<a href= https://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?326106-War%92s-End-The-King-of-Traitors-Part-1-(F-M)&>Part 1 (F/M)</a>
<a href= https://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?326144-War%92s-End-The-King-of-Traitors-Part-2-(F-M)>Part 2 (F/M)</a>
<a href= https://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?326180-War%92s-End-The-King-of-Traitors-Part-3-(F-M)&>Part 3 (F/M)</a>
<a href= https://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?326203-War%92s-End-The-King-of-Traitors-Part-4-(FF-M)>Part 4 (FF/M)</a>
<a href= http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?326307-War%92s-End-The-King-of-Traitors-Part-5-(M-M)>Part 5 (M/M)</a>
David stumbled into the gladiator arena’s fighting pit, his bare feet slipping in the thin layer of sand covering the wooden floorboards. He fell and grit floated up to cover him, sticking to his scarred bare chest and sweaty blond hair. He scrambled and found the one weapon the guards had offered him, a badly-made wooden sword. Under the sand where he’d landed, quite a few ominous dark splotches seeped into the wood. More blood stained the sand toward the middle of the pit, and David almost wished he was walking into another death match.
Instead, the center of the arena was stacked high with ropes, brushes, combs, and bottles. He tightened his grip on his paltry weapon and got to his feet, swallowing.
The audience sat quietly, looking over him. King David of Cerces, captured and once again in the gladiator circuits. Instead, the owners of the circuit had found a way to milk him for every bit he’s worth. He had no idea how long it had been— the nights seemed to blend together— but ever since his best friend Samuel chose to tickle him instead of kill him, he’d been thrown into his very own circle of hell. He was always put up against multiple people. They were always armored, and all he had were threadbare pants and a patchwork shirt torn straight down the middle like a vest. His way of defending himself was a terrible wooden sword, and while the other team was always unarmed, someone would tackle him and he’d spend an hour flailing in the dust, tickled senseless.
At some point he enjoyed that feeling of not being in control. But he had also been safe. His tormentress was Princess Elana of Astal. The princess knew his limits, and rarely pushed past them.
He had grown up in the gladiator circuit, and his chest bore the marks of that history. An old sand burn stretched across the back of his shoulders, and another covered his left side from navel to spine. More scars covered his ribs and ran down his arms, but none were nearly as sensitive as the burns. And he was sensitive.
Across the sand pit, another door banged open. David readied himself, and a few members of the audience got to their feet, vying for a look.
An Amazon of a woman stepped into the arena. Another followed, a blonde with a cherubic face. David stepped back. Rushing the Amazon was his best option, and maybe he could spook the other with his aggression—
Another pair of girls, a redhead and a slight girl with a head of cropped black hair, entered the ring. Two near-identical brunettes stepped through the door and closed it behind them.
Six. Six of them.
David clenched his fists around the wooden sword, ready to use it as a club. He wasn’t going to win this, but he wasn’t going to run like a coward, either. He would take out as many of them as he could before they took him down.
He bristled, sprinted across the arena, and lunged at the Amazon. She swatted him aside, and David spilled into the dust.
As he coughed, the woman raised an eyebrow. “This is King David of Cerces? I expected more. He’s just a kid.”
“I am of age!” David snapped, and earned a boot to the chest for his effort.
The Amazon snickered and snapped her fingers. The cherub disarmed him, the redhead grabbed his wrists, and the twin brunettes sat on his ankles. David swallowed heavily and twitched as the brunettes toyed with his dirty toes.
The girl with short hair stopped at David’s side, dropping all of the torture implements he’d noticed in the center of the arena earlier beside him. “Here’s everything, miss.”
“Thanks, sweetheart, well done.” The Amazon leaned down and parted the halves of his shirt. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.”
David whined as the redhead got comfortable sitting on his arms. The thin girl roved around him, offering brushes and oils to the brunettes at his feet and handing the Amazon and cherub feather dusters.
“When’s the last time you took a bath?” the cherub accused. “So dirty!” She ran the duster over his chest, earning a bark of laughter.
“I think you missed a spot, honey.” The Amazon leaned in, retracing the path the cherub had followed. David screeched as the duster strayed onto the scar on his side. The Amazon blinked, then attacked it.
The light sensation ricocheted through David’s mind, but at the same time he felt nails meet the bottoms of his feet. The twins pulled back his toes and dug in, one scratching his toe stems, the other rubbing his arches. As soon as he figured out what they were doing, they switched, and he was lost in the renewed sensation.
