Chapter Text
If someone had told Augus Each Uisge that by the time the sun set on the day that stretched ahead of him, a Seelie War General would end up kneeling in his foyer, dripping blood, he would have laughed. Seelie fae didn’t want much to do with him, and though he took them on as clients sometimes, a War General was a whole other issue.
As it was, Augus had cleared the week for himself. There were some curative herbs he wanted to prepare, there were drying sheafs of whitewheat which needed to be stacked and packaged for transport to one of his buyers.
Before he’d taken on work as a professional dominant, he’d worked as a herbalist – primarily in the procurement, preparation and selling of rare flora to healers – and he liked to keep his skills honed.
He wasn’t the most conventional of all the reincarnations of the Each Uisge, and he knew that. Certainly, he was Unseelie, and that meant he possessed an Unseelie appetite, hunting humans once a month, tearing their moresome flesh apart and gulping it down, rending it between the sharp, ugly teeth of his true-form; a giant, sleek, raven-pelted waterhorse. The wild joy he experienced when he slipped into the human world to hunt his prey, the savage satisfaction he felt rending their delicate flesh apart until nothing but a whole liver remained, that was all true to the fairy tales that contained his name.
Otherwise, he wasn’t supposed to have a job, even if it was one that used his sensual abilities in self-mastery and the mastery of others, even if it was more of a vocation, than anything. He was expected to look predatory and pretty around a lake that he’d nurtured, to saunter about in human form on the banks, or occupy his underwater home; which despite its location, was dry and protected from water by a magical green dome of his own making. Like most waterhorses, he liked the sensation of being dry in his human-form, which meant that having long hair that constantly dripped fresh, pristine lake water was sometimes something of a chore. Then again, he’d been alive for nearly two thousand years, and it was safe to say he was used to that. The fae world was adaptable to his needs and the similar needs of other fae, tailors and weavers had developed water-wicking fabric that didn’t get wet, and simply let the water sluice away to the floor.
He was proudly Unseelie, and that meant that Seelie clients tended to be few. After all, they were often too busy nurturing their righteous devotion to virtue, the idea that they were the ‘good guys,’ the heroes of all the tales where the Unseelie were the flesh-devouring, emotion-eating, soul-sucking villains. Even those Seelie that had a more even-tempered view of the world, who understood that their realm needed light and dark and that the alignment divide was biological – and not all Seelie fae were quite so virtuous as they believed anyway – it still didn’t predispose them to wanting to submit to Augus’ skills, even for the purposes of healing some broken rift inside of themselves.
Early afternoon found Augus in his large herbal room, boiling tubes set below steadily burning flames as he carefully added a pre-selected number of leaves to each one, making sure the colouration of the bubbling liquid was closer to bottle green than jade green. The room stank of heavy, acrid sap, but it wasn’t a scent that bothered Augus at all.
A dull, low chime sounded throughout his house. Low enough to not disturb any clients he might be entertaining, but he felt it reverberate through his feet nonetheless.
As his brother, Ash Glashtyn, wasn’t prone to pulling on the bellpull, Augus knew it was someone else.
Augus stared at the liquid in the boiling tubes. This had to be done correctly, and the leaves were too expensive to waste. He needed to stay in this room for at least another five minutes, and perhaps, by then, whoever wanted to bother him when his schedule was clear, would leave. After all – they couldn’t enter past his foyer without his permission. It was magically warded to keep intruders at bay.
A minute passed, and the bell didn’t ring again. Then another minute, and Augus breathed out a sigh of relief, adding one more tiny, grey leaf to a third boiling tube and turning up the heat. His rig of herbal equipment was a hodgepodge of items that had been purchased from fae who stole from the human world (despite his hatred of humans overall, he accepted they had their uses when it came to technological advances, as fae still liked to pretend they lived in some idyllic Victorian age.) Alongside that were fae inventions, and the purchased, expensive magic that kept machinery working when it was supposed to run on other fuels like petroleum or coal.
The bell rang again, this time for far longer. Augus looked up impatiently, hissed as he decanted the second boiling tube – now held safely in well-used tongs – into a large, tempered jar. He made himself focus on what he was doing, easy enough given that his life had been spent in the stillness of lakes, in the focused quietude of his own mind. Even though the bell was still ringing, he decanted the contents of the third boiling tube steadily, his breathing even.
He left the corks off the bottles, knowing the liquid needed to breathe. The most pressing moment was over, and now he could tell whomever was at his door to go away and come back later. He removed thick gloves from his long-fingered hands, and lay them, one on top of each other, precisely on the corner of the table where he did the bulk of his herbal work. He removed his apron, untying the knot at the back of his neck, and then around his waist. He folded that quickly, and lay that beside the gloves just as neatly.
His walk was quick and crisp. His boots clicked on the dark tiles of his floor in a way that was reminiscent of hooves; each step reminding him of his true-form. He made his way down a long corridor, past the closed doors that led to the rooms where he assisted his clients, into the open plan area that contained a lounge, a generous kitchen space, a very generous pantry where he did the bulk of his herb drying. He passed all of that, towards the narrower entrance where double doors opened out into a charmed foyer that allowed visitors to come only so close to Augus’ private living space.
The doors opened smoothly to his touch, and Augus blinked to see no one standing before him, and then his gaze was drawn down. First to the bloodied, huge sword laying at Augus’ feet. Then the fae kneeling before the sword, wearing what looked like the undershirt and pants that might go beneath armour, spackled in so much blood and gore that it was hard to even make out what kind of fae the creature was, especially with their head bowed like that.
