2. Flavia
Flavia
T he villa’s triclinium flickered with torchlight and shadows, the flames casting mocking figures on the frescoed walls.
Tiberius’ cohort was sprawled across the couches like feeding wolves, wine already darkening their lips and loosening their tongues.
I could smell the familiar scent of burning metal from the braziers where Tiberius kept his. ..tools.
They had arranged themselves on the low couches like vultures settling to feast. Tiberius reclined in the place of honor, his toga pristine despite the late hour, dark eyes tracking my movement with the focused attention of a snake watching a mouse.
Marcus sprawled to his left, thick fingers already working at his belt, while young Gaius perched on the edge of his couch like an eager hound scenting prey.
Three others I didn’t recognize filled the remaining spaces—new faces drawn by Tiberius’ promise of exotic entertainment. Fresh appetites to feed. Fresh eyes to witness my degradation.
“Our little Briton looks pale tonight,” Marcus observed, his words slurring slightly. “Perhaps she needs warming.”
“Then let us not keep her waiting.” Tiberius snapped his fingers. “Strip her.”
Hands tore at my stola before I could move, rough fingers catching on fresh scabs and old scars alike.
The fabric gave way violently, and then I stood naked before them, my pale skin mapped with the geography of their previous attentions.
I could feel their eyes crawling over every exposed inch of skin like hungry beasts.
Someone whistled low. “You’ve been thorough, Tiberius.”
“One must be, with the wild ones.” Tiberius rose from his couch with fluid grace, circling me slowly. “They require... careful handling. Don’t you, my dear Flavia?”
I said nothing. Long experience had taught me that words only gave them more ammunition, more excuses for creative punishments. But my silence seemed to amuse him more than any protest would have.
“How Caelus ever thought I would sully my bloodline with a barbarian like you is beyond me. That he did shows he was never worthy of his title. A disgrace to Rome. Still, the bride-price was too good to pass up.”
If he thought insulting my father would rile me, he was mistaken. He should have known that by now, but a frown tugged at his lips.
“There’s something different about you tonight,” he mused, reaching out to run a finger along my jaw. “Something…”
The wind outside suddenly gusted hard enough to rattle the shutters, and all the oil lamps flickered.
In that moment of dancing shadows, I could have sworn I smelled it again—that wild, ancient scent from the lake.
Earth and moss and something that made my pulse quicken with recognition I couldn’t name.
Tiberius’ hand tightened on my chin. “No matter. We have games to play.”
“It’s Samhain,” whispered Gaius, and the sound made his cuts on my arms tingle. “The Briton barbarians believe the dead walk tonight.”
“Foolish beasts. Bring her here,” Tiberius commanded, and hands—too many hands—reached for me. Marcus’ fingers found the tender spot beneath my ribs, pressing until I gasped. Gaius traced one of his careful cuts with a fingertip, smiling at my flinch.
I let my mind drift then, as I had learned to do.
Let it float away from the heated tiles and grasping hands, away from the laughter that followed each small sound of pain I couldn’t suppress.
Instead, I thought of the lake in moonlight, of the dark forest beyond where everything was cold and dark and silent.
Songs rose to cut through the pain, but one was louder than the rest tonight:
When moonlight calls across the mere,
beware the Devourer drawing near.
Within the wildwood he waits alone,
to swallow you whole, blood and bone.
Strike your bargain with curse and plea,
he’ll take your price, but none go free.
So guard your sorrow, maiden fair,
lest eight-legged shadows taste despair.
“The Devourer feeds on despair,” my mother’s voice whispered in memory. “When the veil thins, he grows stronger.”
But what was the Devourer compared to this? What was one ancient hunger compared to the daily feast these monsters made of my suffering?
The men spoke around me and through me as if I were not there, discussing their plans with the casual cruelty of men who had forgotten what it meant to see suffering and feel shame.
“—stretch it out this time?—”
“—the heated rod worked well last?—”
“—see how long before she breaks?—”
The wind rose again, and this time I heard something else in it—a calling—deep and thrumming. A new song that sounded like destruction—and satisfaction.
“She’s not listening,” one of them complained. “Look at her eyes. She’s gone somewhere else.”
A hand struck my cheek, sharp enough to bring tears, and I was dragged back to the heated floor and the circle of leering faces.
“Better,” Tiberius said, his fingers tangling in my moon-cursed hair. “We want you present for this, wife. We want you to remember every moment.”
They always did. They fed on the memory as much as the moment, taking pleasure in the way I would flinch days later at a sudden sound, at how my hands would shake when I heard their footsteps in the corridors.
But something was different this time. As Marcus pressed my face into the mosaic tiles, as Gaius’ knife traced patterns in my flesh, as hands and mouths and worse violated every boundary—something inside me began to shift.
The pain was there, sharp and immediate as always.
But beneath it, something else stirred. A hunger that wasn’t mine.
A rage that tasted of ancient forests and forgotten gods.
When Gaius cut too deep and blood ran hot down my leg, I found myself thinking not of escape but of teeth.
Of how fragile his throat looked. Of how easily it would tear.
The thought should have horrified me. Instead, it sang through my veins like ice.
“She’s not crying,” one of the strangers observed, sounding vaguely disappointed. “Usually they cry by now.”
Tiberius studied me with those cold eyes. I lay crumpled on the blood-smeared tiles, every inch of me a symphony of pain, but he was right—no tears came. Only that strange hunger, growing stronger with each heartbeat.
“Perhaps we’ve finally broken her completely,” Marcus suggested, giving me a final kick that sent white-hot agony through my ribs.
“No,” Tiberius said slowly. “No, I don’t think so.”
He crouched beside me, gripping my hair to force my head up. This close, I could see the fine lines around his eyes, could smell the wine on his breath mixed with something else—was that fear? Just a trace, but unmistakable.
“What are you thinking, wife?” he whispered. “What goes on behind those witch-eyes?”
I smiled then. I couldn’t help it. Because at that moment, with blood in my mouth and pain singing through every nerve, I knew without a doubt what I would do.
I was tired of being prey. Tired of flinching at footsteps, of anticipating pain, of praying to gods who either didn’t exist or simply didn’t care.
Roman gods, pagan gods—what difference did it make?
None had answered my prayers for mercy or death or even simple sleep free from nightmares.
But perhaps there was another kind of prayer. Perhaps what I needed wasn’t a god at all, but a demon.
I heard it clearly—the calling from the forest. Come to me , it whispered. Come and learn what it means to be the one who devours.
I closed my eyes and let the call wash through me like dark water, drowning the sound of laughter and the bite of pain.
Devour them, I thought as the shadows deepened. Devour me.
For the first time in months, maybe years, I fought back. I swiped my nails down Tiberius’ face, and watched as small bubbles of red appeared in their path. He staggered away, his face turning ugly.
“Barbarian bitch. She’s all yours now, men.” Hands gripped harder, wrenching apart my legs as the night’s true entertainment began. But even as I let my mind flee the heated chamber and its human monsters, I held tight to that silver thread of hunger.
I wasn’t strong enough to fight them all, to even really hurt them. But there was someone who could, who would devour them all.
And in the wind’s answering howl, I heard something that might have been laughter—but not human laughter. Something unhinged and slow that spoke of hungers older than Rome, and vengeance sharper than any blade these mortal monsters could imagine.
Darkness enveloped me, cold and comforting, as I swore to myself that no matter the cost, I would have my revenge. Even if that cost was my life.