The redhead joined in, leaning down from her spot perched on his wrists to trace patterns on his upper arms and in his armpits. He screamed, then screamed even louder when the bottles clicked open and the cold massage oil hit his skin. The Amazon and cherub tossed away their feather dusters and opted for their nails. The redhead played with the blonde fuzz in his armpits. The twins were passing combs and brushes between themselves, running them between his toes and around the balls of his feet. Even the petite girl leaned over him, pinching the thin muscle around his hip bones. She dared to go lower, prodding his inner thighs, and despite himself, David grew hard.
The Amazon turned. “Maybe he isn’t a kid after all.” She pulled him out of his waistband despite his protests. “Nope, this is a man’s dick.”
“He laughs like a kid, though,” the redhead noted.
“They all do, after a point.” The Amazon smiled at her as she tightened her grip on David. “Nice working with you tonight. Hope to see you again.”
“Absolutely.” The redhead faked a salute before returning to torment David’s armpits. “Hopefully we’ll be on the same team again, giving His Highness the royal treatment.”
“Me too,” the Amazon agreed with a chuckle, “but I wouldn’t count on it.”
Their words blurred together as the pleasure peaked in David’s mind. He grunted, for some reason still trying to squirm free, and came down his chest.
As he panted, the Amazon pushed him back into his pants and stood, gesturing. “Keep going. He’ll be more sensitive now.”
The brunettes doubled their attacks on his feet, the slight girl knelt between his legs to assault his groin, the cherub counted his ribs, and the redhead kept rubbing his armpits. After a long moment, the black at the edges of David’s vision overrode the panic spiking his heart rate.
***
David groaned. His head hit the floorboards with every step, but the guards ignored his weak protest and kept dragging him out of the arena. There was a clatter of metal, then a loud bang, and David was thrown into the tiny cage that had become his home. The guards locked the door behind him and laughed as they walked away.
“Gods, Dave. You look even worse than usual.” Samuel leaned over him and brushed the sand out of his blonde hair. “What happened?”
“Girls. Some held me down, and the other… others…” David hiccuped and went limp. “Sam, please— <i>please</i>— I can’t do this anymore. I’ve lost every fight, and every night it gets worse—”
“I’m not doing shit to you.” David’s lieutenant glowered at him. “You’ve got this easy.” The tan skin on Samuel’s forehead was cut, but the wound was hidden by his mess of dark curls. With his other hand, he clutched his arm, his forearm wrapped in a dirty bandage.
“There were six of them,” David continued, staring blankly at the steel ceiling of their cage. “They had feathers, a-and brushes, a-and o-oil, a-and…” His voice broke and trailed off. Struggling, he looked down and noted the red scratches that covered his bare chest. He had blacked out somewhere in the middle of it, but they must’ve kept going. The soles of his feet tingled; it wasn’t difficult to guess they looked the same as his torso. “Why do they keep coming after me?”
“You’re David of Cerces.” Samuel gestured with his good hand. “They found an entertaining way to make you suffer without killing you. They’re gonna exploit this as much as they can.”
David forced his head to the side, just enough to meet Samuel’s dark eyes. “This is horrible.”
“This shouldn’t exist anymore.” Samuel snarled. “How hasn’t anyone found us yet? Your girlfriend?”
“I didn’t tell Elana I left.”
<i>“What?”</i>
“She… she didn’t want me to try to find you—”
“David, she’s our last fucking hope! And she doesn’t know where you are?”
“She didn’t know I left,” David admitted, “but she knows where I went. Cilen does, too.”
“No one is going to listen to Cilen. They tried to execute her, for gods’ sake.”
“I threatened them.”
Samuel hesitated. “Oh.”
“That’s one good thing about no one knowing I’m here, huh?” He laughed to himself. “If we ever escape, there’s a chance someone will still respect me.”
“Scaring people isn’t respect, Dave. Do I scare you?”
“Well, uh—”
“Do I?” Samuel’s dark eyes glinted the lantern light.
“Yeah, a bit.”
“But do you respect me because I scare you?”
“No, it’s because you’re smart, and strong, and…” David hesitated. “I see your point.”
“I respect you because you’re the craziest, most stubborn son of a bitch I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet. And I trust you with my life.” Samuel helped him to a seat. “Now what’s your batshit plan to get us out of here?”
David groaned, but touched the padlock holding the door to their cage shut. “There’s—”
“Here he is.” A guard approached them, juggling a ring of keys. David yanked his hand back into his lap and let his head droop against his chest.