Augus made a clicking sound in the back of his throat, his mind working quickly. A client, because on rare occasions they did come to him like this, they were clearly broken by something. But Augus was firm with his boundaries, and some soldier could usually hold off, there were healers on the battlefield they could see, fellow soldiers to vent to.
‘If you’d like to make a time in the future,’ Augus said, ‘that would be welcome. I am not seeing clients today, and I have actually cleared my sch-’
The fae looked up at him. Blood was still smeared across his face, like someone had slapped him while their hand had been covered in it. There was one broad smear across his cheek and nose, and splatters of the stuff in his hair which was not white, as Augus had first suspected, but white-blond. Those eyes, too, so pale that they looked like cold, shallow water. They were definitely blue, but a shade he was unaccustomed to, even amongst the fae, who could have irises and eyes any colour imaginable, depending on their species.
Beneath the blood, the fae looked wrecked. Desolate. There was an emptiness in his gaze, a tightness to his mouth, and Augus could see tension in every line of his muscular body. It wasn’t the tension of exertion, but something else.
‘What do you want?’ Augus said, his voice firm. The creature’s gaze looked far too dazed for Augus to bother with anything more sophisticated.
‘I think…’ the fae said slowly, and then blinked at Augus like he was seeing him for the first time. His brow furrowed, his mouth pulled just so, in a way that had Augus’ mind flickering ahead to how the fae might look underneath a whip, or tormented by bondage. The fae looked down at the sword and one of the hands on his knee clenched into a fist, tendons pulling and straining, muscles bunching. He was not built like the more favoured fae generally considered attractive; the ones that were lithe and more androgynous like Augus was. This fae was thick through with muscle. His lips were full, the line of his nose strong, his brow broad.
Augus tilted his head to one side, squinting at him. There was something familiar about him, and he couldn’t place it. A faint glow to his appearance, as though he was lit from within, but it was a trick of the eye and it disappeared from blink to blink. But that white-blond hair, the sword…
‘What is your name?’ Augus said, and this time he put the weight of command into his voice, and the shoulders that bowed before him stiffened, as though resenting the order.
‘Gwyn ap Nudd,’ he said. ‘War General of the common fae, and-’
‘Seelie,’ Augus said, smirking. ‘A War General? If this is how the Seelie military are deciding to do away with friends of the Unseelie King, they’d best think up some new strategies, hadn’t they? Good day, Gwyn.’
Augus stepped backwards, somewhat disgusted at the guise of it all – it had seemed quite convincing, but really – when Gwyn lashed out far more quickly than anyone had a right to.
Gwyn went for Augus’ ankle, but Augus was also fast, and he sidestepped and lifted his boot, slamming it down into the hand Gwyn had extended, pinning it to the floor hard enough that the bones crunched.
Gwyn flinched and went still. He didn’t press his attack, he did nothing in the face of the pain in his hand. War General to the common fae, and kneeling before Augus, pinned to the floor, his breathing now audible.
‘Please,’ Gwyn said, his voice rough, deep, breaking.
‘Why are you here?’ Augus said, his voice holding that same sense of command as before.
‘I’ve heard things…about you.’
‘I’m sure you’ve heard a lot of things about me,’ Augus said smoothly, grinding his heel down into the back of Gwyn’s hand to see what he’d do. Gwyn shuddered, but otherwise did nothing at all. How curious. ‘I am the Each Uisge, sixth incarnation in a line of Each Uisge, and well known to many fae. So why are you here?’
He infused the compulsion into his voice automatically, tired of the way Gwyn didn’t quite answer his questions.
So he was doubly shocked when Gwyn didn’t react to the compulsion. Most fae – even higher class fae who possessed more innate magic and ability – could not resist them. Augus had one of the strongest abilities to compel the truth from others supernaturally of any fae, and it worked just as well gleaning the truth from his clients as it did when forcing humans to hold still while he ripped them apart.
‘What, specifically, have you heard about me that has brought you here today, to interrupt me so? If you think I delight to have unwashed, bloody Seelie garbage on my doorstep, think again.’
Gwyn didn’t even flinch to be described so, which was also surprising. Augus had heard of Gwyn ap Nudd, the shining War General, the one that every fae with any military interest talked about. The Unseelie spitting that he was too good at what he did; likely charmed with how he won so many of his war campaigns against those of Augus’ alignment. It seemed all Augus could really remember hearing was that everyone thought Gwyn had a direct line to becoming the Oak King’s personal War General, the one who would rule not just the common fae, but the entire Seelie military. He would occupy the highest position in the Seelie military, and likely become an esteemed member of the Oak King’s personal coterie, his Inner Court.
More than that, Augus lived relatively close to the An Fnwy estate – the estate of Gwyn’s family and his childhood home – even now. It took no longer than twenty minutes to reach by horseback, through dense forest. How odd to have the son of Lludd and Crielle on his doorstep, when Augus was quite certain that both of Gwyn’s parents would be more than happy to get rid of the Unseelie waterhorse that occupied a lake nearby, in the forest of Ethallas. He’d had almost nothing to do with them, growing up, but he couldn’t help but be aware of their presence, given how rich and privileged they were.
Gwyn shifted, shivered.
