XIII – The Ancalite Wedding

Lucius Vitus Servius once said that rivalry within ranks festers like flesh rot, and if a general ignores it, he loses a man as quickly as a leg.

Caesar recalls these words as the departed man’s son glowers silently while Kombius, a prince of the continental Atrebates, speaks of his time as an Ancalite prisoner. The concerning bit of flesh rot, however, is Titus Labienus, who eavesdrops with jowls tight in resentment.

On their first trip to Britannia, they sent Kombius ahead to the island with a mixed group that included Roman emissaries. The aging Ancalite king, a man of Belgic blood, took them prisoner, killing Labienus’s son yet sparing Kombius and his fellow Atrebates.

Planus speaks to the hirsute Gaul, the man’s blond locks sparking more than conversational interest. Though also smitten with Planus, the Gaul’s light eyes steal glances at Skipio’s lion-headed helmet.

“In your time among them,” when Skipio speaks, Caesar and Planus exchange tense stares. “Did you ever talk with the druid, Fintan?”

“The Owl counseled Cassibelanus to anticipate Rome,” the Gaul answers with a nod. “His wife, the first daughter of the old Ancalite king, whispered poisons in his ear that led him and his chariots to Belgica.”

“We know this woman,” says Caesar. “Is she a druidess?”

“She would’ve been,” Kombius replies. “Getting pregnant made the old archdruid—”

“Ostin,” Skipio cuts in, and Kombius sets down his cup.

“Ostin, yes, the druid you murdered,” he reminds. “Ostin excluded her for this and other reasons. Still, she retains a high position among her people.”

“Clearly,” Caesar pushes a cup of wine at Skipio. “As there’s been no repercussions for her ambushing and murdering my friend,”

“My father,” Skipio declares; the Lion, as he’s known to warriors and druids alike, inches ever closer to thirty years, many of those years lost with his father’s demise.

“My source tells me that since Fintan’s death, her brother Taran whispered in Cassibelanus’s ear, but recently, he’s made her half-brother, Lugotrix, leader of the Ancalites.” Kombius stares into his cup. “It was a costly decision, as the kings have more faith in her son, a young druid that Cassibelanus dislikes.”

Skipio raises his head as if freshly woken.
“Why would he dislike a strategist who’s won him battles?”

“They say the Owl King is of two extremes,” he tells them. “Cunning beyond measure, yet brutally whorish beyond shame,”

“How is one brutally whorish?” asks Planus.

Kombius smirks. “For him, a fistfight is foreplay,”

“Is that what’s made you a child seeking a new toy?” asks Caesar.

Skipio goes silent, his fantasies of the wiry druid his own.

“Fintan was a reasonable sort until he married,” adds Kombius.

Planus wonders, “Does anything make a man more unreasonable?”

“Forgive him,” Caesar raises his cup. “Planus carries little taste for women,”

Planus smiles. “I speak of matrimony, not women.”

“Matrimony and women go hand in hand,” laughs Caesar.

“How now, uncle,” says Planus. “Men also forge bonds in Juno’s month,”

“Despite the law ignoring such ceremonial unions,” Skipio gripes.

“Are you married, dear boy?” Caesar asks Planus.

Pearly teeth peek out amidst a face full of hair.
“If I were, mother would be the first to know,”

“Then I would be the last,” Caesar cracks, and the three laugh.

Skipio broods, and Labienus buries a scowl behind his cup.

“Your men have many wives, then?” Planus asks.

“It is our women who have many husbands,” Kombius tells him. “Bonds form when life begins.”

Planus blinks. “You’re married to every woman you get pregnant?”

“You Romans and your writs. There’s no need for contracts if proof of your partnership lies swaddled and crying in your arms,” Kombius shrugs his bony shoulders. “I’ve rutted many a man when the mood strikes, but what I leave him can be wiped away or pushed out with a good fart,”

“And with that, I take my leave.” Labienus rises. “I bid you goodnight and thank you for your hospitality.

Caesar raises his cup. “Thank you for supping with us, old friend,”

“I’ve made him uncomfortable,” Kombius sighs.

