Page 6 of Urban Gladiator

If he wanted to slay me, I wasn’t going to make it easy for him. I would boil his skin from his bones before I allowed him to kill me.

But he didn’t do that. He yanked my bound hands off the hook, then dragged me out of the arena behind him. I had no choice but to follow.

“You’re not going to kill me?” I blurted. My voice trembled, and I hated the way it sounded.

The moment we exited the stadium, he shot a dark glower over his shoulder. Blood and gore were splattered over his helmet. “Not tonight,” he sneered in a gravelly bass that rumbled through my chest.

And I was led from the arena without knowing what fate awaited me.

3

Victory quickened my footsteps.

The red-haired witch was mine for the next two weeks. By the laws of our land, I was free to do whatever I wanted with her. I had ideas and plenty of them.

She was a rare beauty.

The moment I spotted her in the clearing with her long waist-length dark red hair blowing around her slim shoulders and a defiant gleam in her eyes that rivaled emeralds, I wanted her. My wolf scented her. And all I’d wanted since that first meeting was to bend her over the nearest surface and rut until my knees buckled.

My wolf paced inside me. Anticipating the moment I freed him to take his pleasure from her body. A body I would know before the sun rose.

She smelled different from previous sacrifices. There was more depth to her being, and she was more vibrantly alive. She didn’t cower or bemoan her fate with tears. No, this witch stared with bold disdain. Like she was better than the lot of us.

I’d bring her down a peg or two before our time together was through.

I led her through the streets of the city. People moved out of the way to let me pass, cheering my victory. It was tradition for the victor to march through the streets on their way home with their prize. Even with dawn an hour away, the streets were lined with revelers. We passed businesses and apartment buildings, parks and restaurants, and even the new movie theater.

The gladiator tournaments were an excuse for citizens to cut loose from their daily lives with feasting and debauchery. It was a deeply embedded tradition in Avalon. One that no one took lightly.

As the prince and heir to the throne, I lived in the castle near the northern end of the city. Our trek took longer than I would have liked. By the time we reached the gray stone walls of the outer bailey, the first rays of sunlight speared the heavens.

It just meant the sun would be up when I fucked her.

At the gated entrance to the castle, I nodded at the guards stationed and tugged my prize none too gently along behind me. She never uttered a word. And I didn’t know why, but her silence pissed me off.

I wanted her fearful sobs and tears. I wanted her to rage and bemoan her fate before begging me to reconsider. Instead, I’d been saddled with a fucking ice princess.

It wouldn’t change the outcome.

Although perhaps once I got her alone and showed her what the next two weeks would be like, her tune would change. Because her body was mine. I ignored the castle staff on my way to my wing. I moved into the south wing on my sixteenth birthday and have lived here ever since. Two alpha shifters couldn’t reside in the same space without coming to blows. It was a mandate set forth by my father to protect the kingdom.

And frankly, I preferred it. I respected my father. He’d ruled our pack and the kingdom successfully for centuries. But I didn’t always like the bastard. If we’d been forced to live in the same space for over two hundred years, one of us would have snapped and annihilated the other.

The door to my quarters opened before we reached it.

“Welcome back, sir. And congratulations.” The ghostly specter held the door with a grin from ear to ear. He was dressed as he always was, in a nineteen-century gentleman’s suit, his golden hair slicked away from his face. Because the poor sot had been dead for two centuries. Granted, he was an excellent butler.

“Thank you, Bixby. Make sure Mistress Lara has a feast prepared within the hour. I’ll eat once I’ve had a chance to freshen up. Our guest will be in the red room. Other than me, you are the only one who may enter the room.”

“Understood, sir.” Bixby bowed his head. His gaze glanced over the witch but didn’t linger. As it should be. When it came to my servants, the less interaction they had with the witch, the better. I couldn’t risk her spelling one of my people and creating havoc within my household, not with all that could go wrong.

I left him standing at the entrance. Bixby had been my household steward for over two hundred years. He was well-versed in my moods and what I required. And he knew not to disturb what came next, no matter what he heard.

The witch was silent behind me.

For now.

She would bend or I would break her. I hoped it was the latter. Because the only good witch was a dead witch. And until it was her time to die for witches' crimes against Avalon, I would exact retribution upon her gorgeous form.

---