My Boyfriend is a Dead Roman Hero | Jason Grace

I Get Kidnapped By Royalty

Juliette is bluffing like she has never bluffed before in her life.

She is the bluff master. A bluff icon. She bluffs like nobody's business and has a PhD in macrobluffology.

Thank the gods for all that lead these idiot emperors used to build their water pipes with (thanks for the funfact, babe!), because it made them dumb as hell, and that is the only reason Julie is still alive.

Of course, she doesn't want to count her lucky stars too soon. Especially considering she's currently waking up with a massive headache in what she's pretty sure is an Imperial Gold cage in the back of a moving van.

What happened? Ugh, why is she so dizzy?

The last thing she remembers, she was being paraded into some dinner meeting in Nero's ugly ass throne room. There was another emperor...Comm...Commo...Commode? That sounds right. Yeah. The guy with the beard in the speedo. Did he drug her? Groaning, Julie heaves herself slowly into a sitting position.

She very quickly realizes something is missing.

Julie's heart does a summersault.

Her leg.

Shit.

They took her bronze leg.

What the Hades, Commode?

That's so rude?

Seriously?

Why would you-?

Seriously?

Can you spell ABLEISM?

Juliette may or may not throw a flailing temper tantrum on the ground when she realizes this.

UGH! Okay, she really should have expected this. It's Celestial Bronze. If she were a kidnapper, she'd probably confiscate it too. But, gods, this is going to make escaping, like, a thousand times harder.

It takes a few tries to sit up because of the spinning in her head. Not to mention her stomach is rolling with every bump the van hits on the road. Once she manages it, she starts to take in her surroundings.

Yup. Cage. Well, honestly more of a kennel. Like a dog crate. Julie scowls at the realization.

The golden bars of the cage she's been leaning on have left impressions on her bare arms. She's still wearing the clothes she left camp in (the relief of that is like a punch to the gut). Her wounds don't seem to have been treated either. Her right eye is swollen, and her lip is scabbed over in the middle. When she moves her left arm too, she feels the sunburn-like stinging she had certainly not missed since the Tiberii donum was first put on her in December. Probably from her little mini torture-sesh in the woods.

She grits her teeth. Nero.

Gods, when Julie gets out of here, she is going to rip that stupid neckbeard right off his pimply chin.

But, for now...She should probably figure out what in the sweet Hermes is going on.

Julie scoots to the front of the cage and squints up at the driver's seat. There's a partition separating the cargo section from the cab, so she can't see too much. She can make out that there's only one driver, though.

Really? No guards?

That's kind of insulting, honestly.

The shape is definitely male, though. Good. That means this will be a piece of cake. Julie rolls her neck and shakes out her shoulders. It's been a minute since she tapped into the power of being hot. She usually leaves that bit up to Piper. Desperate times call for desperate measures, though. And, she's already annoyed enough that she feels no guilt in taking advantage of her feminine wiles.