Unknown Artist - Jez Morrow - Sovereign's Gladiator

Sovereign’s Gladiator Jez Morrow

Devon rules a rich province of the mighty Raenthe Empire, but in his dreams the young Sovereign does not play the master in bed. Lord of everything, in the depths of the night, Devon just wants to surrender to a stronger power, a dominating man. The star of all Devon’s wet dreams is the magnificent desert man, Xan, the champion gladiator. Devon was the one who sentenced Xan to die in the arena as an example to all his rebellious desert kind. Devon was also the one who pardoned Xan and gave him his freedom. When Xan accompanies Devon as the Sovereign’s guardsman on a dangerous journey into the wild lands, it is raw passion, betrayal and impossible desire that reign over both men.

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Sovereign’s Gladiator ISBN 9781419930812 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Sovereign’s Gladiator Copyright Copyright © 2010 Jez Morrow Edited by Briana St. James Cover art by Dar Albert Electronic book publication September 2010 The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502. Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please Please purchase only authorized electronic electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

SOVEREIGN ’ ’S G LADIATOR

Jez Morrow

Sovereign’s Gladiator

Chapter One The man’s back was turned as Devon entered the chamber. Even so, Devon knew him. Recognition grabbed him by the balls and squeezed hard. The gladiator stood framed in the expansive window. Sunlight made his boldly sculpted musculature stand out in high relief. His barbarian hair was the color of a lion’s mane, but not so shaggy. His coarsely woven tunic top left his brawny arms bare. His sun-darkened skin bore white flecks of battle scars. This was the gladiator Xandaras. The mighty Xan. Devon feared his shock and lust were plain for all his attendants to see. He did not dare meet anyone’s gaze. Devon had been in love with Xan from the moment the gladiator first stepped into the arena and killed the men who were meant to be his executioners. Xan was the most beautiful man Devon had ever seen in his life—not that Devon’s life had been all that long. Devon, the Sovereign of the province of Shiliya, had seen only twenty-eight summers. Devon was not sure whom he had expected to find here in his reception chamber, but it was not Xan. The gladiator did not turn to face him. Perhaps the sheer number of attendants and the grandeur of this room told the gladiator that someone of great importance had entered behind him, not the sort of someone to slip a cowardly blade between anyone’s ribs from behind. If not for defense, then the barbarian still should have turned around out of respect for his betters. The barbarian chose not to.

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Xan seemed to be watching Devon without looking at him. Because the barbarian hadn’t actually seen Devon yet, Xan could not be accused of disrespect. But Xan knew who was back there. Devon could tell the gladiator knew exactly who was standing behind him. Disrespect it was. And Devon could not call the barbarian on it without sounding small. Devon could only command him, “Gladiator, face your Sovereign.” Xan turned. Muscles flowed under his skin like living rock. Devon reeled inside. The gladiator was even more magnificent face on. Devon had never seen his rugged face this close, the uneven slope of his brows, his eyes an amazing color of desert sky. Blade scars nicked one eyebrow, one side of his nose and the side of his chin. Devon forgot for a moment why he was here. This man was the center of all Devon’s wet dreams. How many times had Devon taken his hand to himself and whispered the gladiator’s name in the night? Suddenly Xan was here, in the hard glorious flesh. Devon felt like he’d been caught in the act. He was not ready for this encounter. Xan was one of the desert breed. This close, the savage’s scent came to Devon, exotic, distinct, intensely male. Devon felt the heat from Xan across the short space between them. Devon breathed an inward oath in the high speech. He was trying to keep his imperial dignity while his imperial cock was about to lift the hem of his crimson tunic off his knees. Devon paced a few brisk, agitated steps to the left and back again, his erection now up, where it might get camouflaged in one of the many vertical folds of rich fabric, instead of poking out and leveled like a lance for a charge. The Sovereign’s wiry old regent, Marcus, hanging back at the doorway, spoke, sounding amused, “You seem surprised, ma dahn.”

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“Well, I might,” said Devon tightly. Three years ago, when the Supreme Reigna had added the wild lands to Devon’s province, the barbarian Xan had been brought here to the provincial capital in chains for judgment. Devon had judged. He had sentenced Xandaras to die in the arena as an example to all his rebellious kind. An execution in the arena was still death, but it was an honorable end to a man’s life. Common criminals did not get a chance in the arena. Xan had never been common. The honorable condemned was given a short sword as a chance to live. The chance was very small, because the executioner entered the ring better armed and every bit as keen to stay alive as the condemned c ondemned man. Xan had lived through that first match. And all the matches after that. After Xan proved his worth, Devon was the one who pardoned the barbarian and gave him his freedom. Once free, Xan stayed in the arena, as a gladiator now, champion on the side of the Imperium. Xan stood now in Devon’s receiving chamber a free man. Devon’s eyes strayed downward before he knew what he was doing. Xan’s fawnskin breeches fit snugly, showing the extraordinary interplay of sinew in Xan’s thighs and the bulging sex at his groin. Devon flushed hot and cold. A wide leather belt fit well around the gladiator’s taut waist. From it, a dagger sheath hung empty. Devon’s guards had not let Xan bring a blade into the Sovereign’s presence. Devon stared at the empty sheath as if that was what drew his gaze low. Devon kept his face an outwardly impassive mask. Inwardly he was staggering with panic, thrown so close so suddenly to the object of his hottest fantasies. I want him.

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Devon was painfully conscious of all the people all around him. Painfully aware of his cock ring, constricting c onstricting his swollen sex. Devon wore a cock ring to help him keep his interest when he was with a woman. Sometimes he had trouble maintaining an erection. Here, now, he was wildly interested and thought the damn thing might kill him. Devon looked up. He saw—or imagined he saw—a knowing glint in Xan’s heavylidded eyes, an upturn at the edges of Xan’s seductive lips. Xan’s gaze bordered on insolence. Struck stupid with the shock of suddenly coming face-to-face with his midnight fantasy, Devon couldn’t talk. His mouth had gone sand dry. It was for him to speak first. He needed to say something. His thoughts blanked out. Then Xan bowed his head and dropped on bended knee, smooth and majestic as a kneeling lion. His tawny hair fell forward around his face. And Devon remembered to breathe. Devon found his voice. “Do not bow to me, gladiator. I am not a Prince. I am a Sovereign.” Xan rose like a regal animal, shaking his back his sandy mane. He asked, “A Sovereign is less than a Prince?” Oh gods, the voice. Devon had forgotten about his damn voice. In the arena, Xan’s

voice was a savage roar. Here it was soft and low, a crumbling baritone, powerfully masculine, almost intimate. The sound stroked Devon’s sex. Where was he? The words. Xan had said something. Devon needed to answer him. The question was strange and Devon searched Xan’s extraordinary face for sarcasm. He found none.

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“No,” Devon answered thickly. His own voice had dropped to rutting depths, but at least it sounded strong. And his breathing was coming more easily now. Xan’s bow had broken Devon’s strangling panic. Devon ruled the province of Shiliya and this man was only a barbarian rebel who was free by Devon’s mercy and will. Devon struggled to think how he must appear to this man. It was stupidly, urgently important. Devon always presented a regal, sensual image. The Raenthe were a sensual people as well as lordly. Devon tried to remember what he was wearing, as if he were on a tryst. Devon collected his scattered wits. Remembered donning the red tunic with the bronze bosses, not the gold. That was good. Bronze was hard. Gold was soft. He couldn’t feel the coronet on his head, but he was sure it was there. The coronet was a band of gold so thin Devon never felt it anymore, like the fine rings he always wore. He made fists to make sure his rings were on. His hair was thick, nearly black. A slight curl kept it off his shoulders. His eyes were midnight black, his lashes so thick he never lined his eyes with kohl. He was well-built and tall—not tall next to Xan, but Devon was tall. Devon turned languidly to his regent, ignoring Xan, and talked past the gladiator as if Xan were furniture. Devon was relieved to hear his own voice come out steady and rather cold. “Marcus, do you really mean to place a barbarian among my guards?” Devon’s advisor and sometime regent, General Marcus, was an old veteran of many campaigns. Marcus had fought the barbarians alongside Devon’s father. A hatchet gash cratered one side of Marcus’ face from a long-ago campaign. Devon loved and trusted Marcus like he’d loved his father. Lean, very lean, Marcus was all muscle and bone. Marcus’ skin appeared to be stretched over his skull-like face. His bold, craggy face was much-scarred. His eyes were black as Devon’s, but Marcus’ eyes were small and canny, with no lashes left to

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speak of. What was left of the hair on Marcus’ head was a scatter of dark strands on the shiny dome of his head. Marcus said, “ Ma dahn, this is the champion gladiator, Xandaras.” In front of others, Marcus called his Sovereign respectfully ma dahn—my liege—in the high speech. In private, Marcus called him Devon. Sometimes Marcus slipped and called him Son. Devon didn’t mind. Marcus had lost his own son in the war. Devon had lost his father. “I do recognize him, Marcus,” Devon said dryly. “Is this wise?” “I think it’s brilliant,” said Marcus, grinning, his sparse eyebrows arched high. “To take a barbarian as my personal guard on a journey into the land of barbarians?” Devon asked. Marcus could not be serious. The barbarian, for his part, said nothing in his own defense. Xan did not appear to mind Devon and Marcus ignoring him and discussing his merits across him as they would a slave on the auction block. Normally it would be Marcus who accompanied the Sovereign on his journeys into unsettled lands as his first guardsman. This time, Devon needed Marcus to stay behind as his regent. Alas, there were not two Marcuses. So Devon had charged Marcus with selecting a suitable replacement for himself to serve as first guardsman. Marcus brought Devon here to approve his choice. Marcus had chosen Xan. Devon asked lightly, “Do you want me dead, Marcus?” Merry lines crinkled the taut skin at the sides of Marcus’ beady dark eyes. “Devon, I promised your father I would keep you un-dead for as long as I remain so. You’ve seen this man in combat. This is what I want at your side in the wild lands. As much as I have the power to insist, I insist you take him. Ma dahn.” Devon made a friendly fist and tapped Marcus’ hard, hard shoulder. “I ought to throw you into the ring with that thing.”

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Xan, that thing, gave no reaction. But Marcus drew himself up as straight as his battle-contorted frame would allow. Marcus had survived wounds that would have killed lesser men. The wounds hadn’t killed Marcus, but they left him crooked. “You assume I would come out the worse in combat with your gladiator?” Marcus asked, insulted. Devon allowed, “I think you would last longer than his other opponents.” “Oh, thank you for that faith, ma dahn,” said Marcus sardonically, then blithely admitted, “So do I. Take him.” Take him?

The words had been spoken in innocence, but they echoed inside Devon’s head all wrong. Take him? Oh no. Take me.

The very notion of the gladiator taking Devon dizzied him. And Devon was only half aware that Marcus was still talking, “You are going into the wild lands. And I can’t be with you. I’m trying to defend you the best I know how. It’s your choice if you refuse him, but he is the best there is and ma dahn should have him.” Oh, I should, but that can’t ever happen.

Devon doubted a man like Xan had any use for other men. And a man in Devon’s position had no business submitting to other men. This was all wrong. Devon should refuse the choice. He should dismiss the gladiator right now. He could not even think straight around him. Yet he found he could not turn Xan away. He would sooner cut out his own fourth rib. Xan was here. And now that Xan was here, Devon feared he couldn’t breathe if Xan went away. Marcus said, “He knows the tongue, ma dahn.” Devon was hard put not to sputter at Marcus’ choice of words. Devon’s thoughts were taking every statement south. Every word took on the colors of sex.

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Devon just bet Xan knew the tongue. Marcus continued, “It would be a good thing to have a native speaker going into hostile territory.” “Enough! Enough!” Devon surrendered. surrendered. “I shall take him. I shall abide.” He tried to sound reluctant.

On the eve of his departure, Devon strode along the second-level colonnade of his palace. Off to his right, soaring arches presented a wide vista of the provincial capital, Calista City. Devon’s city was beautiful, as all things in the Raenthe Empire strived to be, with graceful public buildings of honey-colored stone and red-tiled roofs clustered around neat avenues, picturesque bridges spanning the river and airy villas built around garden courtyards planted with many trees. On his left side, a marble railing guarded the drop to a ground-level training pit where soldiers often practiced their hand-to-hand skills against each other. Devon glanced down, glanced twice. There, as if Devon had wished him into existence, was Xan, surrounded by Devon’s own personal guardsmen. The barbarian looked like a tolerant lion playing with a pack of boisterous cubs. Xan wore little other than his fawnskin breeches and his wide leather dagger belt. A rawhide tie held back his leonine hair, though the tie was coming a bit loose now. Xan had a wooden shield strapped to his left forearm and he wielded a blunt wooden sword with his right hand. Devon’s men were attempting attacks on the gladiator with blunted weapons. Xan fended them off easily, a master among students. He slammed the twins, Milus and Silas, down to the dirt. The two landed on the flats of their backs with a single woof !

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Xan dropped his sword and shield and lifted the twins up by the scruffs of their tunics, one in each hand, as if they weighed no more than puppies. The muscles in Xan’s arms stood out like wrought Dascan steel. Droplets of sweat gleamed in his tawny chest hair. Xan’s eyes lifted, met Devon’s. Xan’s gaze drove straight through Devon’s gut, down to his groin. Devon’s cock rose. The men in the pit followed Xan’s gaze upward. Upon seeing their Sovereign at the railing, they lowered their mock weapons and respectfully gave Devon all their attention. Xan slowly lifted one mighty arm up toward the Sovereign. Xan’s hand turned, palm up, and he beckoned Devon down into the sparring ring. Grins and gasps escaped from Devon’s guards. Milus and Silas moved a little wide of the barbarian in case the Sovereign was not amused. Devon’s mouth burned. It was a dare. Devon nodded curtly down, accepting the challenge. He pushed away from the railing and jogged down the stone steps that curved around the pit. His men cheered. Devon darted a glare at Xan, making sure the barbarian marked that sound. Devon strode into the center of the pit. Devon was tall; not the tallest man here, but even in legions of powerful men Devon stood out, with a stallion’s power and dignity and beauty. His cock stood blatantly stiff under his tunic of shimmering indigo. That was all right this time. Men often became aroused going into combat. The men would suppose it was the challenge that excited him. A hard-on showed an aggressive spirit. It was good for them to see their leader ready and eager to take up the dare against the champion gladiator from the wild lands. Devon lifted his gold circlet from his head, pulling it free from a few clinging strands of dark hair. He passed the crown to one of his men, then ruffled his dark locks

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and shook his head like a dog. He unlaced his sandals and took off all the rings from his fingers and toes. When he stood up straight and ready, Xan lobbed a wooden sword toward him. Devon caught the blunt weapon by its hilt and gave it a turn. He closed the space between them at a casual stroll. Without salute or warning, Devon dropped low and swept his leg across the ground, fast as a snake strike, at Xan’s ankles. Xan skipped over the foot sweep with so leisurely a motion that one could not call it a jump. Immediately, Xan’s fat wooden blade came stabbing down at a t Devon. The sword tip struck the dirt as Devon rolled out of the way and sprang up to his feet. Devon thrust fast and hard as Xan was straightening up. Xan deflected the thrust. Devon’s momentum carried him past Xan. Devon swept his blade defensively behind himself, feeling wood on wood as he deflected Xan’s counterstrike. Xan retreated to the far edge of the circular pit. The two faced off again, circling wide. They edged warily back in closer. Devon stayed light on the balls of his feet. He felt the dirt between his toes and tried to gauge the solidity of the ground beneath him. Xan may be the champion gladiator, but Devon meant to win this match. His eyes never left Xan, taking in everything about the man, his balance, his grip, his posture, the angle of his weapon. Xan’s voice came out a gravelly murmur, “You mean to feint left and strike my knees to the right.” Devon instantly straightened up and stepped back out of the game, his hand up, thumb and two fingers extended to signal time-out. Xan stepped back to allow the pause. Devon frowned at Xan. “Now how did you know what I meant to do? Are the people of the desert mind readers?”

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Devon was in deep, deep trouble if Xan could read his mind. Xan said, “Men’s eyes can lie.” Then his voice became quiet, intimate, “Yours don’t.” Oh shit. They don’t? What else were Devon’s traitorous eyes telling this savage? They damn well better lie!

Devon broke truce and charged inside Xan’s long arms. Big men were never good at close-in fighting. Giants always counted on their superior reach to win the fight. The trick was to get inside their guard alive. And it didn’t work this time. Devon’s blade turned in his hand. He stabbed empty air as he collided full length with Xan’s hard body. Nostrils, mouth, and head filled with Xan’s male scent, desert heat and sexual blaze. Devon’s face, lips and eyelashes pressed to Xan’s chest. Devon felt his crisp hair, tasted his skin. Devon reached a leg around Xan’s unyielding body, trying to push his heel into the back of Xan’s knee and take him down, but he only succeeded in pressing his erection against Xan’s thigh. I am so fucked.

There, locked body to body with the gladiator, Devon felt the wooden blade of Xan’s sword knock almost casually on the back of his neck. And now I’m dead.

Devon let his muscles relax. His shoulders slumped in defeat. Crap.

He exhaled against Xan’s powerful chest and swore like a soldier. Xan pushed him off. Xan and Devon knocked the backs of their right wrists together in a soldierly salute to say Good fight.

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Devon then turned to face the audience of his guards and a great number of other men and women of the palace compound who had gathered along the railing at the top of the pit to watch the contest. They were uncomfortably silent. Devon could tell they didn’t know how to react to their Sovereign’s defeat. Devon raised his arms wide, palms up to his people, with an ironic smile and commanded them, “Mourn me!” Chuckles ringed the pit with enormously relieved smiles. Everyone was allowed to breathe. They laughed. And the chant began. Not the familiar chant from the arena of Xan! Xan! Xan! The men and women here cheered their Sovereign, “Dev-ON! Dev-ON!

Dev-On!” Devon shot a stern glare aside to Xan. Devon’s eyes—eyes that could not lie—told the gladiator, Note well, these are my people. Xan observed the scene with a closely c losely guarded expression. expression. His eyes, the pale blue of a dusty desert sky, scanned the guards in the pit and the ring of spectators at the railing. Xan’s eyes told Devon nothing. Devon laced his sandals back up his calves. He refused an attendant’s offer of his rings. He was too dirty for jewelry. He straightened up and spread his hands in a searching gesture around him. His men knew what he looked for and all pointed up. Devon’s crown had found its way up to the second level. An attendant there at the rail held the Sovereign’s gold circlet. At Devon’s nod, the servant let the coronet drop. Devon snatched the little crown out of the air and settled it on his tousled dusty black locks. As he started toward the stone steps, he bade his gladiator, “Walk with me.”

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Chapter Two Devon stood only as tall as Xan’s Xa n’s eyes. Good. It would give Xan an excellent view of the crown on Devon’s head as they walked side by side along the covered colonnade. The barbarian’s heat was palpable, his scent enticing as desert spice. Xan had pulled his faded blue tunic top back on, covering his torso. Springy wheatgold hair stood up from the layer of dust coating Xan’s muscular arms. Xan spoke first. “Why does one bow to a Prince and not to you?” “Princes are chosen by the gods,” Devon answered. “I am a Sovereign. I was chosen by a mortal.” Princes were born to power. As gods decided one’s birth, it followed that the gods made Princes what they were. Sovereigns, on the other hand, were appointed by the Supreme Reigna. The Reigna was a flesh-and-blood woman. “Then you are less than a Prince,” Xan concluded. “No,” Devon said. A Sovereign’s power was exactly the same as a Prince’s, though Devon supposed gods-chosen must seem better than human-chosen to the barbarian. “The gods have put some pretty fair imbeciles in power,” Devon went on with a faint curl at the edge of his mouth. “That’s why the Reigna replaces them with Sovereigns.” “Is it you I thank for setting me free?” Xan asked. “No,” Devon said. “I did set you free. Do not thank me. I did not do it for you. I did it because it was right.” Do you hear that? Devon thought loudly. I am not besotted with you, you desert brute.

But he dared not show Xan his eyes.

