Gladiator of Rome (#1 in Gladiator Series)

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Every muscle in Krista's body froze in shock. As the evening drew on the steam in the baths grew less until there was very little to cloud the air and mask Artorius's naked form. As he was stood with his back to her Krista let her eyes travel over the deep lesions that scoured his back and shoulders. The wounds had bled profusely staining the area around them but the hot moisture made them run again until it streaked his flesh.
Krista did not know how or what to feel as she watched him hunched over on the floor, trying to stand and yet unable to from the pain. She saw too that the whip had also hit him on the legs. 

He was in so much pain that Krista wanted to look away but she couldn't. She had done this. She knew to Artorius that it was degrading to see such a powerful man brought down to this but all she could feel was sympathy as she had caused this with her actions. But it had not been her intent.
As he tried to stand Artorius turned his head and spotted her.

Pausing before he spoke her name, Artorius clenched his jaw as he stood and turned to face her and once she saw the look in his eyes she could have sworn it had tore right through her. The humiliation and anger that lay in those dark depths matched her own the night she had run from the Commander's private quarters and Artorius had seen her. 

She had run away in secret, not wanting anyone to know, but Artorius did not get that option. He was publicly whipped by their owner for attacking him. Krista could only assume that Artorius thought that he was protecting her honour, not that she had any left to protect, but all he did was place her plan at risk and endanger himself at the same time. If he went out into the arena tomorrow he would be cut down in seconds.

"What were you thinking?" Krista shook her head as she walked into the baths, the thin layer of water over the warm stone making her feet wet. She no longer saw Artorius's naked body as she came to a stop a few feet in front of him, her eyes narrowed. 

"Krista?" Artorius frowned, confused by her words, "What do you mean?"

"You had no right to hit the commander," Krista snapped as she remembered the sound of the whip hitting his flesh. She had seen whippings before but this time she knew that the sound of the Commander's leather rope against Artorius's flesh would never leave her mind. 

"You are defending him?" Artorius shouted, "After what he-" Artorius clamped his eyes shut and Krista knew that he was seeing her and the Commander together in his thoughts. 

"The Commander did nothing to me except touch me," Krista hissed as she turned and stormed over to the other side of the baths, "You jeopardised everything." 

"He shouldn't even have done-" Artorius spluttered as he winced against the pain when he tried to move. 

Glancing over her shoulder, Krista sighed when she saw that he was struggling to even walk. with every step it would jolt the lesions on his back.
"Are you going to kill every general, senator and slave master that touches one of his girls?" Krista asked as she grabbed a length of linen cloth from a pile on the side and walked back. 

Placing her hands around his arm, she stilled him, guiding him to a stone bench that was placed near the edge of the bath. 

"I don't need your help." Artorius turned away. 

"Just like I didn't need yours," Krista snapped back at him. Artorius gave her a look from the corner of his eye but he was too weak to argue. 

Sighing Krista shook her head and said, "we need to wash the blood off." 

But before she could try and tend to his wounds Artorius's brow furrowed as if he had remembered something he wanted to ask her and she feared what it could be. And when the words left his lips in that next moment Krista knew that her plan was starting to unravel as Artorius caught onto a splaying thread and started to pull, trying to unearth her secrets.