“He doesn’t trust you, nor do I,” Skipio says. “You left camp without informing the watch,”

“Yes,” Kombius nods. “And you would know, wouldn’t you?

Caesar sets down his cup. “What’s this about then?”

“Legate claims our Kombius ventured into the woods without acquiring leave,” Planus explains. “None one brought it up because you dislike camp politics spoken of at supper,”

“Speaking on bonds between men,” Kombius looks to Caesar. “You asked me to reach out to an old lover, leader of the Cassi, and that’s what I did,”

“Then why not inform the watch?” Skipio demands.

“Because I didn’t want you killing him.” Kombius snaps. “Each covert meeting I’ve arranged finds you showing up and murdering everyone in attendance,”

“This is an acceptable reason,” Caesar declares. “Thank you, Kombius.”

Planus, the consummate de-escalator, stands.
“We should take our leave, Skipio,”

“I trust you, Lord Planus,” Kombius says, taking his wrist. “More than I trust any other in this camp,”

Caesar apes insult. “You too, Kombius?”

“I’m sorry,” the Gaul grins. “You’re still my battle king, but your Legates do not trust me farther than they can throw me.”

“Except for our dear Planus,” Caesar teases.

“Full disclosure,” Planus chimes. “My interests come tainted,”

Skipio tempers his tone. “May I ask this lover’s name, Kombius?”

“To what end?” Planus laughs over his agitation.

Kombius answers, “His name is Taximagulus,”

“And what words did he share?” asks Caesar.

“A high-placed woman seeks an audience,” Kombius reveals. “She wishes to settle hostilities between Rome and her family.”

“And how does she intend to do that?” Caesar wonders.

“She’ll divulge the location of the Catubellauni stronghold,” says Kombius. “In return, she desires safe passage to Belgica for her and her son.”

Skipio quakes, “The nerve of that bitch,”

Caesar raises a hand for him to settle.
“Kombius, arrange this meeting,”

Skipio jumps to his feet.

“Planus,” Ceasar ignores him. “Go with him to these negotiations, and when you do, inform the watch guard of your exit,”

Kombius stutters, “Caesar, she’s n—”

“I know the woman who seeks this meeting.” Caesar raises a finger. “Go now with my nephew and arrange it,”

Kombius departs, concern plaguing his brow, while Planus follows with a silent warning for Skipio to remain calm. The moment they’re gone, however, Skipio takes up his mane-covered helmet to follow.

“You will remain, Lucius Scipio Servius,” says Caesar.

“How can you even think of making a deal with the bitch who killed my father,” he demands through his teeth.

Caesar pats the space beside him. “Sit down, boy,”

“You’re not my father,” Skipio roars.

“Rome is your father now,” Caesar explodes.

Skipio shakes his head.
“I won’t discuss the needs of Rome over justice for my father,”

“You’re behaving like a wild boar,” Caesar barks. “Must I cage you like one?”

Skipio comes to attention.
“Apologies, imperator, for my lack of respect.”

Caesar points his head to the space beside him. “That’s better, now sit,” and when Skipio moves to do so, he snaps, “Put that damned thing on the floor.”

The fleece-covered helmet finds a place between their feet.

“Take a breath and count to ten,” Caesar orders.

Skipio rolls his eyes and sighs in frustration.

“You’ll do it,” Caesar demands. “Or I’ll send those eyes rolling out of this tent,”

Skipio swallows his pride, takes a breath, and counts to ten.

The scent of bacon and barley drifts from their half-empty plates, and while thoughts of the Owl and his bitch mother boil within, this momentary settlement dulls his fiery mood.

Caesar rests his elbows on his knees and pinches an ear on the lion’s head. “Did your father ever tell you where this came from?”

“A beast from Bithynia.”

“It was our first campaign together,” Caesar nods. “I was younger than you in those days, but I’d allied with the wrong men for a high position in the House of Jupiter.”

“You were a high priest of Jupiter?”

“Oh yes,” says Caesar. “Until those that got me there picked a fight with the wrong man. They lost, just as my mother said they would, and for that, and for refusing to divorce my wife, the victor exiled me to military service,”

“You never chose to serve?”

