Page 126 of Dragon Slayer

Val leaned forward with a groan and dropped his face into his hands. “Not forever. But for a very, very long time.” Right now, immortality didn’t feel tangible. It seemed he’d lived most of his life away from home, a prisoner – and he had.Eventuallyheld no comfort for him now.

It was silent a spell, one in which Arslan’s breaths grew uneven and hitched. Tears clogged his voice when he finally spoke. “Forgive me, your grace. I shouldn’t have spoken out of turn. I–”

“Shh, it’s alright.” When Val lifted his head, the boy threw his arms around his neck and pressed his heated, tear-stained face just behind his ear.

Val felt a strange sort of tenderness. He felt protective. “It will be fine,” he assured, rubbing Arslan’s back, the prominent bumps of his spine beneath his kaftan. “I’ll kiss up to Mehmet and make things right with him. You’ll see.”

Footsteps in the hallway beyond.

Arslan sprang back and put a respectable distance between the two of them, retreating to the other side of the table.

Mehmet entered in a whirl of scents: oil and soap from the communal bathhouse, the smell of women, several of them, and the musk of sex. He slammed the door open and marched into the room, head up, shoulders back. Partaking of his harem had obviously not quieted the rage that still burned in him, reduced now to a low, sustainable simmer.

He very pointedly didn’t look at Val, going instead to the side table and the collection of bottles there. “Get out,” he said, flat, as he uncorked a bottle with his teeth and poured a more than generous cup of dark red wine.

Arslan sent Val an apologetic look and then retreated, pulling the outer door shut behind him.

Then they were alone.

Mehmet drained off his wine in a few swallows, head tipped back, then poured a second cup. After, he turned and leaned a hip against the table, finally lifting hooded eyes to meet Val’s gaze.

In the beat before the sultan spoke, Val felt an odd stirring. Somewhere deep, up under his ribs, where it was warm and well-protected. It was…it was resolve. Only a small kernel of it, but hard and bright as burnished steel. It rearranged his insides to make room for itself, pushed out some of his awful, desperate prey drive. He was chained to the wall with silver, a slave in all the ways that counted, but he had afightbrewing inside him, the long-range, patient kind. He couldn’t let it out now, no. But someday. It could wait.Hecould wait. And maybe Mehmet would beat him, would doubtless ravish him, but Val found that he wasn’t afraid the way he’d been up to this point.

He lifted his chin.

Mehmet took another swallow of wine and then set the cup aside, eyes never straying from Val’s face. “I expected cowering.”

Val didn’t respond.

“You know, Radu, when I was in the baths, I managed to convince myself that I’d overreacted before. I thought maybe what you needed was some lenience and a chance to prove that you will still obey me. But now I stand here and look at you, and I amfuriousall over again.” His hand curled to a fist in demonstration.

Val said, “You’ve chained me with silver.” His voice was eerily calm, composed in a whole new way. Mehmet noticed, if the way he lifted his brows was any indication. “And you would punish me still? Is your masculinity really so fragile?”

Mehmet took two strides forward and slapped Val across the face with an open hand. It snapped his head to the side. He felt a jeweled ring open a cut along his eyebrow. He gritted his teeth and faced the sultan, refusing to flinch. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty,” he said without an ounce of sincerity. “I shall endeavor to behave myself from now on.”

Mehmet bared his teeth and lifted his hand to strike again – but checked the motion, hand hovering in the air. He grinned. “You’re goading me. You’ve never done that before.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The slap fell. The crack of it echoed off the walls. Val’s skin throbbed; he could feel the bruise forming.

Mehmet took hold of his chin, fingers digging in, and leaned into his face, so close that Val went cross-eyed trying to look at him. “You have not even begun to imagine all the ways in which I can make you miserable,” he seethed. “You knownothingof pain.”

It was hard to speak with his jaw clenched so tightly, but he managed to say, “Just kill me.”

For a moment, he thought that might happen. And he wanted it, cowardly though it was. He didn’t want the pain that would attend the killing, but to finally be free…that was fine. That was good.

But Mehmet released him and stepped back. His expression shuttered. “Why did you ask to spar? And don’t lie to me.”

“I wanted to build my strength up, and refamiliarize myself with a sword.”

“Why?”

“So that I could return to Wallachia with Vlad.”

He thought Mehmet would strike him again – his face contorted terribly, red and screwed-up, a fit of childish emotion – but he refrained, and returned to the side table to fetch his wine. “You thought I would allow that?” he asked over the rim of his cup.

Val shrugged, and the chain attached to his collar swayed. “I thought it was worth a try. I thought I could manipulate you into it.”

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