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Devon went on, “And anyway, I am the one who condemned you to the arena in the first place.” “You changed your mind,” said Xan. That sounded like Xan was accusing Devon of waffling. “Condemning you was the right thing to do at the time,” Devon said. “Freeing you was the right thing at the time. All things in their season.” And Devon decided he was done fielding questions from his subject. “I set you free, yet you still fight in the arena. Why?” “I am good at it,” Xan said. Devon imagined he heard an unspoken unlike you at the end of that statement. It wasn’t as if Devon had anything to prove to a barbarian, yet he heard himself saying, “Do not mistake me for some effete intellectual.” “I have not mistaken you for anything,” Xan said. Anger leapt hot inside. Devon’s cheeks felt red. Devon had left himself vulnerable. Feelings he had for this man were obviously not returned, and that hurt. “Listen to me, Savage, I was blooded before my voice changed. Though I suppose you started killing in the cradle.”

“Later than that,” Xan said. “Just because I am good at it does not mean I enjoy it. I am not a warrior.” Devon had to bark a dry laugh. “You jest.” “My people are hunters. I was born a hunter, not a warrior.” “You’re saying you don’t enjoy the arena?” a rena?” “You enjoy the games,” Xan turned the words around. “I have seen you there.” It sent a giddy rush through Devon to know that Xan noticed him. But of course Xan would damn well notice the highest-ranking man he had ever seen, the one who decided his life and death, seated up in the Sovereign’s box under his gilded canopy.

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“Enjoy?” Devon echoed. No. That was not the word. Devon was always in attendance at the games because he had to be there. The gladiatorial matches were an ancient justice—brutal, basic. They took a man to edge of his existence, a last chance to redeem himself with strength and courage. And with death. For those who witnessed the contests, the combat stirred the blood. Life was most vivid on the cusp at the moment of dire decision, when a soul was set free and justice was served. It was exciting. Devon hated it. “No,” Devon answered. “I do not enjoy the games.” And he forced this conversation back to his purpose for having Xan here. “You understand you are not going home. That is not why you are coming with me into the wild lands.” “Your man Marcus told me my purpose is to guard you. Is that all you want of me?” Devon heard the sharp intake of his own breath in his nostrils. So Xan noticed how he looked at him. “Of course that is all,” Devon said, curt, his cheeks burning. “What else did you suppose?” Let’s get this out right now.

As much as Devon wanted this man, Devon would not have him. The chasm of rank stretched a wide, deep maw between them—the gladiator and the Sovereign, the desert breed and the Raenthe. And no doubt there was also a difference in inclination. Xan would be a man for women. Devon would not let out a whisper of his own wanting for this man. Xan may suspect—even know—but Devon would not confirm it. “I am a stranger to this land,” Xan said. “I suppose nothing. You must tell me what I need to know.”

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“What I want you to do is your duty as General Marcus explained it to you,” Devon told him, hotter and sharper than he intended. “You are to be my first guardsman. That means you get me to my destination safely and back again, no matter if it requires your life to fulfill your assignment. That is all.”

***** The wild lands were a great expanse of desert, steppe, fens and hard plains. The people who lived there were scattered tribes who spoke in different tongues. The wild lands had been under Devon’s rule for three years now. And he had been unable to control them at all. He hadn’t seen a dinac of taxes since the Reigna gave him the wild lands three summers ago. There ought to be roads by now and irrigation to the dry country. There ought to be a flow of trade goods between there and here. Reports said the people of the wild lands were savage. And, true enough, all the ones Devon had ever seen had been so. Including Xan. Especially Xan. Xan had been brought here to Calista City in chains, roaring. Devon’s frontier governor Kani could do nothing with the wild lands but hold on. Kani’s garrison suffered the highest mortality of any unit in the whole wide Raenthe Empire. Governor Kani’s missives did not really explain why the hell settlement of the wild lands was going so very wrong. At last, frustrated to death, Devon had declared, “I cannot rule from a distance!” To which his best general, Marcus, had foolishly asked, “What more can you do? Go there?” Marcus had thought he was being sarcastic. But Devon had answered with a decisive nod, dead serious, “Go there.” Panicked at that idea, Marcus had asked soberly, “Do you want me to go, ma dahn?” “No. I shall go. I need to see for myself what my governor is up against.” 20


Marcus had started to argue. “Devon, you are a good soldier and a great general and people adore you—” “Are you ‘people’, Marcus?” Devon had interrupted. “Yes, I am people,” Marcus had said, including himself among the adoring ones. “We can’t afford to lose you.” “And so you shan’t.” Still, Marcus had tried to talk him out of this journey. But there was no talking Devon out of anything he set his mind to. Marcus could only try to keep him whole while he did it. So Marcus Ma rcus had given him Xan. Damn him.

***** After he dismissed Xan from his presence, Devon climbed more steps to an upperlevel colonnade where he found Marcus looking on, amused. Marcus’ black, beady eyes raked up and down Devon’s dusty self. The open side of the palace curved here. Marcus could have seen the match in the exercise pit from up here. “Self-assured bastard, isn’t he?” Devon commented to Marcus. “Exactly what I want in your company when you go into the wild lands,” Marcus said. “Since it cannot be me.” Marcus was another self-assured bastard. Devon had thought of Marcus as family all his life. Devon told Marcus truthfully, without saying why, “I’m afraid of him.” Marcus cackled. Laugh lines fissured his tight sun-baked skin. “I wouldn’t give him your back if I didn’t trust him.” “Would you trust him with your back, back, Marcus?” Marcus grinned. “No.”

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“Ha!” Devon barked. Marcus continued, “I am not his Sovereign and I didn’t set him free. You are sacred. I am am not.”

“I don’t think I am sacred to him, Marcus.” “He respects order and authority.” “Really?” said Devon dryly. “Odd quality in a wild beast.” “Not at all. Not at all. Prides of lions and packs of wolves respect authority.” Devon gave a sideways nod. An interesting comparison. Lions and wolves were also hunters, not warriors. Well, the hunter may respect authority, but Devon was fairly certain that Xan did not respect him.

Devon had come to the sovereignty young. He had seen twenty-eight summers when the starflowers blazed on the green hillsides and the air was sweet with birdsongs. He had seen twenty-eight winters when ice locked the mountain passes. He had seen war. He knew he would never see love. His bedchamber had seen a lot of sex. Partners he’d had many. He could not call them lovers. Skilled women slaked the burning thirst, but they were not what he wanted. Oh, there were professional young men available, who were practiced at playing the woman’s part. Those boys were not at all what Devon wanted and he never engaged their services. Devon ruled a province. Men lived and died at his word. He moved armies. But in his dreams he did not play the master in bed. Master of everything, in the depths of the night Devon just wanted to surrender to a stronger power, a dominating man. But a leader did not submit. Ever. Penetration was an unspoken out of bounds. 22


Devon was fated to a smoldering existence, never satisfied. The fires may be lowered, but never quenched. Dreams of being held in the arms of a strong man, the man’s sex inside Devon’s body, must remain forever in the realm of dreams.

The morning arrived when Devon was to embark with the lord of his fantasies as his first guardsman. Devon blessed and cursed Marcus for this. Marcus rode out to the plain outside the city to see his Sovereign off. Devon recognized the wiry crooked figure approaching on horseback. An unfamiliar metallic sunlight flash glinted from Marcus’ brow. Devon’s eyes widened to see Marcus wearing a crown. The regent was not permitted the crown while Devon was in state. Yes, Devon was leaving, but he was not gone quite yet. Devon nodded up at Marcus’ brow and asked, “How does it feel?” “Hot,” said Marcus. Sun on metal on Marcus’ balding pate became quickly painful. “Grow more hair,” Devon said. “Marry a goat,” Marcus said. Wryly smiling, Devon wagged a warning forefinger at Marcus. Devon mounted his black stallion and whisked away to join his entourage. In addition to the formidable Xandaras and Devon’s personal bodyguards, his company included a full regiment of foot soldiers and a horse unit, coming along to relieve Governor Kani’s garrison in the wild lands. Marcus need not fear for the Sovereign’s safety on this journey. Devon’s entourage set out on the royal road, passing between two columns of the home guard, their swords lifted in salute. Once away from the capital, it didn’t take long for the comments to start. 23

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“Never like it when they dress up wild animals in clothes and teach them to walk on their hind legs,” a soldier said within Xan’s earshot, meant to be heard. When that got no reaction, another soldier replied louder, “Do you think he can balance a ball on his nose?” Devon did not rebuke his men. It would not wear to take the barbarian’s side against his own soldiers. He could only tell Xan, “Pay them no heed.” “I don’t,” Xan said. “You’re sure?” Devon asked. “I do not answer to barking dogs or braying jackasses either,” Xan said. “Ah.” Xan rode with an easy seat, hips rolling with the horse’s motion, as sure as a cavalry commander. He was a giant man and the horse was not happy. Devon and Xan rode side by side behind Devon’s royal litter. The luxurious box was curtained with rich scarlet trappings trimmed in gold. Twelve richly dressed honor guards carried the royal box. Like the silver eagle standard of Shiliya and the gold Imperial Raenthe crest borne at the front of the procession, the ornate litter was a mark of the Sovereign’s rank. It announced Devon’s importance. Devon never rode in the damn thing. This journey was a secret—as far as a regiment marching with a Sovereign at its head could be called a secret. As far as Devon’s subjects knew, the Sovereign and his armed men were headed to the summer palace at Laklare. And that was actually true. But Devon was only going to the summer palace because Laklare lay on the road to the wild lands. It would not be wise to announce his real destination was that part of his domain which might welcome him with spears. The first part of the journey was through a land at peace. 24


The royal train marched past groves of fruit trees, lush fields dotted with grazing sheep and clusters of neat fieldstone houses. Villages along the way to Laklare welcomed Devon’s approach. Village elders turned out to present him with gifts of fresh fruit, fat geese, and local wares. Children strewed the way with flowers. Devon leaned down from his saddle to accept kisses from young women. “You are loved,” Xan commented curiously as Devon passed a matched pair of silver mugs to his attendants to stow in his royal r oyal litter with the rest of the gifts. “You are surprised?” Devon answered coolly. He had flowers stuck in his hair. They were pink cyclamen blossoms, their petals pulled back like butterfly wings. Devon added, “You do know I send soldiers ahead threatening to flog them if they don’t show up cheering?” “No,” Xan said simply. He didn’t believe it. Good. Devon nodded. A flower fell from his hair into his lap. He turned his head to

look Xan in the eyes. “Then yes, Gladiator. I am well loved.”

Devon’s column arrived at Laklare. The soldiers paused there a day and a night to refresh and to pick up more food and to unload the Sovereign’s gifts. The litter bearers were grateful. The summer palace at the edge of Laklare, with its soaring ceilings and airy colonnades, was built on the shore of a broad glassy lake. The local palace attendants had the Sovereign’s bedchamber ready for him, the fine sheets clean and scented on the wide bed, fresh-cut flowers in all the vases, potted plants in the hearth because nights here were mild. Perfumed water was drawn in the footed bathtub. Vast crystalline windows overlooked the ultramarine lake. The water lay glassy in the sunlight. The chief of staff asked if ma dahn wanted him to arrange a companion for the night.

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No, Devon told him. No. Days and nights in company of Xan had delivered Devon here hot, disturbed and edgy, nothing that the touch of a woman could ease. He refused to be irritable to a sweet and talented young lady who would try her best with no hope of pleasing him. He rode out to the royal stables to find a mount more fitting a man of Xan’s stature than the poor beast that had carried him here. They found a promising animal. It was an imposing draft horse with a handsome bronze coat dappled with ghostly points of gray. Its mane and tail were white-gold. It had all its teeth, a broad sturdy back and a sensible face. Its massive hoofs were sound. And it took a liking to Xan. It snuffled his hair, blew hay-scented breath through wide fluttering nostrils and butted Xan in his broad chest. Devon thought he might have spied a trailing edge of an unguarded smile soften Xan’s face as he held the big head. “Tell me what you are thinking,” Devon commanded. The gentle look vanished. Xan said, “It is a good horse.” “No. Not about the horse. Tell me your mind.” “I haven’t the words,” Xan said. “Not in your speech.” “Then speak to me in your own.” “You don’t know my words.” “Doesn’t matter,” Devon said. “Speak to me.” Xan frowned. He met Devon’s gaze and spoke. The sound of Xan’s voice was like sand on stone, shifting rocks, a guttural purr in a rolling desert cadence. A crease deepened between Xan’s uneven brows as he spoke, his expression becoming a brooding glower, his eyes glittering sharp. There was tension in his lower jaw. He bared his lower teeth as he bit words off. The movement of his lips was seductive.

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As last Xan lifted his eyebrows quizzically, one higher than the other, and he said in the Raenthe tongue, “What did you hear?” “I heard the wrath of the horse that doesn’t understand the bit,” Devon said. “That is not what I said at all.” “The words, no. But you told me you are feeling my foot on the back of your neck. I have the power of life and death over you like a god, yet I am not a god, and you are wondering how such a thing can be allowed in a just creation.” The gladiator let his mouth drop open in unmasked astonishment. “Are the Raenthe mind readers?” “No,” Devon said. “And you’re wrong about my foot on your neck.” Devon put his palm to the draft horse’s withers and called for a stable hand to bring a bridle.

It was on their way back to the palace that Devon and Xan rode up behind an overloaded oxcart attempting to turn down a side path to a mill. The wagon groaned under a tower of badly balanced bricks. The driver was taking the turn at a bad angle. One wagon wheel was about to fall into a deep rut. The old miller, red-faced at the reins, was bellowing. Three young men put their shoulders to the cart, pushing under the leaning side of the tottering load. One more step and that load would topple. The three young men would be crushed. Devon gave a warning shout, but the men didn’t hear over the miller’s bellowing, or they were not heeding, or they were not sure what Devon meant by Look out! and Don’t! and Stop!

Xan leapt down from his new steed, bounded ahead, seized the ox yoke and steered the beasts, pulling with them. Cords of sinew stood out distinct and massive under the

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strain in his powerful haunches, his broad back, his hard buttocks. Xan forced the wagon away from the rut onto a safe path through the turn. The brick tower straightened up from its deadly lean. The foolish miller blithely thanked Devon for lending his two-legged ox, with no clue that Xan had just saved the lives of the young men, who turned out to be the miller’s sons. Devon brooded about the incident late into the evening. He shivered at the tragedy that didn’t happen. If Xan hadn’t been there, those youths would be dead. Devon did not like to lose his citizens, not even foolish ones. After dinner, Devon summoned the gladiator to his bedchamber. Devon was not sure why he called Xan to this particular room to give him this news. He supposed it was a nice fantasy to have Xan and Devon’s bed in the same room. Devon felt a warm thrill at the illusion of possibility. It gave him a sense that something sexual could happen, even though he knew very well that it couldn’t. Xan presented himself dressed in a short Raenthe-style tunic over his barbaric fawnskin breeches. Xan’s sheath held a dagger. No one took it from him. He was first guardsman. He was required to be armed in his Sovereign’s presence. “You saved those men’s lives and no one asked you and no one thanked you,” Devon told him. “Those are my people. I thank you. The horse we acquired to carry you—you may take possession of it in your own name. The beast is yours if you want it.” Xan nodded, accepting the gift. Devon knew Xan liked that horse even though Xan wasn’t letting any emotion show now. He only looked thoughtful. “Is there anything here that would please you before we leave Laklare in the morning?” Devon asked. “A favorite meal?” “If I am not eating rats, I am pleased,” Xan said. Devon tried again, “Do you want a woman for this night?”

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“No,” Xan said. “I prefer a man.” A fist in the groin could not have shocked Devon more. Devon tried to hold himself steady. The words fell on him like a double-edged sword and both edges of the blade drew blood. Jealousy in a choking choking shroud made it hard hard to breathe. Devon was not going to hire a male prostitute for the man he dreamed about. Devon was grateful for what Xan had done, but not enough to swallow razors for it. Devon could not say why he never felt jealousy when he’d thought Xan loved women. A preference for women was a usual sort of disappointment. But another man? Another man was a rival. That was something jagged moving in Devon’s gut. That was a burning behind his eyes. That was the sweet taste you get before vomiting. “That I cannot allow,” Devon said thickly, wondering what he had done to so piss off the gods. “You disapprove,” Xan said. Devon shook his head. “Security risk,” he said. That was only one-eighth of the truth. But it was true enough. “I don’t trust boy whores. If that is what you want, close your eyes and take a woman from behind.” “I did not say boy,” Xan said. The words fell on Devon’s ears muffled as through a wall. The words filled his body with longing. He could scarcely breathe. He could not keep his voice natural. He felt his heart lodged right there under his larynx. So he tried to sound merely vexed and impatient. “If it’s a man you want, you’ll need to do with me. I shall have no men of that profession in here.” “ Ma dahn. I am dominant.” Devon quivered inside, his knees weakened near to buckling. He had set himself up to be refused. And now he needed to get Xan out of here quickly. He was weirdly near

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tears and that would not do at all. He snapped, “I gave you choices. Take what you want. Or don’t.” “I accept.” “Very well.” Devon turned abruptly to the door to have his chief of staff arrange for a professional woman who specialized in anal sex. A large strong hand closed around his arm. The touch was dangerous and electric. Devon stood absolutely still, but for his shallow breaths and the hammering of his heart. Me.

Xan had accepted Devon.

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Chapter Three Devon felt a wall of heat at his flank. Quavering breaths came shallow through his nostrils. The Sovereign, the soldier who never hesitated in battle, was frozen in a moment’s sheer panic. What to do? He wanted to touch Xan. But he would not. However this encounter played out, this was nothing but a favor to the savage, not a wish of Devon’s own to be indulged. Devon was scared, rigid in all ways. He waited for whatever Xan wanted to do to him. Devon didn’t need to do anything. Xan tugged on Devon’s belt, loosening the clasp. The belt fell at Devon’s sandaled feet. Xan’s broad fingertips brushed the bare skin high on Devon’s arm as Xan unfastened one shoulder pin of Devon’s tunic. With the pin freed, the fabric fell aside and hung down from Devon’s opposite shoulder. Xan pushed the tunic off Devon’s shoulder. Devon felt the cloth slide against his skin, down his hips, ass, thighs and calves to puddle in a rich pool of silky fabric around his feet. Clad only in sandals and jewelry, Devon was a slender, slender, well-muscled, well-muscled, elegant figure, figure, and he knew it. He trembled, naked to the air and a nd Xan’s eyes. The petal texture of Devon’s perfumed skin must have struck Xan a strange thing in a soldier, but soft skin was not strange to find in a resident of a palace where servants poured floral oils with the bath water, and even the granite in the chamber was polished to a shining finish and carved alabaster glowed milky smooth. The Raenthe delighted in beauty, in sights and sounds and scents and tastes. Raenthe loved to decorate their bodies and Devon was a true Raenthe. His tunic had fallen away to reveal a very fine chain of delicately fashioned gold links which draped 31

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just above Devon’s narrow hipbones. A scallop in the fine chain looped down the front of Devon’s belly to dangle a pendant over the black hair of his pubis. A black gemstone, with a lurking heart of deep red fire within the pendant, winked in the lamplight, halfhidden by Devon’s upthrust cock. Devon’s cock ring fit tight just below the head of his engorged penis. Devon felt exposed, as if no one had ever seen his body before. No one had ever looked at him like this. Xan’s eyes, his desert eyes that had seen so very much, fixed on Devon. Devon felt Xan’s gaze and couldn’t bring himself to look up to meet it. Devon stood with his weight on one leg like the statue of the youth in the garden, his head lowered and turned aside, shy. I am not shy, I am terrified.

Devon’s thick lashes lowered over his downcast eyes. His gaze locked on the terrifying, tantalizing swelling in Xan’s crotch. Devon shivered in the warmth. Everything around him seemed to be sparking and glittering, the burnished wood of the bedposts and the facets of cut gems. Hunger and heat rose between gladiator and Sovereign. Devon heard Xan’s breaths welling in his deep chest. Xan trailed the back of one rough-skinned forefinger down Devon’s hard-muscled chest. Xan’s finger tripped over Devon’s right nipple, sending ripples of sensation through Devon’s body. Devon became aware of the crown on his head. Devon still wore the thin gold circlet, signet of his rank. Awareness caught up with him that this was an extraordinarily bad idea. This was the most spectacularly brainless thing Devon had ever done, and every part of his body was singing under Xan’s gaze.

