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Thousands of screaming spectators are packed into row upon row of the massive stadium, cheering and jeering at the bloody spectacle taking place on the sands below. There, men armed with little more than toy armour and weapons play at a great, deadly battle.
It is a great, terrifying celebration of violence and death.
Elena couldn’t be farther away from this awful place. Even when she is forced to travel and entire world away, her mind is always, always, back home where she belongs. Where she should be right now. Where her heart beats outside her chest.
It is only when Damon’s hand squeezes tight around hers in warning that Elena comes back to herself and realizes her expression has slipped into melancholy.
“Try to look like you’re enjoying yourself, would you?” Damon hisses the words between his teeth, pitched low for Elena’s ears only. “Must I remind you of everything hinging on our performance tonight? Must I explain to you what it means to be summoned by the Emperor himself? We must not give even the slightest impression we are not grateful.”
Damon talks to her like she is a foolish child, and perhaps when he met Elena she was one. Newly orphaned with the tragic drowning of her Lord father and mother, her entire world suffocating beneath the waves- At the time, the Salvatore’s marriage proposal was sensible. Necessary. An offering of a guilded cage.
Elena has long made her peace with the bargain she made, but she is no longer a child. She is a mother, and Damon’s ambitions now stand between her and her children.
It… changes things, though Elena does not yet know how.
What she does not need to be told is what a great honour it is to sit, even at the very back edge of the Emperor’s personal box at the great coliseum in Rome. They are no one of notice here, but from where they sit, Elena can see the Emperor’s entourage sitting in lavish comfort beside his throne. Only the dark locks of his hair beneath the gold laurel wreath and the deep royal purple of his gold trimmed toga can be seen from where they sit, but Elena notices he holds himself apart from the others. Where the great Senators and Generals and Lords and Ladies surrounding him are swayed by the joys and sorrows of the plebeians, the Emperor watches the bloodshed with cool composure. His posture is ramrod straight, like that of a soldier.
Elena wishes he would slouch. Wishes he was bent with old age, or scarred with the pox, or anything that would be half as painful for him as the power he wields, as a complete stranger, over her husband. Power strong enough to compel Elena to leave her ailing son’s sickbed.
She has not left the boy’s side for months since the accident. It was Elena who held his small frame as his bones were reset, as he tossed and turned deep in the grip of a terrible fever. She has prayed endlessly to the Goddess of her childhood, of her mother’s ancient people, to spare her baby boy.
To send her a miracle.
Instead, Elena is ripped from his side, staring daggers into the back of the head of a man she has never met, and already hates. And yet her hate for the Emperor cannot match the festering wound in her heart that Damon has created. Wanting to play politics when their son’s life hangs in the balance.
“Not even the Emperor has the power over life and death.” Elena counters quietly.
She immediately regrets the words. The Emperor’s head tilts in their direction, but he does not turn around. From this distance, with the roar of the crowd and the chatter of the nobles surrounding them, it is impossible the Emperor could have heard her.
That doesn’t stop Damon’s fingernails from digging crescent shapes into the soft flesh of Elena’s arm. Her husband discreetly looks about them to see if anyone has caught his wife’s grace impertinence, but the gods smile on them. The attention of every single person in the stadium is held by a singular figure in the arena.
The Gladiator looks like a demi-god.
While great swathes of red fabric, held aloft by complicated ropes and pulleys, shade the thousands in the stands, the Gladiator is bathed in sunlight. He stands defiantly on the bloody sands of the arena, welcoming all comers. Where the others look like little patchwork toy soldiers in their mismatched armour, the Gladiator stands bare-chested, facing his fellow desperate souls in little more than the leather pteruges and greaves of a poor soldier.
The Gladiator utterly enraptures Elena, who cannot tear her eyes from him as he moves. Calm and confident, sizing up his opponents, a cocky grin on his face that feels blasphemously at odds with the meaningless blood and gore that cake his gleaming, golden skin. Unable to help herself, Elena bites her lip as she watches the Gladiator taunt his opponents with unrestrained arrogance. Letting them come to him, and when they do-
The world tilts on its axis for a moment as Elena’s blood rises. She is repulsed by everything in this moment. Almost everything. Her mind and body are at odds over how to feel about the Gladiator, and Elena has to press her thighs together to staunch her unladylike, increasing arousal.
The Gladiator’s sword makes such quick work out of three of the lesser challengers who try to take him on together, that a deafening hush falls over the crowd of thousands. They wait, uncertain if his sword has missed its mark, until one-by-one the little toy soldiers come apart like gruesome, broken statues. Arms and legs sliding severed from where they were once attached. A head falls-
Bile rises in Elena’s throat and she has to close her eyes and breathe deeply to keep her body from betraying her. She cannot stand the sight of so much blood. Cannot help but think that each of those toy soldiers was a man once, with a mother who cared deeply about the life she created. Mothers who could not protect their babies from such a dark ending.
Elena’s eyes are wet with tears when she opens them again. They streak her cheeks as she searches for the terribly beautiful, blood-soaked Gladiator, because Elena cannot bear the thought that she will find him in bloody pieces too.
But no, he stands tall, facing the Emperor’s box. The last remaining gladiator kneels in the sand before the Demi-God, barely conscious, but he makes no move to decide the man’s fate.
Instead his eyes are locked on the Emperor’s box - no, not the Emperor’s box. Not even the Emperor himself.
If Elena didn’t know better, she would think that the wide-eyed look of shock was for her alone. Their eyes meet across the distance, and Elena’s breath catches in her throat as something primordial comes loose inside her.
The Emperor stands, drawing the attention of the masses. His presence is a physical thing, a weight pulling all towards him. Elena is no exception. She is merely one of thousands, watching as the Emperor and the Gladiator take each others’ measures.
