by T M Chris
Still buried to the hilt in Dalin’s ass, Thoros released the manacle from Dalin’s wrists. He anticipated having to take Dalin’s weight when the combination of blood-loss and orgasmic fatigue caught up to his still-struggling warrior, but Dalin didn’t slump. Instead, he reached back as soon as his hands were free to try to force Thoros off him.
“Shh.” Thoros lowered them both to the floor, turning his body so he could rest his back against the streaks of Dalin’s come oozing down the wall. “Sit with me a moment.” But Dalin pulled the pins to free his ankles and levered himself up and off Thoros’s cock, refusing to be comforted.
Thoros watched him stalk across the floor to the door, wondering why the sight of Dalin fleeing from him caused such an ache in his chest.
“You should let me tend to your back. It’ll scar.”
“Won’t be the first time.” Dalin threw a dismissive glance back at him where he still sat, his own legs weak even if Dalin’s weren’t. Thoros had noticed the light traces of scars from previous whippings crosshatched on the bronze flesh of Dalin’s back, but those had been mere scratches compared to what he’d handed out.
“I can be gentle now.”
“I don’t want you to be gentle.”
“Then I won’t be.” He hauled himself to his feet and went across the short stretch of floor to push Dalin down into a thatched chair. Earlier he’d laid out what he would need, and now he used the clean cloth and bowl of cool spring water to wash the blood and sweat from Dalin’s back and shoulders. “You’ll have to stand for this bit,” he said when he’d finished. Dalin rose without comment to stand steady while Thoros cleaned his thighs and worked the cloth up between his buttocks to wipe the remains of grease from his clenching hole.
“There now. Sit again.” He pressed down on the sturdy shoulders, allowing his hands to roam over the firm caps of muscle, shushing Dalin when he grumbled at having his sore spots prodded. There was a soothing cream in a tin, a luxurious indulgence on a gladiator’s salary but worth it to clear up the marks as fast as possible. He didn’t mind seeing his signature written deep red against the sun-brown skin, but he didn’t want the other trainers to catch on to his tactics, didn’t want them to have any warning of what he knew was coming.
He would have to use his whip more lightly over the next few days, but it wouldn’t take a harsh hand to punish Dalin until those wounds healed. A single stroke would do it. Thoros brushed at one of the lines now, using his thumb to smooth the unguent into it, digging deeper than strictly necessary to elicit a reaction that didn’t come.
“So tough,” he said, grudging and admiring. He’d chosen well. “So stoic.”
“You won’t break me,” Dalin said.
Oh, but he thought he would.
Dalin
As he waited for the race to begin, Dalin was grateful Thoros had insisted on working him through the heat of the day over the last week. His legs were accustomed to hard work under the sun, ready to drive forward, unafraid of having the weight of a chariot at his back.
The King’s Chancellor stood at the side of the arena with his arm raised, ready to signal the start of the race. To Dalin’s left and right stretched a line of contestants, all of them clothed as he was in a loincloth and a harness and tethered to a chariot manned by one of the King’s charioteers who were resplendent in leather and burgundy.
Charioteers and competitors alike stood poised, alert, their eyes focused on the line drawn in the sand that marked the finish line at the other end of the arena. Not so far, Dalin figured, measuring the distance in his mind. He shifted his weight forward and felt the tug of the harness. The chariot weighed more than Thoros, but it had wheels, would roll easily once started. Dalin dug in his heels, making a wall of sand off which he could push when the signal was given.
Samas’s chosen contestant, Rory, had the spot on Dalin’s left. His hair had been dressed in ribbons to make a pretty pony, much like Dalin’s had. To his right, a nobleman leaned forward into his harness—fit enough in appearance, but soft through the jaw.
Were the race longer, Dalin would feel more certain he could take them all. Thoros had taught him well how to suffer—as if his whole life hadn’t already prepared him for that—but the finish line was closer than he’d like. Thoros had not, in the end, trained him for speed. For taking his weight, for taking his whip, for taking his cock. But not for speed.
