by Erin O'Kane
“Didn’t even touch your sweet little pussy, Firecracker,” he murmurs softly, before trailing his hand down my stomach and cupping my center. I groan and rock into his hand, still needy as he strokes my pussy. He winds me back up again until I’m rubbing against his palm, hitting my clit on it again and again, and just when I’m about to explode, he pulls his hand away, making me whine while he laughs.
“Jessie,” I hiss, “will you—” My words cut off and my eyes roll into the back of my head as he lines up and slams into me. He doesn’t give me time to stretch around his long length before he is pulling out and pushing back in, forcing my pussy to accept him.
He kisses me again, silencing my moans I didn’t even realise were escaping my lips as he picks up speed, fucking me hard and fast. His cock hits that spot inside me that none of the others ever seem to reach. Biting at his lips, I lift my hips to try and meet his thrusts. Kicking my feet against his ass, I urge him on.
He groans into my mouth, his movements stuttering before he lets go and slams into me again and again. The bite of pain makes me wild as I scratch my nails down his back. My pussy clenches on his cock, and he taps my clit with his fingers, making me come again.
I scream into his mouth and he howls into mine, slamming into me again before stilling and emptying his come inside me. Pulling my mouth away, I suck in air, trying to calm my breathing as my body turns weak. The only reason I stay upright is because of Jessie, but then his legs seem to give out as well and he stumbles, trying to right himself, but he skids on the wet floor.
We slip from the slick tiles and fall to the floor. He twists mid-air so he is beneath me, and he grunts as he hits the floor with me sprawled on top of him, still trying to catch my breath. Lifting my head, I meet his eyes and we both burst into laughter.
Shower sex is harder than it looks, but it was amazing.
He pushes some wet, tangled hair away from my face and cups my cheek, looking up at me with serious eyes. “I love you, Firecracker. No matter what is happening, or where we are, I always will. We will get out of this and be a family again, and then I can spoil you and show you the world like I’ve always wanted to. Me and you, Rhea, we are going to grow old together,” he whispers, and Nixon clears his throat, making us both smile even as I stroke Jessie’s face. “Okay, all of us will,” he corrects, and I blink back the tears in my eyes.
“I can’t wait,” I whisper, my voice cracking. “I love you too,” I reply, before dropping a soft kiss on his lips.
Another throat clears and we both look up. “Better hurry up, love birds, people are starting to head this way,” Xavier calls, and I curse as I jump up.
Jessie follows and I slip, but he catches me. He helps me back into my clothes and throws his wet shirt over his shoulder before smirking at me. “We should shower together all the time, Firecracker.”
I giggle and nod. “We should.”
“Time to go,” Xavier snaps, and I sigh, kissing Jessie again. He winks and slips past Nixon, and I wring out my hair before plaiting it, and then nodding at Nixon who has turned to see me.
“Okay, let’s go.” I look over my shoulder then, meeting Xavier’s eyes. “Thank you,” I murmur, not mentioning him watching and me enjoying it, because guilt is coursing through me. I should have been concentrating on Jessie, not making eyes at a man I barely know.
We leave the bathroom together and head to the eating area where people are starting to get up. I wave at Rex and Blain, who are sitting with a grinning Jessie. I search for Alcide, but don’t spot him anywhere. I look back to Blain with a frown, and he shakes his head and mouths, “Not here.”
What does that mean?
Is he still with the Masters?
Swallowing back my worries, I sit at our table as Nixon places our bowls of food in front of us. This time, Xavier sits with us. He’s at the end of the bench, but still with our group. Others notice, throwing him narrow-eyed, calculating looks, but he ignores them as he scarfs down his food.
Trent stomps towards our table then with an evil grin on his face, and I know whatever he has to say isn’t going to be good. He scans us all, pausing on me, his eyes lighting up. “Slave, you are fighting tomorrow!” he calls, and all of my men get to their feet, but I stop them with a shake of my head. “Fighting tandem, with Immortal,” he finishes, and my eyes widen before swinging to Xavier’s.
His eyes clash with mine, both of us wondering why. Has he ever fought in tandem before? I think not, so what has changed...what are the Masters planning, and what does it have to do with Xavier and me?
I guess I won’t know until tomorrow...
That night, once we are back in the cells, the guards come and collect Xavier and me for training. We don’t speak as we are led up the tunnel and onto the fighting sand. Guards mill around, not bothering to watch us, and there are no Masters in sight.
“You have two hours to practice, don’t ruin her too much, Immortal, we need to watch her lose tomorrow,” Trent sneers, as he unlocks our shackles and then strides over to the other guards. He joins in with their conversation, leaving Xavier and me alone in the sand. He turns to face me, obviously as happy as I am about having to fight together. I’m not a fighter, have never even tried, and he has. He’s won every fight, and now he has to deal with having an inexperienced partner.
“Okay, what can you do?” he asks, propping his hands on his hips. “I saw what you showed them, but I need to know if that’s the extent of it or if you hid some?”
“I hid some. I’ve tested my powers, but they still seem to be growing...” I debate what I should tell him, worrying my bottom lip, and he steps closer, lowering his head and his voice.
