A Forbidden MM Gladiator Romance

Auction of the Damned

The rain hammered down on the mud-churned fields of Britannia like the fists of angry gods, turning the ground into a treacherous mire where Ragnar’s tribesmen slipped and fell beneath the onslaught of Roman legionaries. He fought with the ferocity of a cornered wolf, his broad shoulders straining against the weight of his cloak soaked through with blood and water, but a pilum caught him in the thigh, searing pain exploding as he collapsed amid the screams of his kin. Raiders dragged him away, the metallic tang of blood mixing with the earthy petrichor, his world narrowing to the bite of ropes binding his wrists before darkness claimed him in the hold of a slave ship.

Now, months later under the merciless Roman sun, Ragnar stood on the auction block in the Forum’s slave market, the air thick with the stench of sweat, offal, and desperation from hundreds of chained bodies crammed into pens. His muscular frame, honed by tribal skirmishes and brief gladiatorial training in a provincial ludus, glistened with grime and perspiration, drawing leering gazes from the toga-clad crowd. Coarse wool rags clung to his pale, scarred skin, barely concealing the powerful lines of his chest and thighs, and he clenched his jaw against the humiliation burning in his gut.

The auctioneer’s voice boomed over the jeers and catcalls. ‘A fine murmillo from the barbaric north! Captured warrior, unbroken spirit—perfect for the arena!’ Bidding erupted in a frenzy, sesterces flying like insults, but it was the pale, corpulent patrician in the front row whose cruel green eyes fixed on Ragnar with predatory hunger. Dominus Gaius Marcellus, his silk-trimmed tunic straining over his belly, raised a bejeweled hand. ‘Two thousand!’ he bellowed, outbidding rivals with sadistic glee.

Beside Ragnar, other slaves shifted in their irons: a towering Numidian with ebony skin and dreadlocks like coiled serpents, his massive chest heaving with barely contained rage; a lithe Cretan whose olive skin and curly dark hair framed sly, calculating eyes; and a Dacian with sharp features and corded muscles, his gaze haunted yet fierce. The hammer fell. Marcellus claimed them all—Ragnar, Zoltan the retiarius, Tariq the berserker, and Silas the hoplomachus—for his ludus.

Guards yanked them down, slamming cold iron manacles around their wrists, linking them wrist-to-wrist in a coffle that forced their sweat-slicked bodies into unwelcome proximity. Ragnar felt the heat…