But his hands were still on her. He couldn’t seem to move them.
She gazed up at him. The fading light caught her blue-gray eyes, glinting like polished steel. Her lips parted, and he felt her body give an almost imperceptible lean closer to his.
Oh no. She was going to kiss him again. Right here in the middle of the ludus, where anyone could see. And he was powerless to stop her. She held him frozen, entranced by the wanting in her eyes, the heat of her body. She was a siren, without need of song to bewitch him.
Heavy footsteps sounded nearby, and finally Velia broke her gaze away from his. He found the will to release her, and she stepped back hurriedly as Achilles trudged toward them, on his way to dinner. He glanced at them with a raised eyebrow, but said nothing. Wordlessly, Velia followed him.
Ferox was relieved at the interruption. After all, the last thing he should be doing was kissing his manager’s niece in the middle of the ludus.
Yes, this ache that spread over him at her absence was definitely relief. Not longing, not hunger. Just relief, he told himself as he headed to the barracks.
The next day passed in a blur of final preparations for the opening of the games. Velia was kept busy seeing to last-minute repairs to armor, collecting outstanding fees for tomorrow’s matches, and other tasks for her uncle. She relished the activity, as it gave her little time to worry about Achilles’s first fight.
Finally, the business of the day was done. As dusk set in, she joined the rest of the ludus for the customary banquet held the night before the games opened.
The banquet took place outside in a public square, with tables and couches arranged beneath a red awning. Torchlight flickered on glassware and silver, and the noise of conversation, laughter, and the occasional drinking song resounded against the walls of the nearby buildings. This way, eager watchers could get an early look at the gladiators as they glutted themselves on food and drink. For once, their restrictive diet was lifted, and meat, fish, and poultry were in never-ending supply.
In a break between courses, Velia rose from the couch beside her uncle and meandered around the perimeter of the space, stretching her legs. Her gaze lit on Achilles, his plate piled high with sausages, duck legs, oysters, and other delicacies.
She slid into the empty spot next to him. “You’re going to make yourself ill.”
Swiftly, she removed about half the food from his plate and dumped it onto the plate of his neighbor, who was deep in conversation with someone on his other side and didn’t notice.
“Hey!” Achilles protested.
“You’ll thank me when you’re not sleeping in the privy.” She didn’t begrudge the fighters their indulgences, but she wouldn’t take any chances with Achilles’s health tomorrow.
He glowered at her and pulled his plate closer, curling a defensive hand around it to ward off further incursions.
She distracted him from his irritation with a question. “The, er, woman I found for you. Was she all right?” The courtesan’s first visit had been yesterday, a reward for the effort Achilles had put into his training.
“She had all the necessary parts.”
Velia grimaced. “Keep talking that way and you’ll have girls lining up from here to the Palatine to fall into your bed.”
He rolled his eyes, then sank his teeth into the one duck leg remaining on his plate.
Velia was already tiring of talking to him, so she rose and sought a more pleasant dinner companion. There was room next to Ferox, and she didn’t hesitate to slide onto the couch beside him, tucking her feet beneath her. He wore a light blue toga for the occasion, and while he did look quite dignified, she preferred the sweaty, bare-chested version she’d become accustomed to seeing as he trained with Achilles.
Ferox’s plate was filled with only a moderate array of crispy chickpeas, flatbread, cheese-stuffed olives, and skewers of roastedvegetables. She raised an eyebrow. “You’re not having any of the meat?”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t agree with me.”
She grabbed his wine cup and looked inside. The wine was blush pink, well-watered. “You’re hardly drinking, either.”
Another shrug. “I don’t want a headache tomorrow morning.”
She stretched out on the couch next to him. She wasn’t used to dining on couches, and lying next to him like this felt oddly intimate—as if they were in bed together, not at a banquet.
In her experience, even the most seasoned gladiators strove to distract themselves the night before a match, and that distraction usually fell into three categories: food, wine, or women. Often all three. But Ferox wasn’t glutting himself on food or wine.
So that left women.
“You’re going to visit a brothel,” she realized aloud. Her stomach lurched. It would probably be the place they’d visited together; the manager had offered him half-price on any girl, after all. He’d be a fool not to take advantage of such a bargain. But the thought of him with any of those women…
He popped an olive into his mouth, chewing and swallowing before speaking. “Maybe,” he said evenly, shooting her a cool sidelong glance. “Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because…” That question required some consideration. To buy time, she reached out to help herself to a handful of chickpeas from his plate.