“You have to learn to trust me. I need you to survive so I do, we have no choice but to work together. I saw you fight, you are stubborn as hell and a survivor, you keep getting back up no matter how many times you get knocked down. We can use that, but you have to be determined to survive, you have to want to live,” he rasps, his dark eyes locked on me. I wish I could ask Alcide what I can tell him, but I have to make this decision without my ringmaster and his plans.
“I can’t really die. I adapt to everything thrown at me. Fire, water, ice…” I trail off as his eyes widen. “I can be hit with a knife, stabbed, shot, whatever you want, and I can change quickly. I did fly once or twice, but that takes a lot of effort. I can also channel some speed and strength.” I don’t tell him that I can channel it from my men, but it might come in handy here.
“Good, we can use that.” He nods.
“What do you know about tandem fighting?” I inquire.
He sighs. “Not a lot. They tried it before, but my partner died in the second fight. We will be chained together with only some slack to manoeuvre, facing whoever they deem a good fight, and we must fight them jointly. Let’s work on getting in sync, since you will have to move when I move. We need to protect each other’s back, and just fight like fucking hell and hope we survive, and Rhea, I plan on surviving, so you better give it everything you have,” he demands, his face fierce and eyes harsh yet comforting. He wills me to fight, he orders it, and I find myself straightening and nodding. I will do whatever it takes, and from the scars on his body, I know he will do the same.
“Good. First, we will stand back to back, and I want you to move when I do. Feel the tightening of my muscles and follow that movement through. Any hesitation will get us killed, so we will do it again and again until we are in sync. When I duck, you duck, when I lunge, you lunge.” I almost blush at the thought of being pushed up against him and feeling all of his body, and his eyes narrow on me as if he can read my thoughts. “Lose the modesty and embarrassment. By the time this is through, you will know my body better than yours. We don’t have time to be shy, we have two hours to learn each other better than anyone else.”
I swallow at his words, but I know he’s right. If I want to survive, I need to do as he says and trust his judgement. After all, he’s the better fighter and I need to live�
��for my men, for my family—so if it means losing the shyness that was hammered into me, I will. I’ll become the extension of his body, I will fight with him and win.
We jump straight into it, conscious of the time limit we have to get prepared for the fight. He works me hard, not relenting. He’s more stubborn and demanding than even Alcide, pushing my body to its limit and demanding more. I can see why he has survived so long. He does not give up, ever. Not even when he’s covered in sweat and his muscles are obviously aching. He keeps going, fighting harder and faster like the pain is only making him wilder. His moves are smooth and refined, precise, and deadly. He’s a weapon, he wields death like a dance brandishes a show, and I am entranced by it. By the way he moves, the pull of his muscles, the snarl he wears.
“Again,” he snaps, pulling me out of my thoughts and my ogling. I blush slightly at being caught and he narrows his eyes, so I rush to place my back against his, not wanting him to lecture me again on being ‘prudish.’ He’s a lot taller than me, so my head only reaches the middle of his back, with our legs and asses pushed together, and no air between us. I had been really slow the first couple of times, and even now I still lag behind his moves and sometimes go the wrong way, reading his body signals incorrectly, but I’m trying.
“Concentrate,” he orders, his voice as sharp as a whip, forcing my body to vibrate with tension. “Stay relaxed, listen to my body, and just react. You have to be fast, smooth, and deadly. You can fucking do it, now move!”
Clearing my mind, I focus only on him, letting everything else but the feel of his hot, solid body pressed against mine disappear. I ignore the gazes of the guards, their jokes and laughter, the feeling of the sand chafing against my skin, my stomach rumbling in hunger, and my hands shaking from exhaustion. I ignore it all like he instructs. I close my eyes like he told me to, letting go of sight, my focus only on sound and sensation. Eventually, I need to be able to do this with my eyes open, but for now we are trying with my eyes closed to see if that helps. The darkness only heightens my awareness of his body, and I find myself licking my lips before getting angry at myself.
Focus, Rhea.
I feel his body tense right before he starts to move, so I lean with him to the left, and when I don’t feel air hit my back, I know I moved the correct way. He ducks right and I duck with him, only half a second behind him. We go back to standing before I feel him move away, so I move with him, my feet dancing backwards over the sand. I put my trust in him leading me, keeping my eyes closed and only stopping when he does.
“Good, you’re getting better. This time we are going to move faster like we are ducking weapons,” he orders, before he moves. I don’t have time to think anymore, I just focus on his body and move with him again and again, getting faster and faster until we stop, both of us panting.
“Open your eyes,” he murmurs, and I feel him move in front of me.
I blink them open to see him looking down at me, his lips tilting up ever so slightly. “You’re getting better, now I’m going to come at you with some weapons. I want you to focus on dancing away and blocking. I will do most of the heavy lifting and killing, your job is to stay alive and protect my back. Okay?”
I nod then, blowing out a breath and standing on the balls of my feet. He kicks my legs farther open and I gasp. “Stance wider, create a triangle, less likely to be knocked over.”
