V.

 

FERRO watched a ram prance past while eyeing him warily. The animal didn’t trust Ferro the way it did Lisias. It took Lisias one day for every member of the herd to press close to him at the first sign of danger. After four days, the animals still eyed Ferro as an interloper who had wandered into their gazing lands. In those same four days, Ferro had discovered that tending was two parts blindingly hard work as they tried to convince stubborn animals to go in a particular direction and three parts blinding boredom as you watched the animals graze. Ferro loathed boredom.

Ferro looked up to where Lisias rested in the shade of a wild fig tree, using one of their packs for a pillow. They’d abandoned the shelter to take the animals farther up the mountain, and Ferro found himself missing the porridge. Dark bread and wine were not enough to sustain a man, unless that man was Lisias; he seemed to have no trouble with the hardship. Ferro’s bow leaned against a nearby rock, but target practice had grown monotonous. He liked the way Lisias would watch with an approving expression, but Ferro had broken three arrow shafts, and replacing them was more difficult here than at home where he only had to demand the bow-master provide new ones.

“So, which of us do you think is older?” Ferro asked as he strolled up the rocky hillside to Lisias’s perch. Enough was enough. There was one form of entertainment available to them, and Ferro intended to indulge.

“Me,” Lisias answered without pause.

“You only say that because you want to mount me instead of the other way around,” Ferro said with confidence. He wasn’t committed to the idea of the older male always dominating, but that was the traditional view. For Lisias, though, he’d allow a younger man to mount him.

Lisias looked Ferro up and down. “I’m older.”

“My boyish charm and cute face has distracted you from the fact that I’m thirty.”

“I’m older,” Lisias stood up and started walking the north side of the herd, totally ignoring the offer of sex Ferro had just made.

Ferro had to trot to keep up with Lisias’s long strides. “If you are, that would suggest you should do the mounting unless you want to do some mutual rubbing.”

“Not interested.”

“What? What do you mean not interested?” Ferro stopped. “Gods and goddesses would want this body,” Ferro said as he held out his hands to show off his many attributes. His hair shined black under the sun, hanging almost to his shoulders. He was fairer than most men, with dark eyes that stood out. Years of training had given him muscles that moved smoothly under his skin, and his privileged life had kept him from aging early.

“Then go find one,” Lisias suggested.

Ferro narrowed his eyes and trotted faster until he caught up with the man. “What game are you playing with me? I will warn you, I’m not fond of being played with.”

Lisias didn’t comment as he pursed his lips and waited. Ferro mentally reviewed the conversation, and blushed when he realized what he’d said. However, he wasn’t going to back down on the issue.

Crossing his arms, Ferro did his best to imitate Lisias’s own implacable expression. “If you want something, you say it up front. You don’t drag me out here, feel me up, and then turn down an offer of sex.”

Lisias twitched an eyebrow. These non-answers were starting to annoy Ferro, especially when they inevitably left him struggling with his own thoughts. Ferro forced himself into silence and set himself the task to outwait Lisias. After a few minutes of a staring contest surrounded by sheep and goats and the craggy Thessaliotis Mountains, Lisias’s lips actually twitched in amusement.

“Yes!” Ferro said with satisfaction. Lisias’s eyebrows went up. “Now explain what you’re doing.”

For several seconds, Lisias didn’t answer, and Ferro started to feel the aggravation he always got in the pit of his stomach when things weren’t fair. He’d won their staring contest. He’d earned a few answers. With a sigh, Lisias headed over to a large rock and sat on it, looking down at the grazing herd. “I don’t want easy sex here.”

“That’s amusing because I have a reputation for being fairly easy.”

Lisias studied Ferro for so long that Ferro started to squirm uncomfortably. “I suspect you’re anything but easy,” Lisias finally said.

Ferro rolled his eyes. He didn’t need platitudes from a potential lover. He knew his strengths and his flaws. “Just because you took me down as easily as a newborn colt doesn’t mean that I have some fragile ego that you have to coddle.”