“No, and neither did your father,” Caesar reveals. “He’d gambled away your mother’s dowry and needed a soldier’s pension to get it back.” He raises a finger. “He never gambled again. Your father made mistakes but never made them twice.”

“I never knew that about him,” Skipio whispers.

“Back in those days, I dabbled in men on occasion, not like you and Planus, who live for ass like it’s your religion,” Caesar says. “And for that, my legate sent me to negotiate for ships at the Bithynian court. Your father came along because he was a sturdy hairless sort, the type their King fancied.”

“Did my father—?”

“Bye-Jove, no,” Caesar laughs. “I did the heavy sitting on that mission, and thanks to your father prancing around half-naked, the King proved a rather inspired chair.”

“He never spoke of his time in the east,”

“It’s not the sort of thing a man tells his son,” says Caesar. “Now, the Bithynian King kept a lioness in his menagerie. She came from lands far south of Egypt, and Vitus brought one of her cubs back home, and your grandfather—”

“—Red,” Skipio says of a man he never met.

“Yes, old Rufus,” Caesar grabs the decanter and drinks from it. “Rufus named that cub Leonidas and taught him to take down any deer and boar that got into the orchard.”

Dried blood dots the fleece’s ears.

“I saw the beast many years later,” he offers Skipio a swig. “Your grandparents threw an orgy to celebrate your birth. Cornelia was pregnant then, and she desperately wanted to hold you.”

Taking back the decanter, Caesar drinks again.

“We didn’t know that shortly after your birth, Leonidas had gone peculiar. The beast mauled some harvesters and then attacked two horses.” His fingers fingers scratch into the fleece’s stiff mane. “That night, after we’d gone to sleep, Leonidas climbed out of his pit, entered the house, and killed your wetnurse.”

The lion’s snout stares without eyes, its whiskers broken and bent.

“Your grandfather died protecting you. Vitus and I nearly died taking the damned thing down.” Pain clouds his memory. “Cornelia lost her baby that night. A boy. What there was of him in her piss bowl, we buried with your grandfather.”

Remorse tightens Skipio’s chest.
“I’ll burn it, Imperator,”

“You will not,” Caesar pats his knee. “This thing meant too much to your superstitious father. He brought it on every campaign after Minerva came to him in a dream. She said, this beast tried to devour your boy, and now it will protect him until death.”

Suddenly, the decurion begins babbling about his father.

Snow came early one year, leaving a white mountain in the impluvium, and Vitus gathered handfuls of it and lobbed the balls at everyone in the atrium. One festive Saturnalia, his parents switched places, and his father wore his mother’s womanly robes and jokingly swaddled newborn Vita.

He recounts his first harvest went on long into the night with him atop his father’s shoulders. Vitus wore the lion-head then, while little Skipio swung at low-hanging fruit with his grandfather’s stick.

“When I see you in this, I see that lion gone mad.” Caesar’s hand rests upon Skipio’s shorn head. “I’m begging you, as one who also mourns your father. Please, get ahead of this madness. Do not make me put you down the way we did this damned beast.”

A low groan escapes Skipio’s throat, ushering in fierce sobs that redden his skin and taint his chin with sputum.

“There it is,” Caesar’s arm curtains his shoulders. “That’s what Roman’s do, boy. We weep for those we lose, not rage for what we’ve lost.”

The man cries for several moments before Caesar detaches.

“You cannot let anger consume you,” he tells him. “Not when you must take your father’s place in Comum,”

Skipio lifts his head. “Comum?”

“You’re going home.”

“I can change,” Skipio jumps to his feet. “I will change,”

“It’s not a punishment,” he assures.

“There’s no reason to send me home,” Skipio asserts. “Not when I’ve proven myself capable on the battlefield,”

“The Senate has stripped the people of Comum of their citizenship.” Caesar rises from the bench. “Even families founded in Rome are not immune,”

“Why would they do such a thing?” he asks.

“Resentment and jealousy,” Caesar replies. “Comum’s representative in the Senate, your father’s cousin, killed himself after being whipped like a dog in public by Marcus Claudius Marcellus.”

