Hektor stepped up, freeing his own cock from its confinement. It sprang up, heavy, the tip damp with precum. He damned his traitorous body. The first touch of the head on the man’s hole, and he’d explode.
That’s it. Think only of the pleasure.
He banished his guilt, banished his memories, and resigned himself.
At least he could sate his body and make it good for his Claim. He reached for the oil.
Kneeling, he spread the conquest’s ass cheeks and began rolling his fingertips around that puckered hole, smearing the oil, dipping a fingertip inside. The dark scents of musk and man and sweat drove Hektor to full arousal, his cock achingly hard. He worked one, then two fingers inside the man’s hot, tight ring. He stretched and scissored, reveling in the shuddering moans from his conquest.
Hektor yearned for a taste.
He leaned in, burying his nose and mouth in that crease, tonguing the man’s puckered entrance. The chains creaked and groaned wildly as the gladiator ground back, shoving his ass into Hektor’s face, trying to get Hektor to spear him with his tongue.
With a licentious groan, Hektor gave him what he wanted, licking deep inside the man’s hole, holding him open with greedy hands. Hektor worked him with fingers and tongue, getting him wet with saliva and oil. His cock throbbed in time with each thrust of his tongue. Hektor panted with raw need. He needed. He
wanted
. He stood, keeping his hands on the man, keeping his cheeks spread wide.
One more glance at that glistening hole.
Hektor nudged the slick entrance with his cock. Slowly, he began to push inside, feeding each inch of his rod into the man’s ass, tunneling in tight. The man bucked and writhed beneath him, his groans guttural, torn from his lips. The grating gyrations of the chains, the sensation of being squeezed inside another man’s body… Hektor went wild. He grabbed the man’s hips and impaled him to the hilt, lunging in with his cock, invading the man’s ass with every hard thrust.
Lost to pleasure, sucked into that gripping hole, Hektor shouted his triumph. He leaned over, his sweaty chest against the man’s sweat-soaked back, and bit his neck, yanking at his hair. His other hand dug into his conquest’s hip, pulling him back even as Hektor shoved forward, humping the other man’s ass. Driving himself in deep. The sounds of flesh slapping flesh, Hektor’s balls smacking the man’s ass, echoed in the small space.
Their groans joined those of the other men in rut.
Hektor thrust in and stayed there, grinding hard against the man’s ass. “Take it. Take every fucking inch of me.”
“Yes,” came his conquest’s panted whisper.
One more sharp plunge, and Hektor exploded, spilling his hot load deep within the man’s quivering hole. He pumped, driving his cum deeper with a wild desperation.
Three more lunging thrusts, and Hektor pulled out. A rivulet of cum ran down the man’s thigh. Hektor watched it, the pearly liquid trickling to the dust where it would be lost forever.
The man sagged, but his cock was still heavy. “We’re not done.”
Hektor’s words came out raw and rough. “The Abyss we’re not.” He was under no obligation to do anything but plow his conquest. Clearly the man had enjoyed it. They were finished. Hektor felt guilty enough without having another man’s cum on his hands, in his mouth…
“You’re Hektor Actaeon.”
“And?” Hektor struggled to keep his voice steady.
“You wouldn’t want me telling anyone it wasn’t good now, would you?”
A bolt of fear shot through Hektor and then anger swept after it, taking his sanity. Without thinking, he brought his open palm down on the man’s ass.
Smack!
The sound carried in the small, hollow space.
The man grunted. “Fffuuuuck.”
The sound of his lecherous moan drove Hektor beyond reason. He slapped the man again and then again, harder, the headiness of the act, the noise of the slaps making him hard again. His cock stood up stiff as an iron rod.
Doomsayer in the Abyss, what is wrong with me?
The man’s ass was a pretty pink, more enticing with every moan and roll of his hips. Hektor could not keep his hands from his own cock—the sight of that pink ass, the glide of his rigid pole through his fingers driving him to wantonness. The implication that he was somehow deficient rolled through Hektor like a storm.
He stepped forward and, in one jab, speared the man again with his cock. He grabbed without ceremony, taking the man’s hips and pounding him so hard the chains’ bindings rattled.
