Sabre long enough that Sabre had to gasp for breath when he pulled away, and passed him a cloth for his face. “I would offer you the use of my bath, but I suspect you’d prefer to be otherwise engaged.”

Sabre couldn’t hide the way his face heated at that. He glanced over his shoulder to where Laurent sat, deliberately relaxed like an actor in a play, waiting for his cue, and raised a hand as though to touch Isiodore’s chest. He stopped only an inch away, and lowered his hand to his side.

“Your Grace,” Sabre said, and ah, he was too close, he could feel the way Isiodore hesitated at the sound of the title, this time. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re too perceptive, before?”

“Your father,” Isiodore said. “All the time.”

Sabre looked up at him, narrowing his eyes. He knew men fucked each other in the military. It was practically expected. But Isiodore had never taken a partner afterwards, as was custom. Sabre and Adrien used to whisper about it when they were young, coming up with dramatic tragedies with Isiodore at the heart of them, watching his star-crossed lover die on the battlefield or be eaten by sirens on the distant sea.

Perhaps it wasn’t quite so distant, though.

“None of that,” Isiodore said, smacking Sabre lightly on the cheek. He rose from the bed, adjusting his clothes, and Sabre sprawled there for a minute, his silver robes a rumpled mess beneath him.

He was the son of a traitor. He rolled that thought around in his mind, testing it the way he would have prodded at a sore tooth as a child. Elise, that was still too painful, a dark shadow he couldn’t yet grasp, but his mother had always been…hard. Cold, holding herself apart, bearing stiffly through court as though her noble heritage was a second skin she couldn’t wait to rip off. Maybe she, too, didn’t belong there. Maybe none of them did.

“I’m his son, too,” Sabre said. He didn’t realize he’d said it out loud until Isiodore turned to look down at him, dark eyes impassive. “Whatever else I am.”

“It takes going under for you to do more than stammer at me, does it?” Isiodore said. He tugged at his cuffs. “Off my bed, whore.”

He didn’t say it with any derision. It was just the truth. Sabre tumbled inelegantly to his knees and started trying to slip on his robes again. Laurent was still sitting on the chaise, watching him, and Sabre risked a quick glance up, settling on the dark earrings in his hair. He couldn’t possibly hide himself as cleverly as Laurent or Isiodore. He was just open. Everywhere, like a flame without a candle, too quick to burn.

He wondered if Laurent saw it, then. When Isiodore was fucking him, when Sabre was in the throes of it, grabbing at the sheets and rocking back on Isiodore’s cock, he’d looked at Laurent and wondered what it would have felt like to have those firm hands on his neck, silver-violet hair brushing his skin as Laurent took him. Isiodore knew—He had to, there was no way he missed the way Sabre choked on Laurent’s name under his breath—and Laurent, too, was a perceptive man. More perceptive than Sabre.

“It’s customary,” Isiodore said, crossing the rug to a chest of drawers, “to give a member of the Houses a gift when they’ve served well. That, at least, I remember. It was the same for you, was it not, Lord de Rue?”

“It varies,” Laurent said.

Isiodore lifted something out of the top drawer. “I found this on a trip to the country. Useless, now, just a relic of a fallen house, but you might find a purpose for it.”

He tipped Sabre’s head up and pressed something cold and hard into his palm. “Don’t look at it until you’ve left the palace,” he said.

Sabre closed his hands over it. It was probably the only bauble he was likely to get—the nobles who hated his family, or who wanted to show to the king how loyal they were, weren’t going to give him anything that could lessen his debt more than necessary.

“Thank you, Your Grace,” Sabre said.

“Go with your lord, then,” said Isiodore. “You aren’t meant for this place.”

“If I knew that sooner—”

“Your family would still be dead,” Isiodore said. “But you are not. Go on.”

Sabre didn’t bother getting to his feet. He knelt before Laurent, slowly meeting his gaze, and let out a soft sigh on pleasure when Laurent laid a hand on his shoulder to rise from the chaise. He kept his hand there, teasing the messy strands of Sabre’s hair, and the bells rang faintly.