I do as I’m told and he grabs my hips, twisting them, and this time I don’t tense up at his touch. He’s right. My body is getting used to him and his rough handling. I know he’s doing it to teach me, but it doesn’t stop the hot flush that’s racing through my body from his fingers against my skin—I ignore that. “Move when you see where the weapon is landing, never before. Always keep your eyes open and on it, never close them or look away,” he instructs, and then steps back. The place he grabbed me goes cold from the loss of his touch, but I push that away and focus as he pretends to have a sword and comes at me in excessively slow movements.
“Change your skin if you can’t duck, but try to use your powers as little as possible.”
“Why?” I question with a frown.
“You don’t want them to know what you can do, they will use it against you. Only use it if you have to,” he replies. Still moving, he pretends to swipe across my stomach and I hop back, avoiding it, and he nods in approval.
He feigns again and again, and when I start to move how he instructs, he tries different weapons, giving me tips on each one and how to avoid it, and then we fight for real. He grabs two swords, tossing one to me that I catch mid-air. At least some of my agility from training for the circus is coming in handy. We move around the arena, parrying blows, and then he instructs me to come at him, going on the defensive.
Before I know it, the two hours are up. I feel more prepared, but still nowhere ready to fight at his side tomorrow. “Time’s up!” Trent calls from where he was watching on the side.
Xavier strides towards me. “Remember what we practiced, back to back as soon as we are in the arena, be prepared for them to die, Rhea, because it’s them or us, and no matter how good a person they might be, I will always pick us.”
Then he marches away, waiting at the gate. I follow after him, stepping up next to his side, his words ringing through my head. Is this what I have become now? Killing others to survive? Can I live with that stain on my soul?
As soon as I see my men leaning out of their cells, searching the tunnel for me, I know the answer—yes, yes I can. For them.
That night, I don’t sleep well. I toss and turn and eventually give up, leaning back against the wall and just staring aimlessly into the dark. Fear for tomorrow runs through me. I don’t want to let Xavier down and I don’t want to kill people, but we don’t get what we want. All I can do is fight my best and trust that surviving is the right thing to do.
“Can’t sleep?” Xavier mumbles next to me, and I jump at the sound of his voice. It’s low, but loud enough to be heard over the snores of the other slaves.
“No, you?” I ask, turning to peer into his cell. I can just about make him out in the dark. He’s leaning back against the cell wall like me, with his head on the stone, one knee drawn up and his arm lying over it casually, the other stretched out into the cell.
“I never do the night before a fight, not for long at least, running through the odds and my best chances of winning. Yet the night after a fight, even when they used to lock me in here covered in an innocent’s blood, I sleep like a baby. Guess that makes me the soulless fuck they always wanted.”
“It doesn’t, it just makes you strong. You’ve seen the worst they have to throw at you and come out of it alive every time,” I reply, our whispers quiet and just for us.
“Alive, but at what cost?” This time his words are so soft I barely hear him.
“You’re alive, that’s all that matters.”
“Is it? Sometimes being alive isn’t enough, sometimes you have to think of the cost and whether facing death is really that bad compared to losing parts of what makes you human. Rhea, if they had thrown me in there with you, made us fight, I would have killed you without hesitation, I would have done it,” he snaps, his hand wrapping around the bar between us, hatred for himself coating his tone.
“I know,” I murmur, reaching out and cupping his hand where it rests. He jumps at my touch but doesn’t pull away. “I know that, but it doesn’t make me hate you or pity you. It makes me respect you and fear you a little bit.” I smile at the end and he laughs humourlessly. “I wish I was that strong. They need me to be, but sometimes I still feel like the slave girl from Cinders with nothing to offer other than being a hole to fuck like they always told me. It’s just for a moment, and then I remember what I am, who I am now thanks to my family, and that scares me even more. What if they take that away from me? I would do whatever it takes to keep them safe and alive, even at any cost to myself...but I’ve only just started to find who I am...what will be left of me after this? Or will there be not
hing left at all?” I admit, slamming my mouth shut, wincing at oversharing. I don’t know why I told him all that, apart from the fact that it’s dark and he’s sharing his soul with me and I feel the need to do the same.
“Whatever is left, whether it is scarred, broken, or empty, is still enough. Because you saw hell and survived the fires and still came out, you will come out stronger than before. They are evil, sadistic bastards, but they do know how to strengthen a person and push them to the edge. Some fold under that pressure, others flourish. You, Rhea, will flourish. I can see it in you, that fire, that determination. Whatever is left, you will have that, and you will have your men. I’ve seen them with you, they will never leave you.” He sighs then. “I wish I had people who would fight for me like that, you are lucky.”
“I know,” I whisper back, unsure what to say.
He must realise that, because he squeezes my hand before pulling it out from under mine. “Get some sleep, you will need your strength tomorrow.”
And just like in training, my body obeys his commands, slipping into the yawning mouth of sleep.
“Wake up, slaves! Chow time! Fight starts in an hour and a half!” comes a yell and the sound of the others rising, yawning, and complaining at the early hour.
I blink my eyes open to see Nixon staring at me. I smile at him and blow him a kiss, which he catches and presses to his heart, making me melt. I get up and stretch, seeing Xavier waiting in the middle of his cell, ready to go like always. Does this man ever rest?