Whatever passes between them, eventually the Gladiator raises his sword in a salute. In response, the Emperor holds out his hand, extending his thumb level with the ground. The roar of the crowd is deafening, thousands of Roman voices yelling out “Death!” and “Mercy!”
Their pleas do not appear to move the Emperor. He tips his thumb down in judgement.
Death.
For a moment, nothing happens. Then, the Gladiator drops his sword. It clatters dully to the sand, the insult ringing in the ears of every witness.
Elena feels her heart pounding in her ears, terrified what such flagrant disobedience might mean for the beautiful, doomed Gladiator. Surely death? The Emperor will never stand for such a display of arrogance. Such a pity to waste such a beautiful specimen of a man.
The crowd holds its breath in anticipation.
It isn’t clear to Elena what is happening, what they’re waiting for, until she realizes the Gladiator and Emperor are still locked in their silent struggle.
And then, so suddenly only Elena seems to notice, the Emperor nods his head imperceptibly.
Immediately, the Gladiator’s arm shoots forward. As if his hand was made of steel itself, it punctures through the hapless opponent’s chest. When the Gladiator rips it back out, the nameless man’s lifeless body falls dully to the arena floor.
The Demi-God Gladiator holds the still beating heart over his head, a trophy for all to see. Fresh blood spurts out and down the Gladiator’s finely muscled arm with each dying beat of the organ, in brutal streaks.
The whole world explodes in sound and movement around Elena. The entire coliseum jumps to its feet with a roar of applause, the very stands shaking with the thunderous sound. Thousands of hands clapping and feet stomping release the energy of an entire city, who for one brief moment no longer have to fear Death.
Why should they be afraid, when today they have a champion, one of their own, a mortal who walks among them, immortal.
This death should disgust Elena, but she cannot help but be lifted along with the spirits of the crowd. For one moment she allows herself to feel freedom from the looming presence of Death. It moves her, deeply.
Once again, Elena is made aware her face is open and unguarded, as tears of joy and relief well up in her eyes and she feels Damon’s hand clamp around her arm. Instantly Elena’s expression shutters.
“I never took my delicate wife for having such a blood-thirsty streak…” Damon says evenly, his voice threatening. He is angry at Elena. Angry at her performance, even if no one else seems to have taken notice. Damon is ever jealous of Elena, his most prized possession and any other man who might see or be seen by his wife.
Though Elena’s instinct is to demure, to hide her disgust and disappointment at her husband and demure, to reassure him that she belongs to him and him alone, she instead meets Damon’s gaze as steely as the Gladiator himself might. She feels defiant. “I was content to stay at home. To care for our children. I am here because you have made it so!”
Damon’s hand draws back as if to strike Elena, but the movement of the crowd around them reminds him of where they are. Who he is surrounded by.
But where the Emperor, and his entourage, and hangers on exit discreetly to their waiting carriages and litters, Damon grabs hold of Elena’s arm and sharply drags her from her seat and into the darkness of the tunnels.
The bowels of the arena are dark and damp, lit by torches and smelling of sickness, human filth, and death.
“Please, my love,” Elena begs, trying to use her weight to discourage Damon’s furious pace. “We must ready ourselves to meet the Emperor. Our clothes will be ruined in this place!”
Her pleas fall on deaf ears. Damon’s rage is a flame following a trail of oil, and it isn’t until they reach their destination, a larger unguarded room in a secluded corner of the lower rooms, that Elena understands.
Damon throws her on her knees in front of the Gladiator. Their eyes meet for a brief moment, before the humiliation of it all burns through Elena and she lowers her gaze and pulls her stola over her head in shame.
To be brought so low in front of a slave. As if she was worth nothing to Damon. Elena’s heart shatters into a thousand tiny shards, and she cannot collect them quickly enough as they scatter at the feet of the Gladiator.
“Is this what you wanted?” Damon demands of her. He jerks her chin up so Elena is forced to look at the Gladiator. She’s afraid of what will be on the man’s face. A leering, triumphant look? Disgust?
Instead, Elena finds what she does not expect at all.
Warmth. The Gladiator looks at her as if he is grateful to be in her presence. Even bound in chains, and filthy with the gore of a battle to the death - he smiles at Elena.
She cannot help but smile through her tears back at him. Only briefly, but it is too much for her husband.
“You dare?!” Damon yells, his voice going nearly hoarse with rage. Elena cowers, expecting him to strike her, but instead it is the Gladiator he strikes hard across the face. Trying to wipe the smile off the slave’s face with the back of his hand.
The Gladiator pulls against his shackles and spits blood onto the sand at Damon’s feet. This time when he smiles, it is bloody.
“The Emperor will not be pleased that you’ve damaged what belongs to him.” The Gladiator speaks the threat to Damon, but his eyes never leave Elena.
She cannot help but imagine what it would be like to have a man like that use his power to protect her instead of make her small. It makes her want so much more. But they are both trapped in their fates, slave and wife. Both owned by men who can do with them as they wish. Elena cannot hang her hopes on such a creature.
Damon squares up against the Gladiator, entering the man’s space so he would take a step back if fear so compelled him. Elena is glad to see he stands firm.
“The Emperor knows you are a toy to be used and discarded.” From his belt, Damon produces a knife. “He knows that you fought like a cornered beast, and that no one escapes the arena unscathed.” Damon emphasizes each word with a slice and stab into the blood soaked golden flesh of the Gladiator.
“No, please-!” Elena sobs out. To have survived a fight to the death in the Emperor’s arena, only to die at the hand of a bitter little man like Damon is too sad to bear.
