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The monster had come to see him twice, early in his captivity. Come to gloat, as if her words had any meaning for him. She did not come again, but her dog did, looking over Dimitri with a calculating eye. “Is it so hard to kill me?” Dimitri had snarled. “Surely it’s nothing for a murderer like you.”
“Nothing at all, if it serves Lady Edelgard,” the dog had said. “But you may have a use for her still.”
He left then, too. The cell was cold, dark and cramped. They fed Dimitri at irregular intervals. He ate and dreamt of sliding his fingers around the monster’s throat until they sank into flesh. It would be but a moment’s work. His ghosts howled for it. He would have gladly withered away in the dark, if only he could kill her first.
He lost track of time. His hair grew past his shoulders, turned lank and filthy. He had no water to spare for washing. The rare times they opened the cell to throw water over him, he crouched down to lap the moisture off stone, and snarled at the ones who snickered. He would kill them. He would tear their hearts out and smile as the blood ran down his hands.
He was turning into an animal. Someone had said that once.
The door. The damned door, a blaze of light. His eyes had grown weak in the perpetual dark. He bared his teeth and shrank into a corner the light didn’t quite touch. The figure stood still at the threshold, unmoving; it was a moment before it spoke.
“I didn’t know they kept you alive,” said Felix.
Dimitri lunged. The cursed chains yanked him back, slammed him to the floor. Traitor, traitor, his ghosts roared in his ears, and the sound rose up in his chest and tore through his throat. “You dare,” he panted, “after you betrayed me, to show your face—” After he’d sold his body to the empire, no better than a whore. Dimitri would kill him. He would do it slowly, and leave him drowning in his own blood. That was how Rodrigue had died. He deserved no less.
“Yes,” Felix said distantly. “I did.” He seemed to make up his mind then. He strode forward. Quick, decisive steps. That was how he’d turned his back on Faerghus. Now he came to kneel by Dimitri, where the blood from the manacles had pooled. “And it seems that the Emperor has found it fitting to give you to me.”
Five mages delivered Dimitri to an apartment in Enbarr, magic digging hot spikes into his throat. Felix met them at the door. “My thanks to the emperor,” he said, with a thin ironic smile. As if he didn’t serve the same. He had lain down willingly for Edelgard’s boot on his neck. Dimitri snarled. The spike at the side of his throat grew hot; drew blood.
“Will Your Excellency require further aid?” said the mage with the hand at the back of Dimitri’s neck. “Our service—”
“No,” said Felix. When he extended his hand, the magic that was choking Dimitri shaped itself to meet it, a leash for a collared beast. At the academy, Felix had been indifferent to magic at best. Rodrigue had despaired. Apparently he had learned. He tugged at the leash. Thunder and lightning in his hand, hot in Dimitri’s mouth. Someone was screaming. He was on his knees, retching blindly at Felix’s feet, and Glenn crooned at him of murder.
“Tell your master that he has my leave to watch,” said Felix, and dragged Dimitri inside.
There was a large tub in view, steaming white. Felix tipped him into it, rags and all. The water immediately clouded with filth, but Felix didn’t seem concerned. He’d drawn a dagger from his belt and was fingering the hilt. The blade was exquisite.
“So she is a coward,” Dimitri said. “Sending you to kill me in her stead.”
“She may,” said Felix, and set a hand in Dimitri’s hair. The knifepoint slid over the nape of his neck. “But not yet.” He sliced through the collar of the prisoner’s smock, and the rags slid easily away from Dimitri’s flesh. “You’re filthy.”
“Better this than a pampered housepet,” Dimitri growled. His bonds would not let him bite, as much as he tried. “Tell me, Felix. When you kneel to kiss her boots, do you enjoy it? Or do you still hold in your heart some memory of shame?”
Felix did not answer. He’d finished with Dimitri’s clothes, and now set his blade upon his hair. “Stay still,” he said shortly. “I don’t intend to draw your blood tonight.”
The collar was an unyielding force at his throat. Dimitri tried to move; could not. His breath came in harsh pants through his mouth as Felix cut his hair, close to the scalp. Warmth shivered down his spine when Felix ran his palm over the close-cropped hair. “Good,” Felix said. He seemed to be speaking to himself. “Let’s see if anything lies beneath the madness.”
The blade was dripping water down Dimitri’s jawline. Felix had to touch him to do it, fingertips at his cheekbone and beneath his jaw. He worked steadily, the scrape of the blade loud in Dimitri’s ear. When Felix finished, he stroked over the newly-shaven skin, still tender, and Dimitri flinched.
“You call me a beast,” he said to Felix. “Yet here you are, toying with your prey.”
“I’m not going to kill you,” Felix snapped. A crack in his temper. Dimitri showed his teeth. “You always were so eager to die.” The water in the tub drained away; refilled. It took three tries before the water came away clear and Felix hauled him out.
“You are a traitor,” Dimitri said. “Is that not what you set out to do?” What had Felix imagined when he gave himself over to Edelgard? He never should have gone, if he had no heart for regicide.
Felix gritted his teeth. “I’m not going to kill you,” he said again, with a short gesture. The thick swirl of magic at Dimitri’s throat tugged him upward, forcing him to stand. In the rush of blood in his ears he nearly missed Felix’s next words. “I’m going to fuck you.”