Dalin dug his feet in harder, determined. The Chancellor barked out an order, and Dalin rose on his right calf, his left leg back and set. The Chancellor’s arm dropped and Dalin sprang, feet flailing momentarily as the sand skidded out from under him, the heavy inertia of the chariot and its driver failing to respond to the force of his momentum. The rig shifted only a few inches, but he dug deeper, pulled harder, not minding the strain against his shoulders or the twitch in his thighs, and it rolled a few inches more.
Steady, he told himself, plodding now, no longer trying to get a jump. This was about stubbornness, not speed—was exactly what Thoros had trained him for. The cart moved, bit by bit, and then it was rolling, the wheels bogging down in the loose sand.
Dalin didn’t waste energy turning his head, but he could feel the bulk of the wagons around him, knew that the other carts were rolling too, all bunched so closely he couldn’t get any sense of who was in the lead, mere feet separating them at best. Dalin churned his legs faster, dug down deeper with each step, and then finally he was doing something like running. A welcome rush of air played over his chest as the cart’s momentum picked up.
A quarter of the way there, but it would go fast now. No time to pace himself, only to run as fast as he could, though his legs burned and his chest ached. The strike of the whip against his back barely registered. The flick of leather against flesh was light, nothing at all compared to those sessions in the dark recesses of Thoros’s cottage, only a way for his driver to urge him forward.
Dalin allowed the whip to summon strength beyond what he knew he had. If he could spare the air, he would yell—not in pain, but in triumph. Fast-flying feet over sand, the pull of the harness, the weight at his back, the spectators and the sun and the knowledge that Thoros would be proud.
The nobleman to his right cried out in protest, stumbled and fell. The one to his left—Rory—faltered under the flick of the whip, jumping out of stride with each strike. But Dalin exalted, burned. Dalin won.
It hadn’t even been close, he saw as he panted on the other side of the finish line. His charioteer started to remove his harness, but a warm bulk appeared on his other side, and then it was Thoros’s hands that finished separating him from the reins. Dalin pushed his head gratefully into Thoros’s neck, letting himself rest under the familiar hands of his groom.
“Drink a bit.” Thoros held a dipper of water to his mouth. “But not too fast. You know how I feel about vomit.”
Dalin snorted. He couldn’t imagine Thoros flinching from anything, not even vomit. But he drank the water slowly, knowing Thoros was right. It tasted cool and clear, and then there was a cloth rubbing down his shoulders and over his flanks and Thoros patted him up into a rigid posture, tightening his braid, retying the ribbon that ran through it.
“The princess,” Thoros warned, separating from him slowly as if afraid Dalin couldn’t stand on his own, but that’d been nothing. He could go home and pull Thoros across the yard ten or twenty times, then bear up under his whip until the sun set. This was nothing.
“Your protégé is very fast,” Atalanta said.
“Not fast,” Thoros corrected. Dalin could hear the pride in his voice. He kept his eyes unblinkingly forward, not turning to catch sight of the princess, though he’d only ever seen her from a distance. She had a long fall of jet black hair and a graceful figure, short even for a woman and so tiny she seemed almost a child.
He’d heard she was very beautiful, but he didn’t care. She was his chance. That was all he cared about. As far as beauty went, he might prefer thick thighs, a jagged scar, and a pai
r of cruel eyes.
Atalanta circled him, playing shadows over his body as her figure moved around his. A hand too small and soft to be Thoros’s trailed over his back, following one of the grooves that still lingered from that first session with the whip.
“You know me so well,” she said, a trace of hungry satisfaction in her voice. “Do you think he’d suit me?”
“I’m making sure he will.”
“Well, there are some here who certainly don’t.” She moved away from the two of them towards the humbled line of losers. “You.” She snapped her fingers at the nobleman who’d been on Dalin’s right, the one who’d stumbled and fallen under the lash of the whip. “You may go. And you—” She went down the line, culling it.
Where there’d been twenty, now there were only fifteen.
“What do I get for winning?” Dalin asked as he followed Thoros back to his cottage, not on a leash today but somehow more tethered than the last time they’d made this walk.