He barely registered Laurent and Isiodore’s exchange of pleasantries at the door. He crawled at Laurent’s side through the dark corridor and into the main hall, even though no one asked him to, and grimaced when he had to stand to cross the carriage yards.

“You’d crawl through the streets if I asked you to, wouldn’t you?” Laurent said, holding Sabre up by the collar. Sabre blinked slowly.

“If you asked, my lord,” he said.

Laurent’s gaze flashed with heat, and his fingers tightened around Sabre’s collar. But he didn’t kiss him, even though Sabre could tell he wanted it, could feel himself leaning towards him, and Sabre had to stumble after Laurent into the carriage.

“My lord,” Sabre said, carefully, as the horses were urged to a trot and the carriage started to roll over the smooth path leading down from the palace, past the square where Sabre was nearly hanged. Where Laurent claimed him. “Did I not do well?”

Laurent cut him a sharp look. “You left de Mortain satisfied, didn’t you?”

“In a way,” Sabre said. “I think as much as he can be. But you haven’t been, yet.”

“That wasn’t about me,” Laurent said. Sabre started undoing the sash holding his robes together, and Laurent’s voice rang so sharp with dominance that Sabre tried to get to his knees on the carriage floor. “What are you doing?”

“My lord,” Sabre said. “You’ve been careful. But you shouldn’t have to be, anymore.”

“I’m the lord of your House, Sabre.”

Sabre let the robes fall. “Other lords take their courtesan’s First Night.”

“Other lords aren’t—”

“You, I know.” Sabre climbed up onto the bench, naked, with Laurent staring at him like he was a wild spirit drawn in from the woods. “They would have let me die in the quarries. They wouldn’t have cared about the truth. I wouldn’t want them to take my First Night.”

“De Mortain already took that,” Laurent said, but he held Sabre by the waist, his fingers gripping him tight enough to send a small thrill through Sabre’s skin.

“The night isn’t over yet, my lord,” Sabre said. “Please, I want…I want to be good for you. Let me be good for you.”

Laurent stared at him for another endless second, then snarled something under his breath and pulled him into a crushing kiss. Sabre fell into it, jostled slightly by the carriage, and moaned when Laurent raked his nails up his sensitive back.

“Thought I was yours.” Sabre’s breath hitched as Laurent bit down hard on his neck, just above the collar.

“You are,” Laurent said, in that dark, possessive voice Sabre had been dreaming of, in the dark hours when he lay at Laurent’s feet. “Not de Mortain’s. Not theirs.”

“Yes,” Sabre said, fumbling with Laurent’s trousers. He could feel his cock pressing up against the fabric, painfully hard. “Please, my lord, may I serve you, will you take me—”

Laurent bit on Sabre’s lip hard enough that he gasped. “Show me how well you take my cock, pet,” he said.

It was difficult, at first, to maneuver on the bench, but Sabre finally settled over Laurent, bracing himself so close his bare chest slid against Laurent’s shirtfront, and lowered himself over his cock. It felt right, even as he started to slip under again, the fullness of him, the slight discomfort as he adjusted, rocked by the movement of the carriage. He rolled his hips, desperate to give Laurent the pleasure he deserved, riding him hard as they passed the first lights of the pleasure district.

It was impossible for Laurent to hide, this close. Sabre could feel his desire in the way he left lines down Sabre’s back with his nails, the blown-out pupils in his gorgeous eyes, the way his lips parted, just slightly, as Sabre shivered and moaned and Laurent’s cock drove into him. Laurent gripped Sabre’s thighs and fucked up into him as the carriage slowed, and Sabre braced himself over him, closing his eyes.

“Look at me,” Laurent ordered, fiercely, quietly. He took Sabre’s cock in hand, already hard again, and Sabre grabbed onto the side of the carriage for support. “Look at me when you come.”

“Yes, my lord,” Sabre gasped, and met his gaze as Laurent came inside him, bouncing him on his cock in short, heavy thrusts. Sabre tipped over the edge with Laurent’s hand on him, spilling over his own chest.

