you that I am quite the opposite of naive.’
‘And what is that exactly?’
She paused, searching the air, and he observed the fine cut of her jaw. ‘Un-naive.’
‘Your cleverness slays me.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘You are clearly trying to distract from admitting to your deception.’
Her accusations were growing tedious. Fortunately, he knew how to shut her up. ‘And you are trying to distract from admitting that you wish to lie with me.’
The woman gasped. And there it was, that look of fascinated derision—though on her face it more closely resembled straightforward disgust. ‘That is absurd,’ she snapped, then added, ‘The very thought is an abhorrence.’
An abhorrence? Well, at least she was original. ‘I know you want me.’
‘I want nothing to do with you. You are a mon—’
She bit her lip.
‘A what?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I know what you are thinking.’ You think me a monster.
‘You cannot read my thoughts,’ she said.
‘I know you are Roman and that is all I need to know.’
‘You know nothing about me.’
‘Nothing about you?’ His mind churned. ‘Let me see. You illegally shoved your way into a house of men. Only an innocent would be so stupid. You either have no brothers to act on your behalf, or if you do have a brother, he is useless.’
A small cringe. A glance at the ground.
‘Ah, so you do have a useless brother,’ he continued gleefully, ‘and his very mention causes you pain. Probably returned from one of Domitian’s foolish campaigns? A drunkard, perhaps?’
Her pink lips pressed into a thin red line.
‘Your father, too, is useless, for he is the kind of man who must be followed by his own daughter to the pits. He has plunged your family into ruin, has he not? And you pity yourself mightily for it. Pah! You are fortunate he has not sold you into servitude.’
Her face turned an unnatural shade of grey.
Had her father sold her into servitude?
‘I curse you,’ she spat suddenly. ‘I curse you and this ludus and everyone in it, but you most of all.’
He spouted a laugh—a hearty, deep-throated laugh that nearly split his chest wound. He swung his legs to the side of his bed and stood, watching her take in the sight of him. He had not washed or changed out of his fighting kilt and the bloody paint on his chest had caked and crusted into what he imagined was some nightmarish rainbow.
She stepped backwards as he approached the bars. ‘I have never had the pleasure of being cursed by a Roman woman,’ he continued. He swept her body with his eyes. ‘I think I rather enjoy being cursed.’
‘Then I curse you a thousand times, Beast of Britannia. Whatever you long for, may it be as sand through your fingers. Whatever your dream, may it turn to dust.’
He had to grip his stomach so as not to howl. ‘Such poetry! But before you go on, I am afraid I must tell you that you cannot curse me, for I am already doomed.’
‘Doomed?’ She glanced around his cell, then scolded him with her gaze. ‘You are one of the finest gladiators in Rome. You are worth as much as twenty common slaves. Your bed is perched two cubits off the ground, by the gods! I will not hear about your supposed doom.’
‘You do not believe me?’
‘Why will you not admit to your wrongdoing? You wronged every single man in that crowd tonight. You wronged Rome.’
No, he had to stop her there.
‘I wronged Rome? Rome that invaded my land and burned my fields?’ He let out a savage laugh. ‘Rome that raped my tribe’s women and sent its men off to the Quarry of Luna?’ He continued to laugh, though his wound had begun to throb. ‘Do you know what it is like in the Quarry of Luna? If you cut less than ten cubits a day you are whipped. Less than five and they remove a toe.’ He continued to laugh, feeling his wound begin to split. He could not seem to stop.
He lifted his foot to show her his missing digits, laughing harder. ‘I dug for worms each morning to fill my stomach. My flesh baked in the sun each day and then froze in the wind each night. And I wronged Rome? Ha!’ His laughter was crazed, like the laughter of a hyena, but he could not make it cease. ‘Ha! Ha! Ha!’ He doubled over, feeling the warmth of leaking blood down his side.
And then suddenly he was drowning.
He choked and coughed as the cold water poured over his head and dribbled down his limbs. Already there was a pool of it expanding at his feet. The woman had apparently discovered the dipping pot and he watched in horror as she slung it over the lip of the urn for another filling.
‘What…? Why…?’ he sputtered.
‘Your wound. It has not been properly cleaned.’
He peered down at the long diagonal gash across his chest and felt another assault of cold water. ‘Cease!’ he hissed and watched in horror as she returned to the urn for yet another potful.
She approached the bars. Mercifully, she did not give him a third dousing. Instead, she set down the pot and studied the wound. She reached out and touched the skin of his stomach.
A shiver rippled through him, followed by an uncomfortable heat. He grabbed her wrist. ‘What in the name of Erebus do you think you are doing?’
‘Be still,’ she commanded. ‘I am merely assessing the depth of the wound.’ Ignoring his grip, she gently traced the skin around the gash with her other hand. Her audacity was stunning, but her fingers were like soft wax. Their touch sent an unexpected pang of sadness through him.
Fifteen years. That’s how long it had been. Fifteen years since the last time a woman had touched him without the expectation of bedding him. That woman had been his yellow-haired wife.
‘There is sand within the wound that will bring infection,’ she explained. ‘Take this in your mouth.’ She pushed the thick, tasselled end of her tunic belt into his grip. ‘Now bite down. This may hurt a bit.’
There was no time for protest. There was only exquisite, burning pain as he bit down and felt her fingernail razor into his soft flesh. ‘Ugh,’ he groaned.
‘Just a little bit of sand…’ she crooned.
He bit down harder, envisioning certain forms of torture.
‘I fear there is some dirt lodged very deep,’ she said, absently picking a tiny metal hairpin from her braid. She held the pin to her lips and bent it taut with her teeth.
It might have been her proximity. Or it might have been the unusual shapeliness of her lips. Or it might have been the fact that he had just survived an excruciating amount of pain and was savouring its absence. But watching her bend that hair clip was the most deliciously sensual thing he had ever seen a woman do.
Then she plunged the terrible instrument deep into his wound. ‘Ah!’ he shouted.
Across the hall, Felix was laughing. ‘What? Is the Empire’s greatest gladiator crying?’
‘Piss off, Goat-Man!’ shouted Cal.
‘Not much longer now,’ she assured him, probing deeper.
He twisted his body in agony. ‘I did not ask for this.’
‘No,