Pet (Captive Prince Short Stories 4)

‘Take it all the way down,’ said the Prince, and Ancel took it deep into his throat.

Not quite all of it. He heard the slave say something in Akielon. It sounded like a swearword. Ancel half expected the Prince’s hand on his head, pushing him down the last inch, but when he glanced up, neither of the men were paying him any attention, their eyes locked on one another.

He came up without coughing or needing a breath, a cultivated skill that was often admired. He might not have had bigger, but he’d had a lot, and began the performance in earnest: the repeating up and down, angling his body to the side a little to let the onlookers see better, moaning to indicate pleasure.

‘All of it,’ said the Prince, and Ancel went down again until he managed all of it, his entire throat a vessel.

The Prince, sitting casually on the bower seat, continued giving instructions. The slave eventually began panting, and after a while, started thrusting of his own volition. When that happened, Ancel had no control over it, other than to open his throat. It didn’t matter that the Prince didn’t seem pay him any attention, or that he was only a conduit. The slave wasn’t even looking at him.

It was what he wanted. What he was good at.

‘Finish him off,’ said the Prince, who rose, walking away in disinterest even before the end of his last instruction.

It blurred a little after that, Ancel picking up the pace, the slave jerking, his body curving over itself, unable to hold back the sound as he came.

Ancel swallowed before he realised what he was doing, a hazy instinct. The slave was panting, looking up through a tangle of curls in a furious way, as though he’d like to have a second go-around, this time with his hand around someone’s throat. But he wasn’t looking at Ancel at all. He lifted that gaze and fixed it right on the Prince.

The two of them were locked together, Ancel utterly forgotten as he rose unsteadily to his feet.

His throat felt abraded. Everyone was fussing over him. Courtiers crowded around with accolades, comments, and congratulations. ‘You really are the perfect pet,’ and ‘I’ve never seen anyone take it like that,’ and, ‘I’d pay a fortune for you.’

Berenger had him by the arm, and was pulling him aside, tugging him away so that he was being ushered into the privacy of a second bower before he could resist.

He remembered the last time Berenger had pulled him into a bower. He remembered what he thought had been going to happen. Ancel could feel his own bruised, reddened lips. He could taste the thick salt of it, feel the roughened thrusts.

Berenger had a hand on his shoulder and was staring into his face. Ancel lifted his chin.

‘Did he hurt you?’ The words were short.

‘I liked it,’ said Ancel. ‘I like sucking cock. I’m a pet.’

For a moment they gazed at each other, before Berenger let go his shoulder.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Berenger, ‘that your stunt didn’t work out the way you planned.’

‘Who says it didn’t? Everyone’s talking about me,’ said Ancel. ‘It’s what I want.’

The unlit fire stick smelled of lamp oil, and it was heavy, the soaked, weighted cloth wrapped around each end providing a wick.

It was ready, as Ancel was ready, waiting in an antechamber adjoining the great hall. He wore gauzy, ephemeral silks, of the kind that would flash burn in an instant if he made a mistake with the flame. His face was painted to highlight his lips and his green eyes, and he wore his hair flowing and out. Red, the colour of fire, the colour of the Regency; the similarity was deliberate.

‘The Regent’s going to call on you to attend him at dinner.’

The familiar boy’s voice that piped behind him was not yet broken by puberty. Ancel turned to look at Nicaise, really look, at his big blue eyes, and his beautifully curled hair, and the long earring too heavy for the young face.

‘If you do one thing.’

Ancel could glimpse the great hall through the door behind Nicaise. Dinner was ending, and people had begun to move on to the next part of the evening, mingling, entertainments. Among the courtiers, pets, servants, heralds, retinues, and guards. There were three princes inside: Torveld, Prince of Patras; Laurent, Prince of Vere; and the Regent, the most powerful man at court, who sat in command of it all.

‘Attend him,’ said Ancel.

‘It’s easy. You have fire. The blond slave doesn’t like fire.’ Nicaise pointed with his chin through the archway, to where a handler was bringing a blond slave into the antechamber with them, drawing him forward by a chain attached to the collar on his neck.

It was the blond slave from the bower. The insipid, spineless creature who made you want to pinch his skin, or shake him to wake up. Like a useless doe in a forest. Expecting someone else to help him.

With looks like that, the blond slave could have owned this court if he’d put any work into it. Instead he was trembling and helpless and waiting for a rescue that was never going to come. It was irritating.

‘Then the Regent will call you to attend him. Everyone will see you sitting with him. That’s what you want, isn’t it? The bids for your contract will go up.’