ChapterOne
Clove sat in the lush cage of a room with his legs crossed, hands resting placidly in his lap, and a hot core of rage burning in his chest.
The other captured boys sat about hunched in fear or huddled together, their faces either covered in tears or blank with resignation.The ones who had been captured weeks ago were clean and healthy, the sharp angles of starvation fading from their faces, the dirt scrubbed from their bodies and rags replaced with fresh clothes.The newer captures, like Clove, were not.
One common feature united the boys.
All of them—from the dirtiest to the most pristine—were great beauties.
Clove seethed at the implications.
A street rat from birth, he had lost every scrap of innocence over the years save one—he had fought, stolen, bloodied and been bloodied, starved, cheated, been imprisoned in the worst jails, forced to take refuge in the most revolting dens of iniquity, and all the while kept his virginity.
He had guarded it closely, like a precious gem hoarded by some gluttonous creature.Even while eating rotten bread and sleeping hidden in the straw of cattle pens, even when everything else had been stolen from him, there had still been that secret treasure.His!His alone, and no one else’s.
But now… the elves had him.
It had been an elf who had sprung the trap that cost Clove his freedom—an elf who had pulled the mask from Clove’s face, dumped water over his head, inspected what lay under the grime, and smiled at what he found.
And elves traded almost exclusively in bed slaves.
Clove curled his lip and spat on the floor at the memory.
The scrape of a heavy lock drew Clove’s attention out of his bitter thoughts and to the door, which opened to reveal an elf with cutting features, his dark hair twisted up in a knot.The elf scanned the room, oblivious to the way his presence made the newer boys leap up in alarm and sink against the wall, until his eyes fell on Clove.
Those gem-red eyes sharpened.
He barked a command in glittery elvish, which Clove did not obey.
When Clove did not acknowledge the order he’d been given, another elf came through the door, this one holding an arcane staff with a gleaming ruby at its tip.The boys who had not fled at first now hastily leapt up to hug the wall.They knew the slavers could not beat them outright—not without spoiling their valuable flesh—but not all forms of torture left marks.
Clove knew it, too, but he refused to give the enemy the satisfaction of seeing his fear; he simply glared at the slaver and the red gleam of the approaching staff.
He did not flinch.He did not cower.
He did not look away, not even when the first agonizing ray shot from the staff and crashed through him, making him burn from the inside, as though his veins had been filled with lit coals.
Clove gritted his teeth and endured.
He would not cry out.
The elves dragged Clove—white-faced and twitching, but resolutely silent—out of the holding cell and into a small viewing chamber.It contained nothing but a low couch and, high on the opposite wall, a little barred window.Clove knew immediately where he was; he had heard of this from other boys.
The couch was for him.The window was for buyers, allowing them to peep in at the wares on offer without getting too close to potentially feral flesh.
His skin crawled at the idea.
Numbed by the elves’ brute magic, Clove was helpless to resist as the slavers stripped him bare and draped him over the couch.They paused to arrange his limbs in a way that might appeal to their clients, leaving him in an almostflirtatiouspose.
Unable to move, shaking with both pain and fury, Clove could only seethe in silence as the elves finished their work and left… leaving Clove to stare at the little barred window.
To stare with pure, searinghatein his eyes.
Let them see his hate and think better.
Footsteps approached.In the distance, Clove heard low murmurs of consideration.It was the sounds of prospective buyers peering into cells like his, all down the hall.
After not very long, the first group arrived at Clove’s window.
