Dragon Slayer (Sons of Rome Book 3)

by Lauren Gilley

  A robe for a concubine.

  “The sultan,” the boy sad, halting and red-faced, “wishes you – he wants you to stay.” He pointed at the floor with one small finger. “Here. He’ll be back by nightfall.”

  Val swallowed…and swallowed again, trying to push down his queasiness. “What’s your name?”

  The boy’s head jerked up, eyes wide. “M-m-my name, your grace?” Confusion writ large on his face. No one ever asked him that; no one ever cared.

  “If you’re willing to tell me,” Val said. Both their voices were sad, hushed little things; they could barely meet in the space between them. He had the absurd mental image of two mice creeping along the floor of a predator’s cave.

  The boy studied him a long moment, his face a mask, his scent giving off fear…and curiosity. Finally, just a whisper: “My mother named me Arslan.”

  “Arslan,” Val repeated.

  Turkish for lion.

  ~*~

  Mehmet returned after sunset, after slaves had lit lanterns and tall taper candles around the room, started a fresh fire in the brazier. The suite glowed with golden light.

  Val sat on the padded bench at the foot of the bed, still in his robe, his hair combed and oiled, arranged over one shoulder. Arslan had brought him a supper tray and seen to him: rubbed his skin with fragrant oils, drew careful lines of kohl around his eyes, painted his lips with pigment and oil so they shone. It had felt very much like being a horse groomed for a tourney; all he lacked was a ribbon in his mane.

  Slaves attended to Mehmet in the outer room, stripping him of boots and turban, offering wine and carefully sliced wedges of goat cheese and pita. A bath had already been prepared, the copper tub full of clean, steaming water before the fire.

  He dismissed them all, and came into the inner room alone. He lingered in the doorway a moment, elbow braced against the wall, cup of wine held in his other hand. He stared; behind him, the outer door closed with a thump.

  The sultan was beautiful. Val could admit that objectively, though the beauty of men and boys had never inspired anything other than admiration in him. He felt no stirring of want, no niggle of embarrassed interest, like when he watched the kitchen girls at home home tuck loose curls of hair like corkscrews back from their faces, cheeks flushed from the cookfires.

  He did not want the sultan to look at him as he was now, green eyes slitted and greedy as a cat’s. But. He had no choice, he supposed.

  Finally, Mehmet took a long sip of wine and shoved off the doorframe and into the room. He set the cup aside on the dressing table and reached to pluck at the buttons of his plain blue kaftan. “You look comfortable,” he said lightly.

  Panic welled in Val’s throat. No, no, please no. But he swallowed it down. The worst had already happened. “I am, your grace.”

  “Hmm. Certainly a pretty sight to come home to. I’ve been negotiating with fools all day.” He flicked his fingers. “Come. You can attend me.”

  Not only a concubine, but a servant as well, it seemed.

  But this was better. This he could perform with less shame.

  Val slid to his feet and went to attend the sultan. He made deft work of buttons and laces. Beneath his silk shirt, Mehmet smelled of horses and sweat…and of last night, still.

  He touched Val’s chin, startling him, and tipped his head back. Bare-chested, golden and smiling in the candlelight, a work of muscle and sinew in the flickering shadows. “Do you smell it?” he whispered, delighted.

  Val didn’t answer. He unlaced the sultan’s tight riding leathers with flaming cheeks. Mehmet swiveled his hips, leaned into the movement; he was growing hard behind his flies, and Val’s fingers grew clumsy with nerves and sweat. He didn’t want this. The gorge rose in his throat.

  He pushed through, though, and finally the sultan was naked and stepping into the bath, sinking down into the water with a hiss.

  Val knew a moment’s reprieve; nothing untoward would happen now, while the sultan bathed. Freedom for a spell, at least.

  But then Mehmet said, “Wash my back.”

  He did, slow and uncertain at first, but he took up the soap and the cloth and applied himself to the task. Recalling Arslan: “Do…do you want me to wash your hair?”

  Mehmet hummed and tipped his head back, eyes shut, expectant and trusting.

