He's panting, pinned beneath me in the blood-caked sand.  I can feel the shock, mixed with resignation and perhaps something else, something surprising, vibrating through his body on each labored breath.  His head slowly turns to regard me, pushing boldly against the blade I have to his throat, so certain I won't push the extra few inches necessary to take this from entertainment to blood sport.  I envy that certainty.  It's something I've never known, for as long as I've fought in this ring.
	But then, he isn't owned, like I am.  The neck my blade is pressed against is bare, save his thick mane.  He's never known what it means to wear a collar.  To face death in the ring every day your contract owner demands it of you, until the numbers on that contract slip away to nothing.
	Then I see it.  The fanged smile I suspected he might be wearing, despite his beaten position beneath me.  He's enjoying this.  Delighting in it, even.  I could sense it from the second he stepped in the ring with me.  His careless swings, the way he left himself entirely open to my attacks.  With some of these rich warrior's sons, it's because they lack the skill, or because they're arrogant in assuming that because they paid for a match with me, their lives are assured.  I'm supposed to give them a show, not bisect them.  
	But I've always given it my all.  Even if, when I inevitably best the rich, spoiled cats like I have now, and they're at my mercy beneath me in the ring, I know I can't take that final swing.  If they were another contracted fighter, if they were one of the feral animals they have me rend open during shows, it would be one thing.  But killing a Pride son, or a Clan lady, would mean the gallows.
	My owners learned long ago that I won't throw matches.  Some of the men here, even some I know to be more accomplished warriors than I, lack that destructive sense of pride.  They get paid twice as much to throw matches, to make the rich bastards who buy their time look good.  A few tried it with me.  They didn't get what they wanted, and I incurred a lot more debt over it, until my owner grew tired of the complaints.  These days he only finds the ones who want a real fight.  Men like this lion.
	I don't even remember his name.  But he's one of the crazy ones.  Driven mad by breeding, his family, or just the boredom that comes only to the idle rich.  He came here for a real fight, and he fought hard, but I think ultimately he came here to lose.  He'd probably even watched my fights beforehand, with other opponents, insuring I'd be good enough to beat him.  And I did, handily.  It barely lasted a minute.
	It was an intense minute, I'll give him that much.  He went all out, and by the wild-eyed look on his face, he loved every moment of it.  I have to respect him for that.
	I slowly let up the blade, and the both of us shaking, we get to our feet.  His body still has that vague vibration to it, his haunches trembling, his muzzle open and gasping, tongue lolling out.  His yellow eyes are bright, pupils reduced to pinpricks.  His knees are torn up, he's bleeding out the side of one jowl, and his right eye has blood in it, probably from one of the blows from my pommel.  
	For all that, he looks like he's about to jump me again.  And his weapon is on the other side of the ring by now, knocked aside several blows ago.  But he's got those mad eyes fixed on me, like he's wanting for more.  
	I scrutinize him a few moments, unsure what to do.  Does he really want me to beat on him some more?  He got his money's worth already, if that's the case.  
	I look to my owner, a darker-maned, older lion standing across the ring.  I figure he'll have some idea as to what I should do.
	"Lord Samiel," he calls across the ring.  "Are you quite done with my gladiator?  Or will you be requiring more time?  The payment was for one fight, start to finish."  He crosses his arms over his chest, and his elegant brown robes.  "There was no promise on time.  So if you'd like him longer, there may be additional charges."
	The lion wipes his thick jowls, licking his bloody teeth, and my ears flick back over to him, ready for anything at this point.  He clearly has more in mind.
	"I'd like more time," he says simply.  
	They share an unspoken understanding, and my owner simply nods, gesturing to the gates that lead to the chambers alongside our arena, where we warm up and dress before we enter a match.  "In through there," he gestures.  "Lochan will lead you.  There's a pen where we normally keep the feral cats, but it's clean now, we haven't had the chance to buy any in months.  Will that do?"
	The tattered lion gives a particularly feral smile, himself.  "It will," he says, sticking to a few words once again.  I'm beginning to wonder if the man ever speaks in complex sentences, or if he's really just that simple.
