In His Arena 1: Slave Eternal (30 page)

They raced toward the chariots.

The circle grew tighter, a charioteer wheeling in to cut Lucan off. He barely managed to pull up short before the wheel clipped out his legs. Almost too late, Lucan saw the shortspear. It grazed his shoulder and then cracked off Hektor’s shield.

In the next moment, the chariot was past them.

His lungs on fire, Lucan put on a burst of speed. He could hear the other fighters shouting, seeing what he and Hektor meant to do. He felt them closing in. He put it out of his mind, made catching the chariot his focus. Hektor would have to deal with the others.

Lucan trusted him.

Two more steps, three. His lungs screaming for air.

The essedarii turned, and Lucan leaped desperately. He snagged the back of the man’s armor, dragging him down. They hit the floor of the chariot, the man jabbing back with his elbow. Lucan’s head rocked, blood flooding his mouth. His legs hung from the back of the chariot, sand searing his skin.

Desperate, he clawed for purchase, grappling with the essedarii. The charioteer glanced back. Seeing his gladiator in peril, he swung the horses from left to right, trying to shake Lucan off.

Lucan gritted his teeth and held on. He heard Hektor’s shouts, knew the man was fighting.

Above him, the essedarii reached for his fallen spear. He lashed back and caught Lucan’s shoulder. The smarting blow jostled him. Another blow, another, another. Battered by the jarring gait and sands, he hung on, timing the strikes, saving his strength.

The chariot lurched. The blow came again.

Lucan grabbed the end of the spear and pulled. The essedarii toppled. At the last he tried to catch his balance, but Lucan smashed his knee, and the man went down, tumbling into the sands.

Buoyed by his victory, Lucan dragged himself up. The charioteer was reaching for a short sword, but he was a horseman not a fighter. Lucan dashed the man against the side, and he slumped to the floor. Picking up the reins, Lucan slowed the chariot. The moment he glanced back, Hektor was leaping on board.

“Go, go, go!”

FROM ON HIGH at the Empress’s side, Stratos watched the Grand Melee unfold. Hektor and Lucan made a fine team. Now that they’d gained control of the chariot, they cut a bloody path through their enemies and left men dying or wounded on the field of battle. The combination of Lucan’s skill in driving, Hektor’s expertise with weaponry, and their love swathed them in power.

After only a few moments, the other gladiators edged away from them, taking their fights to the farthest corners. The crowd screamed for more.

A myrmidon in blood-streaked armor leaped onto their chariot, and Hektor struck him in the face. Another, smaller gladiator clung to the side, trying to divest Lucan of his reins. Lucan lifted a stolen gladius, and under his hewing blows, the man went down, clawing uselessly at the chariot’s side. A third man clambered up the other side. He grabbed Lucan and forced him against the rail.

Hektor turned back and struck at him with a fist. Undaunted, the man continued to pummel Lucan. The crowd screamed as they flashed past.

The Empress barely moved. Her servants had labored to bring her dark jade throne to the balcony. Straight and stiff, she sat motionless, like a living doll. The only indication of her interest a slight tilt of her chin, her eyes unblinking, a shade lighter than her throne and fairly glowing in the light of the sun.

At her side stood Alession, his fine tunic pristine, the silken fabric clinging to his muscular chest and corded biceps, to his hips and rounded ass. Stratos could not deny his longing for the man. He wanted to go to his hands and knees and lift that tunic, to suck Alession off while men died in the arena below.

How hot to have Alession’s thick pole ramming down his throat as men struggled for their lives. Sex and death. Stratos could not get enough of them. Perhaps this was why he played this game with men’s hearts. He was already hard.

A chuckle from Alession. And then hot breath plumed across the back of Stratos’s neck. He jerked as Alession’s hands fell to his hips. The hard prod of his cock pressed against Stratos’s ass, and he ground, rubbing himself, using his pole to nudge at Stratos’s ass cheeks.

“You want this, yes?”

The masses roared as Lucan broke free and Hektor threw their opponent off into the sand. Their chariot flashed past the Empress’s balcony.

Alession began to hump Stratos from behind. His cock prodded again.

Sweat slid down Stratos’s back. It had been only days since Alession had fucked him here. It shamed Stratos to admit it, but he had reveled in the fucking, and in the end, he hadn’t cared that it was before her, his most hated enemy.

