Page 25 of Thawed Gladiator: Lucius (Awakened From the Ice #5)
Chapter Twenty-Two
R aven
The morning sun filters through the colorful papel picado banners strung across our hotel balcony, casting patterned shadows across the bed. Lucius still sleeps, his white hair splayed against the pillow, face peaceful in a way I rarely see when he’s awake.
We haven’t been intimate again, but perhaps it’s best that way. We’re getting emotionally and spiritually closer every day.
I slip out of bed carefully, grabbing my phone to check the time. The screen illuminates with a barrage of so many notifications that it makes my stomach sink.
Twenty-three missed calls. Forty-one text messages. Hundreds of social media alerts.
The first message from Megan freezes my blood: CALL ME NOW. Someone posted footage of Lucius online. It’s everywhere.
My fingers tremble as I open the link she’s sent.
The video opens with a scene from last night’s cemetery celebration.
Despite the shaky phone footage, Lucius is unmistakable—his pale form standing before a grave, white hair catching the candlelight as he performs a simple ritual that blends Roman practices with Mexican traditions.
The Latin words flow through in English, though I don’t know how they were translated, as he honors the boundaries between worlds.
The stranger captured everything—his distinctive appearance, his formal movements, the ancient language he spoke. Worse, they clearly recorded from close range, hidden among the crowd of celebrants.
Comments beneath the video swarm with questions and theories:
“Who is this guy? Those aren’t standard Day of the Dead rituals.”
“That’s ancient Latin. Like, REAL ancient Latin, I think.”
“Is this connected to those frozen gladiators they found years ago?”
“@BeyondTheVeil, is that your mysterious consultant finally revealed?”
My thumb hovers over the screen, paralyzed by the implications. The damage is already done. My heart is pounding, my hands are shaking, and my thoughts are swirling with woe-as-me thoughts as I imagine this will be the end of our growing relationship.
“Rosemary?” Lucius’s voice, sleep-rough but alert, carries from the bed. “What’s wrong?”
He’s practically still asleep, but still so attuned to me, he senses just how upset I am.
I turn slowly, phone clutched in my hand like a grenade with its pin removed. “Someone recorded you last night. Performing a ritual at one of the unattended graves.”
He sits up immediately, fully awake now. “Show me.”
I hand him the phone, watching his expression carefully as he views the footage. His face remains perfectly composed—that arena mask sliding into place—but I see the slight tightening around his eyes, the barely perceptible tension in his jaw.
“Norris,” he says finally, his voice flat. “He must have sent someone to follow us when you refused his demands.”
“I’m not sure.” My mind races through possibilities. “The angle is wrong. This was taken by someone standing among the mourners, not a professional cameraman. And it was posted to TikTok, not a production company account.”
As if on cue, my phone buzzes with a call from Norris. I answer on speaker.
“Have you seen it?” he demands without greeting. “The footage is everywhere. Twitter, TikTok, YouTube. Over two million views already and climbing.”
“We didn’t authorize this,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “Someone at the cemetery must have recorded without our knowledge.”
“Authorized or not, it’s a gold mine.” Norris’s excitement is palpable, which turns my stomach. “The mysterious pale man speaking ancient Latin in a Day of the Dead ceremony? People are obsessed . I’ve got network executives calling me about fast-tracking the documentary.”
Lucius rises from the bed, moving to the balcony with a rigid posture that speaks volumes about his distress. I watch him retreat from the conversation—from me—and something cracks in my chest.
“This isn’t what we agreed to,” I remind Norris coldly.
“You think I planted a random Mexican tourist in a cemetery to secretly film your consultant?” Norris sounds genuinely offended. “I didn’t need to. In the age of smartphones, privacy is an illusion. But now that it’s out there, we’d be idiots not to capitalize on it.”
“We’re not discussing this now.” I end the call despite his protests, then follow Lucius to the balcony.
He stands with his back to me, white-knuckled hands gripping the wrought-iron railing. Below, San Miguel continues its morning routine, oblivious to our crisis unfolding above.
“I need to contact the sanctuary,” he says without turning. “They should be warned. If someone connects this to the thawed gladiators…”
“I’ll help you call Laura.” I step beside him, not quite touching. “We’ll contain this.”
“Will we?” Now he turns, his expression carefully neutral, but his narrowed eyes reveal the betrayal he feels. “Two million views and climbing. My image, my voice—my sacred ritual performed for some poor fellow who died in the last century—now entertainment for strangers.”
“I never wanted this,” I whisper, reaching for his hand.
He doesn’t pull away, but neither does he return my grasp. “I believe you. But that changes nothing. What I feared has happened, regardless of our intentions.”
My phone buzzes again with calls and messages, each notification like another nail in the coffin of what we’d been building between us. I silence it completely, needing to focus on him.
