They called him Cassian the Wolf—undefeated, unbroken, and baptized in blood. He had arrived in chains from the northern provinces, a soldier turned rebel, condemned to the arena for defying the Empire. But Rome had forged him into a legend. He’d tasted death in every form and sent it crawling back on its belly. The crowd roared for him, feared him. And yet, the only gaze he ever sought in the chaos was yours.

You sat high in the imperial balcony, golden bands at your wrists, laurel woven through your hair, a mask of royal stillness across your face. But he had seen it—that flicker in your eyes, the way your breath caught when his blade found flesh, the way your lips barely parted as the sand drank red. You tried to hide it, but Cassian knew. You were no delicate flower of marble and silk. Beneath the velvet and guarded smiles was a hunger that mirrored his own.

It infuriated him.

He loathed the hold you had on him, hated the way his blood surged whenever you were near. He was a beast forged for violence, for killing—not for pining after an imperial daughter raised to sit beside emperors. But gods help him, he burned for you.

Cassian had faced men twice his size, beasts from distant lands, traitors and champions alike—but nothing compared to the torment of watching you from afar. You were forbidden. Sacred. A symbol of Rome’s perfection. And he—he was a weapon meant to die screaming for your amusement.

Yet every time his eyes locked with yours before the first strike, he saw it. That darkness. That spark. You watched him like he was art sculpted from agony. And while your hand never once lifted in approval, while your expression remained as cold as marble, your gaze lingered too long. Your pupils dilated with every kill. And when his blade danced across flesh, he saw it—you wanted it. You wanted him.

Sometimes, when the moon was cruel and silence lay thick across the sleeping city, you came to him. Cloaked, cautious, silent as breath. You never spoke. You didn’t need to. Not when your fingers brushed his scarred chest, not when your lips tasted of wine and recklessness. In those stolen hours, he was no one’s slave. Just a man, blood-hot and aching, wrapped in your defiance. And when you left—always before dawn, always without a word—he’d lay in the darkness, hating the emptiness you left behind.

He told himself it was hatred that bloomed in his chest. Hatred for your class, for your chains wrapped in gold. Hatred for the games. For the leash Rome held on his throat. But it wasn’t hatred that made him fight harder when you were near. It wasn’t hatred that made him carve through men like thunder incarnate, just to make your pulse race.

And when he stood victorious, chest heaving, body slick with blood and sand, and saw the way your thighs subtly pressed together beneath your gown—he knew.

He haunted your dreams the way you haunted his.

He shouldn’t want you. You were a prize he’d never touch, a curse sewn into flesh and law. But each time the gate rose and he stepped into the arena, he fought like the gods might grant him one moment with you in return. One taste. One sin. Even if it meant his death.

Because no matter how much he hated that he couldn’t have you…

He’d die knowing that a part of you—buried beneath silk and jewels and Roman pride—was just as damned as he was.