Free Conquered by the Werebear (BWWM Interracial Paranormal Shifter Werebear Alpha Male Erotic Romance) by Champagne Jackson

 
    The Gladiator
     
    The sound of swords clashing has always filled my stomach with a mix of fear and excitement. Fear, because I know I will see blood today, see men torn to shreds by wild beasts from the orient, see them beg for their lives and sob like newborn babes. And excitement because, as much as I hate myself for it, I love to see those gladiators, magnificent specimens of men, destroying one another. Their bodies, their muscles, they glisten in our unflinching Roman sun. Their sweat runs off them in rivulets and I can’t help but find my nether regions filled with delight, with lust, as I see their muscles work hard, their tendons stretch and strain in mortal combat.
     
    My name is Abeba, daughter of the Nubian nobleman and diplomat-in-residence attached to the Roman senate, Kashta Axum. I have passed eighteen summers now and, as my father says, I am become a woman.
     
    Not that I feel like a woman. Not that he treats me like a woman. I am still confined to my father’s house, to the women’s quarters, where I sew and play the lyre and trade stories with my sisters and our handmaidens. We go to the market once a week with Lephora, the slave woman tasked with keeping us out of trouble. And that’s it. Otherwise, my life is an endless parade of tutors hired by my father to teach me to be a suitable wife—from them, I learn how to run a household, how to order around servants, how to speak politely and intelligently to my future husband. I also learn, once a week, how to please a man. My father hired a Frankish woman, a former slave and now owner of one of the largest brothels in Rome, to school me in the arts of satisfying men…
     
    There is one other aspect of my life, of course. The fights—the gladiatorial spectacles held every Saturday in the Coliseum in the center of Rome. Everyone who’s anyone in Rome attends them—there’s no other way to see and be seen here, especially for young women.
     
    My father especially loves the games. He’s a rich man, a former senator back in Africa, who has more or less retired. He owns many farms outside of the city but he doesn’t even bother to visit them anymore. His only occupation in life, now that my mother has died, is buying and selling slaves to fight in the arena. He wins and loses fortunes weekly, betting on the games and winning prize money on behalf of his fighters.
     
    Maybe you’ve heard of some of them—there was Alpinus, the huge Frankish beast, covered in hideous scars and tattoos, who was undefeated for over sixty fights in a row before my father gave him his freedom and command of his own personal school for gladiators. Then, there was Longinus, a disgraced centurion whose military precision and ruthless efficiency led him to victory in twelve engagements, all in successive weeks, before finally the emperor himself, determined to see a man who had broken his oaths die, ordered him to face a squad of twelve Scythians all at once. Longinus distinguished himself even there, dispatching seven of the Scythians before succumbing himself. My father could only watch in silent bitterness as he watched his invest collapse on the dusty field, gutted like a fish and crying crimson tears of blood.
     
    “Abeba!” I heard my father’s voice ringing through the halls of our villa. I looked up from my sewing. I am not very good at sewing, so I was delighted to have any opportunity possible to escape my studies. My father burst into my chambers, a grin on his plump old face. His toga was all disheveled and he was clearly excited.
     
    “You must come see the gladiator I have just purchased!” he announced, beaming. “He’s… He’s truly magnificent. He’ll fight this Saturday, and every Saturday after that, I imagine.”
     
    I allowed myself a little smile. My mother’s death was hard on my father and I was glad, I suppose, that he had found something to take his mind off the sorrow.
     
    “Go collect your brother and meet me outside! You