Page 51 of Thawed Gladiator: Cassius (Awakened From the Ice #3)

Chapter Fifty-One

C assius

Moonlight spills through Diana’s window, casting a silvery glow over her sleeping form. Her head rests on my chest, her honey-blonde hair spilling across my skin like liquid gold. My fingers trace idle patterns on her shoulder as contentment washes over me.

Yet as I watch her sleep, memories of my cruelty surge back, piercing my heart like a gladius. How could I have used her deepest vulnerabilities against her? The way I mocked her scars, threw her parents’ abandonment in her face—I might as well have physically struck her. The shame of it burns in my chest.

She stirs slightly, pressing closer, and my arms tighten around her instinctively. Her trust in me now, after everything, is a gift I don’t deserve.

“Diana,” I whisper, pressing soft kisses to her temple, her cheek, the corner of her mouth. She awakens slowly, a smile curving her lips as she stretches against me.

“Mmm,” she hums, her eyes opening to meet mine. The love I see there makes my throat tight. She reaches for me, clearly eager to make love again, but I catch her hands gently in mine.

“Wait,” I say softly. “There’s something I need to say first. Something I should have said long ago.”

She stills, sensing my seriousness. I sit up, drawing her with me, and slide from the bed. Her brow furrows in confusion as I kneel before her, taking her hands in mine.

“I hurt you,” I begin, my voice rough with emotion. “Not just with thoughtless words spoken in anger, but with deliberate cruelty. I took everything you trusted me with—your past, your pain, your deepest fears—and used them as weapons against you.”

Her breath catches, but she doesn’t pull away. I press on, needing to get this out.

“I was so caught up in my own pride, in trying to reclaim who I thought I was supposed to be, that I forgot who I wanted to be. You showed me nothing but kindness and acceptance, and I repaid you with arrogance and derision.”

I lift her hand to my lips, kissing each knuckle with reverence. “Your scars don’t make you less beautiful—they make you more so. They show your strength, your resilience. The parents who threw you away were fools who couldn’t see the treasure they had.”

Tears glisten in her eyes now, but she remains silent, letting me continue.

“I kneel before you not as a patrician seeking forgiveness, nor as a gladiator offering fealty, but as a man who knows exactly how much damage his pride and cruelty caused. I can’t undo what I did, but I swear by all the gods of Rome and by whatever power preserved me through two millennia to find you—I will spend the rest of my life making sure you never doubt your worth again.”

I reach for the wooden gladius charm that hangs around my neck—the one Thrax carved for me when I first arrived, the symbol of my warrior spirit. With deliberate movements, I remove it and place it in her hands.

“In Rome, when a gladiator surrendered, he laid down his weapons and placed his life in another’s hands. I surrender myself to you, Diana. Not because I have to, but because I choose to. Because you make me want to be better than I ever was in either of my previous lives—patrician or gladiator.”

Diana’s fingers close around the charm as tears spill down her cheeks. For a long moment, she’s silent, and my heart pounds in my chest. Then she slides from the bed to kneel with me on the floor.

“You hurt me deeply,” she says softly, her voice steady despite her tears. “But you’ve also shown me what real change looks like. Not just in words, but in actions. In choices.” She presses the charm back into my hands. “Keep this. Not as a symbol of surrender, but as a reminder of who you choose to be.”

I cup her face in my hands, brushing away her tears with my thumbs, then trace my fingers along the constellations of freckles I’ve come to know as well as any stars that guided me home in Rome. “I love you,” I whisper in English, wanting no barrier between my heart and these words. “All of you. Every scar, every fear, every strength and vulnerability. I love you.”

She kisses me then, soft and sweet, full of forgiveness and promise. When we make love again, it’s with a new depth of understanding, of trust restored and strengthened. And as she falls asleep in my arms once more, I send up a prayer of gratitude to the goddess Fortuna and whatever gods might be listening—not for preserving me through the centuries, but for giving me the chance to become worthy of this woman’s love.