In response, Damon drives the dagger deep into the Gladiator’s belly and leaves it there.
He turns, triumphantly, to Elena and drags her to her feet by her arm. “Come my love. We all have an audience with the Emperor to prepare for, and you must dazzle him with more than stinking mud and tears.”
They leave him there, the Gladiator. And not the mud, or being made to kneel before a slave, makes Elena feel as ashamed as that.
Damon abandons Elena as soon as they return to the small villa they are staying at. Not before he fixes his wife with a steely blue glare and says, “I will not have you embarrass me in front of the Emperor. Do you understand me?” And when Elena doesn’t nod eagerly enough, Damon turns to leave. He stops at the doorway and says, “We will have more children…”
As if that is meant to reassure Elena in any way, instead of breaking her heart.
Damon cannot know it changes everything for Elena.
She does not expect to see the Gladiator again. Not alive, and certainly not standing in the middle of a crowd of admiring nobles like a trophy, bathed, and oiled… and- free of any wound or scar.
The Gladiator catches Elena’s eye, and he has the audacity to give her a cheeky little wink when he sees her unable to look away from the smooth, unblemished skin of his near naked body on display.
The blush that stains Elena’s cheeks feels like fire, but she does not have long to dwell on it because the crowd around the Gladiator parts in reverence as the Emperor rises from his seat and comes to greet the new arrival.
Her.
There is little to warrant such attention. Elena wants nothing more than to hide in a corner after the day’s disastrous events. The beautiful braid the servants wove into her hair at the start of the day had to be sacrificed for a simpler one, letting her hair fall about her shoulders like a maiden. To her surprise, after Damon left, a beautiful dress arrived with no note. A deep, beautiful red silk with gold trim. Elena had never seen such expensive material, soft to the touch and delicate as if spun by Ariadne’s spiders.
After his outburst earlier, Elena is surprised to see that Damon has put his coin purse on the line to ensure she does not disappoint.
She wears it now, and does her best to stand proud, even as her head is bowed in reverence, as the Emperor himself approaches her.
At first, Elena thinks he means to touch her face, reaching out for her in a way that draws her to him.
“Imperator!” Damon’s voice is heard, as he pushes through the crowd to insert himself between them. “Allow me to introduce my wife, Helene.”
The name grates against Elena’s pride. Helene is the name she was given by the Salvatores. The Romanized version of the one her mother gave her. She despises it, and Damon knows it.
“Elena, actually.” She regrets the correction. Damon’s face turns a shade of red she’s never seen, but their course is set.
Damon’s interruption causes a change to come over the Emperor’s face. Quick and fleeting, so that only quiet curiosity remains. The Emperor takes Elena’s hand and presses his lips to the back of it.
“Elena. It is Our great pleasure to meet you.”
All she can focus on is the feel of his lips on her skin. The sound of her name, her real name spoken by this man is like a balm for her wounded soul. For the first time, Elena allows herself to look at him. She expects to be blinded by the sun of the Emperor’s divinity, or at least struck by lightning for the blasphemy of her hatred of the man.
Instead, his expression is soft and searching.
It reminds Elena of the way the Gladiator looks at her, and she does not know what to do with that.
“I am at your service, Imperator,” Elena says, lowering her eyes before this great man, trying to maintain the fragile pieces of her composure.
The Emperor is handsome.
Not in the surface level Damon is with his piercing blue eyes and sly smiles. Not in the way the Gladiator’s raw beauty makes something primal stir in places Elena never knew existed.
The Emperor is handsome and he sees Elena. Such a gift does great and terrible things to her, threatens to fill a hole in her soul Elena never knew existed.
All from a man she can never have.
The Emperor smiles at Elena’s response, and then surprises her by keeping holding of her hand, threading it over his arm as if he were escorting her. It is a great honour. “I shall be certain to take you up on that,” he whispers, leaning close to her as they walk.
Elena does not know what she has done to deserve such kindness, but when she looks across the room and sees the Gladiator’s rapt attention on them both, she feels… grateful. He has somehow miraculously survived the impossible. A fight to the death in the arena. Damon’s cruelty.
Even now it causes Elena’s heart to speed up with fear as she shudders. (She is surprised to feel the Emperor’s hand close around her own. It is… comforting.)
“Who lays claim to this delightful creature?” the Emperor asks the crowd.
“I do, Imperator.” Damon steps forward, with an exaggerated bow. His smile is one Elena has seen a thousand times. Carefully curated to draw all attention to him, as he readies to charm his unwitting victim into compliance. “Helene is almost as dedicated to the glory of our great Empire in service of yourself, as I am. In fact, your generous invitation was most opportune as I wanted to discuss -”
The Emperor’s mouth forms into a thin line as he regards Damon, and Elena wishes her husband would be able to read this moment as a sign to change tactic, instead of a challenge to double down.
Of course, Damon disappoints once more. He babbles on about mercantile goods and land acquisition until the Emperor interrupts him.
“Are you under the impression We rely on such as yourself to run Our great Empire?” The Emperor says. There is an edge in his voice. A note of warning in a tone that Elena knows Damon is deaf to from experience.
Damon looks taken aback. “Of course not, Imperator, I only meant-” he starts to stutter.
“How much claim can a man possibly have over a creature whose name he doesn’t even know?”
The voice comes out of nowhere, and heads turn to find its source. All but the Emperor, whose steady gaze and amused smirk Elena follows until she realizes the words must have come from the ever still, ever beautiful Gladiator. He stands at attention, eyes staring off into the distance at nothing in particular, not meeting the gaze of any of the Roman citizens around him but not lowered as a slave should either. There is no sign that he had spoken, except that Elena can feel the weight of the Emperor’s interest shift, each time time taking her with it as it does.