‘I heard you broke people,’ Gwyn said, hesitantly, ‘…and made them whole again.’
Augus slowly moved down to one knee, keeping his boot on Gwyn’s hand and careful not to rest his knee on the sword. ‘How very crude. And do you know how I break people?’
Gwyn shrugged. ‘I’ve heard…things.’
Weariness marked all of Gwyn’s words, and a fraught energy that Augus couldn’t quite place. The reek of blood on him was strong, and Augus could already scent out different strains belonging to different people. Had there been a battle? What could have possibly driven Gwyn here?
Was it worth finding out? This wasn’t the sort of situation he found himself in on a regular basis. A Seelie War General. If nothing else, it would make a unique experience that wasn’t likely to be replicated. It would be quite…diverting, to make this one submit to him.
Augus reached out and slid his hand beneath Gwyn’s chin. The motion changed his centre of gravity so that even more of his weight was resting on Gwyn’s hand. Augus lifted Gwyn’s head, felt smooth skin and no stubble, looked at the very thick white eyelashes fringing Gwyn’s eyes. It was almost like looking into clear, fresh water. But it was deceptive, for everything about Gwyn seemed strangely caustic. The sword and the scents of battle weren’t helping much.
‘I will hurt you,’ Augus said.
‘I deserve to be hurt,’ Gwyn responded, blinking at him like it hadn’t even been a question.
‘Do you?’ Augus said, eyebrow arching. ‘Have you committed some horrendous crime? Are you so ridden with guilt you can hardly stand?’
Gwyn closed his eyes, squeezed them shut, and he tried to bow his head. Augus’ stern grip, fingers now digging in, wouldn’t let him escape.
‘And what is so criminal for a Seelie fae, hm?’ Augus said. ‘Did you tell a white lie to someone? Tell someone you’d arrive in the morning when you had no intention to be on time?’
Augus laughed at his own joke, and he was moderately surprised when it was that which made Gwyn try and yank his hand away from underneath Augus’ boot, try and yank his head back. Augus’ other hand swung up and took a handful of sticky, bloodied hair and he tightened his wrist, growling.
‘Think about what you want, Gwyn. I’d just as soon as not have you here. The Unseelie are far more graceful than you’d suspect, and I don’t often enjoy Seelie clients.’
‘But you have them,’ Gwyn said, trembling.
‘Sometimes,’ Augus said. ‘Stop interrupting me. You are not the one who holds the authority here, and I don’t care what your status is, or how often you whisper in the Seelie King’s ear. What do you want?’
Gwyn’s face seemed to close off, go cold. His eyes went distant and then he gazed through Augus, not at him. The pain in Gwyn’s hand had to be hurting, it was relentless and strong, it would have caused long-term injury to an underfae client. Augus didn’t cause his clients long-term injury, he knew very well that Gwyn would heal from things that most of Augus’ clients couldn’t.
A minute passed, another, and then Gwyn tried to twist his face out of Augus’ grip. He was shaking now. It was very likely some kind of shock, a response to whatever had brought Gwyn to his doorstep in the first place. Augus wanted him stripped naked, wanted to see what it might take to break a War General. Gwyn seemed like one of those types who would pretend at being stoic, but would break as fast – if not faster – than all the rest.
‘I need something,’ Gwyn said, like he’d never spoken the words in his entire life.
For all Augus knew, he hadn’t.
‘State what you want and clearly,’ Augus said, his voice hard and unforgiving. ‘Only then can we talk anything like terms.’
‘My heartsong,’ Gwyn said, his voice weakening. For a few seconds, Augus worried that Gwyn was having trouble hanging onto consciousness, which made no sense at all. ‘My heartsong is corrupted. I need it gone. I cannot keep living like this.’
Augus frowned. That was an odd request indeed. Heartsongs paralleled not so neatly with the human concept of the soul. Each fae had a heartsong, or a core energy, and each heartsong vibrated in synchronicity with an abstract concept. Augus’ heartsong, as far as he knew, was dominance, or mastery. As long as he lived in service to that heartsong – his chosen vocation of mastering others to help them, or mastering himself in order to grow – he would remain mentally and emotionally sound. Most fae had a single heartsong for their entire lives, and that was why some fae were so singularly good at representing things such as wealth, virtue, healing, strength, and so on.
On the very rare occasion, usually due to trauma, a heartsong could corrupt. Then it would fester, and drive the fae to commit poisonous acts. Someone with a heartsong of righteousness may commit mass murder in their zealotry. A fae with a corrupted core of cleverness, may turn their sights to evil matters, more evil than most Unseelie might consider acceptable. If the heartsong didn’t stabilise or change naturally, it would often lead to the death of the fae, and many other fae besides. Even the mild destabilisation of a heartsong lead to soul sickness.
But to interfere with them directly was considered…far too intimate a thing to offer to someone else. It was one thing to offer up one’s body, even one’s mind, but to say ‘I need my heartsong gone’ seemed almost repellent.
Then again, Augus always had liked a challenge. It also wouldn’t be the first time he had broken someone of a corrupted heartsong, even if he hadn’t known that was what the client truly needed when they first visited him. But to do so intentionally?
‘What is this heartsong of yours, that’s so apparently vexatious to you?’
‘Triumph,’ Gwyn said, swallowing like he was about to be sick. ‘It’s triumph.’
No wonder the beast wins so many battles.
‘I can’t imagine the Oak King wants you to lose that one.’
