A lone tear trickled from the corner of her eye and slid into the hair at her temple. “You’ve wanted a great deal from me, Ataman. You want my heart as well? Have me abandon all I’ve known to stay here with you?”
He bent to kiss her right eyelid, then her left, the salt of her tears stinging his lips. “I’m a greedy man. I want all of you, heart, soul, and body. You already have all that I am. It seems only fair.”
Deep down, he knew she’d refuse. Even if their relationship hadn’t been founded on extortion, struggle, and captivity, she was single-minded in her devotion to a duty for which she’d never receive thanks nor recognition from those she saved year after year. If, as she said, home was truly among those who loved you, then Beroe wasn’t her home. He didn’t know whether to hold her in sympathy or shake her from frustration.
He couldn’t regret asking her to stay. Soon they would part for good, and he was desperate to keep her.
“The same family awaiting you in Beroe willingly surrenders you to Kraelian slavers every spring so that you are raped and burned.” His voice sounded harsh to his ears. She might love her mother and siblings, but she hated her fate. Azarion suffered no qualms in reminding her of that fact.
“Stay with the Savatar,” he argued. “If I can convince Erakes that my plan is sound, has merit, and we unite to attack the Empire’s capital, the Rites will end. No more Flowers of Spring to sacrifice. No more burning in the Pit. No worrying whether someone’s mother, daughter, or sister will be tithed.”
They stared at each other until Gilene sighed and raised her hand to trace Azarion’s eyebrows with her fingertips. “That is a dream to hold close during the hard nights, but a dream it still is. Until you and the Savatar can make it a reality, I have to go back. I can’t abandon my mother or my sister or any of the women who rely on me to protect them from the Empire. I will survive it. They won’t. In my place, would you turn your back on them?”
She asked the question he’d hoped she wouldn’t. It was the one he couldn’t deny without lying, and he’d lied to her enough already. “No. I’d go back.”
Her watery smile reflected in her gaze. “You risked everything to return to your people.”
He moved so that he didn’t crush her with his weight but could still feel the length of her against him. “Risked you as well.” More words hovered on his tongue, difficult to express in a way that kept him honest but still conveyed his regret.
“Had there been another way to gain my freedom and regain the chieftainship other than abducting you, I would have chosen it. You can rightfully fault me as merciless and without compassion for your plight. I did what I did without thinking of your own circumstances. It was wrong, and though I can’t regret bringing you to the Sky Below, I am sorry you suffered for it.” He stroked her cheeks, loving the feel of her smooth flesh under his fingers. “That was no way to repay someone who only helped me. I don’t ask your forgiveness, Gilene. I don’t think I could give it were I in your place, but ask of me what you will, and I will do all in my power to fulfill it.”
Gilene’s tears had dried, leaving only the remnants of their silvery tracks on her cheeks. She stretched under him, long legs entwining with his. A procession of emotions crossed her features, quick as lightning flashes. Azarion wished he could interpret each one, but they were gone as soon as they appeared.
“You’ve promised to send me home. I know now you are an honorable man, and I believe you. I’d ask one more boon of you.”
“Anything.”
“Invading armies don’t reserve their violence for their main target. The nearby villages and towns suffer it as well, their only offense their proximity to the city the army wants to destroy. If the Savatar succeed in reaching the capital, I ask that you remember Beroe and spare it. For my sake, and if not that, then to satisfy the wishes of an agacin.”
Was that all? he wondered. Nothing for herself or material goods for her family? Azarion brushed a kiss across her forehead. “I should have known you wouldn’t ask for silver or silk.”
“Those won’t do me much good when I stand in the Pit once more.”
The harsh reminder of what awaited her in a few months’ time made Azarion’s stomach twist. He hated the idea of her going through such an ordeal again, but she wasn’t his to keep, and her choice to return was hers alone. He could at least give her this one reassurance.
“I’ll see to it the Savatar leave Beroe in peace.” Her eyes closed in obvious relief. “Is that all, Gilene? Nothing more? I owe you much.” He’d give her all of the Krael Empire if she asked him, if it meant she might live her days among the Savatar.
“One more thing,” she said, and her smile was a sensual beckoning that drew him like a lodestone and set his heart to racing. “Show me what it is to truly be the concubine of Azarion Ataman.”
She drew his head down to hers, and Azarion was lost.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The last time Gilene had lain with a man was during the Rites of Spring the year before Azarion revealed his knowledge of her illusion. Then, it had been a quick rutting against a cell wall. She had counted the number of thrusts—four in total—before the gladiator finished with her and stumbled to his pallet to pass out from exhaustion or drink or both. Gilene spent the remainder of the night sitting in a corner, keeping an eye on the snoring heap.
Her cellmate never woke when the guards retrieved her the next morning. She didn’t remember his face, nor did she care about his fate.
Once more she lay with a Pit gladiator, but this time under the stars of the Stara Dragana instead of in a filthy cell, and she did so of her own free will. This man, once her adversary, would become her lover tonight, not her rapist. His face she’d remember, his fate she’d wonder about long after this interlude faded with time.
She kissed him, savoring the shape and feel of his lips as they slanted across hers. He rested heavy on her body, all lean muscle and wool tunic that tangled with her own garb as they shifted in their efforts to press closer to each other.
Gilene’s hands slid into his loose hair, fingers tightening against his scalp as she swept her tongue over his lower lip in a wordless command that he open to her. With a soft groan, Azarion acquiesced and welcomed her, returning her deep caress with one of his own. He tasted of the berries the servants had passed around after dinner and the imported wine purchased from the trade caravans on the Golden Serpent.
Her blood sizzled through her veins as strong as the fire she sometimes summoned to her fingertips at the feel of his erection pushing against her, the shallow thrusts of his hips matching the deeper penetration of his tongue in her mouth.
They ended the kiss on a mutual gasp, and Gilene smiled at the desire glittering in his eyes; surely a reflection of her own wanting. Her legs parted wider, settling him even harder between her spread thighs. She caressed the outside of his leg with her ankle and calf, bending a knee so that her foot rode the back of his thigh. “Is the Gladius Prime as good at pleasing a woman as he is at fighting a man?”