Archive of Our Own

When the soldiers come for him, Sebastian is on his knees before the altar, his head bowed and a prayer on his lips. A prayer for the city that has fallen, its unbreachable walls crumbled to dust. A prayer for the king in the castle that's gone up in flames flaring high into the sky. A prayer for the people being slaughtered on the streets, their cries and screams filling the air like a symphony of misery. A prayer for his own life that he knows is already forfeit.

Two men grab him by the shoulders and drag him away from the sanctuary.

It's the first time anyone has touched him since he accepted the honor of priesthood, but Sebastian doesn't struggle. He lets himself be moved like a straw doll, limp and unresisting, not fighting the bruising hands that dig into his flesh. He doesn't look where they're going. He'd have preferred to die right in front of the altar like a sacrifice to the Higher Ones, but he knows it's not upon him to choose his place of execution.

He doesn't expect to be brought before the Red Wolf himself.

"We found this one hiding in the temple," one of the soldiers says, pushing Sebastian into the big tent just outside of what's left of the city wall, where the warlord is studying documents spread out on a table before him. Sebastian instinctively wants to deny that he was hiding. He's not a coward.

"We thought you might like him," the soldier at his left adds.

Their chuckle is a mean, ugly sound, and the Red Wolf grins in response, clearly unconcerned by his men's lack of deference that would not go unpunished in the King's Guard. But the Red Wolf is nothing like the King.

He's a giant of a man, easily towering over the others, even more intimidating up close than in the horrifying tales people whisper about him. Under the dented, bloodstained armor, his muscles bulge, and his face is lined with scars and smudged with grime, the infamous auburn hair sweat-matted and pulled into a knot.

He steps towards where Sebastian hangs limply in the soldier's grip and takes hold of his chin, gloved fingers harshly digging into Sebastian's jaw and tilting his head up.

"Hmm. I can see why," the Red Wolf muses quietly, and the low rumble of his voice makes the amusement in his tone sound like menace. Cold grey eyes examine Sebastian with dispassionate interest, as if he was a head of cattle up for sale at the farmer's market. "Will you take my confession, priest? I'm afraid I have sinned against the laws of your Higher Ones."

Sebastian swallows against the lump in his throat. The taunt in the words would be clear even if it wasn't for the soldiers' scornful laughter, and the knowledge that he's being mocked sends a flush of embarrassment to his cheeks. Part of him wants to spit in the warlord's face in response. But even though he's not a coward, he's not in a hurry to die either.

"Of course, my lord," he says dutifully, the title like acid on his tongue. "What is it you wish to confess?"

The Red Wolf's grin stretches, as if he's delighted that Sebastian is playing along.

"Where to start? I've killed and I've pillaged and I've raped. I've taken what wasn't mine to take. I've bathed in the blood of those who dared to resist me." The way he lists his sins, it sounds more like boasting than making a confession, no trace of contrition in his tone. Not that Sebastian expected any. He suppresses the urge to flinch when the other man leans in, so close that his breath ghosts hotly against Sebastian's cheek. "And I'll tell you a secret, priest: I will sin again."

"And do you repent?" Sebastian asks, clinging to the familiar script even though he already knows the answer.

"You know what?" The Red Wolf makes a show of pretending to think it through, then says, "I don't think I do."

The men at Sebastian's side laugh again, and Sebastian quietly wishes the Higher Ones would send down fiery rain that burns the skin off their faces. It's an awful, vengeful thought, unworthy of a priest, and Sebastian shies away from it as soon as it passes through his mind.

The cruel grip on his chin tightens and the Red Wolf stands back again, taxing him once more with those unnerving grey eyes that make Sebastian want to squirm away and hide.

"You're a pretty one, priest. Tell me, are you untouched?"

This time, Sebastian does flinch. He nods mutely, trying very hard not to think about the implications of that question, ignoring the flutter of terror in his stomach and how his throat aches with dryness.

"Good." The gravel in the Red Wolf's voice makes the fear in Sebastian swell. "I always love breaking them in."

At a wave of his hand, the soldiers drop Sebastian on the spot, and he crumples in an undignified heap. There's roaring in his ears, a sense of vertigo gripping him like claws that threaten to slice him open. He tries to will himself to become numb, not to react, let his body become stone and his mind a fortress, but he can't stop himself from balking when Red Wolf's order snaps through the air.

"Strip."

He can't mean—

"Here?" Sebastian asks, horrified despite himself.

