Seduced by the Gladiator (15 page)

“I have worked hard to make sure that this is so.” Flashes of Bavarius moved through my mind with the speed of a waterfall, and I bared my teeth before I could think twice. “I was weak once. Now any man who touches me without my permission will find his cock removed from his body at the touch of my sword.”

Gaius laughed as he thrust, and the sound was breathless. The woman on his lap had her head thrown back in ecstasy.

Brother of the emperor or not, I could not understand the appeal of this kind of exhibitionism.

“Perhaps you have not been touched by the right man.” I was treated to a leer from the young blond patrician, and all that I could think of was Christus.

I had managed to push him from my thoughts until that moment, but at Gaius’ comment, thoughts of him flooded my mind.

I had been touched by the right man, though I certainly could not tell this to Gaius. And I would kill before letting myself be touched by anyone else.

“I have been touched by many men. Have you not been told by your informant? I am but the whore of the ludus.” Perhaps if he thought I was dirty, diseased, he would leave me alone.

Danger flared in his eyes at the mention of his informant, and I felt a surge of triumph, although it was quickly quashed when he pushed at the back of the woman on his lap, bending her in two as he stilled his thrusts. She whimpered, her face now level with his shins, her long locks of hair brushing the floor.

“You have two choices, Lilia.” I wanted to look to my dominus for help. He was my pater familias—as he had said earlier, he was responsible for my well-being.

But there was only so much that he could do when faced with the twisted desires of the brother of the emperor.

“Remove your subligaculum and strophium.” His voice was commanding, but I did not feel at all compelled to follow it. Though I had known that it was coming, I still stared at him in horror, shame and anger washing over me, drowning me, making it hard to breathe.

“I will not.” Never again, I had once told myself. Never again would I be subject to the violent hands of a man thinking only with his cock.

I had tried to look fierce as I spoke, as if I were about to meet an opponent in the arena. Gaius merely laughed, and when the sound was done, he fixed me with a steely stare.

“Slave, you will do as I say.” Raising his hand high, he delivered a harsh open-palmed slap to the ass of the woman on his lap, and then another. She squealed and clutched at his ankles, and I bit my lip until I tasted blood.

“You will do as I say.” He repeated, delivering another enthusiastic blow. This time I gathered the courage to look to my dominus.

His wife had fallen into an opium-laced sleep on his lap, her mouth open, drool sliding out. He was watching the scene before him with a level face and, I noted with disgust, an erect cock.

I had known that I would receive nothing from him, but the hopelessness was renewed all the same.

“And if I do not?” Again, Gaius laughed, the sounds this time somewhat maniacal. My defiance seemed to thrill him.

“Oh, but you are refreshing.” Abruptly, he shoved the woman off of his lap. With a cry, she landed on the floor, on her hands and knees, and in the flickering candlelight I could see that her skin had flushed crimson from his blows.

Then I was again fixed with that steely glare, and I was a bug pinned on a wall. I could look nowhere else.

“You have two choices, my sweet.” His erection was now fully visible, glistening with the woman’s juices. He tugged his own hand up and down it, almost absentmindedly.

“You can remove your clothing and let me see you—let me see all of you.” With his free hand he gestured to his cock, and I thought that I had never seen anything so unappealing.

“Or you may take the place of my companion here. I will fuck you in the ass, and I will beat you at the same time, to add to my enjoyment. I know which I would enjoy more, but I am, how shall I put this? I am a fan of yours.”

Revulsion filled me. I had nowhere to go.

“The choice is yours.”

I
made it all the way to the training area before I vomited.

I knelt on the sand, holding the length of my hair away from my face as I heaved. I had not eaten much the last few days, but still my stomach rolled, filled as it was with repulsion.

I was okay, I reminded myself. I was fine. I had done what needed to be done to survive, and here I was.

But I knew that I would never forget the sight that had played out before me as I had reluctantly, defiantly stripped down to the skin. The man-child Gaius seemed to fall into a fever at the sight of my naked flesh. Never before had I seen such desire on a man’s face, but it was not pure, not real.

