Scorpion

Calm, Kendras told himself. He’ll be fine with this.

  Kendras held his breath, plotting a dozen ways how to prevent the fight from happening and reining in his anger and frustration at the spectacle. The opponent took position opposite the officer, who had both swords deceptively lowered. The officer fought like that—he often appeared unready or unwilling to fight.

  Wait until the enemy’s hand turns the stone. Then kill him.

  Emboldened by the “sacred warrior’s” reluctance to fight, his opponent tested him with a few playful lunges, finding nothing but lazy parries and lowered blades. The officer stood there, nearly slumping, head lowered, but Kendras knew he was watching from the corners of his eyes.

  Don’t meet their gaze; they will see your intentions. Kill them from an angle they did not consider.

  Kendras whispered those words in silence. His kind of prayer, his way to reach out to the man in the arena who’d kill or be killed today, for the amusement of his enemies who had brought him this low.

  “Why can’t they kill him outright? Why this?”

  Widow chuckled. “Why do some men keep tigers in cages? Lust for death.”

  “Philosopher, are you?”

  “Just used to having my own thoughts, is all,” Widow said. “Besides, your officer makes me want to keep a tiger myself.”

  The opponent in the arena lunged again, now tapping the lowered sword, teasing, prodding for an attack since he hadn’t managed to hit the officer’s chest or arm or leg.

  Kendras felt the onlookers getting restless, wondering, like everybody else, why the sacred warrior remained passive. The clang of sword on sword sounded loudly. A woman’s laughter rang out, the whooping laughter of a prostitute, maybe. Kendras was about to turn his neck to look up and spot her, but then he saw, from the corner of his eye, how the officer moved.

  Another teasing prod by the enemy had made contact with his sword, the left one this time, and the officer suddenly rose up, stretching, lifting both swords like the pincers of a scorpion, and plunged both of them into the man’s shoulders, pushing them down with his own weight, deep into the torso. Kendras knew he’d hit the hollow of the collarbones with the tips and pressed in, severing the big veins that ran along there. A spray of blood erupted, a terrible gasping breath rattled out as the enemy’s lungs collapsed.

  The man looked for a moment like he’d grown crippled steel wings, and then he collapsed, legs kicking the ground in what was his dying dance.

  The officer regarded him impassively, then knelt down, took one of the man’s swords without guarding himself against any blow—the enemy didn’t have enough control anymore to harm him—placed a hand over the man’s eyes, who strangely relaxed under the touch, then pushed the sword into the man’s heart without losing a beat.

  “Gods fuck me,” Widow muttered. “Good work.”

  It was just an execution, though. As skillfully as it was done, Kendras sensed no heat in the officer, no desire, no hunger. He did it because he had to. He functioned, but this wasn’t war or battle. As far as the officer was concerned, this was nothing.

  And yet, to see him alive—and fight and win—soothed Kendras’s mind. It would soothe him the same way to see Dev conscious and Riktan on his own two feet, or Selvan smile. He longed to hear the medic sing again, too, but that was over. Done.

  Whoops and chants erupted from the pilgrims. The high priest rose again and spoke of the forces of evil having been vanquished by the chosen warrior of the gods to guard the faithful. Kendras forced himself to sit through all that, and watched as a guard stepped closer to the “sacred warrior” and motioned for him to hand over his swords, which he’d pulled free from the corpse.

  The guard didn’t seem at all sure he’d receive them, however; there was a look of fear in his eyes that the onlookers could have seen if they’d wanted to.

  The officer dropped the swords in front of the guard and turned to walk back into the iron gate from where he’d come, head held high, blue leshta flowing in the breeze.

  Widow tapped Kendras’s arm lightly and headed out.

  The man led him into the guts of the arena, navigating the maze as if he’d done it before. After a while, they came to a corridor with heavy iron doors.

  A table and a chair stood there, a temple guard sitting in the light of a candle, cleaning his fingernails with a toothpick. He looked up and seemed to recognize Widow, since he didn’t seem alarmed in the slightest.

  “The fighter… what do you people call him? The warrior.”

