Sovereign's Gladiator (2 page)

Devon made a friendly fist and tapped Marcus’ hard, hard shoulder. “I ought to throw you into the ring with that thing.”

Xan,
that thing
, gave no reaction. But Marcus drew himself up as straight as his battle-contorted frame would allow. Marcus had survived wounds that would have killed lesser men. The wounds hadn’t killed Marcus, but they left him crooked. “You assume I would come out the worse in combat with your gladiator?” Marcus asked, insulted.

Devon allowed, “I think you would last longer than his other opponents.”

“Oh,
thank
you for that faith,
ma dahn
,” said Marcus sardonically, then blithely admitted, “So do I. Take him.”

Take him?

The words had been spoken in innocence, but they echoed inside Devon’s head all wrong.

Take him? Oh no. Take me.

The very notion of the gladiator taking Devon dizzied him. And Devon was only half aware that Marcus was still talking, “You are going into the wild lands. And I can’t be with you. I’m trying to defend you the best I know how. It’s your choice if you refuse him, but he is the best there is and
ma dahn
should have him.”

Oh, I should, but that can’t ever happen.

Devon doubted a man like Xan had any use for other men. And a man in Devon’s position had no business submitting to other men. This was all wrong.

Devon should refuse the choice. He should dismiss the gladiator right now. He could not even think straight around him.

Yet he found he could not turn Xan away. He would sooner cut out his own fourth rib. Xan was here. And now that Xan was here, Devon feared he couldn’t breathe if Xan went away.

Marcus said, “He knows the tongue,
ma dahn
.”

Devon was hard put not to sputter at Marcus’ choice of words. Devon’s thoughts were taking every statement south. Every word took on the colors of sex.

Devon just bet Xan knew the tongue.

Marcus continued, “It would be a good thing to have a native speaker going into hostile territory.”

“Enough! Enough!” Devon surrendered. “I shall take him. I shall abide.”

He tried to sound reluctant.

On the eve of his departure, Devon strode along the second-level colonnade of his palace.

Off to his right, soaring arches presented a wide vista of the provincial capital, Calista City. Devon’s city was beautiful, as all things in the Raenthe Empire strived to be, with graceful public buildings of honey-colored stone and red-tiled roofs clustered around neat avenues, picturesque bridges spanning the river and airy villas built around garden courtyards planted with many trees.

On his left side, a marble railing guarded the drop to a ground-level training pit where soldiers often practiced their hand-to-hand skills against each other. Devon glanced down, glanced twice.

There, as if Devon had wished him into existence, was Xan, surrounded by Devon’s own personal guardsmen. The barbarian looked like a tolerant lion playing with a pack of boisterous cubs.

Xan wore little other than his fawnskin breeches and his wide leather dagger belt. A rawhide tie held back his leonine hair, though the tie was coming a bit loose now. Xan had a wooden shield strapped to his left forearm and he wielded a blunt wooden sword with his right hand.

Devon’s men were attempting attacks on the gladiator with blunted weapons. Xan fended them off easily, a master among students. He slammed the twins, Milus and Silas, down to the dirt. The two landed on the flats of their backs with a single
woof
!

Xan dropped his sword and shield and lifted the twins up by the scruffs of their tunics, one in each hand, as if they weighed no more than puppies. The muscles in Xan’s arms stood out like wrought Dascan steel. Droplets of sweat gleamed in his tawny chest hair.

Xan’s eyes lifted, met Devon’s. Xan’s gaze drove straight through Devon’s gut, down to his groin. Devon’s cock rose.

The men in the pit followed Xan’s gaze upward. Upon seeing their Sovereign at the railing, they lowered their mock weapons and respectfully gave Devon all their attention.

Xan slowly lifted one mighty arm up toward the Sovereign. Xan’s hand turned, palm up, and he beckoned Devon down into the sparring ring.

Grins and gasps escaped from Devon’s guards. Milus and Silas moved a little wide of the barbarian in case the Sovereign was not amused.

Devon’s mouth burned. It was a dare.

Devon nodded curtly down, accepting the challenge. He pushed away from the railing and jogged down the stone steps that curved around the pit. His men cheered. Devon darted a glare at Xan, making sure the barbarian marked that sound.

