Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

Vennkor

L ying behind Nina, her soft, pliant body pressed to my front, is a kind of torture I have never before experienced. She mumbles in her sleep, shifting slightly, and it is agony. My cock pulses with a desperate need I have not felt these two years.

I roll onto my back, slipping one hand behind my head as a pillow. Effortlessly, Nina rolls with me, her cheek resting on my bare chest, one of her hands draped loosely over my waist. In sleep, she is unencumbered, her limbs relaxed, the lines of worry and concern smoothed from her brow. I brush a strand of her pale hair away from her face, letting it fall down around her shoulders. It is just as soft as I imagined it would be.

Somehow, like this, contrasted against my many scars, she appears younger than usual. And entirely defenseless.

I stare up at the ceiling, willing my body to ignore the way she fits against my side, tiny enough that I could easily tuck her under one arm. I need at least a few hours of sleep. A tired and distracted gladiator is a dead gladiator.

Instead, I’m left with thoughts of my promised partner. I cannot even recall her name, no matter how hard I try. We only met a handful of times after the elders chose the two of us to be paired. I remember the first time we met. I remember the way she had looked me over and had asked me questions about myself as she had tried to gauge for herself if we would suit, not that either of us could have rejected the elders’ choice even if we had wished to.

I rest the crook of my elbow over my face, as if I can hide from such memories. It has been a long time since I have thought of my promised partner. The best that can be said is that she did not know me well enough to miss me. Nor I, her. And the elders would have chosen her another paired partner, so she will not have been left waiting for a male who will never return.

I can barely comprehend what my life would have been like back on Vos had I never been abducted. Yes, there would have been the traditional ceremony of food and dancing the night I would have mated with my paired partner for the first time. Maybe the two of us would have had younglings together, and we would have taught them about the world—how to hunt, how to trade, how to navigate the stars. How to stay hidden from the Hov.

Nina murmurs indecipherably, and I peek at her from under my elbow. Had I never been abducted, I never would have met Nina. And while I cannot reconcile myself to the last two years of blood and violence, I am selfish enough to welcome her company now we have met.

Hours must pass. Sleep evades me .

When I close my eyes all I see is Nina. I think of the way she held my hand in the Arena today, as if she could keep Reke and I safe by the sheer force of her will. She laced her fingers with mine and held on tight, defying me and everyone else to pry us apart.

My cock pulses, so close to release it is painful, and the urge to thrust is beyond ignorable. Sleep will not come while I am in such a state. And my body will not rest while thoughts of rutting with Nina circle around my head, as if I am a planet trapped in her gravitational pull.

Reke would tear me into my individual parts if he knew I was having these thoughts. If he knew I’d been put into the same cell as Nina. If he knew she’d pressed her lips to mine in imitation of rutting.

But I have been doomed to die these last two years. Mayhaps it is time I started doing something worth being killed for. Cautiously, I slide out from under Nina, taking care to lay her head gently on the floor. The breath sticks in my throat. My heart beats an unsteady rhythm. But she does not wake, not even when I cross the cell, putting as much space between us as is possible in such a confined area.

I turn away from her as I grip a cold bar in one hand, staring unseeingly across the hypogeum. I slip my other hand under the waistband of my breeches. My hips buck as I fist my cock, even as I strain to remain as still as possible. I do not want anyone to know what I am doing, especially not our captors.

I hunch my shoulders against the cameras, rutting into my fist in tiny movements that have my eyes rolling and my breath coming in pants. The small sounds are magnified by the otherwise deafening silence. If I could stop, I would, but my cock demands all my attention, furious at me for not laying over Nina and thrusting into her hot quim.

I work hard, ruthless in my pursuit of climax. It has been too long since I have been kind to myself that I cannot start now. And then the tension in my balls peaks, and I shoot my milt into my breeches. Stumbling, I try to catch what I can in my hand. It is hot and sticky and shameful, and I feel as though all my despair is pulsing through my cock with a force that very nearly has me falling to my knees.

I want to bellow. I want to rage. I want to smash Hov heads.

More than anything, I want to be free. Free to choose Nina as my paired partner. And free for Nina to choose me in return.