Dimitri laughed. Felix did not. In the ensuing silence cooling water slid in rivulets down Dimitri’s back. Suddenly his freshly shorn head felt like a loss. Felix had left him nowhere to hide.
Felix was moving. He had shed his jacket, which left him in only his shirtsleeves. He set a glass upon the counter; beside it, two small round pilules. “I have been told,” he said, “the process can be made pleasurable.”
“Is this the reward for turncoats?” Dimitri said, incredulous. “How well the empire takes care of its servants.” That the woman and her dog had thought Dimitri a suitable prize for Felix—that Felix had accepted, and now came toward Dimitri with the pills cradled in his palm—
The day he left Dimitri, Felix had been bright-eyed with fury. “I will not serve a man who worships death,” he’d said, standing in the still-smoldering ruin of Remire. “Between us there are already enough ghosts.”
Felix’s hand came down over Dimitri’s mouth. Dimitri bit at him, wild, but under the dark residue of magic his Crest lay dormant. He drew blood, sharp and clinging to his tongue; his vision blurred. There was no air to be had, only the scent of Felix, his palm smearing wetness against Dimitri’s mouth. He might have made a sound. He might have done nothing, while Felix stroked the side of his throat. Something hard clicked against his teeth and lodged at the base of his tongue, turned bitter there, and when Felix finally let him go Dimitri could do nothing but swallow, choking with it.
“Good,” Felix said, as if his palm were not streaked with blood to his wrist, as if he had not left Dimitri gagging on his carpet. A quick flicker of motion; Felix’s hand at his mouth. His throat worked. “Behave.”
Dimitri spat weakly at him, but there was no moisture in his mouth. A ball of heat had caught in his throat. It spread down his shoulders like a sunburn, stinging, pricking along his spine. It seemed to leave him scraped raw in its wake, so exquisitely sensitized that the brush of air against his skin left him gasping. In the corner of his eye he saw Felix’s polished boots approaching.
“You’ll bite, I suppose,” Felix said, looking down at Dimitri. There was still a smear of blood on his teeth, and above that a rising flush. The sight sank deep into Dimitri’s belly, made his cock throb. Felix had stripped him bare; he knew by the flicker of Felix’s gaze that he’d seen, and that thought only made it worse. A droplet of seed welled up at the head of his cock, thick and clear.
Felix knelt. He stroked once at Dimitri’s cock, from root to tip. Then his fingers, pressing at Dimitri’s mouth. He’d withdrawn before Dimitri’s teeth clicked together, but the stickiness at his lips lingered.
“I thought you meant to fuck me,” Dimitri rasped. All this playacting. Felix might have taken him in that dungeon, without a single word. Instead he was freeing his half-hard cock from his trousers, stroking himself with the same hand he’d used to touch Dimitri. The other hand was on Dimitri’s knee, holding him open. So that Felix could see the flush of his cock, dark between his thighs, the heavy tightness of his balls and the furl of his hole—
Felix’s thumb at the inside of Dimitri’s thigh, coaxing him open. A shudder, while Dimitri choked, but here was the ultimate indignity: Dimitri’s body turned traitor, curling into Felix’s touch like a bitch in heat.
“Ask me for it,” said Felix roughly, and stood. With the toe of his boot he nudged Dimitri onto his side— further, until Dimitri might, if he wished, rut against the carpet. Dimitri’s cock was hot and aching between his legs, but he would not— he could not— he was not a pet, obediently playing tricks. He curled his fingers savagely into the carpet, rose up with hot pants coming from his mouth. There was water in his eyes.
The clink of a stopper against glass. “Look at you,” Felix said, setting a hand against Dimitri’s hip. Lower, pulling his cheeks apart until his hole was shamefully bared. Warm oil ran down his crack, and Felix thumbed it into him, torturously slow. Every time he tried to withdraw, Dimitri could feel his hole clenching.
“I suppose this is what you always wanted,” Dimitri said. “A beast on its knees.”
Felix was still working Dimitri open, methodical stroke by stroke. He did not pause. A short stutter in his breath; that was all. “Yes,” he said, slick hands holding Dimitri up. His voice sounded like gravel. “I did.”
There was the hot nudge of Felix’s cock at his hole. Just that, and no further. Dimitri was alight where Felix touched him: his fingers digging into Dimitri’s hips, his breath between Dimitri’s shoulder blades. Dimitri had not thought there was more of him to break until Felix opened him up and left him empty, half-wild and hungry. In all his time as prisoner Dimitri had never begged.
“Please,” he said now, the word bitter in his mouth. “Felix.” The Felix he had known a long time ago, who had cried at Dimitri’s hurts, touched him like he was a person and not a symbol. They’d been young, once. They’d had no duties except living.
Felix pushed in. He was not kind. He carved Dimitri open on his cock, leaving bruises in his flesh. Dimitri came at Felix’s second thrust, spilling over his belly and thighs with a choked cry, and Felix dragged his fingers through the still-warm mess and fed it to him.
Felix’s teeth were fastened at Dimitri’s nape. It might have been blood that dripped onto his skin; it might have been something else. “So you’ll tell your masters,” Dimitri said, trying to gather the words. They slipped through his teeth like glass. “You’ve tamed a beast to sit at their feet.”
“Yes,” Felix said. The thrust of his hips were getting jerkier. Dimitri marked the wetness in his voice, and couldn’t imagine why. “Alive, by the emperor’s grace.”