It’s your first time stepping into the arena.

The scorching sun beats down on the golden sands, while jewels and gilded ornaments glint across the audience stands. As the sole princess of the Roman Empire, you sit among the nobles, your gaze fixed—just like everyone else—on the center of the battlefield.

Five soldiers from a defeated enemy nation, now reduced to slaves, are dragged into the arena, bare-chested and shackled in iron chains. As the chains drop, the men lunge at one another like wild beasts. Flesh slams into flesh. Sweat sprays. Veins bulge. Grunts and roars clash with the grit of sand, the scent of blood and rust, and the heady, suffocating musk of male aggression.

It’s your first time seeing the male body this close.

Keegan’s forearm is corded with veins, blood dripping between his fingers as he blocks a strike.

König stands like a mountain, breathing like a beast, his pale golden hair slicked to his skin with sweat.

Krueger moves like a dancer, grinning wildly, every flex of his agile body flaunting the twin-headed eagle inked across his abdomen.

Ghost’s chest heaves beneath the sun, half his face swallowed in shadow, every movement brutal and precise.

Nikto fights in silence, eyes cold, his face slashed with scars so savage it’s hard to look away.

You can barely breathe. Your legs are weak beneath layers of silk. Every time the men fall, roll, collide, it’s raw, unfiltered power—violent and erotic. The crowd cheers, goblets clash, but your focus is pinned entirely to the storm of testosterone and bloodlust playing out before you.

You ache for them to finish. To rise. To lift their heads—just long enough to look at you. Your fingers clutch the fabric of your gown, tense with excitement and something dangerously close to longing. Because once the battle ends, the nobles will choose.

And you know it: Nobles can pick anyone they want.