“Aw, what do you want with the poor kid now?” Samuel growled at the guard as he pulled David out of the cage. “He’s half-dead already.”
“Can it, you,” the guard snapped back, “or I’ll make you full-dead.”
Samuel raised an eyebrow. “If you did, they’d fire you in the blink of an eye.”
The guard grumbled a curse and tried to get David on his feet. “Wake up, kid.”
David looked up. “I’m not a kid. What do you want with me?”
“Not me. You’ve just been rented out for the day.” The guard kept shoving him along.
“What? But… for what?” Sometimes merchants would rent gladiators as extra hands or guards. But David wasn’t a real gladiator anymore. He’d been relegated to some sort of tickle slavery. There was no way the owner of the circuit would rent him out if there was a chance of him dying. Or worse: escaping.
“I dunno, kid. I just do what they tell me to.” The guard stopped. “Here, sir. Presenting His Highness, King David of Cerces.” He shoved David over.
David struggled to pick himself back up, but whimpered as his renter grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled him upright.
“You look like hell.” Astal’s deposed captain of the guard, Luim, smiled as he leered at David. “Leave it to the circuits to break even the mightiest of kings.”
David swallowed. “The circuits made me who I am.”
“And now you’re mine for the day.” The captain yanked him along by the hair. “We’ve got a few things on the agenda and I don’t have time for any of your bullshit.”
“It’s not— oh—” David grimaced as he was dragged into daylight for the first time in gods knows how long. As he flinched, another set of hands grabbed him and he was thrown into the back of a farm wagon. He yelped and tried to pull himself out of the hay, but the cart started moving. He lost his balance and hit his head on the way down.
***
“Unbelievable. It really is him.”
“I know the circuit manager. They wouldn’t lie about something this big. They lie about plenty of other things, but not about having captured David of Cerces.”
“He looks terrible. Has he been in the arena?”
“Not exactly. Someone figured out how ticklish he is…” Luim yanked his chin up, but David pulled away.
“Don’t touch me, or I swear I’ll kill you—” He stared. “Oh. You. I’ll kill even if you don’t touch me.”
The ex-captain laughed. “Don’t take it so harshly, your— ahem— your royal highness. I’m not the one who wanted to meet you.” He stepped aside.
“I am.” The door to the dim room opened wider.
“Shit.” David regarded the tall woman with a sheet of blond hair. “Taria.”
“It’s ‘my Queen,’ to you, you bratty little traitor.” Elana’s stepmother looked down her nose at him. “I can’t believe you’ve gotten this far.”
“I-I was told you were dead,” David blurted. “We… we killed you.”
“See, that’s the thing about militias.” Luim smiled. “No leaders. No one can confirm anything, and I’m sure everyone in your little uprising wanted to say that they were the one who killed Her Highness, huh?”
David gaped like a fish.
Luim’s grin widened. “Thought so.”
Taria spun away. “Kill him.”
Both he and David jerked. “What?”
“The punishment for treason is death, is it not? So kill him.”
“I can’t, I’ll lose so much money.” Luim shook his head. “I-I mean, look at him, Your Highness.”
“What about him?”
“In all those weeks that he spent with the princess, has he ever looked like this? This is a broken man, Highness.”
“What’s your point?”
“I’m trying to say… I’m trying to say that I want to return him to the circuit. He’s being treated with everything he deserves there.”
“No, please just kill me.” It escaped David before he could think about it.
“Oh?” Taria turned back. “Interesting.” She looked to Luim. “And you’re sure he won’t be able to escape from the arena?”
“I’ve checked it myself, Highness. You’d need an army to get out.”
“Very well.” Taria smiled. “Then let him live out the rest of his life in the arena. Take care of it, Luim.”
“Yes, Highness.” Luim saluted, smacking a fist against his chest as Taria left.
David sighed, and readied himself to be pulled back to his feet.
“Nope, not yet.” Luim spun around David, yanking up his bound wrists and tying them to a rope hanging over his head.
“What now?” David struggled, almost wiggling off the stool he was perched on.
“I rented you for a day.” Luim wheeled a set of stocks out of the shadowed corner of the room. “I still have about… twenty hours left.”
“No.” David tried to pull away, but Luim caught his ankles and locked them in the stocks. “No, you can’t do this!”
“Of course I can. Right now, I <i>own </i>you. And we have some unfinished business.”
David’s heart dropped, but he forced a scowl. “What the hell do you want with me?”