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Devon lifted his hands to take off his crown. Xan murmured low, “Leave it on.” Xan circled ‘round behind Devon and pushed him. Devon caught himself against the stuccoed wall, his hands splayed before him so he was staring at all his rings. Two or three rings adorned each finger of his left hand, fewer on his blade hand and none on his trigger finger. Devon’s weapon of choice was his handheld crossbow, a tightly wound little weapon with small lethal bolts. He tried to push himself away from the wall and stand up straight, but Xan pushed him forward again and kicked one heel sideways to make Devon lean into the wall, his legs spread. Devon’s rings became a glinting blur before his eyes. Xan’s broad warm palms stroked down Devon’s hips, then up the insides of Devon’s thighs to his groin. Devon melted into Xan’s touch. It was all he could do to make no sound. Xan’s strong hands squeezed the lean, hard muscles of Devon’s ass. One broad finger sought, found and paused with light pressure on Devon’s anus. Devon inhaled. The tight gate burned, yearning. Xan’s probing finger moved away. Devon’s disappointment was far stronger than his dread. Then a horrible thought struck him. Xan was playing with Devon. This was not about desire. This was about humiliation. Xan knew Devon’s desire. Xan was setting Devon afire just to watch him burn. Even if Devon’s fear was true, Xan’s hands stroking Devon’s buttocks were something out of a dream. Devon tried very hard not to love this. Xan’s hands moved forward of Devon’s hips. Xan’s fingertips brushed the hair of Devon’s crotch. Devon wanted to roar at him to touch his sex. Devon’s balls felt taut. His rigid cock was weeping to be touched.

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Xan’s hands withdrew. Devon keenly felt their absence. He felt the loss of Xan’s heat as Xan stepped back. Xan’s heavy leather belt hit the floor with a chunk. Devon pushed himself away from the wall and stood straight up. When Devon turned around, Xan was unfastening his fawnskin breeches. As Xan’s fly parted, Xan’s cock pushed out, hard, solid and formidable as the man. His cock was dark, ruddy, and thick. Xan took Devon’s head between his great hands and pulled Devon down toward his stiff cock. Devon’s legs bent. He put one hand out to touch Xan’s muscular thigh for balance as the savage pulled his head to his groin. Xan’s smooth rigid shaft pressed hard against Devon’s cheek, his thatch of light brown hair pressing soft at Devon’s mouth and nose. Devon’s eyelashes moved against Xan’s sex as he breathed in Xan’s scent, his head filling with male musk. His exhalation fluttered Xan’s pubic hair. His lips and tongue felt swollen with sexual hunger. He would have loved to go down on Xan of his own accord, to give, like a lover gives. But this was not love and Devon was determined to give nothing. Let Xan take his pleasure and be done. One knee touched the floor. The gladiator’s hands moved lightly in Devon’s hair. Xan’s fingers caught the edge of Devon’s gold coronet, reminding Devon that his symbol of lofty rank was still there. Xan had made Devon leave it on as he dominated him. Devon caught the meaning of it. He just didn’t care at this moment. Xan’s fist closed on a thick hank of black hair behind Devon’s head and pulled Devon’s face away from him a cock’s length. Xan took his own cock in his other hand and moved its moist rounded tip back and forth across Devon’s lips. Xan drew wetness on Devon’s parted lips, first the upper, then the lower. The sensation on Devon’s lips was intoxicating, utterly, magnificently male. 34


Of its own will, Devon’s tongue moved forward to touch the tip of Xan’s sex. Devon could feel the slit, felt a drop of precum express from it. Devon’s mouth was open and begging. And Xan’s thick rod slid in. Devon gave a muffled moan around its fullness. Oh! He meant to act as if he was only just tolerating this. His reserve dissolved. Devon’s tongue was all over Xan’s prodigious cock. He surrounded it, felt it in his mouth, adored it, reached forward with his tongue to stroke its root. He pulled back to the rim, only to go down again and feel Xan’s thickness fill him again. Above Devon’s head, a sound escaped from Xan’s throat, a soft hiss like windblown sand over rocks. Xan felt something more than his own dominance. Devon’s mouth moved up again. His tongue circled the base of Xan’s helmet. He found no folds of foreskin pulled back there. Some dim recess of his mind noted that he’d never known that the barbarians circumcised their male children too. And he went down. Xan’s solid wall of abdominal muscles moved as he drew in deep breaths. Devon tasted Xan’s excitement. Devon’s hands moved without conscious thought, first gripping Xan’s mighty thighs to brace himself, then pulling down Xan’s fawnskin breeches so he could feel the naked skin of Xan’s hard ass and fondle Xan’s balls. Devon made a tight ring with his forefinger and thumb just in front of his mouth as he went up and down on Xan’s cock. Xan’s fingers hovered lightly at Devon’s jaw. It was the kind of touch a horseman used on the rein when his mount was doing everything right. Then Xan hauled Devon up by his upper arms and drew Devon into a powerful embrace. Xan’s sex pressed hard against Devon’s own erection. Xan’s rough-woven tunic felt coarse on the bare skin of Devon’s chest. Xan’s big hands moved in Devon’s hair. The Sovereign’s crown toppled to the floor. Xan’s mouth came down hot and hungry on Devon’s neck, his throat, his shoulder—just not on Devon’s wanting lips. 35

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Xan’s sword arm held Devon’s shoulders, his shield arm circled around Devon’s waist. Xan’s left hand roved lower to grip Devon’s muscular cheek. Xan pressed Devon’s body hard against his own, grinding his cock against Devon’s cock. Overwhelmed in fiery sensations, Devon felt the sudden absence sharply when Xan let go. Xan shoved Devon backward away from him. It was a hard push. Devon fell on his back onto his wide bed. Xan was stripping off his top. Devon watched the mesmerizing knit and flow of the great muscles in the gladiator’s arms and sides as the tunic came off over his head. Xan’s dark blond hair came loose from its tie and fell about his great shoulders. Xan bent down to pull his boots off, then his breeches. Devon still had his own sandals on, laced up his calves. He was trying to get them unlaced, but Xan descended on him. Devon lay passive. He meant to be passive, but his hands forgot. His palms slid down Xandaras’ arms and across his back, feeling the hard, flowing contours of muscle. Devon’s fingers ran through Xan’s thick mane. Xan closed his teeth on the low nub of Devon’s left nipple, sending a jolt of fire through Devon that speared down to the tip of his cock. Then the flat of Xan’s tongue became a broad brush as he tasted Devon’s skin down the length of Devon’s lean body. Xan’s mouth came to Devon’s belly chain. Xan clenched the fine chain between his teeth, broke it and threw it out of his way with a leonine toss of his head. Xan’s mouth came down on Devon’s cock, surrounding it with smooth fire. Devon threw his head back, trying to swallow back his cries. His hands closed in fists in Xan’s hair. Devon drew up his knees so the masculine stubble on Xan’s jaw brushed Devon inside his thighs. Devon heard the click of Xan’s teeth on his cock ring. He felt Xan’s tongue roll around it. Devon’s cock swelled against the metal in pleasured pain. Devon refused to come. Not now. Not yet. This would be once and never again. He needed to stretch this feeling to forever, even while it burned and goaded now, now, now. Tears pressed at his eyes. Suddenly empty air moved on his wet sex. Xan lifted off him. 36


Xan brusquely turned Devon over, facedown on the bed. Xan’s hands closed on Devon’s hips, and pulled his ass toward him so Devon was on hands and knees in a position to be mounted. Xan knelt between Devon’s legs and reached across to Devon’s night table. Devon looked back over his shoulder to see Xan’s body move like a great prowling beast. Xan’s bulky muscles elongated as his arm extended. Blade scars showed white and deep on his sun-bronzed skin. Xan retrieved a phial of scented oil. Xan pushed Devon down onto his forearms. Devon’s cheek rested against the sheet, his ass thrust up. The sesame oil, warmed in Xan’s hands, felt light and satiny in the channel between Devon’s buttocks. Xan spread it up and down Devon’s cleavage. He paused at Devon’s anus and circled it. Devon shivered. Then Devon felt the backs of Xan’s fingers on his cheeks as Xan oiled his own cock. Devon waited, trembling. The first touch of Xan’s sex on Devon’s ass made him grunt, startled, excited. Xan’s thick, satiny-oiled cock started its ride between Devon’s buttocks, sliding back and forth in the rut. With each pass over his anus, Devon wanted to beg, Please. At last, at last, the bulging head of Xan’s cock paused, pressing at the tight entrance. Devon caught in his breath. His thoughts shrieked. Just put it in. Come in. Come in. And then, miraculously, came the push. Dizzy with lust, Devon submitted. The muscles that guarded those gates relaxed and Devon took Xan’s sex inside his body with a welcome embrace. Xan moved in and out with slow, luxurious strokes. With tear-blurred vision, Devon saw their joined bodies in a reflecting glass. He saw Xan gazing downward, tension in his face, a vertical crease in his brow, as he watched his own cock go in and out of Devon. Devon was not sure if Xan was admiring

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his own thick, hard rod or the sight of Devon’s body taking him in. Xan’s hands moved on Devon’s buttocks, stroking and squeezing. Devon’s mind floated away in miasma of bliss, then jerked back to the blade-keen awareness that a man’s cock was sliding in and out of his ass. Xan’s strong, calloused hands were broad and warm, his touch intimate, almost loving. On the in-stroke, Xan pushed his sex all the way in up to the haft, so that Devon felt Xan’s balls against his groin. Every sinew inside him was singing. Devon hadn’t ever wanted to want this man. But he did. All gods, Devon did want him. The world was charged with magic. Life was never more vivid. The chamber was fragrant with wood and spice. The earth exhaled verdant scents through the open window. The most splendid stallion rode him, penetrating and withdrawing deliciously. Tears formed in Devon’s eyes as if gazing into too bright a light. Just when Devon thought he was already engulfed in starfire, Xan reached down and forward to take Devon’s cock in his hand. All his dreams exploded into a million real shining pieces. Xan’s hand moved up and down on his sex, tight and hard. Devon’s sex convulsed. He spurted white cum on Xan’s great hand. Then Xan was pulling Devon up and back with him into Xan’s lap, still impaled. Devon stifled the moans in his throat, but he couldn’t contain his gushing joy as Xan’s hand moved up and down on his cock. Xan’s sex pulsated inside him. The motion brought Devon back up to the razor edge of ecstasy. Lamplight shimmered through the prism of tears clinging to the tips of his eyelashes. Wet warmth spread inside him with Xan’s ejaculation and Devon shot back to the heights again, coming again hard and straining as Xan climaxed c limaxed inside him.

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Dawn filtered through the gauze curtains of the high, wide windows of Devon’s chamber in the summer palace. Bird songs and soft breezes drifted inside. The satin sheets were a rumpled glorious mess. Xan had left Devon’s bed long past midnight when Devon was sated and could respond no more. Devon woke vibrating on an ecstatic note, spent, used, and Oh my gods. He had lost a virginity of sorts. Not that he hadn’t had a dildo in there, but that was like a candle flame to the noonday sun compared to the thrusts of Xan’s sex. A pleasant shiver of memory passed through his body as he relived the wash of sexual heat that was Xan coming inside him. It hadn’t been enough for Xan just to take his release with Devon. Xan had to control him, bring him to heights, master him and make him come again and again. Devon’s skin was sticky this morning. He liked it. He liked the heady musk on his sheets. The hair on his pubis was stiff with dried cum. He did not want to bathe. Xan’s scent was everywhere on him. Devon inhaled the male fragrance. At last, because decorum demanded it, he rinsed himself clean, washing away Xan, his scent, his seed. He retrieved his crown from the floor, put on his dignity—and cut off his cock ring.

Devon rode high in the saddle. His thighs were toned iron hard and stirrups were a Raenthe invention, so he was not desperately uncomfortable, only a little tender. And he would die before he rode in that soft, sumptuous litter. He felt dazzled, floating, his body reverberating with the echoes of sexual splendor. 39

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Where have I been? Have I ever been alive before?

It was as if he had been underwater all his life, holding his breath. And this, this was what life in the sunlight felt like. Xan left even Devon’s fantasies in ashes by comparison. Real sex was sudden and brilliant as a lightning strike. Devon was still reeling from the wonder and sheer beauty of it. It was something that should have never happened. And now he knew with exquisitely cruel clarity what he was missing. So be it. He couldn’t exactly undo last night. Not that he would choose to forget it. Ever. He held himself haughty on the ride out of Laklare. So did Xan, looking easy and unaffected and unbearably sexy. Xan had the relaxed look of a well-fed lion. The sex would be nothing for Xan, of course. It had been sex. A reward for a job well done. And a chance to play the master to his Sovereign. Xan’s heart had not been touched. Devon tried to match the barbarian’s nonchalance, tried to make his eyes lie, but Devon was afraid he was beaming. Devon gazed at the colors in the fields as if he’d never seen them before. Everything around him was brilliant. Wind songs whispered through the trees. The troop was approaching the border of civilized territory. Xan wore his sturdy longbow strapped across his back. The quiver hung from the front of his saddle. The barrier of low mountains materialized out of the mist on the forward horizon. These were not the soaring ice-clad titans of Norta Province, but they were mountains nonetheless, a natural fortress wall that kept the barbarian wild lands apart from the civilized region of Shiliya Province.

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There was a passage through the barrier, a narrow divide, sheer and sharp as if the mountain had been split in two with a titan’s ax. That was the Witch’s Cleft. As the column approached the entrance to the pass, the point guard raised her hand. The column drew to a halt. Something was wrong. Devon snapped out of his daydreams back to the here and now. He took heels to his horse and rode up to the fore, Xan riding at his flank on his big bronze draft horse. The point guard, a stout young woman named Rodriga, pointed up at the heights on either side of the passage. The heights soared straight up on either side. Rock walls crowded the road like a chute for driving animals to slaughter. Devon spotted the trouble at once. There were no birds. Where were the birds? There should have been birds pecking at the rocks and swooping through the divide, chasing after winged insects on the rising thermals. Something had arrived before Devon’s troop and scared away all the birds. Rodriga, who was burly for a woman—burly for a man as for that—volunteered to scout ahead all the way through to the far end of the pass and back. Devon invoked the gods to go with her and the column waited, restless in the sun. At length Rodriga came galloping back on her frothing horse. “Nothing,” she reported. “Too much nothing. Anything you’d expect to scurry into a hole as I came already scurried before I got there.” “Trap?” Devon asked. “Trap,” said Rodriga with dead certainty. Devon looked up to the cliff tops. Before the wild lands were added to Devon’s province, there used to be guard posts on the heights. Once the lands were annexed to Devon’s province, the barbarian raiders stopped coming through the pass to steal horses and cattle, so the guard station was abandoned. Nothing stood up there now but a stone foundation.

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“No goats,” Xan noted, his pale eyes narrowed at the high rocks. “Goats are haughty. Goats don’t scare for no reason.” “What does that mean?” said Devon. “Something up there hunts goats,” said Xan. “Lions?” Devon suggested. Xan motioned no. “Goats laugh at lions,” Xan said. “There are archers up there.” Devon sent scouts up the cliffs. The men scrambled up the ragged rocks, cursing each other as stones broke loose under the feet of the men above them. They groped and sidestepped and fumbled, graceful as crabs. Devon could see why goats would laugh. Devon squinted up at the heights. He could just make out some weathered runes carved into the rock face near the top. He pointed up. “Whose “ Whose marks are those?” “The Kiriciki,” Xan named the tribe. “They turn their words into marks like the Raenthe do. But I do not read.” Devon nodded. The scouts came back down with ravaged hands. The twins Milus and Silas, their heads bald and smooth as a pair of dicks, presented themselves to the Sovereign. Milus reported, “If there is anyone up there, there can’t be a lot of them. They’re really well hidden.” “Collie got bit by a snake.” Silas held up the fanged half of a snake and asked anyone in the Sovereign’s attendance, “Is this poisonous?” “Where is the other end?” Xan asked. Silas’ twin, Milus, held up the butt end of the snake. “Not very poisonous,” said Xan. “Collie will itch for a while.” Devon ordered all his soldiers to helmets, full armor, leather cloaks c loaks and shields. The soldiers hated the helmets, especially when the sun was high, but they wore them.

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Xan strung his bow. His muscles flexed as he bent the bow. His skin gleamed with sweat under the fierce sun. He tied back his long, thick hair and kept his eyes on the forbidding heights. Devon ordered the column forward into the narrow pass.

The first arrow pierced through the royal litter’s scarlet curtain and stabbed into the down-stuffed silk cushions where the Sovereign was meant to recline. Devon was not inside the litter. He was on his black stallion. The first arrows would have killed him. Suddenly he was sliding off his horse, dragged down by his belt. He fell hard against Xan, who was hauling him bodily out of the open to the shelter of a great lot of rocks. The air sizzled with a defensive barrage of crossbow bolts from Devon’s men. Devon was locked in a strong embrace he could not break. He tried, but he couldn’t join his men in the fight. Xan was holding holding him down. Barbarian shouts bounced between the rock walls, muddled in their echoes. Their words sounded a little like the archaic high speech used in temples. It made the savages sound like angry priests. Devon couldn’t see his attackers. He couldn’t see anything but Xan, the gladiator’s powerful body covering Devon like a living shield. A spear stabbed the ground near their rocky shelter. Its wicked iron head was set on a cornel wood shaft. Weasel tails and the red tail feathers of a hawk were tied onto it in savage decoration. All around them shouts resounded amid pelting arrows, hissing bolts and scraping spears. Devon breathed in Xan’s scent, felt Xan’s pounding heart. Suddenly Xan let go of him and stood up. Xan nocked an arrow and pulled back his stout bow. He loosed several shots in quick succession. His arrows stabbed at the rocks at the attackers’ feet, backing the barbarians off their high ledges.

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The savages—Devon could see them now—wore cloaks of dried grass which made them look like thatched roofs escaped from their cottages. Devon stood up, wrenched the barbarian spear out of the hard-packed dirt and hurled it back to the heights where it came from. It was a strong throw and he got one of the savages. Just in his knee, but the man was dead when he tumbled down the rocks to the canyon floor. Devon roared for a crossbow. But it was already over. The hail of missiles from the regiment regiment was too much for the attackers. There had not been many attackers and now six of them were left dead on the rocks. Xan rounded on Devon with a scold. “You know that running and hiding is often the best tactic?” Devon answered, “Not in front of them.” His men. A Sovereign could not give a show of cowardice. c owardice. Devon could not diminish himself in front of his fighting men. And not in front of you , Devon thought at Xan.

“You are not making my task of defending you easy,” said Xan. “Yes?” Devon cocked his head. “Marcus would have named someone else as first guardsman if he’d known this was going to be hard.” Xan blinked at the insult. Then he pushed on to something else on his mind. “I know this tribe,” Xan said. “This is the Kiriciki. This act is not like them.” “Apparently it is like them,” Devon said. “Seeing that they did it.” Xan moved apart to retrieve his horse, which had wandered off in search of tasty weeds among the rocks. Ignat, captain of the horse guard, moved in to advise his Sovereign. “Of course the savage knows this tribe. He told them to be here.” 44


“Did he?” Devon replied. “And why did he not slip a dagger between my ribs when we were behind the rocks and deliver my carcass to them? Xan could have had me any time.” Ignat muttered, turning away, “So I hear.” Shit.

It was out. Devon felt himself go pale, then burn. He was not so foolish as to think servants didn’t talk. Devon had not been quiet in his chamber his last night in Laklare. The servants might have started the talk, but Devon would be damned if he would confirm any rumors. He spoke loftily at Ignat’s back, “If you have an accusation against my first guardsman, tell me something that makes sense and I shall listen.” Ignat turned around again. “The barbarians were laying in wait for us, ma dahn. They knew we were coming. They knew you were coming.” He jabbed the air with his stubby forefinger. “First thing they hit was your litter.” litter.” Devon went silent. He nodded, but kept his own counsel.