Devon strode into the center of the pit.

Devon was tall; not the tallest man here, but even in legions of powerful men Devon stood out, with a stallion’s power and dignity and beauty.

His cock stood blatantly stiff under his tunic of shimmering indigo. That was all right this time. Men often became aroused going into combat. The men would suppose it was the challenge that excited him. A hard-on showed an aggressive spirit. It was good for them to see their leader ready and eager to take up the dare against the champion gladiator from the wild lands.

Devon lifted his gold circlet from his head, pulling it free from a few clinging strands of dark hair. He passed the crown to one of his men, then ruffled his dark locks and shook his head like a dog. He unlaced his sandals and took off all the rings from his fingers and toes.

When he stood up straight and ready, Xan lobbed a wooden sword toward him. Devon caught the blunt weapon by its hilt and gave it a turn. He closed the space between them at a casual stroll.

Without salute or warning, Devon dropped low and swept his leg across the ground, fast as a snake strike, at Xan’s ankles.

Xan skipped over the foot sweep with so leisurely a motion that one could not call it a jump. Immediately, Xan’s fat wooden blade came stabbing down at Devon.

The sword tip struck the dirt as Devon rolled out of the way and sprang up to his feet.

Devon thrust fast and hard as Xan was straightening up. Xan deflected the thrust. Devon’s momentum carried him past Xan. Devon swept his blade defensively behind himself, feeling wood on wood as he deflected Xan’s counterstrike.

Xan retreated to the far edge of the circular pit.

The two faced off again, circling wide. They edged warily back in closer.

Devon stayed light on the balls of his feet. He felt the dirt between his toes and tried to gauge the solidity of the ground beneath him. Xan may be the champion gladiator, but Devon meant to win this match. His eyes never left Xan, taking in everything about the man, his balance, his grip, his posture, the angle of his weapon.

Xan’s voice came out a gravelly murmur, “You mean to feint left and strike my knees to the right.”

Devon instantly straightened up and stepped back out of the game, his hand up, thumb and two fingers extended to signal time-out.

Xan stepped back to allow the pause.

Devon frowned at Xan. “Now how did you know what I meant to do? Are the people of the desert mind readers?”

Devon was in deep, deep trouble if Xan could read his mind.

Xan said, “Men’s eyes can lie.” Then his voice became quiet, intimate, “Yours don’t.”

Oh shit.

They don’t?
What else were Devon’s traitorous eyes telling this savage?
They damn well better lie!

Devon broke truce and charged inside Xan’s long arms. Big men were never good at close-in fighting. Giants always counted on their superior reach to win the fight. The trick was to get inside their guard alive.

And it didn’t work this time. Devon’s blade turned in his hand. He stabbed empty air as he collided full length with Xan’s hard body. Nostrils, mouth, and head filled with Xan’s male scent, desert heat and sexual blaze. Devon’s face, lips and eyelashes pressed to Xan’s chest. Devon felt his crisp hair, tasted his skin.

Devon reached a leg around Xan’s unyielding body, trying to push his heel into the back of Xan’s knee and take him down, but he only succeeded in pressing his erection against Xan’s thigh.

I am so fucked.

There, locked body to body with the gladiator, Devon felt the wooden blade of Xan’s sword knock almost casually on the back of his neck.

And now I’m dead.

Devon let his muscles relax. His shoulders slumped in defeat.

Crap.

He exhaled against Xan’s powerful chest and swore like a soldier. Xan pushed him off.

Xan and Devon knocked the backs of their right wrists together in a soldierly salute to say
Good fight
.

Devon then turned to face the audience of his guards and a great number of other men and women of the palace compound who had gathered along the railing at the top of the pit to watch the contest. They were uncomfortably silent. Devon could tell they didn’t know how to react to their Sovereign’s defeat.

Devon raised his arms wide, palms up to his people, with an ironic smile and commanded them, “Mourn me!”

Chuckles ringed the pit with enormously relieved smiles. Everyone was allowed to breathe. They laughed. And the chant began. Not the familiar chant from the arena of
Xan! Xan! Xan!
The men and women here cheered their Sovereign, “Dev-ON! Dev-ON! Dev-On!”

