Jean told the girl ,"Speak filth to me." His hand rose, brushing her cheek with the gentleness of a wolf's paw before it kills. "Or leave."
Her chest rose and fell quickly. Then she whispered, "The way your cock strained against your leathers when you cut that last man in half."
Jean chuckled low in his throat. "Good girl."
Before she could answer, he seized her throat with one hand and pulled her against him. His mouth crashed onto hers, lips bruising, tongue claiming. She moaned into him, clawing at his chest, smearing blood across her fingers.
Jean tore at her gown, silk ripping like parchment. Her breasts spilled free, pale and trembling, nipples hard in the cool air. He bent his head and sucked one into his mouth, biting until she gasped.
"You taste sweeter than I expected," he growled against her skin.
Her hands fumbled at the laces of his breeches, desperate, trembling. "I want it," she begged. "I want it inside me—now."
Jean shoved her back against the wall. The impact rattled the door. He pressed his body against hers, grinding hard, letting her feel the thick bulge she had only glimpsed in the arena.
"You want my cock?" he asked, voice sharp as a blade ready to kill.
"Yes—fuck,fuck ,yes,yes."
"Say it filthier." His hand slid down her belly, fingers teasing the heat between her thighs.
Her moan broke into words, filthy and raw. "I want your cock to split me open like you split them in the pit. I want you to ruin me."
Jean's grin was wolfish. "That's better."
He lifted her effortlessly, wrapping her legs around his waist. With one brutal motion, he freed himself and thrust inside her, stretching her wide, filling her until her cry echoed off stone walls.
She clung to him, nails carving bloody crescents into his back. "Gods, you're… you're too big—"
"You'll take it," he snarled, fucking her hard against the wall, each thrust rattling the timbers. "You'll take every inch and beg for more."
Her words spilled out between screams and moans, filthier each time. "Harder—deeper—faster, fuck me like I'm just another conquest! Make me scream your name load and loader!"
Jean's hand clamped on her throat again, forcing her gaze up to his. "Scream it, then."
Her climax tore through her, loud and shameless, crying his name for all the dungeon to hear.
Jeann didn't stop. He drove into her again and again, chasing his own release, until with a final growl he spilled inside her, heat flooding her as her body shook violently around him.
For a long moment, only their ragged breathing filled the chamber.
Jean lowered her to the cot, leaving her trembling, ruined, silk hanging from her in tatters. He stood over her, chest heaving, cock still slick with her juices, and smirked.
"You came to see the champion," he said, voice low and rough. "Now you know why they call me unbroken."
Her lips curved in a weak, bliss-drunk smile. "You're not a man," she whispered. "You're a god."
Jean shook his head, wiping blood from his chest with a cloth. "No, woman. I'm worse than that."
He turned, picked up his sword, and sat back down, already sharpening the blade for the next battle. The noblewoman lay sprawled across his bed, thighs still trembling, whispering his name like a prayer.
The crowd above still roared faintly in the night. But Jean's hunger wasn't sated. Not by blood. Not by sex. Not by anything.
Not yet.
The torches had burned low, their light guttering in the stale air of the champion's chamber. Jean sat on the edge of the cot, naked, muscles slick with sweat and blood, his greatsword across his lap. The noblewoman lay behind him, sprawled in the tattered ruin of her gown, her body marked with his teeth, his bruises, his seed dripping down her thigh. She was asleep now, the shallow sleep of a woman spent beyond her limits, still whimpering his name even in dreams.
Jean stared at the blade. Its edge was clean, gleaming, though the sand of the pit had been black with gore only an hour before. He had wiped it carefully, methodically, as always. A warrior's ritual. But tonight, something gnawed at him deeper than the ache of battle or the fever of lust.
The silence pressed in, broken only by her faint breaths and the distant roar of the city above. He flexed his hand, still stained at the knuckles. Blood and sex. Violence and pleasure. They had become the same thing for him, two sides of the same coin. One always followed the other. And yet—
It wasn't enough atall.
It never was.
He remembered the way the last gladiator's body had split under his blade. The spray of blood had made the crowd shriek, but for him, it had been a moment of emptiness. The kill was swift, final, but afterward came only the hunger. He filled it with flesh—flesh of women who came willingly or women who begged after the fight—but even their moans faded quickly, leaving only silence.
Jean leaned forward, elbows on his knees, staring at the ground as though answers might rise from the stone. Somewhere in the marrow of his bones, he felt it—that there was more to his path than this endless cycle of killing and fucking. He didn't know what, not yet, but the thought stalked him like a predator waiting for the right moment to pounce.
Behind him, the noblewoman stirred, stretching with a soft sigh. She winced when she tried to move her legs, and her voice was hoarse when she whispered, "You're… insatiable."
Jean didn't turn. "Sleep. You'll need it."
She gave a weak laugh, curling back into the blankets. "You'll kill me before the arena does."
"Then don't come back," Jean muttered.
But he knew she would. They always did.
The knock came just before dawn. Heavy, deliberate. Jean rose, pulling his breeches back on and belting his sword. The noblewoman jolted awake, pulling the blanket to her chest in panic.
The door swung open without waiting for leave. Two guards in the livery of the crown entered, helms gleaming, spears clutched. Between them stood a man draped in black velvet, face thin, eyes sharp as a hawk's.
"Carlos Jean" the man said, voice cold and measured. "Her Majesty summons you."
Jean tilted his head. "The Queen?, The Queen summon me?"
"Yes. Now."
The noblewoman gasped softly, shrinking against the bed. Few were called to the Queen's side at such an hour, and none without cause.
Jean strapped his sword to his back and strode past them, his heavy boots echoing on the stone floor.
As he climbed the long stairs out of the pit, he glanced once toward the dawn seeping through the cracks above. The sky bled red and gold, the light of a new day. Somewhere in that light, Jean felt the faintest whisper, not from the guards, not from the noblewoman, but from the silence inside him.
A voice, soft and cruel, slithered through his thoughts:
You will be the last man to fall.
Jean blinked, shook his head, and the whisper was gone.
He gritted his teeth and climbed higher, toward the Queen's summons, toward blood, lust, and the destiny that waited for him in shadows.