I was an object to him, something to collect. He wanted to possess me.

Even worse, in the depths of those pale eyes, I saw that he wanted to hurt me. He wanted to dominate the female gladiator.

Instead, he had told me to hold my breasts in my hands and to stand still. I had done as he had asked, holding back my trembles with only the most extreme of effort.

He had not touched me. Instead he had pulled his red-haired companion to the floor, had taken her from behind viciously. He had in turn made the woman impaled on his cock lick at the cunt of the other, all while he watched me with hunger playing over his face.

Only after he had climaxed, shooting great streams over the ass of the woman, had I been granted permission to leave. I had not stayed long enough even to dress, wanting—needing—to be removed from the cesspool of debauchery as quickly as possible.

I could only be thankful that it was night, and the men were asleep. Never before had I felt so weak, so unable to take care of myself. It was not something that I wanted anyone to see.

When the heaving had stopped, I knelt on the sand for a long moment, shivering as the cool predawn breeze brushed against my naked skin. I fisted my fingers in the sand, then watched it trickle out in a pale stream.

I had finally accepted something, it seemed. No matter how much of a pet I was, no matter how much fame and coin and glory that I managed to amass, I was a slave. I had no free will.

I had survived this night by choosing the lesser of two evils. But what did Gaius have in store for me in his arena games?

Unsteady, heavy, weighed down by the realization, I struggled to my feet, staggered the few remaining steps to the door of my chamber. It was closed, but I knew that Christus would never have tied the leather locks in place if I was not inside the room with him.

I barely had the strength to push on the wood hard enough to open the door. I wondered fleetingly how I would be feeling if I had not been granted a choice upstairs. If Gaius had sucked so much of my energy away without even touching me, how weak would I feel if he had gotten his way?

I stood in the doorway, letting my eyes adjust to the dim light within. As soon as I found Christus, I felt something indescribable well up inside of me.

I did not cry—my eyes remained dry. Still, a sound that was part anguished scream, part wail emitted from the depths of my belly, and I hugged my arms to my naked chest, letting the new leathers that I had dragged down the steps with me fall to the floor.

“What has happened?” Moving faster than it seemed possible, Christus was at my side in an instant. I stared at him wordlessly, my eyes big and staring. Once the noise of anguish had escaped me, it seemed that I now had nothing left to say.

“Fuck.” Cursing low, Christus scooped me into his arms as if I weighed no more than a child. I felt his muscles tense against my weight as he carried me to the bed, and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to absorb some of his strength, for I needed it desperately.

I expected him to place me on the bed himself, but he sat down with his arms still holding me, and pulled me in close. I froze for a moment, still unused to close embraces. Bit by bit, though, I felt my muscles relax as the heat of his body melted into my own. The scent that was uniquely his own enveloped me, branded me, hiding all traces of Gaius’ taint.

Once I relaxed against him, Christus shifted so that I had to look into his face. Though I knew that I should not, I felt shame.

“What was done to you?” The edge in his voice warned me not to lie. I stared back at him, my lips twisted as they tried to open and yet would not.

“Lilia. Were you raped?” Gently he trailed a hand down my spine, the touch comforting and uniquely his.

The words still stuck in my throat, I shook my head.

“Were you beaten?” Again, I shook my head. How was I to describe what had happened, the humiliation of it?

“Lilia. Tell me.” There was so much anger, barely suppressed, in Christus’ voice. Instead of feeling smothered by his reaction, I finally felt some of his strength seeping into me.

It had been a long time since someone had cared enough for me to want to help carry my burdens.

“It . . . it is likely not what you think.” Haltingly, I recounted the events of the sin-laden party that I had been an unwilling participant in. Though I felt Christus’ body tense beneath me, he did not do as I would have done—that is, he did not rush up to pound on the gate that separated the gladiators’ quarters from the main house. Where I would have screamed for vengeance, he was quiet, absorbing all that I said.