“I never suspected it.”

“You only beat me because I had my hands tied,” Ferro said firmly. True, he’d never faced an opponent with as much sheer strength as Lisias, but he’d been trained to overcome brute force with finesse. He hadn’t used enough finesse last time, but he hadn’t known that a simple tender would have so much more strength than the soldiers he’d been trained to fight. “Let’s fight again and I’ll prove that.” He’d do better this time. Besides, Lisias caught him off guard. The man fought dirty.

Lisias leaned forward and studied him for a time, that habitual silence settling in around him so that Ferro wanted to poke him until he cursed or demanded answers or did something familiar rather than watching with those pale eyes of his. He reached over and scratched his scarred arm. “Loser pays a forfeit,” he finally offered.

“Drachmas?” Ferro asked.

Lisias’s eyebrows went up. “You’re a slave, how do you intend to get any?”

“As soon as my family shows up, they’ll settle this and pay any debts.”

“And if you win, how am I to pay a forfeit of drachmas?” Lisias asked. That was a problem because slaves generally didn’t have money, not unless they managed their master’s funds, and then it wasn’t their money.

Ferro could feel his skin warm as he realized he’d said something truly stupid. “What would you suggest, then?” he asked, already aggravated enough that he wished he could cut the conversation short.

“Traditional wager of Elpis?” Lisias offered.

“Elpis, the spirit of hope?” Ferro clarified. He hadn’t heard of a wager of Elpis before, and he had learned to be wary around Lisias. “What kind of wager would that be?”

A flash of surprise crossed Lisias’s face, and Ferro felt irrationally proud of the fact that he’d forced the man to abandon his stoic mask. “You had an interesting childhood.” Before Ferro could ask what that meant, Lisias continued. “A wager of Elpis means that you can claim anything you want as long as it does no harm to the loser or anyone else.”

Ferro frowned, wondering if this was some trick because Ferro had already offered up his ass, and there was nothing else he could imagine Lisias claiming. “Are you going to make me dance naked while shaking a gourd?”

Now Lisias looked utterly shocked. “I hadn’t planned it, no.”

“Huh.” Ferro studied Lisias. The man preferred a close-in fighting style, and Ferro could counter that. If he beat Lisias, that would give him a chance to demand… actually, Ferro wasn’t sure what he could demand. Use of all the sleeping furs all to himself, maybe. Lying next to a warm body, feeling Lisias turn over and his hand rest against Ferro’s stomach, and then knowing there would be no sex in the morning—that was harder than Ferro would have expected. If he couldn’t have sex, he’d settle for one night’s sleep without Lisias’s scent and the heat of his body to remind Ferro how much he wanted sex.

“Deal,” he said as he pushed away from the rock he’d been leaning against and jumped down a rough step to a larger flat area. One of the sheep eyed him and bleated loudly before wandering to the far side of the clearing and hopping up to another plateau. Ferro had enough room to work here. He stripped off his shirt and tossed it at the nearest rock before he spun around and bounced on his toes.

Instead of showing any admiration for Ferro’s very fine body, Lisias commented, “You’re wasting energy.”

“I have it to waste,” Ferro said with a grin as he reached for his pants.

“No,” Lisias said so firmly that Ferro dropped his hands to the side before he could remind his traitorous body that it didn’t take orders well.

“You want to wrestle in our clothes?” he asked in shock.

“I don’t want to get caught naked when I’m tending a flock,” Lisias said with a nod toward the hillside dotted with the white forms of goats and sheep.

“We’ll rip them,” Ferro warned, not sure why Lisias would want to do something so odd.

“Not if you’re careful,” Lisias said. He pulled his own shirt over his head, and Ferro swallowed as he got a good look at the man. His muscles were hard lines under his skin. Even the soldiers brought in to train Ferro hadn’t had such chiseled bodies. A sculptor would pay to own a man like Lisias. His thick black hair had led Ferro to believe Lisias would be hairy everywhere, but his chest was sparsely sprinkled with dark curls. The only significant hair started just under his belly button and led south, vanishing under the tie of his pants.

