by Skye Warren
Sebastian thrust his cock through Drake’s hand, each motion rocking against Drake’s own erection.
“Look at me,” Drake said on a groan.
Sebastian flung back his head, those brown eyes wild with lust. No trace of the defiance was there and none of the fear. This was everything that Drake wanted. This was exactly what he couldn’t have. The realization clicked through Drake’s brain like the cock of a gun. It wasn’t enough to deflate his erection, but it was enough to stop him from using it.
Sebastian was still lost in the throes. “Fuck me,” he begged.
Drake gritted his teeth against the request. He leaned his hips back, just enough so that he could think again, breathe again, but even as he did so, he tightened his fist around Sebastian’s cock. He stroked it fiercely, willing the pain into pleasure that he would not get to feel.
Sebastian’s cries were a bittersweet reward, tightening Drake’s lust into a tight ball of longing, never to be realized. Drake pulled at Sebastian’s cock, savoring the thick length, panting with the effort of holding himself back.
“No,” Sebastian suddenly cried, and Drake almost stopped. Until he heard Sebastian continue, “Not like this. Fuck me, fuck me.”
But Drake couldn’t. This was all he could do, pleasure this man, so he stroked harder. He was too rough, but that was all right. He wanted to imprint his touch into this cock, to mold himself around this man. Faster and harder, until Sebastian stuttered a few breaths and a plaintive,
“Noooo.” The cock in his hand flexed into a tight rod, and even without feeling it, Drake knew it spurted cum onto the dirty concrete floor.
Sebastian gasped beneath him and when he pushed back, Drake allowed himself to fall back against the wall. Sebastian scrambled away to the other side of the cell, tucking his cock into his breeches.
“Bastardo,” he spat at Drake, who tried not to notice how beautiful Sebastian looked in his fury, or how his hands shook as he tied the strings of his pants.
Lust held Drake in its grip. He could not release with this man, no matter how his body howled and revolted at the denial. Neither could he offer Sebastian anything more than a portion of water and a handjob, not when he needed to drill him for information in order to keep him alive.
He could do nothing here, now.
He stood up, walked stiffly from the room, and ruefully acknowledged that his first true retreat since he’d become a soldier had come at the hands—nay, the cock—of a captive man.
Chapter Two
Sebastian tossed the bottle up and caught it. He was getting pretty good at it. Well, he should, since it felt like days had passed, although maybe it was just hours. Either way, he was damn thirsty. Or he had been.
Even that feeling was starting to fade into an almost blissful trance. Maybe he’d just exist forever like this, no food or water. Maybe this was death.
Footsteps rang outside, and the door whooshed open. He almost charged at the entrant, expecting that man, but was stopped in his place by the sight of two armed guards. Maybe they were the same ones who’d brought him here, maybe not. All the Ke’lan soldiers looked the same, except for one.
They dragged him without ceremony down the hallway and shoved him through another door. He stumbled, momentarily blinded by the brightness, although it was only lit by a small window. He blinked it away, and the sight of the man he’d expected came into focus.
He was sitting at a table laden with food, studying him with those cold blue eyes. For several minutes, Sebastian stood and salivated. The savory scent of meat wafted over him, while the bright colors of fresh fruits and vegetables teased him from lavish platters. He wanted to dive onto the table, to shovel the food into his mouth, but it must be a trick.
“Please,” the man said in a voice that sounded nothing like a request. “Sit.”
Sebastian sat in the chair opposite him, almost uncomfortable on the plush cushion, accustomed to concrete floors recently and dirt floors prior to that. He was unable to take his eyes off the sight of the glistening food, but still he held himself back.
He was almost ready to give in. If this man demanded for some locations, some information, Sebastian was ready to give it to him, even if he’d have to make it up. He’d suffer for the lie later, no doubt, but it would be worth it. He was suffering now in his starvation.
“Aren’t you hungry?” the man asked. “Go ahead and eat something.”