‘I need it gone,’ Gwyn said, quailing in Augus’ grip. ‘You don’t understand. He wouldn’t understand. I can’t live like this anymore.’
Augus leaned in even closer, his gaze unblinking, quickly turning predatory. ‘And what’s so bad about winning, hm? Or is it the very terrible things that one does during war, to ensure those triumphs? I think we all understand that the Seelie aren’t quite as virtuous as they like to think they are. We all know that Seelie fae torture their prisoners for information as much as the Unseelie do.’
‘Are you turning me away?’ Gwyn said, sounding frightened now, and despairing, like the very thought of an Unseelie fae turning him away was unbearable.
And that was fascinating. Gwyn’s entire career was based on killing Augus’ kind.
‘How in the world did you end up here?’ Augus breathed. ‘And quite the contrary. But there are terms that need to be discussed. It’s best if we do that inside. How’s your hand?’
‘Sore,’ Gwyn said. ‘It’s nothing.’
‘It is nothing, compared to what I want to do to you,’ Augus said. ‘Be honest with yourself now. Do you really want an Unseelie fae – one who has an idea of the many of us that you’ve killed – taking you in?’
Gwyn didn’t respond, but Augus could see the answer writ plainly in his gaze. Whatever the problem was, Gwyn was desperate, and obviously didn’t feel he could go to anyone in the Seelie world. Perhaps he required confidentiality. Perhaps the matter was so dire he worried it would affect his standing with the Seelie King.
‘All right,’ Augus said, standing and lifting his boot off Gwyn’s hand. It had started to ooze blood where Augus’ heel had cut in. ‘Pick up your sword. Do you need assistance standing?’
‘No,’ Gwyn said, sounding mildly affronted. As though he hadn’t just been kneeling there pathetically. As though he hadn’t begged.
Augus found that deeply amusing. He turned and walked towards the open doors, and then heard a clattering sound, and the sound of someone not quite able to stand. Augus continued to face his own home, a smile finding his voice. ‘Are you sure you don’t need assistance standing?’
‘Yes,’ Gwyn said, voice unexpectedly hard. Didn’t have much of a sense of humour then, not that it wasn’t obvious enough.
Augus walked into his home and paused by the doorway, waving a slightly wobbly Gwyn within. Gwyn walked about fifteen paces into Augus’ home and then stopped, looking around, still dazed, and now looking unsure of his choice. But Augus was feeling more and more certain. The opportunity to break a Seelie military member presented its own thrills, though he was sure he’d find nothing exceptional underneath that expressive face. A fae who had been trained to fight with an unusual number of wins behind him. How utterly tragic.
Eyes prickled at his back as he walked into his own kitchen, drawing out two glasses from a cabinet. He filled one with water, and the second with a chilled, unsweetened tea from a fridge that ran on magic. The fridge was filched from the human world, they were certainly adept at technology, even if they were determined to pollute themselves and their world in the pursuit of it. Fae tended to steal what they wanted, and then run it on magic or different engineering systems.
Augus walked over to Gwyn, looking him up and down, wondering what Gwyn might look like beneath all the blood. His mind filtered through details. No visible arm hairs, no stubble, only eyebrows, eyelashes, the hair on the top of his head, which was thickly curled and long enough that it would likely form individual, bulky ringlets when wet or drying. He was extremely pale for someone who spent a lot of his time on battle campaigns, no tanned skin, no visible scarring, and his face looked emotionally worn, but otherwise, he looked to be no older than about thirty, maybe thirty five. He was, of course, much older than that. Augus looked no older than his mid twenties, despite being nearly two thousand years old. Fae instinctively shaped off their physical age at a certain point, Gwyn’s had let his drift later than the average fae would, there were slight creases at the corner of his eyes.
Gwyn took the glass of water and sipped it nervously, politely. He looked around and seemed to be making an obvious effort not to actually look at Augus, which was interesting, given he must spend most of his days commanding others, making his presence known. Even his glamour was odd – rough and prickly, the kind that would aggravate and rally people into war. Augus’ fae glamour was, on the other hand, charming when he wanted it to be, predatory at other times. It could evoke fear or seduction, or both, as the situation required.
‘It’s probably much simpler than what you’re used to,’ Augus said blandly, noticing the way Gwyn stared at all the items of furniture in his lounge, as though logging them.
‘I run battle campaigns,’ Gwyn said to the glass of water, before taking another sip. ‘I sleep in tents, a lot of the time.’
‘Surely War Generals don’t have to be on the frontlines, in tents, if they don’t want to be? There is such a thing called delegation.’
Gwyn stiffened. He didn’t seem to know what to do with the glass of water. ‘I want to be there. On the frontlines.’
‘Until today?’
‘Until…’ Gwyn shook his head like Augus had asked something particularly irritating.
You’re not going to like the rest of the things I ask you, particularly when you’re tied up and hurting.
‘My terms,’ Augus said, changing the subject. Gwyn looked relieved when Augus took the glass of water and set it down on the coffee table, before sipping at his tea. ‘They seem quite simple, but you must give them serious consideration. First, if you agree to my methods, there is no backing out. There is no human concept of a ‘safe word’ here. Once you subject yourself to me, you will not leave this house until I am satisfied with what I have wrought from you and your mental state. Let me be frank. My methods take time. You can expect to be here for at least a full day, if not two days. And you will hurt, Gwyn.’
