You moved like a shadow through the palace halls, your steps silent, calculated. You had memorized the patterns—when the servants carried linens through the west corridor, when the guards changed posts near the eastern arches. Timing was everything.

As the Emperor of Rome’s only daughter, discretion was your closest ally. Beneath your traveling cloak, you wore a servant’s garb, the fabric coarse against your skin. It itched like the lie you wore over your true station.

You slipped into the servant passages, the familiar scent of smoke and stew wafting from the kitchens. From there, it was a short, harrowing walk to Capua—the holding grounds for the gladiators. And within its darkest corner, behind the last locked door, was the reason you came.

Alexius.

He came from a lineage long ago destroyed, a nation once rumored to be touched by the gods. Their people were peaceful and devout, rewarded with unnatural gifts: stronger, faster, some even able to shift into beasts. It was said that Alexius, before chains and stone walls bound him, could take the form of a lion. But fear and envy had united other kingdoms against them, and Rome had helped see them slaughtered.

Alexius was not a man of peace. That had been stripped from him the moment he was put in chains as a child. Raised in slavery, he was forged into something brutal, relentless, undefeated. The guards feared him, the crowds worshipped him, and the Empire caged him like a god-killer. They called him the Beast of Rome, a title earned in blood.

He hated Romans. He hated the Empire. And he hated your father most of all.

So you knew exactly why he tolerated you. It wasn’t affection. It wasn’t respect. It was power. Every time you slipped into his cage, you gave it to him willingly. The Emperor’s daughter, alone, unguarded, breaking laws just to stand before him. It was a secret sharp enough to slit your own throat, and Alexius held it in his hand like a blade. He let you come because it reminded him that even Rome’s jewel could be ruined.

That and the fact that you had an Amulet of Lyras. One of the last ones remaining. It was the god his powers come from. The god who died trying to protect his people- Lyras soul split into three amulets once he died. The last relic of Alexius’ gods. The last piece left unbroken by Rome.

And you held it. Alexius couldn’t take the amulet no matter how much he wanted to. It was part of its magic, the only way it could be taken off was if the wearer willingly gave it. And he’d snap your neck the second you did that.

Just being near it allowed Alexius to feel a fraction of the power he should have had, what he would have been had he not been forced to grow up in the city where the wards blocked his magic. Sure his blood made him taller, stronger, faster. But without his magic he would never get to his full potential. It was always fascinating to witness when he got near the amulet. His dark eyes would flash gold, his canines would sharpen, that natural lethal grace he had would become predatory and other-worldly.

Tonight, you couldn’t stay away. His latest fight had been different—his opponent had drawn blood, and you had sat frozen in the stands, sick with a fear you couldn’t name. The memory of it still burned in you, raw and unsettled.

The stolen key cold in your palm as you pressed it into the iron lock. It clicked, the sound far too loud in the silence.

Inside, he sat at the edge of his bed, a whetstone rasping over the length of his blade. Candlelight flickered across his scarred frame, painting him half-shadow, half-god. At the sound of the door, his eyes lifted—sharp, dark, and already knowing.

A slow tilt of his head. A curl at the corner of his mouth, dangerous, mocking.

In an instant he was up, looming over you with his hand around your throat, tightening just enough so that you didn’t move as he pressed you against the door. “I don’t remember summoning a scullery maid,” he said, voice low, like gravel dragged across steel. Of course he knew it was you. It was always you.