Chapter III
III
FELIX’S GAZE LIFTED, meeting a pair of—very much alert—blue eyes and bared teeth. The ’s jaw was square and strong, skin tanned by the Roman sun and flecked with brown spots on her cheek and near her upper lip. She’d be beautiful if she wasn’t threatening to kill him.
“Well”—he released a breath—“as you’re bleeding out, and I’m the medicus, if you kill me, it’ll be the last thing you do.”
Her eyes left his, sliding down his nose to his mouth, chin, neck, and finally resting on the medallion pinned to the shoulder of his tunic.
Her jaw shifted to one side in thought. “That would be upsetting. I have changed my mind.” She withdrew the blade—his scalpel—and lay back, closing her eyes. “I will let you live. For my sake.”
“Generous of you. How did you get my scalpel?”
“I have my ways.”
“You stole it.”
“You let me.”
“I did not.”
She opened her eyes, fixing him in a steady glare. “Then you are not very observant, and Jovan should hear of this.”
The fear that shot through him was quickly quelled by the realization that for her to report his negligence to the ludus manager, she would have to admit to stealing a weapon—a death sentence for any gladiator. Slave uprisings were no laughing matter.
“Are you trying to manipulate me?”
Her lips curved. “I am trying to distract myself. It is not my fault if you cannot laugh at a joke.”
“Stealing is not a joke.”
“Maybe for a man strung tighter than a war drum.” She lifted a shoulder. “Take it back. I dare you.” Her gaze held an open challenge, and a hint of mischief.
He imagined Sergius having to stitch his wounds after trying to wrestle a scalpel from the and chose to ignore the challenge. “I prefer not to be disfigured.”
“Yes.” Her eyes traveled over his face. “That would be a shame, would it not?” She raised a brow as if she might consider it, even so.
Felix moved the lamp closer and adjusted the brass shield to cast the light on her arm. “I’m going to clean your wound. I would appreciate it if you could kindly refrain from disfiguring or killing me.” He picked at the bandage’s knot, eliciting a sharp inhale from the woman.
“I have never killed anyone.” Her words came so softly he might have imagined them, and yet, the surprise trickling through him was real.
“Well then, that makes one of us.”
Her gaze snapped to his.
He held out a palm. “Scalpel.”
She smiled, the expression transforming her from a trained fighter into something innocently soft and sweet. “Which one?”
Minx.
He inhaled to respond just as the door burst open. Ignacio, the gladiatrix trainer, barreled inside.
“How is she? Will she live? Jovan’s going to kill me.”
Felix whirled on him, ready to reprimand his intrusion.
“I am fine, Ignacio,” the slurred, settling back against the cushions. “But if Jovan wants to kill someone, might I suggest the imbecile who interfered with my fight?”
Ignacio went to her side and frowned. “That might be easier to accomplish if that man wasn’t so rich.”
“What a shame.” She closed her eyes.
Felix peeled back the bandage and bared the cut.
He dabbed at the blood, probing the edge of the wound with his thumb.
She needed to eat more. The school carefully curated their fighters’ diets to put a thick layer of protective fat over the muscle, keeping most wounds superficial.
Hers was deep, slicing through skin, fat, and into the muscle. She’d be out of the ring for a while.
“The gladii should not be kept so sharp for staged fights,” he muttered.
“You didn’t answer the question,” Ignacio pressed, leaning over the woman to peer at the injury. “How bad is it? Is that bone?”
“No.” Felix poured amber liquid onto a cloth and dabbed at the cut.
Her muscles tensed, hand curling into a fist.
Felix took the warning and stepped away, lest he end up with a bruised jaw like Sergius. Wouldn’t that be something to explain to his mater this evening?
Ignacio raked his hands through his black hair, stiff and standing on end. “When will she be able to fight again? The client is requesting a rematch. Pro bono. His wife is upset. Apparently, she was promised no blood on her floors.”
Felix strung a needle with thread. “You’ll have to find another gladiatrix. Your isn’t fighting or training for a while.”
“No.” The struggled to sit up and both Felix and Ignacio pressed her shoulders back down. She resisted. “We have matches against the Dacian School next week. I have to be there.”
Felix shook his head. “You’ll be lucky to lift your shield by next week. Now stay still.”
She begrudgingly obeyed, slouching against the cushion as Felix adjusted the lamp and pinched the sides of the cut together.