The Gladiator holds his attention, where Damon cannot.
“Who said that?” Damon demands, turning here and there to try and find the offender. “Who dares to speak of my wife with such familiarity?”
Elena wants to crawl beneath the marble floor and die. If Damon’s untimely ambition received a poor reaction moments before, his uncalled for jealousy starts to turn the room against him.
“Please, my love.” Elena reaches for Damon’s arm to draw his attention. If she can reassure him, calm him so that his pride doesn’t get the better of him…
Damon’s eyes lock onto hers, a blue abyss of rage and fury.
She nearly reaches him. Her fingers grasp at air, caught as she is between the Emperor’s unyielding grip and the slow realization that Damon will choose his pride over her.
That perhaps she has known this for a long time, because he always does.
"It was the gladiator!" Damon accuses, turning his rage on the man Elena knows is innocent of any crime against her. "Look at him! The way he looks at her, that arrogant smirk! He is a slave who doesn't know his place. A stain on the glory of the empire. Why, I ought to-"
"Do tell." The Emperor's voice is full of ice and no one in the room even dares to breathe in interruption. Elena feels the weight of the Emperor's gaze pull away from her to turn on Damon, withering. "Or yet, why don't you demonstrate for Us?"
All the colour drains from Damon's face. With a sinking feeling, Elena's heart clenches as she sees the face of her ailing son in his father's.
"Imperator, I did not mean-" Damon finally hesitates, long enough for realization to creep into the corners of his eyes. For doubt to pull at the corners of his mouth.
"We know what you said. We also asked for a demonstration." The Emperor nods to a guard, who unsheathes the sword from his hip and presents it to Damon. The blade balanced flat on his fingertips. "You must know the penalty for a slave's disobedience. What the cost is to defy the Emperor of Rome. Step forward, Gladiator."
A small panicked sound escapes Elena's lops as she watches the beautiful creature obey. Remembers the sight of his body carved through with cruel slashes from Damon's knife. Tries to steel her nerves as Damon takes the sword in his hands.
“Husband, please-” Elena begs.
Why must Elena always watch? As her parents drown in front of her. As she is separated from her brother to face their fates alone, him to be raised as a Lord's son, Elena to be married to a Lord's son. As her own daughter reaches the age Elena was when she was to become a wife and mother, too soon. As Elena's son, her baby, suffers and struggles to hold on to life. Why is Elena never the one, sword in hand, making the life or death decision for herself?
"Stop..." Elena whispers, her voice choked by tears she is trying to swallow.
But Damon does not see or hear her any longer. There is fear but also a barely restrained delight in his expression as he raises the sword, tip downwards. He uses all his strength to drive it through the soft skin where the Gladiator’s neck and shoulder meet. Between the bones until it is buried to the hilt.
The wound is no mere scratch. No healer's magic will save the man this time.
No one else in the room reacts in shock or horror. Instead, they clap politely with placid smiles on their powdered faces.
Elena wants to scream. Wants to claw their eyes out. Wants to claw Damon's eyes out. Those beautiful pools of blue, the first thing Elena allowed herself to fall in love with about her new husband. Now they bore into her like hot coals with their cruelty.
Damon wants to punish her for her failure as his wife. Elena would have borne any punishment, but this - to have an innocent man pay with his life, to know that Damon will let their son die rather than accept the truth.
The room begins to spin, a nauseous turn of applause and blood. Elena feels a strong arm wrap around her waist as her legs lose their strength.
"Out!" She hears a voice command. "Everyone out!"
There is loud shuffling around her, feet and furniture scraping as people flee quickly. Elena tries to regain her balance and finds herself grasping a strong arm.
"I feel unwell..." Elena says to no one in particular.
"Imperator, allow me to take my wife somewhere she will not bother you-"
"If you are not out of my sight in by the time I next look up, I will tear your throat out with my bare hands."
"But my wife-"
"Belongs to Us now. Perhaps if We are feeling magnanimous, you might even see her again? Hm? Choose quickly. We know you are well aware of the price to defy the Emperor."
Damon does not need to respond with words. His absence is felt keenly, as a goblet is pressed to Elena's lips. It is all she needs to know he has abandoned her.
"My husband-" Elena tries to gasp between thick swallows of wine.
"Shh, drink..." says the Emperor. For such a great man, a god himself, to be holding Elena, serving her from his own cup- It is a strange intimacy that floods Elena with a warmth she cannot deny.
The Gladiator lies sprawled on the floor in a pool of his own blood, hands clasped fruitlessly around the hilt of the sword. Even in death he does not go easy… his last throes of life spent trying to free the sword from his body.
No… not spent. Not past, with the lifeblood drained from his body. Now.
The Gladiator’s fingers weakly twitch in search of the hilt once more, and Elena gasps. “He’s alive… he’s alive we have to help him!”
She pushes aside the goblet and scrambles across the room on her hands and knees. Blood soaks through the beautiful fabric of her dress, but Elena pays no mind as her own fingers close around those of the Gladiator’s and with all the feeble strength left in their combined bodies, Elena pulls.
The sword comes free with a sickening squelch, but Elena hardly notices. Her whole world has narrowed down to the spectacle in front of her.
The Gladiator gasps as his eyes fly open. A hoarse, wrenching sound tears itself from his bare chest as it jerks up to the sky in a violent spasm that contorts his entire body.
And then… he is still. Lying panting on the floor, blue eyes locked on Elena’s.
He has the gall to smile at her.
