“Stop.”
Having been trained to focus on the immediate danger, and with adrenaline pumping fast and furious, I did not turn toward the sound of the deep, warm voice when it spoke, though the sexy rasp certainly registered in my consciousness. I could have kept my sword in my own hands easily on my own, and found myself irritated when a hand far larger than my own reached out and knocked Bavarius away from me, sending him sprawling to the ground. Puffs of pale dust flew, coating the man’s already filthy flesh.
I looked up to find a dark, dangerous-looking gladiator who I did not know holding my sword back out to me, hilt first.
Swallowing the jolt of lust that ran through me as his dark stare connected with my own, I narrowed my eyes and took the sword as I watched the man with mild curiosity and much hostility.
I had not come this far in my life to fall at the feet of a man, simply because he was as attractive as a god. Especially not a man who was stupid enough to undo with a few short words the years of sacrifice, of living on edge, that it had taken me to build up my ferocious reputation.
“Gratitude.” I ground the word out from between clenched teeth. I wanted to shake the man for his actions, and my tone was drenched in anger. I could have handled the situation with Bavarius myself—gods knew I had done so before—and to have a man defend me made me look weak.
I was Lilia the fierce. I was famous throughout Rome not just for being a woman in a man’s world, but for my coldness, my strength, both in and out of the arena.
I could not look weak. As a woman living the life that I did, to appear weak was to invite abuse in all forms—abuse that I had already clawed my way out of once. I had no desire to return to it.
The dark gladiator did not reply with words, but his face showed puzzlement over my attitude. Well, let him be puzzled. I was not some rich patrician woman who could afford to lean on a big, tough warrior. I had to defend myself.
My muscles tensed as I turned back to Bavarius and his cronies. I swallowed thickly, trying to bury the anxiety that rose from deep within, and the fury that accompanied it—fury that, no matter what I did, the fear still festered deep within my soul. No matter how strong I grew, I would never forget those first months in the ludus.
I had not been strong then, and I would never forget what had happened to me because of it. Now, with my ferocity undermined in a moment by this strange gladiator, I prepared myself for the violent hands that would try to cup my breasts, to pinch my nipples and invade the heat between my thighs. I fought through the panic that wanted to descend, the memories of the time before I was as powerful as I now was.
“Leave.” The stranger who had blocked Bavarius from my sword spoke again, moving to block my body with his own large frame. “You have no honor, to threaten a woman.”
His voice dripped with disdain.
Infuriated, I shoved at the hard back of the stranger. Though his muscles tensed at my touch, he did not move, not even to look at me. I did sense the slightest bit of hesitation coming through in his demeanor, a hint of uncertainty.
The man had no idea that he was not helping me, not at all.
Bavarius bared his teeth, half of them yellow with rot, then moved to lunge at the stranger. He laughed coarsely when the man in front of me moved to block what turned out to be thin air—a cheap trick from Bavarius, one not befitting his status as a gladiator. However, the man did not look foolish at the trick, as Bavarius would have.
Large and golden skinned, with hair as dark as a starless night, he looked like a god granting the lowest of plebeians—the lower class—the merest hint of notice.
Bavarius saw this, too, and spat into the ground at the man’s feet peevishly. The insult was acknowledged with nothing more than a nod from my would-be savior.
“You’ll find out soon enough that this whore is no lady.”
My hands curled into fists, the half-moons of my nails digging into my palms. I could have killed him for what he had once done to me, and he still chose to mock me. It was infuriating, yet I refused to succumb to the anger that Bavarius’ words dredged up in my soul.
“Leave.” Infuriated as I was, the commanding thread in the man’s voice caused something deep inside of me to heat.
Bavarius spat again, then gestured for his group to follow him down the long, snakelike corridor under the arena. “You will regret this once you are in our arena, Christus of the broken ludus. I will make your life hell.”
Then the brute of a man was gone, along with those he constantly surrounded himself with, off in search of someone else to bully, no doubt. I was alone with the big man who, when I spun him to again shove at his chest, I found had eyes as deep and stormy a blue as the sea.