He knew that expression. His sense of danger, highly attuned to Laurent’s moods, told him that Aimeric was better off downstairs with a half dozen men than he was up here with Laurent. Laurent’s lids were smooth over a cool gaze, his posture straight-backed, his fingers poised on the rim of the goblet.
I kissed him, thought Damen, the idea unreal here in this small circular stone room. The warm, sweet kiss had been broken in a moment of promise: the first slight parting of lips, the hint that Laurent had been on the cusp of allowing the kiss to deepen, though his body had been singing with tension.
When he closed his eyes, he felt how it might have happened: slowly, Laurent’s mouth opening, Laurent’s hands lifting hesitantly to touch his body. He would have been careful, so careful.
Aimeric was dragged in by two guards. He resisted, his hands lashed behind his back, his arms gripped by his guards. He had been stripped of his armour; his undershirt was streaked with dirt and sweat and it hung partially open in a mess of laces. His curls looked more pulped than polished, and there was a cut across his left cheek.
His eyes retained their defiance. There was an intrinsic antagonism in Aimeric’s nature, Damen knew. He liked a fight.
When he saw Jord, he turned white. And said, ‘No.’ His guard shoved him inside.
‘The loving reunion,’ said Laurent.
When Aimeric heard that, he gathered his defiance to himself. The guards took up their hold again, roughly. Though his face was still white, Aimeric lifted his chin.
‘Have you brought me here to gloat? I’m glad I did what I did. I did it for my family, and for the south. I’d do it again.’
‘That was pretty,’ said Laurent. ‘Now the truth.’
‘That was the truth,’ said Aimeric. ‘I’m not afraid of you. My father’s going to crush you.’
‘Your father has ridden to Fortaine with his tail between his legs.’
‘To regroup. My father would never turn his back on his family. Not like you. Spreading for your brother isn’t the same thing as family loyalty.’ Aimeric’s breathing was shallow.
‘That reminds me,’ said Laurent.
He stood, the goblet hanging casually from his fingertips. He regarded Aimeric a moment. Then he changed his grip on the goblet, lifted it, and brought it with calm brutality in a backhanded blow across Aimeric’s face.
Aimeric cried out. The blow snapped his head to one side, as the heavy gold impacted on his cheekbone with a sick, solid sound. It left him reeling in the arms of his guards. Jord made a violent move forward, and Damen felt his whole body come under strain as, instinctively, he pushed in to halt him.
‘Keep your mouth off my brother,’ said Laurent.
In the first burst of movement, Damen had flung Jord ungently back, then held him off in a restraining grip. Jord had gone still but the strain of muscle was still there, his breathing harsh. Laurent replaced the goblet, with exquisite precision, on the table.
Aimeric just blinked with glazed, stupefied eyes; the contents of the goblet had sprayed outward, wetting Aimeric’s stunned, slack face. There was blood on his lips, where something was bitten or split, and a red brand on his cheekbone.
Damen heard Aimeric say, thickly, ‘You can hit me as much as you like.’
‘Can I? I think we’re going to enjoy each other, you and I. Tell me what else I can do to you.’
‘Stop this,’ said Jord. ‘He’s just a boy. He’s just a boy, he’s not old enough for this, he’s scared. He thinks you’re going to wreck his family.’
Aimeric turned his bruised, bloody face to the words, in disbelief that Jord was defending him. Laurent turned to face Jord at the same time, his golden brows arching. There was disbelief in Laurent’s expression too, but it was colder, more fundamental.
It took Damen a moment to understand why. Uneasiness swept over him as he looked from Laurent’s face to Aimeric’s, and realised suddenly and for the first time how close Laurent and Aimeric were in age. There was six months’ difference between them, at most.
‘I am going to wreck his family,’ said Laurent. ‘But it’s not his family he’s fighting for.’
‘Of course it is,’ said Jord. ‘Why else would he betray his friends?’
‘You can’t think of a reason?’
Laurent’s attention had returned to Aimeric, drawing close to him, so that they faced one another. Like a lover, Laurent smiled and touched a stray curl, tucking it behind Aimeric’s ear. Aimeric flinched, violently, then repressed the flinch, though he wasn’t able to control his breathing.
Tenderly, Laurent drew a fingertip through the blood that welled from Aimeric’s split lip.
‘Pretty face,’ said Laurent. Then his fingers dropped back to brush Aimeric’s jaw, tilting it up as though for a kiss. Aimeric made a choked sound in response to pain; the bruised flesh under Laurent’s fingers was white. ‘I bet you were a peach of a little boy. A pretty peach. How old were you when you fucked my uncle?’
Damen went still, everything in the tower went very still, as Laurent said, ‘Were you old enough to come?’
‘Shut up,’ said Aimeric.
‘Did he tell you you’d be together again, if you’d just do this one thing? Did he tell you how much he missed you?’