His arm wasn’t his only scar, only his worst. He had a white line of scar along his upper stomach and a patch of slick burn scar in a line that started above his collarbone and went up to the top of his shoulder. Ferro might put that down to a childhood accident with a hot brazier, but there was a constellation of pinpoint burns splattered around it. Ferro was painfully aware that he offered only one scar, a nasty knife mark right above his heart, but he hadn’t earned that in a fight—not even a training fight. Petrot had gifted him that when he was hanging in the man’s chains, waiting for his father to show up. Ferro had returned the favor, marking Petrot before sending him to his father’s prison. However, Ferro suspected that Lisias’s scars were battle wounds, even if he was only a tender.

“For a shepherd, you are well-marked,” Ferro remarked.

“Regretting your wager?” Lisias asked. Despite the fact that he had to be close to Ferro’s own age, Ferro felt like a child getting schooled.

“You still aren’t going to win. Having your mother drop a pot of soup on your shoulder doesn’t qualify as intimidating,” Ferro said. The second the words slipped out his mouth, he knew he’d made a mistake. Lisias’s face lost all emotion and his fingers curled. However, Lisias didn’t curse him or demand an apology. He stalked forward, his arms held out as he waited to counter Ferro’s attack.

Ferro swallowed, the sheer strength and the lack of a referee sending adrenaline through his veins. He circled Lisias, searching for an opening, a moment of hesitation or a glimmer of weakness. Lisias shifted in the center of Ferro’s orbit, watching with his hands out and ready. Overhead a bird screamed, and Ferro held his breath, waiting for Lisias to look up. At the sound of a bird cry, everyone looked up to see if it was an eagle, a sure sign that Zeus watched. However, Lisias never shifted his gaze.

Ferro could feel the sweat gather along his spine as he started to realize that this wasn’t a training match and Lisias wasn’t going to offer up some weakness in order to start the battle so that it could be over in time to enjoy wine, alfita bread, and raisins. Something darker stirred, and the air seemed to grow heavier. In the distance, the bird cried again, and Ferro reversed direction.

Still, Lisias only watched, his body shifting and his muscles standing out as he braced himself. Ferro tried telling himself that Lisias wasn’t trained. He was a tender of sheep and goats, a man with no heritage and only brute strength on his side. However, Ferro’s gut refused to believe that. Ferro feigned, fully expecting Lisias to commit himself to a charge so that Ferro could get him off balance. Instead, Lisias only put one foot back to brace for Ferro’s attack. And of course Ferro aborted the attack; he couldn’t afford to get too close to Lisias’s hands until he had Lisias off balance.

Ferro’s circles slowed; he couldn’t afford to wear himself out before the battle started. “Are we fighting or staring at each other?” Ferro asked as he finally came to a stop. Nothing he did tempted Lisias from his position in the center of the clearing.

“Fighting,” Lisias answered. It was a typical one-word Lisias response, and Ferro sighed.

“Then why aren’t we actually fighting? I feign, you counter, I attack, you counterattack. Does any of this sound familiar?”

“We are fighting, Ferro,” Lisias said, his gaze still locked on Ferro. Ferro had been holding his hands in a defensive position, but that made him throw them in the air. Not even that tempted Lisias off his tiny territory in the center.

“You’re the most aggravating man I’ve ever met. You probably chose herding because other people told you how aggravating you are on such a regular basis you couldn’t take it anymore.” Again, Lisias watched without reaction, his body still coiled for violence even as it settled into a state of perpetual waiting. “You’ll probably gag me for even saying that, won’t you?”

“No. It’s close enough to the truth to pass as a sister,” Lisias responded.

Ferro dropped both of his hands to his sides. He could well imagine how frustrated others became with this attitude of total assurance. “Are we going to fight?”

“We are, Ferro,” Lisias repeated. “It’s your move.”