“I… I don’t understand-” Elena says, a small note of pleading starting to bubble through. As if of its own accord, her hand reaches out and hovers over the grievous wound on the Gladiator’s neck. Beneath her outstretched fingers, she watches as before her eyes sinew, muscle, and tender flesh knits itself back together until the skin is whole and unblemished again. “What magic…?”
Elena thinks of her prayer to the Goddess. The image of her young son’s broken and feverish body being made whole before her very eyes is so tangible she could almost touch it.
“Please… how did you-?” She starts to beg, trying to find the words to ask for the impossible.
But the Gladiator is no longer looking at Elena. He looks past her at the Emperor, who has missed the wondrous spectacle it seems. He busies himself refilling his goblet of wine and quenching his thirst.
“That was uncalled for.”
“Was it? I thought you’d enjoy a touch of realism in your little charade.”
Elena shuffles backwards on the floor in a quiet panic, trying to make herself as small as possible as she watches the two men come together. Her soaking mess of a dress leaves bloody streaks on the floor, which the Gladiator neatly steps over as he accepts the goblet of wine held out by the Emperor.
There is a shocking familiarity between the two men. The Gladiator holds himself proudly, back straight, shoulders back and showing no signs of injury or pain. He carries himself the way a Roman lord might. The way someone of Royal blood would.
More than that, the Emperor himself accepts the change in the man as if it was expected. As the Gladiator downs his wine, the Emperor runs his thumb along the skin where the wound would have been. He looks satisfied by what he sees.
“The bastard tried to skewer me like a piece of meat!” The Gladiator protests, indignantly.
The Emperor’s mouth forms into a thin, angry line. “I wanted to offer him the opportunity to seal his own fate. I promise you, he will not enjoy what is coming to him.”
“Pity. I think it scared the girl.”
Elena squeaks with fright as both men turn their eyes on her. She tries to pull her palla over her bare shoulders and head, but spies it abandoned on the ground where she first felt faint. Instead, she feels exposed and vulnerable. At the mercy of literal demi-gods.
“Did you know such a creature existed?” The Emperor asks the Gladiator. His eyes soften with some unknowable emotion as he regards Elena’s trembling form. “She looks just like-”
“I told you the Goddess promised she would not forsake me. Us. This is not the first time she’s taken Tatia’s form.”
Tatia.
Elena does not recognize the name, but her blood sings at the mention of the Goddess.
“You… you know of the Goddess?” Elena whispers.
The Gladiator turns his golden radiance towards Elena with an indulgent smile. “I live to serve her, yes.”
“Is she the one who-” Elena’s hands tremble, but she holds one finger out to point to the man’s missing wound.
“Ah…” the Emperor says. “That’s not-”
But he is quickly cut off by the Gladiator, who walks towards Elena and crouches before her. He takes Elena’s chin in his hands and tips it and her pleading eyes towards his own. “Yes.”
Elena’s heart nearly beats out of her chest. She clutches at the Gladiator’s wrist and looks for any of sign of hope in the man’s eyes, as he touches her face. “I asked the Goddess to save my son.”
“A mother?” The Emperor says the word softly, Elena cannot tell if it is in confusion or wonder. “How is this possible…? Tatia-”
“Tatia was a mother.” The Gladiator says sharply. His tone is corrective, insolent in a way no Roman, no servant or slave would ever dare be to the Emperor. And, as far as Elena can tell, the Emperor merely seems confused.
“My name is not Tatia. It is-”
“Elena.” The Gladiator says, and Elena has to ignore the way his thumb absent-mindedly strokes along her jaw. “Not Helene.”
He remembered. Damon never remembered. “Yes.” That finally makes a genuine smile spread over Elena’s face, and she finds herself relaxing into the unexpectedly intimate touch.
“You must forgive the Emperor. Very few alive know, but before he became the great divine god walking the earth, the Emperor was a simple boy in love with a girl.” The Gladiator says, as if it is the most normal thing in the world that a slave is one of the very few who know. “You have her face.”
“Tatia?” Elena cannot help herself and the name slips out before she can stop herself, to think better of prying too deeply into the Emperor’s affairs when her life and those of her family hang in the balance. She tries not to focus on the hope that she can trade on this strange coincidental similarity to save her son. “What happened to her?”
“She died.” Though his voice breaks to say it, there is a flat, final note in the Emperor’s tone. It is a pronouncement of fact that is irrefutable.
Not even the Gladiator dares to confront him, though he sighs dramatically and runs his hands down Elena’s shoulders. “Yes. It does not matter how. It was necessary.”
“Necessary?”
This time Elena speaks the word at the same moment the Emperor does.
“The Goddess chose Tatia for a great purpose. None of us understood what that meant at the time, but the Goddess chose Tatia the same way she has chosen you.” The Gladiator explains in a fervent, frantic way that leaves Elena fighting within herself, wanting to take a step out of reach. And yet the Gladiator speaks of the Goddess with such certainty that Elena finds herself wanting what he says to be true, if it will help her son.
“To die…?” Elena asks, tears in her eyes.
“No!” This time the Emperor steps forward and speaks the word as a command.
The Gladiator flinches at the force of it and immediately leaves Elena to go to the Emperor. To her surprise, the Gladiator places his palm behind the Emperor’s neck. He holds firm even when the great man tries to push him away. Once again, the intimacy is utterly disorienting.
“I cannot lose her again.” The Emperor says, in a broken voice. “I believed I lost you both that same night. When Father came to kill us I-”
“Shh-” The Gladiator gentles, as if calming a wild beast.
For the first time Elena sees it. Beneath the thin veneer that separates an Emperor and a Gladiator, the two men bear a slight similarity. They are two sides of the same coin.
“Brothers…” Elena exhales the word. “Impossible. How-?”