And now, with Alession behind him, riding his hard cock against Stratos’s ass, straining to gain entry, again, Stratos did not care. Alession was lifting Stratos’s tunic, the hot breeze caressing his bare thighs, stirring the small hairs there. Alession’s hand, slick with oil, parted him.

She’s fucking blind, anyway. What could the bitch possibly see?

Alession prepared him, opening him with two fingers, smearing his oil all around, and then his hot cock-tip prodded Stratos, barely nudging his hole.

Below, Hektor shoved his sword through his opponent’s gut.

Alession speared Stratos forcefully.

Stratos bowed back, and Alession shoved him forward, bending him over the balcony. He paused for a moment, pushed an inch deeper, and then fucked Stratos, riding hard and fast inside his quivering hole as the battle raged in the theatre. Stratos gasped and struggled.

Alession held him easily, grunting as he pounded Stratos with powerful strokes. “This is what you want, isn’t it? My cock in your ass?”

“Yes,” Stratos hissed. He pushed back, shoving himself harder onto Alession’s stiff shaft, debasing himself further. The burn lessened, and Alession pumped him, gliding in and out with ease, stroking Stratos’s prostate. Firmly, he grasped Stratos’s erection and began jerking him.

“I should command them,” Stratos gasped, indicating the two men below.

“Leave them,” Alession said in his ear, his chest rubbing Stratos’s back as he shoved into him with each brutal thrust.

Delirious with pleasure, Stratos tried to keep watch on the fight, but he closed his eyes and rode back, pushing his ass onto that hot pole, taking it as deep as Alession wanted. He could hear the cheers of the crowd, and as he rose to his peak, Alession fucking him, holding him down and using his tight ass, the chants grew hot and fevered, “Hektor! Hektor!” and then “Lucan! Lucan!”

Alession grasped Stratos’s sac and pulled it away from his body, then fondled him anew. His cock rammed into Stratos, heaving him forward against the balcony. He’d have bruises tomorrow.

He didn’t care.

He let Alession take him, have him, fuck him, their thrusts rising in intensity with the roar of the masses. Stratos arched his back, reveling in Alession’s touch, the lecherous pinching of his nipples, the questing hand on his iron-hard cock. Another pull, and Stratos was coming, his semen splattering against the wall.

He would have rather loosed it inside Alession.

Soon.
He glanced down, to where Lucan was dominating the arena.
Once the Empress is dead, Alession and I will rule together.

Alession shuddered, and his cock twitched. Stratos tightened around him, clenching, then releasing, and with a guttural groan, Alession was coming, spurting deep inside him. Stratos held him there as he came, and wrung every drop from Alession. Here, now, he truly owned the man.

Mine. All mine.

Alession collapsed against him, spent, his limbs slack, and Stratos reveled in the weight of the luscious man on his back.
Soon, and all for lust, for power. Soon.

A smile curved Stratos’s lips. He glimpsed the two lovers below. Soon they would know what he knew.

There was no love.

There was just lust—men you fucked and men you fucked over.

* * * *

The final blow knocked Lucan from the chariot. Sweat and blood poured into his eyes as the world tilted sideways. He tumbled over and over, Hektor’s shouts in his ears. The sand rushed up hard and fast, and Lucan drove into it, a furrow opening up beneath him as he slid to a final stop.

A few meters away, their opponent, Domitius Zaerus, slowed the chariot and stepped away.

Only the three of them remained.

Groaning, Lucan lay in the sand, his body torn and fatigued, pain arcing inside him, blood running into his eyes.

And then a gentle hand was there, brushing the sticky blond hair from his face.

Lucan gazed up into Hektor’s sky-blue eyes. He reached out, his hand touching Hektor’s. All around them, the sand was stained with blood, bodies strewn about like so much refuse. In an hour the Doomsayer’s acolytes would come and drag them all away. Their armor would be stripped and sold to the sick, the leprous, as powerful healing tokens.

Their names would be inscribed in the outer wall of the Empress’s Grand Theatre. The vanquished, the glorious dead.

The final twenty had dwindled down fast, taken by essedarii shaft and spear, by their own fatigue, by a knife in the back or a blade to the gut. Many had knelt to take the iron, and for none of them had the Empress offered even the slightest inkling of mercy.

Now, there were three of them. Hektor and Lucan. And Domitius Zaerus.

