(THE ANCALITE WEDDING - CONT)

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 broken 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 cord 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.

Skipio growls in pain, lobbing the druid skyward, but on his man return, the wily bastard twists about and tosses the lance. His miscalculation buries the spear’s iron tip between Skipio’s feet, and when the druid lands close enough to strike, Skipio acts first, slicing the belt around his britches.

The wiry druid sheds them upon vaulting backward, sending them right onto Skipio’s face. He clears the tartan from his eyes and finds the scrawny man 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 his opponent, sending the lithe bastard onto his belly. The kill shot reveals itself, but raising his sword with murderous intent finds his spirit caught by two little white buttocks. Venus whispers...any man can fuck a face, but Lucius Scipio Servius isn’t just any man.

Skipio 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 as the man’s erection bobs lewdly. He forces the wiry Owl to his knees and crouching behind him, 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 their leader’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, begging in words Skipio cannot understand.

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

Coarse desire vents like a volcano within Skipio when the skeletal bastard turns and presents his ass. He snakes an eager arm around those knobby hips and guides his cockhead without a hand. Driven one last time to resist, the druid flips onto his back and punches a heel into Skipio’s corded groin.

Skipio 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 too quickly, pinching his foreskin until the druid bears down, his hole swallowing Skipio’s flesh to the hairs.

♡ Inside the Owl, he needs nothing more than to be buried deep 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 anymore—it is an open door to a sordid brothel room.

Some leave in disgust, others follow, unsure.

♡The druid’s cock spits without a coaxing hand. ♡

Skipio crests shortly after, his body quaking like never before.

He falls then, heaving upon the spent druid.

“What are you doing?” Castor demands, on his knees beside him.

Skipio 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. “You’re as fierce as the day you came out of the reeds,”

Skipio leans into the druid’s touch, until Castor shrills.

“If you ever cared for me,” the man sobs. “You’ll send him to the underworld,”

Luna appears and folds her front legs before laying her long muzzle across the druid’s neck.

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

Planus retrieves Skipio’s fallen dagger.

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