Arena Shifters (A Paranormal Romance Novel) (8 page)

Suddenly there a screech and
a clang as her cell door was thrown open. Her eyes flew open in surprise.
Standing in the doorway was the Dominus, and at his side, one of his most
repulsive slaves, known only as bone. The enormous slave looked over at his
Master mouthing a question.

“They’re your reward. When
you are sated return to me for the rest of your reward.”

Bone said nothing more and
walked over to the lovers who although remaining in the same position, had
frozen in place. Bone walked over to Dionya and dropped his subligaculum. She
looked up as the head of an enormous cock dangled just inches from her open
mouth. The man stood still for a moment, then grunted and passed gas. The
instant the noxious smell reached her mouth and nose, her stomach began its
revolt. She clamped her mouth shut and swallowed the bile. From the corners of
her eyes she could see her Master watching her and waiting and she knew her
life, and that of her friends depended on these next few seconds, but she could
not bring herself to open her mouth. She heard a displeasing grunt, and knew
Dominus was losing his patience.

Then she felt a tongue flick
across her sex, sending a pleasing jolt up through her body. It was as if
Flavia understood what was going through her mind and was trying to help.
Dionya forced herself to focus on her friends loving mouth and her quivering
pussy. In the end it was the first hint of orgasm that pried her lips apart for
the Bone’s monstrous cock. The moment her lips parted he pressed the head to
her mouth, then groaned as she sucked it in.

Over ripe milk, and moldy
cheese would have been a more welcome taste than the Bones rock hard organ as
he began to shove it in with alacrity. It was the embodiment of that ancient
Oriental philosophy, Yin and Yang, the agony of the Bone’s repulsive member and
the ecstasy of her lover who knew just how to wind her up and make her sing.
Waves of orgasms rocked her body as she gaged and choked on the gargantuan cock
in her mouth. Bone skull fucked her for all he was worth. Somewhere in his pea
brain he must have known this was gonna be his first and last time dallying in
the forbidden flesh of youth. Even as his cock began to throb and spew his
filthy load, he was relieved of his miserable life as the Lanista’s blade
severed his spinal cord at the base of his skull. Blood and semen became one as
he fell backwards yanking his still spewing member out of Dionya’s mouth,
spraying the girls in the throes of death.

When the first splash of hot
blood bathed Dionya’s face, it took a few seconds to process what was
happening. Even as Dominus withdrew the red, dripping blade from the Bone’s
corpse she could not believe it was happening. A retching noise caught her
attention. Flavia was vomiting on the ground next to the body of the Bone. In
all of two seconds Dionya added to the mess of blood, semen, and vomit.

Satisfied, Dominus gave a
loud whistle and two slaves appeared with buckets of water and rags. Two others
hurried in and began to remove the enormous body of Bone the slave and
gladiator. Dominus smiled grimly. Word of this would get out to the others
quickly. It would be the last time a gladiator overstepped his bounds.

* * * * *

CHAPTER EIGHT:

Unwelcome Information

* * * * *

Petronia lay on her pallet
trembling despite the current heat wave. If what she’d just stumbled upon, if
there was any truth to it at all, trouble was brewing; in fact it was boiling
over. The House of Gaius Gracchus Tiberius was near enough to Savona, the
closest city, that it gave the dwellers here a false sense of security. It was
also far away enough that should a serious problem arise, like a revolt, it
would take some time before any help, once marshalled, would arrive.

The general consensus among
slaves, if you had to be a slave somewhere, the House of Tiberius was one of
the better places to be enslaved; especially for a house belonging to a Lanista
(one who trains gladiators). A gladiator’s life was one of a brutal existence,
and only the top fighters lived for any length of time. But that was what the
life of the gladiator was all about; glory and death in the arena. It was what
they all lived for, and an early death was expected. There was the odd story of
a slave being freed following an unusually decorated long career in the arena.
Everyone knew the story of the Carthag who was given his freedom following what
was to be his last battle, ending in a glorious death. To everyone’s amazement,
and on the heels of some particularly crafty political maneuvering, after
winning the battle he was given his freedom from slavery. He would have to
carry the rudis with him wherever he went so he would not be mistaken for an
escaped slave; not that it was likely given the amount of fame that surrounded
his name.