“Revenge.” Luim stepped over him. “You’re the reason Astal fell. You’re responsible for all of this chaos and death.”
“So then kill me.” David’s voice broke.
“I wish I could. But you’re making some important people very happy. Besides, that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?” Luim moved behind him, and David struggled to keep him in sight. “I like what they’re doing to you in the arena. I’ve never seen you this broken, and I’ve watched you tortured in every dungeon in Astal.”
He threw a hood over David’s head.
As David cursed and tried fruitlessly to shake it off, Luim continued. “No, it’s perfect for you. I saw you today, you know? I almost wished I was in your place, too. Six women, all over you? I don’t have dreams half that good.” He paused. “Almost.”
David gasped as cold, calloused fingers touched his wrists, then slowly trailed down his arms to the blonde fuzz in his exposed armpits. “No! Gods, <i>nah!”</i>
“Oh?” Luim’s voice came from his left. “What are you going to do about that, traitor?” He scoffed as he traced a path up, back to David’s wrists. “King of traitors, really.”
“Get <i>ohohohoff…”</i>
“Begging already? I expected more from David of Cerces.” Luim stopped his slow tracing and just spidered his fingers in David’s fuzzy hollows. David’s eyes shot wide and he screamed, kicking so hard he moved the stocks holding his feet.
Luim paused, and David took ragged breaths as the captain straightened the stocks again. “I never said you weren’t strong. Just… sensitive.” He ran his torn nails, long damaged by pulling back bowstrings, up and down the arch of David’s foot. David squealed, writhing on the stool and giggling. The captain laughed, too. “Gods, so sensitive!” He chased down David’s feet as they wiggled helplessly, his fingertips running over his heels and toes. Soon enough, he wiggled one rough finger between David’s first and second toe, and David’s laughter hit a new pitch.
“There!” Luim spun away once more, and as David hung his head, panting, a rattle of cart wheels emerged from a far corner of the room. “Let’s see. Toes, arch, middle of the heel—”
David screamed once more as a comb was run between his toes… then another… and another. There was a click, and the same thing began on his other foot. They weren’t moving, but the teeth of the combs pressed into the thin webbing between his toes.
“Bet this one’s new.” David could hear the smirk in Luim’s voice. “You move your feet, the combs run up against those soft little toes of yours. Try it. I dare you.” Luim scratched David’s foot from heel to toe. David jerked, then doubled over laughing as the combs scraped his toes. It was so much worse than Luim described.
“Better keep these feet still.” Luim drew squiggles on the giving balls of David’s feet, laughing as he jerked and felt his toes catch on the combs’ teeth. “You’re really bad at this game, traitor.”
David couldn’t spare the breath to reply. Under his burlap hood, tears streamed down his ruddy cheeks. He was dying. This had to be dying.
“Sensitive anywhere else, traitor?” Luim wandered around David again. “What about here?” He traced the muscle that blushed between David’s nipples, sliding toward his belly and hips. David jerked so bad he slid off the stool holding him up, his weight landing hard on his shoulders.
“Gah!”
Luim helped him back onto the stool, but the damage had been done. His shoulder, injured half a lifetime ago, had already been aching from his torture in the gladiator circuit. There was a soft click, and his arm popped out of its socket.
David screamed as Luim maneuvered him, but the captain of the guard simply rolled his eyes. “Please. It doesn’t hurt that bad.” He smacked David’s back. There was another click, and the pressure in David’s right arm vanished, quickly replaced by a familiar ache.
“Thank you,” David managed to gasp, but froze as Luim wrapped an arm under David’s arm and over his shoulder. A pin he knew all too well from Elana. He sucked in his belly in anticipation.
“Think a busted shoulder is going to get you out of this? Right.” Luim set his free hand on the thin muscle covering David’s stomach. “What a pretty scar you have right here.”
“No!” David managed before Luim began running his fingers over it. <i>“NOHOHOHO!”</i>
“Yehehehes,” Luim teased. “Yehehehes until I get bored or you pass out. You’re going to pass out first, I’m sure. And maybe I’ll rent you again for tomorrow. And the day after, and the day after…”
The ringing in David’s ears drowned out the rest. The captain traced this waistline with little flicks, then his rough, unpredictable nails— somehow worse than Elana’s after a manicure— journeyed back up to David’s navel. The sensitive scar ran around the divot, and as Luim reached it David’s laughter reached a fever pitch. Luim pinched the almost nonexistent fat on David’s belly, then traced the lip of his belly button. David jerked against his bonds again as Luim buried his finger inside his navel and wiggled it.
