Page 17 of What Fury Brings (Wrath and Fury #1)

The room went quiet as Olerra considered the question.

For some reason, she didn’t seem to like the idea, which baffled Sanos.

He was an excellent fighter. Not that he had any desire to show her.

To have her approve of him. He was still of half a mind to strangle her with these manacles, the guards and witnesses be damned.

But then he remembered that she thought him his younger, poetry-loving brother. She’d meant to take fucking Andrastus, who was likely shitting himself trying to figure out how to take on the temporary role of heir while Sanos was missing.

If Sanos was going to get out of this horrid mess, he first had to get out of these damned manacles. That meant pleasing Olerra. Surely winning this proposed fight was a good step in the right direction.

He leaned his lips down to her ear.

“I’ll do it,” he whispered. “I’ll win for you.”

She met his gaze, before her eyes roved over the muscles that could be seen through his outfit. He didn’t know why she deliberated so carefully, but in the end she said, “Done. Andrastus will face any man from your harem you choose.”

“Excellent,” Glenaerys replied. “I shall have it all set up by this afternoon. The whole court should witness the display.”

Sanos didn’t understand Olerra’s hatred of her cousin. As far as he could tell, she was a beauty who thought highly of herself. Not someone so dangerous or troublesome as Olerra had made her out to be.

Glenaerys went rigid, yelled, “Ouch,” then turned and struck the man massaging her across the face. He fell down to his knees, but it was hard to tell what was from the force of the blow versus the natural reaction of the whore to go to his knees before her.

“Forgive me, mistress.”

“I shall,” she said, not missing a beat. “Tonight after the lash.”

“Yes, mistress. Thank you, mistress.”

Had he just thanked her for being sentenced to a lashing?

“You,” Glenaerys said, pointing to the one on the floor. “Finish my massage.”

The men immediately swapped places, and Olerra’s cousin took to running her fingers through the hair of the man who had worked at a knot in her back in a way she didn’t like. It was not difficult to see that she occasionally pulled his hair. Hard. Just because she could.

Sanos didn’t want to imagine the kind of tortures she made the men withstand in her bedroom.

When Sanos had agreed to fight for Olerra, he hadn’t realized the scale of what her cousin had planned.

They were outdoors, the sun shining down on the faces of countless women packed into an amphitheater that had to house around a thousand.

There were clearly more than just the nobility who’d come out to watch.

How could the people in the farthest stands even see him?

Why would they want to see him? And how had Glenaerys gotten word out so fast?

Olerra waved at a gathering of women dressed in armor with strange helmets and red-tipped spears. Women she fought with? Was the entire blasted army here to witness him fight off some pretty bedroom boy?

He knew this wouldn’t be the most elegant thing he’d ever done. Battling a whore for sport.

Then he reminded himself that this was what other people thought he was to Olerra. They thought she was bedding him and would continue to do so up until their wedding day, which he’d overheard would be some three months from now.

That was how long he had until escape became vital.

“Be careful,” Olerra said to him from where they stood on the outskirts of some sort of fighting ring at the center of the audience. “It was trouble enough taking you. I’d hate to find myself a new husband.”

She said it with a smile, as though she were joking or he were a joke to her.

“Afraid I’ll mar my pretty face?” he asked. “Be unsuitable for your bedroom activities?”

She stepped up to him, looked him carefully in the eye. “Our bedroom activities have yet to begin. Would you like to change that?”

“Apparently,” he said carefully, “there is someone else who would like to participate in your bedroom activities.”

She cocked her head to the side. “Are you jealous?”

He did not dignify that with a response.

“I’ll admit there were times when I was flattered by Daneryn’s attention, but I’ve put a stop to it. He won’t approach me like that again. He is a power-climber, and I will not be his ladder.”

“You’d rather step on me instead,” Sanos said.

“I would not step on you. I would have you rise with me until we are both gloriously untouchable.”

He looked pointedly at his chains.

“Right,” she said. “Best take these off for now. Though it would be humorous to watch you try to fight with them.” She was clearly ignoring his intended meaning on purpose, but Sanos didn’t press for now.

Not when she removed the key from some hidden pocket of her tunic and undid first the lock of the shackles at his feet. Then the manacles at his wrists.

He was unbound for the first time since arriving in this horrible kingdom.

And he could do nothing. Not with nearly a thousand spectators watching. With hundreds of guards surrounding this place in case… what? The spectators got out of hand? Were all the women so bloodthirsty?

