Val didn’t realize his breathing had gone high and quick until he felt a touch on his leg. A light brush of fingers on his thigh that startled him nearly up off his rug.
When he turned to Mehmet, the sultan laughed quietly, green eyes dancing. “You’re very nervous tonight.”
Val started to deny it, but Mehmet was a vampire; he could sense the truth: Val was nervous. He was scared, and stressed, and he wanted to go home, and he worried for his family, and he wanted his brother to love him, and he wanted his mother to laugh again–
A warm brush against his cheek startled him back to the moment at hand. Mehmet cupped his jaw, swept his thumb along the tender skin beneath Val’s eye. “Beautiful boys should never look as sad as you do right now.” He shifted forward, leaned in a little closer, breath warm across Val’s face. “What’s the matter, Radu?” Slow, hypnotic sweep of his thumb; low purr of his voice. And he was looking at Val, gaze fixed on him. Vlad never paid him notice, never stared into his eyes like this, never…
It was on the tip of his tongue. My real name is Val. Call me Val. But he hesitated. Mehmet wasn’t family; he wasn’t even a friend. He was a sultan – the enemy sultan – and why was he stroking Val and calling him beautiful? Why was…
“Shh.” Mehmet laid a finger against his lips just before they opened. The ring was warm from his skin. “I asked you a question,” he said, so gently, his smile soft. “Aren’t you going to answer it?”
Val closed his eyes a moment, swallowed. The sounds of the feast around them blurred together, inconsequential. They might hate him, or think nothing of him, or whisper in his ear that he was lovely to look upon, but it was this man here – this boy – who held his fate in his hands. Literally, now, the calluses scraping lightly at Val’s throat as his touch trailed down to fiddle with the collar of his kaftan. Mehmet was at the forefront of all his senses, the heat and scent of him, his intent a low pulsing rhythm that made Val want to fidget in his chair. What did this mean? What did he want? What, what, what. He didn’t understand, and he wanted to howl.
“And still he doesn’t answer,” Mehmet said, lightly mocking. He gave a tug on Val’s collar. “He won’t even look at me.”
Damn it. He wasn’t doing this right.
He opened his eyes and took a deep breath, ready to plead for his family, for Vlad, and Mama, and Father, and Mircea, and the people of Wallachia–
But Mehmet’s eyes. They glowed. His hand circled Val’s throat, thumb a gentle, steady presence right in the hollow.
In his panic, grace abandoned him. “Why do you look at me like this?” he blurted, face heating until it must surely catch fire.
Mehmet leaned in even closer; his face was the only thing Val could see, the wild light in his eyes, his own terrified reflection staring back. “Like what?” Just a soft huff, more panther than human.
“M-m-my father broke the treaty. My brother has bested you in hand-to-hand combat.”
Mehmet pulled back a fraction, his expression arresting. Brittle. His thumb pressed, just a little, into Val’s throat.
“Don’t you hate me?”
“Do you think I should?” Voice tighter now, flatter.
“Vlad does.”
Another smile, this one humorless. Slowly, Mehmet released him and eased back– he’d been half-falling in order to touch Val. He turned away and reached for his wine. “I am nothing like your brother.” A declaration.
Val searched the crowd for Vlad, but when he spotted his table, his brother was gone.
~*~
Mehmet drank. Cup, after cup, after cup of wine. It took quite a lot of spirits to get a vampire drunk, but it was possible, and Mehmet managed. He didn’t speak for the rest of the meal, and ate only little, brooding over his ever-full cup, a slave always at the ready to top it off from the pitcher. By the end of the meal, when Mehmet tried to rise, he had to brace both hands on the table, and swayed.
“You will accompany me, Radu,” he said, no longer teasing and smiling, but commanding.
Helpless to do anything but comply, Val followed the sultan back to his royal apartments.
It was a long, unsteady journey, Mehmet stopping often to brace a hand against the wall. Sometimes, he muttered under his breath; others he laughed.
When they arrived at his rooms, Val just…stared.
Back home in Tîrgovişte, his parents, and the princess, each enjoyed their own suites, with big four-poster beds draped in furs. His mother had a gold-backed mirror and brush set; a box of jewels that she brought out on feast occasions. But the palace was a new one, constructed at Father’s instruction, and it had been built for functionality more than beauty.