The last thing he felt was his shoulder popping out of its socket again.
<a href= https://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?326144-War%92s-End-The-King-of-Traitors-Part-2-(F-M)>Part 2 (F/M)</a>
<a href= https://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?326180-War%92s-End-The-King-of-Traitors-Part-3-(F-M)&>Part 3 (F/M)</a>
<a href= https://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?326203-War%92s-End-The-King-of-Traitors-Part-4-(FF-M)>Part 4 (FF/M)</a>
<a href= http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?326307-War%92s-End-The-King-of-Traitors-Part-5-(M-M)>Part 5 (M/M)</a>
David stumbled into the gladiator arena’s fighting pit, his bare feet slipping in the thin layer of sand covering the wooden floorboards. He fell and grit floated up to cover him, sticking to his scarred bare chest and sweaty blond hair. He scrambled and found the one weapon the guards had offered him, a badly-made wooden sword. Under the sand where he’d landed, quite a few ominous dark splotches seeped into the wood. More blood stained the sand toward the middle of the pit, and David almost wished he was walking into another death match.
Instead, the center of the arena was stacked high with ropes, brushes, combs, and bottles. He tightened his grip on his paltry weapon and got to his feet, swallowing.
The audience sat quietly, looking over him. King David of Cerces, captured and once again in the gladiator circuits. Instead, the owners of the circuit had found a way to milk him for every bit he’s worth. He had no idea how long it had been— the nights seemed to blend together— but ever since his best friend Samuel chose to tickle him instead of kill him, he’d been thrown into his very own circle of hell. He was always put up against multiple people. They were always armored, and all he had were threadbare pants and a patchwork shirt torn straight down the middle like a vest. His way of defending himself was a terrible wooden sword, and while the other team was always unarmed, someone would tackle him and he’d spend an hour flailing in the dust, tickled senseless.
At some point he enjoyed that feeling of not being in control. But he had also been safe. His tormentress was Princess Elana of Astal. The princess knew his limits, and rarely pushed past them.
He had grown up in the gladiator circuit, and his chest bore the marks of that history. An old sand burn stretched across the back of his shoulders, and another covered his left side from navel to spine. More scars covered his ribs and ran down his arms, but none were nearly as sensitive as the burns. And he was sensitive.
Across the sand pit, another door banged open. David readied himself, and a few members of the audience got to their feet, vying for a look.
An Amazon of a woman stepped into the arena. Another followed, a blonde with a cherubic face. David stepped back. Rushing the Amazon was his best option, and maybe he could spook the other with his aggression—
Another pair of girls, a redhead and a slight girl with a head of cropped black hair, entered the ring. Two near-identical brunettes stepped through the door and closed it behind them.
Six. Six of them.
David clenched his fists around the wooden sword, ready to use it as a club. He wasn’t going to win this, but he wasn’t going to run like a coward, either. He would take out as many of them as he could before they took him down.
He bristled, sprinted across the arena, and lunged at the Amazon. She swatted him aside, and David spilled into the dust.
As he coughed, the woman raised an eyebrow. “This is King David of Cerces? I expected more. He’s just a kid.”
“I am of age!” David snapped, and earned a boot to the chest for his effort.
The Amazon snickered and snapped her fingers. The cherub disarmed him, the redhead grabbed his wrists, and the twin brunettes sat on his ankles. David swallowed heavily and twitched as the brunettes toyed with his dirty toes.
The girl with short hair stopped at David’s side, dropping all of the torture implements he’d noticed in the center of the arena earlier beside him. “Here’s everything, miss.”
“Thanks, sweetheart, well done.” The Amazon leaned down and parted the halves of his shirt. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.”
David whined as the redhead got comfortable sitting on his arms. The thin girl roved around him, offering brushes and oils to the brunettes at his feet and handing the Amazon and cherub feather dusters.
“When’s the last time you took a bath?” the cherub accused. “So dirty!” She ran the duster over his chest, earning a bark of laughter.
“I think you missed a spot, honey.” The Amazon leaned in, retracing the path the cherub had followed. David screeched as the duster strayed onto the scar on his side. The Amazon blinked, then attacked it.
The light sensation ricocheted through David’s mind, but at the same time he felt nails meet the bottoms of his feet. The twins pulled back his toes and dug in, one scratching his toe stems, the other rubbing his arches. As soon as he figured out what they were doing, they switched, and he was lost in the renewed sensation.
