Free Arena Shifters (A Paranormal Romance Novel) by Casey Evans

rebellion that was sweeping Rome at that time. Anytime a slave tried to
escape, that slave, as well as every other slave in the same house, were
automatically put to death. It was usually done in spectacle in the arena, but
some chose to take care of the matter quietly in their own homes. After several
prominent houses had put to death their entire households in the arena, the
number of attempts to escape were a fraction of what they used to be.  Some of
the poorer houses did not follow the exact letter of the law and only punished
the ones trying to escape rather than everyone as the cost to replace an entire
household of slaves was costly. For the most part, the law was followed,
especially among the prominent houses like that of the House of Tiberius. There
was little doubt in the slave’s minds that should any one of them try to
escape, they’d all lose their lives. Before the law came into effect, there was
no such thing of slaves policing themselves, but now sometimes slaves caught
and punished their own to keep them from all losing their heads.
     
    And with those dark thoughts
in Petronia’s head, she lay on her sleeping pallet shaking in fear. Here is
what she heard. In order for an escape to work it had to have outside help. For
a slave to communicate with the outside world, escaped slaves, it was very
difficult. There was a slave that had escaped from her Villa, a young female,
and it was known that the Lanista was very interested in her being brought back
home alive. The plan was she would get herself captured and returned to Gaius
who would of course use her as his personal plaything until he tired of her and
had her killed. She of course would be returning to the House with the escape
plans and the ability to coordinate everything from the inside. At the proper
time, a couch would arrive at the Villa filled with escaped slaves. The coach
was one of the ones taken when the Lanista’s caravan has been attacked several
months ago. Riding in the coach were 10 well armed slaves, along with a driver
who had been spared on the night of the attack. Without him driving the coach they
would never get inside the walls of the Villa.
    Every slave of the House of
Tiberius was invited to escape of course because any slaves left behind would
be executed. During the battle 2 other coaches would be brought up to the gates
for the purposes of loading up the salves and any captives should they want
any. To Petronia it seemed like a good plan. Probably had just as much a chance
of succeeding as in failing. An escape with a 50% chance of success was pretty
high as escape attempts usually went. So why was she thinking of siding with
her Masters?
    She wished she hadn’t ever
heard of the attempt, and doubly wished it hadn’t come from her trusted friend
Albinia. Albinia would be one of the ones who would be escaping. As a rule, in
any mass escape attempt like this one, only those who really needed to know
were told. The more that knew, the better chance that someone would get drunk
and in a moment of weakness let it slip to the wrong person at the wrong time.
As she lay there tossing and turning she recalled the conversation yesterday.
Albinia had approached her late that night, after coaxing a guard to let her
out of her cell for fifteen minutes.
    Petronia woke to find someone
whispering her name in the dark. It was her only friend Albinia.
    “Petronia…Petronia, wake up!”
She hissed over and over until she finally woke her young friend up.
    “Albinia, what are you doing?
How’d you get out?”
    “Never mind that. I just did
a quick favor for that weirdo guard that’s on tonight. But I only ten minutes
now because I wasted five trying to wake your sorry ass. Now listen up.”
    Albinia had told everything
she knew about the escape attempt knowing full well that Petronia would be left
out when it came to escaping. Being a female gladiator in a male world had not
made Petronia popular. Especially since killing Cletus who