This, though, this suite of the sultan’s…it defied all expectation of sumptuousness. An antechamber fed into a bedchamber and dressing room, all of it a dazzle of complimentary riches.
A bed heaped with pillows, and draped with silk panels. Great tall wardrobes thrown open to reveal enough clothes to suit a small army. Imported Greek and European furniture: dressing tables with mirrors, sideboards with glittering decanters, chests stuffed so full the lids wouldn’t quite close. An archway stood open to the garden, letting in the cool breeze, a wedge of star-studded sky visible beyond the walls, sheer white cliffs that glowed in the moonlight. Mehmet had his own little courtyard in the garden, a bench, and a fountain, and a gnarled apple tree that swayed, the susurrus of leaves like the sound of rain.
A pair of slaves, waiting as they entered, rushed ahead to light the lamps beside the bed, and turn down the coverlet. Movements quick; they smelled of fear.
Mehmet smelled of wine…and of anger.
“Leave us,” he ordered, gesturing sloppily to the door.
The slaves had been approaching him, ready to undress him, but they bowed and backed away instead, and fled.
Mehmet followed them, steps laborious, and pulled a key from an inner pocket. He locked the door, and, despite his unsteadiness, slipped the key away somewhere on his person in a blink; Val couldn’t follow the movement. Then he turned around and put his back to the door; Val could tell it was all that held him upright.
He reached up and dragged his turban off. Some of the pins caught, and the whole elaborate headpiece began to unravel. He let it fall to the floor, careless, wincing as he reached to smooth his hair with his other hand. It was even redder than his beard, shiny with perfumed oils, thick waves that fell past his shoulders.
“Did you know that vampires can become intoxicated?” he asked, and it took Val a moment to realize the sultan was addressing him.
He drew himself up to attention, bells chiming in his hair. “I did, yes, your grace.”
Mehmet smiled with his eyes shut. “And you didn’t think to warn me?”
“I…I didn’t know you would…would drink so much. Your Majesty.” The last was a whisper.
The sultan’s smile spread, slow and lazy in the way of a cat who hadn’t yet decided to pounce. Head tipped back, his hair unbound, drunk and disheveled, he still felt like a threat to Val. “Of course you didn’t. You’d never do such a thing yourself, would you?” He cracked one eye open, a bright slit. “Little golden prince, always so polite. It wouldn’t be mannerly to get sloppy drunk, would it?”
Val bit his lip and didn’t respond.
“Tell me, Radu: why are you so well-behaved?”
So you won’t kill me, Val thought. So you won’t hurt my family. Because I’m your captive, and I don’t want to be starved, or beaten, or stripped naked and thrown in a cell.
“Whatever your reasons,” Mehmet continued, “your brother doesn’t share them.” He laughed. Strained. Unhappy. Though his smile remained, a muscle in his cheek twitched. “He’s bound and determined to be as rebellious as possible, isn’t he? Whether he endangers himself…” His other eye opened, and suddenly, drunk or not, he looked coiled tight as a viper about to strike. “Or his little brother.”
Val edged backward a half step.
“He cares nothing for yo
u, does he? Not until someone pays you a compliment, that is.”
Another half-step. His heart pounded painfully against his ribs.
“He’s jealous, you know. He’s ugly as mud, but then there’s you. Beautiful as a jewel. He hates it.”
Another step. “Vlad’s a warrior,” he said, voice high and wavering. “He doesn’t worry about beauty.”
Another laugh. “Everyone worries about that. Trust me.” Then he pushed off the door and stalked forward, his steps steady now.
Vampires could get drunk, but it didn’t usually last that long.
It was burning off now.
Val backed up again, but the backs of his legs hit the end of the bed.
Mehmet closed the distance between them, his grin wide…manic. He laughed, looming over Val, reddish hair fanning around his handsome face, his eyes sparking. “What are you afraid of, little prince?”
So close – he was so close. Heat, and wine-smell, and a kind of intent Val couldn’t put a name to. Was this sumptuous bedchamber to be the scene of his murder? Would Mehmet strangle him? Bite him and drain him? Or would be pluck the ceremonial sword off the wall behind him and run Val through?