Devon shot a stern glare aside to Xan. Devon’s eyes—eyes that could not lie—told the gladiator,
Note well, these are my people
.

Xan observed the scene with a closely guarded expression. His eyes, the pale blue of a dusty desert sky, scanned the guards in the pit and the ring of spectators at the railing. Xan’s eyes told Devon nothing.

Devon laced his sandals back up his calves. He refused an attendant’s offer of his rings. He was too dirty for jewelry. He straightened up and spread his hands in a searching gesture around him.

His men knew what he looked for and all pointed up.

Devon’s crown had found its way up to the second level. An attendant there at the rail held the Sovereign’s gold circlet. At Devon’s nod, the servant let the coronet drop.

Devon snatched the little crown out of the air and settled it on his tousled dusty black locks.

As he started toward the stone steps, he bade his gladiator, “Walk with me.”

Chapter Two

Devon stood only as tall as Xan’s eyes. Good. It would give Xan an excellent view of the crown on Devon’s head as they walked side by side along the covered colonnade. The barbarian’s heat was palpable, his scent enticing as desert spice.

Xan had pulled his faded blue tunic top back on, covering his torso. Springy wheat-gold hair stood up from the layer of dust coating Xan’s muscular arms.

Xan spoke first. “Why does one bow to a Prince and not to you?”

“Princes are chosen by the gods,” Devon answered. “I am a Sovereign. I was chosen by a mortal.”

Princes were born to power. As gods decided one’s birth, it followed that the gods made Princes what they were. Sovereigns, on the other hand, were appointed by the Supreme Reigna. The Reigna was a flesh-and-blood woman.

“Then you
are
less than a Prince,” Xan concluded.

“No,” Devon said.

A Sovereign’s power was exactly the same as a Prince’s, though Devon supposed gods-chosen must seem better than human-chosen to the barbarian.

“The gods have put some pretty fair imbeciles in power,” Devon went on with a faint curl at the edge of his mouth. “That’s why the Reigna replaces them with Sovereigns.”

“Is it you I thank for setting me free?” Xan asked.

“No,” Devon said. “I did set you free. Do not thank me. I did not do it for you. I did it because it was right.”

Do you hear that?
Devon thought loudly.
I am not besotted with you, you desert brute.
But he dared not show Xan his eyes.

Devon went on, “And anyway, I am the one who condemned you to the arena in the first place.”

“You changed your mind,” said Xan. That sounded like Xan was accusing Devon of waffling.

“Condemning you was the right thing to do at the time,” Devon said. “Freeing you was the right thing at the time. All things in their season.”

And Devon decided he was done fielding questions from his subject. “I set you free, yet you still fight in the arena. Why?”

“I am good at it,” Xan said.

Devon imagined he heard an unspoken
unlike you
at the end of that statement.

It wasn’t as if Devon had anything to prove to a barbarian, yet he heard himself saying, “Do not mistake me for some effete intellectual.”

“I have not mistaken you for anything,” Xan said.

Anger leapt hot inside. Devon’s cheeks felt red. Devon had left himself vulnerable. Feelings he had for this man were obviously not returned, and that hurt.

“Listen to me, Savage, I was blooded before my voice changed. Though I suppose
you
started killing in the cradle.”

“Later than that,” Xan said. “Just because I am good at it does not mean I enjoy it. I am not a warrior.”

Devon had to bark a dry laugh. “You jest.”

“My people are hunters. I was born a hunter, not a warrior.”

“You’re saying you don’t enjoy the arena?”

“
You
enjoy the games,” Xan turned the words around. “I have seen you there.”

It sent a giddy rush through Devon to know that Xan noticed him. But of course Xan would damn well notice the highest-ranking man he had ever seen, the one who decided his life and death, seated up in the Sovereign’s box under his gilded canopy.

“Enjoy?” Devon echoed. No. That was not the word. Devon was always in attendance at the games because he had to be there. The gladiatorial matches were an ancient justice—brutal, basic. They took a man to edge of his existence, a last chance to redeem himself with strength and courage. And with death. For those who witnessed the contests, the combat stirred the blood. Life was most vivid on the cusp at the moment of dire decision, when a soul was set free and justice was served. It was exciting.