Devon’s men wearily gathered up the dead from the high rocks. The dead were all barbarians. The Raenthe soldiers set themselves to digging in the hard, hard ground. They had no love for the enemy, but they had a duty to the gods to return mortal remains into the earth. Xan grunted, watching, not assisting, looking foreboding. He held his arms crossed, his muscles tensed, his hands closed in tight, massive fists. His look grew fiercer and fiercer. His thoughts were shouting. Finally Devon had to command him, “Speak.” “Why do you defile the dead?” Xan said. Devon blinked, startled. “Do I? You must believe that is not my intent.” “Must I? To put them in the dirt is an insult. It is—how do you say—sacrilege.”

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A soldier nearby jerked up straight from the very shallow hole he’d dug so far. “It’s good enough for Raenthe!” he shouted at Xan. He made an apologetic salute to the Sovereign and growled, “Good enough for his lot!” He jabbed his spade into the earth. It bit no deeper than a dent. Devon recognized that desert tribes saw things differently than Raenthe people did. And if yielding to native ways spared Devon’s own men from digging in this rock, all the better. “I don’t make war on the dead,” he told Xan. “If these men were yours, what would you do?” “Burn the bodies, send the spirits home to the sky,” Xan Xa n answered. Devon’s lips pulled back from his teeth in a wince. “That is not happening. I am not sending a party into these bare hills to scavenge for firewood.” Xan glowered, a stormy look that could sweep entire coastal villages into the sea. “Give me something else, Gladiator,” Devon demanded. He would really love some alternative to making his men hack at these rocks. “Leave them,” Xan said. “Their own will come for them.” All the diggers within earshot paused to listen, thrilled, hopeful. Devon hesitated, “And that won’t offend your gods?” “Their families will come to take them home.” “Perfect,” said Devon. And to the men with shovels, he commanded, “Move these bodies off the road and out of the sun.” And just to be sure, he added, “Move them as if they were your brothers.” The fallen were moved and posed respectfully. When Devon ordered blankets for them, a man obeyed, but paused, clutching his bundle, unwilling to let go of perfectly good blankets. He looked up to Devon on horseback, and said in a wail, “ Ma dahn! They’re criminals!” Devon nodded kindly. “They paid.” With their lives, they paid. Devon tilted his head for the man to go on and give the blankets to the enemy dead.

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An infantry captain named Flacco moved in with a swagger, slapping dust off his tunic as he came. He rubbed sweat off his upper lip, which gave him a dirt mustache. “ Ma dahn! So the savages will come for their dead? You could take the column on through the pass. Leave me here with a cadre. We’ll hide in those rocks and slay the brutes when they come. They won’t expect that.” “It will be their mothers and wives who come,” said Xan. Devon told Flacco, “It won’t do. We normally give truce for our enemies to retrieve their dead anyway.” Flacco stiffened. He gave a snarling sniff and spoke coldly, “I noticed your first guardsman didn’t kill any of your attackers, ma dahn.” His cold blue eyes narrowed at Xan. “The first guardsman’s mandate is to keep his Sovereign safe,” said Devon evenly. “And he did that. He does not have orders to kill his own kind.” “We were attacked. He could have killed one!” Flacco said sourly. Devon had already noticed that. Yes. Xan could have killed one or two. Flacco’s broad features contorted. His voice was scornful, his eyes flicking toward Xan. “But you’re right, ma dahn. We shouldn’t wait in ambush. Maybe they would expect that.” With that, Flacco all but accused Xan outright of passing information to the Kiriciki tribesmen. Devon gestured for Xan to walk with him behind the rocks where Xan had sheltered him from the barbarian arrows. Devon turned to face his first guardsman and asked him flat out, “Would they? Expect that?” The sudden stinging in his cheek startled him. A slap. He’d been slapped. It was so unthinkable that Devon wasn’t sure it even happened except that his cheek was

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tingling. Xan’s blow hadn’t been hard, just enough to express outrage to his honor. And nothing more followed the slap. Had it been done in public, there would have been nothing to do but have Xan put to death. Devon could have Xan put to death anyway. Xan knew that. Apparently his honor was worth more to him than his life. Xan stood proud, awaiting whatever fate Devon chose for him. No one had seen the slap. Without apologizing or demanding apology, Devon said, “Since you are a being of honor, you shall live.”

***** Xandaras did not know what possessed him to slap the Sovereign. The mistake made him question his dedication to his mission. Xan could have been executed on the spot for that. Not even Xan could have fought his way out of the Sovereign’s garrison troop. The Raenthe tyrant had insulted him, Xan told himself. Then he argued back at himself, So what if he did? As if the opinion of a Raenthe mattered. As if Devon’s words mattered. As if Devon mattered. Xan’s anger had flashed suddenly, deadly hot, out of control, and he scarcely believed it while his own hand was in motion. Devon questioned Xan’s loyalty and Xan reacted with wounded honor. The trouble was that injured outrage was not Xan’s to give. Xan was disloyal. Xan hadn’t been behind the Kiriciki attack here in the pass, but his purpose in accompanying the Sovereign on this journey was not to guard the man’s life.

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Xan was here to turn the tyrant over to his own tribe for judgment. Xan nearly bungled a gods-given chance for vengeance. Then, almost worse, Devon called him a man of honor. Xan was having a tough time with that one. He felt the words burn in his gut like bitter poison. Xan had to remind himself that his loyalty was, at it had ever been, to his own tribe. Not to the Raenthe conquerors. Xan was not a traitor. He was loyal. Just not to whom the Raenthe tyrant thought. So Xan had given his oath to this man. Oaths sworn when the alternative is death were not binding in the desert. In the wild lands, word must be freely given. Xan had been carried off to a foreign land for fighting the invaders and he’d been sentenced to die in the gladiatorial ring for defending his tribe and his desert brothers. He owed Devon nothing. Xan had always thought the Sovereign soft and decadent. In his slave days, Xan used to look up from the dust and blood of the arena and see Devon there in his canopied box. Xan had never seen anything so fine in his life. Never before. Never since. So beautiful and so masculine at once. Devon used to watch Xan bleed. Xan had been brought to the daunting capital in chains like a raging ox, condemned and angry. He remembered being astonished by the outlanders’ technology and their wonders. Calista City looked like a home for gods, with huge buildings, marble fountains and water tamed into channels. Raenthe soldiers carried weapons that hurled bolts and balls and darts past the farthest dreams of the best desert archers. Xan used to look up from his death pit at that beautiful Sovereign in his cushioned box and dream about fucking him blind. And he would ask the gods why they had gone deaf to him. Fate turned, as fate will. Now Xan was now assigned to the Sovereign’s person and ordered to take him to the wild lands. The gods listened after all.

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And the chance to fuck him had come even sooner than that. Not the way Xan had imagined it. That fuck had not been the humiliation he dreamed of. Xan had been gentle. He needed to be gentle to get here. He’d taken Devon with great restraint. It was his chance to bring that crowned head under his control. Xan had put his cock into the Sovereign’s mouth. And Devon loved it. Xan had put his sex inside the Sovereign’s tight ass and had him sobbing for joy. Devon was really beautifully built, with that splendid hard body, that taut, narrow ass. He was extraordinarily sensual and touchingly innocent. Xan thought he may even have been Devon’s first. Devon had the smooth bronze skin of the Raenthe kind. He smelled good, and not just because of the spices and oils he used on his body. Devon’s musky essence was enticing. His tongue was exceptional. He must have learned the art from some very costly whores. Devon was the finest thing Xan had ever had. Devon wore no paint. Jewelry, yes, and fine clothes, but no other art. Out here on the march with the army, Xan could see how very little the ornament added to Devon’s beauty. He was youthfully slender and beautifully muscular. A few flecks of scars on his skin were but flaws in the diamond. His nails were short, neat and blunt-honed. Xan watched Devon ride. There was an elegant subtle curve to Devon’s back. Devon rode as he stood—tall, never rigid. He moved with a natural grace. There had been no mistaking that look of stunned lust on Devon’s face when the regent Marcus first presented Xan to Devon as first guardsman. Devon had paced away from him like an agitated mare with her nostrils full of stallion. Devon’s desire had been so hot that Xan was surprised the chamber did not ignite. It was so obvious what no one else seemed to notice. Devon wanted Xan. Xan knew he could make use of that desire. The gods were very strange. The Sovereign was turning out to be complicated, surprising. And now unnerving.

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Xan had thought the pretty dictator ordered the burial of the mountain dead out of disdain for the barbarian kind. Xan had wanted to kill the Sovereign right there. The tyrant was putting desert men into the dirt! But no. It hadn’t been intended as insult. It had been an ignorant blunder. Devon had thought he was respecting the enemy dead, treating them as he would his own, even if it meant laboring to dig holes. So the Sovereign wasn’t evil. He was, however, ignorant. Not someone you want ruling your kind. Devon was trying to lord over people he knew nothing about. To his credit, Devon was trying to correct c orrect that ignorance with this journey. It was too late. Xan reminded himself he was on a mission of vengeance and liberation. He had the tyrant by the cock. Things were going better than he’d ever expected. They were. Truly. Here Xan was on the very threshold of the wild lands and he’d almost squandered everything over a word, a Raenthe insinuation that he was doing exactly what he was doing—delivering doing—delivering the Sovereign to his enemy. Devon had questioned Xan’s loyalty. As well Devon should. The Raenthe tyrant who moaned in Xan’s arms was keeping a firm grip on his duty. It was Xan who was losing his grip. Xan felt the war within. I like him.

Xan could not allow that feeling to continue. Xan had a duty to deliver the tyrant into the hands of the desert people for judgment.

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Still, he was going to feel it keenly as a bleeding wound, the look in those fine eyes when the time for truth came.

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Chapter Four The narrow mountain pass opened into the wild lands. It was a different world on this side of the barrier ridge. Devon felt the enormity of the sky here, the desert’s bleak beauty. It was hard, stark, vibrant in its fashion. And it was dry. Fragrant herbs that thrived in harshness grew here. They grew thick and leathery, and exhaled piquant scents when men stepped on them. The herbs perfumed the army’s advance. Trees were contorted into artistic windblown shapes, their branches armed with thorns. Bright flowers clung to the rocks. Settlements were small and widely spaced. Their people of the desert did not come out to greet their Sovereign. They doused their fires and hid. Nomads on shaggy steeds ran for the hills. Whole villages cleared out at the column’s approach. Devon could see the dust clouds of their retreat. “They’re afraid of me,” said Devon. “You are surprised,” said Xan, with an edge of mockery. “I am,” said Devon. He kicked his stallion and rode to the empty houses. Smoke still curled from their chimneys. Devon found all the houses abandoned, their inhabitants gone in haste, dinner still in the hearth. In a barn he found spilled milk, a knocked-over stool and an uncomfortable, mooing cow. When he came out, he saw some of his soldiers leading away livestock that had been left behind—a scrawny steer on a tether, a gaggle of sheep.

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“Leave everything,” Devon commanded and motioned his soldiers to turn around and take the animals back to where they found them. It was like that the entire journey. Native tents folded up and settlements vanished at Devon’s approach. The desert winds carried off the dust of their retreat and erased their tracks. Devon spoke, not to anyone, maybe to the wind. “Why do they run?” “From an army?” Xan asked back skeptically. The answer ought to be obvious to a fool. “On the other side of the pass, my people did not run from me and my army,” Devon said. They had not. Xan remembered that. The Raenthe villagers had loaded their Sovereign down with gifts, and it had not been out of fear. The girls kissed him. Men came out just to touch the hem of his cloak. “You say you have come to see,” said Xan. “You shall see.”

***** Devon reined in. The train halted. In the distance, a magnificent fortress palace appeared carved on a low spur that jutted out of a mountain mountain like a dog’s knuckle. knuckle. The stronghold’s colossal colossal pillars looked to be carved out of solid rock. They were polished to a red sheen. The approach from the front was sheer. The fortress was impregnable. Around its base stood a stockade of pointed timber. An approach up any path up the rear was exposed to archers’ towers. Behind the citadel, terraced into the mountain slope, spread high pastures of sheep, short-legged short-legged cattle, horses and orchards. The citadel was entirely self-contained. It was the kind of structure built by men who were afraid. And men who were far too proud. Devon called for his guide. “Is that it?” 54


“Yes, ma dahn.” The scout showed Devon the camel-hide map. Xan had never learned to read a map. The marks on the camelskin meant nothing to him. He stared at the fortress. The citadel was built in a mix of Raenthe architecture and barbaric styles. Devon had been told that Governor Kani had a strong outpost. Devon had no idea. Devon said, “Is that—is that ours?” “Yes, ma dahn. That is the citadel. It looks very secure, ma dahn.” “One ought to be able to get something more done from a base like that,” Devon said. “Harpy’s Rook.” Devon’s head turned. “Xan?” “That building was not here when I was taken away. Later prisoners would come into the arena from the wild lands and talk of a place called Harpy’s Rook. This must be what they spoke of.” “‘Harpy’ is a word from the Old High speech,” Devon said. Harpy meant snatcher .

The fortress appeared more vast and impregnable as Devon’s troop came closer. The citadel did not take alarm at their approach. The garrison would recognize the blue uniforms, the Raenthe precision formation, the gold and silver standards and the scarlet litter. The huge gates between stone towers parted to welcome Devon’s army into the wide stockade with its high picket walls below the lofty citadel. Devon rode through the gates behind the imperial standards. The garrison troops were jubilant. Reinforcements had come at last. Devon announced loudly, “These are not reinforcements. This is your relief. You are going home.” 55

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Oceans did not roar so. The sounds rang off the citadel’s rock. Devon gauged from the soldiers’ riotous cheering how much they hated garrison duty here. Their voices resolved into a thunderous chant. “DEV-ON! DEV-ON! DEV-ON!” Governor Kani came out of a tower to greet the Sovereign with a forced smile. Devon had seen that look on ship captains when an admiral boarded their vessels. A master of his own world was not accustomed to having a superior. Kani was a hulking man with a well-upholstered wrestler’s build. His teeth shone white within his black beard. He wore strange garb that had a military look to it. It was dark green. Kani greeted Devon. “ Ma dahn! You made it! Thank all the gods!” “I am here,” said Devon. “Why? Why are you here?” Devon must have looked affronted, because Kani quickly rephrased, “I welcome you. I am astonished that you risked the passage. You have no idea how reckless that was.” “I have some idea,” Devon assured Governor Kani. “Why would you do that to yourself?” Kani said. “I needed to see for myself what you are up against out here.” “I trust you saw.” “Do you?” Devon said. Did Kani already know that Devon had been attacked on his way here? “What do you suppose I saw?” Kani seemed to hesitate. He threw out like a guess, “Wild men acting wildly?” “There was some wildness,” Devon admitted. “We were hit in the pass.”

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“There! You see?” “It means the barbarians knew we were coming,” c oming,” Devon said. Kani shook his head. “Out here every mountain pass is some bandit’s target. These people are trapdoor spiders. You will always be hit in a pass.” “No one goes through the Witch’s Cleft but once in forever,” Devon said. “Bandits don’t lay traps where no one ever travels. These men were waiting. For me.” “That is not possible,” Kani said. “They hit my litter. First. They knew the Sovereign was coming through the Witch’s Cleft.” Kani put his hand over his heart. “ Ma dahn, I told no one.” The official communication had gone directly from the Sovereign to the provincial governor. “It had to be someone on your side. Who else knew?” “Trusted people of my court,” Devon answered. “And your guard, ma dahn,” Kani added significantly. Kani’s eyes and everyone else’s eyes turned to the barbarian Xan. “No,” said Devon. Afraid he sounded too insistent. “How can you know that, ma dahn?” “Because I am here.” If Xan had meant to kill him, Devon would not have arrived at his destination. Kani gave a provisional sideways nod, allowing that argument. Kani suggested instead, “Then perhaps your regent wants to keep the reign?” Marcus.

Devon stiffened. He did not respond. Devon noted other men of the citadel dressed in the same strange green garb as the governor. They must be Kani’s inner circle of personal guards. They were dressed differently from the garrison troops out in the front courtyard, who wore standard Raenthe military blue. “Your men out of uniform.” 57

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“Our uniforms wore out,” Kani said. “We make do. We don’t like to go begging back to the capital if we can fend for ourselves.” “You should look like Raenthe.” Devon was aware of eyes rolling around him, as if the Sovereign had been so petty as to travel all the way from Calista City just to take issue with the color of the provincial dress. Some of the green-clad men bore red tattoos on their left hands, all the same design, a serpent within a circle. Devon did not know what that signified. “Uniforms should be uniform,” Devon said with finality. He assumed Kani and his men would fall in line.

There was a lot of Raenthe technology on display inside the immense walls—a water wheel, plumbing, metalwork. Raenthe civilization existed behind the fortress walls, but nowhere else in the wild lands under Devon’s rule. Kani’s civilizing hadn’t got anywhere. Devon had expected more from his deputy. “Men get cut down outside these walls,” Kani told Devon. “A lot of good people never came back.” Kani took Devon around the fortress. When they passed a dust pit that was ringed by high walls and tiered banks of seats, Devon stopped dead. Devon spoke in hollow surprise, “You have an arena.” “That?” Kani said. “That is an exercise area.” It was a pit with high walls and an iron-reinforced door, overlooked by stadium benches. “You are not permitted an arena,” said Devon, stern. The arena was serious business, a terrible place where were held games that were not really games at all. Gladiatorial matches must have a profound purpose or they

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were nothing but barbarous bloodshed. Arenas belonged to state rulers only—Princes and Sovereigns. Outpost governors had not the right. The only lawful arena in Shiliya Province was Devon’s arena in Calista City. “Oh, the walls?” said Kani. “Animal trainers also use that space. There are vicious creatures in the hills.” “No games?” Devon asked in dread concern. Gladiatorial combat was a rite of redemption and honor. Not a sport. Kani smiled, hand over his heart again with a slight bow that asked how could Devon even ask him that? “It is not permitted, ma dahn.”

Kani joined Devon on the ramparts as the sun was going down. The two rested their forearms on the carved stone balustrade and watched the western horizon turn bloody. Kani passed Devon a heavy electrum goblet filled with wine. “Here. You don’t have this in Calista City.” Devon sipped the offered wine. He lifted his brows appreciatively. “We should have this in Calista City.” Why weren’t the locals trading this stuff? There was no trade at all of goods between the capital and the wild lands. There should be trade by now. Kani chuckled and drank from his goblet. As the sun tucked under the western hills Devon saw fires on the black heights. The blazes were too big to be nomad campfires. “What is that?” Devon asked, poised to dispatch soldiers at once to help the locals fight the blaze. “Retaliation,” said Kani. “You mean we did that?” Devon said, staring at the blaze. “We cannot let the savages get away with the attack on your person. Burning a settlement or two will let them know they will always pay for what they do. More gladiators for your arena, eh?” “I really don’t need more gladiators,” said Devon. 59

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“It needs to be done. You saw what these people do.” “But why do they do it? My rule is not harsh.” “There you have it. They are animals.” Devon nodded out at the flames on the hillside. “Are those the homes of the men who attacked me?” Devon had come from the southeast. The burning settlement lay to the west. “It doesn’t matter,” Kani said. “They need to know that too—that it doesn’t matter which of them commits the crime. Sooner or later they will learn that what one of them does falls on them all. That’ll teach them a lesson.” It would. But Devon was not sure what lesson this was teaching.

The sun was completely gone. Torch fires lit the vast citadel. In the sumptuous chamber provided to him, Devon dressed for dinner. The room led off from a half bridge, which overlooked a wide, high great room below. Stairs at either end of the half bridge led down. A guard station stood at the base of each stairway. It was like being in an eagle’s nest. The chamber for the Sovereign’s first guardsman was next to his. Devon found his first guardsman in his doorway. Devon had not admitted the gladiator into his chamber. Yet here he was. “Xan?” “What is appropriate to wear to a governor’s dinner?” Xan asked. Devon shook his head, assured him, “You don’t have to be there.” “I should not leave your side.” “This fortress is even stronger than mine. Nothing can happen at dinner. You will secure this chamber while I dine.” “If the fortress is secure, what am I looking for?” Xan asked. “Spies.”

