Bonds (The Eternal Dungeon) [original slash and original gen]
Title: Bonds (Sweet Blood #1).
Author: Dusk Peterson.
Where to find me: Website, AO3, DW/IJ/Tumblr/list.
Series: The Eternal Dungeon, an award-winning speculative fiction series set in a nineteenth-century prison where the psychologists wield whips.
Series cycle: Turn-of-the-Century Toughs, a cycle of alternate history series about adults and youths on the margins of society, and the people who love them. Set in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the novels and stories take place in an alternative version of America that was settled by inhabitants of the Old World in ancient times. As a result, the New World retains certain classical and medieval customs.
Categories: Original fiction: slash and gen.
Length: Novella (26,000 words).
Feedback: Yes, please.
Rating: R for violence and (in a separate scene) for nonviolent D/s.
Warnings: Boilerplate warning for all my stories.
Summary:
A prisoner meeting his fate. A torturer meeting his demons. And between them, a man whose bonds are on the point of shattering.
As the head torturer of the Eternal Dungeon sets out to terrify his subordinates in a horrific manner, his junior guard seeks a way to rebel against orders. But deep within the drama lies another man, and the fate of the dungeon may be determined by whether that other man steps forward.
In the past, he would gladly have accepted the death sentence for his crimes - indeed, he had pled for it then, in the name of justice. But now he had another person in his life to consider.
Note: Bonds is the latest in a sequence of stories with related events and characters, as follows: Green Ruin (a humorous story set during a peaceful period soon before trouble arises in the Eternal Dungeon), On Guard (which I previously announced here), The Whipping Post and Open-Soul Surgery (both set during the events of Bonds), and finally Bonds (which follows upon the events in On Guard). If you want to avoid spoilers, you can read the stories in that order. However, I wish to emphasize: You don't need to have read any previous stories to understand Bonds.