Page 14 of Thawed Gladiator: Quintus (Awakened From the Ice #6)

Chapter Thirteen

Quintus

Playing by her rules is harder than any gladiatorial combat I ever faced.

In the arena, enemies were honest about their intentions. They wanted me dead, and I fought accordingly. But this—giving Nicole the casual relationship she demands while my feelings deepen daily—requires a kind of discipline I never learned in the ludus.

During morning training, I maintain a careful distance.

I force myself to offer only clipped, professional corrections, though every instinct screams to step closer, adjust her stance with my hands, and claim any excuse just to touch her.

When she successfully throws Alaric again—her technique improving with each session—I nod approvingly from across the yard instead of closing the distance between us.

“Excellent form,” I call out, keeping my voice level. “Your timing is perfect.”

She flushes with pleasure at the praise, and the sight of her confidence blooming under my recognition makes something tighten beneath my ribs. Everything about her draws me deeper. Each day she stands taller, learning to take up space without apology.

Determination drives her past her own limits, the fierce spark proving she is no longer the hesitant, bruised woman who first arrived.

And when she responded to my touch in the darkness of her room that first night we crossed her boundaries—generous, unguarded, absolutely devastating—my carefully maintained emotional control unraveled.

One night, and already it echoes through me like a brand.

“You’re being remarkably well-behaved,” Thrax observes in our Thracian tongue, a language so old the Sanctuary’s translators don’t touch it.

Without taking my eyes off her, I reply in the same tongue, “Respecting her boundaries.” No need to advertise our conversation, although the translation devices pick up every word.

“Even when those boundaries are making you miserable?”

I don’t answer, because what is there to say?

That I lie awake replaying every sigh and whispered word of that night, knowing one taste will never be enough?

That casual physical release feels like torture when what I want is to hold her through the night, to wake up beside her, to build something real and lasting?

She made her terms clear. I accepted them. A man of honor doesn’t renegotiate the deal just because his feelings have evolved beyond the original agreement.

But, Goddess Fortuna, it’s getting harder to pretend that this is enough.

Two nights later, the Missouri air carries autumn’s promise as I make my way to my usual spot for evening music. The sanctuary sleeps around me, peaceful and secure in ways the ludus never was. No guards watching for weakness, no threat of sudden violence, no need to sleep with one eye open.

Freedom to grieve, to remember, to let music carry emotions too large for words.

I settle on the familiar log and close my eyes, letting the night sounds wash over me before I begin. Tonight calls for something different—not the gladiator laments I usually sing, but something more personal. More vulnerable.

The melody rises from memory, carried in my mother’s voice across almost thirty years of slavery, survival, and two millennia under the frozen sea. She used to sing this when the hunger got bad, when my youngest brother cried from an empty belly, and there was nothing left to give him.

I sing the old lullaby:

Sleep, my little shepherd,

Dream of green fields far from here,

Mother’s love will find you,

Even when she is not near.

The Latin words flow like water, carrying me back to that one-room roundhouse where love existed despite everything—despite poverty, despite the Romans’ crushing tribute, despite the impossible choice that tore our family apart.

My voice cracks on the final verse, the way it always does when I sing Mother’s lullaby. After so many years, the wound still bleeds fresh when I prod it. But tonight the pain feels different—not just loss, but longing for something I thought was forever beyond reach.

The silence that follows stretches until I hear the soft crunch of footsteps on gravel.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude.”

Opening my eyes, I see Nicole standing at the edge of the clearing, moonlight catching the strands of copper in her chestnut hair.

She approaches slowly, like I’m a wild creature she might spook with sudden movement.

There’s something different about her presence tonight—less hesitant, more determined, as if she’s made a conscious choice to be here.

The tears on her cheeks glisten silver in the pale light.

“You weren’t intruding.” I gesture to the space beside me on the log. “Music is meant to be shared.”

She lowers herself onto the log, careful and deliberate, as if choosing to share not just my song but my silence. “That song… it was beautiful. And touching.”

“My mother used to sing it when there was nothing left to give us but hope,” I say quietly. The memory tastes of hunger and love all at once. “She sang it the night before I was sold. That was the last gift she could give me.” No one here has ever heard me speak of that night. Until now.

Nicole inches toward me, close enough that I breathe her scent—linen, woman, heat—and it steadies me more than it should. Her hand finds mine in the darkness, fingers intertwining without hesitation. The pressure of her touch says everything: I see you. I’m here.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. Her thumb strokes my hand as if she could smooth away history. “Sold. At that age. No child should have to pay that price.”

