Page 51 of Eryx

“Kiss me to keep me silent then,” he panted, turning his head to capture my lips in a sloppy kiss.

As we kissed, I quickened my pace. It was a challenge suppressing my moans as I glided in and out of his heat. My chest stuck to his back, our skin dampened from our lovemaking. When I nudged that special place inside him, Axios tore from my lips and cried out in the quiet, dark room.

I covered his mouth with my hand and pumped my hips faster. He shuddered around my cock as he climaxed, and the sensation encouraged my release too. I kissed his nape and held him tighter as my body quaked.

Being inside him was a pleasure unlike any other, but it was the way my soul sang that truly made me breathless. When the trembles subsided, I turned him in my arms and brushed my lips across his brow.

Since the festival of spring, we had joined our bodies countless times. Instead of sneaking off to the stables each time, though, we’d begun doing it in the barracks. The other boys had never complained, but I knew they heard us.

“Ery?” Axios nuzzled my neck. “You said there’s nothing you wouldn’t do for me. But you must know I feel the same about you. You are the very air I breathe.”

I pressed my cheek to his soft hair. “I know.”

He fell asleep shortly after, and I listened to his light snores before welcoming sleep as well. I woke only once during the night when Axios shifted in his sleep and flipped to his other side. He scooted his back toward me, and I slipped an arm around him, burying my face in the back of his hair.

Shouts woke us the next morning. Men yelled to each other from outside the barracks, followed by the stomping of feet as they ran past the door.

“Where is he?” Gaius roared in a deep voice. “Find the filth and bring me his head.”

The door burst open and slammed against the wall as Gaius barged in and yelled at us to get up. Axios jolted, as did many of the other youths.

“Up, you worms!” Gaius kicked the boy nearest to him. “To the field at once.”

He left, leaving the door wide open in his wake.

Axios remained frozen on his mat, and I knew he was fretting over what waited for us outside the barracks. I kissed his shoulder, hoping it gave him some comfort, before pulling away and rising to my feet. He joined me and said nothing as our eyes met. The rest of the group shuffled to their feet.

Haden met us at the door and we proceeded outside. Theon and Quill caught up, their eyes still red from sleep. Melias and Ian walked close together and smiled when their gazes locked. Their expressions told me how they felt without me needing to see proof of their affection. They were like me and Axios.

Humid air greeted us instead of a chill. Spring was nearing its end and soon summer would arrive, making the days longer and hotter. The heat had already found us.

Axios sighed and made a face at the sky, and it drew my eyes to his slender neck and the sweat that was already beading on his shoulders. When we arrived at the arena, we were all damp with sweat.

Quill tore off his tunic. The rest of us hadn’t worn one.

Gaius stood in the arena with a deep scowl on his face. Another man stood beside him. Spotting Felix, pride swirled in my chest. He had been called to war several months ago and had just returned the previous evening. He was a true warrior of Sparta. A new scar marred his chest, just one more to add to the others. It was a sign of his bravery, of his loyalty to his home, and I was proud to have him as a trainer.

My gaze didn’t linger on him for long. I focused on the bloody body in the dirt beside his feet. A Spartan youth. His throat had been cut from ear to ear and blood covered his chest and formed a puddle in the dirt. Blood continued to trickle from his opened throat, so he had just been killed.

“A slave has forgotten his place,” Felix growled. “You see your brother lying in his own blood, slain by a coward who leapt from the shadows and drew a blade across his throat early this morn. A coward who then retreated into the countryside, thinking to escape his fate. An attack against one of us is an attack against us all.”

Rage bubbled in my veins, and I clenched my fists. A slave had attacked one of us. I looked over at Axios, hoping to see him angry as well. But he wasn’t. He only seemed confused. Boys around us snarled and stirred at the news.

“Time for a hunt,” Gaius said with a cold smile. I nodded to him, eager to make the slave pay for his wrongdoing. “Others are searching for him now. Go and claim the honor for yourselves.”

With pleasure.

Felix gave us all spears and set us loose in the wilderness. I couldn’t wait to drive the spear into the slave’s chest.

“I shall kill him and place his head on a spike,” Haden said through gritted teeth before sprinting past us.

His anger added to my own. The injustice would not go unpunished. As much as I wished to run forward and begin the hunt, I stayed behind with Axios and walked with him through the knee-high grass of the field outside of the woods. Every boy fumed with hatred and rage… except for Axios.

He frowned as he stared at the spear in his hands. A Spartan had been slain and all he worried over was the slave who’d killed him.

“Axios, put it out of your mind,” I said, forcing myself not to lose my temper with him. His kind heart had no place in this moment. “There is no justification for this.”

“What if—”