Page 75 of Black Sea

We inhaled together to lunge at each other . . .

Someone cleared their throat so loudly that even the goats gave protesting noises.

Blushing to the tips of my ears, I untangled myself from Amlach and sat straight up, pulling down the skirt of my nightgown that had ridden above my knee.

“Perfect timing, Lotte,” Amlach said, without bothering to conceal his irritation.

She deliberately ignored him, her hard look fixed on me. “That’s the last time I spend the day searching for you because you had a fight with your boyfriend.” I started to respond in kind, but she addressed Amlach. “And you . . . Next time you find her first, you are kindly requested to bring her back into the house, not join her in the stables.” She wrinkled her nose as she observed the hay we were lying on.

Amlach’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Will do.”

The housekeeper jingled our collars with handcuffs as a tacit command for us to stand up. “Hurry,” she said after she chained us together. “Master wants you to get back to your training right away.”

As I watched her collect the tray with my untouched dinner, now swarmed with ants, and head toward the shed entrance without even waiting for us, Amlach quietly slid his hand back into mine and leaned down to whisper in my ear.

“Tonight,” he promised in a sensual voice.

I smiled, feeling as excited as I ever had in my life.

Before straightening up, he lightly kissed the tip of my ear, then winked at me and pulled me out of the cage with that smirk that drove me crazy.

45

2 months later

But that night never happened, because Mistress Yrrek had wanted him back under her sheets again. And again, and again. Seven days later, Amlach and I had achieved our match in the second round of the Games, and other Masters had begun to request his company.

Therefore, Amlach and I had inexorably grown apart.

At this point, I could hardly respond to him, as the lump in my throat was too large when he summoned the courage to speak to me. And the only moments I could bear to look at him were during our fights in the arena or when training with Roxior’s guards.

But today I felt different. I felt no pain as I forcefully threw open the thermal bath doors, causing them to slam against the wall and ruin the fresco.

All I felt was anger.

Relentless and hungry and boiling hot and corrosive and as red as the shower of blood that had drenched me when Amlach had slit the throat of the gladiator who had knocked me down and was about to finish me off.

Anger, because each time our adversaries grew more numerous and larger and better armed.

Anger, because I kept being forced to take lives to save my own and Amlach’s.

Anger, because there were still eight rounds left until the end of the Games, and I wasn’t at all sure that we would make it to the final.

Already without the collar and handcuff that Lotte had taken off as soon as we’d entered the house, I moved toward the showers, struggling to untie my armor myself. However, it was impossible, and with each failure, my frustration grew louder in my grunts.

I sensed Amlach approaching from behind, and the sharp scent of his sweat mixed with the metallic smell of the blood on me.

“Let me do it,” he said, pushing my hands away to get to the leather laces.

“Don’t touch me,” I snarled, fighting him off.

I began creating distance between us, trying to reach the damn knots by bending my arms behind my back, but Amlach suddenly seized my thick blonde braid with such violence that I screamed.

“Let. Me. Do. It,” he pronounced in a feral tone, with his teeth grazing my ear as a sinister warning.

I clenched my jaw until my molars ached and, resisting the instinct to turn around and kick him between his legs, let my arms hang by my sides. I could almost feel his half-smile as he untied the cords along my spine with one hand.

His skill with his fingers only fueled my wrath because it meant he had untied so many corsets in his life that he had become an expert.