“We have lived many lives. In some we are struck from the same soul. In others, we exist worlds apart. In all, we have one thing in common. The Goddess has blessed our family, Tatia’s sacrifice - a willing sacrifice of blood - saved us all. Blessed her bloodline. You.” The Gladiator considers and the exchanges a glance with the Emperor before saying. “She would bless your bloodline too with a willing sacrifice of blood.”
“Klaus…”
Elena immediately steps forward. “Anything. Twice now I have seen your body brought back from certain death. I want that.”
“Klaus.”
The Gladiator ignores the Emperor’s warnings. He leaves his brother’s side to step towards Elena. “The sacrifice must be willing. It must be complete submission to the Goddess.” he reminds her.
“Klaus, that’s enough! She doesn’t understand what you’re asking of her!”
“It is willing!” Elena takes a deep breath, even as tears spill from her eyes. “I'm willing to die if I have the Emperor’s word my son will be saved and my children taken care of.”
“I WILL NOT LET HER DIE!”
Through her tears, Elena finds herself moved by this declaration. Damon speaks of his wife in anger and jealousy, but this…
“You don’t even know me, Imperator.”
This time it is the Emperor’s turn to walk towards Elena. He cups her face in his hands, and dries her tears with his thumbs.
Elena cannot tell if it is her face or his beloved's that he sees when the Emperor looks at her with that far off expression.
“Explain the resemblance, brother. She’s wrong, you do know her. Every angle of her face. Every curve of her body.”
A warm blush blossoms on Elena’s cheeks at that, and spreads like most indecent wildfire to the rest of her.
“Tell me you wouldn’t give up all of eternity for one more night with her.”
The Emperor swallows roughly, unable to look away from Elena’s eyes and says, “I don’t believe as you do, and even if I would ask for nothing more, I have nothing to offer. My life is no longer my own.”
“But your heart is.”
Elena’s eyes widen at the mere suggestion. It would be a great honour to be mistress to the Emperor. An offer Damon would have prided himself on had it been his own idea to further his ambitions, never mind what Elena wanted. Like this, Damon would seethe with jealousy since the Emperor merely plucked Elena from the crowd like a ripe fruit. Since Elena was alone, making the choice for herself.
The idea gives Elena a secret thrill.
“You may kiss me, if you like.” The words escape quickly, and she slaps a hand over her mouth at how forward they are. They are still slightly better than what she really wants to say - that she would very much like to kiss him.
But Elena sees the moment her words snap some measure of control in the Emperor.
His hand pulls hers away, and this time when he takes Elena's face in his hands the Emperor does not hesitate. His lips are soft and warm, and his kiss is sure. She opens willingly to him and is rewarded with the sweet taste of victory.
When at last he pulls away, the Emperor places a smaller kiss on her lip, and another on her forehead before he says, “Fetch her the cure for her son.”
Elena’s heart leaps in her chest and she clutches fervently at the Emperor, aware tears of happiness start to pour down her cheeks. “Thank you… thank you!”
When the Gladiator hands over a small glass vial with golden filigree and a golden chain, the Emperor places it around Elena’s neck so that it sits snugly against her collarbone. “I don’t have the power over life of death, but one drop of this cleared your head when you were fainting, this would be enough to heal most ills in a small child.” He touches his fingers over the vial and makes sure Elena is looking at him before he says, “What my brother says is true. I cannot deny what I desire…”
“What we both desire.” The Gladiator corrects. He takes one of Elena’s hands, freeing her from the Emperor’s grasp and spinning her like a dancer into his arms.
“I-” Elena blushes furiously as she is pressed close to the near naked, oiled muscles of the man she coveted in the arena. Her mind reels with images of what it would be like to let herself indulge in the fantasy. What it would be like, for once to be adored and loved.
As if he can read her mind, the Gladiator presses his lips close to the sensitive shell of Elena’s ear. “Let us worship you, Goddess…” he whispers. “Let us love you, Elena.”
Elena feels a shiver go through her body as his hands start to roam over her back, stroking. Encouraging. Ever since her parents death, she has been sister, wife, mother. Never just Elena. To hear her name whispered in heavy, weight tones of lust is something Elena never knew she wanted. And now…?
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?” The Gladiator asks, with a twinkle in his eye.
“I… I want to be worshipped.”
The Gladiator is not as gentle as the Emperor in his kiss when he surges forward to stake his claim. He is fuel, tossed carelessly on a tiny flame and Elena feels the fire in her surge as she emerges kiss-drunk from his embrace.
Still reeling, Elena is turned so her back presses against the Gladiator’s muscled chest. He watches the Emperor where he sits leaning by back casually on what looks like a bed for guests to lounge on, the only one in the room. The Emperor watches as the Gladiator kisses Elena’s neck. His one hand roams down to caress Elena’s hip and thigh, his other moves over her belly and up to her breast.
“My brother always puts responsibility over his own happiness. It can be quite boring at times. I’ve made it my life’s work to break him free of the cage he chooses to live in. And I know he can be freed. I’ve seen it, long ago when I crept out to the woods to watch him lay with the beautiful Tatia.” Elena gasps as, through the fabric of her dress, the Gladiator’s hands begin to cup and toy with the sensitive nipple of her left breast. “My brother allows himself to indulge fully only in private.”
Elena finds herself watching the way the Emperor’s eyes darken as he restrains himself, the fingers of his hands working as if he longs to touch her the way the Gladiator is. “What is his indulgence?” she asks, enjoying the way this causes the Emperor to shudder as he no doubt pictures what that entails. “Would I enjoy it?”