	"Come," I murmur after cleaning my blade, tossing the dirty rag aside.  They'll be cleaning the ring in an hour or so anyway.  I lead him through the remnants of the day's kills, towards the gates.  We slaughtered an ox in here just a few hours ago, and one of the weasels they brought in last week got gored in the process.  He'd barely been here a week, but honestly, I'm surprised he even lasted that long.
	I open the iron gates and let him through, down the cool stone steps into the armory.  The room itself is little more than a long, underground corridor with a bench down the center, and our weapons and armor - both useful and for show - hung up on the hooks along the wall.  I hang my scimitar, then begin to unstrap my armor mechanically, before I remember there's a lion in the room with me, staring at me like I'm hanging on one of those hooks.
	I turn, narrowing my eyes at the man's intense, wanton stare.  "Just so you're aware," I state, advancing a step on the man so he knows I'm not afraid of him, even unarmed, "things back here work the same way they do in the ring.  I don't give in to anyone without a fight, and if I best you," (and I'm fairly certain I will), "you get put down in the dirt, same as up there."
	If possible, the lion's smile broadens.  "I would not want it any other way," he says, using the most amount of words I've gotten from him yet.
	I snort, and undo the buckle holding my belt in place, my armor immediately loosening around my midsection.  "You're a strange creature," I inform him.
	"My family would agree with you," he replies, finally starting to undo his own belt and tug off the thin leathers he was wearing.  They're more covering than my armor, but only barely.  I've fought a lot of Pride sons, and they almost always come with more protection.  I doubt the lion lacked the money for armor, considering what he paid my owner for his time with me, so I can only assume he just . . . likes being hurt.
	That, I can't understand, let alone respect.  If I had the resources, I'd sure as hell protect myself with something better.
	At least I know what he wants.
	Once we've stripped down to our loin wraps, I lead him through another short hallway, and then two sets of doors, to the animal pens.  They're in an area outside the west side of the low buildings used for our dwellings.  There are two Dyre circling in one of the cages nearest the door, and the female lunges at the gate almost the moment the lion walks through, startling him back.
	"Don't let her know you're scared of her," I inform him calmly, eyeing the big, grey wolf until she shrinks from my gaze.  
	"When are you planning a match with them?"  The lion asks, looking at the beasts in wonder now that he's less surprised by them.  There's a hunger in his eyes I don't like.
	"Never," I inform him, and his smile drops away for just a moment.  "They're our breeding pair.  The Master only fights the pups."
	"I'll have to stop by for one of those, then," the lion says, licking his jowls.
	I turn away from him, snarling.  The feral fights have always sickened me.  The animals are an ocean away from their home, as it is, and they never leave the cages except to kill one another.  It's crueler than what they do to us.
	The pen where we normally keep the feral cats, the big Atlas lions they bring in from the north and the occasional odd exotic, is clean and bare, and has been for months.  Feral cats are harder to come across than bulls and canines.  I open the unlocked gate and lead him in.  Here there are no coverings, so the sunlight streams through the bars, harsh and hot, and I'm sure if my owner could find some way to ring this pen and charge admission to what's about to happen here, he would.  But for now, we're alone save the two Dyre gone back to resting in their pen.  This is about the only place in this arena we can be alone, considering the stables are full of warriors right now.
	And some contracted men who shouldn't ever have been put in the ring . . . but there's always a need for fodder.
	I let him in the pen ahead of me, and he's so eager to get inside, he doesn't stop to contemplate why.  As soon as the gate's closed, as far as I'm concerned, we've begun.
	With the closing of the latch, I give him a few moments to sense the air has shifted, but no more.  He seems to sense it the moment before I close with him, and he turns in time to put up his arms, but do little more.  I bull into him, my bulk against his, and we're fairly equally matched, but lions are notoriously hard to pin right out of the gate.  His powerful thighs absorb most of the impact, and I soon give up on cutting him off at the waist.  I'm going to have to take him down with a twist.
