Chapter XXI #2
He grinned as she straightened, dark eyes glinting with the shine of just enough wine to make him overbold but not unsteady. “My turn.”
Adel faltered, her gaze instantly darting to the edges of the room where her guards and magistri should be standing, ready to take her home.
They were gone.
Her pulse kicked into a new rhythm that felt akin to fear. She shook her head. “I do not think—”
“Come now, you’re not afraid to face a man, are you?
” His smile flashed toward the crowd gathered around the ring.
“Not the mighty .” He shrugged off his outer robe, leaving him in a fine linen tunic and tooled leather belt.
He was not unfit. But Jovan had said nothing about fighting her host. What were the consequences of injuring a free man, and a rich one at that?
Behind him, the domina sat at the head table, eyes locked on Adel and her husband in the ring, hands clenched tightly in her lap.
The flickering lamplight cast her face in odd shadows—or perhaps it was the cosmetics, expertly applied, but not quite able to hide the discoloration around her eye and her wrists, where bangles tried to disguise other bruises.
Her gaze was not one of jealousy but . . . fear. For her husband, or . . . ?
Adel lifted her chin, refusing to be baited by his words. “I mean no disrespect, dominus. But I face trained fighters.”
“I train in the gymnasium every day.” His smile was calculating as he clapped twice.
A slave immediately brought him a gladius.
New and polished to a shine that reflected the room in its blade.
His smile faded to the stony mask of a man who was never disobeyed.
“Face me.” She turned to keep him in view as he circled her like a predator eyeing his prey, but did not raise her sword to meet his.
“I paid Jovan for an evening’s entertainment.” He let his eyes travel over her. “And I will be entertained.”
Her mouth went dry.
“I have entertained you in the manner that I was hired for. My work is—”
The blade flashed as he lunged. Adel had no choice but to pivot and fling up her sword to meet his, parrying the blow. He swung again, and once more she deflected. Back and forth. He hadn’t lied. That he trained was obvious. But how could this possibly end?
They circled the ring, advancing, retreating, thrusting, parrying.
The domina leaned forward at the edge of her seat, lips tight, face pale. Had it not been for the bruising, Adel might have considered it fear for her husband’s safety, but no. She feared his humiliation.
There had been women like that in her village. Flinching, cringing, terrified creatures. Once, after her husband had lost a wrestling match, one of them had shown up at the river bruised and bleeding. The man’s ego could never stand to lose, and he chose to find his strength in his wife’s weakness.
Fire licked through her veins at the horror some women endured.
Her foot slipped and she stumbled, the dominus’s face breaking into a grin.
She scowled, stringing together a lovely epithet for him in her mind.
He deserved to be humiliated in front of his guests. It would serve him right, the arrogant—
Adel struck too hard and the gladius flung from his grip, clattering to the floor and skittering beneath a couch, narrowly missing the toes of several guests.
She met his sinking grin with a sharp smile of her own—and caught sight of the domina over his shoulder, her face nearly as pale as her white gown, the bruising showing through.
The one to suffer from this humiliation would not be the man facing her, but the woman behind him.
Regret rushed over her in a second, and in the next her feet disappeared from beneath her, marble tiles slamming into her backside, her elbows.
A knee landed in her gut. An elbow to her face.
The world went quiet, the night sky blanketing her vision in a whirl of falling stars.
Weight settled on her stomach, pressing the air from her lungs.
Adel gasped and choked, the taste of blood filling her mouth as voices and shouts roared to full volume in her ears.
She twisted, barely dodging the fist aimed for her eye.
It smashed into the tile by her ear instead and a stream of curses and vile names followed it.
She thrashed and arced, and in the next instant, his weight lifted from her.
Rolling, she pushed to her hands and knees, gasping for air as her guards held back the dominus.
“I defeated the ,” he panted, shrugging his shoulders free of their grip. He raised a fist in the air as the room erupted into drunken cheers and shouts of congratulations.
Adel pressed to her feet and smeared a hand across her mouth, coming away red. She spat blood and slowly raised her gaze to the domina, who had risen to her feet and stood with clasped hands and glimmering eyes.
“Come.” One of the guards took her arm and pulled her out of the triclinium and into a lamplit hall. “What possessed you to fight the dominus?”
Adel didn’t give an answer, and he wasn’t expecting one either. She could tell by the roughness of his grip as he tugged her out the front door and into the coolness of the gardens. He was afraid. For himself? For her? Possibly both.