With a growl, Ferro threw himself forward, his hands reaching for Lisias even though a large part of his brain screamed at him that it was the world’s stupidest move. Lisias caught his arm, and Ferro tried to use his momentum to swing Lisias around, just as his instructors had taught him. Unfortunately, his instructors had never planned on him trying to move the ultimate unmovable object. Ferro lost his balance as he tried to pull Lisias off his feet, and that allowed Lisias to yank Ferro forward so fast that Ferro didn’t have time to get in more than one solid punch to Lisias’s side before Lisias turned him. One quick jerk, and Ferro felt himself fall to the ground, Lisias’s arms still around him. He barely had time to get his hands out to catch himself, and that left his center unprotected.

The second Lisias wrapped his arms around Ferro’s waist, Ferro knew he’d lost, but he couldn’t give up on the fight—that wasn’t in him. He dug his toes into the rocky ground and shoved back. However, Lisias was entirely too solid to move him. Lisias’s arms tightened around Ferro, and Ferro could feel his ribs strain under the pressure. Throwing his elbows back, he tried to break Lisias’s hold. He hit, but rather than flinch or swear, Lisias just held on, his forehead pressing into the back of Ferro’s neck as he tucked close enough to prevent Ferro from hitting anything vital.

Feeling lightheaded from not being able to suck in a full breath, Ferro struggled to roll, but when he went to press his hand against the earth, he couldn’t find the strength to lift them. As soon as he got home, he was telling his father to demand a refund for every fighting-master he’d ever purchased. A herder was beating him, and Ferro couldn’t come up with a way to slip free.

“Do you yield?” Lisias demanded.

Ferro panted and squirmed harder. His vision started to gray, and muscles relaxed involuntarily as they fatigued, but Ferro still struggled to get his body to obey him.

“Yield before you pass out, young fool,” Lisias hissed his ear. Ferro didn’t have the breath left to talk, so he gave a nod. Lisias held on for a few more seconds, and Ferro curled his fingers into the dust as consciousness started to fade. Then the arms were gone, and Ferro gasped, the dust coating his tongue as he opened his mouth to gulp air. He felt his arms moved over his head, and he didn’t protest as Lisias quickly tied him again. Zeus’s eyes. If this is what Lisias wanted, he could have had it without the fight. Ferro had invited him to do the mounting, after all.

When he was picked up, Ferro found enough life to protest, shoving his hands against Lisias’s strong shoulder. “I can walk.”

Lisias’s snort made it clear that he questioned that. He deposited Ferro in the shade of the scraggly fig tree, and Ferro looked at the complicated series of knots tying him again. “On your stomach, get comfortable,” Lisias said, tossing one of the packs at Ferro. Ferro tried to catch it, but with his hands bound, he only managed to deflect it so it landed to the side. Lisias stood looking down at him, arms crossed. He still hadn’t put his shirt on, and Ferro studied the scar.

“I will if you tell me how you were burned.”

“Yield or denounce Elpis,” Lisias said firmly.

Ferro opened his mouth, and if he’d been facing his father or one of his brothers, he might have done it. Denouncing a god or breaking a vow made in a god’s name was Act One in most of the tragedies Ferro had ever attended. They hadn’t affected him. However, seeing Lisias’s tight jaw and the stress in that strong body, Ferro could see that it mattered to him. Besides, the old gods were known to wander the hills more often than the theaters. Realizing that he wouldn’t denounce Elpis and that he couldn’t outwait Lisias, Ferro turned to the pack and started pulling out the sleeping furs. Moving awkwardly, he spread out the fur and plopped himself down on his stomach as inartfully as he could.

Lisias chuckled, and then his hands reached around Ferro’s waist to pull at the tie. “I miss the days of traditional robes. They were easier to move aside,” Lisias said as he pulled the tie free and then eased Ferro’s pants down over his ass. A cooling breeze drifted over his skin, and Ferro took deep breaths as he wondered how Lisias would use him. Hard and fast? Would he be one who liked to use as little oil as possible? Those thoughts stoked Ferro’s anger at losing, but he knew Lisias would never be one to enjoy another’s pain. He didn’t have that in him.