Hektor’s lust was mindless, boundless. He was shouting with each thrust, fucking that tight hole, using its owner. Reaching around, he palmed the man’s cock and jerked him in time to his rutting. The man moaned, leaning his head back on Hektor’s shoulder and thrusting himself into the gladiator’s hands.
“Yeah, that’s it. Pump my cock. Fuck!”
Hektor went harder, faster, plowing the man until he had no breath to speak. It was easier that way, easier when his face was turned, when all Hektor could hear was breathy moans and guttural groans, the slap of cock and balls and ass coming together.
His eyes rolled back into his head, and on the hazy edge of orgasm, he thought again of Leander. Every pump, every dark thrust, into Leander’s ass or the clasp of his throat.
“Leander,” he whispered.
“Yes,” the man managed, riding him. “Fuck me. Fuck me hard!”
And Hektor did—taking him, fucking him, his fingers biting into the man’s hips as he rammed him. “Leander, Leander, Leander,” he cried until his throat was raw and his cock ran dry, pumping load after sweltering load deep into his conquest’s tight ass.
He withdrew, sweaty and hot and confused. And as his cum ran down the man’s thigh, Hektor tucked himself back into his loincloth and fairly fled the cell.
* * * *
The sun beat mercilessly down on the Grand Palestra, and it wasn’t yet midday. Stratos stood at the edge of the theatre’s training field, closing his eyes as a stray wind blew sand and grit about like dervishes. He brushed dirty-blond hair back from his face and looked over to where the novice gladiators labored against one another with spear and net and trident.
Some of them fumbled and stumbled about like newly born colts just finding their legs. They were all young, eager, strong, not yet tainted by Arena and her whorish ways. He watched the sweat roll off taut, rippling muscle and flesh. His mouth felt dry, and he lifted his wineskin to his lips.
The watered wine was silky on his throat, but he wished for something hotter, more forceful—a heady claiming in the dark of night, skin against sweaty skin, a sleek cock shoved into his throat, deliciously choking him as icy blue eyes…
A moan escaped Stratos a breath before bitterness made him clamp his teeth over it. Even now, Alession was with
her
again. He was her consul, but still, how many matters of state needed to be discussed each day? Stratos balled his fists and resisted punching the nearest straw practice dummy.
Once, he and Stratos had been close in confidence. Fellow lictors, they spent most of their waking hours discussing politics, philosophy, art. They drank at the same alehouses, whored at the same whorehouses, ate together, bathed together.
They had even… Once.
But that was three years ago. Before Stratos allowed House Actaeon to steal an assured victory from House Vulpinius. Stratos sighed. The offense had not occurred at an ordinary Spectacle, but at the Grand Melee. The Vulpinius fighter stood ready to claim his victory, but in the last moments, he was foully slain by an Actaeon man—a man whom Stratos should have controlled better.
The Empress had been furious. She declared the entire Melee a travesty with no victor. No one discovered Stratos’s involvement, but Alession knew. He knew, and he had bet accordingly. In the end, Stratos lost his man and Alession lost thirty denarii. Furious, he’d railed at Stratos, called him careless, selfish, and cursed the day the Oracles drew the lot of House Vulpinius and placed it on Stratos as an infant.
It was true, Stratos considered. Perhaps he would have been better off in House Lucia with the artists or House Aeschylus with the philosophers. But here he was. The Oracles had seen fit to place him in House Vulpinius at birth.
And no one, not even the Empress herself, questioned an Oracle.
Stratos pushed himself away from the column he’d been leaning on. Another deep pull from his wineskin and he left the comfort of the shady portico for the burning sands of the training grounds.
The sun blared down, ensuring he kept his head bowed.
Good. Then I won’t be tempted to look up, won’t be tempted to see…
Too often these days, the bitch-queen took Alession to her private balcony.
A muscle in Stratos’s jaw jumped, and he unclenched his teeth. Alession had been her slave ever since she’d named him consul. He attended her day and night.
But not for long.
The Grand Melee was coming up, and when the victorious gladiator crested the dais, when he stood before her to receive his laurels, his dagger would find her throat.
Stratos approached the ring of novices, where Lucan practiced passes with his gladius.
The gladiator victorious. And he does not even know yet.
