Page 5 of Thawed Gladiator: Quintus (Awakened From the Ice #6)

Nicole

Alaric (our instructor, built like a mountain and with the kind of patience that makes you think he’s seen it all before) hits the yard mat with a satisfying thud that reverberates through my entire body.

I stare down at him—all six feet and two hundred pounds of actual gladiator—sprawled on the training room floor, his expression somewhere between surprise and admiration. My hands shake with good adrenaline—the kind that comes from discovering I can do something I never imagined.

“I did that,” I whisper, then louder, “I actually did that!”

Maya’s whoop of approval echoes across the training yard. “Now that’s what taking up space looks like!”

Alaric grins as he rolls to his feet, completely unbothered by being thrown by a forty-five-year-old woman who, six months ago, couldn’t open pickle jars without Scott’s sarcastic commentary about her weak grip.

“Beautiful technique,” Alaric says, adjusting his translator earpiece. “You used my momentum perfectly. Very efficient.”

Efficient. I like that word better than lucky or surprising. It means skill, not accident.

The other women in our group gather around, their faces bright with shared victory. Here, every personal win feels like a group win.

“Show us how you set that up,” Karen demands, grinning.

I walk through the sequence again, confidence rising as I show them—hip placement, timing, that crucial moment when you commit instead of second-guessing. When I was married, analyzing anything I’d done right felt like bragging. Here, it feels like sharing knowledge.

“The secret is trusting that your body knows what to do,” I tell them, echoing Maya’s instruction from earlier. “Stop overthinking and start feeling.”

Maya nods approvingly from across the yard where she’s working with another pair. “Exactly right. Your body’s smarter than your doubts.”

As training winds down, I catch myself standing differently. Shoulders back, feet planted, taking up space without apologizing for it. The woman who apologized for existing is being replaced by someone who believes she has the right to be here.

The transformation isn’t just physical. It’s seeping into every part of how I move through the world. This intensive training has rebuilt more than just my body—it’s rebuilt my confidence.

Walking toward the main training yard to cool down, I hear the distinctive clack of wood on wood. On the other side of the fence, the gladiators are sparring. Our yards run parallel, close enough that we can see into theirs, and I find myself drawn to the sound like a moth to flame.

What I see stops me in my tracks.

Their sparring isn’t blocking and breaking holds like ours—it’s a deadly dance, each strike and counterstrike precise, fast, and absolute.

Two gladiators spar with wooden swords, their movements so fluid they look choreographed, but what’s real is the genuine effort and concentration on their faces.

One is Flavius, his red hair catching sunlight as he presses an attack with enthusiasm that borders on reckless. The other is the man who helped me curry Moonbeam—the quiet one who seems to appear whenever something needs fixing.

Quintus. Diana said his name yesterday, and it’s stuck in my mind ever since. Until now, he was just the silent one in the background, but watching him here, I realize silence can be its own kind of command. The problem-solver. The man who moves like every inch of him was made for purpose.

Watching them move together is like seeing a conversation conducted entirely through combat.

Flavius attacks with youthful aggression; Quintus responds with an economy of motion that makes every movement count.

Where Flavius uses three strikes, Quintus uses one perfectly placed defense that turns into a counterattack.

The contrast is striking. Where Flavius is all boyish enthusiasm and copper-bright hair, Quintus moves with the confidence of a man who’s seen everything and survived it all. Threads of silver run through his dark hair at the temples, and lines fan from his eyes.

He’s probably close to my age, maybe a little older, but where Scott’s already going soft around the middle with a bitter set to his mouth, this man aged like expensive whiskey—every year adding character instead of taking it away.

The match ends, and both men bow respectfully to each other. No ego, no posturing, just mutual acknowledgment of skills shared.

As I turn to leave, my gaze snags on Quintus again. His eyes meet mine across the yard—steady, assessing—and in that brief glance I feel the same jolt as when I landed Alaric on the mat. Recognition. Approval. His nod is small, but unmistakable. He’s been watching.

