‘Don’t stop on our account,’ said the redhead, tartly.
Damen glanced sideways at Erasmus, who hadn’t moved. It was unlikely that Erasmus could speak Veretian.
His master laughed: ‘Another minute or two and we might have caught them kissing.’
‘I wonder if the Prince could be persuaded to have his slave entertain with the others?’ said Vannes. ‘It’s not often you get to see a really powerful male perform. It was a shame to pull him out of the ring before he had a chance to mount anyone.’
‘I’m not sure I’d care to watch him, after what we saw tonight.’ The master of the redhead spoke.
‘I think it’s more exciting now that we know he’s really dangerous,’ said the red-headed pet.
‘It’s a shame his back is ruined, but the front is very nice,’ said Vannes. ‘We saw more of it at the ring, of course. As for the danger . . . Councillor Guion suggested that he wasn’t trained to perform as a pleasure slave. But training isn’t everything. He might have natural talent.’
Damen was silent. To react to these courtiers would be madness; the only possible course of action was to stay quiet and hope they would grow bored and drift off; and that was what Damen was determinedly doing, when the one thing happened that was guaranteed to make any situation spectacularly worse.
‘Natural talent?’ said Laurent.
He strolled into the gathering. The courtiers all bobbed respectfully, and Vannes explained the subject under consideration. Laurent turned to Damen.
‘Well?’ Laurent said. ‘Can you couple adequately, or do you just kill things?’
Damen thought that given the choice between the lash and a conversation with Laurent, he might actually choose the lash.
‘He’s not very talkative,’ remarked Vannes.
‘It comes and goes,’ said Laurent.
‘I’d happily perform with him.’ It was the pet with the red hair. Ostensibly, he spoke to his master, but the words carried.
‘Ancel, no. He could hurt you.’
‘Would you like that?’ said the pet, sliding his arms around his master’s neck. Just before he did so, he glanced sideways at Laurent.
‘No. I wouldn’t.’ His master frowned.
But it was obvious that Ancel’s provocative question had been aimed not at his master, but at Laurent. The boy was angling for royal attention. Damen was sickened by the idea of some nobleman’s boy offering himself up to be hurt on the assumption that it would play to Laurent’s tastes. Then he thought of all he knew of Laurent, and only felt sicker, because of course the boy’s assumptions were probably correct.
‘What do you think, Your Highness?’ said Ancel.
‘I think your master would prefer you intact,’ said Laurent, dryly.
‘You could tie the slave up,’ said Ancel.
It was a testament to Ancel’s lacquered skill that it came out teasing and seductive, rather than what it was, a last attempt of a climber to catch and hold a prince’s attention.
It almost didn’t work. Laurent seemed unmoved by Ancel’s flirtatiousness, even bored by it. He had tossed Damen into the ring, but in the sex-drenched atmosphere of the stands, Laurent’s pulse had not even appeared to flicker. He had been singularly immune to the carnality of what the Veretians called ‘performance’, the only courtier without a pet fawning all over him.
They say he’s frigid, Jord had said.
‘What about something small, while we wait for the main entertainment?’ said Vannes. ‘Surely it’s past time for the slave to learn his place?’
Damen saw Laurent absorb those words. Saw him stop and give the idea his full attention, turning the decision over in his mind.
And saw him make it, his mouth curling, his expression hardening.
‘Why not?’ Laurent said.
‘No,’ said Damen, a surge in his chest, half-stymied as he felt hands on him. Fighting in earnest against armed guards, in front of witnesses and in the middle of a crowded court, was an act of self-destruction. But his mind and body rebelled, dragging instinctively at the handling.