He returned from every encounter either light-headed from the euphoria of having survived or bloody and nearly retching from the agony of her attentions. Who knew what this night held for him?
An image rose in his mind’s eye, of a dark-haired woman—the tallagacinwith her condemning gaze and bitter fury. A woman filthy from the road and the catacombs, yet still far cleaner than this predator in her perfumed silks, perched before him on the makeshift throne like a spider.
He blinked away the memory and the hope the reluctantagacinoffered. Distraction now could get him killed, and he had no intention of dying tonight, even if it meant taking the life of another for the pleasure of a queen whose touch made his cock throb and his skin crawl.
Dalvila swung her leg down and rose from the chair. The sense of threat made every hair on Azarion’s body stand at attention thecloser she sashayed toward him. The soldiers on either side of him tensed. His skin prickled when one of her fingers skated over his shoulder before sliding down his arm. The cloying scent of flowers, underscored by the musk of aroused woman, made his nose twitch. Her round breasts bobbed, sheened in perspiration.
“The private games are much superior to the public ones,” she purred.
As if on cue, the doors opened once more to admit another cluster of guards surrounding a man two hands shorter than Azarion and twice his size in mass. No doubt a fighter brought in from one of the numerous gladiator schools and transported to the capital for the empress’s pleasure.
Dalvila always referred to her gladiator lovers as bulls, and the one striding toward them lived up to the name. His close-cropped hair rose on his round skull like hackles, and the veins in his thick neck throbbed under his skin. The beefy shoulders bulged, as did his massive arms, and he moved with a lumbering gait that, while ungraceful, spoke of immense strength and speed.
“Lovely,” the empress said and clapped her hands, her delighted smile avaricious. She curled a lock of Azarion’s hair around one finger. “Time to please your mistress, bull.” She nodded to his guards, who hauled him to his feet.
Blood roared through his veins, and his heart thundered a beat in his chest that echoed in his skull. For one moment, he met Dalvila’s gaze. His stomach clenched, as it always did when he looked into her eyes.
Bards had written and sung odes to the empress’s beauty, including her blue eyes. Azarion was sure none had ever peered into their depths. Behind the blue lurked... nothing. Only an abyssal emptiness, as if the goddesses had created a child and forgot to bequeath it a soul. His gaze flickered away, back to the less lethalfighter waiting to break him in half. The sight of his opponent didn’t make Azarion’s spirit shudder the way the empress did.
He toed off the simple sandals he’d donned in his cell. The chill of the marble floor made his feet flex. His breeches and tunic followed, leaving only the loincloth knotted at his waist. Now he matched the other man, almost bare and weaponless except for his own strength and cleverness.
The guards enclosed them in a makeshift circle, swords drawn to deter any notion about breaking through the living wall to escape.
The empress clapped her hands together. “Begin!”
Azarion dropped into a crouch, forgetting Dalvila, forgetting the guards, and especially forgetting theagacinwaiting in his cell. All that mattered now was the man facing him, as intent on winning this fight as Azarion was.
The gladiator charged him, his strategy obvious. Brute strength to conquer his adversary. Azarion’s counter was just as straightforward: keep away from those grasping hands and stay on his feet long enough to wear his opponent out, then go for the death blow.
He spun out of the way, but not fast enough. The man’s shoulder caught him high in the chest, throwing him off balance. He stumbled but kept his feet, pivoting in time to take a direct blow from a head-butt. The hit took him to the floor, knocking the breath out of him as his adversary landed on top of him. His hands wrapped around Azarion’s neck and squeezed.
Neither as heavy nor as muscular, Azarion used the leverage of his long legs to break free, swinging one over his opponent’s shoulder and wedging it against his throat, pushing back until the other man was forced to loosen his suffocating hold to keep from falling backward.
They clashed again, wrestling and grasping in a tangle of sweating limbs. The man went for Azarion’s neck a second time. Again, Azarion dodged him, repeating the move several times. His plan was working until the empress added an unexpected challenge. The crack of a whip sounded close to his ear before a hot pain tore down his back in a scorching line. He flinched away from it, directly into the gladiator’s deadly embrace.
The fighter whooped in triumph, only to shout his surprise when the whip kissed the back of his thighs, bringing him to his knees, Azarion still in his grip.
“Stop boring me,” the empress snarled, and struck again, this time catching Azarion across one shoulder with the lash. He glimpsed her face, pink with fury, spittle glossing her full lips.
The fighter wrapped himself around Azarion, his bulk belying his ability to act like a constrictor squeezing its prey. Azarion writhed in his grip, managing to free one arm. He curled his fingers into a tight fist and clubbed his adversary on the side of the head, hard enough that he rocked sideways. It wasn’t enough to dislodge him, and Azarion struck him again, this time full in the face.
There was a crunch of bone, and the other man jerked back as blood gushed from his nose and split lip. He let go to take a swing, his knuckles plowing into the underside of Azarion’s jaw.
Both men tore into each other, exchanging blows and crashing together like two bulls caught in the mating rut. The empress followed their movements, calling out encouragement or curses, and inflicting pain with the arbitrary flick of her whip.
The marble floor within the makeshift arena was slippery with sweat, blood, and saliva. Tired from a day battling for his survival in the Pit, Azarion’s muscles screamed for rest. He staggered from a brutal blow and felt a vague pop in his left side. The agony thatfollowed turned the breath in his chest into a wash of fire. If he didn’t end it now, he’d lose this combat.
A surge of power, fueled by desperation and sharpened by pain, pumped through his battered frame. He broke free of his opponent’s persistent grip, twisted behind him, and caught him around the neck with one leg. His position and the hard grip of his thigh defeated the fighter’s efforts to break free.
Azarion tightened his hold, squeezing until he thought the veins in his leg would burst. He stared down at his captive, who thrashed in his hold, arms grasping uselessly at Azarion’s elbows. His eyes bulged even as his sweating face darkened to a dusky red, then purple, and his mouth opened and closed in a futile effort to breathe.
The empress lowered her whip and crept closer, her gaze avid as she watched Azarion choke his opponent to death.
He stared at her even as the fighter’s struggles weakened until they halted altogether, and he slumped lifeless in Azarion’s grip.
They stayed that way a few moments longer, until Dalvila smiled her approval. “Well done, my pet! I do believe you’re the winner tonight.” She gestured for him to rise.
A pair of soldiers pried the dead fighter out of his hold and dragged the body out of the room while two more hauled Azarion to his feet. The moment they let go, he fell, clutching his thigh as the muscles there knotted into an unholy cramp. The pain was as bad as the one in his side, and he groaned between clenched teeth, uncaring that he might have incurred Dalvila’s wrath over his inability to stand at her command.
