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Disclaimer: this is a review of a book that contains sexual assault, rape, and abuse to the main character as a major plot point. Please read with caution. Thank you.

With the rise of BookTok has come the rise of dark romance. Now more than ever, readers have been sharing their love for books that are not for the faint of heart, containing lists of trigger warnings meant to dissuade those who would not be interested in its contents. Books like Haunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton, Lights Out by Navessa Allen, and Corrupt by Penelope Douglas spark controversy and ignite debate among readers as to whether or not books like these can even be considered romance when said romance contains things like non/dubious consent, sexual assault, and graphic rape (to name a few of the trigger warnings from the Cat and Mouse Duet, for example).

While Captive Prince by C.S. Pacat is not a dark romance, it sparks similar controversy.

Captive Prince follows Damen, the Prince of Akielos, after his tyrant brother seizes the throne and reduces Damen to the life of a powerless, nameless pleasure slave, shipped off to the enemy nation of Vere and sold for the price of tentative peace between them.

Damen’s new master is the worst of everything the court of Vere represents: the beautiful and cruel Laurent, Prince of Vere and heir to its throne. Caught within the politics of the vicious court of his enemy, Damen’s humiliation becomes a tool for Laurent to wield, and wield it he does. Unforgivingly and mercilessly. But nothing is as it seems in Vere, and, against all odds, Damen finds that the best way to save himself and protect his kingdom is to work with the very prince who holds the chains to his gilded collar.

Due to the nature of its plot, there are many people who caution readers against this book. A Goodreads user by the name of Maraia states in her review that “sexual slavery isn’t sexy. Corporal punishment isn’t sexy. Rape isn’t sexy, and it certainly isn’t entertainment.” This is just one of the 5,642 one star reviews Captive Prince has garnered on Goodreads, but many of these reviewers share the same opinion: that Captive Prince, as an enemies to lovers romance, romanticizes slavery, sexual abuse, and rape.

Despite this, Captive Prince has a rather large following on TikTok. It is a beloved series to many BookTok creators, who boast of nothing but how amazing the series and the complicated relationship between its characters is. Fascinated by the disparity between the love and hate for this series, I decided to give Captive Prince a chance to show me what it really is beneath the opinions and words of others.

Vere, beneath the silk and jewels

“This place sickened him. Anywhere else, you simply killed your enemy with a sword. Or poisoned him, if you had the honourless instincts of an assassin. Here, it was layer upon layer of constructed double-dealing, dark, polished and unpleasant.”

Polished and unpleasant is the perfect way to describe Vere. There is purposeful irony here, in the barbarian slave being brought to polished, regal Vere. Vere, that beneath all its layers of royal silk and precious jewels, is even more barbaric than savage, primitive Akielos. It is intentional, that beneath all the gold, Vere is wicked in ways Damen could never have imagined. And its prince too.

So let me be clear. Nothing in Captive Prince is meant to be romanticized. Nothing is included for shock value. This is not sex slave erotica with the graphic rape scenes many Goodreads reviews would have you believe. This is not a dark romance with intense scenes meant to be a kink or turn-on. This is prejudice. This is revenge. This is war, and war breeds evilness even in the hearts of good men.

Not to say that there are any good men in Vere.

“The realisation that Govart was going to fuck Erasmus right here in front of him hit with the same sense of unreality that he’d felt when faced with Ancel. It wasn’t possible that something like this was going to happen–that this court was so depraved that a mercenary could rape a royal slave a scant distance from the gathered court.”

When faced with the sexual abuse of himself and others, Damen’s emotions feel real and raw. There is nothing romantic about them in the slightest. And although these scenes are hard to read, they are designed to be that way. But, I could not help but wonder if Damen had to be a sex slave. Could Pacat have made the same impact without bringing sexual abuse and rape into the picture?

There are lots of successful books that use the captor/prisoner trope. The Scottish Boy by Alex de Campi is an excellent example, and one of my absolute favorite reads. The two main characters have a similar power dynamic to Damen and Laurent, an English knight and his Scottish prisoner with a mysterious heritage, enemies in a war they were born into. Iain is at Harry’s mercy, but things like assault, sexual or otherwise, are kept out of the picture. While it can be argued that Damen didn’t need to be a sex slave, the difference between Captive Prince and The Scottish Boy is that The Scottish Boy is about good people finding love despite their differences, despite being on opposite sides of a war and the terrible things war has done to them. Laurent and Damen are not good people. This is not a lighthearted book, or even a book about love.

But, a tentative trust has begun to build, one forged on necessity and survival, which makes things interesting.

Whether or not you agree with it, by making Damen Laurent’s pleasure slave, Pacat creates a very unique power dynamic between the two, something more intense than a prisoner and his captor, or even a simple slave and his master. The presence of sex as a weapon adds a more dangerous element when we know there is some kind of romance that forms between them in later books.

A true enemies-to-lovers

Although Captive Prince is marketed as a romance series, this first book is very clearly the beginning of a slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers romance. A true enemies-to-lovers. Not the kind of enemies-to-lovers romance seen in popular books like A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas or The Cruel Prince by Holly Black. Damen and Laurent are real enemies, two princes on opposite sides of a war, and the relationship between them is colored by the tones of death and hatred. There is no romance between Damen and Laurent in Captive Prince. Any development we see in their relationship is, at most, a shift from enemies to tentative allies as they realize that their only chance to survive the Regent’s schemes is if they work together.