The redhead joined in, leaning down from her spot perched on his wrists to trace patterns on his upper arms and in his armpits. He screamed, then screamed even louder when the bottles clicked open and the cold massage oil hit his skin. The Amazon and cherub tossed away their feather dusters and opted for their nails. The redhead played with the blonde fuzz in his armpits. The twins were passing combs and brushes between themselves, running them between his toes and around the balls of his feet. Even the petite girl leaned over him, pinching the thin muscle around his hip bones. She dared to go lower, prodding his inner thighs, and despite himself, David grew hard.
The Amazon turned. “Maybe he isn’t a kid after all.” She pulled him out of his waistband despite his protests. “Nope, this is a man’s dick.”
“He laughs like a kid, though,” the redhead noted.
“They all do, after a point.” The Amazon smiled at her as she tightened her grip on David. “Nice working with you tonight. Hope to see you again.”
“Absolutely.” The redhead faked a salute before returning to torment David’s armpits. “Hopefully we’ll be on the same team again, giving His Highness the royal treatment.”
“Me too,” the Amazon agreed with a chuckle, “but I wouldn’t count on it.”
Their words blurred together as the pleasure peaked in David’s mind. He grunted, for some reason still trying to squirm free, and came down his chest.
As he panted, the Amazon pushed him back into his pants and stood, gesturing. “Keep going. He’ll be more sensitive now.”
The brunettes doubled their attacks on his feet, the slight girl knelt between his legs to assault his groin, the cherub counted his ribs, and the redhead kept rubbing his armpits. After a long moment, the black at the edges of David’s vision overrode the panic spiking his heart rate.
***
David groaned. His head hit the floorboards with every step, but the guards ignored his weak protest and kept dragging him out of the arena. There was a clatter of metal, then a loud bang, and David was thrown into the tiny cage that had become his home. The guards locked the door behind him and laughed as they walked away.
“Gods, Dave. You look even worse than usual.” Samuel leaned over him and brushed the sand out of his blonde hair. “What happened?”
“Girls. Some held me down, and the other… others…” David hiccuped and went limp. “Sam, please— <i>please</i>— I can’t do this anymore. I’ve lost every fight, and every night it gets worse—”
“I’m not doing shit to you.” David’s lieutenant glowered at him. “You’ve got this easy.” The tan skin on Samuel’s forehead was cut, but the wound was hidden by his mess of dark curls. With his other hand, he clutched his arm, his forearm wrapped in a dirty bandage.
“There were six of them,” David continued, staring blankly at the steel ceiling of their cage. “They had feathers, a-and brushes, a-and o-oil, a-and…” His voice broke and trailed off. Struggling, he looked down and noted the red scratches that covered his bare chest. He had blacked out somewhere in the middle of it, but they must’ve kept going. The soles of his feet tingled; it wasn’t difficult to guess they looked the same as his torso. “Why do they keep coming after me?”
“You’re David of Cerces.” Samuel gestured with his good hand. “They found an entertaining way to make you suffer without killing you. They’re gonna exploit this as much as they can.”
David forced his head to the side, just enough to meet Samuel’s dark eyes. “This is horrible.”
“This shouldn’t exist anymore.” Samuel snarled. “How hasn’t anyone found us yet? Your girlfriend?”
“I didn’t tell Elana I left.”
<i>“What?”</i>
“She… she didn’t want me to try to find you—”
“David, she’s our last fucking hope! And she doesn’t know where you are?”
“She didn’t know I left,” David admitted, “but she knows where I went. Cilen does, too.”
“No one is going to listen to Cilen. They tried to execute her, for gods’ sake.”
“I threatened them.”
Samuel hesitated. “Oh.”
“That’s one good thing about no one knowing I’m here, huh?” He laughed to himself. “If we ever escape, there’s a chance someone will still respect me.”
“Scaring people isn’t respect, Dave. Do I scare you?”
“Well, uh—”
“Do I?” Samuel’s dark eyes glinted the lantern light.
“Yeah, a bit.”
“But do you respect me because I scare you?”
“No, it’s because you’re smart, and strong, and…” David hesitated. “I see your point.”
“I respect you because you’re the craziest, most stubborn son of a bitch I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet. And I trust you with my life.” Samuel helped him to a seat. “Now what’s your batshit plan to get us out of here?”
David groaned, but touched the padlock holding the door to their cage shut. “There’s—”
“Here he is.” A guard approached them, juggling a ring of keys. David yanked his hand back into his lap and let his head droop against his chest.
“Aw, what do you want with the poor kid now?” Samuel growled at the guard as he pulled David out of the cage. “He’s half-dead already.”