‘Torture doesn’t mean anything to me,’ Gwyn said, dismissive.
‘It will,’ Augus said, gazing at him. ‘Because you’re here because you want to give something up to me. And I know it’s something that is not easy to give, and I know that you will fight giving it to me. For if it was easy, you would not be here, a Court fae in the home of an Unseelie underfae, would you?’
Gwyn flushed, he swallowed thickly. He still looked very distressed, very desperate. Augus wondered if he’d feel shaking in Gwyn’s limbs, pulled to tautness. He hoped Gwyn would say yes to him, because he wanted to know what would happen if Gwyn surrendered to bondage, if he gave himself up to the cross. If Gwyn was truly conditioned to most forms of pain, he could take a lot more than the average fae, and Augus was a sadist through and through. He wanted to know what Gwyn could take.
Wanted to push him further to see what Gwyn would give to him.
‘I will not release you in a worse state mentally, physically or emotionally than when you arrived,’ Augus said. ‘And everything that transpires here is confidential. The details of what happens here do not get shared to others. You may, if you feel the necessity, tell others of what transpired. But I will not.’
Gwyn looked sceptical, and Augus didn’t bother to push his point. The Seelie tended to show Unseelie fae little trust by default. Augus still couldn’t quite understand why – of all his options – Gwyn had chosen to come here. It must have been quite some recommendation that Gwyn had heard.
‘What about fucking?’ Gwyn said bluntly.
‘Ah, so that’s what you’ve heard?’ Augus said, laughing. ‘Well, maybe. If I want to. If I think it’s necessary. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t.’
Augus could hardly see Gwyn’s chest moving, he was breathing so shallowly. His pulse fluttered quickly at his thick neck. He was obviously good at compartmentalisation. The broken man that had been on his doorstep wasn’t the one standing in front of him now. This was someone who was good at looking at details when tens of thousands of soldiers were bearing down on him. He liked picking at compartments. He smirked.
‘You must have done something terrible,’ Augus said. ‘You could save yourself a lot of trouble if you just tell me the events that led you to want a different heartsong.’
Gwyn tensed, blinked twice, very quickly. He shook his head. ‘You don’t need to hear it, you just need to do what I want you to-’
‘Oh, it doesn’t work that way,’ Augus said, feeling that part of himself that liked the hunt wake up even more. He flicked his tongue against his canine tooth and tilted his head. ‘The last thing you should know is that you will hate me, you might change your mind about even wanting to be here, and I don’t care. I have had over a thousand years to cultivate my reputation, and I know what I’m doing far better than you. If you agree to what I’ve asked, we do things my way. If you choose not to listen to me, obey me, you will be disciplined.’
Gwyn made a scoffing sound, but his body seemed to lean towards Augus, as though…he wanted that? Augus catalogued everything. Interesting body language.
‘Do you have any questions for me?’ Augus asked.
‘Payment,’ Gwyn said.
‘Whatever you think it’s worth,’ Augus said, waving a hand. Gwyn scowled at that, and Augus sighed. ‘That’s all. Payment in proportion to what you think I have given you, within two months of what we have undertaken.’
Augus walked up to Gwyn, watched the way Gwyn didn’t tense, but actually deliberately loosened his limbs. Augus kept his face schooled to blank confidence, but he was impressed. Gwyn was reacting like a fighter. Relaxing his stance to stay loose and able to fight back as necessary. Which meant that he saw Augus as a threat, even now. It was for the best. If Gwyn wanted his heartsong broken, he should feel threatened.
‘What did you do?’ Augus said, touching two fingers to Gwyn’s lower back through his shirt, feeling tautness beneath, muscular definition.
Gwyn said nothing at all.
‘Are you even going to accept my terms?’ Augus said, and Gwyn closed his eyes as Augus leaned in closer. Gwyn was taller than him, but not by much. Still, Augus felt slight against all that power. The Court status, the muscular build – so rare in a world where most fae simply used fae abilities or magic to bolster their strength, the military skills he likely possessed. But then, Augus felt powerful too, that Gwyn stood still for him, that he felt threatened.
‘What happened to that creature that was kneeling at the front of my home, hm? I saw it, Gwyn. You are so broken. Aren’t you? How much of you is running on instinct right now? To defend yourself, to make sure you don’t get hurt, to be the soldier.’
Gwyn’s lips pursed, his eyes squeezed shut so that Augus could see minute creases in his eyelids. His forehead creased together. Augus wondered what he’d look like pushed to the point of surrender, face slack with pleasure, or the relief that came from a lack of pain. He placed his hand flat between Gwyn’s shoulder blades and felt a thundering heart. Yet if he flared his nostrils he couldn’t smell fear. Did Gwyn have an ability to mask it? That would certainly be an asset in the field.
‘Do you accept my terms?’ Augus said. ‘Is it so very hard to say yes to me? An Unseelie fae, promising to hurt you?’
Gwyn said nothing at all, though he tensed further.
Augus laughed softly. ‘You reek of desperation.’
‘Okay,’ Gwyn said, his eyes still closed.
Augus paused. At first, he thought that Gwyn was agreeing with him, and then he realised that it was consent. Reluctant, yes, but definitely there.
He slid his hand up into Gwyn’s hair, fingers trailing through thick curls as he tightened his hand into a fist.
