Chapter 1. Hypocrisy (4)
“Never mind that. What about the order I placed earlier?”
“Of course, it’s been kept safe. I was planning to deliver it personally on the day you required it.”
“I’ll need it tonight, so send a few trustworthy girls over.”
“Understood. I’ll pick those with no connection to this matter and send them right away.”
Madame Cornelia was as sharp-eyed as she was efficient in handling matters. That was why he had made a contract with her—to have Ronen as his exclusive consort while she managed his appointments, clients, and other affairs.
“Order? What order was that?”
Hakan was burning with curiosity, but the Grand Duke walked away without hesitation. Left with no choice, Hakan decided to return to the more pressing matter at hand.
“Now, shall we discuss the boy’s price again?”
“Shall we?”
Madame Cornelia wore a bewitching smile.
***
Ronen sat perched on the windowsill, staring blankly outside.
The building he was in stood in the deepest, most squalid alleyway—where people barely scraped by each day. The only reason such a clean, grand structure existed in this area was likely because some noble had built it for their secret indulgences.
The narrow alleys below were shrouded in perpetual darkness, yet the joy of the people was unmistakable. Somewhere, music played; laughter never ceased. A man’s booming voice reciting lines from a play drifted faintly through the air—perhaps a performance was underway.
Was it because everyone was at the banquet? As the Grand Duke had said, not a single client had come all day. Ronen simply listened to the sounds outside, his gaze growing distant, as if trying to grasp something invisible.
“…Did he survive?”
No matter how precociously developed he was for his age, how agile like a wild beast, a battlefield was no place for a boy to live. Skill aside, survival there required divine favor.
The rain of arrows, the relentless thrusts of swords from every direction, the crushing hooves of warhorses—without the protection of the gods, a boy’s fragile skull would be crushed in an instant. Ronen knew this better than anyone.
Yet why did his heart swell with an inexplicable expectation? A heavy, tickling sensation pressed against his chest, making his pulse race.
“I just feel like he’s in this city.”
The hand Ronen had rested on the windowsill curled slightly, as if grasping at something. His eyes, fixed outside, caught sight of movement.
A group emerged from the dark alley. Madame Cornelia led them, so they must have come for him—but the girls trailing behind her were unfamiliar. Too young to be clients, they carried armfuls of something.
He would soon find out what.
“Master Ronen, we are maids sent by Madame Cornelia.”
“Maids?”
Since Madame Cornelia couldn’t face Ronen directly, only the maids entered the room. Well-trained, they showed no hesitation, swiftly beginning their tasks. One briefly met his eyes before her face flushed red, and she quickly lowered her head—clearly instructed to avoid unnecessary contact.
Their job was to undress Ronen and fit him into new clothes from the boxes they’d brought. The garments were so intricate that the number of maids made sense. Ronen submitted silently, bewildered by the elaborate process.
Footsteps approached. As the maids dressed him, he turned his head to see the Grand Duke of Canis enter, his expression laced with discomfort as he surveyed Ronen.
“You look quite at ease. Whether it’s a man or a woman touching you, it makes no difference? You might have been better suited to serving women.”
Ronen’s expression vanished entirely. The Grand Duke’s brows shot up, irritated by the lack of reaction—no words, no gestures. He dragged over a chair and sat, watching as the maids dressed Ronen.
Though slender, Ronen’s frame didn’t seem frail surrounded by women. His firm muscles, sharp bone structure, broad shoulders, and straight posture were unmistakably those of a grown man.
Madame Cornelia had once introduced him as a boy so fragile he might collapse at any moment. His once-hollow cheeks had filled out attractively, and his straw-like hair now shimmered like a bird’s feathers. Apart from his flawless pale skin and vivid green eyes, little remained of the dirty, impoverished street urchin he’d been.
And not a trace lingered of the wounds and bruises that had once marred him from clients’ abuse.
The Grand Duke pressed his lips with a finger, recalling Ronen’s battered past.
They had reunited only a year ago, years after their first encounter at the auction. Occasionally, rumors reached him—praise for Ronen’s unmanly, alluring charm—but he paid them no mind. He remembered him only as a peculiar boy from the slums.
Then, a year ago at a banquet, he saw Ronen again. The rumors were true: the boy had bloomed into something so intoxicating he ensnared bees, butterflies, even vermin. But years of brutal treatment had obscured his once-famed beauty. His body was a canvas of bruises and scars, his complexion dull with exhaustion and pain.
He had carried himself with cold rigidity, like a corpse, provoking clients who then punished him harshly.
In this place, where bodies and hearts were sold for coin—where one might play the lover or the pet—Ronen, who had taken Madame Cornelia’s hand to sell himself, forgot his place and clung to some misplaced pride. How many men had sought to break him for it?
Madame Cornelia had even sent him the most sadistic clients, knowing his masochistic tendencies. The brothel’s madam, who saw her workers as mere tools, and Ronen, who accepted everything without resistance—his condition a year ago had been pitiful.
Filthy, yet no different from when he’d first been dragged from the slums. Worse, he resembled a broken doll, worthless. A bird with torn wings, snapped bones, faded feathers—barely worth a copper.
Yet why?
The Grand Duke had bought him. Kept him in his bed, in his arms, for days. Still unsatisfied, he had even taken the leash from Madame Cornelia. Uncharacteristic behavior.
What had drawn him to Ronen? There must have been a reason, but he couldn’t recall.
His fingers tapped restlessly against the armrest. Snake-like eyes traced Ronen from head to toe, then back to his face. Ronen met his gaze.
“…Was it those eyes?”
At the auction, a year ago, even now—those green eyes had always looked at him directly. Unwavering. Transparent. Even when Ronen had been a hollow, lifeless shell, those eyes had burned with an unquenchable spark.
Their brief lock of gazes broke as Ronen looked away first. The Grand Duke’s jaw tightened. The reason he’d taken Ronen no longer mattered. What mattered was that he had plucked a discarded thing from the kennel, fed it, clothed it, given it a bed.
And now, offering luxuries beyond its station, Ronen dared refuse his hand, even ignored him. Not even a beast would forget a kindness.
A surge of uncontrollable rage boiled within. He wanted to trample, shatter, tear him apart, and bury him in the mud. He understood why those before him had treated Ronen so harshly. How dare he. This worthless thing, forgetting his place—
The Grand Duke’s eyes sharpened like blades, but he forced himself to suppress it. If Ronen chose to be a whore, then he would treat him as one. A bitter smile curled his lips.
The sun set, and the city of pleasure welcomed the night.
***
Loud, chaotic, stifling.
That was Eckart’s impression. The banquet’s guest of honor was a prince from a foreign land, but in truth, it was the nobles, drunk on victory, who filled the hall with their revelry. As one of the famed Holy Knights—heralded as the heroes of the war—his presence was obligatory, yet every moment was agony.
The formalwear, the thick, cloying perfume, the drunken shouts, the forced conversations with strangers, the blinding lights and opulent decorations, the swaying, gaudy masks—all of it was alien, suffocating. He longed for the scorching, blood-soaked battlefield.
Seeking escape, Eckart drifted toward the edges of the crowd—only to spot someone familiar. The prince of Ilknur, tonight’s nominal honoree.
“Prince Tariq.”
“…Eckart.”
Tariq greeted him warmly, offering the glass in his hand. The boy was too young to endure this alone, dragged to a foreign land. His dark skin and keen, amber eyes made him seem even younger than he was.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