He glowers. “That arrogant Claudian bastard,”

“Arrogant, yes, and powerful.” Caesar grasps his shoulder. “This is why I’m making you Tribune of the Comum battalion,”

“I cannot accept such a high position,” he recoils. “I never even served as a praefectus,”

“You’ve been so lost in your madness,” Caesar scolds. “Do you think I would’ve allowed a simple decurion to lead the missions you’ve carried out these past weeks?”

Skipio stands, blindsided.

“You’ve been Praefectus Vigilium for weeks,” he tells him. “You and riders have protected the marching legions better than we’ve deserved,”

Skipio whispers. “I’ve only hunted druids for my own-”

“—You’ll wear the purple stripe,” Caesar interjects. “Rebuild the garrison at Comum, and from there, aid Crassus Titus Flavius, and our dear Planus, in taking over the forts at Mediolanum and Bellagio.”

“Comum houses so many youthful trainees,” Skipio warns. “They know more of work than weapons,”

“Marcus Castor Junius will use those youth to rebuild Octodurus,” Caesar verdicts. “Those going home with you will reestablish the road-watch network and place the senate loyalists.”

Skipio straightens his back and comes to attention.
“I will not fail you, Caesar.”

“No,” the man grips his shoulder. “You must not fail Comum.”

---

Skipio pulls on his long-neglected uniform and curses the irony. All this time, carrying the rank of praefectus with command of over forty cohorts—he could’ve utilized them instead of morally burdening his twenty-five most loyal.

His mustering equites await him as he sits on Luna in full cavalry armor. His helmet comb bears the color of a praefectus and explains why so many others now stand on the field, five across and five deep, with newly ranking decurion, Actus, to their right.

Skipio clears his throat before speaking loud enough for passers-by to hear.

“I stand before you, ashamed of my actions. In my grief, I polluted each of you with depravity and bloodlust. I seek your forgiveness and hope my actions and those I forced you to partake in, have not destroyed your humanity as they almost destroyed mine.”

Actus looks to the men before walking to Skipio.

“None of us blame you, Prafectus,” he speaks for them all. “No apology is warranted, though it is appreciated.”

The moment passes in silence until a joyous roar comes when he tells them they’re going home.

---

Frost coats the meadow until the mid-morning revives the green.

Today, the Roman sons of Transalpine Gaul depart Britannia.

Near a thousand men and their horses gather for the march back to the coast. A single question bandies among them—if the beaten Gauls of home pose no threat, why must they return as a provincial force?

Skipio enters the growing formation atop Luna, whose hide smells of lavender from the nettles in her brush. He dismounts to help the decurio organize, and his armor bears only a praefectus decoration since he’s unwilling to announce his status as tribune.

Activity near the front gate draws Luna away.

Skipio gives chase and finds her outside Caesar’s tent. Before he scolds her gently, three Gallic chieftains exit, arguing softly with words that bring no blows. Nearby, a group of disarmed Britons huddles close, each man surveying the centurions outside the tent flaps.

“How could he do this?” Castor’s shrill comes a stone’s throw away, his youthful beauty fading under ashen cheeks and gnashing teeth.

Like the other Alpine sons, he dons armor for the journey home.

“What goes on here?” Skipio asks with Luna’s reigns in hand.

“Imperator makes a deal with our enemy,” cries Castor, the few men behind him echoing his rage.

“This campaign is no longer our affair,” counsels Skipio.

“How can you say this?” he demands. “They murdered your father,”

“War murdered my father.” Skipio sees Titus approach. “There are bigger issues at home,”

“Bye-Jove,” Titus proclaims with a smile. “Your mind has returned,”

“That Ancalite bitch makes a deal for her and the Owl,” Castor hisses.

Planus appears beside them.
“What are you on about, boy?”

“I’m not a child.” Castor growls. “Stop talking to me as if I am,”

“Decurion,” Skipio snaps. “You’re addressing a legate,”

Castor comes to his senses. “Forgive me,”

“Emotions run high today,” says Planus. “Let’s calm them,”

Skipio asks, “Is the bitch that killed my father in there?”

