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tip of his shaft glistened with his arousal. “I have been with many women, some because I wanted to lose myself inside of them, and some because I was given no choice. This is because I find you attractive as a woman, not just tits and a cunt.”
    His stare hard, his breath even more so, Christus adjusted his straining erection so that it was again covered by his leathers. Propping himself up on his elbows, he gestured with a nod for me to lie on my own bed.
    “And even though I want you, I will not touch you. You have my word on this. I know what it is like to be taken against your own desires.” With those words he rolled over, facing the wall. Those burning eyes and the evidence of his desire were out of my line of sight, yet I could feel them, a tangible presence in the room.
    When long moments passed and he did not move, I relaxed enough to do as he had said, to take my own bed. I lay facing him, the better to see any sudden movements, though my gut told me that I could truly believe him.
    My head argued with the feeling, and I lay awake for a long while despite my fatigue. In the end I acknowledged that my gut had saved my life a time or two in the arena.
    Something told me that I could trust this man—indeed, that he might be just as damaged as I was.
    Too tired to ponder that further, I focused on the steady breath of the man in the room. I did not yet know if that evenness suggested sleep or not, but regardless, I found I was lulled by it. It was a long time before I slept, but when I did, it was the deepest rest I’d had in years.

 

C HAPTER T HREE
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    I was not interested in Christus. No, indeed I was not.
    I stood, my heart pounding a staccato rhythm somewhere in the vicinity of my throat, as I watched the newest addition to our ludus work through his drills, his feet raising whorls of dust that danced in the hot air as he moved.
    The rush of blood that thundered in my ears quieted only somewhat as, with approval from our doctore, the man who now shared my quarters walked past me to the massive jug of water that sat on the hot sand. Holding tightly to my pride, I refused to turn, refused to keep him where I could see him. Nonetheless, I was aware of him on a primal level, of the sound of the cool, clear water as it slid down his throat, of the whisper of his leather sandals as he came to stand beside me at the edge of the training grounds.
    “You should not be here. It is not safe.” His voice was not one to be expected from someone who looked as relentless as this warrior did, reminiscent as it was of the burn of spice as it traveled to the belly.
    This was a refrain that I had heard countless times over my years in the ludus, and I was not happy to hear it again, even if some small part of me was wondering if maybe, just maybe, the man was right.
    “I am as strong a warrior as any man here.” Always before, I had felt pride in what I was, in what I did. I didn’t think that it was a negative thing for me to embrace the life I had been given.
    Anger boiled deep inside of me, anger that this man had made me question myself. More than that, something about the way that he looked at me, out of those incredibly blue eyes, refused to let me forget that, gladiator or not, I was also a woman, no matter how much I might try to forget.
    As I stood in the blood-and-sweat-soaked training area of the ludus, I had never in my life been more aware that of this fact. Not only was I a woman, but I was a very young, comparatively small one, albeit one who had earned her vicious reputation bit by bloody bit.
    I didn’t fear any of the other men who worked in the yard, though I was ever wary of them, and rightly so. But I feared Christus, a bit, for what he was making me recognize in myself.
    “No one doubts your ferocity, my lady. Yet with your presence here, among these beasts, you tempt the gods.” Though he did not touch me, his words felt like a brand, searing into my skin. Unable to contain myself any