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“You think someone will spy?” “I know they will if they can.” Devon turned and presented himself. “How do I look?” Xan wore a remote expression between softness and pain. “You take my breath away.” He made Devon blush.

The dining hall was set in a coarse sort of opulence. Crossed spears with ermine tails were arranged heraldically over the high entry arch. Devon pointed up, “I have a spear just like those. It’s stuck in my litter.” “I have a whole collection of savage weapons,” Kani said. “They’re quite beautiful in a brute sort of way. The wild men make an art of their barbarity. I’ll have to show my collection to you.” Dinner was a sumptuous, vulgar affair. The diners reclined on couches, as civilized folk did. But here a buxom nymph sat at the foot of each couch. Devon, trying to converse with his governor, kept getting distracted. Three of the other diners were reclining on their backs, their couchmates sitting astride them, their hips rocking forward and back. Devon glanced, glanced again. What he was looking at was not frottage. The women were taking penetration. This had been going on for some moments now. Sly looks passed among the three mounted men, challenging. Apparently it was a contest to see who could last the longest. It was a very Raenthe sort of entertainment, but definitely definitely not high class. You found this kind of dare at dockside taverns, yes. State dinners, no. Devon had been critical of Kani from the moment of his arrival, so the Sovereign refrained from commenting now on what was w as not important.

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Devon tried to get back to business, but he kept catching humping glimpses out of the corner of his eye. He heard now and then a heavy escaping gasp of slipping control. Devon looked again. The hand clutching one woman’s hip bore a red tattoo. A lot of Kani’s men had them. Devon made out the pattern. It was not a Raenthe mark. The red serpent in the circle might be a native symbol. Was Devon’s provincial garrison going native? Devon didn’t like it. The blonde woman on the nearest couch crouched forward like a leopardess over her man, her hips high so her man was nearly out of her except for his tip. His gleaming hard shaft was on display. The woman’s hair was glittering wet. She lowered herself down to consume him. She shot a side glance at another woman on another couch. The women were exchanging glances as well. There was another wager going on here. The men were vying to see who could last the longest. The women were seeing who could make her man come first. The blonde threw her head back so that her long hair brushed the tops of her man’s thighs. The posture thrust her breasts out. The man’s hands squeezed and re-gripped her breasts. His face screwed up. He sweated, fighting for control. Kani caught Devon watching them. “Who do you like?” The question startled Devon. Then he caught on. It was a side wager. Devon dodged the question. He nodded toward the man under the blonde and said laconically, “I hope you don’t have money on that one, Kani. I think he’s done for.” The man yelped, “I think so too!” He dragged his woman down hard on him, and abandoned himself to the last throes of passion, pumping hard and fast, making her buck. She laughed, triumphant. All pretense of conversation was interrupted by the man’s exultant wailing. As he came down from climax, the man realized his defeat and told the woman astride him, “I won’t pay you.” One of the two men still in contention said brightly, “I will!”

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The other two women were riding their racehorses, fast. One woman reached back and squeezed the balls of her mount. Devon had a hard-on, despite his mild disgust. Erect cocks, wet balls and male thighs couldn’t help but arouse him. Devon’s own dinner companion, seated at the foot of his couch, was trying to get him interested. Her hand stole up his thigh. He gently brushed her off. Kani noticed his gesture. “You don’t like desert women, ma dahn?” “They’re extraordinary,” Devon said. “But unless the food or the company is bad, they’re too distracting at dinner.” “I can send two or three to your chamber for later. Take your pick before they’re used.” “No, Kani,” Devon said, forced to be blunt. “I was trying to be gracious, but truth is, I did not come here for pleasure. You can’t do better than the capital for that.” Devon produced a gold coin. He flipped it at one of the two remaining contenders and commanded him, “Finish.” The humping sped up and spent quickly. Kani got a mean look in his eyes. He said, “You’re very young for a hard-ass.” “I was not chosen Sovereign for the softness of my ass,” said Devon. At that, Kani seemed to remember his station. He became contrite. “I’m afraid we must strike you as crude and primitive out here in the wilds.” Yes, you do, Devon thought. He said instead, “Don’t worry. I did not come here to be

entertained. If I wanted delights, I’d have stayed in Calista City or Laklare.” Kani settled back, mollified. “I have heard of your spectacles in the capital. I would love to see a gladiatorial contest.” “I can arrange that,” said Devon. “Soon.” Kani’s bushy dark brows lifted, wary.

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“It is a hard duty here. I see that. Kani, I am sending you home to a well-deserved rest.” The governor erupted with a roar and a sloshing of wine as his heavy goblet slammed down onto his table. “No!” Devon was ready for this reaction. He had seen this before. Men in dire circumstance grew to love their hardship. It warped the soul and made the soul cling to what was destroying it. “Go home,” Devon said evenly. “Things will look different in time.” Kani great paws gestured as if grasping for hope out of the air. “I know I’ve disappointed you, ma dahn. You don’t understand the needs of this place. I do.” “I know I don’t know this land,” Devon said. “But it needs fresh eyes. You know this place too well. You will feel better back in civilization. You have provided a great service in a brutal land. I left you out here too long. You’ve become too accustomed to brutality. Let go the burden. It is not yours anymore. Don’t fight me on this, Kani.” “You can’t do this to me!” “You are not happy now. You will be. You must trust me.” Kani took a huge breath, exhaled with lowered eyes. “Yes. I’m holding on too tight.” “Don’t dwell on it,” Devon said. “Know that I am not angry. This winter of your soul will pass. Now forgive me if I pass on the dessert course. We’ll talk again in the daylight.” Devon rose. His couchmate looked up hopefully for an invitation to follow him. She didn’t get it.

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Devon passed the guard station at the base of one of the flights of stairs that led to his chamber. He nodded to the guard and ascended. His chamber door stood open. Fire shadows moved within. As Devon neared, he heard a husky female voice inside the chamber sing out, “I found the whore door!” “I won’t be needing that,” Devon said, appearing in the entranceway. Xan and the first triad of guardsmen looked up, stopped what they were doing. The first triad comprised the bald twins, Milus and Silas, and the broad young woman, Rodriga. They all snapped to attention before their Sovereign. Devon waved them down. “Carry on.” Rodriga was standing beside a secret entrance. It had been well camouflaged, blending in perfectly with the rest of the wall. The secret door could be barred from the inside. Its heavy crosspiece looked like part of the room’s decorative molding. The other side of the secret door had no crossbar. Devon could lock people out. He could not be locked in. No harm in that. The secret door led out to a narrow rock stair that spiraled down in perfect darkness to a secret exit on the rear side of the citadel. Such a passage was good for smuggling in illicit lovers. It was no use to Devon. Though he supposed a second exit was a good thing to have. “Just make sure this is barred fast from the inside tonight.” “ Ma dahn,” Rodriga acknowledged with a brisk nod. Devon’s guards had also found the spyholes. Milus and Silas had patched them. There were a lot of them. “Kani’s men told us the peepholes are for the slaves. So they can look in on you and see if you need anything without disturbing you by asking.”

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Devon had noticed that Kani regarded his slaves as animals and didn’t concern himself with privacy from their eyes. Devon wanted the spyholes masked off. “We got all of ‘em, ma dahn,” Rodriga said. Devon lifted a ringed forefinger toward the ceiling. “Did you look up?” Rodriga swore and hastily left the chamber. There was no lock at all on the entrance door from the landing. “I can install a bar, ma dahn,” Xan offered. “Not necessary,” said Devon. There were guard stations at the base of both sets of stairs. An intruder would need to use a grappling hook to climb up here from the big hall below without passing the guard stations. And they would be noticed if they tried. Rodriga’s thumping footsteps sounded on the ceiling, and, in a moment, her voice sounded from above, a little too clearly, “Silas, you sunburned the top of your head.” Devon nodded up to the hole above Silas’ head. “Cover that.” Silas looked up to the fingers—Rodriga’s—wiggling through the spyhole. Silas dragged a heavy chest across the floor to stand on while he nailed a metal plate over the hole. Rodriga came back down, and the triad finished securing the room. Xan had a fire going in the hearth. “Thank you,” Devon said and dismissed them. He was alone in the chamber. c hamber. His door opened again. Xan had returned. Devon regarded him for a fearful moment that extended as if time itself had stopped. Xan’s overwhelming masculinity filled the chamber.

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“I will call you if I need you,” Devon said and turned his back. His fear was realized. Xan’s hand closed on the back of his neck, as one might collar a child, but not like a child at all. Devon felt the intent in Xan’s hand. Desire flowed through his palm in a strong current, powerful sexuality in it. Devon smelled male passion. And Devon’s pulse leapt. A tingle prickled under his jaw. A singing filled his head. He tasted the sourness of fear. Elation burned in his blood. Expectation fluttered in his middle. His balls clenched like fists with his cock’s rising. This could not be happening. This was an assault on the Sovereign. Xan wouldn’t dare. He dared.

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Chapter Five Oh gods.

Does the racehorse tremble so when he submits control of his power to another? Does he trust his rider to drive him where he wants to go—because go he must. Devon did not command Xan to stop. He feared Xan would not obey. Then Devon, the Sovereign, would need to kill him. And right at this moment, Devon would rather die than tell Xan to stop. It was only what Devon wanted. Xan’s palm glided slowly down Devon’s arm, warm. Xan’s touch made Devon shudder in fear and need. Xan traced Devon’s hard muscles and elegant bones. It was the lightest of gestures, yet so personal, so powerful. Xan’s fingertips caressed the backs of Devon’s fingers and glided back up his arm and across his shoulder. Xan’s hand slid up Devon’s neck under his jaw to hold his head as he might hold a goblet. Devon murmured, “How dare you!” Xan spoke, so close behind him Devon felt his breath move his hair, “You radiate desire.” Do I?

Xan’s hand moved down again, smoothing soft fire across Devon’s shoulder, down the length of his arm, raising all the short hairs on his body. Devon was afraid of him. Afraid of himself. Xan stepped in closer. Their clothes brushed. Devon felt Xan’s body heat the full length of his back.

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Xan moved Devon’s hair off the back of his neck with a light brush of his hand that left Devon breathless. The first soft press of lips on his nape was electric. Xan’s lips grazed across the back of Devon’s neck, sending him flying into soaring wonder. Then Xan’s hard, scar-flecked arms encircled Devon’s waist from behind and drew him flush against his hard body. The gladiator’s sex pressed against Devon’s ass. Xan loosed the cross pin that clasped Devon’s belt. The belt ends fell free. The belt stayed up now only by the pressure between their bodies. “You could die for this,” Devon whispered. “I could,” said Xan. Xan stepped back away from him. Devon felt his absence like a wound. His belt fell at his feet. Then Devon’s tunic was dragging upward. He lifted his arms to let Xan pull the silky blue garment up over his head. As the fabric swept clear, Devon plucked off his gold circlet and tossed it aside. He would not be taken again with his crown c rown on. Before Devon could turn to face the barbarian, both of Xan’s palms slid down Devon’s sides, stopping to bracket his hips and hold him in place. Xan stepped forward, closing the space between him. His clothed erection pressed at Devon’s bare ass. Xan’s breath moved the hair over Devon’s ear. Devon looked down, saw Xan’s murderous hands holding his hips, Xan’s fingers framing his erection. Devon’s cock stood up, fully stiff, waiting, begging for Xan’s touch. Xan’s fingertips toyed at the edges of Devon’s pubic hair. Devon’s eyelids felt heavy, weighted with desire. He frowned in mixed elation and deepest dread. This was irresponsible, irrational. I don’t care.

The firelight itself froze in anticipation.

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Devon did not give up control easily. Like something breaking, he yielded. The lord of the lower realm ruled here. But it was not just his cock demanding. In his heart of hearts as well, Devon needed this. This barbaric land had a hypnotic power of its own. This was reckless. It was dangerous. None of that changed the reality of this moment. This was going to happen. Devon turned to face Xan with a solemn frown. His sex brushed Xan’s palm in turning. Devon’s eyelids fluttered on the tremor that coursed through his body. Devon’s eyes nearly shut. He could not bear to close them entirely, but could not bear to meet the gladiator’s gaze full on. He thought he might burn away, body and soul. Devon lifted his hand to Xan’s mouth, and touched his fingertips to his lips. His lips were remarkably soft. Xan took Devon’s forefinger into his mouth, surrounding it with wet, sexual warmth. Xan’s teeth closed on one of Devon’s rings, tugged it loose, and slid it off Devon’s finger with a slow drag of his lips. Xan let the ring fall into his palm. He went down on the finger again, tugged the other ring loose and slid it off, let it drop. He moved on to the next finger. Devon wore a lot of rings. Xan laid Devon back on the bed—gently this time. Then he stepped back and stripped out of his clothes. Devon stared. Burning. A sense of danger seared like a firebrand in Devon’s midriff. Xan crawled over him and stroked Devon’s body with his tongue. Devon’s chest heaved with his deep breaths. He gazed up at the patch in the ceiling. Xan licked the inside of Devon’s thigh. Xan’s tongue drew liquid fire in the crease where his leg joined his torso. He sucked on Devon’s balls. The last time they had been together, Devon had been wearing a cock ring. Xan marked its absence, running his tongue around the rim of Devon’s helmet where the

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ring used to be. He drew circles of melting fire around Devon’s cock. Desire expressed from its tip. Xan licked it. Broad strokes of Xan’s velvet tongue drove Devon to the farthest edge of endurance. And then Xan came up, leaving Devon’s sex begging for his touch. An array of ornamental phials of scented oils had been laid out on a night table for the Sovereign’s pleasure. Xan chose one that smelled like sandalwood. Xan touched the glass phial to the back of Devon’s hand, as if Devon would smooth the oil on Xan’s sex. Devon ought to be calling for guards. He turned his face aside and shut his eyes. A ridiculously feeble protest, but there it was. Xan poured the oil for himself. Xan’s oiled hands on Devon’s cock coaxed a grunt from him with a hot shiver like walking through fire. Devon’s body quivered with lust. His heartbeat was a solid blur. His breaths came hard, as if he were running for his life. Devon’s hands roamed Xan’s vast chest. Devon wasn’t sure how they got there. His hands just moved, feeling Xan. Devon’s fingers laced through Xan’s chest hair, feeling the hardness of muscles beneath his skin. Xan lifted Devon’s hips off the mattress. The satiny glide of Xan’s cock in the cleft between Devon’s buttocks made him catch his breath. Xan’s sex penetrated him with silken hardness, slow and deep. Xan pushed his sex inside him to the hilt. His balls pressed against Devon’s buttocks. Xan was out of bounds. Devon should resist. But he was way past that. There was no turning back. Xan was already there. Devon felt his soul falling. He let himself fall, his mouth open in silent cries.

The assassins came in the night.

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Xan had left Devon spent, and Devon had fallen into a dreamless sleep. He woke to the clash of swords and a nd fighting shouts. It didn’t feel like he’d been asleep long. The fire in the hearth was a ruddy glimmer under a coat of ash. Devon’s chamber door burst open. The men who rushed in were not Devon’s guardsmen. They wore the green garb of Kani’s elite guards. There were seven of them. The Sovereign’s first guardsman, Xan, was not among them. One guard dropped a peremptory genuflect, fist to his armored chest, his head briefly bowed, then he rose up swiftly to business. “ Ma dahn, we must get you away from here.” “Where are my men?” Devon said, while wondering what on earth he had drunk that he’d heard nothing before this moment. He didn’t feel at all groggy as he would if he’d been drugged. How could he have been sleeping through an attack on the citadel? He leapt out of bed, naked. He seized up his fine blue tunic from the floor and a pair of sturdy boots he’d left by the door. He gathered up all his rings scattered on the carpet and glanced around for a belt. The shadows cast by the low fire were dark upon darkness. “Your soldiers are fighting the savages, ma dahn. Come quickly,” one man said, not giving him time to dress. Another guard crossed the floor in long strides, heading straight for the secret door. He lifted its camouflaged crossbar, opened the door, and held his lantern into the blackness of the secret stairway. Devon stood still, hugging his boots, his tunic, his belt. “How did the savages get in?”

“They were let in.” A traitor within. The daring of the attackers was incredible. There was a force of two full Raenthe garrisons in the stockade below, and the wild men chose to break in now? It was terrifying. Such people were not afraid to die. 72


No wonder Kani’s defenses were so strong. They hadn’t helped. These people had to be mad. Devon shouted at the wall that separated him from Xan’s chamber. “Xan!” He got no response except from the guard holding the whore door for him. “He’s not in there, ma dahn. No one can find him.” Find him? Just how long had they been looking for him? How long had this

disturbance been going on? Where had they looked for Xan? And where was Xan? “Hurry, ma dahn!” Kani’s men ushered him through the secret door and down the tight winding stone steps within the dank earth. It smelled like being buried alive. The lantern in the leader’s hand gave off wobbling light. Devon felt his way along the moldering walls of the winding staircase. The space widened at the bottom landing. A heavy door opened to the desert night and waiting horses. From the door’s threshold there was a drop of a couple feet to the ground. The forward guards jumped down in haste, urging the Sovereign to follow quickly, quickly. Devon stepped aside, leaned against the rock wall to pull on his boots as the other guards spilled out the door. They were mounting up in a great rush to be away. They hissed at him to hurry, hurry, hurry. Devon stood up, moved to the doorway. A man waited for him down below, holding the headstall of a horse that was saddled and ready for him. Low, urgent, he pleaded, “ Ma dahn, there is no time!” Devon stopped dead, movable as a mule. He counted the animals. Three loaded pack horses on traces. There were seven mounted riders warily wheeling and glancing about for anyone approaching. There were eight more saddled horses, with seven guards on the ground anxious to mount up and be away if only his Sovereign self would move his ass.

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The secret door led out to a secluded place behind the fortress where the mountain spur joined the mountain. The massif rose up a sheer forbidding black hulk, guarding the back of the citadel. Only narrow trails led here. The moon was nearly full, fat and bright. The saddled horse being held for Devon was getting restless. The horse tried to toss its head. The tattooed hand had a firm grip under its muzzle. Devon was delaying their flight to safety. The men were desperately impatient to be away. Devon could tell if they could have laid hands on his Sovereign person, they would have. He should go out there and mount. Something inside him rose up in a balk. ba lk. All his thoughts were spinning too fast for him to hold a single one of them. Something was wrong. Something was wrong. He couldn’t place what he was sensing. Something was just wrong. He turned back. “ Ma dahn!” voices cried behind him. Devon called over his shoulder, “Wait for me!” And he pelted up the pitch-black stairs. He wasn’t coming back. He just wanted the men to stay where they were. He climbed as if winged, one hand groping for each next step. His nostrils narrowed against the dank air. His heart galloped. He burst into his chamber, slammed the secret door and bolted it fast. He pulled his tunic on over his head, secured his belt, made sure there was a dagger in the sheath. He put on his rings and searched for his crown. A motion at the door made him gasp and reach for his dagger. Then he was in Xan’s arms. It was a brief, desperate embrace. Then Xan seized up a heavy cloak and led Devon out through the chamber’s front door onto the walkway that overlooked the great entrance hall.

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The torches were out. The great room below lay hidden in utter darkness, but the large space felt empty. The guard’s stations on either end of the corridor were vacant. The guards who had come to Devon’s chamber had left no one back here as rear guard. There was no one here at all. No enemy. No friends. Devon followed Xan close as a shadow down the wide stone steps. Xan halted at the bottom, where dragon-headed finials of the bronze railing were frozen in silent roars. There were people here. Not lying in ambush. Lying dead. By the lurid glow from the dying fire in the great hearth, Devon could make out bodies. They were barbarians. All of them. Xan led the way across the great hall, moving carefully around the bodies of savages and their barbaric weapons. Devon watched for blood pools so he wouldn’t step in one, but there were none. Did savages not bleed? Devon recognized a man—the slave who had poured the wine at dinner. And another—the slave who had brought firewood to his chamber. The barbarians’ weapons were strewn around them. There was a spear decorated with ermine tails, and behind it a battleaxe with a jagged barbed head. A quiver beaded with savage designs lay beside another body. Devon almost tripped, stepping in the loop of the quiver’s beaded strap. No Raenthe lay among them and no wounded. These barbarians were all slaves and they were all thoroughly dead. Devon picked up a sword. Shouts and an uproar arose, with metallic clashes elsewhere in the fortress telling of a fierce battle. The noise came from the eastern end of the compound.