“You get to compete again,” Thoros said. “Tomorrow, we train.”
Balance
Thoros
“What are you training me for?” Dalin asked when Thoros tried to force his thickening cock into Dalin’s mouth. “Has Atalanta got a cock I haven’t heard about?”
“Not training. Just want my cock sucked.”
“I won’t suck your cock.” Dalin clamped his jaw shut and turned his head.
“Oh, I think you will.” Thoros wasn’t disappointed. He’d have been disappointed if Dalin had simply sucked him down like a good little boy. Now there would be a fight. His cock didn’t need Dalin’s warm, wet mouth to finish rising. The prospect of a fight was enough.
He had a leash around Dalin’s throat, which gave him an immediate advantage. It didn’t take long to get it tethered tight to the ring in the stone at the back of the lean-to, allowing Dalin only a few inches of play in his neck. But Dalin still had arms and legs, and those took more wrestling to subdue.
Moxie and Loxie backed away to the far side of the lean-to, giving them space as they thrashed across the hay until Thoros had the trailing end of the leash wrapped around Dalin’s ankles and wrists as if Dalin were a calf being hogtied.
“You’re only choking yourself,” he observed when Dalin continued to fight despite having all four limbs secured behind him in such a way that any pull on them further pulled on his windpipe.
“Fuck you.”
“I’m going to fuck your mouth tonight. Does that make you sad? Do you wish I’d fuck your ass instead?”
Dalin never made that easy on him either, but he also never failed to get hard at the threat or to come with Thoros’s cock buried in him. Or to stalk away as fast as he could get free after.
“You’re supposed to be training me, not fucking me.”
“If you don’t want to suck my cock, all you have to do is ask. Say please, pretty thing.” He stroked his hand through the riot of curls surrounding Dalin’s heaving shoulders, glad to have his hair loose again. Atalanta might appreciate the tame beauty of a beribboned braid, but he preferred something a little wilder himself.
“Just try it,” Dalin said threateningly.
“Oh, I plan to. I didn’t truss you up just to look at you, though now that I think of it, maybe I could spend some time enjoying the sight.” Thoros settled back onto his haunches to play his eyes over the frantic figure in front of him, chortling when Dalin prompted him impatiently.
“Well?”
“Well, that’s an invitation if I’ve ever heard one. You ready for this?” He pulled up his skirt and showed Dalin the hard length of his cock beneath it. “Hungry for it?”
“I’ll bite you.”
“Do it and see what happens.” He rose, bringing his cock to the perfect height to shove it into Dalin’s helpless mouth. He squeezed Dalin’s jaw until it opened and tilted his cock down to feed it in. “Fuck!”
Yow. He’d been expecting Dalin’s teeth, but that’d fucking hurt. Pain and adrenalin spiked through Thoros in twin waves of exhilaration. He had never before enjoyed hitting someone so much as he did swinging his palm back and forth across Dalin’s face until red blossomed on both of his cheeks and his mouth was slack and wet, his eyes dazed and half-closed with either anger or lust.
Thoros nudged at the hard cock between Dalin’s legs with his foot, just to let Dalin know he’d seen it
“Going to behave now?”
“Fuck you.”
“You know, I kind of expected that answer. Which is why I have this.” He unhooked the bit from its place on the barn wall, tracking Dalin’s eyes as they widened with surprised fury. “Should’ve seen that coming, shouldn’t you have? It was hanging right there.”
It took some wrestling—and he might’ve lost a few chunks of flesh from his fingers in the process—but Thoros got the bit fitted into Dalin’s mouth so that it pressed down on his tongue and separated his jaws, holding his mouth wide open and vulnerable.
“Fuck, that’s so hot.” He almost couldn’t bring himself to ruin the effect by sticking his cock in there, but it had been waiting a long time now and was hard enough to throb right along with the sting of Dalin’s teeth marks in his palm, so he laid his cock into the cavern of Dalin’s mouth, laughing at the way Dalin tried to tell him to fuck off even around the bit.