“Here.” Christus picked me up as he spoke. I protested when he removed me from his lap and placed me beside him on the bed. Sluggish with fatigue now, I watched through half-closed eyes as Christus lit the fat white taper that sat on the table, and as he gathered a cloth and the jug of water that were kept fresh by the house slaves.

Returning to me, he pressed his balm gently against my collarbone, urging me to lie down on my back.

“What are you doing?” I furrowed my brow as he dipped the cloth in the water, then wrung out the excess.

“Let me take care of you.” As a reflex, I very nearly said that I did not need to be taken care of. Even though I found the idea pleasant, it was still difficult to remain silent, and even more so to submit to his ministrations.

It was hard to change the habits that had been ingrained within me. I supposed, however, that I was no longer the woman who bristled with self-sufficiency.

“Close your eyes.” Christus brought the cloth to my forehead, patting away the clamminess that had gathered there. He passed the cloth down each cheek, then across my neck, before pausing to rewet the cloth.

It felt better than I ever could have imagined to be cleaned. Though I knew that it was silly, being bathed at the hand of someone whom I cared about seemed to wash away the sick taint that Gaius had forced upon me.

Christus continued to stroke the cloth over me. His touch was soothing, yet brisk and efficient. I knew that he was keeping it so because he did not wish to touch me intimately when I felt so vulnerable.

I admired him all the more for it, even as I shivered, remembering the lechery on Gaius’ face.

“Tell me something about yourself.” I needed distraction. “Something of your life, your life before you became a gladiator.”

Christus’ face darkened, the shadows in the room emphasizing the furrows in his brow. He seemed to be struggling with something to say, and I very nearly told him to forget that I had spoken.

“I was favored by the gods, once.” When he finally spoke, his voice was raspy, as if these words had been so long inside of him that they had rusted.

I found that I very much wanted to know something of Christus’ life before I had known him, and so I settled back to listen, my eyes closed.

“A very long time ago, it was common for Roman plebeians to own small pieces of land, to farm it themselves. But as time passed, many could not afford to support themselves. Most farms now are a part of large estates, ones that are owned by wealthy patricians. These nobles have slaves to work the land for them.” He paused, drew in a deep breath. “Somehow—I never quite understood it—my family had managed to hang on to their land, to live off it. I inherited it when I became a man and took a wife.”

A wife? I shifted restlessly, trying to bite back my scowl. I knew in my heart that Christus was not the type of man to be with me when he had a wife waiting outside the walls of the ludus, so I assumed that something had happened to her. Even still, I found that I was jealous of any woman who had once held a place in his heart.

“For two years, my life was perfect. We were not rich, but we made enough to live. And while more and more Romans were sold into slavery because they could not afford to live, we were free.”

“It sounds perfect.” Freedom—it was not a concept that I had thought of for a long time. I myself had not been free since my twelfth year, when my father had sold me, the eldest of my five siblings, because he could no longer afford to feed us all. I had been a kitchen slave for years, had run away and been caught by Roman soldiers, who had sold me to the slave trader in return for opium and whores, before eventually being sold to my dominus.

No, freedom was not a concept that I was overly familiar with. It felt very much as if I had never been.

Christus swallowed, the sound loud in the still room.

“It was absolutely perfect. My wife was called Aelia, and she was beautiful. I had loved her since I was a boy, and when our son was born, I named him after her. Aelius.” Christus spoke as if his mind had completely wandered into his past.

My own was centered firmly in the here and now, struggling with the painful constriction of my heart. Christus had been married, had loved his wife. He had had a
son
.

What had happened to them? How much love did he still hold in his heart?

I did not know what to say, and so I said nothing, instead worrying my lip with my teeth until the skin was raw.

“One patrician, Ovidius was his name, wanted to grow wheat as well as grapes and olives, to expand his exporting empire. He very much wanted our little patch of land, for things grew well there. I would not sell, no matter the price that he offered, for owning that land meant a steady life.”