Was this a tease? A test? Gods, just give him the answer. Was Sebastian supposed to beg? He might just be willing. His stomach gnawed on itself, threatening to collapse entirely if he didn’t swallow something, anything. His mind floated adrift in a sea of hunger.
What had he said before?
I’d let you lick me all over, over the head, sucking out the cum that’s already there… Would you do that for me, if I asked you to?
Yes, he’d answered, because he did want to, although he wasn’t aroused now. He wanted to eat, and if this was the price, he would be happy to pay. His mind latched onto that thought, grateful to have solved the puzzle in its numbed state.
He rose from the chair and wavered briefly, then walked around the table and knelt at the man’s feet. He fumbled with the man’s lacings, but his hands were caught in a tight grip. He looked up. The man looked murderous.
“What are you doing?” The words rippled around him. His eyes blurred, but he was glad that he at least managed to remain upright.
The hands released him, and he felt a smooth surface against his lips. He opened, mindless as a babe, and cool water trickled to the back of his throat. Several times he drank from the hand he could not see but was forced to trust.
Then the cup was gone and something soft whispered at his lips. He opened again and was rewarded with a chunk of bread. As he chewed, he realized it was definitely torn from the inside, not the crust. How long had it been since someone had fed him so carefully? More likely it had never happened. He had always been the one to make sure his father got fed, not the other way around.
The bread was followed by a grape, and then more bread, and finally a few choice morsels of meat. Sebastian ate in a kind of trance, kneeling with his eyes closed. He took a few more sips of water and felt utterly full. Utterly content.
That was not to last.
Hands that were not rough but were not gentle lifted him and sat him on the chair, its surface still warm. Sebastian opened his eyes to regard the cold soldier who was bound to interrogate him now, to hurt him. He had just been fattened up like a pig to the slaughter, but he couldn’t regret it.
“What’s your name?” The words blurred together as if he had drunk two tanks full of spirits instead of a half glass of water.
“I am Drake.” As usual the words were soft, belying the stern countenance they emerged from. What would it take to shake that implacable severity? But he knew. He’d already accomplished it once before with a well-placed thrust of his hips. This man wasn’t immune to him.
A napkin cleaned his lips softly, then again, and he realized it was damp. Sebastian’s breath caught as Drake moved it over his face, washing his forehead, wiping his eyes, following the contours of his nose and cheeks. Sebastian barely moved a muscle as Drake wrung out the cloth in a basin of water—precious water—by his side and washed his neck, his chest, his arms.
Why was Drake cleaning him? Was he to be presented to one of the generals as a prize? Perhaps even the prisoners had to be pristine before they could be tortured by one of them. He couldn’t complain. Not only because he couldn’t speak, but also because it felt too damned good—the warm water, the soft cloth, the gentle touch. This was nothing like the harsh strokes that had yanked him to completion on the floor of his cell. Each gentle stroke caused his eyes to prick and warm, and he closed them even tighter.
Now he understood what Drake was doing. He had buttered him up so that Sebastian was forced to rely on him, to trust him no matter what. The warmth of the room, the fullness of the food, the sweetness of his touch lull
ed Sebastian into a state of complacency more effective than any truth serum.
Even as he knew it to be a ruse, the words fell from his lips. “I wasn’t with the rebels.”
“No?” Drake was clearly unconvinced, but that was fair enough because Sebastian had been with them.
“I was only in the building to petition for the release of one of their prisoners.”
Drake stilled. “And?”
Sebastian opened his eyes at that and found himself looking into two blue ones, as if he looked up into a great expanse of sky. “And what?”
“Did they free the prisoner?”
Sebastian felt his face darken with grief, but that was part of the ruse. He was too open, too vulnerable this way. He couldn’t stop. “No. They said they needed 2,500 credits to release him.” It didn’t need to be said that he didn’t have 2,500 credits. He didn’t even have twenty-five.
When Drake spoke, his voice was softer. “What did your friend do to anger them?”