“No, friend,” Planus points. “She’s over there,”

Five soldiers approach, dragging Ciniod along with her son. They pass, and the spindly druid reaches for Luna, whispering the word ‘Looir’ until the soldiers violently yank him away.

Luna rears back, but Skipio tugs her reigns and whispers gentle words.

Bound by ropes, the murderous druid stands alongside his mother outside Caesar’s tent. Without his warpaint, the Owl King’s skin whitens under a mess of black curls, but his unpleasant face enchants even as his dark eyes drift mischievously to Castor.

The young lancer unsheathes his dagger, and Skipio extends an arm.

“No blood spills before the imperator’s tent.”

A legate emerges and salutes Skipio as Tribune in front of Planus and Titus, whose eyes demand an explanation. He gives none, not even when Castor pointedly asks for it.

Caesar appears with a voluptuous woman under his arm. Unlike most on this island, her teeth are plentiful, and her braided hair clean.

“Your son awaits you, Lady Avalin,” he says.

Her hand glides over Titus’ clean-shaven cheek.
“What a beautiful shade you are,”

Avalin moves with a Roman matron’s flirtatious grace, but her smile fades upon observing Skipio. No words come for nearly a moment as her mind turns behind inquisitive eyes.

A biting voice cuts through the space between them.
“Traitorous cunt,”

Avalin steers clear of the seething Ciniod, and with a hand on Skipio’s armored chest, she speaks to the Owl King. “Perhaps some time with this Roman will mature you enough to be worth something before you die.”

“I don’t deserve such kindness,” says the stoic druid.

“I curse you, you traitorous bitch,” Ciniod snarls. “Your boy won’t live to see the first snow,”

Skipio comes between them and stares down at her.
“And you won’t live to see his death,”

“Yes,” Caesar agrees, clutching Skipio’s shoulder. “Her blood will answer for Lucius Vitus Servius. And her death ends any further quest for vengeance against her bloodline.”

Ciniod whispers to her son, keen to know the Latin spoken.

Skipio accepts the mandate with a salute, while Castor, staring at the Owl, begrudgingly follows suit.

“Poor, pretty, Bitch Eyes,” the druid taunts in his language. “Now, you’ll never get to bleed me out.”

Ciniod laughs until Skipio cuffs her son in the gut. Avalin departs, passing a line of Bibroci prisoners led by a centurion. Filing past, some women thank Skipio for his protection, but their leader refuses.

The widest of the chieftains emerges from the tent, his beady eyes set on mother and son as he embraces the druidess leading the prisoners.

“Where’s my brother?” she demands.

Castor answers in her language. “He escaped to the countryside,”

“Escaped my arse,” the Owl laughs on his knees. “Alon would rather be a Roman whore than a Bibroci son.”

“Where is he, Owl King?” the chieftain demands.

Ciniod comes between them.
“Fuck you, you fat fuck,”

“I didn’t give you up, ‘Chinny,” says the chieftain, slapping her face.

The Owl’s leg whips out, giving a loud crack when his foot collides with the chieftain’s nose. The man shrieks in pain, cradling his face as Skipio snatches hold of the Owl’s delectable curls.

“Spry as ever,” Skipio grins, and Luna whinnies as her master drags her barbarian son away from the scene.

Ciniod follows, tripping over her ropes.

“My blood,” she sobs in Greek. “Not the blood of my boy,”

Skipio wraps his free hand around her son’s throat and feels the pounding in his jugular. “Your boy owes me more than blood,”

“Please,” she pleads. “Do not take his life,”

Skipio pushes the Owl to his knees and yanks his head back. His hair smells like a campfire, and kissing his forehead salts the lips. “He’ll take his own life by the time I’m through,” he promises, rubbing the kiss away with his chin.

“You never caught me,” the Owl taunts in Greek.

“Yet here you are, caught,” Skipio grins.

Coal orbs challenge him. “Not by you, praefectus.”

Skipio drives the druid’s head into his mother’s, and for this, he gets a stinging foot across the mouth. When another comes for him, he snatches the ankle and drags his growling druid across the grass.

The sinewy Ancalite poses no threat without his weaponized legs, and Skipio merrily tows him to the archery field, a short trip made long by the druid’s resistance.

