Every single one of them fought as hard as they could, sweating and straining under the hot sun. It was a novice’s one chance to rise above group combats, above the honorless Diversions.
A thrill caught Lucan low in the belly, and his fingers tightened on his net.
Stratos walked him to the east side, to a ring cordoned off only by slashes of red paint on the sand. The novice in the center was burly and able-looking—a dark-skinned boy with a great scar that crossed his chest. Like Lucan, he carried a net and trident. He leered at Lucan while his trainer stepped up to speak with Stratos.
The two men—master trainer and quaestor—spoke in hushed tones. Denarii exchanged hands, and a smattering of spectators moved closer as the anticipation of battle grew. House dignitaries, identified by three thin stripes on their tunics, moved about the rings, casting votes and paying owners for a postbattle sample of their “wares.”
The business end nauseated Lucan, but he couldn’t deny the excitement that was building up inside him too. The clash of weapons, the shouts, the smells of sweat and men and blood. Tingles flashed fire across his skin, and he slung his net over his shoulder.
His look must have been fierce, for an onlooker—a councilman by his robes—clapped Stratos on the shoulder. “He is ready to go, is he not?”
“Oh, yes.” Stratos’s voice was unctuous. “We await only the word of the arbiter. Until then…” He sidled over to the fellow councilman and took him by the shoulders. They went off a way to continue their talk, leaving Lucan and Hektor alone by the side of the ring.
Lucan glanced at his opponent. The bigger novice stood with another gladiator. A man with white hair—Reklos of House Lucia. He had only lost a score of times in his entire career. Aside from Hektor, he held the best record for wins. Lucan had never seen him without his red-plumed helm and great ax. He was surprised at how youthful Reklos appeared, his body tanned and scarred, but his face that of a man no older than ten and twenty.
The way he leaned in as he spoke with his novice, his forehead almost touching the youth with the great scar—
They’re lovers, Lucan realized with a start. He could not help but glance at Hektor. A yearning banked in his heart, and Lucan was quick to squelch it. Instead, he focused on his opponent.
Hektor shook Lucan hard. “Pay mind to me, boy. Not to your surroundings. Ogling the flesh won’t help you when that boy is pummeling you with raw steel.”
Ogling the… Was that a note of jealousy in Hektor’s voice? Lucan looked at him, but Hektor didn’t let up. “Listen. The boy has reach. He is taller, thicker. Don’t let him get his hands on you. If the fight goes to the ground, it will go ill with you. Get inside the reach of his net.”
“Inside?” Lucan thought the idea ridiculous. To do that he’d have to race in, have to step into the very reach Hektor had just told him to avoid. “But I’ll be caught.”
“Odds have been made.” A short, balding man stepped from the crowd. He was otherwise unremarkable, save for the clay tablet in his hands that identified him as an odds-maker.
Lucan cast about. The skirmish was about to start. The advice Hektor had given him was poor—he knew it, could feel it in his very bones. He looked around wildly, but Hektor caught him by the shoulders.
“Trust me.”
“Trust you?” Lucan was incredulous. “Who’s the net fighter here? You can’t be seri—”
“Fighters at the ready!” The arbiter called the gladiators to bout.
Hektor held Lucan’s arm a moment longer. His sky-blue eyes were grave. “Inside.”
Lucan nodded, though confusion made him unsteady. He stepped over the painted line and into the ring with his competitor.
Great Scar was grinning, his desire to beat Lucan to a bloody pulp overwhelmingly obvious. His grin looked more like an animal’s baring of the teeth—a warning, an alarm in Lucan’s mind. He stepped in, lifting his net, testing the weight of his trident.
The small crowd hushed.
The tension broke as Great Scar lunged for Lucan. He made a side cast with the net, swinging it wide, nearly catching Lucan up in it. He managed to step back, but the weights clipped his shoulder. A sharp crack in the midday air. The crowd gave a smattering of applause.
His arm numb down to his fingers, Lucan stayed light on his feet.
“Pain is temporary,”
Hektor’s words rang in the back of his mind.
“Glory will resound through the ages.”
But not if he kept backing up.
“Get inside his reach.”
Lucan darted a step closer. Great Scar cast again, and again Lucan tried to dance back. But he was too deep. The net wrapped round his trident, fouling the prongs, dragging them down toward the sand. Desperate, Lucan tugged back on his weapon, an instinct he knew was foolish.