"What? Were you expecting to be given your own tent? Maybe have someone run a bath for you? Be bedded on nice soft feathers?"

The mockery cuts him to the bone, and his eyes sting. He didn't expect kindness, or mercy, but he thought— He thought he'd die an honorable death. Not be defiled like this.

His hands are shaking as he unfastens the ties of his robe. The knots are too tight, and they keep slipping away underneath his numb fingers, nails tearing when he tries to wiggle them through the loops of harsh cord.

It takes him half a dozen attempts to work the knot open, and he's conscious of each passing second, caught between trying to draw it out and panicking at the idea of taking too long. The Red Wolf doesn't strike him as the kind of man who is patient when he's kept waiting, and Sebastian keeps expecting him to snap. To grab his sword and slice through the robe, or maybe slice Sebastian's throat.

Don't court death. It's unbecoming, he tells himself.

But the man in front of him doesn't reach for his blade. He calmly stands back and watches Sebastian struggle with the ties like he has nowhere better to be.

Finally, the last knot gives way and the cord falls to the ground. Sebastian hesitates. Only for a moment, but it's long enough that the Red Wolf raises an eyebrow at him. Such a little gesture, but it carries the weight of a threat and makes Sebastian's stomach plummet, his hands scrambling to grab his robe.

He's never taken it off before an audience before. Over the twelve years since he's taken the Oath, this robe has become like a second layer of skin, not just a garment but a part of his body. It feels as though he's shedding a part of himself. He tries not to think about what he's doing or what's going to happen as he pulls it over his head, his fingers clenching in the soft grey linen.

There's a moment when his face is buried in the fabric, his sight obscured as if he was blindfolded. It feels like a blessing, the robe hiding everything around him, and hiding him from the world in return, and he wishes it would last. But he doesn't dare to linger too long in the darkness.

When he's pulled the robe off his head and he can see again, the Red Wolf is standing right in front of him. It makes Sebastian instinctively jerk away, but with his arms still tangled in the garment, unbalancing him, he stumbles.

Before he can fall, he's grabbed and steadied by a pair of hands. One on his ribcage. One on his waist. Large and warm and callused and— Skin, he realizes, the sensation only registering after a few seconds pass. The Red Wolf must have stripped off his gloves.

It feels like— Like—

There's nothing he can compare it to. He has fuzzy memories of being touched when he was young. Children shoving each other, the way they do when they play or fight. His father ruffling his hair. His mother's lips brushing against his forehead. But like impressions from a past life, he only remembers the instances, not the sensations.

Twelve years, and no one else's skin has come in contact with his own, and suddenly the Red Wolf's rough hands are holding him like he has the right, like the rules don't apply to him and he can just take what he wants.

And the worst thing is that Sebastian can't bring himself to twist away. His skin feels like it's burning up under the touch, almost raw, almost painful, and it's too much and at the same time he doesn't—

He doesn't want it to end, may the Higher Ones forgive him.

The Red Wolf is watching him shrewdly, his eyes narrowed. When the hand on Sebastian's side lifts away, Sebastian makes a noise. He can't stop himself. There's an unreasonable sense of loss that comes with it. It earns him a quiet laugh, and then the robe wound around his arms is being pulled off, and he's bare before the other man.

"Responsive, aren't we?" the Red Wolf taunts.

For the first time Sebastian notices the silence around him, the lack of biting laughter and jeers in response to the mocking question, and he realizes that they're alone. He doesn't even know when the soldiers left. Now it's just him and the man who destroyed the only home Sebastian ever knew. The idea of running crosses his mind, briefly, stupidly. Like he could outrun a seasoned fighter. Like the Red Wolf wouldn't be upon him before he'd even made it out of the tent. Like there aren't hundreds of enemy soldiers waiting for him outside.

So he plants his feet and stays still even when the Red Wolf starts mapping his body with possessive hands. He's not hurting Sebastian – not how he doubtlessly could with all that raw strength in his massive form – but he's not being gentle either, and Sebastian's skin, unused to physical contact, soon feels tender under his touch.

And yet, his body betrays him in the most shameful way.

When the Red Wolf closes his fist around Sebastian's cock, it becomes impossible to ignore how hard he is – has been, ever since that first touch of skin against skin. He's been pretending that it wasn't happening, but now the heat of that strong, callused palm brushing over his most intimate parts is almost unbearable. There's a need inside of him, fathomless and frightening like an abyss. The sound torn from his throat comes out as a pitiful whimper.

"Please," he begs, when he can find his voice again.

