In His Arena 1: Slave Eternal (31 page)

AND THEN THERE WERE TWO

It was rare for the Melee

To come down to two combatants

Rarer still for those

Two combatants to be lovers

—Prio Priassin, House Priassin, the Architects

Lucan faced off against Hektor, his mind awhirl, his emotions unstable. The gladius in his hand was slippery with sweat, and blood ran into his eyes from a cut on his brow he did not recall receiving. Only the barest remembrance of a mace cutting across his brow.

Before him, Hektor loomed.

And now, in the end, Lucan had the chance to appreciate him, how beautiful he was—his trim waist and broad shoulders, his strong jaw shaded by a day’s worth of stubble. Even with his shorn hair, Hektor looked stunning; with every flex of every muscle, his dark blue eyes filled with conflict.

“I won’t fight you.” Lucan’s vow rang across the arena.

“I won’t fight you either.”

Their voices caromed off the curvature of the arena, and the masses hushed. The Empress’s Theatre was constructed in such a way that every scream, every whimper and cry was amplified, put on display, and this confession between the two men stunned the masses into a restive silence.

Never before had freedom strayed so close to gladiator and he refused to take it. This was the Empress’s Theatre. Men fought, and men died at her whim. Those who refused were shown no mercy.

Lucan stood, numb and hollowed out.

In small ripples, the throng began to fuss and fidget. Minor outbreaks of violence—jeers and catcalls, plebes throwing their clay tickets onto the sands below—erupted here and there, and then like a sudden sea-storm, the ripples broke into waves.

The crowd boiled to its feet, screaming for blood, for sport. Clay tickets, rubbish, and refuse pelted the field in earnest now. The praetorian guard fell upon the protesters. They clubbed one man down, only to have two more rise in his place. The stands shook with the indignant roar of the masses. Things began sliding toward a riot.

Lucan set his jaw and looked up at the Empress’s balcony. He spied her in all her white glory, Alession and Stratos at her side. He threw down his gladius.

“I will not fight.” His gaze went to Stratos. “You cannot make me.”

Stratos’s smile slid across his face like oil. “Oh, but I can.” Holding Lucan’s gaze, the councilor stepped back so the curtain obscured him from the public eye. He raised his hand, and a black glow lit his fingertips.

An ominous pulse burgeoned in Lucan’s chest. His heartbeat began to race, sending fear through him like liquid lead. He could not move, could not breathe.

Stratos’s command was mild—“Kill him”—but the echo had barely died before violence burned through Lucan’s blood like a plague. Every muscle, every fiber of him was on fire to destroy the man he loved.

He stepped in, stooping to take up the gladius anew.

Hektor stood with his head down and his hand over his heart, as though a deep pain seared him there.

Lucan hated the idea of hurting him, but a deeper power within drove him to spill Hektor’s blood. He needed it, and that need was primal, visceral, burning in his blood and in his brain.

He had to have this man’s blood on his hands.

Hektor’s entire body trembled. Lucan stepped in. Hektor dropped his hand.

A dark mark burned on his breast.

A circle with two slashes on it.

The Ebon.

Lucan’s heart seized painfully, and for a moment, Stratos’s command faltered, its claws losing some purchase in his mind, over his body. He dropped his guard as Hektor looked up, his eyes glowing a deep black with the power of the Ebon.

“Kill him!” Stratos’s second command came, high and furious. It wound around them both and brought them to sudden, startling violence.

Hektor charged in, swinging wide with the trident. Racing into the eye of the hurricane, Lucan brought his gladius to bear.

They clashed harshly.

Teeth bared, Hektor shoved, and Lucan staggered back. In a breath, Hektor was on him, stabbing in wild and strong.

Sand kicked up as Lucan scrambled back, narrowly avoiding those deadly prongs. Bending quick, he seized an abandoned buckler. He barely slipped it on. Hektor’s next strike shattered it. Wood splintered and flew, and fury broke through Lucan. Screaming, he charged in close, where he could put his shorter weapon to better use. He slashed and stabbed for Hektor, wanting, needing to see his guts glistening on the sand.

Parrying, riposting, Hektor fought like a daemon, the Ebon burning tongues of black fire across his breast. Lucan felt the pulse and pound of his own Ebon brand respond, driving him, driving them both.