	He's struggling to get his own arms around me, but it's clear from the start he has very little grappling experience.  He throws his biceps up around me clumsily, and I easily wedge an arm between us, prying him aside, and twisting free of the other a second later.  The motion sends his weight all to the right and puts him at a disadvantage, so I take the opportunity to lock my own arms up around his neck and shoulder, and lift one foot off the ground, hopping long enough to push my weight down on his off-balance side.
	And just like that, he falls, and from there, it isn't hard to get him down in a pin again.  He fights and snarls for quite some time, making me work for it, but it's all in vain and we both know it.  That doesn't stop him, though.  His tail is thrashing, claws scraping against the sand, and that wild look is back in his eyes.  
	And judging by the bulge apparent in his loin cloth, this is exactly what he wanted.  It seems like the harder I have to fight to push him down, the harder he gets, and as our bodies clash and roll and press against one another in the struggle, I find I'm not altogether disliking it, either.
	At some point he grabs at my loin cloth, and I don't bother wasting my energy stopping him.  His claw hooks a corner of the fabric, already threadbare and weak, and it begins to tear.  I snarl a bit when his tugging pulls hard up between my legs, digging into the crease of my ass, but the fabric gives way before he really does any damage, and I find the relief well worth it.
	At that point his free paw is closing around my partially exposed cock, and I'm deciding that he's been too difficult about this, so that isn't enough.  He should have submitted nearly a minute ago, but he seems intent on fighting this the whole while.  Even though he's clearly itching to get his paws around me, and he's so hard he's hanging out of his loin cloth by now.
	I release my hold on the arm I had pinned behind his back, and predictably, he takes the chance to roll over so his face isn't pushed down into the sand.  I let him think he's got a chance at getting up for just a moment, before I lock my thighs around his ribcage and up beneath his arms, and make it clear he's not going anywhere.  He scrabbles to grab at my waist, but I've got all my weight on him, and there isn't much he can really do.
	Well, there's one thing he can do.
	I wrap a fist around my black cock, over half-exposed now, and growing every second I've got this bastard pinned beneath me, and I shove it up against his big muzzle, smearing it past his teeth to show him I'm not at all afraid of him.
	"Bite it, and I'll feed you to the Dyre," I promise him, in a tone that lets him know it's not an idle threat.  
	He nods his head in a silent promise.  With temptation so close to his lips now, he seems ready to submit, slipping his big pink tongue out to lathe tentatively at my tip.  I push my other hand down into his mane and take a handful, hard, shoving his muzzle more firmly down towards my cock, to let him know how this is going to work.  
	Predictably, it's exactly what he wants.  In fact, I'm fairly certain all of this was exactly what he wanted, because as soon as he got my cock shoved in his face, his tail started thrashing against the sand behind us, and he finally stopped fighting.  What's more, he's sucking at me now like he needs that cock in his mouth to breathe.
	I wonder how far I can push this.
	"You Pride sons are all the same," I mutter, my voice gruff from the fight, the adrenaline, and the fact that his rough, big tongue is working the underside of my length in a way that makes me think he's done this before.  A lot.
	"You walk around like you own the sands," I continue, "like everyone and everything should just bow to you.  You collect women like horses, and keep stables of them, like it validates how much of a man you are.  But really, all you want deep down in that stupid, simple-minded, oversized head of yours is for someone to own you like a fucking whore, and make you their bitch."
	He bucks against me, and for a moment I think I may have pushed things too far, but he's still sucking on me like there's no tomorrow, and a cursory glance behind me tells me what he's actually trying to do is grind up against my thighs with his cock.  He's not quite big enough to accomplish that (lions, am I right?) so he's just occasionally bucking at the air in need.
	I let him mouth and suck at me for quite awhile, because honestly, it feels damn good and the last lover I had died in the ring a few months ago.  It hasn't felt right since then with anyone else, but this strange lion's just the thing I needed to take back some pride.  
	Eventually though, his panting's grown desperate enough that being in his mouth's starting to lose it's appeal, and I'm honestly afraid he'll just cum like this if I let him keep going.  And that wouldn't be nearly as enjoyable as making him howl beneath me.
