Azarion tightened his hold, squeezing until he thought the veins in his leg would burst. He stared down at his captive, who thrashed in his hold, arms grasping uselessly at Azarion’s elbows. His eyes bulged even as his sweating face darkened to a dusky red, then purple, and his mouth opened and closed in a futile effort to breathe.
The empress lowered her whip and crept closer, her gaze avid as she watched Azarion choke his opponent to death.
He stared at her even as the fighter’s struggles weakened until they halted altogether, and he slumped lifeless in Azarion’s grip.
They stayed that way a few moments longer, until Dalvila smiled her approval. “Well done, my pet! I do believe you’re the winner tonight.” She gestured for him to rise.
A pair of soldiers pried the dead fighter out of his hold and dragged the body out of the room while two more hauled Azarion to his feet. The moment they let go, he fell, clutching his thigh as the muscles there knotted into an unholy cramp. The pain was as bad as the one in his side, and he groaned between clenched teeth, uncaring that he might have incurred Dalvila’s wrath over his inability to stand at her command.
“Bring him to the bed and strip him,” the empress ordered.
The guards lifted him to his feet a second time, their aid ungentle and unforgiving. The earlier agony in his leg was now overshadowed by that in his side. He’d cracked a rib; he was certain of it. And if he was lucky, it was only a crack. He pulled his arm free from one guard to tuck it against his side as he staggered to the massive bed.
Silken sheets shrouded him as he collapsed onto the mattress. Every breath was a knife between the ribs, and he didn’t move when rough hands ripped away his loincloth, leaving him naked. Perfume mixed with the scent of gore filled the bed’s draped interior, accented by the smell of beeswax from candles nearby.
Dalvila crawled onto the bed, bare from the waist down. She straddled him, slim legs spread wide to nestle his cock between them. Her eyes looked black in the half-light, her nostrils flared wide like a wild horse’s.
She braced a hand on his chest, laughing in delight at the tortured hiss that escaped his lips. “You performed well for me tonight, bull.” Her delicate hand slipped down to grip his cock. “Keep doing so, and you might live to see the morning.”
The pain was making him light-headed, and still his erection surged in her hand, ready to sink into the empress’s wet heat. He’d learned.
Her hand glided up and down his engorged shaft until, impatient with her own teasing, she rose, positioned herself above him, and sank down hard, taking him to the hilt.
Azarion’s back arched, and he groaned, both from the agony in his side and the hard ride of the empress’s passions. Each gasp was a torture, every thrust a lash that tore up his torso and blasted into his skull until he thought he might exhale a gout of flame. The black stars exploding across his vision were as much from his injury as from the sudden shock of his climax.
Caught in the throes of her own orgasm, Dalvila rocked hard atop him, carving bloody crescent moons into his collarbones with her nails.
He slipped out of her as she tumbled off him and onto the rumpled sheets. Her raspy breathing echoed his as she sprawled beside him.
“Get him out of here,” she called to her waiting guards. “He’s destroyed the bedding, and I need a bath.”
They jumped to do her bidding, and Azarion found himself dragged once more, out of the bed and into the hallway outside the royal bedchamber. The guards waited impatiently while he stood on trembling legs to dress before shackling him for the march through the palace corridors.
He kept his gaze on the moon, partially hidden behind a scuttle of clouds, as the cart that had transported him to his assignation with the empress brought him back to the catacombs. The bone-rattling ride took on new and more painful depths as he struggled to sit as straight as possible. To slump meant to suffer, and he already exerted what will he still retained not to howl his misery into the silent night.
Never before had he been so happy to return to the grim reality of the catacombs and the cage he’d called home for ten years. The sight of the hollow-eyed agacin crouched in one corner as his guards shoved him inside revitalized his hope.
She was the wide grass plains of the Sky Below, the horse herds grazing under the sun, the Savatar women singing as they felted, the flap of the clan flags atop the atamans’ tents. She was freedom made flesh, and in that moment, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever beheld.
CHAPTER THREE
Gilene gripped the cage bars for balance and surveyed the crowd in the arena seats as the cart navigated the uneven expanse of stirred sand. Drunk on wine, spring heat, and a day’s worth of brutal blood sport, the spectators shouted for more, eager to witness the immolation that closed the annual Rites of Spring. Her fellow victims either clutched the bars and stared at the scene in horror or huddled in pairs and hid their faces.
Beside her, Pell tucked a skein of matted hair behind one ear and straightened her dress as if preparing for a street-side tryst. “If any of our worthless gods are willing to trouble themselves, may they be merciful and make this death swift.”
The gods have nothing to do with it. Gilene didn’t voice her acerbic thoughts. She touched the prostitute’s hand briefly. “It will be.”
The look Pell gave her held both doubt and amazement. “You have such faith then?”
Gilene’s dry chuckle lacked any humor. The cart transporting them rolled toward the pyre built of dried kindling, carcasses of animals killed in arena battles, and dead gladiators. A great wooden pillar, wound with thick rope, stood at its center—the final destination for the women sacrificed to the gods in exchange for their goodwill toward the Empire.
She had no faith in deities who found glorification in senseless butchery, nor did she believe they understood the concept of mercy. But she had faith in herself and her talent for wielding fire. She answered Pell in a sure voice. “Yes, I do.”
They said no more as the cheers grew to a deafening roar. The cart halted at the base of the pyre. The stench of blood, fear, and death filled her nose.
Guards gathered around the cage, their sun-creased features leering and cruel behind their helms. One unlocked the cage door and reached inside. Gilene was the first to tumble out. The crowd roared with laughter. Another guard hauled her to her feet and shoved her toward the pyre. The frightened cries of struggling women and curses from the guards accompanied her as she climbed over the dead piled around the waiting pillar. Flies swarmed about her head, their buzzing as loud in her ears as the crowd’s shrieking exuberance.
The soldier who pushed her onto the pyre bound her to the pillar with a length of rope, cinching it tightly so she wouldn’t escape when the flames licked at her feet.
“I hear the Prime picked ya last night.” A puzzled note entered his voice. “Odd, considering the look of ya.” He shrugged and left her to ponder his words.
Azarion had selected her for a purpose, not her appearance. She had little faith in the idea his plan for escape would work, but she had no choice in acting as his accomplice. His threat to reveal her deception had ensured that. The expression he’d worn while they bargained had been resolute. When the guards came to deliver him to his royal mistress, hatred had cast a shadow over his handsome features and flattened the color of his eyes to a flinty gray, and she had wondered whether this was the look his opponents saw when they faced him in the Pit.