Heat prickles low and warm—ridiculous, satisfying—and I have to look away before the smile tugging at my mouth gives me away.

The afternoon flies by with my second training session on Moonbeam. Halfway through, a shadow falls across the rail—Quintus. He doesn’t interrupt; he rests a forearm on the top board, takes in my seat with a single sweep, then says to Diana in that low voice, “Left stirrup’s a hole too long.”

Diana checks, laughs—”Good eye”—and shortens it.

“Drop your heel,” he adds, not to correct so much as to steady.

I do. My calf burns, my seat settles, and Moonbeam rounds under me like we’ve agreed on something.

By the time I look back, he’s already moving on, a nod for Diana, one for me.

The rest of the hour passes too quickly.

Later, dinner conversation flows around the communal tables like a river of languages and accents.

My translator earpiece helps with the mix of English, Latin, and the rough consonants of Flavius’s native tongue—what the modern world calls German, though his is older, tribal, a root instead of a branch.

Little by little, I’m starting to pick up phrases on my own.

I end up at a table with several women from my group, but my attention drifts to the next one.

At the far end, Skye and Diana sit across from each other, talking in low, conspiratorial tones.

Beside them, Thrax and Cassius lean toward Quintus as he sets his tray down and takes a seat.

Their conversation is quiet, practical—some sort of maintenance issue with the stables—but the easy familiarity between them is what catches me.

“The irrigation system needs attention before winter,” Quintus is saying. “The fittings are corroding faster than expected.”

“Can you handle it, or do we need outside help?” Thrax asks.

“I can manage the repairs. Parts are the issue—everything here is different from what we knew.”

I’m struck by how naturally he’s adapted to solving modern problems.

The words are out before I can stop them. “My window’s stuck,” I blurt, heat crawling up my neck. “I can’t get any airflow, and it’s been stuffy for days.”

I never used to ask for help—not with Scott, not with anyone. I was trained to manage, to endure. But I hear my own voice anyway—clear, public, undeniable—asking.

Quintus looks up from his meal. “Which building?”

“C, room twelve.”

“Ah. The frames swell with humidity.” He pauses, considering. “I keep tools. If it pleases you, I will examine it after the evening meal.”

The offer is so straightforward, so genuinely helpful, that I’m caught off guard. When was the last time someone offered to solve a problem for me without making it feel like I’d owe them a huge favor in return?

“That would be amazing. Are you sure you don’t mind?”

“I do not mind. A problem ignored grows.”

An hour later, he’s standing in my small room with a toolkit that looks like it could handle anything from stuck windows to light construction.

Watching him work is unexpectedly mesmerizing—the way he examines the window frame with complete focus, testing different pressure points to understand why it won’t budge.

“Definitely swollen,” he murmurs, more to himself than to me, his voice low and rough enough to ignite a pulse low in my belly. “But also painted shut. Someone did poor work.”

His hands move with surprising delicacy as he runs a thin blade along the paint seal, breaking it free without damaging the wood. Strong hands, I notice. Scarred from years of combat, but steady and sure as he works.

I imagine those hands on me, steady in their strength, careful in their precision, and my body betrays me with a shiver I hope he doesn’t see.

“How did you learn to do this kind of thing?” I ask, settling onto my bed to watch.

He chuckles—a warm, rich sound that fills the small space.

“In the ludus, you learned whatever kept things functioning. Broken equipment could mean death in the arena. Broken barracks made life miserable.” He applies gentle pressure to the window frame.

“Fix problems before they turn into disasters.”

“That’s actually a pretty good life philosophy.”

“Survival usually is.”

The window gives way suddenly, sliding open with a satisfying whoosh. Cool evening air flows into the room, and I sigh with relief.

“Frame’s warped.” He frowns as he runs his fingers along the edge with obvious frustration.

Reaching into his toolbox, he pulls out a small rectangular block of something yellow and starts rubbing it up and down the inside runner of the window frame.

My initial confusion morphs into understanding as the scent of beeswax hits my nose and the memory of my father using the end of a wax candle on the sticking window frames at home comes to my mind.

