We drank in the kitchen long into the afternoon, to the crackling of the hearth and the aroma of garlic vying for dominance with beer, while Allia chopped a mountain of vegetables for the stew. The cooking fire and the young, alcohol-fueled bodies, packed elbow to elbow, heated the windowless room with a low ceiling.

We drank long enough for the old drunk Rufius Fulgentius to yell that we shouldn't burn oil for the lamps. Then he buggered off to his villa, his ample-bosomed wife and three screaming children. We laughed maniacally and went on drinking until the buzz of victory fizzled out and the melancholy made inroads into my heart.

Junius' death, though avenged, hovered over my shoulders. I slipped off the bench, intending to slink away without darkening others' mood. They were young and so was the night. The gap left by my butt closed immediately.

"Maximus?" Quintus sidled to me from the table.

I straightened from rummaging for my cloak in the pile of the discarded ones in the corner. Sighed. "You did great today, Quintus. We already toasted your bravery."

"No... no, it's not about that," he stammered. "You should... should stay here. Your leg and the curfew?"

"I can manage these and the big bad thugs roaming the streets."

Beer on top of Fulvia's doctoring and the Bite-of-Life reduced pain in my right side to a dull ache. To show how groundless his concerns were, I walked to the exit without a limp, albeit stiffly.

"And all those stairs!" Quintus' voice pitched up an octave mid-sentence.

A smile tugged the corners of my lips while he covered his mishap and the fact he sniffed out my apartment's location with a cough.

He blushed fiercely when he spotted my amusement, but still added in a whisper, "Stay, Maximus. Please."

In the doorway, where the heat of the hearth was blocked by the wall, the draft nipped at my smartening side. I whipped the cloak about my shoulders. Quintus' arm shot out to steady me—unnecessarily, since I didn't sway on my feet all that much. I was barely tipsy.

Well, one more drop of the Bite-of-Life wouldn't hurt. I clutched my chest, only to remember that I had stashed the vial with my cloak. But it didn't fall out... I frowned and searched the floor with my gaze.

"I've slept at the barracks for two weeks. Now I have to chase the squatters out of my place..." That was a lie: Rhea's husband kept an eye on the place for me, but I doubted Quintus figured that one out. People on the outside shunned him too much to take him into their confidence. At the moment, though, I was far more concerned with the priest's precious elixir.

Quintus face scrunched painstakingly. "Maximus!"

"It's fine. I'll be fine," I grumbled, patting about my clothes uselessly. Where in Hades did the vial go?

"You don't look fine. You're sweating."

"Go have fun and leave this old man in peace."

Our argument was drowned out in singing and clinking of the mugs, but Victor rose languidly from his seat. He lifted his index finger to point it at me. The vial, still three-quarters full, dangled from it on its cord. Victor made it swing a little, like a pendulum. "Looking for this, lanista?"

I tried to snatch his hand. "Give me that!"

He yanked the vial away. "Tat! No more for you until dawn tomorrow."

I dry-swallowed, unsure if I was relieved that the Bite-of-Life was in excellent hands, or if I was mad at Victor for freaking me out.

Quintus looked between us, bewildered.

Victor didn't give him time to think. "I'll be the lanista's bodyguard for tonight and walk him home." He practically lifted Quintus off his feet and squeezed him into his vacated spot.

The younger man twisted all the way back immediately, his mouth working, ready to speak. He stopped short of spilling accusations, but by the way his eyes glistened with beer and jealousy, how they narrowed, I guessed at what he was going to say.

Maximus, you idiot! This man is our enemy.

I broke eye-contact with Quintus quicker than I would have dropped a scorpion and marched away. Packed dirt of the gallery felt like ice ready to crack at any moment under my sandals. Quintus knew who Victor truly was: Inehmasaric, Inimicus, the enemy of the Fidis Empire. The man who the Emperor claimed to have had crucified.

Victor's footfalls caught up to me easily, but he stayed a step behind me. What's more, he maintained a respectful silence, as if he was serious about playing my bodyguard.

"Quintus knows about you," I blurted out after we walked down the street.

Victor sped up to fall into step with me. "He always did, Maximus."

I recalled how viciously Quintus confronted our rookie on his first day, how incensed he was with my interest in him, and how eager to prove something to him. His behavior made so much more sense if this was true. How he recognized Victor when no one else did, still beat me. I whistled thoughtfully. "You still saved his life."

"He didn't denounce me."

Twilight had already darkened to night in the narrowest and crooked-most alleys, overhang by flopping laundry. But here, on the slightly wider streets, there was enough light for me to study Victor's face. It was stony.

I looked around. What few pedestrians risked a run-in with the vigils or the gangs hurried along. "Are you going to gamble your life on the whims of an adolescent in love? Do you want me to talk to him?"