Teeth chattering, he said, “Please don’t kill me.”
“Kill you?” He leaned in even closer, his knees pressing into Val’s thighs. “Now what makes you think I’d want to do that?”
Why wouldn’t he?
Val took a series of choppy breaths through his mouth. “M-my father. And my brother–”
“Oh, they’ll get what’s coming to them. Traitors always pay. But.” He lifted one jeweled hand that wavered; still drunk; he still reeked of wine. He petted at Val’s hair, smoothed it back where the humidity of the close, body-packed room had sent baby-fine pieces twisting up into curls. A bell jangled. “You’re not a traitor though, are you, Radu? You’re obedient and sweet. Yes?”
I can be sweet, he’d told Constantine. He closed his eyes and whispered, “Yes.”
“That’s what all your tutors have said: that you’re a good boy. That you always mind your manners. Always gracious.” The sultan’s touch shifted down, a fingertip trailing along the ridge of his cheekbone, and around the curve of his jaw, feather-light. “Always…lovely. Look at me, Radu.”
He opened his eyes – always obedient, always sweet – and the sultan’s face was right in front of his, close enough to count his lashes; close enough to see the glazed hunger in his eyes and finally know that’s what it was. The sultan was angry, and ashamed, embarrassed by his failures in battle, and he wanted something, desperately.
My blood, Val thought, himself desperate, trying to lean back.
But then Mehmet’s other hand landed on his chest, and smoothed down the front of his body…all the way down, until it cupped around what rested, soft and small, between his legs. He smiled, fangs long. “Undress,” he said, an order, “and then you can tend to me.”
A memory flooded back, fuzzy from early youth. Going in search of Mother, and following her scent to Father’s rooms. No wolves to guard the door – strange. And peeking through the door he’d found his parents, unclothed and intertwined.
When he asked Vlad about it later, his brother had cuffed him across the back of the head. “You idiot, they were fucking.”
That, he realized with dawning horror, was what Mehmet wanted.
Val gasped and tried to twist away, but Mehmet caught his shoulder, his grip tight. He wasn’t much older, but he was much, much stronger; his fingertips dug in hard, and Val could already feel the bruises forming. His other hand tightened between Val’s legs, until pain bloomed, and stars burst behind his eyes. He gagged.
“What’s this?” Mehmet said through his teeth. He smelled of anger now, acrid, burning anger that rolled off his skin. “The little prince wants to get away? I thought we just decided you weren’t a traitor, Radu? I thought you wanted to save your skin?”
Val drew a tremulous breath; what little he’d eaten threatened to come back up. “P-p-please, your grace…”
“Please what?” A snarl.
“Please don’t hurt me.”
“Hurt you?” His grip eased, but his tone was cruel and mocking. “Why would I want to do that? Do you think I enjoy inflicting pain?”
Yes. Yes, Val thought he did.
He smoothed the fine embroidery of Val’s kaftan with trembling fingers, lingering at his chest, stroking him through the silk. “I seek only pleasure. That’s what you were made for. Beautiful things are meant to be enjoyed.”
Val closed his eyes against the prickling of tears. All those times Mehmet had stared at him, the things he’d hissed to Vlad during those awful sparring matches, laughing, wild-eyed. This was what it had been leading to. A drunk noble pawing at him; a hostage unable to resist. Nakedness, and fucking; writhing like the horses he’d seen bred back home. He thought of a mare, a stallion’s teeth sunk in her withers; remembered the way she’d screamed.
And he was a boy. How could the prince…what would he…
The tears slid down his cheeks. He couldn’t stop them.
“You’ll like it,” Mehmet said. “You’ll see.” His touch pulled back, and he stepped away. Val heard the rustle of cloth and cracked his eyes open.
Through a blurring of tears, he saw that the sultan was undressing, his movements clumsy, fingers still slow from the wine. He tore a button free when he couldn’t work it, cursing, the golden circle landing on the tile with a ping. He had his back to Val; he didn’t think he would flee. And why would he? Obedient. Sweet. The tame Wallachian prince who observed every courtesy wouldn’t dare deny the Ottoman sultan, would he?
