60 B.C.
Meshenna stood with his head held high as he allowed the Praetorian guards to rip the finely made tunic from his body, then place the iron shackles around his neck and wrists. He didn't break eye contact from the man who had ordered it. Meshenna knew that he could simply kill them all and walk away freely any time he wanted.
But he didn't.
He wanted to see if his lover... ex-lover... would really go through with it. All because meshenna had refused to be his 'consort' officially. Of course, Julius had no idea that meshenna couldn't become a public figure. The fact that meshenna never aged wouldn't be handled well by mortals. He had learned early to never stay in one particular place too long. But even if he could have stayed, meshenna never would have. There was only one person who he belonged to, and it was not this arrogant Roman general.
His affair with Julius Caesar had only been going on for a few weeks, but the man was supremely possessive and had rapidly become obsessed with the blonde , forsaking his favorite slave ; the presumed god that Rome was housing. The man's jealousy had spiked when he had been unable to find meshenna the night before, and demanded to know where he had gone. Meshenna often returned to the camp of the Four Horsemen, and when he had refused to tell Caesar where he had been or whom he had been with, the man had exploded. He had told meshenna that he would have him declared a slave and made his own personal property. Meshenna had no papers proving himself a citizen of Rome, so the claim would be easy to make, especially coming from one so powerful.
Of course, in order to maintain political alliances, Julius himself had every intention of finding a third wife to replace the one he had just divorced, but he had not wanted to give up his newfound lover to do so.
Meshenna laughed, "I will never be a slave to any master."
Fury lit Caesar's face. When meshenna turned to go, he found the door blocked by Caesar's personal guards.
" You should have yielded to me, meshenna," Julius watched, his face impassive as the final shackle was placed around Meshenna's ankles. "My alliance with Crassus and Pompey will see me eventually seated as Emperor of Rome. You could have been my consort. Now you will be lucky if I allow you to be my slave."
Meshenna said nothing, his eyes blazing with scorn as he looked at the man.
" You will beg for me to take you back, meshenna. In front of all of Rome, I will have you on your knees begging for my mercy."
Meshenna's smile was mocking, filled with a dark confidence that tempted Julius to order his guards from the room so they could be alone , their only spectator the dark ocean depths of Tiras . But something told him that meshenna was not ready yet to bend to his will. The idea both enraged and aroused him like nothing else.
" I will never beg you, Julius. We were lovers, but I will never belong to you."
Fury snapped in the Roman's eyes, a hint of madness in their depths. "You WILL yield to me. You will be mine."
He turned and strode from the chamber, instructing the guards to bring meshenna down to the pits to await his fate in the colosseum.
The days of using slaves as gladiators had faded, with many free Romans, even some from the upper echelons of society, signing up to be trained as gladiators to fight for pay. While the job was still a risky one—with one in five fights resulting in death—it was worth it to many for the money and fame. They were the celebrities and sex symbols of Rome, almost on par with the aristocracy. Fights were usually no longer 'to the death', with the crowd determining which combatant would win the prize money. Matches were scheduled to pit opponents of similar experience and skill against each other, all for the amusement of the citizens of Rome.
Today was different, though, and the energy of the crowd reflected it. The top ten gladiators were called to participate in a match pitting them against a single slave. The objective was simple: whoever killed the slave first would be declared the winner of the match unless the slave was spared by his powerful master, who sat by the side of the Emperor. No one had ever heard of the slave before, but hungry eyes of the crowd ran over the beautiful, pale golden man shackled in the middle of the arena.
A guard approached meshenna to undo his shackles, but a call from the Emperor's box stopped him.
" Let him fight as he is."
The crowd gasped, the perfectly architected acoustics of the Colosseum allowing them to hear the order. Meshenna had been given only a net to fight with. To win, he would need to use it to entangle his opponent's legs, then use their own weapon to kill them. Even the most seasoned of gladiators hesitated before going into battle equipped as such. Shackled, he had no chance at all.
But the crowed was looking forward to a guaranteed death in the arena, and the blood lust was already heavy in the air. The doors to the other pits opened, revealing the ten powerful opponents that would surely slay the boy in minutes if he did not submit. Caesar looked down at the man he had claimed as his slave, expecting to see fear and submission in the blue eyes.
He was met instead with a look of dark, unyielding power and anger that had Caesar's blood heating frantically, his hand clenching into a fist. He MUST possess the boy. He would break him to his will. No one had ever challenged him like this. And Julius Caesar never walked away from a challenge.
A wind seemed to rise from nowhere, a slow swirl that started around the pale , shackled ankles then slowly intensified. The taunting of the crowd faded from Caesar's ears as he saw the eyes that had so captivated him slowly bleed to red. He had faced countless battles, killed legions of enemies. But this was the first time that Julius Caesar ever felt truly afraid.
As the ten gladiators advanced on Meshenna, Caesar's eyes only saw meshenna.
Meshenna kept his eyes locked on Caesar's for a moment before speaking, his voice heavy with a dark edge that had the bloodthirsty spectators momentarily falling silent.
" You made a bad choice Julius. Next time I come to Rome, I will burn it to the ground if your other slave doesn't do it first."
The crowd erupted into screams and jeers, egging on their favorite gladiators to put the strange ash slave in his place and show him the power of Rome. Meshenna's net flashed out, wrapping around the ankles of the nearest gladiator in a move that looked so simple it seemed odd that the man had not been able to avoid it, except for the speed at which it had been executed. Before the man could even draw a breath, Meshenna had pulled the net, sending man to his knees and seizing his sword and running him through with it.
The remaining gladiators didn't hesitate more than a moment before attacking, seasoned to the chaos of the arena. But it didn't matter. In a matter of moments, they were all on the ground. Meshenna looked slowly around the packed colosseum, his eyes glowing red.
Chaos erupted at the colosseum that afternoon. The jeers and chants turned to screams as the audience turned on each other, lost in a frenzied lust for battle. The emperor, frantic to maintain order, called the guards to try to subdue the crowd. The riots that ensued spilled out into the city streets before they were suppressed by the soldiers stationed nearby.
In the confusion, the blond slave had vanished without a trace. Caesar searched the entire city, but never saw him again. Nor did he notice the dark-eyed man who had watched him from the Senator's box, the promise of Death in his eyes.