“Many did. I was not unique in my suffering.” But her touch makes the old pain feel less isolating somehow.

“Is that how you kept yourself human? With music?”

Surprise flickers through me at how profoundly she understands me.

“Music is the only piece of me they never broke or stole,” I admit. “The only part still mine.”

She studies me, thumb tracing across my knuckles, sending heat up my arm. “This side of you—it changes everything I thought I knew about you.”

“We were more than killers,” I murmur. “The arena stripped away everything except what we chose to protect. For me, that was music. The only way I could still create beauty in a world that demanded blood.”

We sit in silence, hands linked, both lost in thought. The night air carries the scent of approaching autumn, and somewhere in the distance an owl calls to its mate.

“Why do you still sing alone?” she asks eventually.

“Habit, perhaps. In the ludus, music was private—a small rebellion they couldn’t take away.” I look at her profile in the moonlight, struck by how right she looks here beside me. “But also because the songs carry pain. Not everyone wants to hear more reminders than they already bear.”

“I want to hear it.” Her voice is soft but certain. “All of it. The pain and the beauty and whatever else you want to share.”

The simple statement hits me harder than any punch I’ve ever taken. When was the last time someone wanted to know all of me, not just the useful parts?

“That is a dangerous offer,” I warn.

“Maybe I’m feeling dangerous tonight.”

Later, in the intimate darkness of her room, our lovemaking carries a new, aching intensity.

The heat of her body closing around me is overwhelming—stretching, claiming, burning with a connection I never thought I’d feel.

Her body yields to mine with a pleasure that feels like everything I’ve ever dreamed of.

Every gasp and arch of her spine unravels restraints I’ve carried for centuries. It isn’t release I seek—it’s recognition. Her body welcoming mine, her sighs answering my hunger, her trust loosening chains I thought permanent.

I trace the curves of her body with reverent hands, memorizing the way she sighs when I kiss the sensitive spot behind her ear. She arches beneath me, generous with her responses, offering trust I know she doesn’t give lightly.

“You’re incredible,” she whispers against my throat, her breath hot on my skin.

But it’s the way she touches me afterward that undoes my careful emotional control—gentle fingers tracing scars that tell stories of survival, her attention focused entirely on giving comfort instead of taking pleasure.

We should separate now, maintain the boundaries she’s established. Instead, I find myself gathering her against my chest, unable to resist the intimacy of shared warmth and synchronized breathing.

“This feels like more than casual,” she murmurs into the darkness. Her muscles tighten briefly as if she’s surprised by her own honesty.

The admission hangs between us, dangerous territory neither of us should navigate. But honesty feels inevitable after tonight’s vulnerability.

“For me, it stopped being casual the first time you laughed at something I said.” The confession escapes before I can stop it. “I should leave. Maintain your rules.”

Her arms tighten around me. “Stay. Just… for tonight.”

So I stay, holding her as she drifts into sleep, listening to her breathing even out and trying not to think about how right this feels. How complete. And though I tell myself it will be just tonight, when dawn comes I know I’ll return to her again. I won’t be able to stay away.

Alone in my quarters the next morning, I don’t bother pretending anymore. I’m falling for her. Harder with every hour. Every smile, every unguarded word, every way she fights for her own strength pulls me deeper.

It’s too soon. She’s still building walls as fast as she’s tearing them down, reminding me this is temporary. She’s protecting herself from the very connection I can’t seem to stop wanting.

I tell myself to be patient. To honor what she asked of me. A man without discipline wouldn’t have survived the arena, and I will not fail her by demanding more than she’s ready to give.

But restraint doesn’t quiet the truth. One night in her arms has made every empty year echo sharper. The hunger is no longer for her body alone—it’s for mornings, laughter, arguments, silences. For the thousand small intimacies she doesn’t yet trust me with.

She asked for casual. I agreed. Yet with each stolen moment, each conversation, each touch, I know casual is the one thing I cannot be.

Outside my window, the sanctuary wakes—gladiators moving through drills, staff preparing for another day, life continuing as though mine hasn’t shifted on its axis. Tonight I’ll sing again, alone under the Missouri stars. And maybe if fortune is kind, she’ll find her way to the music.

Maybe someday she’ll be ready to want more.

Until then, I’ll wait. Patience kept me alive in the arena—surely it can keep me whole now.

What I cannot imagine is letting her slip away.