	I release the hand from his mane, and work it down between us to hook a finger around his loin covering, tugging it down and off of him fairly easily, his own legs kicking it off by the time I get it to his knees.  I can feel wetness seeping against my fur, his precum no doubt.  I lean back and let my cock pop out of his mouth, slick with his saliva and glistening in the waning sunlight, dark-skinned though it is.
	He looks up at me dizzily and licks his teeth, his expression gone from wild and aggressive to plaintive and begging.  I lift my hips, finally, and shove him with a knee, making it clear what I want him to do.
	He turns over onto his belly, hiking his knees up and curling his tail up to flop against his back, showing off the dark valley between his legs.  When I move over him, I make it clear this isn't going to go down gently, grabbing his mane against and shoving him back down into the sand.  He doesn't fight me this time - he's done fighting me.  He just wants me to fuck him, at this point.
	I position one hand on one side of his upper torso to keep myself upright, the other I lift to my muzzle, licking a stripe down my pawpad and setting it to my cock to add to whatever slickness is still there from his mouth.  It won't be enough, but then again, maybe it is, for this lion.  Maybe it's too much, even.
	I can feel my tip's leaking, anyway, so my body's own impatience should make this at least not chafing for me, and that's all I ultimately care about.  
	Without much further ceremony, I thrust forward, needing a guiding hand for only a moment or so, before I find my way.  Then I return that hand to fist back in his mane, and judging by the harsh moan he gives, he approves.
	It's hard and fast from the start, and I find he's not as difficult to move in as I might have imagined, even without oil.  Either the saliva did the trick, or we're both so eager right now, we're ignoring the discomfort.  I'm bucking into him vigorously once I've gotten a few thrusts in, my pleasure building steadily and reliably.  I can almost always plateau and hold out when I want to, but today I don't feel the need.  His muffled cries against the sand are hoarse and coming faster together, and tell me I won't need much endurance to best him in this arena, either.
	His hand grips at my arm weakly, his body squirming and moving back against mine, and he's making those baying, big cat growls the ferals make when they're in heat, or at least it sounds that way.  It's more than a little thrilling to watch him, and imagine he's every lion who's ever owned me, every Pride son who's ever come here and paid my owner to try and kill me with hired soldiers, or exotic beasts.  If he had a hyena friend who enjoyed being dominated by gladiators as much as he seems to, my life would be complete.
	His waist is pushed down into the sand, but I can tell the second he cums by the way his body tenses and shudders, and the howling roar he gives.  He tenses around me, and I ride it out, tipping my head back and closing my eyes for those few precious seconds, drinking in the sensation of feeling him give in to me, in every conceivable way.
	I can tell when my pleasure is about to crest, and I make sure to pull out right before the end, so I can splash his backside with stripes of my own cum, marking my dominance in his fur.  He'll smell me there for days.
	My legs are a little weak, my knees feel a bit bruised from digging them down into the dirt the whole while he struggled, but I get to my feet like nothing's wrong, unwilling to let him see how near-crippled I feel right now.  The pleasure is numbing, the sense of satisfaction almost equally so, and really, all I want to do is roll over and lie in the sand with him.  But I stand over him while he collects himself and recovers his breath, instead, letting him know he's well and truly beaten.
	His mane is clotted with sand, his body smeared with dirt and probably blood from the ring, and he clearly doesn't feel the need to be big and bad anymore, because he just lays there, looking back up at me.  That wild-eyed look is back, but now he looks satisfied.  Just. . . crazy. 
	"Are you often available, for duels?"  He asks, between labored breaths.
	I arch an eyebrow.  "Duels?  Or. . . this?"
	"One wouldn't be the same without the other."
	I snort.  "Talk to my owner.  He arranges my schedule."
	"I think I'll come see you again, then," he says, letting out a long, slow breath as he relaxes in the waning light, cross-strips of shadow falling over him from the bars.
	I quirk a slight smile.  "It'd be my pleasure to put you in the dirt again, Lord Samiel."