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Other sounds came from the outer stockade, roars of soldiers. The attackers must have flanked the front guards and stolen in through the sally gates at the fortress’s mountainous rear. Raenthe voices from below bellowed to be let in, as sounds of raging battle carried from the east wing. Devon’s first impulse was to charge down to the stockade to let the clamoring soldiers in. But he didn’t really know who was behind those doors. He could not organize a campaign when he had no idea what was happening. He could end up trying to put out a fire with oil. This was Kani’s fortress. Kani must know how to defend it. Until Devon knew what was happening, he should stay out of Kani’s way. Xan seized Devon’s wrist and led him at a run toward the west wing, where all was quiet. They passed through the kitchen, which was tidy, quiet and empty. A low fire burned in the hearth. The poker hung on its hook. Polished pots sat in a row. Knives stood in their racks. Xan grabbed a woven sack and loaded it with some foodstuffs, apples, cured meat and bread. Then he led the way out the small door which slaves used to haul out the ashes. There were no intruders on this side of the citadel. No guards either. Everyone must have run toward the sounds of fighting. Xan and Devon followed the narrow goat path that led along the rock spine at the foot of the mountain. They skirted a sheepfold. A guard dog came out snarling. It stayed on its side of the sheep fence, slavering, its fangs bared, hackles raised, daring them to take one step into his pen. The shepherds themselves were not here. The path zigged and zagged a tortuous route over the shoulder of the fortress rock down to the level plain several stadia to the west.

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Xan took off at a trot across the level ground. Devon followed Xan. It was like being in an earthquake. Devon needed to get himself out of the building and wait for the world to stop shaking before he could go back inside find how things fell. It was the right thing to do. But running away never went down easily with him. It was torture for him to resist his soldier’s instinct to charge into the thick of battle. He hated being of a rank at which his head was of more value than his sword arm. Older rulers were sage to this sort of thing and accepted a ccepted it. Devon was young enough to want to fight. Duty demanded that he run. A fine general he would be who plunged into battle knowing nothing of the battlefield, the numbers, the enemy, anything. When he’d been a soldier, there were always code words to separate friend from foe. He didn’t know the words. He could get killed by a friend. He could kill a friend. Knowing the enemy was vital. Devon did not know his enemy. He followed Xan. They stopped in a grove of ancient olive trees on rising ground at a distance from the citadel. The trunks of the gnarled trees were wider than ten men around. Narrow leaves drooped from their contorted limbs. It was a good place to go unseen. Xan tucked olives away in a pouch at his belt, as if he expected to be out here for a while. Devon could see the dark hulk of the citadel from here. It looked impenetrable. The desert night was cold. Devon was shaking, not from the chill and not exactly from fear. It was a dread deeper than fear. And it was anger. He lay down to wait for dawn. He had a battle veteran’s ability to force sleep in hell. Xan lay down with him and pulled him against his heat. He drew his rough cloak over them both.

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Devon slept a few hours under the stars. Dreams came to him. Things below his awareness bubbled to the surface. He was on a battlefield. His comrades were dead, clutching their swords and crossbows. He heard moans of the wounded. He sat up in a wide-eyed sweat. “Horses,” he said. He heard Xan stirring. He was not sure if the gladiator had ever fallen to sleep. Xan’s voice sounded from under the cloak. “Are you dreaming, ma dahn?” “Yes,” Devon said. Devon stood up and walked to the edge of the grove. He saw the citadel. Firelight winked in the tower windows. Night air moved Devon’s hair. He spoke without turning. “Xan, where were you when they came to my chamber?” “I was led off.” Xan sounded angry. “Chasing lures. Just like everyone else.” Xan, the Sovereign’s first guardsman, had left Devon alone. Devon looked to the westering moon. Dawn was maybe an hour off. “We’re going back,” Devon said. “No,” Xan said. Devon’s knife was not in its sheath in his belt. Not a surprise. Devon had already figured out he was being kidnapped.

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Chapter Six Devon was always quick off the mark in a foot race. He let no fog of disbelief or indecision hold him back now, so he got a quick lead, dashing through the olive grove at full speed. It didn’t last. Fleet footsteps with long strides caught up, and suddenly Devon was slamming forward onto the ground with a woof of of expelled breath. Devon twisted before Xan could pin him. Devon kicked and thrashed and wrenched under Xan’s pressing weight. Devon brought a fist up under Xan’s chin that made him bite his tongue, but nothing worse than that. Xan caught Devon’s hands trying to claw his eyes, and he pinned Devon’s wrists over his head, pressing Devon flat on his back under his greater mass. Devon had an erection, but it really was a fighting hard-on this time. Xan wedged a knee between Devon’s legs to keep him from kicking and twisting out of the hold. Devon’s chest rose and fell, pressing against Xan’s chest. Devon was surprised, angry, disappointed to be in this position, but not astounded. The sensible part of his mind, which he had been holding underwater, came up with a gasp to tell him it had told him so. Devon had only one move left, a feeble one. He scraped his heel against the back of Xan’s knee. “That hurts,” said Xan. “Yes?” said Devon. “Would ma dahn like to be pounded unconscious?” Xan asked.

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Devon rested, panting. Xan’s face hovered above his in the dark. Devon saw a glitter in his eyes, tasted his breath, felt his pounding heartbeat against his own chest. “I suppose you think loyalty to your tribe makes this not treachery?” “That is what I think,” Xan said. “And it is the truth,” “That is dog squat,” Devon said as loftily as he could flat on his back. “You swore an oath to me.” “My loyalty to my own tribe allows me to lie to our enemy.” “You didn’t just lie, you swore an oath,” Devon said, his voice low in contempt. “You traitor. You lizard.” Xan ignored Devon’s words. As if Devon were a dog. Or a jackass. “What will you do with me?” Devon demanded. “Same as you did to me,” said Xan. “I am taking you home for judgment in my village.”

Devon would not cooperate. He would not walk. If Xan chose to knock him unconscious, well, he could try. As soon as Devon could move an inch, he slid out from under Xan’s body, rolled, found his feet and bolted. And was quickly tackled. Xan bound Devon’s wrists and ankles with rawhide strips. He came away with a few bite marks to show for it. When he tried to lift Devon over his shoulders to carry him, Devon kicked and writhed and bent this way and that like a muscular fish. Xan dropped him. Xan tried to drag his prisoner by his feet, but Devon kicked loose. This was going to be a long journey. Xan hadn’t wanted to, but he found a rock and he menaced the Sovereign with it. Blows to the head were dodgy things. Xan could kill his prisoner before he could bring him to judgment. He needed a judgment.

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Devon was not heeding any of Xan’s threats. The man was fearless, Xan had to give him that. And Devon was not coming quietly. Devon was not huge, but he was tall, firmly muscled and solidly boned, and he thrashed like a bagful of lynxes. Xan dropped him again and set to fashioning a tether with which to drag him. The dawn had come, gray and glowering. Devon sat up tall. He spat olive leaves off his lips and shook back his lush black hair. He spoke, haughty as if crowned and sitting in state. “You said you knew the tribe who attacked me in the Witch’s Cleft.” “I do,” said Xan, braiding wild grapevines into a tether. The infernal things were shredding as he twisted them. “The Kiriciki.” “Take me to them.” Xan paused. “What sort of trick is this?” “We do not trick,” said the Sovereign, using royal plurals now. Bound in the dust, Devon never looked so formidably regal. There was steel in the man. “What do you expect to gain from the Kiriciki?” Xan asked. “I want to ask them how they knew I was coming to the wild lands and why they attacked me in the pass.” “You go to the Kiriciki, they will only finish what they started,” Xan warned. “As they see fit,” Devon said. “Take me to them and I will walk with you.” Xan blinked, startled. He was about to ask if Devon was sincere. But he could see the Sovereign was dead serious. More dead than Devon realized. Xan wanted to take Devon to Xan’s own tribe for judgment, but he was beginning to doubt his ability to get Devon there alive. Xan decided judgment before the Kiriciki would do just as well. “Swear?” Xan asked. “I do so swear,” said Devon. He really was an incredible manly beauty, angry, his black eyes flashing. Eyes that could not lie. “And my word is worth something.” 81

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That stung. As hard as Xan tried to shake it off, the words bit. Xan told himself his loyalty was unswerving. Still, Xan had given a false oath. And he was certain that Devon was not lying now. Xan unbound the Raenthe Sovereign. True to his word, Devon did not run. He made no move to reclaim his weapons. Devon commanded, “Lead on.” Xan gathered up the supplies he’d taken from the fortress kitchen and set out. Devon followed. After a short way, Devon said, “This is not the way back to the pass.” “We are not going back to the pass.” “You said you would take me to the tribe who attacked me at the pass,” Devon said. “The Kiriciki lands are broad. I will deliver you to the Shepherdess of the Kiriciki. I shan’t take you any way near the Raenthe Road or the Witch’s Cleft.” “Then where are you taking me?” “Up there.” Xan nodded ahead. On the far horizon, a high plateau lay under a low shelf of moody clouds.

Xan had never quite credited the tales of Devon’s wartime service. Xan could not picture the elegant man as a soldier. Xan had expected this palace-dwelling flower to shrink in the harsh wild lands. Devon thrived in this severe country. He existed moment to moment, admiring small wonders where he saw them—stars and meteors, sunrises, songs of jewel-colored birds, desert colors, cloud formations. And he was a skilled hunter. Not that Xan gave him weapons. Devon was wicked with a throwing stick. He brought down a big-eared rabbit for his supper and made the fire to cook it. 82


On the third day, a plaintive sun shed cold light on a dreary fen. Jagged spikes of charred tree trunks stabbing upward from the stagnant water were all that was left of a forest that once stood here. Devon saw the skin on Xan’s broad shoulder ripple like a horse shivering. The barbarian didn’t like this place. “Take off your rings,” Xan said. Devon told him, “I am not giving you my rings, traitor.” “I don’t care if you put them up your ass. Just hide them.” And suddenly Xan’s leather belt was closing around Devon’s neck. Xan snugged the belt and closed his fist on the hair at the back of Devon’s head. Before Devon could demand to know what Xan was doing, the men came out of the fen. Xan’s open palm crossed Devon’s face as Devon opened his mouth to protest. Xan growled in his ear, “If you would live, do not say a word.” Devon’s cheek was stinging. But his jaw was unscathed. The blow had been a glancing one just for sound and show. Devon took in the meaning. No matter whose side Xan was on, his words were true—if Devon would live, do not say a word. The creatures of the fen snarled. Devon read hunger on their brute faces. They all but drooled over Devon’s fine tunic and his sturdy boots, and Devon himself. He was young, clean and otherworldly handsome. They gave brittle smiles to see the fine Raenthe peacock heeling on the end of a desert man’s leash. Xan tugged on the belt. He snarled out loud in a desert tongue. Devon recognized the words. “Keep up, dog.” “Bastard,” Devon hissed between his teeth.

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The brigands studied their prey. Devon studied them back. He counted twelve of them, though there might be more in reserve, unseen among the nightmare trees. They said something at Xan in a barbaric tongue. Xan answered them back. Devon caught every fourth word. The brigands’ rheumy eyes and rotted-toothed grins spoke everything Devon needed to know. They wanted Devon. His clothes, his boots. Him. From behind, a rude hand grabbed Devon’s cheek and squeezed. Devon’s heel came up hard. The hand withdrew too quickly for him to make contact. The outlaw grinned like wicked boy—a boy with very bad teeth, rancid breath and a beard like a rotted rag. Danger pressed with full force. These men were not friendly either to Raenthe or to Xan’s people. Both Devon and Xan were on sword’s edge here. Xan roared into Devon’s face. His voice sounded like a ranting scold. That tone of voice was for the fen folk to hear. They wouldn’t understand Xan’s words which he spoke in the Raenthe language. The words carried the true message. “The dagger in my belt! If this goes to hell, use that to take out the two men behind you! Don’t turn around! I’ll tell you when it comes to that!” Xan turned back to the brigands, acting as if he’d just put his dog in its place. Devon stood very close to Xan, almost touching. He kept watch at Xan’s back, ready to do battle with him like brothers-in-arms. They were outnumbered, but Xan was a champion gladiator and Devon was lethal as a mountain cat. Devon understood the next words. A brigand asking Xan, “How did you get it?” It was Devon.

“I got it at a loss,” Xan answered. “This thing wagered more gold than it had. Now it is mine. I don’t think you have enough to buy it.” Devon could tell the brigands were not thinking about a purchase. At length the creatures of the fen let Xan pass with his possession.

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“What tribe was that?” Devon asked when he could no longer see the fen folk. “No tribe,” said Xan. “Outcasts. Outlaws. Vermin.” “They will follow,” said Devon. “They are waiting for us to sleep.” “I know,” said Xan. “We are not going to sleep.” Xan picked up the pace to a loping dogtrot until the ground became firmer, not so sodden. Patches of meadow grasses and a few real trees grew. Xan and Devon were coming out of the fen. Devon said, “You can take this leash off me now.” “No,” Xan said. And to Devon’s daggered glare, Xan said, “The vermin are still shadowing us.” “Where?” “A tracker knows when he is being tracked.” “I don’t see them,” Devon said. “You wouldn’t. This is not your territory.” “Point of law, it is my territory,” Devon said. “Hold your illusions, tyrant. Just keep up.” Xan tugged on the leash. “You are enjoying this, Savage.” Xan met his eyes. “Yes.” “I am am not,” Devon said. “So noted, ma dahn.”

Xan and Devon kept going long after the sun set, to get as much distance as they could between themselves and the fen. The clouds lifted. The moon shone bright. They came to more settled territory, an oasis in the stark land. Sweet grasses grew thick underfoot. Stone houses stood here and there, with smoke curling from their chimneys. Xan took off the leash.

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Devon heard a farmer’s pack of hounds baying, chasing something back to the fen.

The other side of the oasis brought Xan and Devon back into hard lands. The desert wind, the sooa, kicked Devon’s hair across his brow. The sunset blazed gold and molten bronze. The opposite horizon lay cloaked in royal darkness. The high plateau before them was very close now, ominous, the place where Devon would meet his doom. Devon and Xan paused at a nomad camp on the dry plain. The nomads were hospitable with what little they had. They gave the two strangers food and drink. Their tent of antelope hides was open at the peak. Several families sat around the fire inside it, drinking and talking. Devon was silent, serious, watching. Xan could not call it a sulk. Devon was not rude to their hosts. It was a convivial group. A little girl kept bending her ear to a bird’s nest. Devon’s eyes flickered over the nomads’ seamed faces. Devon seemed to know the present conversation was about the little girl, but he had no idea what the adults were saying. Xan leaned aside to tell him in the Raenthe tongue, “The little girl. She thinks the egg is about to hatch.” “Is it?” Devon asked. “It is cooked.” None of the adults seemed about to enlighten the hopeful child. The girl leaned her ear very close to the egg, earnestly listening, holding her breath, expecting any moment to hear a chick stir. Devon stealthily reached over behind the girl’s turned head and very lightly tapped the eggshell with his fingernail to make the smallest tick! Devon quickly snatched his hand back as the girl straightened right up with a gasp of astonished joy.

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The nomads laughed. Devon shrank into himself, shoulders hunched, guilty. The adults told on him. The little girl came at Devon in a mock fury, hitting him with the wrong sides of her badly formed fists. She ended up curled in Devon’s lap, giggling up at him. The adults smiled, their eyes formed into crescents with fans of wrinkles at the corners. “The little girl says you are pretty,” said Xan. “And the woman asks if you are handfasted.” A nomad man reached over to squeeze Devon’s biceps, testing for hardness. The man gave the others a frowning nod of approval to tell them that the pretty man was solid stock. Devon appeared nervous, his eyes shifting around the ring of smiling nomads. “Xan, get me out of this.” It took everything Xan had not to smile. “Yes, ma dahn.”

Xan got a set of nomad clothes for Devon in trade for Devon’s blue tunic edged in gold thread. As Devon donned his scratchy nomad shirt and dust-colored trousers, Xan informed Devon that his fine tunic was destined to become the little girl’s wedding dress. Devon looked alarmed. “I’m not betrothed, am I?” “No,” said Xan. “I told them you were promised.” Then returning to grim reality, Xan reminded Devon, “And so you are.” Devon was promised to die. As Xan and Devon parted from the nomads, Devon ordered Xan, “Tell them they should move. Far from here. Kani’s men will be out for blood. If Kani thinks I’m dead, he won’t care whose blood he lets.”

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“I already told them,” said Xan with a twinge of regret. Even walking to his certain death, Devon acted as if he were the Sovereign, as if he had power. And with his imagined power, Devon looked out for the safety of the desert people. It was a fair thing for Devon to do. Xan felt as if he’d swallowed a glowing lump of coal.

The path was steep and rocky up to the plateau. Xan and Devon climbed by moonlight. At the top, they huddled in someone’s haystack for the last few hours of darkness. It was colder up here. They hadn’t spoken since they left the nomads. “ Are you promised?” Xan asked. “No,” Devon said. “Why do you have no consort?” “I should think that would be obvious,” Devon said. “I will not pledge faith where I cannot give it.” “There are to be no heirs?” Xan asked. “I am not a Prince,” said Devon. “No one cares if I breed or not. My reign is not heritable.” “Your station was won by worth?” Xan asked. “Yes. Point of fact, it was.” Devon the man may go down, but the Sovereign stayed aloof, apart. In sex, Xan sensed Devon kept something in reserve. He would give away his body and even his soul, but not his responsibility to his people. Devon was more than a picturesque figurehead. He was vastly stronger than Xan ever imagined. “You are not what I thought you were.” Xan hadn’t meant to speak that aloud. “Neither are you,” Devon said. He sounded disappointed.

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They lay together in silence for a while, Xan’s body spooned behind Devon’s. Xan nuzzled Devon’s hair. His fingertips grazed the length of Devon’s erection, teasing him. Finally Devon’s hips bucked up. He shouldered, elbowed and pushed himself over in place so that he was facing Xan. His hands rested over Xan’s heart. They felt good there. Xan traded breaths with him, their lips brushing with a feathery touch, almost a kiss. Xan still had olives from the grove. He crushed some in his hand. Devon got out of his clothes. Xan cupped Devon’s balls, caressing them softly. When Devon squirmed, long past ready, Xan slowly reached farther to spread olive oil between Devon’s cheeks. Devon’s body felt to be humming, expectant, under Xan’s touch. When Xan pressed a finger deep, Devon responded, uttering a moan of pleasure. Xan rolled Devon over again and drew him in tight, both arms around his exquisite body—one arm wrapped around his shoulders, his other hand caging his groin. Xan’s own cock nested firmly between Devon’s buttocks. He rocked, sliding his sex back and forth in that sweet cleft, wanting inside. Xan murmured a warning at the back of Devon’s ear, “I hope you don’t imagine I will let you go free if you please me.” “Never crossed my mind.” Devon ran his tongue across the arm that held him. “This has nothing at all to do with pleasing you. Just don’t talk. I want to pretend you are someone you are not.” “Who would you pretend I am?” Devon moved his ass against Xan’s erection. “My gladiator. Brave and true.” “You think I am not brave or true to my people?” “You are not. A brave man would not have given a false oath to me.” “You would have executed me if I didn’t.” 89

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“The brave are willing to take the fall,” Devon said. “Only one of us is a coward.” Devon was right about one thing. They should not have talked. Now Xan was angry. They were not lovers. But love was not needed for fucking. Devon’s words should not mean anything to him. Xan should just fuck him. Xan wrested his arm out from under Devon and pushed away. His chest, abdomen, sex—his whole being—felt being—felt cold and vacant vaca nt where Devon’s hot skin had pressed. He got up and pulled his breeches closed, incensed, too angry even for sex. Angry at Devon. At himself. He stalked out into the night. “Go please yourself.”