Some time, years before the
slave Spartacus and his brothers escaped, a new law was enacted to stem the
tide of rebellion that was sweeping Rome at that time. Anytime a slave tried to
escape, that slave, as well as every other slave in the same house, were
automatically put to death. It was usually done in spectacle in the arena, but
some chose to take care of the matter quietly in their own homes. After several
prominent houses had put to death their entire households in the arena, the
number of attempts to escape were a fraction of what they used to be.  Some of
the poorer houses did not follow the exact letter of the law and only punished
the ones trying to escape rather than everyone as the cost to replace an entire
household of slaves was costly. For the most part, the law was followed,
especially among the prominent houses like that of the House of Tiberius. There
was little doubt in the slave’s minds that should any one of them try to
escape, they’d all lose their lives. Before the law came into effect, there was
no such thing of slaves policing themselves, but now sometimes slaves caught
and punished their own to keep them from all losing their heads.

And with those dark thoughts
in Petronia’s head, she lay on her sleeping pallet shaking in fear. Here is
what she heard. In order for an escape to work it had to have outside help. For
a slave to communicate with the outside world, escaped slaves, it was very
difficult. There was a slave that had escaped from her Villa, a young female,
and it was known that the Lanista was very interested in her being brought back
home alive. The plan was she would get herself captured and returned to Gaius
who would of course use her as his personal plaything until he tired of her and
had her killed. She of course would be returning to the House with the escape
plans and the ability to coordinate everything from the inside. At the proper
time, a couch would arrive at the Villa filled with escaped slaves. The coach
was one of the ones taken when the Lanista’s caravan has been attacked several
months ago. Riding in the coach were 10 well armed slaves, along with a driver
who had been spared on the night of the attack. Without him driving the coach they
would never get inside the walls of the Villa.

Every slave of the House of
Tiberius was invited to escape of course because any slaves left behind would
be executed. During the battle 2 other coaches would be brought up to the gates
for the purposes of loading up the salves and any captives should they want
any. To Petronia it seemed like a good plan. Probably had just as much a chance
of succeeding as in failing. An escape with a 50% chance of success was pretty
high as escape attempts usually went. So why was she thinking of siding with
her Masters?

She wished she hadn’t ever
heard of the attempt, and doubly wished it hadn’t come from her trusted friend
Albinia. Albinia would be one of the ones who would be escaping. As a rule, in
any mass escape attempt like this one, only those who really needed to know
were told. The more that knew, the better chance that someone would get drunk
and in a moment of weakness let it slip to the wrong person at the wrong time.
As she lay there tossing and turning she recalled the conversation yesterday.
Albinia had approached her late that night, after coaxing a guard to let her
out of her cell for fifteen minutes.

Petronia woke to find someone
whispering her name in the dark. It was her only friend Albinia.

“Petronia…Petronia, wake up!”
She hissed over and over until she finally woke her young friend up.

“Albinia, what are you doing?
How’d you get out?”

“Never mind that. I just did
a quick favor for that weirdo guard that’s on tonight. But I only ten minutes
now because I wasted five trying to wake your sorry ass. Now listen up.”

Albinia had told everything
she knew about the escape attempt knowing full well that Petronia would be left
out when it came to escaping. Being a female gladiator in a male world had not
made Petronia popular. Especially since killing Cletus who was immensely
popular among the gladiators as well as the other slaves. Then Petronia had
saved the Lanista’s youngest son and that made everyone who didn’t already
dislike her, not on her side now. And those who didn’t like her before the
incident, well they plain hated her.

Albinia promised to make sure
Petronia was among those who escaped.