“Can it, you,” the guard snapped back, “or I’ll make you full-dead.”
Samuel raised an eyebrow. “If you did, they’d fire you in the blink of an eye.”
The guard grumbled a curse and tried to get David on his feet. “Wake up, kid.”
David looked up. “I’m not a kid. What do you want with me?”
“Not me. You’ve just been rented out for the day.” The guard kept shoving him along.
“What? But… for what?” Sometimes merchants would rent gladiators as extra hands or guards. But David wasn’t a real gladiator anymore. He’d been relegated to some sort of tickle slavery. There was no way the owner of the circuit would rent him out if there was a chance of him dying. Or worse: escaping.
“I dunno, kid. I just do what they tell me to.” The guard stopped. “Here, sir. Presenting His Highness, King David of Cerces.” He shoved David over.
David struggled to pick himself back up, but whimpered as his renter grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled him upright.
“You look like hell.” Astal’s deposed captain of the guard, Luim, smiled as he leered at David. “Leave it to the circuits to break even the mightiest of kings.”
David swallowed. “The circuits made me who I am.”
“And now you’re mine for the day.” The captain yanked him along by the hair. “We’ve got a few things on the agenda and I don’t have time for any of your bullshit.”
“It’s not— oh—” David grimaced as he was dragged into daylight for the first time in gods knows how long. As he flinched, another set of hands grabbed him and he was thrown into the back of a farm wagon. He yelped and tried to pull himself out of the hay, but the cart started moving. He lost his balance and hit his head on the way down.
***
“Unbelievable. It really is him.”
“I know the circuit manager. They wouldn’t lie about something this big. They lie about plenty of other things, but not about having captured David of Cerces.”
“He looks terrible. Has he been in the arena?”
“Not exactly. Someone figured out how ticklish he is…” Luim yanked his chin up, but David pulled away.
“Don’t touch me, or I swear I’ll kill you—” He stared. “Oh. You. I’ll kill even if you don’t touch me.”
The ex-captain laughed. “Don’t take it so harshly, your— ahem— your royal highness. I’m not the one who wanted to meet you.” He stepped aside.
“I am.” The door to the dim room opened wider.
“Shit.” David regarded the tall woman with a sheet of blond hair. “Taria.”
“It’s ‘my Queen,’ to you, you bratty little traitor.” Elana’s stepmother looked down her nose at him. “I can’t believe you’ve gotten this far.”
“I-I was told you were dead,” David blurted. “We… we killed you.”
“See, that’s the thing about militias.” Luim smiled. “No leaders. No one can confirm anything, and I’m sure everyone in your little uprising wanted to say that they were the one who killed Her Highness, huh?”
David gaped like a fish.
Luim’s grin widened. “Thought so.”
Taria spun away. “Kill him.”
Both he and David jerked. “What?”
“The punishment for treason is death, is it not? So kill him.”
“I can’t, I’ll lose so much money.” Luim shook his head. “I-I mean, look at him, Your Highness.”
“What about him?”
“In all those weeks that he spent with the princess, has he ever looked like this? This is a broken man, Highness.”
“What’s your point?”
“I’m trying to say… I’m trying to say that I want to return him to the circuit. He’s being treated with everything he deserves there.”
“No, please just kill me.” It escaped David before he could think about it.
“Oh?” Taria turned back. “Interesting.” She looked to Luim. “And you’re sure he won’t be able to escape from the arena?”
“I’ve checked it myself, Highness. You’d need an army to get out.”
“Very well.” Taria smiled. “Then let him live out the rest of his life in the arena. Take care of it, Luim.”
“Yes, Highness.” Luim saluted, smacking a fist against his chest as Taria left.
David sighed, and readied himself to be pulled back to his feet.
“Nope, not yet.” Luim spun around David, yanking up his bound wrists and tying them to a rope hanging over his head.
“What now?” David struggled, almost wiggling off the stool he was perched on.
“I rented you for a day.” Luim wheeled a set of stocks out of the shadowed corner of the room. “I still have about… twenty hours left.”
“No.” David tried to pull away, but Luim caught his ankles and locked them in the stocks. “No, you can’t do this!”
“Of course I can. Right now, I <i>own </i>you. And we have some unfinished business.”
David’s heart dropped, but he forced a scowl. “What the hell do you want with me?”
“Revenge.” Luim stepped over him. “You’re the reason Astal fell. You’re responsible for all of this chaos and death.”
