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They even unchained his legs once and brought him a mare in heat. But instead of being overcome by primal instincts and mounting her like the humans expected, he incited the mare to break free. She almost killed one of the humans with her ferocious kicks before she tore her reins from their hold and galloped off.
That earned him a vicious thrashing, but they couldn’t beat the triumph out of him. He hoped that the mare would find the rest of her herd in the mountains beyond. He hoped she’d stay free.
His keepers’ patience was at the end, he knew. It must have been months that they’d held him imprisoned. He lost track of time. The fact that his eyes were blinded by a thick pad secured around his head didn’t help.
He flared his nostrils to scent the air.
It was hot, humid and stale. There was only a small opening in one wall of his prison that let fresh air inside. If his legs weren’t chained, if he had enough room to rear up, he could reach it and feel the breeze on his muzzle. When the wind was especially strong, sometimes it carried just a hint of the nearby sea.
A hint of freedom.
So close, yet so far away. He could only stand in his empty stall and wait.
Wait for the air to flow slowly, tepidly, over his overheated skin.
Wait for the sun to travel across the sky so he could have a brief reprieve from its stifling heat. Made even more unbearable by the tight quarters of his prison.
Wait for his captors to open his cage and attempt to “teach him lessons.”
Sometimes they coaxed him with food and water.
In the beginning, he pretended to be docile just to eat his fill and keep up his strength so he could fight them off when they tried to tame him. They quickly caught on to his tactics and only gave him food when he performed their tricks first.
He refused. He wouldn’t bend to the humans’ will. And, so, he starved. Only fed enough to keep from collapsing.
Most times, they tried to beat him into submission.
They’d pull him out of the box with the chains they wound around him from head to hoof. It took many of them, with the help of the humans’ tamed beasts, to drag him out.
The chains that bound his legs together only afforded him enough slack to shuffle his feet. He couldn’t move faster than the slowest walk. He couldn’t rear up. Couldn’t kick. The chains around his muzzle prevented him from biting. And the pad around his eyes kept him from seeing.
The humans would yell at him while they tried to make him obey their commands. Whips stung his neck, back, sides and rump. They beat him until blood ran in rivulets down his hide, until they were too exhausted by the exertion to continue.
But he never bent to their will.
He never would.
Never let them see you hurt, my son. Never bow down.
In the darkness of his prison, away from prying eyes, Andros lowered his head and closed his eyes, trying to conserve what little strength he had left.
The next time his captors opened the prison door, he would either fight his way to freedom or to his death.
~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~
“Ahhhhh…” Ere sighed long and deep, reveling in the lavender-scented, salted water of the steaming bath.
The Greeks were fucking ingenious.
“I should probably feel guilty about taking time to indulge in these pleasures, but I don’t,” he related as he arched his back and leaned into Sorin, who held his body loosely from behind, their naked skin rubbing tantalizingly against each other above and below the chest-deep water.
“Instead of rushing to the end of these adventures that the JE arbitrarily demands of us, we might as well enjoy ourselves in the process, eh? Maybe Divina is rubbing off on me. Stop and smell the roses, and all that.”
Sorin nuzzled Ere’s neck, inhaling deeply, and he tilted his head to one side, giving his Mate better access.
“Smells good,” the warrior rumbled low.
Ever a man of few words. But all of them were music to Ere’s ears.
