In His Arena 1: Slave Eternal (32 page)

Stratos.

Bloodied, battered, the Vulpinius staggered toward Lucan and Hektor. He lifted a hand, trailing black sorcery through the air. It coalesced into a searing ball. The darkness of it pulsed.

It stole the light in Lucan’s heart.
He means to kill Hektor.
Even as he thought it, Lucan knew it was true.

He cast about, desperate. A broken spear fallen only a foot away. He twitched toward it.

The Empress stood. The crowd hushed.

Stratos staggered onward, his head lowered. Blood dripped from his fist, burning off as it hit the searing sands. “I’ll sear that righteous heart from his chest.” His black gaze pinned Lucan with fear. “He’ll die right in front of you.”

Lucan strained, his fingers grazed the broken haft of the spear. One inch of movement. Only one inch.

His love and life flashed before him. He had never killed before. Not in the arena, not even in this Grand Melee. He glanced at Hektor, writhing in the sand. Before the Ebon turned him to ash and cinder, Lucan would do everything he could to protect the man he loved.

If I will not sully myself for love, then what?

He seized the spear, crouched, and conserved his strength.

With a snarl of hatred, Stratos loosed the crackling sphere. It sizzled in the air as it burned toward Hektor. Lucan’s heart went cold. And even as the tendrils of his Ebon mark scorched him from within, even as the last tendril wrapped around his heart and began to squeeze, he dove in front of Hektor.

The crackling sphere impacted him in the chest. With all his might, he cast the spear.

Stratos doubled over, the haft protruding from his belly. Blood poured out over his hands, and he collapsed, painting the sands in a slick of crimson. His eyes glassed over.

Lucan crumpled to the ground, his chest flash-burned, his breath labored. “Hektor…”

HEKTOR’S BREATH CAME back in a rush of agony. “No!” He forced himself to his feet, his body dying and disobedient. He staggered, sweeping Lucan into his arms and kissing him—his ashen cheek, his cold lips.

“Hektor…I failed.”

“You did well.” Hektor’s throat clogged with sobs, but he choked out the words. His body racked with the Ebon tendrils, his breath coming hard. “You did well, my love.”

“I failed.” Lucan’s mouth twisted in a wry, painful smile.

“No.” Hektor smoothed back his hair.
How long before we die? Doomsayer, be merciful. Take him before the agony of death sets in.
“No. You didn’t. You saved me. You saved us bo—”

Iron horns blotted out the rest, calling for the Empress’s Tribute.

Hektor cradled Lucan close, closer, as if he could protect him from the sadistic practice. Then again, maybe it would be a good thing if she refused them the Mercy.

Another wave of agony ripped through Hektor. Death on the iron of the praetorian guards was beginning to seem preferable. He craned his neck. For a moment, the afternoon sun blinded him. And then he spied the balcony.

It was empty.

Panicked, Hektor cast about. What kind of trick… He spied bare feet in the sand, only a few inches away. The filminess of a white gown.

He dared a glance up.

She was brighter than the sun, white-hot as agony and ecstasy. Above, the clouds receded, and a shaft of light shone down upon her, haloing her like an archangel. She was light and death to Hektor’s confused mind, this woman for whom they fought and died.

She bent, and the light left her. She reached down for Lucan.

And touched his face.

THE COOL BRUSH of the Empress’s fingers on Lucan’s cheek galvanized him. He jerked in Hektor’s arms, the rage suffusing him once more.
Kill her. Kill her!
After all, hadn’t that been his original mission? He sat up, his heartbeat pounding against his ribs, the Ebon mark driving him, urging him on.

The Empress’s hand slipped to his chest, to the wound, and her eyes met his, her blind stare boring into him. She said one word, “There,” and the pain dissipated.

Lucan felt his body go limp. He sagged into Hektor’s arms, and the man held him. And even as he watched, the Ebon mark bled away, like ink running before water. The wound closed, the skin itching as though bees were attempting to lair within him.

She moved past him, reaching out and touching Hektor’s heart.