“So then kill me.” David’s voice broke.
“I wish I could. But you’re making some important people very happy. Besides, that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?” Luim moved behind him, and David struggled to keep him in sight. “I like what they’re doing to you in the arena. I’ve never seen you this broken, and I’ve watched you tortured in every dungeon in Astal.”
He threw a hood over David’s head.
As David cursed and tried fruitlessly to shake it off, Luim continued. “No, it’s perfect for you. I saw you today, you know? I almost wished I was in your place, too. Six women, all over you? I don’t have dreams half that good.” He paused. “Almost.”
David gasped as cold, calloused fingers touched his wrists, then slowly trailed down his arms to the blonde fuzz in his exposed armpits. “No! Gods, <i>nah!”</i>
“Oh?” Luim’s voice came from his left. “What are you going to do about that, traitor?” He scoffed as he traced a path up, back to David’s wrists. “King of traitors, really.”
“Get <i>ohohohoff…”</i>
“Begging already? I expected more from David of Cerces.” Luim stopped his slow tracing and just spidered his fingers in David’s fuzzy hollows. David’s eyes shot wide and he screamed, kicking so hard he moved the stocks holding his feet.
Luim paused, and David took ragged breaths as the captain straightened the stocks again. “I never said you weren’t strong. Just… sensitive.” He ran his torn nails, long damaged by pulling back bowstrings, up and down the arch of David’s foot. David squealed, writhing on the stool and giggling. The captain laughed, too. “Gods, so sensitive!” He chased down David’s feet as they wiggled helplessly, his fingertips running over his heels and toes. Soon enough, he wiggled one rough finger between David’s first and second toe, and David’s laughter hit a new pitch.
“There!” Luim spun away once more, and as David hung his head, panting, a rattle of cart wheels emerged from a far corner of the room. “Let’s see. Toes, arch, middle of the heel—”
David screamed once more as a comb was run between his toes… then another… and another. There was a click, and the same thing began on his other foot. They weren’t moving, but the teeth of the combs pressed into the thin webbing between his toes.
“Bet this one’s new.” David could hear the smirk in Luim’s voice. “You move your feet, the combs run up against those soft little toes of yours. Try it. I dare you.” Luim scratched David’s foot from heel to toe. David jerked, then doubled over laughing as the combs scraped his toes. It was so much worse than Luim described.
“Better keep these feet still.” Luim drew squiggles on the giving balls of David’s feet, laughing as he jerked and felt his toes catch on the combs’ teeth. “You’re really bad at this game, traitor.”
David couldn’t spare the breath to reply. Under his burlap hood, tears streamed down his ruddy cheeks. He was dying. This had to be dying.
“Sensitive anywhere else, traitor?” Luim wandered around David again. “What about here?” He traced the muscle that blushed between David’s nipples, sliding toward his belly and hips. David jerked so bad he slid off the stool holding him up, his weight landing hard on his shoulders.
“Gah!”
Luim helped him back onto the stool, but the damage had been done. His shoulder, injured half a lifetime ago, had already been aching from his torture in the gladiator circuit. There was a soft click, and his arm popped out of its socket.
David screamed as Luim maneuvered him, but the captain of the guard simply rolled his eyes. “Please. It doesn’t hurt that bad.” He smacked David’s back. There was another click, and the pressure in David’s right arm vanished, quickly replaced by a familiar ache.
“Thank you,” David managed to gasp, but froze as Luim wrapped an arm under David’s arm and over his shoulder. A pin he knew all too well from Elana. He sucked in his belly in anticipation.
“Think a busted shoulder is going to get you out of this? Right.” Luim set his free hand on the thin muscle covering David’s stomach. “What a pretty scar you have right here.”
“No!” David managed before Luim began running his fingers over it. <i>“NOHOHOHO!”</i>
“Yehehehes,” Luim teased. “Yehehehes until I get bored or you pass out. You’re going to pass out first, I’m sure. And maybe I’ll rent you again for tomorrow. And the day after, and the day after…”
The ringing in David’s ears drowned out the rest. The captain traced this waistline with little flicks, then his rough, unpredictable nails— somehow worse than Elana’s after a manicure— journeyed back up to David’s navel. The sensitive scar ran around the divot, and as Luim reached it David’s laughter reached a fever pitch. Luim pinched the almost nonexistent fat on David’s belly, then traced the lip of his belly button. David jerked against his bonds again as Luim buried his finger inside his navel and wiggled it.
The last thing he felt was his shoulder popping out of its socket again.