‘I need you to be very, very sure,’ Augus said. ‘So I will ask for the old bindings of verbal contract. Three answers, and the pact is sealed. So, Gwyn, tell me, are you willing to give yourself up to my care?’
‘Care or not, I have already said that I will,’ Gwyn said, sounding faintly impatient, even as he didn’t respond to the hand in his hair, didn’t shift away from the threat of that contact.
Augus slid the fingers of his other hand across Gwyn’s waist and measured the muscle that rested over his ribs, and then slid his claws through a linen shirt, directly into skin. Gwyn’s muscles jumped, blood seeped from him, the scent of it so much sharper and acrid than most of the blood that already covered him. But Gwyn didn’t try and move away.
‘You accept my terms?’
A long pause then. Gwyn knew what it meant to answer in affirmative or negative to the same thing three times. All fae knew. It was a binding contract, and there would be no breaking it once made.
‘I accept,’ Gwyn said, his voice surprisingly strong, given that he still had Augus’ claws in his ribs, and his fist in his hair.
‘All right,’ Augus said, clicking with his tongue as he thought everything over. ‘Give me your sword.’
It had been hanging in Gwyn’s left hand, the point of it lazily pressed to the tiles. Gwyn looked down at it as though he’d forgotten it was there, and then his nostrils flared.
‘You must keep it safe,’ Gwyn said.
Augus drew back his hand and then struck Gwyn’s face with the tips of his claws. It would sting, it would raise welts, but it wouldn’t bruise. Wouldn’t daze him. Gwyn blinked in shock, and then looked at Augus in outrage.
‘First rule,’ Augus said, staring at him. ‘You do not give the orders. You are not my War General, and I do not answer to you. You answer to me. Give. Me. Your. Sword.’
Gwyn’s hand tightened on the hilt of the sword instinctively, and Augus couldn’t help the lazy smile that crossed his face. He drew back his hand and Gwyn’s eyes were widening in anger when Augus struck him again. This time hard enough that Gwyn’s head moved. Not as much as if he were a lower status, but then that was part of the fun of having someone who was Court status in front of him.
‘Second rule,’ Augus said, ‘you respond to my requests promptly. Now, do I have to ask you again to give me your sword? Or do you just like being hit in the face?’
Gwyn’s glower was impressive. His eyebrows drew together not in anxiety, but in rebellion. Augus could see a muscle jumping in his jaw as Gwyn handed the bloodied sword over. Augus took it, surprised at its heft. He looked at it curiously. He had no idea how to measure a sword’s worth, but he had the sense that this one was valuable and well-used.
‘How many Unseelie fae have died by this blade, do you think?’ Augus said.
When Gwyn didn’t respond, Augus shifted the hilt to one hand and stepped forwards, meeting Gwyn’s gaze when he drew his hand back this time. Gwyn’s lips thinned, but he didn’t step back, didn’t move away. Didn’t even flinch when Augus struck him a third time. Already, he was distinguishing himself as one of those typical soldier types who were all about showing how much machismo they had, how much they could handle pain.
Augus followed up the strike by reaching between Gwyn’s legs, gripping a handful of his crotch before Gwyn had a chance to step back. At that, Gwyn’s eyes widened in surprise, and Augus tightened his hand until Gwyn’s nostrils flared, his face blanched.
‘Ah, there we go,’ Augus said. ‘I asked you a question. Perhaps you’d like to answer?’
‘Many,’ Gwyn said, his voice faintly strained. ‘Many. Thousands. Tens of thousands.’
Augus looked down at the blade in his hand again, even as he kept that tight grip on Gwyn’s limp cock. It felt decently sized, the brute was probably considered quite appealing in certain circles.
‘Where’s the scabbard to go with it?’ Augus said, with a threatening squeeze.
Gwyn looked down, and Augus was about to respond with more pain when Gwyn’s face showed nothing but confusion. He was looking for his own scabbard.
‘I don’t know,’ Gwyn said, blinking at his own clothing. ‘I don’t know where it is. I think I left it.’
‘Where?’
Gwyn’s lips thinned again, but he shook his head rapidly.
‘I can’t,’ he said.
A rapid answer, so Gwyn was learning, but Augus didn’t like to be denied. Still, whatever matter had driven Gwyn here in the first place wasn’t one that Augus could just bully out of him in a few minutes. It was rarely that easy. He let go of Gwyn’s crotch, and then rubbed at his hip briefly in clinical reassurance.
Then he walked away and placed the sword down on his table, before walking past Gwyn, down a corridor.
‘Follow me,’ he called.
He heard Gwyn turn quickly, no hesitation. Then footsteps behind him, as Augus walked into one of the guest bathrooms and opened the door, gesturing for Gwyn to enter.
‘Strip and then shower,’ Augus said. ‘You reek, and you’ll not be needing your clothing.’
Augus expected some kind of hesitation, but Gwyn pulled off his shirt easily, and Augus filed away the knowledge that this was someone who had absolutely no problems with nudity. It was likely then, that Augus wasn’t dealing with a history of someone who was used to being ashamed of their body, though there were always exceptions to the rule. Gwyn stripped off his pants, no underwear beneath – not unusual for fae – and then looked at his bloodied wrists and hands, shuddering. But he looked up at Augus, and seemed to collect himself, and then walked over to the shower.
Someone who really is out there in the field then, with all those other soldiers, bathing together and having to strip and change around each other. Fascinating. War Generals can hang back as far as they want and protect themselves. Not this one. Self-sacrifice? He is Seelie.
