Jem
There wasn’t much of a difference between Prince Heir Ilyas standing before his harem, and captured Ilyas on the verge of being sold into slavery. Even locked in a cellar, he ordered me around.
I carried a pair of thick quilts I’d found in the corner of Prince Hemi’s wardrobe, smelling of mould and dust from being left unused for so long. I’d hung them from my tower window to air them out, letting the salty breeze seep into the cloth, but the smell hadn’t improved much. Ilyas wouldn’t like it, but he was also welcome to sleep on the cold, hard stones, so long as it didn’t wreck his beautiful exterior.
He had to be healthy. He had to be perfect. Or this would all be for nothing.
As I descended into the underground corridor, my footsteps announcing me like a Nuriyite chorus, I heard the metal plate sliding against rock.
I paused at the cellar door. Ilyas had to eat. I couldn’t allow him to starve himself, not when so many Lumians would lick the crumbs from the dirt. Ilyas’ rations might not be Nuriyite curry, a hodgepodge waste of a dozen spices, but they were plentiful and healthy.
He’d better not have thrown them on the floor again.
I unlocked the door and angled my body away, should he decide to attack. The door swung open, and I glanced inside.
I dropped the blankets. He wasn’t sitting in his usual spot, and a cursory glance found neither him nor the plate. Was he waiting for me to step inside so he could tackle me from the side? It wouldn’t do anything but leave a bruise. My expression blanked. A bruise was inexcusable.
I kicked the blankets inside, and guessing he would hide on the right side of the door, stepped to the left of the pile. If he tried to attack, his feet would tangle in the cloth.
But no attack came. Instead, I heard an amused chuckle behind me. I whirled around. Ilyas leaned against the wall, smirking at me with his hands tucked under his sash. His robe hung down around his legs, leaving his chest bare and framed by his well-muscled biceps.
His eyes met mine.
I stumbled back, my feet tangling in my own trap. With a few curse words, I kicked my feet free of the quilts and stumbled onto bare flagstone. My eyes darted to his bare midriff, his thumbs and index fingers forming a diamond around his belly button and the trail of dark hair descending below the sash.
Ilyas openly laughed at me, the sound of his voice light, as if amused at the silly mistake his pleasure slave had made.
Ah, that’s where I’d seen that pose before. Ilyas slinking into the harem, leaning against the wall, eyeing his slaves as they tittered and fawned over him, waiting until one pleased him enough before taking that slave into his private bedchamber. In Nuriya, the heat would have slicked his skin with a sheen of sweat. In Lumi, goose pimples dotted his skin.
“Blankets?” Ilyas asked. “They will be hard on your knees.”
I cocked my head. Had I misheard him? ‘Your’ referenced me, did it not? Or was this some less common meaning of the word? “Softer than the stone.”
He eyed the blankets again, and I waited for his lip to curl up in disgust. He hadn’t liked his travel cloak either, a dull brown. But then everything in Nuriya had been turquoises and reds and greens. Why make something practical when it could be ostentatious? “I’m not sure how to lay them out.”
I tilted my head the other way. That was not expected.
“My servants did my bedroll back home.”
“You mean your slaves,” I said.
“Make the bed.”
I motioned to the floor with my hands. “You lay them on the ground, and then you lie on top of them.”
His brow arched, but instead of reprimanding me, he pinched the corner of the first blanket like it was drenched in poison, and flopped the blanket on the ground. “Like this?”
“If you like.” I glanced at the open door. Ilyas could dash through it at any moment. He wouldn’t make it very far, but Ilyas didn’t know that. When I turned my attention back to Ilyas, though, I found his violet gaze hadn’t followed mine. He stared straight at me. I shifted from foot to foot, uncomfortable under the weight of his gaze.
“Teach me,” he beckoned, rolling the words almost like a purr.
I exhaled through my nose. If this game would keep Ilyas occupied, then I would indulge him. “Fold the blanket in half. It will provide more cushion for you.”
Ilyas picked up the corner of the blanket between his thumb and forefinger, and flicked it so that side of the blanket fell into a rumpled heap. “Like this?”
Was he trying to bait me? Whatever for? As if I cared how well he made a bedroll. “That’s fine.”
“I just want you to be comfortable.” His eyes flicked up again, meeting mine and holding my gaze.
“You?” I finally asked, turning towards the door. “I thought that meant the person you’re talking to, not reference to one’s self.”
He laughed. “It does.”
All right, if that was part of his game. “I have no need to be comfortable.”
