dubious consent

“Oh, just a little something to help you relax, so I could bring you here,” she smiled impishly, slowly stalking closer until she was even with my hip, her sexy, four-inch heels clicking on the floor. She was seductively licking her full, pouty lips, and began to trail her pointed, lacquered red fingernails up and down the back of my thigh. “And another little something, to make sure you'd be in the proper mood for what I have planned. But I'm not talking about when we met tonight, at the party. You and I have met before. Don't you remember, Brian?”

“He—” I croaked, my throat dry and scratchy, a foreign, slightly bitter taste on my tongue. “Help!” My voice was so weak and thready, there was no way anyone would hear me, not through what I was now recognizing as sound-proof padding on the walls. What had happened to me? I couldn't remember. I didn't know where I was, had no idea why I was here.

Should he do it? Just forfeit the match? To admit before the crowd that their prince was too weak to fight back? After everything that had happened to him, he had no pride left, nothing to lose. Maybe it was better to accept his failure and resign himself to his shame. Lying on the ground, he raised his arm, about to surrender, but stopped, thinking back to a conversation he had with Tarnas. It was during the year of training, the two of them sitting around the campfire on an autumn night. Seraph was staring deep into the flames, into the light and warmth, but all he felt inside was cold darkness.