The door to this suite was locked. Maybe Mehmet would drop the key, fumble it like the buttons he kept ripping free. But…
Val blinked to clear his eyes. There lay the garden, its jasmine-scented breeze lifting the bed curtains, cooling his overheated face. If he could get around the bed, he could get out there, and he knew the gardens well, now. Knew all its nooks and hiding spots.
He closed his eyes again, and tried to find some reserve of courage to draw upon. If he did this, if he refused the sultan…
He didn’t let himself think. He only knew that he had to run now, while Mehmet’s back was turned.
He wiped his tears with his sleeve, took a deep breath, and leapt.
He made it around the bed before Mehmet let out an enraged sound, half-growl, half-scream.
Val screamed in response, and tried to duck – but the sultan snatched him by the back of the kaftan, yanked him up off his feet.
The room spun. His back slammed into the wall, and Mehmet’s face shoved into his, teeth bared, veins standing out in his temples. He growled, low and constant, seething.
“Are you running from me?”
“N-no-no, Your Majesty.” Val flattened his hands against the plaster of the wall, trying to gain purchase, searching for–
His fingertips brushed cool steel. Mehmet’s fists were balled in the front of his kaftan, tearing seams and popping buttons, and he didn’t dare turn his head. But he rolled his eyes to the side and just glimpsed what he’d seen in his earlier glance around the room: the sword hanging on the wall. It was well within reach, and hung by flimsy decorative pegs.
“Look at me!” Mehmet shouted in his face, spraying spit.
Val complied. The sultan’s eyes were wild. He’d seen bloodlust, and battle fury, had lived his whole life with Vlad’s particular brand of low-simmering contempt for everyone and everything, but this…he’d never seen this before. This terrified him.
I can be sweet. Yes, he could, and he had. It was, no doubt, the thing that had spared him the crop thus far. Maybe even what had spared his life. He should be sweet now; should go limp as a doll and let Mehmet use him for whatever pleasure he sought.
But Val was only a boy, and fucking was fine so long as it was something glimpsed through a half-closed door. Here, now, with his captor, with wine-breath, and aggression, and terror, he –
/>
No. He couldn’t do it.
What would Vlad do? he thought. And then he closed his hand around the sword’s hilt, ripped it from its hooks, and swung it.
The hit landed, and in his shock, Mehmet dropped him.
Val collapsed to the floor; the impact knocked the sword from his hand.
Mehmet stared down at his side, where the dark red of blood was already soaking through his kaftan, a rapidly-spreading stain. But he was still on his feet; he reached to touch the wound, fingering at the silk above it with quiet disbelief.
No! Not a mortal hit. Not even a crippling one. Just enough to stoke his already out of control anger.
Val scrambled to his feet and fled. The sultan wasn’t fast enough to catch him this time, and he ducked out through the double doors into the garden.
~*~
The moon was waning, but Val could see well in the dark. He moved quick and quiet, keeping low behind the boxwoods, staying to the shadows cast by topiaries and ornamental trees. He could have hidden from a human, but Mehmet could track him by scent. So he went straight for the herbs, and plucked rosemary and lavender and mint, rubbed it over the pulse points at his wrists and throat. Stuffed it into his kaftan.
He tore at his hair, yanking out the bells and casting them into the shrubs. Threw his slippers as far as he could throw them – a decoy, hopefully – and proceeded on bare feet, silent now.
He felt his heartbeat in his mouth; if he coughed, he thought it might spill out onto the gravel of the path, black and pulsing. His fear was so overwhelming that he couldn’t process it; he was numb now, focused only on hiding, getting away, getting safe. With first light would come the sultan’s sobering…and his punishment. They would be killed for sure now – both of them. All this time he’d thought it would be Vlad’s petulance that doomed them, but no, it was his own childish fear of sodomy that would do them in. If possible, Vlad would hate him even more.
He envisioned his brother’s face as they waited on the top of the wall, as executioners sharpened the long spikes they would be impaled upon.
Congratulations, Vlad’s voice said in his head now. You’re still going to get fucked, only with a spear instead of the sultan’s cock. Which is worse?
Dragon Slayer (Sons of Rome Book 3) Page 25