Proserpina

She stood, dagger poised in her hand as she waited in Emperor Geta's bedchamber. Her fingers shook with a fearful tremble as she heard approaching footsteps on the polished marble floor.

Of the two appointed new rulers of Rome, everyone knew Geta was more formidable and unpredictable than Caracalla, who was so absorbed into his own insanity he was an easier target, according to her mother's information.

But she herself had volunteered to infiltrate the palace under the guise of a concubine, chosen by Geta himself for him to ravish and pleasure for his own satisfaction.

Her mother Lady Lucilla had begged her not to place herself in such a vulnerable position, but she had argued that she would be allowed the closest to Geta, nobody suspecting a petite waif to be a danger.

She would allow him to seduce her, give him the greatest night of his life... and as he slept, she would end his tyranny once and for all, for the good of the empire.

She refused to believe that her father had suffered and died for nothing... Maximus Decimus Meridius, whom she had never met, as she had been born many months after his death in the Coliseum. He was watching over her in Elysium, and she hoped he would have been proud despite her being a product of a brief impulsive tryst with his former royal lover...

He was now with his own wife and son in the Afterlife...

Geta's voice was muffled on the other side of the door as he ordered the guards away for a few moments, most likely desiring privacy with her and nobody to overhear them.

She concealed the dagger underneath her chiffon, in a sheath attached to her hip. Her head held high as she stood against the wall adjacent of the massive bed, she saw the knob turn and the swishing of Geta's extravagant cape behind his back as he entered the chamber, his back to her as he closed and locked the door behind them.

At last, he turned to face her, his long fingered hands removing the golden wreath crown from around his head before removing the regal cape from his shoulders, allowing them to drop carelessly to the floor as he absorbed the sight of her.

She opened her mouth to say something, but held her tongue, allowing him to acknowledge her first.

Seeing him in closer proximity, she couldn't decide if she found him to be handsome or not. He was certainly taller than her by many inches as his dark shadowed eyes fixed on her like a tiger cornering a helpless deer.

Geta began to prowl closer to her, his eyes glancing her up and down and she tried to hold back a shiver of repulsion...

His blood-orange hair contrasted brightly with his pale ashen skin as she deciphered whether or not he was wearing some variety of powdered makeup on his face to emphasize the purple rings around his eyes that made him appear almost otherworldly in terms of masculine attractiveness.

His actual eyes were ebony as the starless night sky as he at last stood over her, placing his hands flat on the wall on both sides of her head, his dark pupils dilated in overwhelming the brown of his irises and she felt a wave of sudden dizziness and she hoped he didn't see the motion of her shaking legs under her dress.

"How pleased I am to finally see you in front of my eyes, little jewel. Your beauty radiates through the entire chamber even in the shadows of night." His voice was soft and almost nasally as she recalled mainly hearing him shout with maniacal enthusiasm from the Coliseum stands as she wondered of his effort for the Roman people to hear him placed a strain on his throat. "I daresay, not all the fields in Elysium possess a blossom fairer than you."

But the sound of him speaking certainly made her want to go weak at the knees... not an act she was playing up, but the feeling she could tell was real as her breathing hitched in her windpipe.