Blood splattered the sand—Lucan’s slash digging deep, the prongs of Hektor’s trident spearing his side.

They drove into each other, all unyielding blades and cold steel where there had once been the give and take of hard, pliable flesh and the warm embrace of a welcoming body. Lucan’s heart cried out even as triumph sang in his veins. He could not hold back.

Love and terror filled him. At this rate one of them would die. His body burned with the shackling possession of the Ebon brand.
No.
He cut for Hektor’s midsection, caught him and twisted the blade. More blood spilled, hot and heady.
No!

Hektor bellowed and lashed out. Lucan raised his gladius, but the fierceness of the blow numbed his arm to the elbow and tore the weapon from his hands. In the next breath, Hektor stabbed him in the chest.

The pain was remote, his body jerking with the invasion of steel. Lucan felt his own arm raise, felt his hand close around the dagger at Hektor’s waist.
No.
He pulled it, the blade glinting in the sun.
No.
He was going to stab Hektor, going to kill him.
No
… The man he loved.

“No…no… NO!” He roared his denial and flung the dagger with all his strength.

It shone, glinting in the sun as it flew from his hand and landed meters away. And Lucan met Hektor’s eyes, looked deep into the blazing black. He fell to his knees before his man.

If Hektor wanted his life, he could have it.

HEKTOR STRUCK AGAIN, knocking Lucan sprawling into the sand. A fierce triumph sang in his blood as he watched the boy collapse. Hektor went after, knowing his prey was wounded, reveling in that fact.

Lucan made no effort to run or to fight.

Hektor advanced, eager for this kill. His prey trapped, helpless. He stepped in, raised his trident.

Lucan only looked at him, his golden eyes sad. He did not try to lift a hand, did not try to protect himself.

A sudden flash struck Hektor—Leander lying in the sand, bleeding out, his hand raised, fear in his eyes. And now it was Lucan lying here. But Lucan only looked at Hektor in acceptance and understanding.

No.
Hektor’s mind spun.
I am not strong enough to fight the Ebon. I wasn’t that first time, and I am not strong enough now.

Even as he thought it, the brand pulsed through him, shooting black tendrils out to seize his heart. The Ebon would thread through his heart, it would sear it within his chest if he did not kill Lucan.

And yet, if he did… What would he need a heart for?

Howling in impotent pain and fury, Hektor stepped in.

LUCAN DID NOT defend himself as Hektor raised his trident.

“Kill him! Kill him now!” Stratos’s command strung Lucan’s body with obedience. Already, his fingers were twitching, reaching… There were plenty of fallen weapons. The Ebon drove him to seize one, to plunge it into Hektor’s exposed belly.

“No!” Lucan fought for all he was worth, pushing his will against the fettering power of the Ebon. He fought, crying out and clawing even as the agony blinded him, until it choked him, until the brand bled across his chest and stretched tendrils across his chest, burrowing deep into the skin.

And as it seized his heart, he looked up to meet Hektor’s gaze. “I love you.”

“I LOVE YOU.”

The words shocked Hektor to the core. He faltered, his grip on the trident suddenly slippery, unsure. He adjusted, holding it tight. To slide it into Lucan’s neck, to see all that beautiful blood spurt, that was Hektor’s only burning desire. It was his only wish, his only command.

And yet… He could not. He would not.

The dark mark pulsed, threatening. He looked at Stratos.

The councilor’s hand blazed black. Sweat poured down his face with the effort of holding the control, of forcing it upon his two unwilling slaves. But he clenched his hand tighter. “Kill him, Hektor. Kill him. Or else the Ebon will kill you.”

The dark mark throbbed and began to bleed across Hektor’s chest, reaching tendrils toward his heart. The black threads gripped at him, forcing his hand out, forcing the trident toward Lucan’s neck.

Lucan tilted his head back, exposed the white column of his throat.

Hektor’s hand trembled on the trident. The last time he had not been strong enough. The last time, on the verge of casting his weapon away, Leander had looked up at him in fear and in love, and Hektor had caved.

When the tendrils had gripped his heart, when they’d forced him, he had stopped fighting.

That. That was his true failure. He felt it now. Felt it and it broke him.

His own fear had bolstered the dark spell, making it stronger. He had chosen fear over love. He had killed Leander.

I wasn’t strong enough then.

