Instead of laughing with me, Cai leaned forward, his face pale and earnest in the moonlight. “No,” he said. “In fact, the way you said it, it was the truest I ever heard those words ring. And I realized that I don’t want to see you burned or bound or beaten . . . or killed by the sword.”
I laughed again. This was definitely not the turn I’d expected the conversation to take. Surely we were still joking? I was surprised to see that his expression remained serious.
“Listen,” he said. “My father is one of the wealthiest men in Rome. I can go to Caesar—he owes me at least one favor for my years of service to him—and I can offer to buy your contract. I could—”
“What? No!”
I sprang to my feet and stared down at him.
“You would dishonor me?” I said angrily.
“Dishonor you?” He blinked at me. “Fallon—”
“I will not be bought and sold like livestock, Caius Varro! Not again. Certainly not by you.”
Cai’s mouth dropped open, then closed and slowly hardened into a line. “You know the life you have committed yourself to often ends in death,” he said.
“All life does.”
“I would not have you die at all if I could help it, Fallon.” He stood and moved to take my hand, but I crossed my arms tightly in front of me and took a step back. “But since I don’t have the powers of the gods, I would beg this favor of them: I would not have you die any day soon.”
“Your faith in my abilities as a warrior is nothing short of staggering,” I snapped.
“You’re not the only girl in the arena who can swing a blade!” he snapped back.
I’d almost begun to think that Cai was different—that there was even a chance that he believed in me. But suddenly, it felt just like being a little girl again, listening to Sorcha tell me that I would be target practice for every warrior I met on the battlefield. It felt like when my father denied me a place in his royal war band because he feared that he might lose me, that I couldn’t hold my own on the battlefield. Sometimes I wondered if even Mael had simply thought me more reckless than brave.
“I thought you said you admired my spirit,” I said. “I thought I reminded you of Spartacus.”
“I did.” His voice softened as he took me gently by the shoulders. “You do. Fallon, Spartacus is dead because he decided he wanted to live free, and he had to rebel against the might of the whole empire to do it. And yes, he has my admiration, but it does him precious little good in his present state. I only want to keep you away from the arena so that you can avoid a similar fate.”
I shook my head. “You just heard me swear an oath, and with my next breath, you would have me break it. I am a daughter of the house of Cantii.”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means I don’t break promises—even ones I wouldn’t have made, given a choice—and I will not break this one. Not even for you, Caius Varro.”
Cai’s eyes flashed.
“Not even for me?” he asked, tilting his head. “Does that mean I’m something to be taken into consideration in your decision making, Fallon?”
I wished I could take the words back. I wasn’t even sure what I had meant.
“Do not flatter yourself, Decurion,” I muttered, turning away from his gaze and shrugging free of his grasp.
Silence stretched out between us, and it became increasingly difficult to hang on to my indignation. Especially when I heard him let out a low, throaty chuckle. I looked back to see him grinning at me.
“You think about me,” he said.
He took me again by the shoulders, drawing me toward him. I could feel the heat coming off his skin. In the cool night, I wanted to take that warmth and wrap it around me like a blanket. I wanted him wrapped around me. I knew I shouldn’t. If anyone caught us together, I would most likely be flogged, and Cai would be shamed. But he didn’t seem to care in that moment. He moved closer to me, and the cloak I wore fell back away from my shoulders, as Cai’s hands lightly moved up my arms, over my shoulders and down my back to my waist, tracing my body through the thin material of my tunic. I shivered, and he looked down at me.
“You’re freezing,” he said, stepping back to tug the edges of the heavy wool cloak back over my shoulders.
But I wasn’t freezing. I burned. Everywhere his hands had touched me, the skin was seared as surely as if I had been branded there.
He lifted a hand to my cheek, and I felt the rough calluses there, left behind by the countless hours his fingers had spent wrapped around the hilt of a sword. But when he bent his head beside mine, his breath teasing my neck just below my ear, and he murmured my name . . . I froze. I couldn’t see Cai’s face. Instead, all I could hear in my mind was another whispering voice.
Mael’s.
“What’s wrong?” Cai whispered, sensing my sudden reluctance.
I shook my head and squeezed my eyes shut.
“You’re a senator’s son, and I . . .”
“What?”
“I am infamia.” I opened my eyes and looked up into his face. I might as well embrace the cold truth of the night. “Even if the ludus wouldn’t punish me for being here, with you, if they found us together . . . the oath I swore tonight marks me as sure as a brand on my skin.”
His gaze darkened. “You think I care about that?”
“You should.”