Great Scar cast the free edge of his net in, and caught Lucan’s arm up. Lucan dug in, shouting as his opponent dragged him in to spear him on his waiting trident.
“Inside!” Hektor shouted.
Inside? Closer?
Lucan still didn’t understand. He was doing his best not to be dragged closer.
And then, with one sharp tug, Great Scar yanked him in and leveled a fist at his temple. The blow staggered Lucan. In his stumbling, he twisted and tore free of the net, leaving his trident behind. Great Scar let him go. Lucan fell to the ground, tucking his own net close to avoid tangling himself up.
That’s all I need.
He could almost see Hektor’s disapproving look. But the world was a flash of sand and the white tunics of the councilors and other spectators as he rolled. Great Scar chased him, his net swinging. Sand kicked up from where the weights impacted, and Lucan rolled to his feet.
His foot was an inch away from the painted line. If he stepped out, the bout was over. Great Scar knew it too. He stalked in, trying to corral Lucan toward the edge.
Lucan waited. He waited. The past two weeks, lying abed and unable to train, Hektor had taught him patience—patience with his wounds, his limitations, and then, as he grew stronger, patience with his strength. It was only effective when used correctly, Hektor had said. That lesson had come hard-learned, but Lucan had learned it.
The spectators paced the perimeter, watching the combatants, studying their moves. Lucan knew that the odds-makers were among them.
Lucan glanced at Hektor. Hektor nodded.
Inside.
Great Scar cast again, and Lucan raced in.
Close!
He ducked the net, and it went over his head. He took the boy in the waist, bulling him down.
“Not to the ground!” Hektor’s voice was sharp.
Lucan quickly realized why.
Twice his size, Great Scar easily flipped him, and now his weight bore down on Lucan, crushing him, squeezing his breath out in labored gasps.
Lucan’s vision began to gray. Beneath him, the weights of his net dug into his ribs. If he could just move an inch… He struggled and strained, wrapped the weights around his fist.
Great Scar seized Lucan’s foot and twisted his ankle. Blinding pain awoke in Lucan’s body. He heaved and, in a painful tug, won free.
Lashing back with fist and weighted net, he caught the other novice in the temple. Unceremoniously, Great Scar went down, bleeding, disoriented. Lucan rolled up, panting, bloody, covered in sand, his blond hair wild.
He knew he looked savage. He didn’t care.
Great Scar was trying to crawl away. Lucan stepped in. All around the perimeter, the councilors and odds-makers were watching to see what he would do. Hektor nodded.
“Never forget. It is first and foremost a Spectacle.”
Lucan made a show of raising his arms high. His shoulder screamed in protest, but the shouts of even the small crowd drowned it out. Giddy, he stalked to Great Scar’s net and picked it up. The cord that tied it to his opponent’s wrist was still intact, making it appear as though Lucan used him as a puppet.
In one smooth move, he swung the net up and over Great Scar’s head and then lashed it around the novice’s neck. Pulling back, Lucan brought the dazed Great Scar to his feet and began choking him.
The novice’s hands scrabbled back; he tried to tear at Lucan’s face, but Lucan kept his head tucked down tight. Great Scar got a small handful of hair. It wasn’t enough to count.
His grip flagged as Lucan choked the consciousness out of him.
Over Great Scar’s shoulder, Lucan glanced at the crowd. All eyes were on him, the throng thickening by the moment as their shouts and cheers drew others from nearby bouts.
Reklos called some calm advice, but it was too late. Great Scar was going out. In the next moment, he sagged in Lucan’s grip.
Lucan released him immediately, and the crowd began to disperse, some still cheering and clapping, others grumbling, disappointed that the odds-makers could have guessed wrong. The distinct clink of triens, even a scattered denarii or two exchanging hands punctuated the din.
Unable to keep the smile from his face, Lucan fairly beamed as Hektor approached.
The man’s body was perfection. He moved with the grace of a predator. And suddenly Lucan wanted all that male grace and strength for his own. He wanted to feel Hektor near him and inside him; he wanted Hektor to bend him over the table and fuck him hard and fast and then hold him as the sweat cooled on their bodies.
Drawn by that yearning, he moved toward Hektor.
Stratos cut him off. “Come.” He slid a heavily muscled arm around Lucan’s shoulders. “Let us have you see the healers, and then you can claim your prize in the morn.”
“My prize?