"He didn't denounce me," Victor repeated stubbornly.

I huffed and turned into a narrow passage between houses, tripping over someone's legs. A beggar woman wrapped in a dirty shawl scurried from her warmed-up spot, cursing me out in a voice that seemed as familiar as the shortcut. I tossed a petty coin toward the street. "Ask Fortuna to favor me, Auntie."

The coin sparkled in the last light of the evening. The woman chased after, allowing me a glance at her profile—a cheek disfigured by smallpox; brittle hair frizzled in all directions—I would have remembered meeting her. When her curses changed to blessings, my shoulders slumped in relief even more. She sounded raspier and lower, when she didn't shriek. Paranoia.

"Let's go," I told Victor and led him past Rhea's closed bar.

Too bad she'd already shuttered it for the night, for I suddenly had such a vivid image of the three of us breaking bread at the rickety table, that my heart niggled me more than my ribs. I turned my head to share the idea with Victor... and forgot what I was going to say, because a shadow moved just on the periphery of my vision.

I twisted all the way back, wincing at the dull pain and the pointlessness of it. The stalker, if we had one, was gone. Smart of them. A lone ruffian who accosted two gladiators would have regretted his life choices.

Two blocks up the street, I stopped by an archway seemingly indistinguishable from the other shabby, stinky entryways. I could find it on the darkest night, no matter how drunk I was.

Victor sniffed the air. His nose wrinkled. "Here?"

I chuckled. "Why do you think I bunk on the top floor?"

"You, Fidelis, love to congregate in this stinky mass no man should endure, then—" he started.

I shined up the stairs faster than a cat after someone had stepped on its tail. Quintus might have been right about the stairs being a dozy, but Victor couldn't catch me until I was at the third floor's landing. Once he did, he bit back the rest of his tirade.

"Here?" was all he said.

"One more flight." I wiped off perspiration brought on by overtaxing my injury. Victor started climbing the steps again. Not a puff, not a grunt came from him. In this narrow stairwell, I should have smelled beer on his breath, but even that seemed to have dissipated during our walk. If I hadn't seen him bleed, piss and shit, I would have mistaken him for a demi-god.

"It has more to offer than a refuge from the stench," I explained, as I pointed him inside my room. It was basic: whitewashed walls with a bed in an alcove, a hearth, two locked chests, a table and a balcony. Nothing special, except... "It has the best view in the city for those who can't afford a villa."

He scoffed, but followed me onto the balcony. It was as sturdily built as a balcony could be, with cedar planks and even wrought-iron railing. Since it covered practically the entire width of the lane, when healthy, I could leap to the roof of the building across from me. It was a whole floor lower. Beyond it, the riverbank became too unstable to support anything but hovels.

That's why I could see the dark clump of the city on the high bank, with the red glow of the cooking fires, and the sails on the river, and the Appian Peaks festooning the horizon. At night, nothing but clouds hid the stars from me.

My heart twanged as Victor took it in. Would he appreciate this, or scorn it all for being a Fidelis' travesty? Afraid to spur him on, I heaved the watering jug from its corner to tend rosemary, oregano and thyme in their boxes.

Victor ignored my gardening efforts, watching the moon grow from translucent to solid, and the sky change from gray to charcoal.

"Is the Evenstar up yet?" I finally asked him.

There was only so much water I could pour onto the herbs without flooding them, but my heart lurched again in the wake of broken silence. Maybe... maybe I should have said something less provocative. The star this bright must have a barbarian name too. Victor was bound to bring it up, and this would deteriorate into a squabble.

Victor didn't lecture me. He broke off a few sprigs of thyme and crushed them in his hand. The fresh scent overpowered the tang of the urban life on the night breeze.

"What happened to this place when you returned to Rufius Fulgentius?" he asked. His voice was soft, but gravelly, so I could hear him even over the baby crying behind the partition that separated me from my neighbors, a woman yelling across the street from her window, and a drunk butchering a song with an enviable zeal.

"Nothing," I said. "I was a slave when a patron bought it for me, so it was always in my brother-in-law's name. The green stuff is also his, for cooking."

Naturally, Victor wasn't interested in Gerontius' secret sauce. "A patron you say?"

I heard a wince in his voice, rather than saw it, because my eyes instinctively searched the Patrician Hill for the spot where Julia Junilla's villa had once stood.

"Her name was Julia Junilla. A rich, childless matron and an avid collector of all things. Art, books, jewelry..."

"...men?"

He was catching on fast. I nodded, though I had no idea if he was looking at me. I was studying the wealthy quarter. "She used to say I was someone who had to be alone and never could. So, she gave me this place."

"And how often does the illustrious Julia Junilla visit you here?" Victor's voice was so tight with jealousy, I wanted to snuff it out with kisses. To be honest, I had wanted to kiss him ever since I kissed him the last time. This desire only grew stronger since I lowered my guard in the arena to trust him so implicitly.

