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The scent of sweat and blood thickened the air as the clash of steel echoed through the hall. You weren’t even paying attention. Caracalla shifted in his throne, restless, predatory, his lips twitching with dark amusement. And maybe Geta did the same.

Then came the gladiators.

“Swords,” Caracalla groaned, his voice slurred. Childlike in its craving. His eyes, hazy with intoxication, shone with a dangerous hunger. “I want swords.”

He let out a mocking laugh, his ringed fingers caressing your leg with a pressure that could only mean he was far from consciousness; his touch heavy and unsteady. Like he was most likely trying not to slip away. The intoxication mixed with his own disease blurred his senses, yet his grip remained intense.

You couldn’t help but laugh, your lips curling into a mischievous smile. His need was so raw, so unrestrained. “A fight to the death! No quarter to be offered, or given” you raised your voice as a sadistic thrill dancing in your chest. You leaned against him, feeling the warmth of his body, the unpredictability of his madness seeping into your bones.

You loved him to death.

It was almost amusing to see how they all believed—how they fantasized—that you, a noble-born girl, now a woman, could ever hope to civilize a creature so deranged and unhinged as Caracalla. Kicked and left alone at such a young age, rotten to the core and probably to his mind too. Citizens whispered among themselves, imagining that love, care, tenderness, could redeem the blood-stained mind of Caracalla. How sweet was their foolishness. Their faces—so full of hope, of pity, such a beautiful lady trapped in such destiny—always crumbled in disbelief every time you spoke, every syllable that escaped your lips reminding them of your control over a man who could burn an empire with but a whim.

They fantasized about you being his tamer, as though you could tame what was never meant to be tamed, and cure what had long been beyond healing. The truth was bittersweet. For what they all failed to understand, or what they would never understand, is that you weren’t a healer of broken things. How could you explain that your heart warmed at the sight of him relishing in violence? His madness now belonged to you, woven into your very soul. And love? Love could never soften the edges of such brutal spirit—it could only feed the fire.

You adapted. You survived. You thrived in the shadows of his cruelty, and the power it gave you. You learned to enjoy and yearn for the taste of blood, the sound of a life taken with a mere word from your lips. You reveled in the control, the pleasure, the satisfaction. It almost wasn’t a mad thing under your eyes. It was an act of love. Even Macrinus, so quick to label you as bloodthirsty, so eager to brand you as a woman gone mad and turned dangerous, could never understand and always shows himself surprised.

The fight started and you had to roll your eyes at Hano’s words. It felt like an intrusion, a stain. It ruined everything for you.

While everyone was enjoying the fight, one of Caracalla’s discarded concubines—a slave you’d thought long forgotten—had dared to reach for the emperor’s knee, his delicate fingers grazing his upper leg with insolent familiarity. Caracalla did not pull away. Instead, his body softened, inviting the touch with ease, indulgent in a way that twisted something sharp and venomous inside your chest.

Jealousy came to you like a big black wave, something sharp and unyielding; carved from the same iron as the swords that painted Rome’s conquered territories red. It lodged itself beneath your skin, festering, until it became as familiar as brething—a constant ache you could neither purge nor embrace fully. It wasn’t simply desire or the hunger for possession. It was something wretched: the need to be the only one Caracalla turned to when the sickness in his mind became too loud to bear. To be the only one he desires and needs every single time. It often felt like a wound that never healed — and it never would.

He was pure chaos wrapped in imperial red—a creature of untamed anger, both cruel and relentless—but he was yours. Not because he loved you in the way poets sang of, nor in ways little girls dreamed of, but because you understood the shadows that devoured him, ones that fed on you both. Your bond was forged in the smothering heat of violence, in whispered commands that condemned lives, in glances exchanged over bloody arenas where human lives were torn apart for sport. It was a language you both spoke so effortlessly, the language of violence.

While Caracalla never promised fidelity, never whispered of devotion. He understood long ago he didn’t need to. Your understanding went beyond mortal vows, or words. You stills remember the first execution that had twisted your stomach, nausea clawing at your throat as the blade struck flesh, severing a life at your own whispered command. It was a slave; a gift from his twin brother Geta. The only thing she had done wrong was to stare for a second longer in Caracalla’s way. He’d found you later, hands still stained with blood, and kissed you like he was trying to consume your bare soul. And you had let him, because surrendering to him just felt right. Dreamy even.

By the second time it happened, for you it was a lot easier. By the third, you no longer turned away. And then Caracalla simply no longer lusted for carnal pleasure outside your marriage. You learned to savor it—the thrill of power, the satisfaction of everyone’s disapproving glances, the realization that you, too, could be merciless. Whispers said that bloodlust, it seemed, could be contagious.

And Caracalla needed you, as you seemed to be made from the same shattered pieces he was. You were forged in the same merciless burning fire, twin flames consuming everything in their path.

“Careful” You whispered as your hand shot out with precise cruelty, striking the boy’s wrist hard enough to sting, though he didn’t knew the true punishment would come later. Your lips curled into a cold, satisfied smile when you saw the concubine’s startled expression, quickly masked by a defiant laugh. Good, you thought. Let him believe he had won something. Let him feel safe.

Later, when the games were done, when the blood-soaked marbled floors had cooled, you went to Caracalla—not to beg, but to demand. You crawled into his lap, as you have done many times, let him bury his hands in your hair, and whisper what you wanted like it was a sacred invocation. Gods’ spoke through you. He easily obliged, giving it to you, not only because of love, but also because your voice was the only one which could still the storm in his head, the way you could channel his fury into something he deemed purposeful.

“Him.” Your voice cut through the cinnamon scent filled air. You didn’t even bother looking at the concubine—his fate was already sealed. Instead, your eyes remained fixed on the faces around you, enjoying the flickers of recognition and fear that bloomed like flowers. A sardonic smile tugged at your lips, as an unspoken reminder of who actually held their lives…

Caracalla was always watching you, always listening, always poised between affection and destruction. The small crowd of concubines and imperial guards, and maybe the citizens too, might have believed Rome’s fate rested in his hands, but you knew better. His power was tempered and magnified by your will.

Without a word, he reached for you, tracing the curve of your jaw as though in reverence—maybe to ask for forgiveness. His lips brushed your forehead. This was his acknowledgment, his devotion in the only way he knew how. You were bound by something the Gods themselves wouldn’t dare name.

He turned slowly, his eyes locking onto his guard. The command that followed was calm, almost indifferent—“His head.”

And when the concubine’s lifeless body was dragged through the dirt at her feet, Caracalla’s dark eyes gleamed with understanding. As he pulled you close, their breath mingled like a shared secret, and you knew you were his. But not because you had tamed him—as no one could. But because you had matched his cruelty with your own, answered his violence with your own form of devotion.

You would eternally consume each other—because love, in its purest yet darkest form, was conquest.