His hand shook, the prongs of the trident scraping the flesh of Lucan’s throat. Hektor looked down at him. He loved this man with all his heart. Every fiber of him. It was pure and passionate and lustful and adoring. He had never felt anything like this.

True love and true lust.

Savagely, Hektor grasped the trident in both hands. In one move, he snapped it over his knee and threw the broken pieces away with all his might. “I love you.” He felt the power of it rush into him as he looked into Lucan’s golden eyes. “I love you, Lucan.”

A mirthless laugh from above. “So be it.
Lovers
.” Stratos spat the last word like poison, his face was twisted with hatred. He clenched both fists now, and the black glow burgeoned over him in a pulsating shroud.

White-hot agony racked Hektor as the dark mark bled rapidly across him, threading into his skin, his blood, reaching, digging. It wrapped round his heart and began to burn. Gasping, Hektor fell to the ground near Lucan. He crawled toward his student—his lover—until he could clasp Lucan’s hand. Lucan, too, writhed, screaming himself hoarse as he clawed the sand.

Hektor held him tight.
We will both die this day. But we will die together.

“HOW?” STRATOS LEANED over the edge, staring down at the Spectacle before him on the sand—the two men embracing, clasping hands, looking at each other in love as the Ebon bled like black roses across their chests.

It wasn’t possible.

No one could withstand the command. No one withstood the dark mark. He could not have failed. Alession’s spell could not have failed!

Behind him, he heard a dark chuckle.

“It’s all right, my sweetling.” Alession soothed Stratos with soft touches, stroking his neck, lulling him even as the masses boiled into a frenzy all around the theatre.

So many cries of “Mercy! Mercy!” Pennons waved, so many colors in Stratos’s eyes, blinding him. All he could feel was Alession touching him, kissing him, his teeth on Stratos’s nape, the gentle pressure of Alession’s hand on the back on his neck, possessive and strong.

This was truer than love. True lust. This would stand any test. Stratos leaned back into Alession’s touch, giving himself over completely. Alession’s hand on his waist. Stratos tensed. Would Alession plow him again? So soon after. With his seed still running down his leg.

Alession was right. All would be well. Hektor and Lucan would die, burned to cinders for their insolence, and Lucan would take his unspent secret to the grave. No one would know Stratos had been vying to kill the Empress. Lucan had failed.

But Stratos had Alession now. He would try again.
I will revel in watching that little failure burn.
But first, he wanted a kiss. Another kiss.

He turned to Alession.

And stopped cold.

The man’s blue eyes were cold and bright, his smile like a blade across Stratos’s heart. “Once she is dead. You and I will rule.”

Panic struck Stratos through to his bones. His words. Dear gods in Oversky, had he spoken them aloud as Alession had fucked him?

“No, Alession, you misunderstand. You and I—”

Too late, he felt Alession’s hand on his nape. A blow to his midsection doubled him over, the air gusting out of him. Before Stratos could react, the world tilted, and the arena below him spun wildly. He teetered on the edge of the balcony, flailing back as Alession held him.

One inch of marble between him and a perilous fall to the arena floor below.

Alession’s smile was cutting and cruel. “There is no you and I, Stratos.”

“Alession!”

“Give us a show, Stratos.”

And with that, Alession threw him over.

Chapter Nineteen

IN THE END, WE ARE ONE

In the end,

We are one

In life and death

And beyond

—Gladiator maxim, Arena

Lucan writhed, the dark mark bleeding across his chest and into his heart. His body seized and jerked on the sand. Tears streamed from his eyes.

Above the sun wheeled, blinding him. The sweat pouring down his face stung like scorpions across his skin, the sand abrading his skin wherever it touched. He baked and burned beneath the sun, but the pain in his pectoral was worse—fiery talons trying to tear his heart from his body.

He writhed, keeping his gaze on Hektor. He would do anything for him, sacrifice anything. Hektor spasmed and jerked, his sky-blue eyes no longer black but now filmed with pain.

Lucan saw the love there. He was loved, cherished.

They were content. Content to die with each other.

The masses shouted, shouted for their mercy. But Lucan knew, none would come. It was all right. He needed only Hektor.

Only this moment. Two as one.

A shout, sharp and high, came over the din of the crowd. The timbre of it was so filled with hatred and shrill fury that it took Lucan’s attention from Hektor.