Lisias hands ran up the back of Ferro’s calves, exploring the curve, and Ferro took deep breaths as those hands approached his ass. He had no idea why his body was so coiled with anger at this. He’d wanted it. He still did want it. Yet his emotions raged like a summer storm. Lisias stroked upward, his rough hands kneading the back of Ferro’s thighs, and Ferro’s cock warmed to the idea, even if Ferro’s head was still conflicted. Either way, it would happen. He’d lost the wager, and he would pay.

Thumbs brushed over his crack, and Ferro tensed. However, Lisias moved on, his hands now resting against Ferro’s ass, massaging the muscles and making Ferro’s cock grow harder. The silence rested heavily against Ferro.

“Are you starting soon?” Ferro demanded.

“I already have,” came Lisias’s answer, and then the man’s hands slid over Ferro’s waist up to his lower back. Thumbs traced the spine all the way up to Ferro’s neck and then back down, and Ferro squirmed. If Lisias wanted sex, Ferro would oblige, but he wasn’t an animal to be stroked and petted.

“Throw the spear or move aside before Ares takes you,” Ferro snapped, his old spear-master’s curse falling from his lips before he could gather up the remains of his common sense. He froze, his whole body starting to tremble.

“Hush, Ferro. You haven’t broken faith with Elpis, but I do think that bringing Ares’s name into this suggests that anyone throwing spears with you has thrown poorly,” he said, twisting Ferro’s own sexual metaphor.

“You aren’t going to….” Ferro stopped. If Lisias was in a forgiving mood, Ferro wouldn’t question it.

“Gag you? You know I am,” Lisias said calmly as he reached for the pack. He pulled the linen out, and Ferro narrowed his eyes at how easily Lisias had retrieved it.

“You’ve just been waiting to use that, haven’t you?” he asked, turning over on the furs. Two seconds too late, he realized that his hard cock was then on display for Lisias to see. Even if Ferro had reservations, his cock didn’t.

“I expected that you would run out of self-control long ago. I need to be able to help you control yourself when you aren’t able,” Lisias said as he brought the strip up. Ferro clenched his teeth together, determined to fight this. With a perfectly calm expression, Lisias pressed a spot under Ferro’s jaw, and Ferro’s mouth opened instinctively, saliva filling it. Despite the fact that Ferro used his bound hands to pull at Lisias’s arm, Lisias calmly tied the gag around Ferro’s mouth before he threaded his fingers through Ferro’s hair.

“Such a beautiful man you are,” he said, his voice full of affection despite the fact he had just gagged Ferro. Ferro grunted and shoved at Lisias with his hands, but Lisias only caught the trailing end of the rope and moved to the base of the fig tree, hauling Ferro with him. He tied the rope off about two feet above the ground where a low branch angled off from the main trunk, and Ferro clung to that branch, hopelessly off balance with only his knees on the fur as he fought against the restraints.

Lisias’s hands went back to work, mapping Ferro’s body one inch at a time. He weighed Ferro’s balls in his hand, pressing them up to Ferro’s body so that Ferro arched his back and sucked in air. He ran a finger up Ferro’s traitorously hard cock. But then his hands went back to their gentle exploration of the rest of Ferro’s body. Ferro had a doctor perform massages on him once; he’d been hired by Ferro’s father to improve his disposition, but they had been something to endure. Lisias’s massage slowly brought his whole body to life until it wasn’t just his cock but all his skin that burned fever-hot, hungry for more touch.

When Lisias reached into the pack again, this time he brought out a small bottle. Ferro’s breath caught in his chest, and he tried to push his hips back, but Lisias only poured some oil onto his palms and rubbed them together before considering Ferro as though he were one of Lisias’s sheep. Ferro might have cursed him out if not for the gag. Instead he grunted loudly.