“Of course.” Stratos sent a sly look Hektor’s way. “The Victor’s Claim.”
* * * *
Lucan stormed into the racks, his face hot. He threw his net in the corner, savagely pleased when the weights crashed against the wood floor.
He didn’t want Great Scar. Not one single bit, and yet, if he didn’t take him, everyone would know there was something wrong with Lucan of House Vulpinius.
He slammed his trident at the rack, not caring that it slipped from the prongs and clattered to the floor.
No, there was only one man he wanted. One man who was unattainable, one man he burned for.
“Lucan.”
Hektor’s soft voice nearly made Lucan break down. He turned, allowing his mentor to see the shattered look on his face.
Hektor stood as though conflicted, and then he crossed the room in two strides. Cupping Lucan’s chin in one hand, he pulled him in and claimed his mouth.
At the first, delicious contact, Lucan moaned, opening beneath Hektor’s lascivious assault. The primus palus delved inside, licking and tasting Lucan’s sultry mouth. His hands came down on Lucan’s hips, gripped tight, and pulled him in.
The collision of their bodies tore a needy groan from Lucan’s throat, the hard rod of Hektor’s arousal nudging against him. He ground against it, his own cock stiffening painfully. Kissing Hektor, rubbing against him like a cat in heat, Lucan leaned close to sample the scent of him. Hektor smelled of leather and mild sweat, male musk and fettered desire.
Lucan broke the kiss to brush his lips across Hektor’s neck, across his stubble.
Bending his head, Hektor retook Lucan’s mouth in a fierce claiming, shoving him back against the rack. They stumbled together as they fought, mouths open, tongues twining, Hektor massaging Lucan’s cock through his loincloth.
Several weapons fell over, clanging to the ground.
Hektor kicked them out of the way. He pressed Lucan against the rack, tongue still invading his mouth, one hand stroking Lucan’s shaft, the other finding his bare chest. He pinched Lucan’s nipples—first one and then the other—and leaned down to suck at them in turn, rolling his tongue over the hardened pearls.
Lucan moaned, his fingers catching at the thong that held Hektor’s black hair back from his face. One sharp tug, and all that luxurious hair came free, cascading down in soft black waves about his hands. He sank his fingers into it and pulled Hektor closer, sighing as his mentor’s hungry mouth fastened on his nipple, warm and wet.
Lucan’s eyes rolled back in his head as Hektor palmed his shaft and rubbed softly with an open palm. He did not grab or clench. He coaxed, and Lucan pumped against him, jutting his hips hard against the caress.
Hektor laughed softly into his mouth.
It wasn’t enough.
Lucan was burning for him, burning to touch him, to taste him, to have Hektor’s hot meat sliding down his throat. He slipped from beneath his mentor’s hands and went to his knees. He nudged at Hektor’s thighs to get him to open wider, and Hektor did.
Urging closer, Lucan inhaled the dusky scent of Hektor’s manhood, of sweat and darker desire. Lucan could not bear it any longer. He reached beneath the tunic and freed Hektor’s thick shaft from its confinement. For a long moment, he fairly stared at it—heavy, veined, uncut. Lucan didn’t think he could take it all.
And yet, he was willing to try.
He parted his lips and licked the head, swirling his tongue around it to get Hektor wet. The primus palus gave a guttural groan and pushed forward, rubbing his cock tip against Lucan’s mouth, trickles of precum wetting Lucan’s lips.
The salty spunk taste drove Lucan wild. He licked and laved, prodding the foreskin with his tongue, lapping beneath the crown and then opening wide to take Hektor deeper down the shaft. He got a few inches in before the head pushed against his throat. He came back, panting.
Fighting to catch his breath, Lucan gazed up. Hektor’s eyes were dilated in lust. He spread his legs and held the base of his cock. With his other hand, he massaged his balls. They were heavy and gorgeous. Lucan took one in his mouth. He nibbled the sensitive sac, tonging his way over their contours until he was back at Hektor’s hard dick.
“I want you,” Lucan said.
“Then have me.”
Without ceremony, Lucan stretched his lips over that hot dick and swallowed him down. Inch after inch, Hektor’s stiff shaft burned into him until it was seated deep in the clasp of his throat. His mouth stretched obscenely, Lucan breathed out his nose. He imaged what he looked like on his knees, another man’s cock shoved in his mouth.
From the lustful way Hektor was looking down at him, Lucan must have made a fine spectacle indeed.