A thrill raced low through Stratos’s belly. The heady thought of placing his assassin so close to the blind Empress, of murdering her in cold blood…
Alession would rule, then, and he would finally know Stratos’s true feelings. They wouldn’t have to hide any longer. That one kiss, that one fuck in the baths, Alession peeling back Stratos’s tunic to lave his nipples with kisses—Stratos grew hard with the remembrance of it—Alession’s cock, thick and sleek, pounding into him without mercy.
There were nights Stratos still awoke with the sore feeling in his thighs and his ass, with the sensual trickle of Alession’s hot cum running down his thighs.
We are meant to be.
But, for now, he would be patient, bide his time.
He strode toward the novices. On days like today, when there was no Spectacle, no games or Diversions, the Empress’s Theatre was almost peaceful. The huge coliseum stood empty, rising to the hot, cloudless sky, an impressive edifice of ivory columns and the statues of the seven gods. Stratos always reveled to see the Doomsayer, Master of Souls, King of UnderRealm, rising taller than the EverStar, Elysia, in her golden chariot.
Even the blades of the Hail had been polished and glinted in the sunlight.
The Empress ordered them cleaned after every Spectacle. Apparently, she did not want anyone dying of complications to their wounds. No, not when their lives could serve as entertainment for plebes and Citizens alike.
His gaze traveled over the coats of arms of the seven houses—Lucia, Menelaus, Actaeon, Zaerus, Aeschylus, Priassin, and his own, Vulpinius. Some of their members could be his natural brothers or sisters, his natural parents, though both his mother and father were likely of an age to have passed into shadow of UnderRealm. He had no way of knowing.
Only the Oracles knew, and they never spoke their secrets.
Stratos snorted. It should have been easy to find his natural family. He was the only blond in the sea of brunets that was House Vulpinius. For a moment, he pictured Alession leaning over him, his black hair tousled and sweaty, that devilish smile and the glint in his ice-blue eyes… The glint that had promised Stratos everything.
And yet he gives me nothing.
He risked a squinting glance at the Empress’s balcony. The curtains were drawn. Stratos could only wonder at the depravities she ordered in her private chambers. Everyone knew that without her sight, her needs were amplified.
Fight or fuck. Those were her rules.
He looked up at the white clouds. A clear day, temperate for the desert region, the breeze giving the novices on these burning sands a modicum of relief. Whatever the Empress’s needs, someone must have been meeting them.
Not Alession.
Of course not. The consul was clear about his interest in men only.
But he is ambitious.
And preposterous though it was, Stratos feared the day would come where Alession would return to him smelling of
her
. Smelling of sex and exotic perfume and coitus with a woman.
A stone slipped into his sandal, and he walked despite it, ignoring the stabbing pain in his foot. The shouts of the novices retook his attention. Lucan. Now Lucan Vulpinius. Gladiators had no choice which house purchased them. Stratos knew Alession had paid a hefty sum for the boy—ten aureus crowns—and had even enslaved him for Stratos.
As a toy, nothing more.
Did Alession think to distract him with lesser fare?
No. He loves me. He just isn’t free to pursue me. Because of her.
A flash of guilt stole into Stratos.
He does not know I mean to kill his ladylove with his own gladiator.
The thought was intoxicating, but he kept the thrill off his face as he stopped at the edge of the ring.
Several of the novices glanced over. More than one lingered on Stratos’s dirty-blond hair, his light-hued eyes, corded biceps. He crossed his arms to afford them a better look. After all, there was no harm in ogling. He rather liked their attention.
Lucan’s eyes were wary, but he put up his gladius and came to Stratos’s side. The boy looked peaked, as though he hadn’t slept. Stratos pushed back the boy’s hair—golden like wheat, where Stratos’s was the hue of hay—and looked at his teeth, as though he were a prize horse or piece of livestock.
Lucan’s eyes rolled in fear, and he pulled away.
“I’ll make sure the servants bring you an extra allotment of oranges,” Stratos said. “I don’t like the look of those gums.”
Lucan blushed.
Stratos patted his arm.
Poor child.
As though any of this was his fault. Lucan was just a convenient scapegoat. Stratos noticed the boy looking around. “What is it?”
Lucan toed the ground.
Stratos lost patience. “What?” he said, perhaps a bit too harshly.
“Hektor,” the boy blurted. “Where is Hektor Actaeon? I thought he would be training me.”
“Oh, he will.” Stratos smiled, but it tasted bitter on his lips.