  “Yes?” The guard stood, but kept the toothpick in his fingers. “You want to see him?”

  “Yes.” Widow grinned, and Kendras wondered if it could really be this easy.

  “That way.” The guard pointed and followed with a heavy key ring.

  Chapter 14

  THE door consisted of nothing but iron bars welded together. Beyond was a cell that would normally have been sparse, like that of a prisoner, but there were a few soft cushions and a throw on the cot. On a table stood flowers. Gifts, Kendras noted with shock. And he was getting heartily sick of the color blue.

  In the cell, the officer. He wore heavy manacles around his wrists and thick iron chains ran through a metal hook in the wall. The chains then combined into one and ran to the door, where the guard could shorten or lengthen them by hooking them into a steel hook that was welded to the door.

  A flame danced in a bowl of oil and lit the windowless room.

  “Just a moment.” The guard took the chain and jerked it, forcing the officer to step back, out of reach. He pushed toward the door, his arms behind him, chest bared and stretched. Kendras swallowed.

  “There he is,” the guard said and grinned. “Pretty impressive, huh?”

  Widow licked his lips. “Oh yes.”

  “You can have him for a gold.”

  “Gold!” Widow laughed. “He’s just a slave, not the fucking Lady Protector. Not even if he shaved.”

  “He’s the sacred warrior,” the guard said. “And you’re two.”

  “Pay him,” Kendras said.

  “Get us some oil at least. Won’t do if he can’t fight tomorrow.”

  “Of course.” The guard grinned. “Just a moment.” He weaseled away, and Kendras stared at Widow, who just grinned, then glanced at the officer, whose face was impassive, as if he didn’t recognize him in the gloom. Maybe he didn’t. It was better the guard didn’t realize they knew him, anyway.

  “Oh, I’ll enjoy you,” said Widow with a dirty chuckle that tightened Kendras’s balls. He wasn’t entirely sure it was all a ruse.

  The guard returned with a flask of oil, much like those used by any warrior who had to keep metal parts of armor and weapons free of rust. He put it on the table and held out his hand.

  Widow flicked a gold coin into his palm. “For a gold, I want you to leave us alone.”

  “Sure.” The guard grinned. “I heard he’s worth it.”

  Kendras’s gut clenched, but he forced himself to smile. Breathlessly, he waited for the guard’s steps to move away. Widow glided to the gate, and peered through. “Seems the air is clear. Stupid armor is too loud for him to sneak. Idiot,” he muttered, then turned to the officer.

  The officer blinked, his eyes narrowed. “Kendras,” he said, too softly to carry beyond Kendras’s ear. “Thought I’d imagined….” He grimaced and glanced at an empty wine cup. “Drugs. Nothing… nothing is real.”

  Kendras kicked the table in sudden rage—the cup spilled the wine, a plate broke, the cup rolled into the far corner. “I am real.”

  “Yes, maybe.”

  Kendras hissed in wordless rage, and stared at Widow. “What now?”

  “I said I had a gift for him.” Widow reached to the cuffs of his tight Vededrinye-style shirt and pulled out a long, thin blade. “Can you open the manacles with this?”

  The officer nodded. “And kill a dozen men.”

  “Good. Thought you might have forgotten,” Widow said and placed the thin blade on the
table. “How much do you hear down here?”

  “The cell’s near the river. I can hear the machinery. They control the water level down here.”

  “Good. Can you hear the pilgrims?”

  “Faintly. There’s an opening somewhere on the corridor.”

  “If they begin to scream and panic, get out of the chains and run. If you have to kill a man or two on the way, enjoy yourself, but not too much. Won’t be good to have you distracted or too late; we need you for something else. Understood?”

  “Where should we meet?”

  “We’ll be waiting outside the gates to the east with horses.”

  “Good.” The officer balled his fists. “I’ll be there.”

  “No doubt,” Widow remarked wryly and turned to walk away.

  “What are you doing?” Kendras asked.

  “Keeping an eye on the guard and leaving you to fuck him, that’s what I’m doing.” Widow lifted a sarcastic eyebrow and left.