“Oh, so you like it rough?”
It didn’t matter to me. My own room, high in the tower, only possessed a tick and blanket, set on the ground in a Nuriyite-like manner.
Ilyas grinned at me. “I can play rough. You know I can.”
I lifted my brow.
Then Ilyas was a mere breath away from me, my having not registered his graceful strides across the floor. I stepped back, and Ilyas followed. I couldn’t escape any further, the wall trapping me.
What was his game?
Ilyas reached up, stroking his forefinger against my bare arm. The white hairs rose beneath his touch. Then his other hand found my chin, lifting it so I met his violet eyes. I swallowed.
His irises had a ring of black, clear even in the low light. How had I never noticed before?
His lips stretched into a grin, a grin I knew only from a distance. One he’d only granted others in his harem, and I’d never dared dream he’d give to me.
“I’m still a man,” I told him. And his jailer.
Ilyas didn’t snatch his hand away, but continued to stroke along my arm, his skin stark against my paleness. “I know.”
My throat had gone dry. I struggled to find words. “What would the prince heir think?”
“I think no one is around to see.”
“I meant the new prince heir.”
“As if he wasn’t waking up in a fouled bed after dreaming about you taking him all night. It must have been the reason he waited so long for the castration ritual. He wanted you to unman him.”
Nuriyites. So coddled they made silly rules about everything. “Insult him all you like, he’s still the prince heir. And you’re still here.”
“Yes, I’m here, and you’re here, and no one else.”
My chest tightened, my breath coming faster. “You’d choose to be unmanned?”
His finger was slow, sending ripples up my arm. No one, not even in the harem, had ever touched me like that. “I wouldn’t mind taking you.”
He was, and I couldn’t believe I could even think this, trying to seduce me. For a favour. It was the only explanation, as bizarre as this explanation was. “What do you want?”
“You.”
Yes, he was definitely trying to seduce me. Stuck in the cellar, thinking he was about to be sold into slavery, and he was throwing himself at his captor? Well, pursuing as much as Ilyas’ dignity would allow him. “No.” My voice broke, like Haori’s earlier. I cleared my throat. “What do you really want?”
Ilyas’ tongue darted from his mouth, sliding over his lips. I shuddered. He slowly offered me a smile, the one he granted to his lucky slave of the evening. The one who would return from his bedchamber satisfied from sweetmeats and other gifts.
But Ilyas wasn’t in the position to offer me anything. Well, nothing he wouldn’t refuse to have done to himself. And I was supposed to be his captor. I needed to regain my control over him.
“You have bedding now.” Why did my voice crack? “That will do you for now.”
“Until the Sentei come?”
Was that his thought? That if he seduced me, if he made me keep him by my side, he’d have a better chance at escape?
His fingers moved upward, and then down over my robe-covered chest, stroking lower and lower and lower.
My breath caught. Ilyas wouldn’t do it, no matter what he thought he would gain. He’d stop before he ever touched a man that way. A eunuch was desirable, but not an uncut man. Certainly not me.
If he pulled away, I’d break.
Ilyas leaned forwards, so close that his lips were about to brush mine. “Real food.”
I started at the words. “What?”
“Bring me real food,” he said. “And I’ll take care of you.”
My jaw dropped, my body heating like I’d been thrown into a sun-drenched courtyard. That was… he would… It was impossible. I mustn’t indulge like that, even if Ilyas honoured his word. I shook my head. I tried to slip past him, but he stopped me when he slammed his arm against the wall, guarding my path.
“Well, Jem?”
His breath brushed my cheek. I gasped. My body was almost as warm as Ilyas’. “Your rations are your rations. There is nothing else.”
And someone — probably more than one — starved faster because their ration had been cut for Ilyas. The biscuit I’d given him came from my own selfish horde. No one else, not even Her Majesty, had biscuits anymore.
They’d be starving because of me, too. I would have cut my rations, but I needed to be hale when the Dark God arrived.
“I don’t believe you.” Ilyas leaned closer to my ear. I’d seen him do that too, in the harem, reaching around to nibble on his chosen slave’s earlobe. “I’ll make you tell the truth.”
I froze for a moment, waiting for the contact. No, I mustn’t give in. I placed my hands on his chest and shoved him back. He stumbled, and I held my breath, but he caught himself.
Without waiting for his bluster, I hurried out of the cell, the grate closing behind me, without a click. Ilyas let me go in silence.
That had been close. Too close. I had never expected him to try to barter himself. Not to me. No one who knew about me ever wanted to be close.
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