Lisias started on Ferro’s upraised ass, massaging the muscles as well as any doctor, but each stoke drove Ferro farther into desire with no way to satisfy it. His cock hung uselessly in the air, hot and heavy as it swung slowly as Ferro’s body moved to the deliberate rhythms of Lisias’s work. Lisias worked down one leg until he could press fingers to the bottoms of Ferro’s foot. Then he moved to the other foot before working his way up the leg.

Ferro was nearly crying, his moans through his gag constant as desire turned from a fire to a conflagration that threatened to devour him, but Lisias’s hands simply moved up to work Ferro’s lower back, seeking out every muscle and tracing it back to its source, even as Ferro hung his head, his moans turning into mewls of need. Lisias moved up to his shoulders, oil slicked hands sliding up Ferro’s arms to where the bindings started and then back down to his shoulders where he massaged the oil in for heavy minutes before sliding his hands back up Ferro’s arms.

Ferro struggled against the rope, his body aching with need. “Please,” he begged through the gag, his words muffled and muted. “For the mercy of Zeus, please,” he begged. He couldn’t do anything else. He needed to have Lisias or he needed to die. Lisias paused, and for one tortured moment Ferro was afraid that this was a jest, that the forfeit would be Lisias working him up and then leaving him tethered to a tree.

“Now you know what it is to want, Ferro. Have you ever wanted anyone before?”

Ferro shook his head, his hair falling in his eyes. He hadn’t. He’d never wanted with this soul-deep hunger before. Lisias stood, stealing his warmth, and Ferro cried out wordlessly.

“Hush, Ferro. I’m here,” Lisias promised. He returned, this time naked, and Ferro could see his heavy cock standing out from the thick, black curls. The head was already slick from precome. “I’m here,” Lisias repeated, his hands returning to stroke Ferro’s heated body. “I want you so much,” Lisias confessed in a rough voice, his fingers slipping into the crack that hid Ferro’s hole. Ferro fought the ropes, pushing himself back into that touch and widening his knees.

“Listen carefully,” Lisias whispered in Ferro’s ear, the air tickling him as it moved his hair. “The forfeit was the privilege of touching you, of feeling you. The wager is paid with the pleasure I’ve gained from seeing you yield to me. If you want me to mount you, I will, but I do not want easy sex, Ferro. I am the ram that will butt heads with the universe or the gods themselves, but I do not do anything easily. So tell me, do you want me to cover you?”

“Yesss,” Ferro begged, the word pressed from him by a desire he hadn’t ever known. The heat where Lisias touched him seemed to burn, and Ferro pressed into that point of contact.

“My beautiful Ferro,” Lisias soothed him, moving to a point behind Ferro, and Ferro clutched the tree branch, panting as he felt slicked fingers move into him. He pressed back, squirming as he fought the rope, biting his gag until a line of spit slipped out of the corner of his mouth and tickled its way down his chin, but still, Lisias moved at his own unhurried pace. Two fingers and Ferro could feel himself struggle for air, his whole body shifting into some survival mode where he could only feel Lisias. The tree and the world itself vanished and there was only Lisias spreading him, making his muscles strain before yielding.

The cock pressing against his hole made Ferro cry out with relief as the promised mounting finally approached. Lisias rested a hand against Ferro’s back, stroking him gently while whispering words Ferro was no longer able to understand. When Lisias pressed forward, Ferro threw his head back, his whole body tightening with a need for more. Lisias caught his hair in a fist as he slid the rest of the way in, and Ferro was so beautifully trapped. There was no need to commit because he was perfectly taken. Back arched, Lisias’s fist pulling his head back until his neck strained—Lisias’s cock plunged deep inside him—Lisias’s ropes binding his hands—Lisias’s gag pressing deep into his mouth. Ferro cried out again, the pleasure rolling through him in waves.