“No,” screams Ciniod on their heels. “My blood, not his,”

Behind her comes Planus and Castor, and soon, Actus arrives as word spreads among the departing horsemen of the Owl’s capture. A rowdy crowd surrounds the far field, where grass gives way to muddy earth. They close in when he releases the druid, trapping them in a circular arena.

Skipio struts around his prisoner and asks the mob what he should do with him. The suggestions fly, many violent enough to give a decent man pause. He plants his sword and confronts the stoical druid in Greek.

“Rome demands your life, Owl King.”

“You know my name, Skippy-oh,” the druid taunts in Greek. “Say it!”

Ciniod looks upon her son in shock.

“Why do you bait him?” she demands in their language.

“His violence,” those black eyes follow the Roman, “consumes my soul,”

“What did he say?” Skipio asks Castor, whose upper lip rises in disgust.

“He dares not translate,” Planus reveals. “Fuel is the last thing your lust needs,”

The druid ogles him as the Roman strips off his armor.

“Curse me,” Ciniod hisses. “You’re in love with this fucker,”

Aedan turns to her with eyes no longer distant.
“Is this what love feels like?”

“Oh, my boy, I never thought you capable.” The woman softens before the corners of her mouth lift. “Is this really what you want?”

He nods slowly.

“He’s going to kill you,” she warns. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Someday.” A crooked smirk develops. “But not today,”

Skipio snatches the back of his neck. “Enough talking, Ay-dawn,” he growls in Greek. “It’s time for my cock to poke that throat,”

The druid opens his mouth and pushes out his tongue.

“Oh, I should’ve known.” Ciniod swings her head. “Should have known you’d kill me one way or another with that narrow ass of yours,”

Joy sparks in her son’s eyes; it’s the first she’s seen of it since he became a man. His sudden embrace takes her to their first time on the beach, back when his toddling delight meant more to her than life itself.

She undoes her sinew belt, rises to her feet, and takes the Roman’s hand.

“He’s yours, Roman,” she shouts, looping the corn around his wrist and her son’s. “For better or worse, more times worse, I reckon,”

Laughter explodes from those versed in her language.

“Skipio’s a married man now,” Planus yells, and the crowd roars.

“I’ve never been able to deny you, you little shit.” Her son’s head rises. “Get on with it. I’d rather you do it than them,”

Without warning, the druid rises, whipping his narrow blade across her neck. The crowd retreats a pace as he grabs her seeping wound and whips a handful of blood at Skipio.

Castor jumps into the clearing, dagger out.
“You’ll pay for killing Drusus,”

A swift backflip strikes Castor in the jaw, sending a tooth skyward.

Laughter booms as Skipio gathers the younger soldier up and tosses him into the mob. Behind him, the druid pulls off his smock, revealing a pale chest and hard, darkened nipples. With a bent smile, he yanks the waistband of his tartan britches up to his navel before cartwheeling around the circle, sending the men back and widening their arena with each new orbit.

No one dares touch the acrobatic druid while Skipio, his brawny arms folded, watches the wily bastard liberate two swords from some unsuspecting infantrymen. Instead of attacking, he tosses them at Skipio’s feet and then vaults high over a horse, foot-punching his rider’s chest and taking his lance.

Skipio grabs both swords as the Owl prances toward him, spear twirling in a dexterous hand.

“You want to poke my throat,” the druid sasses in Greek. “You got to earn it,”

His enticing taunt compels Skipio to begin their dance with a thrust.

They move across the circle with deft swings, quick dodges, and cunning stabs. The mob collectively inhales when the druid sunders a sword from Skipio, but when he vaults over his head, Skipio catches his ankle and hammers him to the ground.

A spry leg sweeps Skipio behind the knees, and on his belly, he crab-walks to the fallen sword. Snatching it up, he charges the backflipping druid with both blades swinging, his body burning like a struck flint.

Through the druid’s acrobatics, he spies a bulbous ankle. Minerva whispers, and he obeys. Tossing aside a sword, he catches that ankle, but the agile bastard curves his body mid-air, wrapping himself around Skipio and striking his ass with the spear.

