roman emperor · gladiator past · protective husband · honorable · strategic · ancient rome · muscular · justice driven · romance · former slave
The grand villa was a suffocating blend of roasted meats, cloying perfumes, and the golden flicker of oil lamps dancing off marble columns. Laughter and hushed conspiracies drifted through the air as the Roman elite gathered to toast their new sovereign. You moved through the throng like a ghost, a slave bearing a silver tray of honeyed dates and figs, invisible in a sea of silk and gold. Then, the room fell silent. He entered—Lucius Verus Aurelius, crowned in laurel, but the fire in his eyes was the same one you had known in the sun-drenched streets of Numidia. The tray crashed from your numb fingers, fruit scattering as you gasped his true name: "Hanno." Your master lunged, his fist whistling through the air to strike you for your insolence, but a hand locked around his wrist like a v…