Lisias pulled back slowly, and Ferro returned to his quiet mewls as Lisias rocked in and out, using Ferro’s body for his own pleasure. The hand released his hair, and Ferro dropped his head down, feeling a dozen small drops of sweat slide down his face, but it didn’t matter. Lisias’s hands held his waist, strong fingers tight enough to bruise, and Ferro closed his eyes against the stinging sweat and rode out the wave, letting his body move with the tides Lisias directed.

Lisias reached down and fisted Ferro’s cock, sliding down it and then tightening before moving it back up, and that’s all it took. Ferro screamed and came, his body clenching down on the cock inside him. Then Lisias slammed forward, mounting Ferro hard with powerful thrusts that pushed him forward. Ferro cried out again, clinging to the branch and arching his back as Lisias took him harder than any lover ever had.

Finally Lisias came, his thrusts slowing as he panted, his hands resting against Ferro’s ass. Time paused, and they were one body. A moment later, he finally slipped free, and Ferro felt empty. He wanted Lisias’s cock back in him. For a time, they stayed in place, Ferro clinging to his branch, and Lisias kneeling behind him, both hands resting on Ferro’s ass. Ferro slowly became aware of his aching shoulders and the way his wrists felt overstretched.

“You are a beautiful man, but hardly easy,” Lisias said as he finally moved to Ferro’s side and used a hand on Ferro’s ass to push himself to his feet. Ferro would have disagreed, only he was gagged, and if that was what sex was supposed to feel like, Ferro had to agree that he did not couple easily. He might come easily, but he’d never felt that. Lisias moved to the tree and untethered Ferro before leading him back so he could lie on his back on the furs. Settling down next to Ferro, Lisias worked at the wrist ropes. Ferro had tightened the knots by fighting so hard, but he watched while Lisias patiently picked each one loose. Eventually, Lisias freed him and wound the rope into a neat coil he could set beside the pack.

With a sigh, Lisias spread out on the furs, and Ferro moved to his side, taking the traditional posture of the submissive with his head resting on Lisias’s shoulder and his leg draped over Lisias’s body.

“Happy?” Lisias asked.

Ferro nodded. He was. He was happy and at peace, two emotions he had little experience with.

“Do you want the gag out?”

Ferro nodded again.

“If I told you that you looked beautiful gagged and that I preferred to keep you with a bound mouth, would you obey that?” Lisias asked, his voice edged with curiosity.

Ferro thought about that. He didn’t like the gag, but he did like the idea of pleasing Lisias. More than that, he trusted Lisias to not leave the gag in so long or so tight that it actually hurt him. Lisias never hurt any creature under his protection. Ferro nodded. He’d wear the gag if that’s what Lisias wanted.

Lisias gave Ferro a rare smile, stroking Ferro’s cheek with the back of a finger. That settled, Ferro lay his head down and closed his eyes.

“You really would leave that on forever, wouldn’t you?” Lisias asked, but his fingers were already working the knot on the linen.

Ferro sighed as the gag finally came free, reaching up to rub his sore mouth.

“Do you like the gag?” Lisias asked.

“Not even a little,” Ferro admitted. He didn’t. He did like Lisias taking total control, but that wasn’t the same as liking the taste of a dusty cloth shoved deep into his mouth. “I like you,” Ferro admitted. He sounded like a drama at a Dionysian festival. He didn’t care.

For a long time they lay, the sound of bleating sheep or a goat complaining to a neighbor occasionally interrupting the perfect silence. When Lisias shifted, Ferro could feel the real world press closer, though.

He gave a soft sigh, and Ferro opened his eyes to see if he could read Lisias’s expression. “I need to know, Ferro. When your family comes, do you commit to this life or will you return to the one that has left you so unhappy?”

Ferro tensed, the word “commit” stirring up too many memories. However, denying Lisias wasn’t possible. His tongue refused to form the words. Instead he turned the question back with a question. “Why did you choose me?” It was the question Ferro had desperately wanted to ask since the slave-seller’s tent, but the wrong answer would shatter his world; he could feel that as surely as he could feel the dappled sun across his bare legs.