So Petronia lay on her pallet
tossing and turning while sounds of fucking, farting, and arguing filled the
night air. Clearly she was not the only one who couldn’t sleep.

The next morning Doctore let
Petronia out to get her water for a morning bath before the men were let out.
Otherwise she would have quite a company of admirers while she bathed. She was
to present herself to the Domina for some task or something so she had to make
herself presentable. After washing and donning a fresh tunic she began left the
Ludis to wait for the Domina’s body slave to get her and take her to the
Domita. She was waiting in the courtyard drinking in the sun and enjoying the
feel of it on her skin when she sensed something was amiss.

Instinctively she reached for
her thigh dagger, the realized she’d left it with the Doctore. She would not be
allowed to wear any weapons in the main Villa. As she stood, a shape to her
left appeared to melt out of the shadows, a dagger in hand. She was in the
center of the courtyard, a good 10 meters from any wall that she could put her
back to when fighting. To her right, and straight in front of her appeared two
more men. One had a dagger, and the other some sort of iron mallet like what
was probably used by a smithy. They seemed in no hurry to do this which told
her this was well planned and sanctioned by someone powerful; like the Domina
maybe? But no, she had returned her son to her. No it was someone else who know
of her early morning appointment. Probably a house guard or a body slave of the
Dominus or the Domina. The three men approached as trained men would. Here she
was a 110 pound female gladiatrix, unarmed, against 3 fighting men, possibly
gladiators or just soldiers who were double her weight and were at least a foot
taller than her. This was not going to go well.

Every combat strategy she
knew slipped into her mind and right back out after being dismissed as
inadequate or not fitted to the situation at hand. The only thing that made
sense was to attack first. Size matters little. Aggression is what really won
the fight. Like that old saying, it’s not the size of the bear in the fight,
but the size of the fight in the bear. She was that little bear with a grizzly
bear of a fight in her body. She would kill at least one before going down
herself.

Almost the very instant she
was to leap into battle a high pitched voice called her name.

“Petronia!”

It was the youngest son of
Dominus.

“Petronia, what are these men
doing?”

The second he had called her
name the fighters began to slink back into the shadows. He had seen them, but
maybe not their weapons.

“Nothing Young Master.”

He approached her looking at
her quizzically. He looked around again for the other men but they were gone.

“Those men…they were going to
do something?”

“I don’t know, Young Master.”

“The men here…the other
sla-…gladiators, they don’t much like you do they?”

“No Young Master.”

“It’s Lucius. You don’t have
to call me that…Young Master.”

“Yes I do.”

“But you saved me. You could
have let the…the other men take me and you could have gone free. You’re my fr-”

“There you are!”

“Father?”

“What are you doing? Is that
slave bothering you?”

“No father, she was…she was
just lost. I was showing her where to go.”

“Lost?”

“Yes father.”

Dominus addressed Petronia.
“We have other pressing matters slave. Domina will not be requiring your
services this morning. You may return to the Ludis to resume your training.”

“Yes Master.”

“I assume you can find your
way back by yourself?”

“Yes Master.”

“Dismissed.”

“Yes Master.”

She wanted to thank the boy
but didn’t dare in front of the boy’s father. That would get him in trouble
possibly, and it would almost assuredly earn her time at the whipping post. She
bowed and left quickly, wondering if the men were still around there. They may
have been around but no one approached her on the way back to the Ludis, but
when they got there, it was a buzz with excitement. Apparently a patrol
returning from a supply run had flushed out a lost, bewildered slave, the very
one that had escaped some time ago. Petronia watched as the coach rolled into
the compound. When the gates were shut the head guard for the House opened the
back and out fell a female salve with a black hood on her head. Then several of
the guards took the woman and strapped her arms to the whipping pole and she
immediately slumped to her knees, too weak to stand any longer. When the
Doctore came out and took a look at her, he immediately summoned the House
physician and sent word to the Dominus.