okay so!

here's the like, basic plot outline i had: the old head of the Bard Coven is old and/or unwell, so his retirement is known. Raine is being trained up as his successor, and starts shadowing him at the castle and during meetings like, pre-s1.

relatively early on in s1, they end up promoted to head of the Bard Coven, so that happens earlier in canon. they end up meeting Hunter, who they've seen here and there, and try to talk to him, when everybody else just ignores him. somebody (a fellow coven head or the old Bard Coven head) pulls them aside to tell them That's The Emperor's Pet Boy, leave him alone, it's better that way.

Raine ofc is both horrified and intrigued and does not leave it alone. they ask around about Hunter and also keep trying to talk to him to build up a rapport. their aim is twofold: they don't think it's right for Belos to have a teen sex slave, whether or not he's a construct, and they also want to see if they can use him. after all, he's VERY close to the Emperor, with unparalleled intimate access to his quarters and person, so he must know something useful, even if he doesn't know he knows. Raine wants to see if they can become allies, maybe offer Hunter a way out.

so begins a game of 5 dimensional spy chess. the more Raine talks to Hunter, the more they realize he's very loyal and very brainwashed. he's both flattered by their interest and eager to keep talking to them, because he's very lonely and they treat him like a person, and also suspicious - he tries to see if he can get them to incriminate themself, if they're Up To Something.

having grown up in this environment of domestic backstabbing and jockeying for power, Hunter's pretty familiar with how that goes, a lot more socially aware and adept than canon!Hunter because those are the skills he's had to learn, but he's still just a kid, and Raine is much better at it. so they recognize what he's doing and string him along, feeding him bits and pieces of not-QUITE-actionably-incriminating speech and rhetoric to see what they'll get in return.

at some point they end up getting some info out of him that they use to pull off some kind of Rebel Stunt - a jailbreak or an attack or something, i'm not sure - and it ends up getting traced back to them. this close to the DoU, Belos really doesn't want to train another coven head, and he doesn't want to be publicly embarrassed by revealing one of his own coven heads - recently promoted, no less! - is a traitor, so instead of executing them, he just invites them to stay in a suite of rooms in the castle where he can keep an eye on them, and uses some fucky sigil stuff to seal their magic away. he also assigns Hunter to watch over them and report back.

Hunter is mad about getting played, of course, because he thought HE was the one playing Raine, but he's also grudgingly admiring. they got the better of him, and he can respect the skill that took, plus no one's ever actually treated him like enough of a threat to manipulate or use that way. nobody really ever thinks about him one way or the other, most of the time. soooo he ends up with a bit of a crush, here, and it just keeps increasing the more time he spends with them.

Raine recognizes this and initially just ignores it, because this is an extremely traumatized child who doesn't know any way of relating to people outside of sex because he's been raised as a toy for his entire life. however... well, they're backed into a corner here. they're stuck in the castle, no magic, no way to contact the rebellion, no way to do anything, the DoU is approaching and they still don't know what's even going to happen... and here's this kid who is a great in to the Emperor, who could be used, and he's handing Raine one hell of a lever to move him with.

so they end up starting to flirt with Hunter, draw him in and earn his trust, try to see if they can get his guard down. he's SO lonely and desperate for attention and affection, and while he knows how to handle intrigue and backstabbing, he doesn't know how to handle genuine friendliness and kindness and being treated like a person. he's very vulnerable to it.

and basically they start playing chicken with him. they're trying to make it seem real without crossing too many lines, but of course they can't hold back too much or he'll get upset or suspicious... which is how they go from flirting back to canoodling to, oops, looks like they just fucked the Emperor's boytoy, which makes them feel absolutely terrible but also means they and Hunter are in a mutually assured destruction type of scenario now, and they can use that.

basically, Raine ends up realizing they can use Hunter's crush on them to manipulate him by playing along, and do so while fully knowing This Is Extremely Wrong but feeling like they have no other choice and that the chance of being able to stop the DoU is worth the damage it's going to do to Hunter.