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Slowly, heads turn toward us. I hold my chin high. The crowd parts. Men stare at Yara with hunger in their eyes, but no one dares to make a move.
Every eye in the place is on me.
I raise my chin to the VIP area, where George and Gabriel sit at the August table, a bottle of something between them. George nods to me. Beside them, the other two tables are full of people, but I’m only interested in two men.
Constantine stares down his long nose at me, his eyes dancing with the promise of blood. If I were into older guys and didn’t already have three boyfriends I’m totally crazy about, I might’ve been into him. Bloodlust looks good on him.
Nero grins, his whole body shaking with suppressed laughter. But it’s a ruse – I can read his rage in his eyes. I’ve dealt him too many blows – freeing his shipment of girls, swiping the animals he intended to use to sell his entertainments, and right now the fire department is around at his new club. To add insult to injury, I’ve hijacked our people at their most bloodthirsty to deliver some kind of message.
I surprise him. And for all his false mirth, Nero Lucian doesn’t like surprises.
Eli’s mother sits beside Nero, scowling at me. She hates me because if I marry Nero, she won’t be able to. Well, she’s welcome to him.
Beside me, Yara holds her head high, holding the crowd back with nothing but her remote, penetrating stare. I hear whispers about her. Word spreads through my people that she was one of Nero’s girls, and now she walks by my side, reinforcing the law I’ve laid down. The August family doesn’t deal in skin, and in this new world, anyone can rise in favor. They don’t know how special Yara is – she wasn’t born for this life, but Nero’s cruelty made her, shaped her into a brutal and calculating ally, a woman I’m proud to have at my side.
By the time I walk onto the gangplank atop the arena, the crowd is on their feet, roaring and baying for blood. An Imperator interrupting the entertainments unannounced? They know something very special is about to happen. I raise my hands for silence.
“Hello, everyone. Are you enjoying the fights?”
I’m met with a roar of assent.
“Good. My cousin Antony works hard to give you the violence and bloodshed you crave.
I know you’re sad that we lost our beloved lion. I want to promise you that you’ll still have your bread and your circuses. Tonight I have a special treat for you. Tonight, you will bear witness to our own brand of justice.”
I gesture to Noah. He rises from his feet and enters the tunnel, dragging out Alec. Alec’s awake now, his head flailing in all directions as he takes in the blood-soaked arena, the baying crowd, and me.
I point to Alec. “This man is a rapist. He thinks he’s entitled to the bodies of women without their consent. He tried to rape me, your Imperator.”
People are on their feet again, bashing the tables with their fists, stomping the concrete, roaring their outrage. It’s addictive, their righteous anger. It burns in my veins like a drug. They may be my subjects, but I want to please them, I want to give them what they want.
And they want blood.
“But most importantly, he tried this on my closest friend.” I stare out into the crowd, pausing to meet as many eyes as I can. Men who may take lives but who do so with honor growl their disgust. Women glare back at me, hissing their own stories of abuse. Too many women in this audience have been hurt at the hands of men like Alec.
Tonight is for them.
“We are family,” I say. “All of us. When you sign your name to the Triumvirate’s ledger books, you receive the protection of this family. Tonight, I want you to know exactly what that protection offers. And I want anyone out there thinking of hurting my family to see what happens when you cross me.”
I take Antony’s arm and allow him to lead me off the podium. The crowd gasps as I step down into the arena. Imperators rarely touch the blood-soaked sand. We like to remain remote, above it all.
But not tonight.
Tonight I want to be close enough to smell his fear.
Noah kicks Alec. He trips over the shackles binding his ankles, and topples forward to land facedown in the sand. Noah reaches down and grabs a fistful of hair, yanking Alec’s head back so he stares into my eyes.
“Bow before your queen,” Noah roars, the mask muffling his words so that only Alec and I can hear them.
Tears stream down Alec’s cheeks, mingling with the blood. I look down my nose at him, and my body hums with power. “You’re a weed, Alec LeMarque. You grow through everything, choking away all that’s beautiful. If the gardener wants a beautiful garden, she must pull out the weeds and burn them, and scatter the ashes back into the earth to feed new growth.”
I nod to Antony on the gangway above. He signals to his people. Two men wheel out a large bronze sculpture of a bull. As soon as the crowd sees the bull, they go absolutely wild. They rush from their seats, their bodies slamming against the wire fence around the arena, desperate for a front-row seat to the spectacle. They cry and chant and roar with bloodlust.
It’s been a long, long time since they’ve seen the brazen bull.
This punishment is reserved for only the worst offenders, for those who threaten the sanctity of the Triumvirate itself. Many of the people here tonight know of the bull only as a rumor, as a myth told by our veteran soldiers to frighten new recruits into loyalty.
It hasn’t been used in my lifetime.