He’d had better blowjobs. Maybe. Hot, tight, willing mouths, not this inhospitable combination of metal and gaping flesh, but he’d never had to work so hard to hold off coming from one. It was the way Dalin thrashed against his restraints, the barely-coherent curses with which Dalin serenaded him, the beauty of metal against skin and the flare of hatred in his eyes.
The bit let him get all the way down into Dalin’s throat where Dalin’s curses rumbled against his cock like an intentional caress. The drag of throat muscles, the wrenching splutter when he pulled back again, momentarily giving Dalin the freedom to breathe which he wasted by resuming his verbal tirade, the warm puddle of drool Dalin couldn’t swallow—they triggered a climax so painfully sharp he had to grab the ring Dalin was tethered to just to keep his feet.
“Fuck, you give good head, pretty thing.”
Dalin only glared at him.
“Oh, right. You can’t talk.” He removed the bit, then sank down onto the straw next to Dalin and let Dalin’s angry words sing him half to sleep. Whether Dalin was angry about the blowjob or about not having come himself, Thoros wasn’t sure. Some of both, he decided. But.
“You don’t get to come,” he told him as he released his ankles from the tether and re-tied his hands directly to the brass ring without enough slack to let him get to his own cock. “Because you were bad. Uncooperative. Wouldn’t give Master a blowjob when you were told to.”
“I have no master.”
“But you will, Dalin.” He crouched down to his take Dalin’s chin in hand. “One master. Or mistress, I should say. I chose you because you bowed to no one, but by the time I’m done, you will. You’ll know who owns you, and you’ll bow before them.”
Dalin’s growl said that he very much didn’t believe that to be true, but a night spent contemplating his own hard cock would help change his mind. Thoros looped the end of the tether around Dalin’s balls, tying them up tight to the base of his cock. Just to keep him hard. Just to make it clear. He would be tamed.
Dalin
They worked almost exclusively inside the cottage now due to Thoros’s worries about spies. Though Dalin never left Thoros’s property, remaining tethered in the barn on those occasions when Thoros went into town, he learned the gossip from Thoros as they ate their nightly meal together—Thoros at the table and Dalin relegated to the floor, refusing to admit he minded.
He and Thoros were a sensation after his runaway victory in the chariot race, suddenly the odds-on favorite for overall victory. Which meant everyone would be coming for them, Thoros warned him as he made Dalin stand naked in the center of the room.
“You know her.” Dalin remembered Atalanta’s
brief comments in the arena.
“I know things about her,” Thoros answered. “Thing that will be helpful to our endeavor.”
“You knew the charioteers would use their whips. Because she told them to.”
“Atalanta would want a man who bears up under the whip well. Charioteers have whips. It was an obvious guess.”
“A good one,” Dalin acknowledged.
Thoros could whip him every day if it meant victory, but Thoros hadn’t whipped him lately. This week’s competition was to be one of balance, and their training sessions reminded Dalin of the fighting style of warriors from the Far East, right down to the way Thoros sometimes pulled Dalin’s hair back into a long, tight queue. Though Dalin suspected Thoros only did that to enjoy yanking at his scalp until it burned.
“Is she looking for a man with blue balls too?”
“Very likely.” Thoros cupped the balls in question. Dalin wasn’t hard, but it only took a moment to get him there. Every night Thoros fucked him or forced his cock down his throat, and though Dalin hadn’t used his teeth again, he hadn’t been allowed to come either.
Now Thoros teased his cock into full hardness. Dalin gritted his teeth and kept his mouth shut. He wouldn’t ask—not for relief, not for mercy.
“Stay still,” Thoros warned.
Dalin glared down at him. He hadn’t moved so much as an inch. But a moment later he understood the warning when Thoros yanked his balls down hard enough to separate them from his body and wrapped a leather thong around them with a couple of quick twists.
This again. He’d slept this way more than one night, could certainly bear up under it in the light of day. But Thoros’s next move was a new one when the other end of the thong was tied down to the ring in the floor, allowing no play at all. Dalin bent his knees, lowering himself a few inches to relieve the painful pressure on his sack.