"Please what? Please stop touching you? Please make you come? You're going to have to be more specific. What are you asking for, priest?"

Sebastian shakes his head. He can't—

"Please stop," he makes himself say, talking over the ugly, desperate part of him that is greedy for touch.

He doesn't expect his request to be granted. But almost instantly, the touch falls away. Sebastian chokes back a noise of protest.

"As you wish," the Red Wolf says smoothly. "See, I can be accommodating."

But something about his smile and the gleam in his eyes says that the he's well aware of how much Sebastian longs to have those hands back on him.

He seems to be waiting for a response, so Sebastian makes himself nod stiffly and say, "Thank you, my lord."

The smile stretching the Red Wolf's lips sharpens. "So polite. I like it." He waits a beat, then, "Ask me to fuck you."

Sebastian feels like he's been slapped so hard that all the air has left his lungs and his head is reeling. It's not like he didn't know what was in store for him, not like the crude comment about breaking them in hadn't been obvious, but he thought— he didn't—

He shakes his head again, frantically this time. "No."

He half-expects the Red Wolf to strike him down with his sword for the defiance. He reaches for Sebastian, and Sebastian braces himself for cruelty, for violence. He doesn't think he's good at withstanding pain; he's never mastered the art of stoicism no matter how much he tried, much to the frustration of his teachers. But maybe it'll be quick, maybe—

The Red Wolf places a hand against Sebastian's cheek, his thumb stroking across Sebastian's lip.

"No? Are you sure?" His tone is mild, amused still, displaying none of the anger Sebastian expected. Then, more insistent, he repeats: "Ask me."

There's no open threat, nothing that speaks of the consequences should Sebastian refuse him again, no pressure to shatter Sebastian's resolve other than the weight of the order itself.

And yet, when Sebastian opens his mouth, the words spill out of him as if drawn by dark magic.

"Please, my lord, fuck me," he says, his voice stumbling a little, ashamed, unused to obscenity.

"Very good, priest."

The praise sends a rush of heat to Sebastian's cheeks. It feels intimate and forbidden, just like a touch.

The smile that curls the Red Wolf's mouth turns satisfied, and in Sebastian blooms the awful understanding that when the Red Wolf talked about breaking him in, he might have meant it in more ways than just the purely physical. His mind's betrayal will weigh worse than his body's.

The Red Wolf spreads him out on the table, right across the clutter of documents and maps. Sebastian tries to avert his gaze as the other man sheds his armor, but every time a piece of metal clatters to the floor, his disobedient eyes flicker towards the sun-bronzed, scarred skin on display. He looks every bit as hulking and imposing without the heavy armor, nothing vulnerable about his nudity. His cock is just as big as the rest of him, flushed and stiff, almost as thick as Sebastian's wrist.

Sebastian blanches as he imagines – so may the Higher Ones help him! – taking it inside of his body. There's no way he will be able to take it all. He can barely envision stretching around a cock his own size, unused to intimacy as he is, but certainly not something this huge.

"I can't—" he begins, trying to wiggle away.

He doesn't even get to finish the protest before he's grabbed and manhandled onto his front, the wooden edge of the table rubbing against his cock that had only just lost some of its stiffness and now stirs anew from the pressure.

"Don't worry, you can and you will," the Red Wolf tells him. When he leans across Sebastian's back, the heat of his body almost burns Sebastian, and his breath brushes against Sebastian's cheek. "You know why, priest?"

He has Sebastian flattened to the table with a hand around the back of his neck, heavy and inescapable like an iron shackle.

Sebastian shakes his head no as well as his position allows him.

"Because I'm telling you to," the Red Wolf says, unyielding, and at the same time breaches him with two slick fingers.

It's too much, too fast. It already feels like he's going to split open – and it's just fingers. Sebastian gasps and tries to escape the unbearable pressure by shifting forward, but the grip on his neck is relentless, pinning him in place like a butterfly on a collector's board. The fingers keep moving without mercy, knuckles pulling at the rim and wiggling against his insides, calluses dragging against sensitive skin.

It's a strange kind of sensation, uncomfortable and intrusive, until the fingers curl and Sebastian is hit with a surge of pleasure so sharp it feels like he's been punched. It leaves him breathless, sweating, arching into the touch.

He shouldn't feel this way, he thinks, and yet he can't help mindlessly chasing the rush, reveling in the fleeting moment of ecstasy. It's futile, though.

