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It means this man is condemned.
Antony smiles – it’s a cold, cruel smile. “As you wish. Tonight he shall face the punishment fit for his crime. For without adherence to our laws he is no more than a beast, and to the beasts he shall return.”
“Damnatio ad bestias,” the crowd chants as the guard hoist the man over the edge and drop him into the ring. He lands with a CRUNCH on the hard floor, and I can tell from the way he drags his leg that he’s broken a bone. “Damnatio ad bestias!”
“Damnatio ad bestias?” George’s forehead furrows. “What’s that—”
Her words are cut off as the trapdoor in the arena floor begins to slowly swing open.
Claudia
“Damnatio ad bestias. What’s that?” Gabriel’s chair creaks as he leans forward, desperate to get a look at what’s rattling the trapdoor.
I can’t answer him. My tongue has frozen to the top of my mouth. My stomach swirls. I can’t believe I’m watching this.
I can’t tear my eyes away.
The condemned man manages to drag his broken leg to the edge of the ring, his back against the wooden sliding door that admits fighters – the door through which Noah had exited only moments before. He claws at the wood, but it’s locked tight.
“Please,” he cries, “Please…”
His sobs are drowned out by an inhuman roar – a rumble that pools in my stomach and shudders through my body. It feels as though I’m sitting inside a Marshall stack at one of Gabriel’s concerts, only the music coursing through me is drenched in blood.
The roar trembles the earth and reverberates in the air. Something bangs against the trapdoor, sending splinters flying across the ring. The crowd takes up the roar, punching their raised thumbs into the air.
“Claws, what’s going on?” Gabriel yells. “What is damnatio ad bestias?”
My insides turn to ice. The three families have practiced this torture for decades, until my father outlawed it, as it requires the purchase of exotic animals that will never see their natural habitat. “Let us enforce our laws,” he said. “But let us not disrupt the dominion of beasts to do it.” It was one of his least popular reforms.
“It’s an ancient Roman punishment,” I choke out. Gabriel’s fingers circle my wrist. “It’s usually reserved for Christians, deserters, and convicts who betrayed the Emperor. Translated, it means ‘the condemnation of the beasts.’”
“You mean—” Gabriel’s words cut off as the roar explodes into a great and terrible quake that tears through the roundhouse. The trapdoor’s hinges fly off and the wooden door is flung away. The whole crowd gasps as a golden shape leaps from the depths and stalks across the arena.
A lion.
A motherfucking lion.
The beast circles the ring, his glorious mane trailing behind him, his lips pulled back into a vicious snarl.
“Please, tribune.” The man is screaming now. “I promise I’ll—”
The man’s words dissolve into screams as the lion pounces. The crowd roars their approval as the lion tears off the man’s arm, shaking its head and splattering blood across the tables toward the front. A few droplets sprinkle my face, my bare arms.
I stare down at the red dots. I breathe in the metallic tang of the air.
The monster in me awakens. She stirs and shakes off her slumber. She paws the dirt, ready for her next feed, her blood warmed with the sacrifices made in her honor.
I’m Claudia August, and I was baptized in bloodshed.
To the bloodshed I return.
I’m not the only one who revels in this anointing. Blood splatters across Antony’s suit as he stares down at the carnage he’s wrought.
I have the answer I came here to seek. The traitor called Antony tribune – the second in command.
The man who will take over the August family if Brutus is killed.
The traitor’s screams cut off as the lion drags his carcass to the center of the ring to feast. The crowd roars, drunk on blood and power, taking the lion’s hunger into themselves to become beasts. They claw at each other, hands reaching beneath clothing, zippers rustling and buttons popping as they fight to sate their lust in every imaginable way.