Gwyn didn’t even seem to mind that Augus was there, watching. He turned on the shower – which was more a replica waterfall that could be turned on or off at will – and stepped into the shaped stone, looking at the glass vials of unlabelled products hiding on subtle moss-covered shelves. Then he stared at his wrists again, rubbing at the blood, something furious and repulsed coming over his face as he rubbed even harder.
Augus’ eyes widened.
He could use that.
Quickly, not caring for his boots or his clothing, he stepped into the shower, wincing at the heat of the water. He grabbed Gwyn’s wrists and yanked them out of the spray, ignoring the look of shock on Gwyn’s face.
‘Whose blood is it?’ Augus said, staring at the chunks of gore stuck to his skin. He picked one off, smelled more than just blood, but also viscera. And this was not the back-blow spray from sword fighting. This looked dense enough, thick enough, that Gwyn could easily have thrust his hand into someone else’s chest.
He held bits of half-dried, sticky lumps of clotted blood and gore in his hand, and then reached forwards to Gwyn’s mouth. That got an immediate reaction. Gwyn stumbled backwards, making a sound of horror, and Augus followed his motion until Gwyn’s back hit the stone wall, his head no longer underneath the fall of water. Augus slammed his palm against Gwyn’s mouth, forcing the blood and gore against it.
Gwyn’s pupils had dilated. The smell of rust, carbon, ozone filled the air. Gwyn unable to mask his fear. Augus, by counterpoint, kept his expression careful, controlled. But he didn’t move his hand away, and when Gwyn reached up with his other hand to no doubt wrench Augus’ away, Augus lashed out quickly, digging claws into Gwyn’s arm and raking the skin apart, before reaching down between his legs and grasping first his cock, then part of the skin of his scrotum, twisting his hand just enough that he had Gwyn’s attention. Those wide, wide eyes were oddly captivating. Gwyn made a sound of protest against Augus’ hand.
‘I wonder,’ Augus said quietly, his voice magnified on the wet stone, the fall of water around them, ‘I wonder who you did this to. What you did. You’ll tell me, soon enough. Do you know how many Unseelie fae eat the flesh of their kills? Have you ever done it, Gwyn? Ever gotten curious? Or does it offend you so? So much righteousness that you don’t even get to enjoy your bloodlust, do you?’
Gwyn had gone even paler than before, despite the heat of the water. His nostrils kept flaring as he gasped for breath, even as he kept his mouth shut.
‘Open your mouth, Gwyn,’ Augus said, his voice a croon.
Gwyn shook his head, tried to get away, and Augus squeezed the hand between Gwyn’s legs so hard that he yelped and went still.
But it was curious. Gwyn was strong enough to get away. He was definitely strong enough to stop what was happening. Even if Gwyn didn’t know it, even if he thought he was fighting back in every way he knew how, he wanted some aspect of this. Wanted to give Augus something he didn’t know how to give.
That was all right, Augus was practiced at waiting people out.
‘You’re breaking my rules,’ Augus said, ‘and I’ve only given you two, poor thing. You must have spent most of your life as a soldier, I was certain they were good at following rules. Especially Seelie soldiers. You’re all so very well trained. And yet here you are, not following my orders, let alone following them promptly. I hope you realise that these delays will result in discipline. What I’m doing to you now is not the worst thing I will do to you.’
Gwyn closed his eyes and pressed his head back against the stone, shaking his head, and Augus leaned closer, shifted his grip between Gwyn’s legs and wrapped fingers around his vulnerable balls, threatening claws against that tender skin.
Gwyn made another sound of protest.
‘I thought you were accustomed to torture,’ Augus said. ‘But then, it’s so much easier to deal with torture when you can hang onto the fact that you’re not going to betray your country, your Kingdom. Here, now, it’s quite obvious that you already feel like you’ve betrayed them. Otherwise, why come to me? Hm? Why would a War General want to give up such a helpful heartsong?’
Gwyn’s throat worked, his lips thinned even more.
‘Open your mouth, Gwyn. Why not taste your handiwork?’
Gwyn’s hand came up reflexively, and Augus punctured Gwyn’s skin. Gwyn’s arm dropped. He went limp against the wall, legs locked to hold himself upright. Now Augus could feel him shaking.
Could it really be so easy? Was it just this? Maybe it would all be over in a few minutes. Augus felt disappointed at the thought.
‘Just do this one thing for me,’ Augus said. ‘You know I’m not going to care. I eat humans, as does my brother. I’ve had countless clients who cannibalise fae. You have to know that the only person in this room who is bothered by swallowing down a little blood is you. Perhaps if you weren’t so high and mighty, you’d realise that what I’m asking you to do isn’t truly that bad.’
Augus pressed his ear to Gwyn’s mouth. ‘Unless, of course, you did something terrible to someone. Something awful. Even then, you must have wanted to do it. Someone on the frontlines like you, year after year, when you don’t have to put yourself in so much danger? Do you want the sacrifice of it, Gwyn? Or do you enjoy the bloodlust?’
Gwyn’s eyes were closed again, his chest was heaving now. He was panicking.
‘So it’s the bloodlust then?’ Augus said. ‘They say you fight like a berserker. So you must know the taste of blood, and I doubt you dislike it so, to spend so many years slaughtering tens of thousands of Unseelie fae. So why not the taste of this blood? Hm? Too afraid to taste the evidence of your crime?’