The word of the Kiriciki Shepherdess held sway over a wide territory on the high hard steppe. Xan didn’t know the Kiriciki tongue all that well. But the name Xandaras was known here. He was a hero and everyone was willing to help him. Xan asked for the village where the Shepherdess was in current residence and people pointed the way. Devon walked easily toward his judgment without fear. With days to live, Devon remained curious as a traveling scholar. He paused to look at a shrine covered with runes. “That is a holy place,” Xan said. “We shouldn’t go in.” “It’s a shrine for the god of travelers,” said Devon. “We are meant to go in.” Sure enough, there was an olivewood statue of a walking man inside the stone building. The ancient figure was weathered black. There were gifts at his feet. A traveler gave or took one as he needed. Devon left a piece of flint behind at the Traveler’s feet before moving on. Xan and Devon had both been noting a column of smoke in the south. They had been seeing it since they left the citadel. Something beyond the rise belched smoke day and night.

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“What is that?” Devon asked. Xan didn’t know. He had to ask other travelers. At last Xan got an answer. He translated for Devon, “That is the Belly of the Beast.” “What Beast?” Devon asked. “That,” said Xan, “is “ is what the Kiriciki call your Raenthe Empire.”

***** When the sun went down, the thin air got quickly cold. The people of the steppe slept in packs like litters of puppies, so no one thought of giving Xan and Devon separate quarters or separate beds. Xan and Devon spent the night in the loft of a barn under a thatched roof. Devon came to Xan naked. He slipped under Xan’s cloak and lay against him. Devon’s skin was smooth and warm. Xan knew better than to talk this time. This would be the last time. Devon was a solemn lover. They moved together in silence. Xan could not deny he enjoyed the way Devon responded to his touch. Xan felt an impulse to reassure him, to tell him to relax. I’ve got you.

But he didn’t. Xan had to forcibly remind himself, I am not your friend. I am not your lover. I do not, cannot, ever love you.

Xan’s mouth came down on Devon’s lips. They had never kissed. Devon responded ardently, tongue stroking tongue. Xan’s arms surrounded him, pressing him to his broad chest. Devon felt as much as heard Xan’s heart thudding against his chest. Xan’s lips moved against Devon’s lips, his tongue filling Devon’s mouth.

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Devon’s body worshipped his enemy. Xan tore away from their kiss. His mouth roved lowered, kissing Devon’s throat, his chest, down his hard belly to his groin. Xan’s hair brushed across Devon’s skin like raw silk. Xan drifted kisses over Devon’s balls and up his rigid sex. His mouth surrounded Devon’s cock with heated wetness. His tongue was maddening. Devon’s breath clogged in his throat, his body awash in fire. Xan came up, leaving Devon gasping. Devon inhaled the scent of olives. Xan was crushing them in his hands. Xan made himself slick and entered Devon, facing him. Devon had a strong urge to cry. That urge burned away in a sexual blaze. His hips rocked up to meet the thrusts of Xan’s cock. Devon kept his voice out of his labored breaths when he really wanted to bleat and moan out loud. The motion of Xan’s stout cock and Xan’s hard body sent him higher and higher. Devon was losing himself, flying, burning. Xan’s wet heat released inside him. In answer, Devon’s own ejaculation painted thick white lines on Xan’s belly hair. Devon clung to Xan like a lover. He heard Xan murmur in his own tongue a word that sounded like beautiful.

Late in the night, resting in Xan’s arms, Devon said quietly, “When we get back to Calista City, I will have you executed.” “You will not live to see Calista City again,” said Xan with what sounded like real regret. When Devon got back to Calista City—and he would get back—would he be able to order Xan’s execution? No. He couldn’t. He knew that. 92


But I can hand him over to Marcus, who will chop off his head, and I will cry but it will be done.

As Xan and Devon entered the village where the Shepherdess dwelled, Xan felt he was carrying a great weight. A slow poison worked in his gut. Devon was right. Loyalty demanded a heavy price. The price must be paid. But there was no way Xan could ever feel good about this. He must shut down his thoughts, his fear, his despair, and do it, like a charge into hopeless battle. Devon had got to him. The Sovereign didn’t have Xan by the cock—well, maybe he did—but Devon had got into his head and his heart. I don’t want him to die.

The Sovereign must die. The Shepherdess would judge. The village was old. The houses had stood there for ages, grown up around haphazard streets with uneven twisty steps and blind alleys. One did not just walk up to a tribal leader’s house and demand to see her, and Xandaras was not of the Kiriciki people. Xan found a native angelos to submit his request for an audience with the Shepherdess. Getting an answer might take days. Not too much hurried here. Regret ached like a slow wound. Xan wanted this over and done now. He didn’t want it done ever. Devon was serene. Xan left him napping in the sunshine at the edge of a field of stunted cornstalks at the outskirts of the village. The angelos came back with a message sooner than Xan wanted. The Shepherdess would see Xan and his prisoner. This was it. Judgment. And Devon had come so willingly. He had insisted on coming c oming here. 93

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Xan walked back to the cornfield with tortured heart, only to find a flattened patch of grass and no one in sight. Devon was gone. Xan felt sick, double-crossed. It was only the same thing he’d done to Devon. He did not like the feel of it coming back at him at all. He felt stupid, enraged, betrayed. Devon had played so high and mighty, all wounded honor, courage and perfect bullshit! That deceitful, two-faced son of a bitch dared call Xan a coward for lying. Xan strung his bow and nocked an arrow. He scanned the open land for a fleeing man. Devon wouldn’t be hard to hunt down. Devon was not a figure that could ever escape notice. A whispery voice sounded behind him. “Are you looking for the outland stranger?” Xan turned, looked down. An aged man, bent over a knotty walking stick, stood there. Xan answered him, “Yes.” The old man lifted a wavering finger and pointed p ointed toward the center of town. The main street was a pressed dirt path between close-built stone buildings. The cramped central meeting square was as wide a space as you could find in this village. Xan stared at what he found there. Anywhere you go throughout the wild lands, throughout the entire Raenthe Empire and probably beyond even that, you could find people playing a game of ball in some open space. Whether they threw it, hit it or kicked it, a game of ball was a universal language. Here the ballplayers were in formed up in two teams, kicking around a stitched-up chaff-stuffed goatskin.

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In the midst of the tribesfolk was the Sovereign, dressed in plain garb like the Kiriciki—a loose-fitting drab long-sleeved top, a hemp belt, and gray leggings. Heavy cloth rags bound with rope on his feet were what passed for boots here. Some of the players were barefoot. The leathery soles of their feet were as thick as camels’ pads. Devon moved among them, spry and agile as his black horse. A red flush tinted his cheeks. He breathed deep and easy in the high thin air. His black eyes were bright and merry. Nimble-footed, he made a quick turn, feinted and passed the chaff-stuffed goatskin to a big youth who booted it into a woven jute net for a score. Smiles appeared from all the open windows of the buildings on the square. Their teeth were gapped, their eyes set in wreaths of wrinkles crinkled up laughing. At the pause in the action, an old man beckoned Devon to him on the sideline. The man leaned a bony elbow on his cane and by motions, advised Devon to sweep his foot lower when stealing the ball. Devon made the local hand gesture of thanks. A big youth was shouting to Devon, then threw him the ball. Apparently Devon had made an instant connection with this big youth on his team, and the two were passing the ball to each other without needing to look at each other. They scored again and exchanged the local style of victory salutes, knocking their palm heels together. Jealously rose up white hot in Xan’s chest, so sharp it was painful. It stayed, lodged under his heart. Devon flashed a brilliant smile to his teammate with a dark-eyed wink. Xan suddenly could not catch in his breath. His chest tightened with a fierce need to possess that smile. Xan wanted Devon—all of him—and could not share, not even a glance.

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Xan forgot for instant that he’d come to take Devon to his death. Devon and the youth were doing something physical together and doing it well, and Xan couldn’t stand it. And now Devon was teaching the youth the backhanded wrist knock which was the Raenthe style of salute between comrades. Xan’s mind went blank with rage. Xan may have dominated Devon in the dark, but who really had lost himself? Who owned whom after all? Devon’s baritone laughter rang like bright water striking between the close stone buildings. Xan did not own his laughter. Voice gone husky, Xan called Devon out of the ball court. “The Shepherdess waits.” Devon gave up the goatskin and walked off the square. He bent over, patting his tunic, making dust roll off in clouds. He told Xan he wanted to bathe. “I won’t go to her dirty.” “You’re not going to her bed,” Xan said, sour. “It’s respect in my land. And that’s the only way I know.”

There was a bite in the breeze. The water in the streamlet was icy cold. Devon endured. He crouched in the freezing water under a pearl gray sky. Devon looked otherworldly up here in the high country, so city fine and sleek with his straight white teeth, his exotic obsidian eyes and his wavy black hair. A rustling sounded in the high grass of something small coming over the stream’s bank. It was a child, come to fetch water in his clay bucket. The boy saw Devon crouched naked in the stream. Devon bore a small tattoo in a particularly brilliant hue of blue low on his back. It was a stylized winged disk. It was the mark of the Raenthe Imperium. The child gasped in horror at the sight of it, dropped his clay bucket and ran screaming.

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Devon ignored him. He squeezed some olives and slathered the oil over his chin. He put a palm up to Xan waiting on the bank. “Give me your blade. The edged one. Not the dirk.” “You will not go armed to the Shepherdess,” Xan said. “I will shave with it,” said Devon, his palm out in attitude not to be refused. The hair on Devon’s face was very fine and slow to grow. There were only wisps of it on his chin and along his jaw. It made him look a little bit wicked. Xan gave him the sharp-edged blade. Devon carefully shaved off his fine whiskers. Without them, he looked like a young god. Clean-faced again, Devon tossed the blade aside on the creek’s bank and rinsed off. His skin roughened all over from the cold. Xan opened his cloak for Devon, rising out of the water, and enfolded him in it. Xan Xa n warmed him in his arms. Xan murmured against his wet hair, “I thought you ran.” “No,” Devon spoke into Xan’s chest. Xan took Devon’s wide shoulders and held him at arm’s length, a naked beauty. Xan looked into his dark eyes, and told him, “You should run.” “No,” Devon said with an almost smile. The dripping tips of his hair brushed his shoulders with the shaking of his head. “I came to see the Shepherdess.” Devon turned to pick up his native clothes. He’d already shaken out the dust from them. Xan walked at Devon’s side into the village. Whispers bounced off all the stone walls, with covert pointing fingers at Devon. He has the Beast’s mark, said the whispers.

The voices did not sound of hatred. The sound was closer to pity. The villagers’ fear was for him, not of him.

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The village smithy came out of his forge and offered to burn the mark off for Devon. The old man held a brand with a glowing end. Devon thanked him for the thought and asked to be taken to the Shepherdess.

Runes were carved into the stone walls of the small house where the Shepherdess resided. The inside was warm with the presence of many men. The Shepherdess sat ensconced in cushions on a low dais at the far wall. She wore shawls of a fine lamb’s wool and many necklaces and bracelets. Feathers and bright beads were braided into her iron-gray hair. Xan was trying to put together the proper Kiriciki words to tell her who Devon was, but Devon was already hailing her in a language Xan didn’t know. And to his utter shock, the Shepherdess answered him in the same unintelligible tongue. She motioned Devon, Devon, not Xan, to take a seat on the cushion c ushion before her. Devon sat cross-legged on the cushion before the Shepherdess. Xan and all the Kiriciki tribesmen in the chamber stared in blatant open-mouth gawks as the Sovereign and the Shepherdess conversed in a language almost none of them knew.

“How do you know these words, stranger?” the Shepherdess asked Devon. “This is the language of our ancients,” Devon said. “Ours too,” the old woman said. “We have the same ancients,” Devon told the Shepherdess of the Kiriciki tribe. “We are kin. Your people and mine.” “The Raenthe do not speak the tongue,” the Shepherdess said. “Our holy men do,” Devon told her. “Are you a holy man?” the Shepherdess asked. “I am the owner of a red litter.” 98


One of the Shepherdess’ attendants, who apparently did know the ancient tongue, gave a start. He hissed a translation to his fellow tribesmen who picked up their bows and arrows and made warding signs. The Shepherdess interpreted their flurry of hill speech for Devon. “They say you cannot die. They say they shot you in your red litter. You should be dead.” “I can die as well as the next man,” Devon told her. “Not what I came here to do.” “A child says you are painted.” The Shepherdess reached around her own back to indicate where Devon was tattooed. She was more limber than she looked. “Here.” “I have a tattoo,” Devon acknowledged. “What does the child say about it?” “He says you wear the mark of the Beast,” the Shepherdess said. “I am the Beast,” said Devon. “I am your Sovereign.” Sovereign was a Raenthe word but everyone here understood that one.

A murderous shuffling stirred around him, a gripping of weapons, scowls of fear and anger, but no one was moving to make an actual strike against Devon—because he was here and the Shepherdess was talking with him. The Kiriciki were not going to kill him while she was listening to him. “We have seen your power,” the Shepherdess told Devon, disapproving. “Something has gone wrong out here. This is not my will. w ill. Terrible things have been done in my name,” Devon admitted. “There will be an answer for that, ma hahn. Know this—you have not seen my power.” He asked for all her complaints. They were many and horrible. She told him of the men they called snatchers who came from the Harpy’s Rook and stole away men from all the desert tribes and took them off into the Belly of the Beast from where they never returned. “Harpy’s Rook,” Devon echoed. “Would that be a fortress carved into the foot of a mountain in the east?” “You know it is,” the Shepherdess said.

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She told him she had seen the Raenthe overlords kill their own men. “The green ones kill their blue ones out in the desert and scatter our weapons upon the dead. Then more blue ones come out and burn our villages.” Devon bowed his head, swallowing down bile. He struggled not to get sick. “We assumed Raenthe knew this. You did this.” I did this.

Devon lifted his pale face, his eyes flaring. “Raenthe knows now. Raenthe is angry.” Devon brought his breathing under control. “Tell me, ma hahn, who attacked me in the Witch’s Cleft?” “I did that,” said the Shepherdess, sitting straight up, her shoulders set proud. “That was done on my command. Was I not just?” “I understand it now,” Devon said. “But how did you know I was coming?” “A messenger came to us. He warned me that the Beast was coming. Said he, Kill the Beast inside the red litter and the Raenthe will withdraw from the wild lands. ”

Devon leaned forward over his crossed legs and touched the floor between them. “Where did this messenger come from?” The Shepherdess’ papery eyelids closed. “I do not know. But he knew things. He foretold your coming.” She opened her eyes. “His name was Marcus.”

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Chapter Seven An alarm went up from outside. Xan moved to the window. A man burst in to the Shepherdess’ house, made a quick reverence to the Shepherdess, and spoke hurriedly. Xan translated the words for Devon. “He says soldiers are coming. The Beast’s henchmen are here.” And Xan added words of his own, “An armed column approaches. Yours.” Devon looked to the Shepherdess, his face blank, stunned. His own soldiers were coming. He told the Shepherdess, horrified, “ Ma hahn. They don’t know I’m here. They don’t know what they’re doing!” The Kiriciki in the room picked up their clubs and spears, bows and arrows all around. Devon didn’t know their tongue, but it was a good bet they were saying, “Kill the Beast!” Devon demanded, “Xan, are the soldiers wearing blue or green?” “Blue,” Xan answered from the window. Devon seized the Shepherdess’ hand. Her attendants gasped. They might have killed him right there, but apparently did not want to spray the Beast’s blood on the Shepherdess. Devon looked her in the eyes, his head lower than hers, beseeching, “Those are my men. I can stop them. They will listen to me. Let me go to them.” “ Ma hahn!” All her men were pleading, most likely begging to be allowed to slay him. The Shepherdess’ withered lids closed and opened. Her free hand covered Devon’s hand. Her skin was cool and papery. She told her followers what must have been, “Believe him.” And then to Devon, she said in the high speech, “Go.”

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Devon ran outside. Armed men spilled out after him, not pursuing him. On the Shepherdess’ command, they were ready to serve him. Devon said, “Xan, tell them I need a horse.”

Devon rode down the slope and galloped across the plain to meet the approaching column of Raenthe blue. Xan rode at Devon’s flank. As the distance closed, faces came into focus. Devon leapt down from his horse in a cavalryman’s dismount. He motioned Xan to stay behind and Devon strode forward alone, his arms spread wide to meet the armed troop. A husky woman’s voice sounded at a shout from the front line, “Halt in the name of the Sovereign!” “In my own name, I shall not!” Whites of many eyes flared in the front ranks. The burly young woman, Rodriga, swore up the dead. The front line put up their arms and saluted, fists to their chests, with audible thumps. Word went rumbling back through the ranks in an astonished wave. The Sovereign was here. Rodriga advanced out of the front line to meet Devon. Her eyes moved up and down, taking in his crude clothing. With an ironic twist to her mouth, Rodriga said, “ Ma dahn. Governor Kani sent us here to avenge your death.” Devon spoke loud enough for the back of the column to hear. “I am not dead. And that is not the enemy.” He motioned back at the village on the heights. “You will take

orders from me now.” The troops roared their acknowledgment, acknowledgment, angry happiness in their voices. Devon asked for a Raenthe tunic. “We have nothing fit for a Sovereign,” Rodriga said, apologetic. “A soldier’s uniform is good enough for anyone.”

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Devon changed out of his desert garb into infantry blue right there. “I need a runner,” he told Rodriga. “Fastest you’ve got to take a message to Marcus.” Behind him, Xan blurted out, thunderstruck, “ Marcus? The traitor?” Devon turned to look at Xan, his brows lifted as if to ask who was calling whom a traitor. Rodriga gasped. “Marcus is a traitor?” “No,” Devon told her. And again to Xan, “No, he is not!” Xan pressed, “The Shepherdess just said—” Devon shouted over him, “A man told the Kiriciki to hit my litter. Marcus knows I don’t ride in the litter. Marcus would have told the Kiriciki to look for a gold crown and a

black horse. Marcus didn’t tell the Shepherdess anything.” Xan vibrated in mortal insult. His voice rumbled in low indignation. “The Shepherdess did not lie.” Even surrounded by Raenthe and guilty of treason, with Xan’s moments on this world down to heartbeats, he kept his pride and loyalty to his people. “No,” said Devon quietly. “The Shepherdess did not lie.” Now Xan was confused. Only one or the other could be true. Either Marcus had told the Shepherdess to hit Devon or the Shepherdess lied. “There is a traitor,” Devon said in a whisper for only Xan to hear. “Besides you!” Xan started, “The Shepherdess said—” Devon lifted his hand, a sharp signal to silence. Devon would not hear Marcus’ name spoken again as traitor. Devon said, “The Shepherdess gave the name she was told. That does not make it true. She did not lie. She was lied to.” The whole world shifted. Stunned by this third possibility he had not seen, Xan asked, “Do you know who has done all this?” “I believe we both do.” “I believe you’re right,” Xan breathed. 103 103

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Devon said, “But I need to be absolutely certain before I start killing people. Rodriga!” Rodriga snapped to attention. “ Ma dahn!” “Wait here. Rest the men. Xan, with me.” Devon collected his horse and set off back up to the village. Xan fell in behind him before he could even think about disobeying Devon’s orders. Devon’s vision was as keen as an eagle’s. Xan had underestimated him. Again. Devon rushed back to the Shepherdess. She came out of her building to meet him so he did not need to challenge her attendants for an audience. Devon gave her a quick bow. He asked, “ Ma hahn. The man who gave you the name of Marcus—did he bear a mark here?” Devon indicated the back of his own left hand. “And was the mark in the form of a disk with a serpent within?” “Aye, to the first.” The Shepherdess touched the back of her own left hand. “And aye to the second.” She made a circle with her fingers. She closed her eyes. “He wore green.”

Devon’s lips drew back from his white teeth in wolfish wrath, fury in his eyes. He could not even talk. Xan gazed at Devon strangely, almost in a trance. Devon had cut through the blinding smoke and veils. Devon caught Xan’s stare and demanded, impatient, “ What?” Xan shook his head, not knowing what to say. A sudden belief in angels is all.

If Xan was to die for his treachery, at least he could die knowing that he had brought the avenger of his people here. He only regretted that he hadn’t recognized Devon for what he was from the first. Xan regretted the wasted hate and resentment. He couldn’t even tell Devon, I adore you. 104 104


Xan would serve the Sovereign now for as long as Xan lived, however short a time that might be.