  Val wet it first, using the pitcher at the base of the tub; the reddish curls turned black when wet. He worked up a lather between his hands, and applied it as he would to himself, fingertips working in circles, massaging the sultan’s scalp.

  Mehmet let out a quiet purr and went boneless, shoulders slumping against the edge of the tub. “You’re very good at that,” he said after a while, voice low and rich with pleasure. “You’d make an excellent slave.”

  Val stilled.

  Mehmet chuckled. “Rest assured. I know you are a prince, and a prince you shall stay. I’m only making an observation.”

  Val resumed his work, worrying snarls loose with his fingertips.

  “I saw your brother today.” Light, airy.

  Val kept working; forced himself not to react.

  “He was coming in from a ride. Lathered one of my nicer geldings.” He tsked. “He was his usual gloomy, uninspiring self. I’ve never seen someone with such a stick shoved up his ass. His constant expression is that of someone with the most terrible stomach cramps.” He tipped his head. “To the left, just behind my ear – yes, there.” A deep sigh; he slipped down a little farther in the soapy water that was, nevertheless, clear enough for Val to make out the sultan’s hardening cock beneath the water. It had begun to curl up toward his stomach; threatened to breach the surface.

  “I must tell you, Radu,” Mehmet continued, eyes still shut, legs stretched out as far as the tub would allow. “And I don’t say this to hurt you – far from it. If anything, I wish to spare your feelings. It’ll be easier if you begin to adjust to this idea now, while you’re young. Hurts carried into manhood can be crippling, you know.

  “Anyway, your brother. He didn’t ask after you. Not even once.” He cracked one eye open, green as spruce needles, calculating. Its weight pinned Val in place, his hands sunk in the sultan’s hair. “Vlad didn’t ask after you,” he repeated, slower. Trying to press the point home. “I know you love your brother, but he doesn’t return that sentiment. I’ve seen you worry after him, trying your best to be a good brother to him. You’re heartbreakingly sweet, aren’t you? But it would be best, for your sake, if you gave up on him. He will never feel the same. He will never love you as he should. You’ll only get yourself hurt trying to save him.”

  Val dropped his head; he couldn’t look at him anymore, stared instead down at the surface of the water. Droplets splashed down, rippling its surface, and he realized he was crying. Silent, relentless tears that poured down his face; it was like someone had upended cups down his cheeks.

  Mehmet sat up, and took Val’s wrists gently in his hands, lowering them out of his hair and to the water. “Radu,” he said, softly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.”

  Val pulled in a shuddering breath through his mouth and tasted salt. He closed his eyes…but he couldn’t stem the flow of tears. They had built for so long, for so many reasons. This was merely the tipping point.

  “There, it’s alright,” Mehmet said. His hands slid up Val’s arms, over the bunched, damp-edged sleeves of his robe. Up his shoulders, down over his collarbones, their sharp shapes beneath the silk. Down his chest, his belly, to the ties at his waist. An expert flick of his wrist and the robe fell open. The chill air of the bedchamber whispered over Val’s skin, teasing his nipples to points.

  He gasped and opened his eyes as Mehmet’s warm, callused hand moved over the bare skin of stomach. “Here,” the sultan murmured, and with his free hand took hold of Val’s wrist again. Drew him down, pulled his hand beneath the water. Guided his fingers right where he wanted them. “Let me show you something.”

  Simple touch seemed to content him at
first, his eyes fluttering shut, his mouth falling open on a deep groan. But Val’s hand was small, and inexpert, and eventually Mehmet pushed the loose robe off his shoulders and pulled him into the bath with him, to sit in his lap.

  At least, Val thought to himself, he knew what to expect now.

  22

  AND SO HE DID

  A pattern developed. All of Val’s things – what meager possessions he had been allowed to accumulate here at the palace – were shifted into the sultan’s suite. His had his own small chamber, one that adjoined, with his own small bed and washstand and gilt-edged mirror; more often than not, though, he slept with the sultan, in his massive four-poster. He didn’t attend Mehmet as a slave would – Arslan and the other boys still took care of that – but sometimes, if he was feeling playful, Mehmet would dismiss the boys and beckon for Val; have him slip a few buttons and unknot a few laces; put his hands on the skin he found beneath.

