“Want me to shackle her down before I go?” The guard shifted beside the table.
Felix looked at the woman on the table, her mouth hanging open in slumber, and shook his head. “No need for that now.”
The guard hesitated. “Better just in case. She’s not called the Amazon for nothing. Lucky she didn’t knock Sergius to sleep earlier. Have you seen this one fight?”
“A time or two.” Possibly every day. It wasn’t his fault the window near his worktable offered full view of the gladiatrix training ring. Though that window might also have been the reason he’d not yet completedthe task Jovan had hired him for. This gladiatrix fought with a fire and determination he’d never seen in all his years at the ludus. She shouldn’t draw him the way she did, and yet, he sensed a kinship in her somehow.
The guard reached for the iron shackles at the foot of the table and locked them around her ankles.
Felix moved to the end of the table near her head. “Lift her shoulders a bit for me.”
The guard tugged her to a sitting position as Felix shifted several stained cushions behind her to elevate her head and shoulders. She flopped back.
“Anything else?”
Felix shook his head. “I’ll call if I need you.”
The guard left and Felix turned toward his worktable, gathering bandages and a crock of cobwebs for stanching blood. He set them on the stand next to the operating table and bent over the injury. It had bled through Sergius’s hurried bandages, stuck with long strands of her light-brown hair. He reached to brush the hair aside and stiffened as something sharp nicked his neck.
“Touch me and it will be the last thing you do.” The voice at his ear was feminine, low, and deadly.
III
FELIX’S GAZE LIFTED,meeting a pair of—very much alert—blue eyes and bared teeth. The Amazon’s jaw was square and strong, skin tanned by the Roman sun and flecked with brown spots on her cheek and near her upper lip. She’d be beautiful if she wasn’t threatening to kill him.
“Well”—he released a breath—“as you’re bleeding out, and I’m the medicus, if you kill me, it’ll be the last thingyoudo.”
Her eyes left his, sliding down his nose to his mouth, chin, neck, and finally resting on the medallion pinned to the shoulder of his tunic. Her jaw shifted to one side in thought. “That would be upsetting. I have changed my mind.” She withdrew the blade—hisscalpel—and lay back, closing her eyes. “I will let you live. For my sake.”
“Generous of you. How did you get my scalpel?”
“I have my ways.”
“You stole it.”
“You let me.”
“I did not.”
She opened her eyes, fixing him in a steady glare. “Then you are not very observant, and Jovan should hear of this.”
The fear that shot through him was quickly quelled by the realization that for her to report his negligence to the ludus manager, she would have to admit to stealing a weapon—a death sentence for any gladiator. Slave uprisings were no laughing matter.
“Are you trying to manipulate me?”
Her lips curved. “I am trying to distract myself. It is not my fault if you cannot laugh at a joke.”
“Stealing is not a joke.”
“Maybe for a man strung tighter than a war drum.” She lifted a shoulder. “Take it back. I dare you.” Her gaze held an open challenge, and a hint of mischief.
He imagined Sergius having to stitch his wounds after trying to wrestle a scalpel from the Amazon and chose to ignore the challenge. “I prefer not to be disfigured.”
“Yes.” Her eyes traveled over his face. “That would be a shame, would it not?” She raised a brow as if she might consider it, even so.
Felix moved the lamp closer and adjusted the brass shield to cast the light on her arm. “I’m going to clean your wound. I would appreciate it if you could kindly refrain from disfiguring or killing me.” He picked at the bandage’s knot, eliciting a sharp inhale from the woman.
“I have never killed anyone.” Her words came so softly he might have imagined them, and yet, the surprise trickling through him was real.
