A hole appeared in the sand directly before me—a trapdoor of some sort. I could not stop my momentum, and my feet moved from hot sand to air.
The last thing I saw was Christus’ face, his expression wide with horror as a shining blade sliced down toward his neck.
From the sounds made by the crowd, I could tell they thought that I had been killed. I flailed my arms and legs wildly as I fell, my scream caught in my throat. It was not a long fall, but it felt like forever until my body slammed into wooden boards that had no give, no softness to cushion the blow.
Dust rained down around me, and I flinched, covering my face with my hands as a beast, one of the ones that must have been used in the arena earlier that day, roared loudly. I prepared for the creature to spring, heard the rattle of metal bars and the wounded howl as the animal slammed against the unyielding metal.
The noise was deafening, at least at first. Slowly, the ringing in my ears faded, but I still saw spots dancing before my eyes when I opened them, so I squeezed them shut again.
Gradually I took stock of my body. Everything hurt—I would be a rainbow of bruises come morning, if I lived that long.
That begged the question—where was I? I could still hear Christus’ cry, echoing in my ears. He had seen me disappear through the trapdoor. What was he thinking now? Did he think me dead?
The sounds of footsteps made their way into my consciousness. My heart beating a rapid tattoo in my chest, I scrabbled to my knees, willed myself to sit up straight.
Squinting through the dim light, I could see the figure of a man coming toward me, though I had fallen hard enough that if I tilted my head too far to one side, the one man appeared as two.
When the man walked into a thin beam of light that filtered through a crack from somewhere above, my breath caught in my throat. The trapdoor had closed above me. I knew then that though I was still alive, my torment was far from over.
“Hello, Lilia.”
Flinching at the words, I curled into a ball. I had not fought so hard in the games to succumb to Gaius now.
From above my constricted frame, however, I heard the sound of his laughter, filtering through the muted roar of the crowd from above. Still I tried to protect myself, expecting his fingers, his hands, his mouth to begin to paw at me.
The touch did not come. Slowly, I unfurled, lifting my head to look up into the face of the man who had so much power over me. His lips were curled into a cruel smile, and my stomach rolled.
“Relax, Lilia. I will not touch you now.” The words sounded too good to be true. “You stink of blood and dirt and animals. You are not fit for my hands. But tomorrow—tomorrow is another story.”
Holding out a hand to me, he seemed to expect me to take it, to let him help me rise. I scrambled to my feet alone, glowering at the soft palm of a man who had never had to work for a thing in his life.
He did not like this, this obvious repulsion that I felt toward him. Anger set over his features, so cold that I felt the chill seep down deep into my bones.
“Tomorrow, after you have been properly bathed, groomed, and made to look like a female again—that is when we shall be together.”
My heart sank, all the way down to my toes. I did not know if there would be a way out of this.
“Tomorrow evening, we will dine together. I will treat you to an experience the likes of which you have never had in your lifetime.”
He inhaled deeply, as if savoring the scent of a rich wine, or a perfumed oil, his eyes closed. When he opened them again, they fixed on me unerringly, and I shuddered.
“Tomorrow night, you will be mine.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
* * *
I screamed, the sound echoing off the walls of my room.
The light of the sun as it began to set in the twilight sky glinted off of the intricate mosaic on the wall, hauntingly beautiful and in harsh contrast to the sounds that I made. Still I continued to scream.
The mosaic was beautiful, yes, the kind of amazing art that could be afforded only by the wealthiest citizens of Rome. The rest of the room was the same, boasting of opulence and wealth.
It did not change the fact that, no matter how gilded the cage, it was my prison.
Though I shook instead, I swallowed back the tears that threatened, once again, to come. They were not tears of sadness, but ones of rage. Christus and I had been so close to the end of the games, so close to trying to prove to the citizens of Rome—to the wealthy patricians—that in the end they could not control us.
Now, I had no idea what had happened to my lover. Had he won the arena game? I wanted so badly to believe that he had, felt certain that he had had the strength to defeat the other man.
The truth was that I simply did not know.
If he had survived, then where was he? Had he been returned to the ludus? Did he think me dead?