“Nothing,” Sebastian snapped. “He never did anything to them, just ran his mouth at a local tavern and someone took offense. We aren’t a part of this war.”
Drake’s look was faintly pitying. “Everyone’s a part of the war.”
Defeat washed over him, along with a trace of nausea. Probably his stomach would reject the food, and he’d end up vomiting all over Drake’s boots. Serve him right.
“What was his name?” Drake asked. His tone was casual, as if the answer didn’t matter, but Sebastian knew it did.
“Would you—” Sebastian licked his chapped lips. “Would you be able to find out what’s happened to him?”
There was no artifice in Drake’s face, only uncertainty. “They would have taken the prisoners during the raid. There’s no telling what happened to them.”
His father could be dead, he meant. Even though the grief stabbed his gut, it would be better to know. “Everyone calls him El Basque. Please. If you could find him, if he’s still alive, if maybe you could help him—”
“It’s best that you don’t get your hopes up,” Drake said softly.
“I’d do anything. I don’t have any information, I swear it, but I could get it. I could enlist, maybe, and send you reports.” Sebastian trailed a look down Drake’s hard body and whispered, “I’d do whatever you want.”
Drake didn’t reply to his impassioned plea, didn’t react at all except to walk over to the door. He rapped sharply, and the two guards entered. Even while they dragged him out of the chair and toward the hall, Sebastian kept his eyes on Drake. He stared into the blue of his unfathomable gaze and wondered if it was the last bit of sky he’d ever see.
* * *
Folsom kept him waiting a full revolution before he summoned Drake to his office. In that time Drake thought about the pain in Sebastian’s eyes when he talked about that prisoner, the grief. He may not have believed his story initially. The wrong place, the wrong time—it was too convenient. Too damned familiar. But when he’d seen the grief over his friend, he’d known that part of his story was true.
If this El Basque was truly a prisoner of the rebels, then it didn’t make sense that Sebastian worked with them. His story was all the more tragic because it was hopeless. If this El Basque survived the raid, he was probably in an interrogation room on this same compound. Neither of them would get free if they couldn’t supply the Ke’lan with something useful.
“You requested a meeting?” Folsom asked when Drake arrived.
Drake ignored the nod to the chair and remained standing. “I need information on the raid. One of the prisoners.”
Folsom folded his pudgy fingers into a mash of flesh and rested it atop his belly. “What is this for?”
“The man I’m interviewing. They have a connection.” Drake had also had time to consider the nature of that connection. He already knew that Sebastian had an attraction to men, and the acute pain in his eyes at the thought of the man’s death spoke of deep affection.
El Basque. The name evoked images of a Spanish sunset and rich wine. Were they lovers? He could imagine a Latin physique perfectly matched to Sebastian’s. He could imagine a fiery spirit pitted against Sebastian’s passion, in sharp contrast to his own staidness. He had to get those images under control or he would embarrass himself in front of his superior officer.
Folsom cocked his head, jowls swinging. “Why do you care?”
Drake shrugged, as if he wasn’t personally invested. He couldn’t be. “It could be leverage. Just doing my job.”
Folsom sighed heavily and stared off in front of him. “I gave you this assignment because you had some time before your next excursion. Perhaps that was a mistake.”
“No, sir,” Drake cut in.
“Information extraction isn’t your specialty. There’s no shame in that. You’re our best tactical officer. I don’t want you to burn yourself out over a puny little runt.”
Drake paused. Folsom wasn’t wrong about his tactical skills, and he needed to use them now. He was about to lose access to Sebastian—he could hear it in Folsom’s voice. He had to change that, had to win him over. It clearly had not worked to imply that Sebastian had nothing to offer.
“I believe he’s deep in the underground,” Drake said slowly.
Folsom leaned forward.
“That’s why he’s inured to the normal interrogation tactics.” Not that a handjob and a meal counted as normal interrogation tactics. “He’s well trained.” Sebastian could manage himself in a dirty street fight, but that was it. “He has valuable information.” He had nothing at all. “And I’ve already developed a rapport with him. If I can find out the status of his friend, then I’m sure he can be persuaded to come to my way of thinking.”