The Zaerus was huge, hulking, but fast for his bulk. His starsilver helm gleamed in the bright summer sun. Blood streaked his chest and his left arm, but it stained his gladius a dark red, and for all the world, only made him look even more fierce. Lucan had heard how Domitius had broken a man’s back with his bare hands.

Hektor’s fingers closed briefly around Lucan’s.
But I have Hektor. I have love.

As one, they rose from the sand.

Weapons lay strewn around them. Hektor picked up a pair of gladius and Lucan a pair of shields. Trading one for the other, they stood to face their foe.

The huge man circled, staying light on his feet, never giving them an easy opening. His reach was terrifying, his massive biceps and shoulders testament to his physical power. Lucan doubted he—and perhaps not even Hektor—could have contested him in wrestling alone.

“Behind me,” Hektor murmured, bringing his shield up.

Lucan tucked in behind. His own gladius felt woefully inadequate. A shield was good defense, but without a pike or polearm, Lucan wasn’t much of a shield-partner. He glanced about on the burning sands. He needed a proper weapon. Desperately.

Until then, all they could do was keep their distance as much as possible.

The Zaerus realized their problem as well. He charged in, hewing at Hektor’s head. Hektor lifted the shield, then lowered it quickly as the backswing nearly chopped his legs off. Hektor’s riposte rang off the Zaerus’s shield.

The first blows traded without injury.

They circled.

The crowd was on its feet, rattling their cups against the railings, stomping their feet, their cries hoarse and harsh from all their shouting.

The Zaerus bulled in again, this time lowering his shoulder. Hektor braced and blocked, crying out as the huge man shoved him back a pace. Lucan stumbled away, watching in horror as the Zaerus’s sword came weltering over the top and slashed Hektor’s back.

Putting his hands down in the sand, Lucan pushed himself up. His fingers touched something smooth.
Wood!
He pulled and came up with a trident.

“Hand it here.” Hektor reached back.

Lucan stepped in. Suddenly wary, he held it to his chest.

Hektor’s gaze was soft. “Trust me.”

With a nod, Lucan gave it over. He stepped in behind Hektor, winced as the primus palus deflected two monstrous blows, driving the two of them to retreat. Hektor’s shoulders bumped Lucan, but this time Lucan was prepared. He stepped slightly to the side, one hand on Hektor’s spine.

The Zaerus circled, his gladius set atop the rim of his shield. Offense, deadly. Defense, impenetrable. Hektor subtly changed the grip on his trident. He nodded slightly to Lucan. Lucan nodded back.

Hektor’s look was evident.
Get ready.

Lucan saw Hektor’s plan in his mind’s eye. He gripped his gladius, got ready to run.

With a shout, Hektor flung the trident like a spear. The Zaerus raised his shield to ward it off, and Lucan darted in beneath it. Two slashes to the man’s stomach, and he was down in the dirt. Hektor dashed in. Two quick blows, and they were done.

The crowd screamed with bloodlust.

Hektor rose. He gazed at Lucan over the fallen gladiator.

And then it was just the two of them. Just Hektor and Lucan.

ANTICIPATION SETTLED WITHIN Stratos. This was what he had been waiting for. This moment when true love would fail, when true love would die. He leaned over the balcony as he adjusted his robes. Alession’s seed trickled down his thigh, and he reveled in the slick slide, the scent of it—lust.

Lust was the one true emotion. Hektor and Lucan were about to find that out.

They stood alone on the sands, the masses screaming, heckling, stomping, the stands rocking. They would have to fight. The praetor guard moved in, corralling the two toward each other as the crowd chanted, “Iugula! Iugula!”

To the death.
But for which man?

Stratos scented the air, taking in the stink of blood and death, of urine and bowels, and the sleek smell of his man. Even now, Alession’s hand was on the nape of his neck. Stratos yearned toward him, smelling the scent of their sex and Alession’s perfume of oudh and musk. He could revel in this all day.

But the final fight loomed. And more than even sex, Stratos wanted to witness two men who claimed to love each other succumb to the Ebon brand, and destroy each other.

Stratos reveled in watching love die.

Alession stroked his nape. “Give us a show, Stratos.”

Stratos smiled as he looked down at the two lovers. The praetorian guard closing in on them. He raised his hand to call upon the Ebon brand.

He would give Alession a show. He would give them all a show.

Chapter Eighteen