by Lisa Henry
As much as Ciaran hated it, he knew exactly what the king was waiting for. “I’m so sorry,” he murmured, leaning forwards and pressing his face to the jointure of Boru’s groin and thigh. He breathed deep, like he couldn’t get enough of the smell. “I’m so, so sorry, Your Highness. What can I do to make it up to you?” He turned his eyes up, sweet and obedient, and kissed Boru’s trouser leg. Exhaled so that the heat of his breath would sink through the fabric to the man’s skin underneath.
Yes, the king loved to make him suffer, watch him cry in pain, see him shiver with fear. But the king also loved to be flattered. Loved to think that even with all the petty cruelty, he still held sway over Ciaran’s desire.
“You little whore,” the king said, and the gravel in his tone meant Ciaran had successfully predicted his appetites. His hand tangled in Ciaran’s hair, giving it a tug that burned Ciaran’s already tender scalp. “Sometimes I think you don’t want to go home at all.”
Ciaran froze for a second, faltered, and hoped to hell that Boru didn’t notice it. “Let me serve you, Your Majesty.”
Let me change the subject.
“It’s a good thing, too, because I’m beginning to think your father doesn’t even want you back.”
So much for that.
Ciaran exhaled again. There was no response he could give to that, so he knelt there and waited for Boru to speak again. Waited for the next cut.
“Not to mention that I’ve become quite accustomed to your presence here. Even if your father were to provide your ransom, I’m not sure I could bear to part with you.”
“I couldn’t bear to part with you, either, Your Highness,” Ciaran recited.
“I think it’s my cock you couldn’t bear to part with, my pretty little slut. Or maybe you don’t want your daddy to know you’ve been fucked by the king of Dublin!” Boru laughed and tousled Ciaran’s hair affectionately. “Would he like to hear about that, do you think?”
Boru still brought this up sometimes, the ransom that Ciaran was sure he’d never even asked for, and whether Ciaran’s father would pay it if he knew his son bent over and took it from a man. If Boru had contacted Ciaran’s father at all, it was to brag that the king of Dublin had captured his son. He’d probably bragged about what he’d done to Ciaran as well. For all Ciaran knew, it was common knowledge in the North that Ciaran Daly was the king of Dublin’s slut.
“You don’t really want to go back to your so-called ‘civilised’ world, do you, Boy?”
Ciaran nuzzled Boru’s trousers, his lips following the hardening line of his cock. “No, Your Highness.”
Strange that he could say that without choking.
In some way it was almost the truth. He didn’t want to go back north. He’d wanted to come south to help people, to help restore Ireland, and, like Danny had said, to fight the battle his father was afraid to.
Ciaran knew bringing more refugees north wouldn’t magically solve the world’s problems, because the “safety” of the North only extended to a privileged few. The rest weren’t much better off than the king’s pitiful subjects. After all, at least here they weren’t under constant surveillance. Nobody had to produce papers. There was no threat of deportation or imprisonment. Only death by hunger, death by disease, death by the elements—the same as in the camp—and perhaps death by the king … but only if you were within his reach. And his arm wasn’t nearly so long as he fancied, judging by Darragh’s testament today.
“You like it, don’t you, Boy?” Boru tightened his grip in Ciaran’s hair again. “You’d take it from anyone, wouldn’t you?”
“If it pleases you, Your Highness.”
Boru tilted Ciaran’s head back sharply. His eyes were narrow. “I saw the way that culchie brute looked at you, little whore. Like he wanted you.”
Ciaran hissed in pain and tried not to struggle. “If he looked at me, Highness, then surely it was only to marvel at your wealth.”
Bow and scrape, bow and scrape.
“Whore,” Boru repeated, his mouth twisting around the word. “I should throw you to him like scraps to a dog and let him fuck you until you bleed, until you scream, until you rip apart.”
Ciaran sucked in a shuddering breath. “If it pleases you.”
“Whore,” Boru murmured, and for a moment he seemed almost tender again. Then he stepped back, pulling Ciaran with him by the hair. “Whore!”