Lisias took time before answering, and then his words came slowly. “Because you would die before leaving me injured and alone. Because if a wolf attacked, he would find only strength, not weakness. Because you are a tender at heart.” The three statements were more than Lisias had ever offered, well, unless he counted orders. Lisias could get quite detailed in his orders.

“I’ve never tended before. The sheep hate me.”

Lisias smiled. “The sheep sense that you are not fully here. They are animals, Ferro. They only know how to give themselves to one activity at a time, and you confuse them. But you are a tender.” From someone else, those words would have been an insult. Calling the prince, even the third prince, a sheep-tender was enough to warrant a whipping under normal circumstances, but from Lisias, the words were a compliment.

“You can’t know that,” Ferro said, his emotions roiling inside his chest until it physically hurt.

“I do know that, Ferro. When you spoke of the man who hurt you, you said it was better for evil to choose you so that you could root it out. You would choose to endanger yourself to protect an innocent, and only a good man—only a good tender—would ever make that choice.”

Ferro shook his head.

“The girl, you offered her a blessing. Who is your family, Ferro? How high are they? How much is your blessing worth, and yet you gave it to a slave girl clutching a basket of wares and terrified out of her mind. How many of your own have you cast a blessing on, Ferro? How many of them have you refused to bless?”

Ferro sucked in air. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. After sex, his partner would offer a quick thanks and vanish, going off to tell tales of how the king’s youngest truly was as easy as everyone suggested. They would sneak off and whisper tales of the prophecy and place bets on how much the first family would suffer because they were not strong enough to end their son’s life. Hell, his father might have done that. On the day of the prophecy, he might have slit his infant’s throat on the spot if he hadn’t known how the gods had punished Oedipus’s parents for trying exactly that. So instead his father raised a son he hated. Ferro’s whole body jerked as his heart finally admitted a truth he’d spent his life avoiding, and Lisias gathered him up like a fallen lamb. Ferro didn’t even have the energy to protest it.

“You are a tender. Whatever lies have been whispered in your ear, I see your heart. Trust me, Ferro. Be mine. Commit yourself to me. Denounce your ties to your family right now before the gods, and I will tend you. You don’t need a family that would leave you dying inside while still struggling so hard to show them your true nature.”

“I stole my father’s horse, took it out to race,” Ferro said, his words coming out between the gasps. Lisias’s fingers still combed through his hair, that crooning sound still soothing him. “I stole,” Ferro repeated just in case Lisias had missed it.

“I heard you. You also blessed a girl. You would put yourself in the path of danger. You would die before letting a wolf get his teeth into me,” Lisias said with such confidence that Ferro could almost believe him. “You can’t be mine and theirs. You have to choose whose tending you most want,” Lisias said, his hand fisting Ferro’s hair so that he could force Ferro to turn toward him. “Choose before the gods, Ferro.”

“You,” Ferro choked out. “I renounce all claims to Vello, king of Argolis, and to Praxilla, his wife. I renounce all claims as son of the first family.” His voice grew stronger until he could feel himself shout the words to the heavens. “I renounce Vello and Praxilla and their sons, Elpidio and Parodio who shall never have me as a brother after this. I renounce Achilla and Hagale and Heraclia, and proclaim that they have only two brothers from this time forward.” Ferro stopped, panting as his head seemed to float above his body. Lisias’s fingers stroked him. “You have to believe that I want you,” Ferro whispered.

“I do, Ferro. I’ll always believe you,” Lisias promised. “Ferro, look.”

Ferro didn’t have the energy to move, but Lisias’s voice commanded it, and he forced himself to stretch up enough to see over Lisias. An eagle sat on the branch of a dead tree, his white head stark against the storm darkened sky. “I mean it, Zeus,” Ferro said, not sure if he was being a superstitious fool or not. “I would rather have Lisias than all the wealth of first family, and if I am going to commit fully to anything in my life, it will be to him.”

The eagle tilted its head for a moment, and then, with a scream, it took off into the sky.

Lisias chuckled. “Leave it to you to get mouthy with Zeus.”