"Looks like you're ready," the Red Wolf states, and before Sebastian can push through the fog of pleasure clouding his mind and understand what he means, he pulls his fingers out too fast and without care. He doesn't give Sebastian much chance to figure out if it's relief or disappointment he feels because only a few seconds later, the hand that was inside of him just now spreads him open and the fat, blunt head of the Red Wolf's cock nudges at his entrance.

No, Sebastian thinks. Maybe he says it out loud too, but even if he does, the Red Wolf pays him no mind, ruthlessly pushing forward until Sebastian feels himself open for him.

The Red Wolf mutters a string of curses. "By the Higher Ones, you're tight."

Sebastian wants to scream at him to stop disrespecting the Higher Ones by bringing them into this, but he doesn't have words, can't speak, can barely think. If the man's cock had looked huge before, it's nothing compared to what it feels like, slowly spearing him. Every time he thinks he can take no more, the Red Wolf forces himself deeper into him. And deeper. And deeper still, until Sebastian can finally feel the slap of balls against his ass.

He sobs, beyond words, stretched to the limit, feeling so full he thinks he's going to burst. His cock is harder than it has ever been, and every brush against the table is pure agony.

The Red Wolf leans forward again. The motion makes his cock shift, and the weight of his body on top of Sebastian presses him down harder against the table. "Ready to be broken in, priest?"

Sebastian feels like he is already broken beyond repair. He squeezes his eyes shut, feeling tears leaking down his cheeks.

"Please," he mutters, drool pooling underneath his mouth where his face is pushed against the wood.

He doesn't know if he's asking the Red Wolf to stop or to continue, if he's asking for mercy or death or for another taste of that sweet ecstasy from before. Luckily, this time the Red Wolf doesn't demand him to spell it out. Maybe he, too, is tired of the game, because he doesn't continue taunting Sebastian.

He pulls back out until only the very tip of his cock remains inside Sebastian – for a moment Sebastian almost feels like he can breathe freely again – and then he slams back inside. And then he does it again. And again. And again.

And just when Sebastian thinks he can take it no more, the Red Wolf's hand closes around his aching cock. His fingers are still slick with oil, sliding up and down Sebastian's length in time with his thrusts.

It's too much. Something curls in his gut like a hungry demon, fire in his veins like he's burning up inside, and then the pleasure pulls him into a abyss.

He shouts, he thinks.

Or perhaps he cries.

Perhaps he curses the Higher Ones for testing him like this.

When he comes to, he's laid on the furs spread out in the back of the tent. His entire body feels sore, aching in unfamiliar ways.

At the table, with his back turned towards Sebastian, the Red Wolf is once again engrossed in his reading. He hasn't bothered putting on his armor again, unashamed in his nakedness, his back a mess of old scars and freshly dressed wounds that Sebastian didn't notice before.

"Have you recovered, priest?" he asks without looking up, a pointed reminder that he didn't need to turn to sense Sebastian stirring.

Sebastian doesn't know why he's here, why he's not dead or thrown into the cages where the Red Wolf's army keeps the few prisoners they take. He doesn't trust that it's a good sign that he's still in the Red Wolf's tent, no matter how soft and warm the furs feel against his skin.

"I'm sorry, my lord," he tries, carefully. It feels safer to apologize, even though it's hardly his fault he passed out.

The Red Wolf turns and stalks towards him, and Sebastian's instincts are screaming at him to back away. But where would he go?

"No need to apologize. You did well, for your first time." He reaches out and strokes Sebastian's hair. It's an almost tender gesture, until it suddenly isn't, until his fingers tangle in Sebastian's curls and tighten to the point of pain, forcing Sebastian to look him in the eyes. "What would your Higher Ones think of you if they saw you like that? Needy and fucked open and begging like a common whore."

The words cut worse than a blade.

Sebastian struggles against the anguish, the harrowing awareness that he's broken the Oath and betrayed everything he's known. "They'd understand that I wasn't acting of my own volition," he says, but the words taste stale, and he isn't sure if he believes them himself. "They're merciful. They'd forgive me, if I repent."

"Would they, now?" the Red Wolf wonders idly. He gives Sebastian a contemplative look. "And what if you don't repent?"

Sebastian shakes his head. He will repent. He does repent.

The Red Wolf smiles. A flash of teeth, sharp and dangerous, all too like his beastly namesake.

"When I'm done with you, priest, you will have no other gods but me anymore," he promises, the words spoken right against Sebastian's lips before he claims them in a vicious kiss, hungry and possessive.

It cuts off the fierce denial that's on the tip of Sebastian's tongue, saving him from the lie.