  Kendras wanted to take the chains off the officer. He stepped close and took one of the wrists. The officer stepped back, winning more freedom of movement that way, and his arms came down, but he turned his wrists outward.

  “I saw you fight,” Kendras said.

  “Today? That was nothing.”

  “Yes.” Kendras agreed on both counts. He met the officer’s brown eyes, noted that they weren’t as clear and sharp as they had been just a few weeks ago. So much had happened in the meantime. The battle, Dalman, Steel, the race to Fetin, and then all the dead bodies. The dead Scorpions. He checked the wrists, which were fine.

  Move your fingers.

  He paused but kept the officer’s hand in his, remembering how the officer had saved him from the executioner’s bed. He swallowed, feeling suddenly shy and brittle. “Will you be able to get out of these?”

  “Yes. They are coarse. The guard… doesn’t expect it.” The officer pulled his hand away and showed Kendras his other wrist. “I can fight.”

  “I’ve seen that.” Kendras still ran a finger along the pulse and turned the wrist in his hand. The skin was unbroken. No swelling he could feel. But he didn’t want to let go, wasn’t sure he could meet the officer’s gaze again. Seeing him like this hurt worse than having a siege engine roll over his foot. It crushed his spirit. “They are… all dead,” Kendras said.

  “Not all.” The officer took his hand away from Kendras and placed it against Kendras’s cheek. The chain dangled against Kendras’s chest, which made him want to flinch away.

  “When I left them, Dev was feverish. Riktan was hurt bad. Selvan shattered, exhausted.”

  “That’s four. Five,” the officer corrected, “who are not dead.”

  “We’ve never….”

  The officer chuckled. “The Scorpions began with one man.”

  Kendras inhaled deeply, smelled the officer’s body, felt his breath against his cheek. He didn’t feel like he’d done a particularly good job being a Scorpion. He’d stopped fighting, he should have fought harder, shouldn’t feel all that guilt and despair, especially not now. He’d achieved at least this. With help, but here he was. He’d found the officer.

  “Please.” Please tell me I did good. Please tell me it was the best I could do. I want to believe this.

  The officer’s hand slid to his shoulder, gripped him tightly by the muscle between neck and shoulder. Kendras heard the leather sigh under the firm grip. Strength. Power. Authority.

  “You’re limping.”

  Not right now, Kendras wanted to say. “I broke my foot.”

  “You didn’t. What happened?”

  “Siege engine. I went down, lay there senseless like a corpse. Woke when the wheel crushed my foot.”

  “Ah.” The grip tightened. Kendras wanted to go to his knees, and understood Selvan, who’d do this immediately, to lean his head against a man’s thigh and offer to suck him off, too, with a pleading glance. He couldn’t do it. He’d never felt like a slave, and never less than right now, while the officer was in chains. It seemed weak and self-indulgent.

  “I don’t know what Widow is planning.”

  “Neither do I, but he’ll provide diversion.”

  “You know him.”

  “Nobody knows the Widowmaker.” The officer laughed. “And he likes it that way. He once tried to join the Scorpions, but I knew if I’d taken him up to the place of scorpions, he’d have stabbed me in the back. No, the Widowmaker is exactly where he belongs.”

  “Who is he loyal to? Fetin?”

  The officer smiled at him. “What a question.”

  So, nobody. Possibly himself. Kendras shook his head. He didn’t understand, but it was more disturbing that even the officer didn’t seem to know more.

  “And how did you end up their ‘sacred warrior’?”

  “They wanted to kill me, but they couldn’t. Not without breaking their little faith.”

  “Why?”

  “Delusions of priests, Kendras. I certainly don’t feel like one of their gods has claimed me.” The officer’s smile slowly melted away, his dark eyes suddenly intense. “They felt I’d serve them one way or the other. I declined the one way, so they did this. The high priest can be a stubborn man when thwarted, and his sense of vengeance tends to be ironic.”

  “He’s planning to kill the king.”