Ciaran scrambled on his knees to keep pace, afraid that Boru would tear his hair out. It was impossible to escape the king’s temper when he was like this. Impossible to try to deflect it. He could only whimper out words of appeasement, of surrender, and hope that eventually Boru would respond favourably to them.
Boru flung him across the floor of his bedroom—a vast chamber with a vaulted ceiling like a church or a palace. One of many in the labyrinth. The place might have been built to hold the parliament that had been abolished only years after the completion of construction, but it had seen so many changes even before Dublin fell that Ciaran couldn’t be sure of the room’s original purpose.
His knees skidded on marble tiles. “Please, Your Majesty. I live to serve you, please.”
“Your place is in my bed,” Boru said, his voice hardening. “Get to it!”
Ciaran climbed to his feet. God, his head felt like it was going to split open. He hurried over to the king’s bed. “How do you wish to take me, Your Highness?”
All of these questions and responses, all learned through experience. Learned quickly, as well. Fear was a powerful teacher.
Boru breathed heavily. “On your back.”
Ciaran unfastened his pants and let them drop to his ankles. He crawled onto the bed and lay on his back. He drew his legs up and apart. Held his knees. Stared at the intricate designs on the ceiling.
And thought, every single time, of the first time.
His shock, his fear, and his disbelief—This can’t be happening. He can’t do this—as though his refusal to accept what was being done to him would somehow make it unreal. As though, despite everything he’d already seen of the king and his men in action that day, it was his rape that was most incomprehensible.
“Pretty, pretty whore,” Boru said, positioning himself between Ciaran’s thighs. He fumbled in his trousers, then pressed the head of his cock to Ciaran’s entrance. “Can I make you bleed today, my pretty little whore?”
Ciaran hissed and bit his lip as Boru pushed into him. No prep, no lube, none of the consideration that Ciaran had always taken with his partners. He tried to force himself to relax, tried to let his eyes flutter closed. Tried to not feel the pain. It would ease soon enough, he told himself every time. Either Boru’s pre-cum would lubricate him or blood would, and it would ease. That was what he told himself.
“Look at you,” Boru said. “All decked out in gold, the most precious treasure in all of Ireland. My Boy. Make some noises for me, Boy.”
Noises were easy. Hard not to make noise when a man was shoving his cock into you, not caring if you tore. It was forcing himself not to cry and beg and scream when the man clearly craved expressions of desire that was difficult. He twisted, arched his back, forced out a moan that still sounded more like pain than pleasure. Sometimes Ciaran couldn’t believe just how fucking twisted it was—he fought to control himself, to force himself, and did all of Boru’s work for him. Sometimes it felt like Boru wasn’t the only monster in the room. There was nothing Boru had ever done to him that Ciaran hadn’t made the very rational, very logical decision not to resist. Not once he’d learned.
“Do you like that, Boy?” Boru reached down and gripped the gold torc at Ciaran’s throat.
“Oh yes,” Ciaran managed to say through gritted teeth, ignoring the tears streaking down the sides of his face.
“I wonder …” Boru pumped his hips, fully sheathing himself in one burning stroke. “Would you like it better if it was that culchie on top of you instead of me?”
Hard to reply. The pain was blacking out everything else. �
�Only … you.” Ciaran’s eyes rolled back in his head, his fingernails digging into the tender undersides of his knees, ten new points of pain.
Don’t pass out. Don’t pass out. Stay awake. Tell him what he wants to hear.
“Don’t lie to me, Boy. I saw you looking at him. Do you think his cock is as big as the rest of him? I bet he’s hung-n-ngh like an animal. Little pain slut like you, I bet you’d love to have the brute split you open.”
No. Don’t you steal him from me, too. Whoever he really was, in Ciaran’s mind, he was gentle, considerate, slow. Not painful at all. Kind. He was kind.
“I-if it pleases Your Highness. If Highness watches.” He let out a pained cry then, tossing his head, every muscle in his body contracting at once.
Boru’s hand tore at his hair, forcing him to face forwards. “Open your eyes, and say that again. Make me fucking believe it, Boy.”
Say that again? Say what again? Ciaran couldn’t remember. Could barely remember who he was. The pain, the pain was too much.