“What can I do?” I ask, desperate to fix this somehow.
“Nothing.” The simplicity of his answer cuts deeper than anger would have. “What’s done cannot be undone. The modern world has claimed me as content, just as the arena once claimed me as spectacle.”
“This isn’t the same—”
“Isn’t it?” His voice remains calm, which somehow makes it worse. “My appearance, my practices—things that marked me as different, as valuable property—once again presented for others’ fascination.”
My throat tightens with unshed tears. “I’m so sorry, Lucius. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect you from this.”
“Your Norris sees opportunity. Others will too. The pharmaceutical companies that have sought our blood since we awakened. The scientists desperate to study us. The media hungry for sensational stories.”
He’s right, and we both know it. The careful protections the sanctuary had built around the gladiators’ privacy have been compromised by three minutes of shaky cemetery footage. All because someone found Lucius fascinating enough to record without permission.
All because I brought him here.
“We should return to the sanctuary immediately,” I suggest, reaching for some kind of action plan, though it might not provide any additional safety. “They have security protocols for this kind of situation.”
“Yes.” He nods, moving past me into the room to pack his few possessions. Each movement is precise, controlled, betraying nothing of what must be churning beneath the surface.
I follow, uncertain how to bridge the chasm opening between us. “I’ll book flights for this afternoon. And I’ll draft a statement denying any connection between the footage and my documentary project.”
“A practical approach.” His tone is polite but distant—the same careful courtesy he might offer a stranger.
“Lucius.” I move to stand before him, forcing him to stop his methodical packing. “Please don’t shut me out. Not now.”
For a long moment, he simply looks at me, eyes the color of winter sky. “I’m not shutting you out, Rosemary. I’m protecting what remains of myself.”
The words sting, but I steady my voice. “I understand why you’re upset—”
“No,” he interrupts gently. “I don’t think you do. This body has been owned, exhibited, exploited across centuries. My appearance made me valuable property, not a person. And now, despite our best intentions, it begins again.”
My phone buzzes with a text that manages to come through despite the silencing. It’s from Laura: “Sanctuary security detected unusual activity near the perimeter this morning. Confirmed pharmaceutical company vehicles in the area. Is Lucius with you? Keep him there until we secure the compound.”
I read the message to him as I watch his expression harden further.
“It begins,” he says quietly.
Moving with sudden purpose, he takes my laptop and opens it. “Help me check transportation options. Flights may be too public now.”
Together, we book a private car and plan our getaway. As I pack, I draft messages to Laura with our plans, arranged in a code we’d established for emergencies.
Before we leave, Lucius disappears into the hotel kitchenette with our phones and my tablet.
A minute later, the sharp tang of ozone fills the air.
When I glance in, he’s watching the microwave pulse with electric arcs, the screens inside flickering wildly before going dark.
Afterward, he wraps the melted wreckage in a towel and smashes it twice with the heel of his shoe.
Parts of what's left get flushed and scattered down different trash chutes.
"Saw this in a movie." He shrugs.
Throughout our frantic preparations, Lucius maintains a careful distance—physically present but emotionally withdrawn. Every attempt I make to reconnect with him is met with a polite acknowledgment that never reaches his eyes.
By noon, we’re in the back of a nondescript sedan heading out of the city. The driver, hired through sanctuary connections, asks no questions about the unusual pale man wearing sunglasses and a hat pulled low, or the woman beside him who keeps scanning the highway behind them.
“They’ll be monitoring airports,” Lucius says, breaking the silence that has stretched between us since leaving San Miguel. “The sanctuary will arrange alternative transportation once we reach the coast.”
I nod, then gather my courage to ask the question haunting me. “Can you forgive me for bringing you into this?”
He turns away from watching the landscape pass outside. “There’s nothing to forgive. You didn’t create this situation.”
“But if I hadn’t brought you to Mexico—”
“Then it would have happened elsewhere, eventually.” His voice softens slightly. “The world has changed, Rosemary. Privacy exists now only in shadows and whispers.”
He reaches across the seat, taking my hand—the first gesture of connection he’s initiated since watching the video. His fingers are cool against mine, but the simple touch brings tears to my eyes.
“What happens now?” I ask, clinging to his hand like an anchor.
“We return to the sanctuary. We assess the damage. We adapt.” He squeezes my hand once before releasing it. “As I’ve done before.”
His voice holds certainty, but his eyes betray doubt. For all his composed exterior, Lucius is afraid—not of danger, which he’s faced countless times, but of once again becoming something less than fully human in the world’s eyes.
And as the miles stretch between us and San Miguel de Allende, I wonder if the boundary we’ve crossed—from observer and subject to something deeper—can survive this betrayal, even if neither of us wished it.