  Val studied with a private tutor now, Mehmet’s own, a mullah who, to Val’s surprise, seemed pleased by his gentle curiosity and impeccable manners. He complimented him, sometimes: “Yes, that’s right;” “very good;” “your Turkish is flawless.” He hated himself for it, but he clung to those compliments.

  Mehmet had compliments of his own. “You’re learning quickly.” “Yes, like that.” “Such a gorgeous boy.”

  He worried. In the cool dark hours, once Mehmet had rolled over and begun to snore, after Val had snuffed all the candles and slid back beneath the covers, all the things he kept carefully lidded during the day pried loose and unspooled within him like dark streamers.

  What of Stepan and Gregor, who clutched at his arms and asked him to describe things for them?

  What of his family back home, Mother with her tears, and Mircea with his haunted, battle-weary look? Father in his study, poring over maps and treaties, his back against a wall like it hadn’t been since Rome.

  Most of all he worried for Vlad. Logically, he knew he’d had no choice: Mehmet would never have accepted “no” for an answer. He would have pursued him, tortured him, until Val finally broke; finally gave him what he wanted. But still, he was haunted by the knowledge that it had taken only one night. Vlad would have lasted longer. Vlad would have died on a stake, choking on his own blood, hurling invectives to his last breath. And Val had given in, lay here now, in the sultan’s bed, watching his bare chest rise and fall as he slept.

  He’d abandoned his older brother. And it didn’t matter if Mehmet said that Vlad didn’t ask for him, and didn’t love him: they were family. They were supposed to stick together.

  One day, Val knew with certainty, Vlad would finally snap. The last of his limited patience would run out and he would do something atrocious and unforgivable. Val wanted, desperately, not to be the cause of it.

  ~*~

  Mehmet brought him gifts.

  Candlelight caught on the sapphire’s many facets, dazzling flashes as the pendant rotated slowly on the end of its chain.

  “Do you like it? I picked it to match your eyes.” With his free hand, Mehmet cupped his chin and tipped his face up, smiling down at him with what had a become familiar expression, part-ownership, part-feral want, carefully hidden behind a screen of smugness.

  “It’s lovely,” Val said, even though his eyes were much lighter than the gem, a clear blue, the pale, freshwater color of his mother’s Nordic people.

  Mehmet fastened it around his neck, and his hands lingered afterward, combing through his hair, sweeping it back off his face. “You should grow it out longer.” It wasn’t a suggestion. He laced his fingers together at Val’s nap, and pressed with the whole of both hands. A signal: Val went down to his knees, the necklace heavy and cold at the center of his chest.

  The sultan wore only a robe, fresh from the bath and still-warm. Val’s hands found the ties and undid them. His eyes closed as he leaned forward…and Mehmet’s hands tightened on the back of his head.

  “No. Look at me.”

  And so he did.

  ~*~

  The slaves treated him like nobility. He was nobility, but they’d always handled him with considerate indifference. Now, though, they bowed and trembled and touched him with gentle reverence, the same way they did Mehmet. Arslan was the only one that Val could draw any kind of true response from.

  “What do they say?”

  It was late morning, and the hot water in the copper tub went a long way toward soothing Val’s sore muscles. He sat forward, his legs drawn up to his chest, his growing hair falling over his knees in wet mermaid waves. Behind him, Arslan paused, soapy cloth pressed to the top of his spine.

  He resumed a moment later. “What does who say?”

  “Everyone.” Val let the slow, circular motion of the cloth push him forward on every pass, the water lapping at the sides of the tub. “The palace gossips. What do they say of me?”

  A telling pause. “They don’t talk of you,” Arslan said softly. Val had never heard him speak at normal volume.

  Val turned his head a fraction. Over his shoulder, he could just see part of Arslan’s face, the way his brows were drawn together, the corner of his mouth turned down. “They don’t call me a whore?” he pressed. He didn’t know why he was asking; the truth could only hurt – not as badly as when Mehmet forced his way inside him. But. Still. “That I’m going to hell?”

  Arslan sat back on his heels and applied more soap to the cloth. He sighed. “It isn’t my place to repeat such things, your grace.” He could be killed for doing so.