He growls in pain, lobbing the druid skyward, but as the man returns, he twists about and tosses the lance. His opponent’s miscalculation buries the spear’s iron tip between his feet, but the druid lands close enough to strike.

Skipio slices the belt around his britches, and the wiry bastard sheds them upon vaulting backward, sending them onto Skipio’s face. He clears the tartan from his eyes and finds the scrawny druid struggling to free the spear from the ground.

One swing halves its hilt but sends the druid skyward over Skipio’s head. A foot punches his spine, but through the pain, he backhands the druid, sending the lithe bastard onto his belly.

A kill shot reveals itself, but while raising his sword with murderous intent, small white buttocks capture his spirit. Venus whispers: any man can fuck a face, but Lucius Scipio Servius isn’t just any man.

He casts aside the sword and falls onto the man’s bony frame.

“Bring me some oil,” he cries, and the mob roars.

Titus orders his archers to disburse, but most ignore him as Skipio rises to his feet, holding the Owl King by his neck.

The druid flails like a rabbit held at the ears, and Skipio loses control when the man’s erection bobs lewdly. He forces the wiry Owl to his knees. Crouching behind him, he smothers the druid’s face with his burns.

“Are my scars hot to the touch?” he growls. “They burn me every day, A-dawn,”

Teeth cut into Skipio’s pectoral, an agonizing reward for his cruelty. He bounces the druid’s head off the mud before hauling him back up to his knees.

The man’s girthy cock warms his hand, and he jerks violently as the druid lustily arches his back, whining with each tug.

Titus sounds his horn, forcing most to flee the fight. Planus stands with Actus and their battalion, watching as the druid ejaculates over Skipio’s knuckles.

Skipio releases him as if poisoned, but rather than fall into the mud, defeated, the druid turns on his knees and yanks aside Skipio’s lower tunic. Eyes wet with desire, the bastard undoes the hip-knot of Skipio’s loincloth and begs in words he cannot understand.

A bloody mouth slides onto his length, quashing any fear of being bitten with a whore’s masterful skill. The druid purposely chokes himself upon it, bringing up a thickness he takes in hand and slathers into his crack.

Skipio’s coarse desire vents like a volcano when the skeletal bastard turns and presents his ass. He snakes an eager arm around those knobby hips and guides his cockhead.

Driven one last time to resist, the Owl flips onto his back and punches a heel into Skipio’s corded groin. He hammers the druid’s mouth with his fist; one strike follows another until blood masks the giddy man’s face. He rolls the punch-drunk druid onto his stomach and hooks an arm under his waist.

One shove takes him in, pinching his foreskin. The druid bears down until his hole swallows Skipio’s flesh to the hairs.

♡ His soul croons within the Owl, and he needs nothing more than to be buried deep within this man’s ass until the world ends and the heavens fade. ♡

Lost in their violent tryst, they trade filthy goads and vile grunts between thrusts. The watchers fall silent; this isn’t retribution—it is an open door to a sordid brothel room. Some leave in disgust, others follow, unsure.

Skipio’s heart smiles when the druid’s cock spits without a coaxing hand. His peak crests shortly after and quakes like none other before it. He falls, heaving upon the spent druid until someone drops to their knees beside them.

“What are you doing?” Castor demands.

Skipio rises and sits back in the mud and admires the pearly juice streaming from the cleave in the druid’s small buttocks.

Castor shoves the dagger at him. “Kill him, and be done with it!”

Aedan the Ancalite lazily flops onto his back and bears his crimson-stained teeth.

“My lion,” he murmurs in Greek, long fingers reaching for Skipio. “You’re as fierce as the day you came out of the reeds,”

Skipio closes his eyes and leans into the druid’s touch.

“If you ever cared for me,” Castor sobs as the dagger slips from Skipio’s grasp. “You’ll send him to the underworld,”

Luna folds her front legs and lays her long muzzle across the druid’s neck.

“Looir,” he whispers, arm crooking over her mane.

Planus retrieves Castor’s dagger.

“Oh, Venus,” he speaks to the sky. “It seems you conspire with Mars to test and bless, our dear Skipio.”