“Very much so.” The Emperor’s voice is hoarse with want. “I would-”
“Brother, now is the time to show our lovely guest. Let us not spoil the surprise.” The Gladiator’s fingers run along Elena’s neck and down her shoulders. She gasps as the straps of her garments slip over the curve of her shoulders, but when she goes to cover herself the Gladiator holds her arms firm so Elena stands fully exposed before the Emperor.
“Touch her again.” The Emperor commands his brother in a quiet voice.
Elena can feel, rather than see, the satisfied smile on the Gladiator’s face as his hands roam her body - her arms and hips, her belly and neck. Everywhere except where she longs to feel the golden warmth of the man’s hands.
She squirms, pressing her bare back against the Gladiator’s chest and teasing her hips against the loincloth that keeps her prize from her. “You command him too, do you not?” She asks the Emperor, surprisingly even herself at how brazen the question is.
“I do.”
“I would like him stripped for my pleasure.” And then because she might be overplaying her hand with very dangerous men, “Please, Imperator?”
The Emperor smiles broadly at her request and nods at the Gladiator.
Still holding her close, Elena feels his one hand undo the stays that hold up the small cloth protecting what little modesty he has, and then she has to close her eyes to hide her excitement when she feels the Gladiator’s own weapon drag along the curve of her ass, and through the wetness between her legs.
“The Goddess is impatient, is she?” The Gladiator murmurs softly in Elena’s ear.
“You have kept her waiting a very, very long time.” Elena doesn’t know why she says such a thing, only that she knows it to be true when the Gladiator tenses up behind her.
“I've tried other offerings but-”
Elena looks at the Emperor, and the way he holds himself back even now. “But you cannot do this without him and he cannot do this without her.”
She feels the Gladiator’s hand dip between her legs with a singular focus. First slow and delicate. Then Elena cries out at the intensity of his movements, the inhuman speed at which his fingers rub pleasurable circles against her sensitive nub.
It is only the Gladiator’s strong arm around her waist that keeps Elena’s knees from buckling. It has been years since Elena has felt such a wave of pleasure.
“Help him remember?” The Gladiator whispers. There is such vulnerability in the Gladiator’s voice that Elena’s heart clenches.
The Gladiator lets go of her so Elena has to stand on her own power.
I wear the Goddess’ face, Elena tells herself as she steps forward uncertainly. The Goddess takes what she wants, she says as her footsteps start to gain more confidence.
Elena places a knee on either side of the Emperor, leaning into his touch as she settles in his lap and his hands come to rest on her hips. “I want the Emperor of Rome on his knees when he worships me…” she whispers in his ear.
Such is the power Elena wields over the man that his obedience is instantaneous. He flips Elena onto her back beneath him on the bed, not bothering to fully remove his clothes as he frees himself and spreads her legs to enter her.
“Mm-” Elena has never felt such a deep, satisfying sensation. She did not understand what the Gladiator meant before by all his talk of destiny and blood. But as she wraps her arms around the Emperor’s neck and pulls him deeper inside her body by wrapping her legs around his hips, Elena starts to understand. “You must make me yours.” She instructs the Emperor.
He does.
Without ever breaking the kiss that Elena holds to connect them further, the Emperor fucks Elena passionately. Their bodies intertwine in such perfection that she cannot even be surprised when she crests over a wave of pleasure only to find another one building.
“Tatia…” The Emperor whispers in Elena’s ear, and she says “Yes-” and urges him deeper into her body. And when he whispers “Elena…” she cannot help but hold him close and beg, “Make me yours. I want to be yours…”
“You have always been his, love.” Elena feels the bed dip beside her and the Gladiator tips Elena’s mouth towards his to steal a kiss. “You always will be.”
“It’s not enough… I need more. I need…”
The glimmer of a thought appears in the Gladiator’s eye. “Let me take care of you, love. Trust me.” And before Elena can protest, he kisses her again. This time long and dirty, and Elena finds herself overwhelmed, torn between the Emperor fucking her senseless and the Gladiator stealing her breath.
“I trust you.”
Eyes closed, lost in the feeling of her body being worshipped, Elena barely notices when the Gladiator moves to kiss down her neck. The pleasure is so overwhelming it takes a moment before she feels the prick of pain turn into something more. Something alarming…
“Ow, my neck… that hurts-” The words die on Elena’s tongue as she sees the Emperor’s eyes slide down to her neck. His eyes grow black and dark veins start to spread around them.
Elena watches in shock as the Emperor of Rome lets his mouth fall open and he grows fangs. Her body is frozen in fear, unable to do anything as he lunges forward and clamps roughly onto her shoulder. She feels her lifeblood leave her body with each hungry pull he takes.
“Klaus…?” The name comes unbidden, and she reaches out to him for help.
She does not expect the Gladiator to press his wrist, torn open, raw and bleeding, to her lips. “Drink.” He commands. And when Elena hesitates he whispers. “Don’t make the same mistake Tatia did.”
Elena’s hand clasps the vial around her neck. She may wear Tatia’s face but Elena has a reason to live.
The taste of blood, metallic and thick floods her senses. At first, she chokes, gagging at the thought of drinking human blood. And then…
And then the world explodes into light and sound and Elena starts to take pulls of blood in time with each thrust inside her body because she has never felt such a height of pleasure and never wants to let go.
In fact she refuses to let go when the Gladiator tries to pull his hand away, grabbing at it and furiously gnawing at his wrist with her blunt useless teeth when the skin heals over. “More…” she begs, and when the Gladiator laughs at her Elena demands, “More!”
“I think she has a taste for blood, Elijah.” He says, laughing harder.
The Emperor holds Elena down as she pushes hard against him, urging him to fuck her harder as she begs for “More!”
“Behave!” He grits out, reaches the end of his patience.