  Properly chastened, Val faced forward again, gaze going toward the shifting apple branches beyond the open doors in the courtyard. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  Arslan scrubbed at his back, careful over the tender bite mark Mehmet had left on the point of his shoulder. After a long moment, he said, so soft, “They do not speak of you, your grace, but of the sultan. Taking a boy as a lover is forbidden by our holy book. It is shameful.”

  Val rolled the words over in his mind, traced their shapes, marveling at the weight of them. “A lover?” he asked, voice catching. “Is that what I am?” He wore the sultan’s sapphire around his neck; wore the marks of his teeth and fingers, the dark bruises left by the driving of his hips.

  Arslan’s hand stilled. Water droplets fell into the bath, loud as hammer blows in the silence of held breath. “I think,” he said, finally, “that you are a slave. Just as I am.”

  Val closed his eyes and rested his forehead on his knees.

  “I’m sorry, your grace. I shouldn’t say such things.”

  “No. I’m glad you did.” He swallowed, and it felt as if the chain at the back of his neck bit into his skin, the stone too heavy to hold. “It’s nice to have company.”

  ~*~

  The days bled together; a routine developed. Mehmet was pleased; Val could tell he was when he left his chambers that morning, thumb swiping across Val’s still-slick lower lip. He bent down to kiss him before he left, tongue flicking slow and sly into Val’s mouth. He was pleased, and he wasn’t worried about Val trying to get away or “run crying” to anyone.

  Val dressed, and went, at last, in search of his brother, Arslan in tow, a dutiful eunuch chaperone.

  The scent was easy enough to pick up in the garden, the familiar notes stirring both longing and embarrassment in the pit of Val’s stomach. He ached for boyhood, for the shared bed, and the cold nights keeping warm under heaps of furs. Vlad had never been sweet – that wasn’t in his nature, all the most violent parts of his blended Roman and Viking heritage coming to the fore – but he’d been accepting. He’d loved Val, in his own way. It was love that Val missed more than anything, more than home and Helga’s cooking and the bravery of their wolves. He missed being loved; now he was only desired.

  And now, he was no longer desired from afar. He’d bathed, but he carried the sultan inside him now, and on every piece of hand-picked clothing; in the jewel around his throat and the delicate gold circlet set in his hair. He was no longe
r a boy, but a possession, and he knew he reeked of it.

  Vlad was in the training yard, crossing swords with a janissary in steel and leather gauntlets and greaves. Vlad, by contrast, wore only breeches and a shirt; a cut in his sleeve and a drying line of blood marked a hit won by his opponent, but he was otherwise unharmed, moving impossibly fast as he dove into his next strike.

  Val took up a place against the wall, waiting, Arslan nervous beside him.

  Vlad could smell him, no doubt. But he finished his bout, pressing the taller, yet weaker, janissary back until he finally knocked the man’s sword away and held him at bay, tip of his own sword pressed to his opponent’s throat.

  “I yield,” he said, hands lifted. His Turkish was rough, accented; he’d come recently from somewhere farther east, Russia maybe.

  Vlad stepped back, chest heaving as he caught his breath, ghost of a smile flitting across his mouth. He was straight-faced, though, when he turned to Val. His jaws and brows set at disapproving angles. He ambled a few steps closer and produced a cloth from his waistband that he used to wipe down his blade. His gaze dropped. “The sultan’s favorite plaything,” he said, and it wasn’t a greeting.

  Val had been expecting as much – he’d expected worse. But it stung all the same. He drew himself upright and said, with as much dignity as possible, “Brother. I wish to speak with you. Will you walk with me?”

  Vlad chuckled. “And be seen in your company? So I can lose my hands?”

  “You’re my brother,” Val said, growing desperate. “Mehmet – no one thinks that you…” He gritted his teeth, and Vlad laughed again. An ugly sound, mocking and cold. As flat as his dark eyes.

  “I have no choice, do I?” Vlad’s gaze flicked up, and had Val not already stood against a wall he would have staggered back beneath the force of it. “I will walk with you, yes.” He glanced toward Arslan. “Is this your chaperone?”