“Undress,” Olerra said.

“What?” he asked, certain he’d misheard her.

“Disrobe,” she said, as though perhaps he was too stupid to understand what the first word meant.

And then with horror he noted the naked man standing in the fighting ring, waiting for him.

“I’m to battle naked? ” he asked.

“Of course. That is the way of wrestling, is it not?”

“In front of other men. Not women .”

“Well, the only people of importance here are women. Now strip, Andrastus, before you forfeit the match.”

He must have been taking too long, because Glenaerys showed up. “What’s the matter, Olerra? Having second thoughts once you noted my pick?”

Olerra turned toward the man standing in the ring, and all the color left her cheeks.

Sanos focused on Glenaerys’s pick for the fight, wondering if he’d missed something during his first perusal.

The man was massive. Much bigger than Sanos, though nowhere near his father’s proportions.

Glen’s man was covered in scars, as though fighting were something he did for a living.

Sanos wasn’t scared, though. He regularly bested men bigger than he was.

Except for his father.

“What is Athon doing here?” Olerra asked.

“You haven’t heard?” Glenaerys asked. “We’ve been courting.”

“Since when?”

“About a day after you left to kidnap the Brute.”

Sanos may not have been an expert in Amarran customs, but he knew politics. Whatever the reason for Glen courting Athon, it was strategic. Olerra’s face showed it. She was visibly upset.

Why?

Olerra glared at her cousin. “Always games with you.”

“I’m just too good at winning them. Now hurry it up. The prince still has to get oiled.”

“ Oiled?” Sanos caught on that word with horror.

Glenaerys raised one perfect blond brow. “Shall we call it off?”

“No,” Olerra barked. Then she reached over and literally ripped the shirt from Sanos’s shoulders. He was disgusted by the look Glenaerys gave him. The way she bit her lip as she admired the sight of his bare torso. He realized the tight shorts were doing him fewer favors on than they would off.

So he slipped out of them until he was standing in nothing, save the armband.

The crowd roared .

Sanos nearly jolted. He’d almost forgotten the crowd while observing the exchange between the two royal cousins.

But the masses had taken notice of his state of undress immediately, even though he wasn’t on the stage yet. They applauded. They screamed. They shouted praises at him.

He was the heir of Brutus, and he stood in an amphitheater bursting at the seams with women—without a stitch of clothing on.

It should have been mortifying, but Sanos couldn’t manage the proper emotion with the way everyone was cheering for him. Rooting for him. He was the obvious favorite of the crowd, who hadn’t applauded for Glen’s man.

It didn’t go unnoticed by Glen. She took in the crowd with distaste before stalking off.

Olerra was grinning at Sanos when he turned back to her.

“Can you blame them?” she asked. “You’re magnificent.”

He didn’t know what to feel in that moment. Pride tried to claim every corner of his brain, but he felt as though he ought to press harder for outrage. However, his sense of modesty was nowhere to be found. The whistles and screams felt good. They made him feel wanted. Chosen. Accepted.

He couldn’t accept the attention of women back home, lest his father hurt them. But here—here he could embrace it.

After sweeping the crowd, his eyes landed on Olerra.

He could embrace this woman without fear of harm to her. In fact, he might welcome harm to her as he remembered his sore nether region.

He was ashamed the thought even entered his mind, but it did enter. How could it not with all the looks she’d been shooting his way? Her suggestive comments? That searing kiss they’d shared at the brothel?

His body wanted her even if his mind didn’t. In fact, his mind still wanted to murder her.

It was a heady combination.

Sanos stood there, basking in the attention of the crowd, wrestling with his thoughts, as Olerra poured a decent amount of oil into her hands before rubbing her fingers up and down his chest.

Sanos meant to step away from that touch, but when she uttered, “I’m sorry,” he found himself rooted to the spot.

“I expected you to be fighting a soft bedroom boy.” Olerra was looking at Athon on the stage.

“I didn’t even consider that she would—but of course she would.

That is her way. Cheat when she can. Sabotage when she can’t. ”

He tried to ignore the feel of her fingers on his skin, which was far more pleasant than it should have been.

“Why does her courting that man upset you?” he asked. Was he a former paramour of Olerra’s? Was there any man in this country who didn’t fancy her?

“He is—was—one of my soldiers.”

“I’m not following.”