The Gladiator. Carla Capshaw

yourself to the task of looking for one.”

      His lips twitched. “I want only you.”

      Lucia’s cold warning rang in her ears. “Because I’m a challenge? Or because I’m an innocent?”

      The crisp air hummed with tension between them. “Neither and both. Truthfully…because there’s a peace I feel in your presence that I’ve felt with no one else.”

      Mystified, Pelonia studied his angular features. His sincerity touched a chord deep inside her, but she found it impossible to trust him. She stood, eager to find the calm that eluded her in his presence. “After these last weeks, Caros, if you sense any peace left in me it’s Christ and Him alone.”

      “Nonsense. I’m drawn to you, Pelonia, no other. From the first moment I saw you I wanted you for my own.” His long fingers locked around her wrist, preventing her flight. “I won’t relent until I’ve made you mine.”

      The quiet declaration confirmed Lucia’s warning. She shook off his hold and rushed from the garden, his command to return chasing her down the path toward the house. Once in her room upstairs, she shut the door and flung herself on her pallet. Her whole body trembled from the shock of his admission. Her thoughts whirled as she tried to sort out the revelations in the garden. One moment she and Caros had been conversing, the next…

      Her skin crawled when she thought of how close she’d come to waking in a brothel. Her father had shielded her, but she wasn’t unaware of the harsh realities a female faced on her own. Shorn of a man’s protection, most women fell into prostitution, or like her, were sold into slavery.

      Neither was an acceptable choice, but for the moment slavery seemed the lesser of both evils. Had she been sold to a brothel, she would still be a slave, shamed with no hope of returning to her family. As it was, at least she had her virtue and the dream of freedom.

      She curled into a ball. Her mind raced. Caros planned to make her his paramour. What had she done to draw his attention? He couldn’t possibly be drawn to her disheveled and filthy appearance. She’d fought him at every turn. Surely he wasn’t attracted to her less-than-servile nature?

      Clasping her knees, she lowered her head. “Lord, where are You?” Straining to hear even the faintest whisper of guidance, she almost wept when she met with more silence. She’d already lost her father and freedom, would God allow her virtue to be stolen as well?

      Lucia’s offer rang in her ears. Any hesitation she’d harbored about the timing of her escape vanished. She’d been given the opportunity to flee and she must seek out Tiberia. If Caros sought to claim her, she had no ability or legal right to stop him. Every moment she lingered in his domain brought her closer to ruin.

      She had no choice. She must leave tonight.

      Chapter Seven

      Anxious, Pelonia paced the shadows of her moonlit room. Lucia should arrive any moment with further instructions. Through her room’s small window she checked the lantern-lit yard for the slightest hint of movement. The trainees had been locked in the barracks at twilight. The guards were nowhere in sight, but her stomach clenched with trepidation. If she were caught, and Caros refused to show mercy, she might lose her life.

      A dog howled, lending the blackness an eerie quality that stretched her nerves. A knock on the door made her jump.

      Pelonia opened the door to her coconspirator. “I’ve brought you some vegetable broth,” Lucia said once the door was secured. “It was childish of you to skip the evening meal. How do you expect to have strength for tonight if you don’t eat?”

      “I didn’t consider—”

      “No, I figured as much, but I used your stupidity to aid us. I spread the seed you’re feeling ill. When you don’t come down tomorrow, people will believe you’re unwell and passing the day on your pallet.”

      “Who will believe such a tale?” Pelonia accepted the fragrant bowl of stewed tomatoes. “Since when is a slave allowed to shirk labor because of sickness?”

      The lamp’s glow highlighted Lucia’s severe features. “Who won’t believe it? Everyone is aware you’re the master’s current favorite.”

      Pelonia’s cheeks heated with embarrassment. “I hate being the subject of gossip.”

      “You’ve been nothing else since the moment the master plucked you from the slave quarters and insisted you stay here in the house.”

      She cringed with mortification. Thankfully, her father didn’t have to witness her dishonor.

      “The entire household has made wagers to see how long before he tires of you.”

      Humiliated, she turned away. “When do I go?”

      “Soon. First, you must listen and heed everything I’m about to say. When you leave the house tonight follow the street toward the amphitheater. Just before you reach the city gates, you’ll come to a large statue of Caesar driving a chariot with winged horses. Once there, look for a man with two lanterns. He’s the butcher’s son, Pales. I’ve arranged for him to lead you to your cousin’s home.”

      “You’re certain he can be trusted?”

      Pausing at the door, Lucia nodded. “Watch for me below your window. I’ll give a birdcall to signal when it’s time.”

      

      Several oil lamps bathed Caros’s study with a warm orange glow. His gaze soaked in the wall mural of the setting sun and Iberian mountains. After all these years, he missed his native land and grieved the loss of his cherished kin.

      His father, mother, sisters. Each of them held a revered place in his heart. With a fond smile, he lifted the ancestral statue he’d had fashioned to represent his father. Wise, the epitome of fairness, his father was the best man he’d ever known.

      He replaced the carving and chose the one of his mother, the heart of his family’s home. When Caros closed his eyes, he saw her wide smile, heard her gentle voice instructing him to be a man of peace, of honor.

      How disappointed she would be to see what he’d become.

      He put back the statue with care, then eased into one of the blue padded seats facing the inner courtyard. The illuminated fountain returned his thoughts to Pelonia, a subject never far from his mind.

      He winced thinking of the disaster he’d spawned in the garden. By the gods, she must think him a rapist the way she’d fled. The horror on her face when he’d tried to kiss her made him cringe. In the future, he’d master his lust and nurture her trust, not her resistance.

      Seeing Lucia enter the courtyard, he sat forward. Why wasn’t the healer abed? He surged to his feet when he saw her look of panic.

      “Master!” She ran toward him. “You must hurry. Pelonia, that ungrateful sneak, has fled. I was in my room upstairs when I happened to look out my window. There she was, creeping down the road like a common thief. I told you she’d be nothing but trouble.”

      Fear gripped him. “Which way?”

      “Toward the city gates.”

      Quick steps took him to the bowels of the house. He strapped on a gladius and grabbed up a torch, then raced to the side door and into the night.

      The torch held high to guide him, he broke into a run. During the day, Rome was dangerous enough, but after dark the streets crawled with every sort of human vermin.

      If anything happened to her…He had to find her.

      He picked up his pace. Shouting and bawdy laughter echoed from the street up ahead, but it was the woman’s scream that raised the hackles on the back of his neck.

      

      A grimy hand covered Pelonia’s mouth from behind and dragged her head back against a rock-hard shoulder. A knife blade pressed to her throat filled her with terror. “Be