Folsom considered him for a minute before pulling a file from a stack and flipping it open. “El Basque, did you say?”
“Yes, sir.”
Folsom looked up, and Drake steeled his reaction. “It says here that an El Basque was found not to be a material source of information and was sold to the mines.”
The words hammered into Drake almost as if he felt the grief on behalf of Sebastian. It wasn’t the backbreaking work of the mines that would kill—it was the cold. Set in sub-freezing temperatures and only given the old jackets of the dead, a miner’s average lifespan was a few months.
El Basque had been held, probably without much food or drink, in a rebel prison for who knew how long before then. Even those of strong health often lost fingers and toes due to frostbite in the first few days. Being sold to the mines was a sentence to death by torture.
Drake kept his voice even. “When was this?”
Folsom shuffled through some pages. “Two weeks ago. Right after the raid. The boy was marked down as a rebel participant and brought here for questioning.” His eyes sharpened on Drake. “You know as well as I that he’s already dead. If not now then in a few days’ time. I’ll allow you to work on this boy for another day, because it wouldn’t look good to pull an assignment from a senior officer. If you haven’t broken him by then, I will remove you.”
“Understood, sir.” His voice had dropped an octave, but Folsom would assume it was the threat of insult. Drake turned and marched from the room to Sebastian’s cell.
Sebastian scrambled to stand when he entered, but Drake pushed him back down.
“Tell me. Was El Basque strong? Was he in good health?”
“No.” Sebastian’s voice trembled. “Please. Tell me.”
Drake struggled not to let any sign of compassion show through. “Then he’s likely dead.” Sebastian slipped from his hands and fell back against the wall. He didn’t cry. He just looked… lost. Drake hated that, and he hated being helpless to stop it.
“What did they do to him?” Sebastian looked up at him, eyes shining, and suddenly he did look like the boy that Folsom called him. He looked young and vulnerable, and completely out of place in his dark prison.
Drake debated briefly not telling him, but if all he had to off
er Sebastian was the truth, then he would give it. “He was sold to the miness.”
Sebastian closed his eyes, swallowed hard. “Do you know if he—”
“I have no further information. But that was two weeks ago.”
“I see.”
Sebastian’s sorrow lay over them like a thick fog. Drake told himself to leave. Let the man grieve in peace. But he couldn’t do it.
He remembered this pain, felt it every day. Without conscious thought, he reached out and pulled Sebastian into his arms. He held on as the tears finally fell, while Sebastian mourned a man he loved. Drake held on tightly, as if he was the one adrift and only Sebastian could anchor him.
As wet drops of anguish fell onto his arm, Drake knew that no matter what course was charted for his future, he would not allow Sebastian to be hurt. There were very few choices in this world, very few moments when a man had the chance to do something good, and this was one of them. Sebastian did not belong in this prison. He did not belong on this war-torn world at all, but it was the only one they had. Drake would set him free, at least.
“Shh,” he murmured into Sebastian’s hair. He breathed in deep. “I know it hurts. I know.”
Then when Sebastian had quieted, Drake continued. “I’m going to get you out of here. You have to trust me.”
“No,” Sebastian said, muffled.
“Sebastian—” he started.
“No! If you can do something for me, then I want you to help El Basque. Get him out of there. Even if he has to die—” Sebastian shuddered. “Let him die free. That is what I want.”
Drake held him silently. He only had a day before Folsom would take over Sebastian’s care, which would mean rape and torture, if not death. He could not let that happen, yet he could not ignore Sebastian’s plea. And each passing hour could very well mean death for a man in the mines.
If he used the cargo ships, he would be able to arrive at the primary mines in a matter of hours. Of course, interstate transport was illegal without authorization, which he wouldn’t get. And then he had to find the man and buy his release. Then he’d return and smuggle Sebastian out of Ke’lan headquarters.