“Did you have beeswax in your time?” I ask as he finishes coating both sides of the window as high up as the window will open.

“Yes. It was used for candles, statues, making things slide better and to keep water from soaking into cloth.”

“Waterproofing.” I provide the word, and he repeats it under his breath several times.

“It should open smooth now.” The way he says it makes me think of bodies instead of windows—things sliding together, heat and friction finding a perfect fit. My breath catches, and I have to look away.

I can see it bothers him that it’s not perfect. He can’t leave good enough alone—not when he can make it right.

“Well, that breeze is delightful. You’re a miracle worker.”

“Hardly. Just stubborn.” He tests the window again, making sure it slides both ways. “Should work now. If it sticks again, frame needs more work.”

“I’ll call you first instead of waiting for maintenance.”

Something in his expression shifts—pleased, maybe? Like he’s genuinely happy I’d think to ask him for help.

“Looks good as new,” I say, testing the slide to make sure I can work it easily, and it isn’t just his massive arms making it look effortless.

Quintus nods, putting the tools back into his box. “It should hold.”

I hesitate, then blurt, “Do you ever miss it? Your old world?”

His head tilts, eyes narrowing slightly as he thinks. “Not the blood, or the chains. But…” He pauses, gaze drifting past me as if seeing something beyond the room. “The sound of the crowd. The way thousands of voices became one. That kind of noise—it gets inside you.”

It’s as though I can hear the roar of the crowd in my head, and I might have some concept of why he misses that of all things. “I wonder if it was just noise, Quintus. If it still lives in you, maybe it was… proof you mattered.”

His gaze snaps to mine, sharp and searching, like I’ve brushed against a truth no one else has thought to offer. The silence stretches, charged, until he finally murmurs, “Most people only want the stories. You ask about what it meant.”

Heat prickles the back of my neck, and I busy myself with brushing paint fragments into a dustpan. “I guess I wanted to know the man, not just the legend.”

Something flickers across his face—surprise, maybe even gratitude—and he doesn’t look away. He straightens a fraction, shoulders squaring, as if deciding something. He takes one quiet step closer—close enough that I catch the clean scent of beeswax and hay—and waits until I lift my eyes to his.

“Then see me.”

The words slam into me with the force of a physical touch.

Not a suggestion, not a plea—an invitation edged with command.

My pulse lurches, heat curling low in my belly as if he’s stripped me bare with nothing more than three quiet syllables.

For a breathless second, all I can think about is how it would feel to be pinned beneath that intensity, to have no choice but to look—really look—and never look away.

And that thought terrifies me as much as it thrills me.

I give a nervous little laugh. “Careful. Say things like that, and you’ll ruin my concentration. I’m still reeling from your window wizardry.”

But my voice comes out too high, too thin, and I can’t quite meet his eyes. Because the truth is, part of me already sees him—beyond the legend, beyond the scars—and it scares me half to death how much I want to keep looking.

As he packs up his tools, the lamplight reveals more than I’m ready for.

The silver at his temples isn’t premature age—it’s the mark of a man who’s endured things that would have broken most. The lines around his eyes speak of battles fought and distances measured, but also of laughter I haven’t yet earned.

His mouth is wide, expressive, a mouth made to command, to smile, to kiss.

He’s handsome. Not in the obvious way Flavius is, all youth and easy brilliance. Quintus is handsome the way a perfectly forged blade is beautiful—every line precise, every angle meant to last.

“Thank you,” I say as he heads for the door. “Really. I was starting to think I’d suffocate in here.”

“Sleep well,” he says, and the warmth in it is so unguarded I believe him.

He hefts his toolkit, shoulders the doorway, and is gone.

The soft click of the latch leaves the room feeling too big—emptied out except for the echo of his deep voice, the heat he left behind, and the memory of scarred hands turning resistance into glide.

I touch the window, sliding it open and closed once more, grounding myself in the proof that it works—proof he was here.

My thighs press together before I even think to stop them. Tomorrow I’ll pretend I only needed air. Tonight… I know better.