"Noble Julia Junilla is long dead." I peered into Victor's face. An intense expression twisted his features, a struggle between curiosity and disdain. Anger too. And a passion stronger than anger. I let him fight it out on the inside, enjoying how strengthening moonlight gilded his eyes with silver. I had seen nothing prettier in a long, long time. Maybe ever.

Curiosity—or the passion—won out. "How... how did she die?" he asked.

I gave him the official version. "Julia's pursuit of precious objects was far beyond her means. Her husband tried to please her, so he embezzled from the Empire on such a scale, his crimes were brought before the Senate as treason."

Victor frowned. "I thought Fidelis didn't execute their own?"

"Their sentence was an exile, but Julia Junilla was too proud to wither away from Fidelium or surrender her beloved horde to the Empire."

He shot me a glance so sharp, I couldn't miss it even in the thickening twilight. "To the Empire or the Empress, personally?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," I admitted. "All I know is that she had piled her dearest possessions in one room of her villa and set it on fire."

"Surely, not all of her dearest possessions," Victor muttered, looking me up and down. Princes must be born with the sixth sense for hidden rivalries.

"I could see the blaze from here." I pointed to where the twisted orange tongue had risen into the sky. Not until the next morning did I find out just how proud she had been. How defiant.

"Did she walk onto the pyre?"

The drums and horns called to our attention from the docks, freeing me from the necessity to answer Victor's question—if it was a question.

I pushed back from the railing with a sigh. "I'm sorry for wasting so much time on the old stories. It's far too dangerous for you to break the curfew, so you're spending the night. Let's see if we can find enough blankets."

He closed the distance in one stride, backing me against the wall. His hand cupped my cheek. The earthy scent of thyme touched my nostrils. His skin added an extra-leathery note to it.

"You loved her?" he asked.

"Quite a bit." He started to pull away, so I curled my fingers into his tunic and whispered, "I loved her as a friend."

"I give up on puzzling you out. I give up," he said hoarsely. His face was so close to mine, his body pressed into mine so hard, that it was the most natural thing for his lips to seize mine too. "But I want you... I want you."

When he kissed me, I forgot everything apart from the mad rush of blood in my veins. Victor kissed me! I edged along the wall to draw him inside, while his lips still worked tirelessly to get me on the brink of elation.

I stripped his tunic, following the familiar lines of his neck, chest and abdomen with my tongue and lips. He dropped his breeches, stepped over them, and I pushed him to the bed. He slumped heavily on it, arching his back. His fingers wound through my hair as I hid my face between his thighs. He moaned impatiently as he tugged on my curls, but not loud enough yet. I rubbed my cheek against the rock-solid ridge of his quadricep, I hugged his knees, covering with kisses everything within my reach, except the obvious supplicant.

Yes, Senators, I knelt to a barbarian Prince, my natural enemy—and my chief concern was to work him up to a frenzy for my touch. I had him there, crying my name, before my mouth even closed around him. Not all of him, for like his nose, and hands, and feet, he was slightly too large next to a Fidelis. Like that could stop me...

I let him go a step before the climb was done. He collapsed on my warmed up, crimped blankets and I caught him before my thighs for the last moment.

He cleaved to me while I rummaged for oil, getting into the way of his own clawing me out of my clothes. It was so deliciously awkward, not at all like when we fought together. In each clumsy touch I read how thick the post-coital haze lay on him still, how hot he was for me.

Most of my senses had poured into my bits on the balcony already, so no matter which part of his body I bumped into, in our stumbling circling, it threw me near to the hawk's dive. But hurting him would give me no pleasure. Luckily for my prowess, the room was small with few nooks to search for the damn oil, but still!

"Go back to bed," I whispered hoarsely, "I'll be right along."

Once he did, I located the oil on the shelf I must have searched thrice, poured it over my hands, girdled my loins and traced his spine. This wasn't a deep massage to prepare a fighter for the next day. This was a lover's touch. As my hands slipped lower and inward, I pressed my lips into his ear. "Tell me if anything doesn't feel right."

"Maximus..." He chuckled. When his body moved with it and that deep, throaty chuckle resonated in his chest cavity, so close to my ear, my body thirsted to thrust. He shivered from the proximity to my engorged sex, breaking into a moaning monotone. "Maximus, nothing about what we're doing is right. Nothing. I hate it and I love it... I hate and love what I want so badly. I hate... love, love... hate... love you...."

Sometimes I wish I was a statue wrought in marble, but I'm not. It was no longer my hand inside him, and when I came, stars exploded behind my eyes. I could have told him I loved and hated, hated and loved us, but I wasn't in the habit of repeating myself.

"I love you, Inehmasaric," I said only once, and I meant it.