Elena gives him a sly smile. “More?” she asks.
“Are you… negotiating with me?” The Emperor smiles, and Elena drags her fingernails teasingly over the curve of his ass in answer.
“I’m asking you to indulge me.” She smiles innocently up at him and plays the very picture of a girl who behaves in bed. Elena’s had years of experience doing this with an anxious heart. To have it be a game, to have the upper hand for once is… delicious.
“I will give you everything you want and more.”
Elena reaches up and pulls the Emperor in for a deep kiss. She moves with him as he fucks, matching his movements so that they bring each other the the edge in sync and as she arches her back and cries out in pleasure the Emperor spills his seed inside her.
The Emperor’s face returns to normal. Elena reaches up and runs her fingers over the flatness of his ordinary human teeth, the smooth skin around his eyes, in wonder. He no more than catches his breath, when the Gladiator pushes his brother off her. The Emperor collapses at her side with a satisfied grunt. It should be scandalous, but Elena no longer sees the two men as divided by the whole world.
Two sides of the same coin. And her between them.
“You’ll break her if you don’t let her rest…” the Emperor warns, lazily.
“You’ll indulge her each time, and she’ll outlast us both-!” the Gladiator says with a laugh as he pulls Elena’s legs apart and kneels between them. He reaches down and slides two fingers into her dripping cunt, and pulls them back dripping to lick his fingers clean.
It’s filthy. And Elena reaches down between them to guide the Gladiator’s cock inside her.
He’s beautiful. And Elena drinks her fill of the taste and feel of his beautiful golden body that she fantasized about in the arena.
The Gladiator fucks like he fights, and Elena cannot get enough. She loses track of time altogether, feeling neither hunger nor pain nor tiredness as she drinks her fill of each brother and demands they fill her with all the pleasure they can give.
When at last Elena finds herself lying spent and sweaty, entangled between the naked bodies of the two brothers she finally asks the question that has been on her mind this whole time.
“The Goddess’ blessing. It’s in your blood isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Klaus’ eyes are closed, an arm thrown lazily across them. His answers are short and terse, but he does not deny Elena even now.
“It’s how you heal?”
“Yes.”
“It’s what’s in the cure for my son?”
“Yes.”
“Will we become like you?”
“No.” It is Elijah who answers that question for Elena. He tugs gently on Elena’s hand until she moves and tucked herself into his side and rests her head on his chest. “The amount in that vial will heal your son and pass through his system before he knows it.”
“And me?”
“You would have drank us dry many times over if we didn’t heal as fast as we did,” Elijah smiles in amusement as he says it, “It will take it’s time to pass, but it will.”
“It’s a whole-” Klaus waves his hand lazily, “ordeal to turn a human. They have to drink our blood, die, and feed on another human to become like us.” He opens one eye and considers Elena. “You’re not asking to turn are you?”
Elena disentangles herself from the gorgeous naked men, needing the space to clear her head to truly answer Klaus’ question.
It's unbearably tempting.
To be like them would give Elena a sense of power and control no woman could ever dream of. Power enough to save her son, to protect both her children regardless of what Damon chose to do, and-
Oh. Damon.
Beyond the beautiful fantasy, Damon would be waiting for her.
Washed and dressed in a clean stola and light blue palla, Elena shuts the door to the Emperor’s hall. No servant or guard bothered them their entire time together but outside of that room, the palace is bustling with movement.
Damon paces in the hallway. He looks exhausted and anxious, and Elena almost feels guilty for what she’s done to him when he rushes to her and grasps her shoulders.
“He didn’t hurt you did he? Did he make you lay with him?” Damon asks, looking his wife over with a discriminate eye. He grasps the blue palla between his fingers and Elena watches a dark cloud pass over his face. “This was red-”
“The Emperor had them bring me fresh clothes, mine were covered in Klaus’ blood.” A surge of emotion comes over Elena. She recognizes it as the Goddess’ blessing, Elijah and Klaus’ blood flowing through her veins, amplifying her own turmoil, but she lets herself indulge. “The innocent man you tried to murder!” Elena smiles at Damon dangerously. “He survived you know-”
“Again?! How?” Damon’s face pales and slow realization dawns on him. “Who is Klaus?!”
“The Gladiator. He has a name.”
She expects the strike when Damon backhands her. She goes sprawling on the floor and then Damon is on top of her, hands around her neck with a wild look in his eyes Elena recognizes from when he turned on the Gladiator.
“You are a wife! A mother! To lay with the Emperor is one thing, but a slave?!” Damon’s hands are unforgiving and Elena makes her decision in that moment.
There is no going back to the way things were before. Elena will never be able to risk her life and her children’s lives at the whim of this man.
Elena does not want to die. But more than that she wants to live to protect her children.
Damon will make his choice, and Elena will make hers. If he forces her to, Elena can do both.
Elena comes to, sprawled on the cold hard marble of the most lavish palace in all of the Roman Empire. Perhaps all of the world.
She wakes clutching the vial around her neck, and hears Damon’s frantic voice reaching a pitch she has never heard him use before.
“Imperator, Helene is my wife! I have every right to-”
Klaus’ voice calmly responding with, “Elena’s choices have nothing to do with you. If you had any sense you’d be halfway across the city by now. She’s going to wake up… hungry…”
“How dare you speak to me, slave?!”
Elena sits up and cracks her aching neck. She stands and catches Elijah, Klaus, and Damon staring at her with various looks of satisfaction, delight, and sheer terror.
Once again the palace is somehow silent and empty. Elena can only smell one human heart beating with her heightened new senses.
“How do you feel, love?” Klaus asks, smirking.
“Hungry.”