Purchased for Pleasure

Chapter 1

Chapter One

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 almost flirtatious pose.

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, searing hate in 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.

Clove could only see their eyes, but even with such a limited view, he was able to draw some conclusions as to their identity, and the driving force behind their attendance today.

Men, women, ambiguous others. Young eyes, very old eyes.

Some curious. Some hungry. Unable to defend himself, Clove met each new gaze with a curled lip and a venomous glare, silently promising death to anyone who dared try their luck with him.

Most moved on quickly when he did, but a few lingered.

Intrigued, or perhaps entertained. Clove got the feeling it wasn’t often young slaves dared show prospective buyers their teeth.

Eventually, though, even the most intrigued moved on, and after some time, the sound of footsteps up and down the hall had faded almost completely.

By then, Clove was weary with hunger. He was used to scarcity, but for all their sins, the elves had been feeding him well since he’d been captured, and his stomach had become unaccustomed to going long stretches of time without something to eat.

His stomach made a pitiful noise—too miserable to be a growl—which Clove did his best to ignore.

He would have to get used to this, if he was going to continue to chase off potential buyers.

There would be more than one long day spent paralyzed on this couch without food or drink, glaring at anyone who dared peek in at him through the barred window on his door.

But then there came a new set of footsteps.

They came striking and swift with purpose, their sound suggesting someone large but agile—someone with a clear destination in mind.

The footsteps passed by the other rooms without a pause.

Closer and closer they came, only to stop abruptly just outside Clove’s window.

Clove looked up, ready with his hateful stare, and was met with a gaze as fierce as his own.

The dark eyes looking in at him glittered like obsidian. Black, shining. Deadly sharp.

One look, and they cut Clove open to the soul; he felt instantly that the deepest, most private parts of him had been gutted out for inspection.

Had he not already been paralyzed, those eyes would have pinned him to the couch.

He could barely breathe.

His own glare had been impersonal and cold, regarding each potential buyer like a pathetic insect. The stranger’s gaze obliterated his coldness, melting it with a blazing heat that made Clove’s heart race.

Then, before Clove could make sense of what he was seeing, the stranger was gone.

The hot gaze disappeared, and the sound of boots striking the floor began to recede into the distance.

Shaken, Clove closed his eyes. His heart still pounded.

A lump had formed in his throat; he found himself inexplicably near tears.

He had been strong all day, and was by nature of his upbringing difficult to rattle, but there had been something about the look in the stranger’s eyes that had made him feel…

Feel what?

Lying there alone, Clove struggled to place the emotion.

Fear? No, it was not fear alone. Shock? Disgust? It had felt so much more personal than that.

He was bewildered to finally find the emotion most closely attached to grief.

It made no sense.

Clove lay there bewildered and trembling, attempting to soothe himself, yet unable to make any headway.

In those moments—precisely how long, he wasn’t sure—there was no noise at all beyond the door of his cage.

It seemed to him as though everyone had gone, but then there came a new sound: the distant rattling of keys in a door.

Clove strained his ears, listening as a door far down the hall opened. Two sets of footsteps followed, bringing with them mutterings of elvish. Clove had refused to acknowledge any orders given in that cursed language, but he understood it enough to feel a fresh upswelling of hate.

“Are you sure?” came the voice of one of his elven captors. “This one is still feral. Leave him in our hands for a month or so and you’ll find him a much more enjoyable bedmate. We’ll give you a discount on his schooling.”

Clove scowled.

Feral?

Furious heat rushed through his body, and with what little agency he had, he dug his fingernails into his palms until—at last—he shook the vulnerability that had brought the lump to his throat.

He would show them feral.

And then came a new voice.

“There will be no schooling,” it said. Blunt, ice-cold, like a hammer in winter. Then, as the owner went on, the voice developed a razor edge. “If anyone defiles him, I will personally relieve them of their genitals.”

The elf slaver gave a polite cough and made no more offers.

Freshly resolute, honed with deadly anger at being caged, at the prospect of being “defiled,” at the prospect of being sold, Clove clenched his fists and prepared to fight until his last breath.

He was given no such opportunity.

The moment the door cracked open, a rush of cool, rose-scented air blew into the room.

His nostrils filled with floral scent, and his vision ebbed immediately at the corners.

Weakness loosened his body, sweeping through him from his scalp all the way to the tips of his toes, and he had no choice but to give in.

His eyelids drooped.

The door swung all the way open.

Beyond the shadows of his own eyelashes, he thought he glimpsed a pair of black boots and the hem of a cloak sweeping just above the ground.

The floral scent deepened, and as the magic spread through him, Clove’s senses faded, and he fell into a dream.

Warmth settled over him.

The weight of a cloak, draped carefully over his bare, vulnerable form.

A hand touched his chin. Hesitated. Then tilted up his face, allowing the hand’s owner to trace the edge of his jaw and carefully tuck a strand of hair behind his ear.

Then abruptly the hand disappeared, and a pair of strong arms snaked under his knees and back.

They effortlessly hefted Clove up from the couch and cradled him against a broad, muscular chest. Sinking deeper and deeper into dreaming, Clove only faintly registered the sensation of a heart beating behind it.

Then came a whisper from above.

“Never again,” it said, little louder than an exhale, as if the owner barely dared speak. “Never again. Never again…”