Niko swallowed, having forgotten what was asked of him.
Amir stood, his height a match for Niko. He tugged on the cloak’s ties and with one swift yank, the garment fell from Niko’s shoulders and pooled around his boots.
The woman made a small appreciative noise and Amir stepped back. He poked his tongue into his cheek and assessed the sight. “He has a good eye, my brother.” And then the prince barked a laugh at his own joke.
“Hm.” Amir drifted around, admiring every exposed inch of Niko’s skin.
Hate boiled through Niko’s veins. But he could do this. Just stand and absorb it all like he’d absorbed the strikes of the whip. It would end. He’d get answers, hopefully get some evidence of the prince’s plot against his brother, and be on his way to leaving this place forever.
“Muscles like yours... diminished somewhat by your stay in our cells. Hm... you must have been a sight in battle, no?”
Niko licked his dry lips.
“Well, speak, man. You do have a tongue, or did my brother take it?” He glanced at his companion, finally losing interest in Niko’s body. “Now that would be interesting—”
“I was,” Niko said. “A sight in battle, Your Highness.”
The prince’s attention snapped back to him. He stepped close, and to Niko’s horror, the prince’s warm finger ran up the scar on his thigh. Julian’s assurances Amir wouldn’t touch him had been wrong. A horrible fluttering started low in his belly. The prince’s finger was clearly not an elven blade, but the touch cut the memories open all the same.
He could do this. Just stand still and ignore it all. It was simple, really. Easier than battle. Easier than killing. He just had to detach and let it happen.
“This one… you bled well from here.” The touch trailed around the front of Niko’s thigh, skipping to another scar. The attack had almost cleaved muscle from bone. He’d lain weak for weeks after. “And this one. Your enemy was aiming for the artery. Was it luck or skill that you survived?”
“Both.”
“Hm, honest. I’ve heard that about you. I like it.”
Yes, good. This was why Niko was here, to get inside the prince’s head. And it was working. If he could just stay out of his own in return.
“You threatened Vasili, broke his wrist even, yet here you are.” Amir stepped closer still, bringing himself chest to chest with Niko. He was slim. Niko saw how the man’s eyes sparkled. Darker than Vasili’s, but no less sharp. Niko imagined kicking his weight-bearing leg out from under him, and when the prince fell, he’d hold him down and thrust his knuckles into his face, making him bleed all over his fine clothes and garish furniture.
“What game is my brother playing with you, hm?” Amir asked, his breath brushing Niko’s mouth. It would have been intimate if not for the desire to strangle the bastard. Although there wasn’t much that was more intimate than wrapping fingers around a man’s throat to throttle the life out of him.
The prince’s touch vanished, earning Niko a brief reprieve, but then his thin fingers cupped Niko’s cock. Heat flushed through the thin fabric covering him up.
Niko gasped, then caught the noise behind gritted teeth and choked it off. He couldn’t do much about his thudding heart, or how his breathing betrayed the rush of anger in his veins.
Amir’s grin grew.
Niko hated this man, hated everything he stood for. Would gladly drive a blade through his heart. But as Amir’s hand adjusted, molding close, Niko’s cock warmed—shifting, hardening.
“Hate can be powerful. I feel that about you,” Amir whispered. “While feeling a great deal of impressive other things. Such a shame my brother hasn’t fucked you. You must be so desperate.”
Niko hardened still. Anger and hate were indeed powerful, mixing with the effects of a man’s touch. There was nothing to be done about the pounding erection, and in this scenario it worked. Let Amir think Niko desired him. He’d be more inclined to talk.
“All that lust,” Amir whispered, lips brushing Niko’s. “You’re bottled up.” The tip of his tongue flicked against Niko’s lower lip. “Ready. To. Blow.”
Niko fluttered his eyes closed. He did not desire Amir, but what he did desire was the thought of throwing this wretched prince down and fucking him as he screamed and writhed and begged. The startling image sent a pulse of heat through Niko’s cock. Amir’s grip tightened in response.
Niko opened his eyes to find the middle prince grinning. He stepped back, his hand gesturing away. “Stand over there, doulos.”
Dry-throated and glistening with sweat, Niko passed in front of the woman, ignoring her downward glance, and turned his back to the wall. He clasped his hands over himself, covering the evidence of his arousal.
“Oh no.” Amir laughed. “No hiding, or I’ll take the fingers you owe me.” He sauntered into the room, his gaze skimming those already lost in sexual acts. He drew a woman from between two men. She immediately ignored her partners and painted herself onto Amir’s body.
Niko sighed, briefly relieved. Women were easier to ignore. He just might get through this after all. And then Amir gently eased her aside and, touching the chin of one of her male partners, drew the man to his mouth and kissed him long and deep, the kiss quickly turning hard and demanding.
Niko closed his eyes. But that was worse. Because now the scene was scorched into his mind and all he could see was the prince fully clothed, his scantily clad doulos subservient and pliable, so eager in his hands.
He clenched his jaw and thought of Vasili’s cruel, snarling mouth, his vicious tongue, and the way he laughed like Niko was dirt beneath the heel of his boot. His cock pulsed harder, so fucking eager there was no hiding or calming it.
He opened his eyes, caught between the real world and the fantasy in his head. By the three, what was wrong with him? Maybe it was the spice in the air, making his body weak.
Amir had turned the doulos away from him and shoved him over the back of the couch. The prince fumbled with his own pant ties. One of the other doulos offered a pot of something Niko assumed to be lubricant and the prince scooped some out.
The doulos’s back arched, his mouth opening wide, his gaze far away. Amir looked up, one hand holding the man down, the other Niko presumed on his cock, the only part of him not wrapped in fine clothes. He thrust into the doulos, baring his teeth, and stared unblinking at Niko.
Niko’s cock jumped. Amir saw that too, and thrust again. The doulos grunted. And Niko bared his own teeth in a snarl. Amir laughed and thrust and only took his eyes off Niko face to admire Niko’s cock, now leaking its eagerness.
He ached to take himself in hand. His thighs trembled from restraint. It wouldn‘t take much to bring himself to completion. Amir hadn’t forbidden it, but doing so seemed like surrender—and he’d never surrender to the Cavilles.
Amir threw his head back and fucked his doulos while the others in the room licked and thrust and bit and groaned and spent themselves inside each other.
“Oh, he hates you,” Amir’s female companion said, suddenly standing in front of Niko. A tumble of mahogany hair framed a beautiful face, mouth wide, eyes sultry, skin as black as a raven’s wing. If he focused on her, he might regain some lost composure.