A slight glimmer in her green eyes. Everything grew quiet, the breeze that ruffled through her chestnut-brown hair the only indication of breath, of life, in the arena.

And then Lucan and Hektor were whole, healed, in each other’s arms.

The Empress lifted her palm. Pointed it down, to the ground, and granted them mercy. Her voice rang through the theatre. “Arena, you have your victors.”

For a long moment, nothing happened, and then the power of her words waved over the masses. The stands erupted in thunderous applause and cheers in favor of the two men.

HEKTOR GATHERED LUCAN close, pressing his face into the boy’s golden hair, smelling the sunlight on his skin, even beneath the blood and carnage.

The Empress turned to walk away. A glance back over her shoulder told Hektor all he needed to know.

She had used them, but their deaths had never been part of her design.

She paused by Stratos’s body, the spear still lodged in his belly, and with one swift move, she grabbed it and tore it free. Droplets of blood struck the bottom of her gown, spattering crimson along her skirts.

With a knowing smile, she took her trophy and quit the battlefield, leaving it to the two victors.

And as she vanished into the tunnels beneath—a last flash of white swallowed by darkness—the Bronze Gates of Life began to whine and creak open.

Somehow, together, they stood. Lucan took Hektor’s hand in his and raised it to tumultuous applause and accolades.

But Hektor was the one to say it first. “I love you, Lucan Vulpinius.”

“No,” Lucan said softly, his gaze shining on Hektor.

Hektor raised an eyebrow.

“No more houses. We are Hektor and Lucan.” He pressed his lips softly to Hektor’s. “We are free.”

Hand in hand, they staggered toward the Bronze Gates. Battered and bloody, triumphant. To be finally free.

Epilogue

The Empress sat on her dark jade throne, turning the haft of the broken spear over and over in her hand. For days she’d sat there, Alession thought. She’d not eaten or slept, but that was not entirely new for her. As the years passed, as she failed to age, she needed the comforts of the living less and less.

But to study a simple spear? Bloodstained and gory, its haft splintered, it was not even a particularly well-made spear. But it was the one Lucan had used to kill Stratos.

To defy him utterly in the name of true love.

Alession approached.

It had taken days and hours of hard labor, of whipping acolytes and cripples alike into a frenzy to drag away the bodies, to strip them and burn them, to rake the blood-soaked mud away and replace it with fresh, glittering sands, to clean the gore from the Hail, and to wipe clean the Empress’s Theatre of all the Melee’s carnage and butchery.

And yet she had kept a souvenir. He stood before her. “It is done as you have commanded.” He indicated the broken weapon in her hands. “Shall I dispose of that?”

“No.”

He tried a different tack. “The attempt on your life will not happen again.”

“Of course it will.” She smiled, and this time it was not a mockery from a woman who had never seen facial expressions. No. It was a true smile, joyous. “I do so love being hated. Hatred has such power.” She turned the spear over in her hands. “Much like love.”

Alession could not keep the frown from his face. “I do not understand.”

“You will.” She caressed the broken spear. Her smile turned from mirth to malice. “Some day very soon you will, Alession.”

* * * *

Lucan lay on his back in the field—a field much like the one he had painted in Sklava’s courtyard those long months ago—and reveled in the wild and crisp scents of the end of autumn. The scents of newly mown hay tickled his nose, and the buzz of dragonflies burred about his ears. Farther down in the fields, the cattle lowed, their bells a dull clang that reminded him ever so slightly…

He tried not to think on it. Hektor had chided him before, but Lucan could not help himself…

Ever so slightly of iron horns and brass trumpets.

Closing his eyes, he could smell the tinge of copper on the air, taste the salt of sweat, feel the grittiness of sand ground with glass beneath his feet.

And yet those days were over, the days of Lucan Vulpinius of House Vulpinius, champion gladiator and victor of the Grand Melee.

A breeze touched his cheek. He dreamed of it sometimes—the rush and roar of the crowd, the thrill of battle, the delicious fatigue that made him push himself to his limits and beyond.

While daring death, he had never felt more alive.

A light brush on his cheek startled a smile from him. He opened his eyes and gazed upon his man.