Devon turned to the Shepherdess. “Evil things have been done with my power. I feel a hundred daggers in my gut. I know feeling bad brings no one back to life. I will set this right.”

And he asked if she had any fighting men who would join his troop.

Devon descended to the Raenthe column, this time with a contingent of armed mountain tribesmen behind him. Rodriga hissed, “ Ma dahn! Those savages attacked us!” “They did,” said Devon. “Because of a lie.” And he shouted to all his soldiers, “Other than in the Witch’s Cleft, have any of you ever been attacked by barbarians?” “At the citadel!” several said, hotly, as if wondering how the Sovereign could have forgot that so soon. “You saw them?” Devon asked. “Yes!” said several. “Alive?” Devon asked. The soldiers looked to one another. Come to think of it, no. Not one of them had actually fought or killed a rebel. But someone must have done. They heard a lot of fighting. “I saw the bodies, ma dahn,” said Silas. “They had weapons.” “I saw those bodies too,” said Devon. “They were kitchen slaves. Where did house slaves get native weapons?” “Kani has a collection of native weapons,” said Rodriga.

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“Why did kitchen slaves not simply rise up with kitchen knives and stable pitchforks and hearth pokers? All the kitchen knives were where they were supposed to be.” “They wanted their own weapons,” Rodriga suggested, gesturing with her own crossbow. Rodriga loved her crossbow dearly. She’d named it Bryan. “Very well,” Devon allowed the argument. “They wanted their own weapons.” But Devon had also been a soldier. He had seen enemy dead. And that had been his dream on the night he fled. He’d dreamed of war dead on a battlefield. “Not one of the slaves I saw was clutching a native weapon in his dead hands.” He nodded to Rodriga, who was holding her crossbow, her beloved Bryan, tight against her broad chest. “And one slave even managed to drop his spear across his own dead back,” said Devon. “None of those people died fighting. They were murdered and laid out with weapons to look like rebels. There was no fighting.” “We heard them!” Silas cried. “We heard fighting and barbarians storming the gates. Did ma dahn not hear that!” “I heard sounds,” said Devon. “Just sounds.” “Who did all this, ma dahn?” said Rodriga. “Kani.” Rodriga brightened. “Oh, I want it to be Kani! I so hate that man!” “Rejoice then,” said Devon gravely. He could not gloat. He was going to kill one of his own.

It felt good to be on the march again at the head of an army. Devon had a clear purpose now.

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He did not lead his Raenthe soldiers and his Kiriciki warriors toward the citadel just yet. There were were things to do before before he returned to the the Harpy’s Rook. Devon led the way toward the smoke column far ahead over the south. “We are going where harpies go,” he told Rodriga. R odriga. Into the Belly of the Beast.

Xan had been quiet for a while. Devon rode at the fore of the troop. He had his own horse under him now. The Sovereign’s black stallion had traveled along a long with Rodriga’s garrison troop. Xan rode up to the head of the column and reined in alongside the Sovereign. Xan dared ask, “When did you know?” “Horses,” Devon said, more to himself than to Xan. There had been horses waiting at the bottom of the secret staircase that led out from Devon’s bedroom. “Why were there horses?” On the night of the emergency there had been horses, saddled, assembled and waiting for him. They had to be standing there before the first shouts of battle ever sounded. It was an unnatural sound, like a clap before the hands have come c ome together. Since Devon had come back into power, with his soldiers behind him, he had not brought up the matter of Xan’s treachery. That hung in the air between them, deafening in its unspokenness. unspokenness. “How did you know to come to the Kiriciki?” Xan asked, hushed. He sounded like he believed Devon had magical powers. “The inscription in the Witch’s Cleft,” Devon said. “The words were carved in Old High Raenthe. The Kiriciki’s language of the ancients is the same as the Old High Raenthe language. Only priests and scholars—and Sovereigns—know the ancient language anymore. The carving in the Witch’s Cleft says, ‘Peaceful stranger, pass in 107 107

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peace.’ People who carve words like that into high stones will listen to you before they kill you. I just saw the writing on the wall.”

The Raenthe column crested the last hill before they arrived at the source of the tower of smoke. They found barbarians with shackled ankles hauling rock and pouring molten metal the color of sunlight. Beyond them gleamed a pile of gold bricks. Smoke belched from the refinery’s furnace and coiled in the air. Men in green uniforms stood guard with crossbows over the laborers. At the army’s appearance, all the green-clad Raenthe guards came to respectful attention, surprised. They were even more surprised not to see not Governor Kani leading the armed force, but instead the Sovereign himself, dressed in a plain soldier’s blue uniform. The Sovereign spoke slowly, very loud. Devon’s baritone voice could boom. “Every man loyal to the Supreme Reigna put down your weapons and take a step back!” The nearest guard hissed, embarrassed for his Sovereign. “Unwise, ma dahn! The prisoners! They’ll run!” “I DON’T CARE!” Devon roared. When the weapons were down, and the slave miners were looking around in confusion, Devon ordered the guards into a line. The guards obeyed, bewildered. The slaves in their pit just stared. Devon dismounted and stalked down the line of guards. He pointed at a man who had a serpent tattoo on his left hand and motioned him apart from the others. Devon picked out another tattooed man. And another.

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The tattooed ones got an inkling that the Sovereign knew their mark and didn’t like it. Those men turned and ran. They got lethal bolts in the back from a crossbow named Bryan. It had become clear that Governor Kani’s inner circle of favorites had been pitting the natives against the garrison troop. Kani had been sending innocent garrison soldiers to avenge native uprisings that never happened, which in turn provoked real uprisings from the natives. Kani’s men fed off the conflict. Most of the guards here at the gold mine were good men, who thought they were making criminals work. Kani’s inner circle collected the gold. Devon ordered the chains to be taken off the prisoners. Devon shouted to the miners, “Any of you who know my language, translate it for your tribesmen who don’t. Tell them I am your Sovereign. You are free. Run if you must. No one will stop you. But if you stay, you shall have food and water and some of your gold. And if you come with me to storm the Harpy’s Rook, you shall have animals from the harpy’s flocks.” He paused while the stunned miners absorbed what he’d said. They stared at their unshackled ankles. “Maybe some of you really are criminals,” Devon went on. “I don’t care. You’re all going free. If you’re guilty of a crime, well, you have just been pardoned. I am not holding up the others’ liberation to sift you out from the innocent. Use your freedom well.” And to a group of guards standing near where the gold was molded into bricks and coins he said, “Gold for everyone.” “How much, ma dahn?” “Whatever they can carry,” Devon said. Most of the miners stayed to be fed and loaded down with gold. Devon could not blame the ones who didn’t believe him and just bolted over the hills toward home.

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Devon beckoned one of the loyal guards to him and said, “Can someone make me a new diadem?”

At sundown, Devon paced the high ridge above the mine in a cold rage. His regal silhouette appeared matted on the sky. A thin band of gold glinted on his head in the failing light. His fury was a physical thing, cold enough to burn. Devon beckoned Xan up to him, apart from the others. Xan took a deep breath. He expected it was one of his last. Here it comes. Xan set down his longbow and marched up to face his Sovereign. If he gives me a sword to fall on, I will.

Devon was beautiful, angry. His voice was very soft. He asked without looking at Xan. “ Were you wrongly accused when I first condemned you to my arena?”

Xan said honestly, “No.” Xan had been accused of treason. “What was your crime?” Devon asked. “Exactly?” “I raised an army of desert tribesmen against the Raenthe overlord.” Devon nodded. He lifted his eyes to Xan and asked, “Can you do it aagain?” gain?”

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Chapter Eight Before the moon turned a full cycle, Xan’s native horde joined up with Devon’s troops. Devon eyed their numbers appreciatively. “Well done,” he said. Xan spoke low. “I would die for you.” “Don’t do that,” said Devon. “Live for me.”

Guards in the watchtowers of the citadel known as Harpy’s Rook sighted three forces converging on the fortress. First was the troop which Kani had sent out to the Kiriciki lands to avenge the Sovereign’s death. Second was a barbarian horde with a big man at the fore, who looked like the gladiator Xan. Third was a full Raenthe regiment marching up the royal road, led by a crooked figure with a gleaming bald pate like the regent Marcus. The gates of the fortress were barred fast. The towers bristled with drawn bows. Soldiers lined the ramparts. The three columns halted just out of bowshot. A man rode forward from the first troop. He rode tall and slender astride the Sovereign’s high-stepping black stallion. A thin gold diadem gleamed on his head. His black hair was longer than the Sovereign ever wore it. A baritone voice that sounded like Devon’s own, loud as a battle horn, ordered, “Open the gates! All those loyal to the Reigna and the lawful rule of the Raenthe Empire, lay hands on any man bearing a red tattoo on his left hand and throw him from the ramparts right now. Put Governor Kani in chains and bring him down to me. I need him alive.”

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While Devon was still shouting, Governor Kani was giving his own orders, but already green-clad men were falling from the high ramparts.

Devon passed judgment on Kani in front of as many people as possible. His subjects needed to see this. The Sovereign condemned Kani to death. Kani demanded a chance to fight for his life. He demanded the arena. “Not my arena!” Devon said, appalled. Kani never understood the arena. It was a sacred place. The arena in the capital was a place of redemption, a last chance to end one’s life with honor. Where there was not honor, there could be no redemption. There was no honor here. This was scum. Devon would not have Kani’s blood on the floor of his place of glory. Kani’s crimes were beneath contempt. His deeds were not hot acts of vengeance or done out of desperate need or from misguided loyalty. Kani acted from nothing but greed. His treachery left a lot of severely wronged people of the wild lands in its wake. All that anger must go somewhere. somewhere. It needed a savage ritual, to serve as a lightning rod to take that terrible fury and channel it into the ground. The people of the wild lands must have blood. Eyes cold, voice flat, Devon told Kani, “You are going into your own pit.”

Devon filled the stands with men from the gold mine. Xan stood ready, his skin oiled. He wore only a lionskin loincloth, a codpiece, a baldric and a small round shield on his left forearm. He carried a helmet under one bouldered arm. His thick sandy hair was tied back in a tail. He saluted Devon with his sword. “Do you need to be here?” Xan asked. 112 112


Xan in the arena was mesmerizing and terrible. “Why?” Devon asked. “I don’t want you to see this,” Xan said. Devon nodded. “I won’t be there.” Devon was walking out as Kani was dragged in, shackled. Devon wasn’t just leaving the ring. He was leaving the stands. Kani bellowed at Devon’s retreating back, “This is a state execution. It is your sovereign duty to watch a death in the arena! You have to be here!” “No, I don’t.” Devon gave Kani’s own words back to him, “You told me. This is not an arena.” Devon stalked out past Xan and growled, “Take him apart.” In mere moments, Devon marched back into the fighting circle. Xan’s eyes looked quizzical within the opening in his helmet. “When you’re done—” Devon stabbed a shovel into the dirt. “Bury him.”

The execution had been hideous enough that much of the desert rage was spent. Kani’s victims weren’t exactly satisfied, but they were not clamoring for revolt. They were ready to listen to the Sovereign now. The regent Marcus was heading back to the capital with his army. Devon was staying in the wild lands until he established peaceful order here. As Marcus prepared to leave, Devon said, “Marcus, send to the Reigna. Tell her to choose someone to replace me as Sovereign.” “I will not,” Marcus said. “I can’t do this!” Devon cried. “Son, you’ve already done it,” said Marcus. “You got a knife in the back. No one just walks away from that kind of wound dancing. dancing. Go to sleep. Get drunk. drunk. Get laid. You got beat up. Lick your wounds and get back up. I’ll see you back at the city next moon, ma dahn.” 113 113

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Devon refused to take up residence in the Harpy’s Rook. He stayed in a wide canvas-sided tent pitched in the desert, his flag and standard posted out front. He summoned Xan before him. Xan entered the tent. Devon was alone, wearing soldier blue, his gold coronet on his head. His black hair was cut short. An ache lodged in Devon’s throat. Xan appeared in plain-spun Raenthe tunic with a stiff leather sword belt and a Raenthe soldier’s boots. His giant frame filled the space. His hair hung loose about his broad shoulders. Devon pardoned him for his crimes and paid him for his service as first guardsman. “You are free,” Devon said, like cutting off his own arm. “Go home.” “That is all?” Xan said. “Of course that is all,” Devon said. His gaze was somewhere over Xan’s head. Xan’s brow contracted into a deep fissure down the center. He frowned. They were alone together. Xan seized Devon just below his shoulders. “Say it to my eyes.” “I don’t…” Devon faltered. Xan’s gaze bored into Devon’s soul. Xan demanded, “What do you want?” “It has never been about what I want,” Devon said. “I know my duty.” “I do not understand you,” Xan said. “No,” said Devon. “You don’t.” It was not as if there should, could, be anything more between them. “Devon.” Xan spoke his name for the first time. Devon’s eyelids flickered briefly. Something sang inside at the sound of his name in Xan’s low, rumbling voice. “I have seen you smile, so I know you can,” Xan said. “But “ But never for me.” “I have had little enough cause to smile.” As if he had found no joy at all in Xan’s touch. 114 114


Of course Devon meant the ordeal, the betrayal, the flight across the wild lands. But he would not explain. Let Xan think what he would. Devon needed to keep some detachment, even if the very idea of detachment was an unholy sham. Devon’s heart was well past any point of possible return. But he still had his station, his unassailable sovereignty. sovereignty. Xan’s hand cupped Devon’s chin. The warmth of his touch made Devon shiver. His rough, calloused skin felt soothing. Xan’s eyes shifted back and forth across his face, searching. Devon looked down. He said, “You have served. We are done.” Xan’s voice sounded intimate. “Is this Devon or the Sovereign who says so?” “Does it matter?” Devon said in sorrow. “It must be Devon,” Xan said. “The Sovereign is not so cruel.” “Then I am cruel.” “And will you not meet my eyes?” “No.” “Why?” Devon locked his gaze on Xan’s chin, the golden beard stubble there, the blade scar. “I dare not.” Again, “Why?” “Don’t press me, Xan.” Desire was a pitiless god. Desire it must be, because Devon dared not call this feeling love. Xan said, “You want me as badly as I want you.” Devon shuddered as if in great pain. “I cannot be dominated. I am the Sovereign!” “Is that it? It that all? You cannot go down for love?” “Love?” Devon tried to say, but his voice failed.

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“I know the Supreme Reigna has a consort,” Xan said. “I know that a woman rules the mighty Raenthe Empire. It is always a woman. And not just a woman. The Reigna must be a mother. She is required to feel a heartbeat inside her other than her own. That means she has allowed a man inside her. Does that make her less powerful? Why her and not you? And does she not lie in her man’s arms afterward? Do they never join in pleasure and comfort each other in sorrow?” Devon couldn’t answer. Xan’s voice turned to bitter irony, “Or does she eat his head after he’s serviced her?” “Xan, it doesn’t matter what I want.” “It matters.” “Why?” “Because you matter.” “Because I go down for you like a Krasian whore?” Devon blinked, his mouth stinging. It took him a split second to realize he’d been slapped again. Devon touched his face. He told Xan, “I am getting tired of that.” “I normally express wrath with the edge of a sword.” “Whom did you slap? Devon or the Sovereign?” “Whoever just called you a Krasian whore.” Devon touched a finger to his lip, expecting blood. There was none. He said, wry, “Next time, don’t defend my honor.” “Give me a next time.” Devon’s voice came out breathy. “A next time to slap me?” Xan took Devon’s face between both hands, his thumbs brushing Devon’s cheeks as he answered, “No.” Xan’s lips grazed Devon’s eyebrow. 116 116


“From the first moment I saw you in your gilded box, the young tyrant who sent me to die, you have ruled all my thoughts. I hated that you were so beautiful. I had no idea you were the incredible being you are. Give me all the beats of your heart and I will spend all my days trying to make up for what I’ve done to you and all my nights worshipping you.” Devon leaned his cheek into Xan’s hand. Devon’s lips brushed Xan’s palm as a s Devon murmured, “I might agree to that.” Devon stepped back. He took Xan by the hand and led him back to the Sovereign’s private compartment within the Imperial tent. Devon’s camp bed was there. Devon lifted his crown off his head. He shook out his short hair. His uniform of stiff soldier blue came off with his boots and his rings. Xan stripped. The two men stood naked before each other. Sunlight filtered through the canvas roof. Devon lifted his hands to Xan’s hairy chest. Xan’s hand circled around the back of Devon’s head and drew him in to a kiss that was tender at first. It became hungry. Then they were groping each other with a fierce need, kissing, sucking and tasting. Devon threw his head back. Xan kissed his throat. Devon breathed through his open mouth as if starved for air. He felt Xan’s heart pounding as hard as his own. Xan lifted Devon off his feet and lay him down on the simple camp bed. Xan covered him, his weight pressing luxuriously down on Devon’s body, their cocks trapped between their bellies. They moved together in mounting excitement. Devon’s hands tangled in Xan’s long, coarse mane. Xan groped for the oil lamp on the camp table. He spilled scented oil over his hands. Xan’s hands, slick and smelling of wood spice, groped under Devon’s hips and lifted his ass off the mattress. He massaged sensual smoothness between Devon’s cheeks, over his balls and both their cocks.

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Devon circled his legs around Xan’s hard torso and guided Xan’s thick cock between his buttocks to penetrate him. Xan’s cock filled him with blinding joy. Xan rocked forward and back in a sweet glide. Devon reached down, gripping at Xan’s heavy working thighs. His skin was damp with sweat. Impassioned breaths seared Devon’s throat. Xan’s sex moving inside him kindled something powerful. Devon’s body became radiant. Devon reached under his own ass to hold Xan’s balls. At his touch, a tremor passed through Xan’s giant frame. Xan gave a deep, growling grunt into Devon’s shoulder. Xan’s balls contracted. Xan climaxed, jetting exultation, roaring. Devon’s existence ignited. His balls convulsed with spasms of ecstasy that coursed through his cock. Devon came against Xan’s hot, hard belly. Devon’s heart hurt from the unbearably beauty of this moment. He must have died in battle. This moment was too perfect for a living being to hold. Words he never meant to say broke free, “I love you.”

Devon lay in his gladiator’s arms. Xan’s head rested on the down-stuffed pillow of the camp bed. Xan brushed a tuft of gray goose down off Devon’s bare shoulder. Xan said, “Say it again.” Devon blinked. His eyelashes caressed Xan’s collarbone. “What would you have me say?” “Devon, everyone is in love when he’s coming. Say it now to my eyes.” Devon lifted his head from the rock pillow of Xan’s shoulder. He studied Xan’s rugged face, his soft lips, his crooked mouth, his battle scars, the melting look in his desert blue eyes. Devon touched his fingertips to Xan’s stubbled jaw. Calm, sober, Devon said, “I do. By all gods, I do love you.”

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“Then I am yours,” Xan said. “But what are you of mine?” Devon asked. He moved a lock of hair off Xan’s brow. “Men don’t have male consorts in Raenthe. There is no provision for such a thing.” “Devon, you ass,” Xan said in tender irony, holding Devon’s face in the palm of his deadly hand. “Sovereign of my heart, I am your first guardsman. And I will ever be your gladiator.” The End

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About the Author Jez Morrow is a Scorpio with Scorpio rising. The eyes are gray. The hair is blonde at the moment. Rather than the traditional cat, her writing familiar is a large black dog. She is published internationally under several names. Jez is married to her true love, a combat veteran. (She has a thing for a military man.) Jez and her husband (and the dog) currently live in Ohio, but their hearts are in the Smoky Mountains.

Jez welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email address on her author bio page at page at www.ellorascave.com www.ellorascave.com..

Tell Us What You Think We appreciate hearing reader opinions about our books. You can email us at

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Also by Jez by Jez Morrow Lover and Commander Name of a Wolf Shadow of a Wolf

Discover for yourself why readers can’t get enough of the multiple award-winning publisher Ellora’s Cave. Whether you prefer e-books or paperbacks, be sure to visit EC on the web at www.ellorascave.com for an erotic reading experience that will leave you breathless.

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Unknown Artist - Jez Morrow - Sovereign's Gladiator

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