“Jovan will not be pleased to hear that,” Ignacio muttered.
Felix pressed the needle through the skin, drawing the linen thread into neat lines. The ’s muscles quivered beneath his hand.
“Does that hurt?”
“I thought you were an idiot before, and this confirms it.” She ground the words between her teeth.
“You could simply say yes.”
“Where is the amusement in that?”
“Ah, yes, I forgot how you love to tease.” He stopped and set the needle down beside her.
“Don’t move.” He turned back to his worktable, grabbing a jar of numbing salve instead of mixing another draught of the painkiller.
What Sergius had given her earlier should have been enough.
Or perhaps the elder medicus was mistaken.
Without knowing for certain, he would take the route of caution.
“Here.” He dipped a rag into the liquid and smeared it across her arm. “It may burn at first, but it will numb the pain eventually.”
She flinched at his touch, her lips tightening as she shut her eyes once more.
Felix set the rag aside and waited for the salve to take effect before continuing his stitching.
Ignacio circled the table to peer at the wound. Felix elbowed him away. “Go plan your training regime for the morning—and tell the cook she needs to eat more.”
The trainer ran his hands over his face and moved toward the door. “First I have to figure out how to tell Jovan his is down.”
“Best of luck to you.”
The door clattered shut behind Ignacio. Felix let out a long breath and touched her arm. “Can you feel this?”
“Could you feel a dagger if I rammed it between your ribs?”
“Again, a simple yes would suffice.”
The ankle shackles clinked as she shifted on the table and looked away, gooseflesh prickling her skin.
“I’ll offer you a blanket if you’ll return my scalpels.”
She shrugged. “Already done.” Her chin jerked toward the tool stand. “You did not think I would let Ignacio catch me armed when I was not supposed to be.”
He checked the stand—scalpels in place as promised—and yanked it out of her reach.
“So mistrustful.”
He felt her eyes on him as he crossed to a row of cupboards and drew out a wool blanket, shaking it open as he turned back to her.
She watched him approach, tension tightening the muscles in her body, like a cat readying to spring—or scratch his eyes out—if he did anything other than flick the blanket over her body.
Felix snapped it in the air above her and let it fall into place, turning away as she tugged it up to her chin.
Her dark lashes had begun to droop lower over her eyes, Sergius’s draught finally beginning to take effect .
. . or perhaps she was only faking again.
He dragged a stool closer to the table and angled the lamp for better light.
“Just get it over with.” She sighed. “I do not care about the pain. I want to go back to my room.”
He hesitated a moment longer, then pinched the sides of the cut together with his left hand. “Do you enjoy fighting?” Picking up the needle, he bent over her arm.
She turned her head, watching as the thread slipped through her skin.
“Do I enjoy it?” she repeated in a soft voice, her breath tickling his forehead.
“Being sought after? Hearing crowds scream my name, and knowing they talk about me around their fires and tables? Having guards for protection? Men to cook my meals, wash my clothes, stitch my wounds?”
He looked up, meeting her steely gaze, flickering with anger and . . . something else he could not name.
“I love it.”
Following the guard to her room, Adel chafed at his slow pace, wishing it was Brutus on duty instead.
He always left her door unlocked until his final nightly round, allowing her a scrap of freedom the other guards did not.
Voices and laughter echoed down the hall from the cells where the male gladiators were kept two to a room.
She caught enough to know they were recounting the matches of the day and comparing them to fights that had taken place in the last year and decade.
How they could remember each fighter’s statistics with such clarity never ceased to amaze her.
Did they have no memories and regrets to think on instead?
At the end of the hall, the gladiatrix cells emanated with less laughter and a near-constant hum of voices.
Dreda and Tilla threw the Visigoth language back and forth like flaming arrows, barbs meeting their marks with screeching accuracy.
In the cell next door, Brunhilda and Clothilda—the Hildas—squawked and cackled like a pair of old hens.
The cell closest to Adel’s sat dark. Little Berit and the newest acquisition, as quiet during the night as they were during the day.
Not Brutus unlocked her door and pulled it open with a silent gesture for her to enter.
Her tiny, second-story room overlooked the training courtyard as all the cells did.
Their singular view. Their sole focus. She crossed to the window and looked at it again.
After spending her life crammed into a bed of furs with two sisters at night, and until recently, sharing a cell with Berit, a room of her own was a lonely honor. But she would not dwell on that.
The door shut with a clang at her back.