“Say it again! Damn you! Say it again!” Boru slammed Ciaran’s head back, whiplashing his neck, but at least they were on a mattress and not the floor or against the wall.
Ciaran forced his eyes open and blinked away tears. Stared up at Boru’s face looming over him. “Wh-whatever pleases you.” God, please let that be right. “Whatever you command! You are my king, you are my king.”
“That’s right, my treasure.” The hand tugging Ciaran’s hair softened suddenly. Swept down to stroke his wet cheek. “I am your king, and you worship me.”
“I do.” Ciaran tried to catch his breath as Boru slipped into a less-punishing rhythm. The pain eased at last, and Ciaran’s muscles relaxed. “I do.”
Marriage vows. That’s what it sounded like.
“That’s right,” Boru said. He rubbed a thumb under Ciaran’s eye, collecting the moisture from his lashes. “That’s my good Boy.”
Ciaran’s breath sighed out of him, the sharp, stabbing pain fading to just another dull ache. He gazed at Boru’s face, hoping he was reading this moment right. “The greatness of kings does not come from their size.” He unclasped his right hand from his knee and lifted it carefully towards Boru’s face. Made his trembling fingers brush against the king’s sweaty brow. “Truly great kings are strong because of their wisdom, because of their cunning.”
Boru didn’t react to Ciaran’s touch.
“Great kings,” Ciaran said, his heart stuttering, “win victories against men ten times their size.”
Boru thrust again.
Ciaran tried not to wince. He dropped his hand to his knee again and held himself open, pliant. His gaze drifted to the ceiling, and then back to Boru’s face. He wet his lips with his tongue and rocked his hips. Feigned his pleasure like the whore Boru said he was. “More, Majesty, please.”
Boru stilled, shifted, and pushed back in. A new angle, new agony.
“More,” Ciaran moaned. “Please. Faster, please.”
Faster because he wanted it over with, and because it stroked Boru’s ego. Sometimes Boru punished him for his impertinence—who did Boy think he was to make demands of his king?—but sometimes it pleased him.
“Whore,” Boru grunted, but the word sounded affectionate now.
“My king.” Ciaran let his eyes slide closed again. “So strong.”
“As strong as—” Boru slammed into him. “Fuck! As strong as that fucking culchie!”
“Stronger,” Ciaran groaned.
Boru grabbed a fistful of Ciaran’s hair again and bellowed as he came. Then he collapsed, spent, into the cradle of Ciaran’s trembling thighs.
“Stronger,” Boru muttered.
Ciaran released his knees and flexed his aching fingers. “Conchobar was a great king who best knew how to use Cú Chulainn. The dog may be the savage beast, but the man who holds his leash is the one who is truly strong.”
Boru grunted and pushed himself up.
Ciaran flinched as Boru’s cock withdrew with the same lack of care as it had entered.
Boru tucked his cock back into his trousers. “You’re still as tight as a virgin, Boy.”
Ciaran knew better than to close his legs or reach for a blanket to cover himself. He lay there as Boru stood, trying not to feel the king’s cum dribbling out of him. Legs spread, arms draped over his head, like he was posing for a photo. Debauched and pliant and a whore.
He watched and caught his breath as Boru undressed the rest of the way. “Go get cleaned up,” he ordered, stretching lazily. “And bring back something to wash me with, as well. And a drink.”
God, yes, a drink. Ciaran still needed that water. He rose from the bed, wincing as he bent down to pick up his trousers. He stepped into them awkwardly. His shaking hands had trouble with the button on the fly.
“No need to get dressed, Boy. You’re just coming to bed with me after you get back.”
Which meant he’d have to walk naked to the courtyard rainwater tank for bathing water, and to the supply vault where the king’s personal stores of distilled drinking water were housed.
He burned with humiliation. “Of course. How stupid of me.”
Boru stared at him. “What’s that, Boy? Is that lip?”
Fuck.
Ciaran dropped his gaze. “No disrespect, Highness. It really was stupid of me. I’m a stupid whore.” He shoved his pants back down and stepped back out of them again. “Would you like something to eat from the stores, as well?”
