duskpeterson

Walking into a trap may be the only way to create one.

Danger runs high for Vito when he arrives at the Eternal Dungeon, escorted by guards. In this royal dungeon, prisoners are "searched" for their crimes, by torture and by more subtle means.

Vito knows that he will be searched. But he has his own searching to accomplish, and to do so he must undergo the scrutiny of the queendom's most accomplished torturer.

Vito was beginning to wonder whether this dungeon's prisoners were questioned in pitch darkness. That was a matter of some personal concern to him.

In the battle-weary lands of the Great Peninsula, only one fate is worse than being taken prisoner by the Lieutenant: being taken prisoner if you are the Lieutenant.

As the world's most skilled torturer struggles with his change of fortune, he finds that his fate is intertwined with the destinies of an idealistic army commander, an affectionate prisoner, and a protégé who reveres the Lieutenant's art . . . but is on the wrong side of the conflict.

The beginning of the end for him (or so it seemed at the time) came in the moment that he stepped into the shadow of Capital Mountain and was assaulted by a stranger.

duskpeterson

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.

duskpeterson

Title: On Guard.
Author: Dusk Peterson.
Where to find me: Website, 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. You don't need to have read the other stories in the cycle to understand this one.
Categories: Original gen and original slash.
Length: Novel (86,000 words).
Feedback: Yes, please.
Rating: Mature.
Warnings: Boilerplate warning for all my stories.
Summary: 

A bloody knife from a crime scene becomes a mystery to be solved and a foreshadow of trouble to come.

The ties forged between the noble-minded Eternal Dungeon and an abusive foreign dungeon have set off an unpredictable chain of horrific events, in which the love between two of the Eternal Dungeon's Seekers (torturers) will be tested to the straining point. Caught in the middle of the struggle are Barrett Boyd and Seward Sobel, loyal guards who will find themselves questioning their most fundamental beliefs about the royal prison's ideals.

Barrett must help his Seeker determine whether their mild-mannered prisoner is an attempted murderer. His friend Seward has pledged to guard his own Seeker against an assassin . . . or should Seward be protecting the dungeon inhabitants against his Seeker? But when the guards' two Seekers fall into a lovers' quarrel, that is when the real danger begins.

"Shall we allow criminals to roam the streets at will because we're afraid to take the chance of harming an innocent prisoner?"