Ferox should have known that question was coming. He struggled to meet Lucullus’s steady gray gaze. “Yes,” he admitted. “I know it was wrong of me to trifle with her.” If Ferox took responsibility for their dalliance, he hoped to shield Velia from her uncle’s displeasure.
Lucullus snorted. “If I know my niece, I highly doubt you had much choice in the matter. I only wanted to confirm what I’ve suspected for weeks.”
“You—you knew?” Ferox couldn’t imagine any man being tolerant of a woman under his protection consorting with a gladiator.
Lucullus lifted his gaze skyward. “I’m not her father—who, by all accounts, has abdicated any concern for her welfare. If I’d known your little entanglement would have led us here, I’d have put a stop to it, but it seems it’s too late now.” He let out a resigned sigh. “Now, you look ready to collapse. Get some rest. Jason!” He rapped an inkwell on his desk.
There was more Ferox wanted to say—how deeply he cherished Velia, how she was in his thoughts day and night, how a single smile from her could warm him all the way to his toes…but saying things like that would lead to questions he couldn’t answer and promises he couldn’t make.
The door opened, and Jason reappeared. Ferox should have known he’d be lurking outside, anticipating the need to help Ferox from the office.
Jason heaved Ferox to his feet, and together they stumbled out of the room.
Velia waited in his bedroom. In the time since she’d left the office, she’d procured a vat of steaming water and a stack of clean cloths. “Thank you,” she murmured as Jason sat Ferox on the edge of the bed, leg stretched out on the floor.
“Do you need my help with anything?” Jason asked.
Velia shook her head, wetting a cloth in the warm water. “I can manage.”
Jason nodded. “Try not to die,” he advised Ferox, then left.
“Velia, you don’t have to—” Ferox began, but Velia shushed him. She knelt next to his wounded leg and began to gently wash it. The physician had cleaned the area immediately around the wound, but the rest of his leg was still covered in sticky, drying blood.
Despite the pain, the softness of her touch soothed him, a healing magic no physician could provide.
He couldn’t see her face from this angle, but her breath hitched, and her hand shook where it rubbed the damp cloth over his leg. A pang shot through him as he realized she was crying. He reached down to caress her cheek. “Velia?”
She pulled away from his touch with a sniffle. “This is all m-my fault. You could have died, and it would have been my fault!”
“Velia, you weren’t in the arena. What happened in there was between me and him.”
She shot him a watery glare. “You killed him for me.”
And I’d do it again. “That doesn’t mean it was your fault.”
She shook her head. “If I hadn’t been sostupid, none of this would have happened. My parents would say I deserved it. Act like a whore, get treated like one.” She wrapped her arms around herself, and in that moment, his heart ached even worse than his leg.
“Your parents are lucky I don’t know where they live,” he said in a low voice.
“I don’t often think they’re right,” she whispered. “But maybe this time…I-I was too nice to him. I smiled at him. Maybe if I’d been colder—”
“You’ve smiled at every man in the ludus and none of them has tried to attack you. And if they have, tell me and I’ll end their lives this moment. Am I wrong?”
Velia wiped a hand across her eyes. “No,” she admitted.
He leaned forward, ignoring the pain at the change of position, and ran a finger along the curve of her jaw, gently tilting her face to look at him. “What happened with that man had nothing to do with who you are or how much you smile. It had everything to do with who that man is.Was,” Ferox corrected himself with a touch of dark satisfaction. “He saw someone smaller, weaker than himself and took advantage. As for your parents, well, they’re hateful idiots. I don’t know how they could have spent twenty years raising you and not thank the gods every day for blessing them with you. They don’t deserve you.”
She caught his hand and twined her fingers through it. He must have said something right, for some of the distress faded from her eyes. “I just…I can’t stand seeing you hurt. When I saw him stab you, it felt like I’d been stabbed.”
“Surely you’ve seen gladiators be wounded before.”
“Yes, but not one I…” Her gaze flicked to his then slid away. She returned to gently scrubbing his leg clean of dried blood.
She didn’t finish her sentence, but she didn’t have to. A ball of warmth seemed to explode behind Ferox’s ribs, chasing away all his pain for one sweet moment. He’d sensed this thing between them was growing into more than simple lust, and today proved it. Jason was right: Ferox would only kill for someone he cared about.
Someone he loved.
And if Velia possibly felt the same about him…that was both the best and worst thing he could imagine. Because if the emperor expelled Ferox from the games, he’d be parted from her.
