THEA

HE did not come to meet my mistress in the Gardens of Lucullus. She paced and shrieked for a while, her enticing sleeping robe billowing in the cool breeze that was perfect for trysting, but I heard nothing. Lepida raged all the way home, stiffing the hired litter-carriers of their tip and stamping back to her solitary bed, and none of it registered. My Arius, not yours. Mine for more than just one short hour in a cold doorway.

The house was asleep. I stole quietly through the dark halls, my heart knocking like a drum, and paused outside the door of the bathhouse. I stripped my hair out of its plait, covered my face with my hands for a moment because surely it couldn’t be right to show this much happiness . . . and then I stepped inside.

Before my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I knew he was there. Before the faint rustle reached my ears, I knew he’d risen from the corner where we’d first met. Before my fingers touched flesh, I knew his hands were outstretched toward mine.

“Thea?”

“Yes?”

“Nothing.” His hands gripped mine, engulfed them. “Thea. Thea.”

He bent down, scooping me easily off my feet, and I shook my hair forward around his face, making a private cave just for the two of us.

Sanctuary, I thought. After that I didn’t think at all.

Six

WELL, well.” Gallus arched his plucked brows, stroking the arm of one of his slave boys. “Aren’t we in a good mood this winter. No broken chairs, no smashed mugs, no ears lopped off my fighters—my wine cellar is all but untouched—why, I don’t even think you’ve put a knife through a patron’s foot for at least a month.”

“Stuff it,” said Arius. But amiably.

A busy winter. No more seedy arenas or back-alley rings; the Colosseum had been thrown open to the mob. The Emperor had come back to Rome just long enough to reconcile with his Empress before heading back up to Germania in a foul temper, but the games-loving Spaniards were in town and eager to be entertained. They packed into the tiers in their unaccustomed furs, shivering in the keen cold winds, and Arius fought for them. He fought Serpicus, the trident fighter with live snakes on his helmet; he fought Lupus, a German in wolf skins; he fought a Spaniard imported from Lusitania to uphold Spanish honor. They all met their ends in the Colosseum, to the sound of frenzied cheering. “For God’s sake, can’t you get yourself wounded?” Thea groaned. “Then for a nice long month or two you’ll get to lie in bed with no sharp things trying to poke your life out, and maybe I’ll get a little peace.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” He lifted her up, squeezing her so hard her ribs creaked. “I’d drag you to bed with me.”

“Mmmm.” She kissed the scar that interrupted his eyebrow, making his flesh shiver. “I like the sound of that.”