Hektor was easing himself down in the grass. The sweat of a day’s labor sheened his skin, his scent musky and dark. A twig of hay stuck out from his shoulder-length hair, and Lucan plucked it away in reverence.

“You’re thinking about it again.” Hektor’s voice was soft, without recrimination.

Lucan sighed. “Yes.” He looked at the sky.

Here, the sun seemed less oppressive, less given to destroy and more likely to nurture. He reached for Hektor’s hand, and Hektor gave it.

Tracing the strong sinews up to Hektor’s forearm, dancing along the sweet skin to his bicep, Lucan felt a hunger awakening in him. They had fought hard to be together, and now that they were, he found himself insatiable.

But Hektor had not yet taken Lucan as he wished. He had not yet faced him when they made love.

Insistent, he pulled on Hektor’s bicep. “Love me.” His whisper was soft, urgent. He met Hektor’s eyes and saw understanding there.

A flash of sky-blue eyes, and Hektor was straddling him, grinding his rising cock into Lucan’s groin, teasing him. He slipped a hand between them and stroked Lucan off lightly, tormenting him. Lucan did not protest when Hektor slid his tunic off and then removed Lucan’s in turn.

Hektor’s muscled chest glistened in the sun. Perspiration dotted the skin and slid down over one dusky nipple. Lucan longed to drag a tongue up to catch it, but he could not help the sudden spasm of his heart.

The burned-out Ebon lay there, a stain upon Hektor’s perfect skin. Lucan’s hand went to his own heart, to his own burned-out brand, and then he touched Hektor’s. For a long moment, they held hands there.

“I love you.” Lucan’s whisper was firm, strong.

Hektor’s smile was brighter than the sun. “I love you.”

Leaning down, he captured Lucan’s mouth in a kiss that was sultry-sweet and dirty. Moaning, gasping for more, Lucan pulled him down, opening to him—his mouth, his legs. He wrapped himself around Hektor, wanting to sink into him, body, blood and soul.

Gently, Hektor grasped Lucan’s cock and began to jerk him. Slow, torturous strokes followed by hard, fast pumps, until Lucan was panting, crying out.

“Yes. Gods, yes!” In a jolt, he came, spurting all over Hektor’s hand. He watched, lust and love burning within him as his man parted him and smeared the silky fluid over Lucan’s ass, delving in with one finger, dipping in just enough to entice.

Lucan wriggled, uncaring of the itchy grass beneath him. He spread his legs and tilted his hips. He begged with every part of himself. “Take me.”

And Hektor did.

Seizing Lucan’s mouth in a bruising kiss, he prodded Lucan’s hole gently. Just the tip slipped inside, and Lucan spasmed. He moaned, the delicious burn banking low in his belly, spreading out to warm his entire body.

He sighed, pushed out as Hektor pushed in, tunneling deep and tight into Lucan’s wet, willing hole.

For long breaths, Hektor held him there, seated deep within him, Lucan stretched and filled lustily. Their gazes locked, breathing the same breath, hot and wild, until Lucan could bear no more.

“Please,” he gasped.

The word was barely out of him before Hektor began to rock his hips. At first his strokes were long, languorous, striking deep within Lucan, grazing his prostate. And then Hektor’s control frayed, his desire rising, and he pounded Lucan in earnest, holding his gaze, grunting and gasping into his mouth with each thrust.

Wet, distracted kisses bruised Lucan’s lips, but he held his man tight to him, clasping him with his arms and his ass, urging him harder, faster.

Hektor pumped and pounded. One last wild thrust and he bottomed out inside Lucan and came. Lucan cried out as his man’s seed burst inside him, filling him, making him feel stronger, safe and secure, making him feel loved.

He pulled back and looked once more into Hektor’s eyes, at long last, claimed the way he wanted to be.

A breeze played over them, teasing Hektor’s black hair into Lucan’s face. And on the wind, the cheers and screams of the masses drifted to them.

Another Spectacle had begun.

Another day in the Empress’s Grand Theatre.

Loose Id Titles by Nasia Maksima