Page 187 of Dragon Slayer

Val climbed up onto the pallet fully, and stretched out beside him. Arslan came unresisting when Val gathered him into his arms, bundled him in against his chest. Val himself was slender, but Arslan felt like a bundle of twigs, breakable and tiny. Tremors coursed through his body, and he pressed his tear-stained face into Val’s throat.

“I’msorry,” Val whispered. “This should never have happened to you.”

Mehmet’s words came back to him, spoken on their walk back to camp earlier.“I think you’ve made your point about people touching your things.”

“He’s not a thing. He’s a boy.”

“He’s only three years younger than you. And he’s a slave. This is commonplace – it isn’t as if he never expected to be fucked at least a time or two.”

Val’s hands curled into fists, gripping Arslan’s robe tight, and he forced himself to relax his hold. He stroked the boy’s back instead, the fragile line of his spine through the silk.

“I promise you,” he vowed, “that nothing like that will ever happen again. I won’t let it.”

Arslan whimpered and squirmed in closer, but he didn’t say he believed Val. How could he?

~*~

The camp never truly slept – guards always patrolling, soldiers always staying up to drink, or find whores, or tell ghost stories by the firelight – but the aimless chatter of it became a discernable heartbeat about an hour before dawn. When people stirred with purpose, ready to begin the arduous process of breaking camp and moving on.

Val woke then, in the pitch black, all the candle stumps burned down. He could see. Somewhat. Arslan slept against him, body finally limp, no longer trembling, warm and still. He clung loosely to Val’s clothes, face turned toward him, utterly trusting.

A trust he didn’t deserve after he’d sent the boy off on his own, totally vulnerable.

Val pulled away from him slowly, careful not to wake him, and slipped next door into the sultan’s lavish tent.

Mehmet was awake, and bore the look of a man who hadn’t slept for very long, eyes shadowed, his hair mussed, a silk robe open over his naked chest. He sat at his war table, sipping something from a gold cup. His two preferred slaves bustled about behind him, making up a sleeping pallet that didn’t look at all slept in, bundling clothes into trunks and pulling out fresh garments for the day ahead.

Val plucked an orange from a bowl on a side table and went to occupy his usual chair. No one else ever sat in it; it boasted the print of his own narrow backside, and no one else’s, on the crushed velvet seat.

Mehmet acknowledged him with a low hum that was half a purr. He smelled like sex and male sweat.

Val peeled the orange in long, satisfying strips, enjoying the sharp scent of citrus. He very purposely didn’t think of anything; his mind felt brittle and fragile as old glass this morning.

“How’s your pet?” Mehmet asked.

Val popped an orange wedge into his mouth, bright burst of sunshine on his tongue. “It isn’t like that.”

“Of course it isn’t likethat. I wouldn’t allow it,” the sultan said, light and matter-of-fact. He sighed and lifted his head, finally, gaze that of an adult exhausted with a child’s antics. “The boy will heal, Radu. Have one of mine braid your hair for you until he can attend you again. But right now we have to focus on bigger things.”

“The war,” Val said flatly.

Mehmet didn’t seem to notice his tone, nodding and dropping his gaze back to his map. “We’ll reach the fortress today. From there we’ll…”

Val listened with half an ear as the sultan launched into his assault plans. He would need to know these things so he could relay them to Constantine. But thought of the emperor sent him off down another mental path.

He’d spent so long trying to convince Mehmet this was folly, if only to spare the people of Constantinople – and his friend, Constantine – the horrors of a protracted, impossible war. But perhaps he’d been going about this all wrong.

Perhaps he should have been helping Mehmet. If he could get to the city – not just as a projection, but as a flesh-and-blood person…

If he could earn enough trust to be sent beyond the walls, perhaps for the sake of a diplomatic mission…

Val set his orange aside, licked his fingers, and sat forward. “Might I make a suggestion?” he asked, reaching toward the map.

Mehmet’s brows lifted. “Of course.”

And as Val began to talk, the sultan smiled.

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