Captive Prince by Freece

Captive Prince is one of the best executions of the royal-warrior-becomes-sex-slave trope I have ever encountered. It's good at what it does, and it doesn't try to be anything it's not: It's really, really well-done homoerotic slavefic. There have been exactly 1.639 sex scenes, and I am still reading. It's not about the sex. It's all about the sexual tension. Which is exquisite.

The two main characters are more archetypes than real people, but they're archetypes that resonate, archetypes that can be related to. The sexual tension is almost agonizingly subtle, and more effective than most graphic sex scenes. The author deftly uses minimalist world-building of a Greek/Mediterranean and European flavor, and there's just enough pragmatic detail to be reasonably realistic and make me willingly suspend my disbelief for everything else. The Mediterranean culture mirror is also a refreshing change from the typically firmly European cast of alternate historical worlds.

The writing is smooth, rolling, and most chapters are quite polished. This was a completely unexpected gem.

This was the first original fantasy novel I ever read online, and it remains one of the best, and one of my favourites. The writing is rock solid technically, and the characterisation is incredibly sophisticated: in particular, the characterisation of Laurent through Damen's eyes is absolutely brilliant.

Freece also occasionally puts up "commentaries" of chapters, which blew me away with the level of consideration put into every language and characterisation choice.

The summary above doesn't really do the story justice: it is not only about hitting the slave kink (which it does), but evolves into a complex political fantasy as Damen navigates the labyrinthine Rabatian politics. The romance is exquisite, with some of the best-realised sexual tension I have ever read.

This is and will always be one of my favourite fantasy webnovels. Compulsory reading for fans of the genre.