  “That was a long time in coming. The king’s no longer his plaything.” The officer relaxed his grip and took Kendras’s other shoulder in his hand too. “He has to kill the king to ensure that he’ll never wield his own power. All power comes from the temple. This is how it’s been for a long time. The king’s bid to destroy Fetin was not part of the plan. He wants to take Fetin so he has his own power. He’d be Lord Protector of Fetin rather than the high priest’s puppet. But he hasn’t quite succeeded yet. He was making a play for Emperor. Take those off.”

  Kendras opened the leathers and slipped out of the top. He hesitated and grimaced.

  “Drop them.”

  Kendras’s fingers suddenly had no strength left. He felt naked, worse than on that day when the medic had spread him open to inspect his torn ass. Following orders was easier than making up his mind.

  “Come closer.”

  Kendras returned to the place in front of the officer, felt how close they were, the heat of their bodies warming the little air between them. The broad, tattooed chest; small, taut nipples; the man’s breath that made the scorpion’s armor plates move. Hypnotic. He could stand there for the rest of his life and watch the man breathe.

  The officer studied him, the dark gaze traveled from Kendras’s eyes to his throat, his chest, his heart, which beat faster, to his stomach, to the leather trousers. They stayed there, and Kendras began to harden, just from the way the man completely focused on him, the gaze more erotic than whatever Steel had done to him. Steel wasn’t even bad as a lover, Kendras reflected, but Steel wasn’t important now.

  “You paid for this,” the officer said, and Kendras wasn’t sure he meant the gold. He just knew he couldn’t move away or decline when the officer’s hands opened his trousers, and then he went down to his knees. Kendras was dizzy with need, felt himself being pulled closer by his clothes.

  “You can keep one hand against the wall,” the officer said, then his mouth was all over Kendras’s cock and balls. The comment was helpful. Kendras managed to reach for the wall with one hand, the other found the officer’s head, but the lips made him incoherent.

  The officer serviced him like he was indeed a slave. And, gods below, he was dedicated to the task. Kendras didn’t want to think about how many pilgrims had enjoyed the attentions of the “sacred warrior.” Who they’d been. The thought could make him murderous, and right now, all that counted was the slide of lips and tongue, and his struggle to not thrust, to stay in control, when the officer was the only man he didn’t want to be in control with.

  “Gods… below… stop.”

  He didn’t expect the officer to obey the order. Who was he that he ordered h
im to do anything? But he did. Kendras fought to control his breath, willed his cock under control, which was not easy, right next to those lips.

  “It’s more believable,” the officer said, breath ghosting over Kendras’s wet cock. “You paid to fuck me, remember?”

  “I….” He didn’t want to do this just to fool the guard.

  “No you don’t,” the officer answered his own question. “You have me in chains and that’s all you do?” He glanced up, eyes laughing at him. “Come on, Kendras. It might just as well be your last night. Or mine.”

  “No.” Kendras pulled him up, heard the officer laugh and crushed him against the wall, chains clinking with the sudden movement. “No. You won’t die. You won’t. Hear me, you won’t!”

  “Force me.”

  If you’d lie with scorpions, you need a taste for poison.

  A wave of frantic rage blanked every thought from Kendras’s mind. Taking the officer by the shoulder, ramming him against the wall. Oil from the table.

  He’d breached the man, full of rage and anger and a desperate, choking, brutal tenderness before he could stop himself, and then he really couldn’t stop this. Every thrust, every bite, every clawing of his fingernails screamed you won’t die because you’re mine, and he wasn’t sure which of them was groaning and hissing like an animal. Maybe they both were.

  The fuck was as savage as it was desperate, strength pitted against strength, and it felt like breaking inside. Kendras was beside himself with rage, anger, fear, and at the same time, wouldn’t have blinked if the officer had ripped his throat out. There was no doubt the man could have killed him if he’d wanted.

  When he came, he couldn’t move away, just jerked deeper and harder against the officer’s body, barely aware of the officer’s frantic movements that finished him off too.

  Reason returned, slowly, with breath, and he noticed the bite marks on the dark skin, remembered the taste of that skin, the feeling of hard muscle between his teeth. He shuddered and was about ready to beg for forgiveness when the officer’s semen-covered hand reached for his hip and held him right there. And he suddenly realized that this was exactly what the officer had wanted. Maybe needed. From him.