Henri
Ashur and Hyas were trapped in a circular promenade, each with their hand cupped around the other’s skull like two stags locking horns.
“I’ll have to gag him,” Eubuleus said in an attempt to distract me from the match. “If he’s anything like Lucian, he’s sure to have a nasty bite, though I do love it when they put up a fight. Bloodborns are so feisty. Can he handle a little rough treatment?”
“Shut up, Eubuleus.” I was in no mood for his mouth.
Hyas attempted to duck under Ashur’s arm, and Ashur brought him down to the mats in a chokehold before swiveling to grasp him around the waist. Hyas bucked and got his knees under him so that he was in a kneeling position. The two grappled with Ashur attempting to get an arm between Hyas’s legs, Hyas fighting him every step of the way.
“Too bad he’s not a virgin, though. I do like my boys tight and trembly. I hope you haven’t used him too much.”
I’d be disqualified if I punched the hearthborn in the throat, so I turned toward him and said very lowly, “You will stop speaking this way about Vincent, or I will come for you in the middle of the night, extract one of your femurs, and dine on your marrow as a midnight snack.”
Eubuleus eyed me, perhaps weighing the veracity of my threat, then said sullenly, “I was only kidding.”
I grunted. “No, you weren’t.”
By this time Ashur had one hand locked around the back of Hyas’s neck and the other restraining his wrist in a painful arm lock. Still, Hyas was putting up an admirable fight, careful to keep his limbs at an angle so that Ashur couldn’t dominate him completely. After only a few minutes, both competitors were drenched with sweat and grunting like stocked pigs. Minutes felt like a lifetime on the mats. Just when I thought Ashur would have him pinned, Hyas managed to wriggle out of Ashur’s grasp, spiral onto his back, and escape altogether.
The two began circling again, and this time it was Hyas who grabbed the beastborn by his underarms and threw him onto the mats. Stunned to be on his backside, Ashur was uncharacteristically slow to react. Hyas took his advantage and swung him backward. Now, Hyas controlled Ashur’s hips, forcing him back until Ashur’s shoulders made contact with the mats. The beastborn should be fighting like mad, but he seemed to have given up entirely. Hyas needed to only lay himself across Ashur’s chest to the count of three. The match was called, and Hyas was the victor.
That was not the outcome I’d expected. In our training Ashur had bested me more often than not, and I’d never known him to be so slow to react, or so sluggish. Hyas stood, and the referee raised the warborn’s fist in victory. Their cadre of ceremonial drummers beat out a war song while Ashur was assisted to the sidelines by his tribesmen. Hyas shot you a haughty look, then turned toward me and flicked his wrist as though offering me the floor, the mats still stained by the sweat of his victory.
“We’re up,” Eubuleus said.
We spent a lot of time in a headlock, neither of us giving or gaining ground. I darted forward and hooked a foot around his calve, but he countered with a sprawl. So, I gripped him around his waist and lifted him a couple of feet into the air. He twisted mid-lift so that when I dropped him, he fell on his side instead of his back. Eubuleus made like he was reaching for my thigh and instead squeezed my scrotum so hard I nearly blacked out from the pain. I grunted and released him. “Bastard,” I hissed, then glared at the referee—blind, bribed, or both.
“That was for my sister,” Eubuleus said, circling me again.
After several sloppy attempts to take me down, I let him drop me, then twisted violently underneath him and scissored his thighs with my legs. Using his shoulder as leverage, I vaulted upward and rolled him over. We grappled like that for several minutes. I’d let him think he was gaining an advantage only to overpower him again, slowly wearing him down. In addition to brute strength, wrestling was a sport of timing and endurance. When at last Eubuleus seemed on the verge of exhaustion, I flipped him onto his back and laid my full weight on top of him. His shoulders relaxed, and I felt his fight go out of him. The match was mine.
I stood, and the referee lifted my arm as the victor. You only nodded, giving nothing away. Perhaps you were having second thoughts about having me as your consort. The warborn had fortresses and armies who would protect you. I had my blades, my islands, and little else.
As if sensing my insecurities, Hyas said to me, “What will you do when Azrael comes for him?”
“Defend him with my life.”
“We both know that won’t be enough. The warborn can provide for him. Keep him safe in a castle fit for a king, offer him every luxury imaginable, give him the kind of life a sunborn deserves.” He offered me a cup of water from the glass decanter. I drank it down in just a few swallows then went to reapply oil to my already slick skin.
Perhaps Hyas was right, and you were only devoted to me because you didn’t know any better. What kind of man did that make me, to keep you as my own while knowing there was someone else who could better protect you?
“I’d like a word with the competitors before the match,” you said to the referee. Hyas approached you first. You shook his hand and wished him good luck. And then, because I was stalling, you called for me like a dog. “Henri, come.”
You’d certainly grown comfortable with giving orders. I sauntered over. You were a few feet taller where you stood on your raised dais, surrounded by your loyal subjects with the midday sun shining on your crow-black hair. Arrogant and beautiful. Gods, how I loved you.
“I need you to win this match.”
I nodded, surly and tormented, only now with rage and aggression coursing through my veins as well.
“Don’t abandon me now. Get out of your head and prove to everyone here that you deserve me.”
I huffed in response. You’d made your point.
The match began. Hyas and I circled each other for several seconds before attempting any takedowns. He put me in a headlock, which I entertained for a few moments in order to tire him. When I’d had enough, I deftly maneuvered out of it. We traded grabs back and forth, none of them sticking, and then Hyas made his first real attempt to bring me down.
I quickly countered and laid him on his stomach with my weight on top of him. We traded positioning a few times until I knew the fatigue was getting to him. Except, I was dreadfully tired as well… unnaturally so. When Hyas rounded on me and flattened me with my stomach on the mats and his full weight on top of me, my limbs were slow to respond. Like dead weight. I was stronger than this and certainly stronger than him. And now he had me in a leg lock with my torso twisted and his hand behind my head. When had that happened?
Ashur… Ashur had been drugged. And so had I. It must have been in the water he’d handed me.