Violent trembling now, in Gwyn’s muscles. His jaw so tense it felt like the muscle might as well have been bone. Augus resisted grinning. He loved this part. His nostrils flared and he drank in the scent of him while Gwyn’s eyes were closed.
‘So afraid,’ Augus said, modulating his voice so it was soothing, instead of cold. ‘All you have to do is open your mouth, Gwyn. If you do that, I’ll let you wash all the rest of it off.’
Gwyn pressed a desperate sound against Augus’ palm. It could have been denial. It could have been a plea. Whatever it was, it meant that Gwyn was one step closer to doing what Augus wanted.
‘You knew that you couldn’t go to a Seelie fae for this,’ Augus said very quietly. ‘So whatever it is, you feel like they wouldn’t understand. You’d be surprised how many Seelie fae aren’t the perfect paragons of virtue. Or would you? You must know yourself that the Seelie are just as capable of slaughtering fae as the Unseelie, the only real difference is that we consume many of our kills, and the Seelie don’t. That’s not much of a difference, when you think about it. Not to me anyway, it seems somewhat arbitrary.’
A sound of denial, and Augus squeezed his hand a little tighter into Gwyn’s balls. He could feel blood trickling. Not much, and a very slow ooze more than anything. There were fae that would have been screaming in pain at this point. Gwyn seemed less bothered about that, than he did about what Augus was saying, or the blood and gore against his mouth. But it certainly kept him focused.
‘I’ll let you wash every sign of it away, if you do this thing for me,’ Augus said. ‘Just this one thing, Gwyn. It’s not so hard. I promise you. You’re already so broken. You’ve already committed the crime. Does this one thing really matter so much? You’ve already done the thing that sent you here, and it’s too late to undo it. This would be nothing more than the full stop at the end of a sentence you’ve already scribed.’
Augus felt the shifting of Gwyn’s jaw, saw the way he screwed up his face, like he didn’t want Augus to be right.
‘Just this one thing,’ Augus said, licking his lips. It wasn’t even about breaking Gwyn’s heartsong; not yet. Augus just wanted an inroad into the psyche that lay before him. ‘It’s almost nothing, really, compared to everything else that you’ve done. Just open your-’
Gwyn’s mouth opened, and Augus moved quickly, sliding his fingers deep into Gwyn’s mouth, the blood and gore on the underside of his fingers touching Gwyn’s tongue. Gwyn made a sound of outrage, obviously having thought that he’d just have to lick at it, but Augus wanted this instead. Wanted the frantic back shift of Gwyn’s tongue against his fingers, the way his jaw went to slam shut and at the last minute closed only gently on Augus’ fingers, trying not to do him harm – interesting – and then holding still.
Augus rubbed his fingers down generously, scratching the back of Gwyn’s tongue with his claws, only lightly, but enough that Gwyn’s chest heaved with a gag.
‘Shh,’ Augus said, ‘this is perfect.’
Gwyn’s eyes rolled back and he looked utterly miserable. But after a few seconds his tongue shifted underneath Augus’ fingers not to get away, but to taste. There was the faintest suction, as though Gwyn wanted either more of Augus’ fingers, or more of the blood itself.
Augus’ heart leapt. He could work with all of this.
‘It tastes good, doesn’t it?’ Augus said, his mouth close to Gwyn’s ear again. ‘What you’re doing right now, it’s exactly the right thing, exactly what you should be doing.’
Something in Gwyn seemed to settle at that. He was still tense, he still looked unhappy, but there was a brittleness that downshifted. Gwyn had a praise kink then, which was…curious. Not unusual, but still, not something he’d expected to create such a reaction.
In fact, at Augus’ words, Gwyn had actively started to clean the blood away from Augus’ fingers, enough that he opened his mouth wider and slid his tongue between Augus’ index and middle finger, which created all sorts of images and thoughts in Augus’ mind that he carefully pushed away and banked behind an inner wall. This wasn’t about him. Oh, he’d get the pleasure he wanted from this exchange, but it still wasn’t about him. Those needs he could get met elsewhere.
Besides, there was something delicious about having a Seelie fae sucking the blood of his own crimes off Augus’ fingers, and appearing more and more hungry as he did it.
‘Good,’ Augus said, watching him, and Gwyn’s eyes opened.
His eyes were dazed, lost. He looked like he was falling further down the rabbit hole that he’d already been falling down when he arrived.
‘And so,’ Augus crooned, ‘we get a bit further away from that heartsong of yours. Because this, Gwyn, this is not anything like triumph. This is a lot like you giving yourself up to the enemy, isn’t it?’
He slid his now clean and spit slick fingers free from Gwyn’s mouth, and placed that hand on Gwyn’s chest. Gwyn sagged against the wall, and then seemed to gather himself together. Braced himself against whatever was going on in his own head, or what Augus had said, or both.
That’s it, fight back. Give me something to work with.
‘You can clean the rest of the blood off now,’ Augus said, stepping out of the shower, sounding casual and aloof. ‘We’re only just beginning, Gwyn. You have no idea how far I can push you.’
Gwyn looked at him, confused and uncertain, no doubt thinking that perhaps he shouldn’t have agreed to this after all.
But it was too late now. The game had begun, and Augus intended to see it through, finding himself far more excited at the prospect than when he’d first seen Gwyn kneeling before him.