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Titus turned away from The Bear without a hind glance, heading towards the arena exit as Axel, Milo, and Wendell spilled into the arena, moving straight for The Bear. Titus didn’t even look at them. He kept going until he came to Cam, Brody, Galan, and Christos, who had come out to meet him.

It was Cam who reached out and grasped him around the shoulders.

“Easy, Titus,” Cam said quietly. “Ye had no choice. If ye dinna kill him, he was going tae kill ye. It wasna a clean victory, but a necessary one.”

Titus knew that. His sense of self-preservation had been in overdrive. He also knew that if a gladiator killed an opponent in a match, the gladiator was usually suspended for the next several games. There was punishment in the event of a death. But Titus honestly didn’t care if he was suspended. He was alive, and he had won, and that was all that mattered to him.

“The man wanted my blood,” Titus said as he forced himself to calm. “We could all see it. It was either me or him.”

“Ye did what ye had tae do,” Brody said, agreeing with Cam. “I dunna believe Axel will punish ye for it.”

Titus looked at him. “He was the one who told me The Bear intended tae kill me,” he said. “He all but gave me his permission tae do what needed tae be done.”

No one disagreed with him. Galan, with whom Titus sometimes had a contentious relationship with, put his hand on Titus’ shoulder.

“Sometimes men come to The Cal with the scent of blood in their nostrils,” he said. “They are not here to fight a clean fight for the money. They are here simply for the thrill of a kill. I believe that is what The Bear came for – death. From what I’ve heard of the man, he has killed many an opponent before.”

The crowd was still screaming for Titus even as The Bear was put on a stretcher and hauled off alongside his wailing trainer. While Milo and Wendell went with him, Axel headed over to Titus as he stood with the others. Titus could feel himself tensing up, preparing to take a scolding, or worse, and he fully intended to defend himself.

But Axel never gave him the chance.

“Go,” he said, gesturing to the arena. “You will be the last memory of this battle, not the dead man being taken away. Go out there and acknowledge those who love you, those who would have probably stormed the arena had you fallen to The Bear.”

It was a surprising reaction given the seriousness of what had happened, but Titus didn’t argue. He simply nodded and headed back out into the arena, and the roar of the crowd lifted when they saw him. Money began to rain down upon him as his two servants appeared once more to collect the booty.

Standing in the center of the arena, Titus finally lifted his arms in victory and the crowd went mad, but he wasn’t looking at the crowd as a whole.

He was looking at the spot vacated by Esme.

It occurred to him that she had just seen him kill a man, which had probably spooked her. Although he regretted that she had to see it, it was better than her seeing him laid out on the arena floor while a big Saxon smashed him to bits.

It was ridiculous for him to even care what she thought but, oddly enough, he did. He’d only known the woman for a day and, already, he cared what she thought. That hardworking, magnificent Spanish beauty had somehow gotten under his skin without even trying.

Infatuation? Probably.

It terrified him to consider the alternative.

So this is what the Ludus Caledonia is all about?

Esme rolled those words over in her mind as she followed Isadora and Lilia into the stands overlooking the arena floor. The Fields of Mars was packed on this night, with a thousand torches lighting up the sky and the roar of the crowd electrifying the very air around them. When Isadora and Lilia had invited her to watch the evening’s bouts, Esme had no idea what to expect.

But now, she knew.

This was a place of debauchery, excess, and bloodlust.

People weren’t there for food and fun. They were there to watch men beat each other to a pulp, which Esme saw during the course of the evening. There were novicius, or novices, as they fought their first bout, and as the evening went on, the participants graduated to the top gladiators the Ludus Caledonia had to offer.

As Esme sat with Isadora and Lilia, she noticed that they all observed the fighting in different ways. Isadora had come from a warring clan in the Highlands, and she had wielded a sword herself in her past, so she viewed the fights from a warrior’s standpoint.

Lilia, on the other hand, did not come from a warring background, but a much simpler one. Her father had served in a great house, so she was essentially from peasant stock. With her well-spoken manner, intelligence, and beauteous looks, she could have easily been a finely bred lady. Lilia watched the bouts with some disdain, concerned every time someone from the Ludus Caledonia was injured, seemingly watching the fights simply because her husband trained the men and she wanted to support him.

But it was clear that she didn’t enjoy it.

Esme wasn’t sure what to make of it all. She did find the fighting exciting, but it was also quite brutal. To think that Titus was one of the top fighters here meant that he was exciting and brutal, too. Given the way he was built – short, but extremely muscular with big arms and big thighs – she could believe it. He had obviously worked hard for his position.

She was soon to find out.

The fights went well on into the early morning hours when the next bout announced was between The Eagle and The Rutting Bull. The crowd went wild, and Esme wasn’t sure why until Isadora explained that Titus was The Eagle. It was his nickname at the Ludus Caledonia and all of the top fighters seemed to have one – names like The Beast from the East, The Sapphire Dragon, and The Hammer. All of them with nicknames in place of their real names because, as Isadora explained, that somehow made them larger than life.