The carriage was halted a few paces from the door to the House of Onyx when Sabre slid back to the carriage floor, breathing hard. He barely bothered to put his robes on all the way, and only just remembered to stand when he tumbled out of the carriage. Laurent stepped out a minute later looking barely the worse for wear, his hair impeccable, only the slightest wrinkle of his shirt a sign that Sabre was a hair’s breadth from ripping it off. He jerked his head, and Sabre followed at his heels without a word.

Nanette met them at the door.

“Wow, was makeup a good idea,” she said, and held a hand to her chest when Sabre flashed her a small smile. “Hold on, warn me when you’re about to look human, kid. Looks like you had a good First Night, yeah?”

“It’s...better,” Sabre said, and glanced at Laurent, who was back to his polite, professional mask.

“Well, good for you. We’re preparing a room for you, but we’re also working, so tell us how grateful you are first and then we’ll show you in the morning.”

“I’m exceedingly grateful,” Sabre said.

Nanette snorted. “I like this one, my lord. You should keep him.”

“Please,” Sabre said, and Nanette pushed him, which he was only just starting to realize was supposed to be a sign of affection.

“I’ll keep your suggestion in mind,” Laurent said. “No fires tonight?”

“Simone’s second client got, uh, pissy when we charged him extra for laundering her dress,” Nanette said, “but she’s the only one who can handle him after the House of Iron banned him for the same problem.”

“Charge him double,” Laurent said. “I’ve seen that dress, it’s actual silk.”

“No, it’s not, it’s—” Nanette paused. “I mean, right. Yes. The silk one.”

“Good night, Nanette,” Laurent said. He took Sabre by the collar again, just a finger slipped between the gold scales and his skin, and led him up the stairs to his room at the highest floor of the House.

Laurent brought down scented sachets for the bath, and Sabre was permitted to attend to him, leaning back against the side of the bath while he ran his fingers through his silvery hair.

“I bet you’ve heard people say how lovely your hair is too much already,” Sabre said, kneading a scented soap through his hair.

“You are bolder when you’re under,” Laurent drawled. “And yes. More times than you know.”

“It’s still true,” Sabre said. “My father told me a story about people with silver hair, who came down to the sky on dragons to teach people magic. His nursemaid used to tell him stories like that. She was from...I don’t remember. It’s probably terrible, that I don’t remember. She was with us her whole life.”

“You were a noble,” Laurent said. “Nobles don’t pay attention to details.”

“They should,” Sabre said. “I should have. But maybe she didn’t want to say. She always called it back home, like she was only in Staria on a holiday.”

“Well, she was wrong in any case,” Laurent said. “The dragons we have in Staria eat stone and sound like a flock of hawks. You couldn’t pay me nearly enough to ride one, let alone pretend I know magic.”

“That’s an image,” Sabre said, and he could just see the edge of Laurent’s smile. “Rose could do it, though.”

“Rose could tame a fleet of them,” Laurent said. “And you’ll never, ever suggest it.”

“On my honor as a whore, my lord.”

Laurent half turned, brows raised. “You’ll find there’s more of that here than there ever was at court.”

“I wouldn’t argue, my lord,” Sabre said. “Not tonight.”

Laurent kissed him, then, not nearly hard or long enough, and drew away.

It wasn’t until Sabre was lying at the foot of Laurent’s bed again, comfortably curled on his side, that he remembered what Isiodore had given him. He slipped to the edge of the bed and carefully walked to the place where he’d left his robes, and fished into their pockets for the cold lump of metal.

Alone, in the dark, Sabre opened his hands.

His father’s signet ring gleamed in his palm, white gold twisted like tree branches around a disc engraved with his seal; A golden stag, the same crest on all the banners and tapestries kept locked away in his estate.

His father had been wearing that ring when he left for the hunt with Elise.

Sabre slid the ring over his left forefinger, and for a second, his hand was not his own. His father’s hand crossed a sliver of moonlight, and Sabre shivered and fumbled to yank off the ring. He pushed it under Laurent’s mattress, and knelt there for a long while, holding his hand to his chest and watching the patch of moonlight glide across Laurent’s bedroom floor.