Your stores of food that should go to the hungry and the needy of this country?
Boru waved his hand. “Find something.”
Ciaran slipped out of the room.
He moved quickly through the wide passageway, quietly. The hall was lit with lamps that stunk of kerosene. Black smoke curled out of them, staining the walls. The scant light they provided hardly dented the looming darkness that gathered in the arched ceilings.
Ciaran knew his way through the place, darkness or not. He thought he would go to the courtyard first and clean up. He was unlikely to be observed there. Boru’s massive court was largely unattended at night. No need. His men held this part of the city securely, and there was little chance of attack from the rival gangs that sometimes rose up against him. No way in hell would any of them make it as far as College Green. True, the king’s men made occasional patrols through the hive of buildings Boru had claimed as his own, but Ciaran could probably avoid them. Most of Boru’s men were quartered over in the ruins of Trinity and wouldn’t attend the court until morning.
So wash first. Then down to the vaults—left over from the building’s time as a bank—to fetch Boru his food and water. It wasn’t a sign of trust that Ciaran was allowed the task. It was because Boru would flay him alive if he dared take a thing that didn’t belong to him. And the king would take great pleasure in it as well. He wasn’t really looking forward to being this hungry and facing down an entire stockpile of food he could not eat.
How would he even know? the hungry voice in his head cajoled, but his fear was stronger. Better to be hungry than to be punished.
How would he know?
Because some strange primeval part of Ciaran’s brain was so terrified of Boru, so stricken with fear, that it almost believed he was a god. And why not? What was a god except the being who ruled your universe and could smite you without pity? That fear ran so deep in Ciaran sometimes that it drowned out all logical thought.
Ciaran heard the sound of boots before he’d even reached the courtyard. And caught in the middle of a long corridor, a mile away from the nearest door, he could do nothing except stand there, head bowed, as the men rounded the corner. Maybe they’d pass him by. Some of the men just thought he was weird or creepy and refused to acknowledge him. Others …
“Well, well, well, lads. Look what we’ve got here.”
Ciaran tightened his hands into fists and kept his gaze low. Maybe if he didn’t respond to them, they’d go on their way.
“This is the Boy,”
one of the men said, as if introductions needed to be made anymore. Unless—
Ciaran looked up before he could help himself. Of course. They were giving the new man a tour of the place and pointing out all its fixtures. Including Ciaran.
The culchie stared at him, expressionless. Did he even understand what he was looking at?
Whatever. It didn’t matter. Whatever the culchie thought, however he felt right now, it didn’t matter. He was one of them now, and the sooner Ciaran accepted that, the sooner he could let the stupid foolish hope go. Because which fantasy was more likely? Ciaran’s, where the culchie was a kind man, a good man, or Boru’s, where the culchie would rip Ciaran apart?
He knew which, knew it right down to his bones.
The culchie would hurt him, and probably laugh as he did. At His Majesty’s pleasure.
Michael. Colm. Hugh. Eamonn. Noel. Seamus.
Darragh recited the names in his head over and over again, visualising the faces that matched. Michael, with the red hair. Colm, who had a scar on his jaw. Hugh, with the massive head. Eamonn, with the potbelly. Noel, tattooed up both arms. Seamus, the cruel-faced man who seemed to be in charge here. They’d shown him to a dead man’s bed in Trinity, in a building across the way from where the king made his headquarters. It seemed the men all made their beds there, every room filled with bunks and personal effects and the courtyard outside a stinking latrine. He had been given a moment to put down his pack and attend to his chest wound, and then they’d been off to a communal supper, a bland meal of nutritional gruel—rations from the king.
Now they patrolled the king’s grounds, the five of them and Darragh, a route that also served as a tour. Darragh was quiet and attentive as he followed, not that he had much of a choice in the matter. He didn’t have much English, which meant there was always a pause between one of the men saying something and Darragh coming to understand it. And as for speaking, it seemed in his best interest to be known as the dumb culchie. Let them underestimate him, let them make fewer demands of his mind and tongue as they walked.
Darragh had been learning more about the men who were now his compatriots than the buildings themselves.
