I settle onto the small, hard rack, cursing the straw that prickles my flesh and the bandages that press against my wounds. Gods, yes, death would be welcome. Or sleep. Some kind of oblivion.

Before long, thank the gods, darkness takes over.

I’m not sure how long I’ve been in here. Days, at least. The grimy bowl has been refilled with cold gruel . . . four times? Five? The pain has diminished, though it won’t be gone anytime soon. My desire for death or sleep has changed to boredom. Restlessness. The cell is shrinking around me, and pacing only makes it shrink faster.

At least Calvus or Ataiun can’t summon me from in here. I’m long overdue for a meeting with one of them, but I can’t as long as I’m imprisoned within the ludus.

Chains rattle, and I look up to see Arabo approaching with shackles in his hand.

“The master demands your presence.” He pushes open the door. “Immediately.”

I don’t fight him as he shackles me. It’s best for the men to see me this way as much as possible; anything to convince them Drusus and I are enemies.

Arabo leads me to that familiar room where Drusus waits. My shackles are removed, and then the bodyguards step outside and close the door, leaving me alone with the lanista.

Drusus sits in his usual chair, but he doesn’t look at me. He’s got a message in his hands. His lips are tight and eyebrows knitted together like the words are painful to read.

His hands moving slowly, perhaps even reverently, he rolls the paper into a scroll. He doesn’t look at me as he says, “Your wounds. How are . . .”

“They’ll heal.”

He runs his finger back and forth along the rolled scroll. “But you’re in pain.”

“I will be for some time.” I shift my weight. “But the worst has passed.” When he flinches, I add, “It was necessary. We both know it.”

Drusus nods. Then he pulls in a breath. “I need you to deliver this. To Verina.” With unsteady hands, he melts some wax with a candle, and I barely hear him as he adds, “I can’t trust anyone else. Not with this.”

“Of course, Dominus.”

He says nothing. He seals the scroll, but doesn’t press a signet into the melted wax. Once the wax has hardened, Drusus stands and holds out the scroll, but still doesn’t look at me.

I carefully close my fingers around the message and take it from him.

Eyes down, Drusus speaks. “The Lady Laurea will be at the market this afternoon. There is a servant who accompanies her. Lucia.” Swallowing hard, Drusus looks at the message in my hands. “Give it to Lucia, but do not tell her it is from me. If she asks, assure her Verina will know.”

“I will, Dominus.” I tuck the scroll into my belt.

“Thank you.” Finally he looks up at me, and when our eyes meet, he swallows. “Your back . . . are you sure . . .”

“It’ll heal.”

He holds my gaze. We’re close together, close enough one of us could reach for the other, but neither of us moves, and his intense eyes are unsettling.

After a long moment, he says, “I still can’t quite work out why you did what you did. You knew I would . . .” He pauses, and his face colors. “You knew you’d be scourged for it. That I’d have no other choice.”

“I’d do it again,” I blurt out. “Even now.”

His lips part. “I just don’t understand why.”

I pull in a breath. “I’m not sure I do either. But . . . I don’t regret it.”

We lock eyes once again, and I wonder if he has as much difficulty breathing as I do. My heart’s pounding as it always does when I face Drusus, and the phantom tingle on my lips says I know damn well why I can’t breathe, why my heart’s racing, and why I’d take a scourging for Drusus again without a second thought.

He moistens his lips. “Saevius . . .”

I can’t take another moment. I reach for his face, and before my hands touch his flesh, his own hands are on the sides of my neck, and he’s drawn me in until our lips are nearly together.

And here, we stop, breathing hard against each other, and I’m sure he can feel my heart thundering against his breastplate. His mouth is close enough to mine, his breath warms my lips. I’m distantly aware I’m on an entirely new kind of dangerous ground, that this is foolish, but all I can think is that I can nearly taste his wine in the air between us.

He releases a breath and draws back enough to look in my eyes. “I’m your master, Saevius, but . . . I won’t force this on you.”

I close my eyes and touch my forehead to his. “It’s your right.”

“And as your master, I’m giving you the choice,” he breathes, our lips just brushing. “I won’t have a man who doesn’t want me.” Soft desperation tinges the edges of his voice as he whispers, “Saevius, tell me—”

I cover his lips with mine.

He grasps my hair and returns my kiss. His mouth is soft, but precise; everywhere his lips touch or his tongue teases is deliberate, I’m sure of it.

He pulls me against him, and we both stumble until his back hits the wall. I curse his armor, his damned belt, the distracting wounds beneath my tunic, everything that keeps us far enough apart that I can’t feel if this affects him like it does me.

Abruptly, though, Drusus puts his hands on my shoulders and pushes me back half a step. He lets his head fall against the wall. “Jupiter’s balls, we can’t do this.”

I step back, but as soon as the gap between us widens, Drusus reaches for me again, and I seize the edges of his breastplate. His kiss is demanding and unrelenting, and I match his hunger and aggression. My hands drift down, and my fingers curl around the tightly fastened laces on the sides of his breastplate. Jupiter, Neptune, and Venus, what I wouldn’t give to take away these laces and feel his flesh, even through his clothing. What I wouldn’t give to get past all this—

Drusus breaks away again. “I’m sorry . . .” He meets my eyes. “We . . .”

He can’t speak. I can’t. I can barely breathe. It’s like all the air in the room is gone.

Then Drusus clears his throat and lowers his gaze. “You need to go soon. She’ll be there before long.”

“Right.” I gesture at the scroll in my belt. “I’m on my way.”

Message in hand, I start for the door.

“Saevius.”

I stop and face him again. “Yes?”

His back is to me now, his head turned so he’s only visible in profile. “Nothing happened in this room.” The cold lanista’s voice is back, but it’s not as sharp and rigid as usual. “Or in the pit. Am I clear?”

“Yes, Dominus.”

Barely whispering, he says, “Dismissed.”

Arabo shackles my wrists again, and we leave through the ludus’s front gate. Men watch. They whisper. The gods only know what they suspect now, if they wonder whether I’ll return alive or at all.

Drusus’s bodyguard stays with me, a hand on my elbow until we’re well out of sight from the ludus. Then he opens the shackles.

“I’ll wait here,” he says.

I nod. “I shouldn’t be long.”

I check again to be sure the scroll is still safely tucked beneath the tunic that’s scratching and irritating my scourged, sutured back. It’s there, just as it should be, so I hurry down the street toward the marketplace.

My heart beats faster as I pass the Forum. Men in togas swarm this place, politicians coming and going, clustering here and there to discuss whatever it is politicians discuss. By the distinct purple stripes on more than a few togas, there are senators out here. And where there are senators, there are other politicians. Any one of whom could be Calvus Laurea.

The crowded marketplace offers relief from that fear, and I search less for Calvus and more for his wife and her servant.

The streets here are choked with people, and many are noblewomen and their servants. I’ve only seen Verina a few times, just when she’s visited the ludus and then the occasional flash of her face from beneath a hood as she slipped in or out of a rendezvous with Drusus, but I’ll find her.