Because of Damen’s position as Laurent’s pleasure slave, things are bound to be messy between them, especially when the reader knows there is romance somewhere within the series. But Pacat is very clear in defining Damen’s emotions, not allowing the reader to mistake them for anything other than the anger of a strong, prideful man losing every ounce of his autonomy.

“Damen was unshackled from the lovers’ seat and pushed back down onto his knees. Laurent was seated opposite, legs crossed. Damen’s eyes fixed on him and looked nowhere else; his breathing was still noticeable, and his pulse rapid, but anger produced all the same effects.”

There is no confusion between desire and hatred. There is no lust, no passion, no burning need for the other. The only thing Damen yearns for is to punch Laurent in his pretty little face for the things he has made him suffer through. Pacat makes it known that Laurent is Damen’s type, someone of fair skin and pale blonde hair, but not once does Damen feel attracted to him even if he does recognize his beauty.

Even as Laurent and Damen’s relationship shifts from enemies to allies, Damen is still very aware of Laurent’s manipulative, self-serving tendencies.

“He felt no new rush of warmth for Laurent. He was not inclined to believe that cruelty delivered with one hand was redeemed by a caress from the other, if that’s even what this was. Nor was he naive enough to think that Laurent was acting out of any altruistic impulse. Laurent was doing this for some twisty reason of his own.”

Although they are temporarily working towards the same goal, Damen has not forgotten the abuse he suffered at Laurent’s hand and will not forgive him so easily.

Laurent, not your typical “love interest”

“It didn’t surprise Damen that Laurent was popular with the townspeople. He looked the part, all bright hair and astonishing profile. A golden prince was easy to love if you did not have to watch him picking wings off flies.”

And watch him pick the wings off flies, we do.

Captive Prince is not a romantasy with a morally grey love interest and his bleeding heart, someone who will do anything to protect the person they love. Laurent is not a good person, but he is certainly a complicated one.

“‘You’re more likely to win a game if you don’t play your whole hand at once,’ said Laurent.”

What we see through the eyes of Damen is most definitely not the whole picture, and although this does not excuse the abuse he inflicts upon Damen, by his hand or otherwise, it is important to note when trying to understand his character and his motivations.

Damen is a pawn caught in the power struggle between Laurent and the Regent for the throne, a small piece within a bigger picture. Most of Laurent’s abuse of Damen can be boiled down to a single thing: a way to rebel against his uncle. Damen was whipped at a purposeful time, when the Regent wasn’t there to stop Laurent from acting against his orders. Although hurting Damen was most certainly an added benefit, the punishment was intended as a means to anger the Regent, to undermine his rule and influence at court. The same can be said about Laurent’s decision to send Damen into the ring. If he simply wanted to humiliate Damen, he could have sent him in with another pet or pleasure slave. Instead, he chooses Govart, one of the regent’s men. Because of the feud between Laurent and his uncle, I argue that Laurent never intended for Damen to be raped. His aim was to anger his uncle by having Damen, a ‘savage’ from Akielos, humiliate one of his men.

While this does not excuse his behavior by any means, it does shift Laurent from being a simple antagonist to a complex character with real motivation behind his actions, however bad they are. Laurent is cold, calculating, and manipulative, but he is not malicious. He is purposeful in his abuse and the way its effect will ripple through the courts of Vere.

With that being said, it is interesting to note that Laurent, when compared to some of the other slave owners, is not the worst person among the courtiers and nobles of Vere.

“‘Your master seems kind,’ said Erasmus.

‘Kind?’ said Damen.

The word was hard to get his mouth around, grating in his throat as he pushed it out. He looked across in disbelief at Erasmus.

‘He cares for your pleasure,’ explained Erasmus.”

To Erasmus, a slave of the Regent, Laurent’s interference with Damen and Ancel on the lovers’ seat comes across as kindness, even if he was the one who forced Damen into the situation in the first place. It brings up lots of questions, especially when paired with the fact that Laurent is historically known to be disinterested in his pets, not to mention his absolute hatred for Akielos. Most of Laurent’s actions can be explained away by the power struggle between him and his uncle, but this instance stands apart from the rest.

What was he looking to achieve here?

I guess I’ll have to read the next book to find out.

My final thoughts…

I gave Captive Prince a rating of four out of five stars.

Just because I can find meaning and purpose behind Laurent’s actions and the awful things that are done to Damen does not excuse them. Just because Captive Prince does not romanticize rape or slavery does not mean it isn’t okay to feel uncomfortable reading a book with those things in it. Just because I liked Captive Prince does not mean it isn’t valid to not want to read it.

Trigger warnings exist for a reason. It is okay to decide that this book isn’t for you. But I do think that Captive Prince falls victim to people getting upset about what they are reading and writing rant reviews on Goodreads, over-dramaticizing its contents. I understand why the plot of Captive Prince can be upsetting to readers, but Pacat is deliberate in the way she approaches the topic. Rape is not included in the story as a way to be entertaining.

Laurent and Damen’s relationship is very complicated, and because of the way it started and the power imbalance between them, I am interested to see how they will develop together for us to be able to root for their relationship. How will we go from enemies, to reluctant allies, to lovers? Can Damen ever trust Laurent enough? Will we ever see Laurent’s true face? What will happen when Laurent learns who Damen really is?

The answers lie within the pages of Prince’s Gambit.