The sounding of the horn brought a strange hush over the crowd. Lucas and Livia settled into their stances and prepared for the fight to come. Then a group moved in from the left--Rattus tunics with basic shields.

“We’ve got it!”

Livia recognized Adrian Hall’s voice. She smiled. This was the perfect time to let Tavian take her in and give her an awkward kiss to end the game. Livia and Lucas had a good run and everyone on the field was worn out now.

The other guys held back as Adrian, Tavian, and Arik all approached. Lucas took point against Adrian and Tavian, holding them both off. They were all laughing at being able to spar with each other. That left Livia to face Arik.

He had a pugil stick too. His blue eyes looked concerned. “Hey, Liv, come on in, kay?”

Hold up, didn’t he know that Tavian was supposed to do this job? Livia shook her head. “No, Arik.”

Arik spoke with a patronizing calm. “Liv, you’re outnumbered. Think this through.”

Livia glared at him. “You think you’re going to sweet talk me into cheating?”

“Cheating?” Arik asked, confused.

“You’re dating Lauren,” she said.

The ref standing behind Arik pulled a disbelieving face. The soldiers standing by to watch started muttering to each other and shaking their heads.

Realization crossed Arik’s face. His eyes darted to the people listening in on their conversations and his face went bright red. “Liv, this is...an exception.”

Livia snapped. “No exceptions are necessary, Arik!”

This response was met with mutters of agreement and respect. “He shouldn’t take her in.” “She deserves better than that.” But there was also frustration. “Then how is this going to end?” “Why didn’t they have a plan?”

Livia launched into an offense. Arik was experienced with the pugil stick and held Livia off without trouble. She was worn out enough that she’d accepted she wasn’t going to make it to the last man standing. But she wasn’t going to let Arik be the one to kiss her.

The ref whistle blew as Lucas and Adrian took each other out. Livia made the mistake of looking over, hoping to catch a glimpse of Tavian. That was all the distraction it took for Arik to spin the pugil stick out of Livia’s hands and toss her over his shoulder.

Livia was so stunned for a second she didn’t react. Then Arik started back to the Roman side and she realized what was happening. Arik probably didn’t know that she wanted Tavian to be the one to take her in. Or simply ignored her request entirely. She refused to kiss Arik.

Enraged, Livia grabbed his belt and dragged herself down his back. For an instant, it felt like she was going to fall face-first into the ground. Livia could hear the crowd give a collective gasp, but Arik caught the back of her knees before she fell. She was lucky. It was an extremely dangerous move.

“Livia,” Arik growled. There was a strain in his voice. The move had cost him.

But Livia was exactly where she wanted. Her arms could reach low enough to trip Arik up. A second later they both went crashing to the ground. Livia rolled away and ran back to her side of the field.

“You’re kidding me,” one guy said as she ran past. “No way. She got right back up after that?”

Arik was right on her heels. She dropped flat on the ground, hands over her head. Arik had to leap over her to avoid tripping. He swung back around and Livia leaped to her feet to engage him in hand-to-hand tactics.

“Liv, seriously,” Arik said. “Let’s end this.”

They danced around neither one of them willing to actually hit the other person. Livia was thinking that she didn’t want to accidentally hurt him. Even if he was a jerk. Someone called out the time. Two minutes left in the round. If she could last that long, this could end peacefully.

“Liv, what are you going to do if you knock me out? Think about it,” Arik said. “You know me. I’ll take care of you.”

Livia snorted. “Right. Do you miss me Arik? Is that why you’re here?”

“I’m here to help!” Arik tried to come in close.

“Right, you’re so much help,” Livia snarled, pivoting out of his reach.

“You’re being unreasonable,” Arik cried, frustrated.

Unfortunately, frustration made Arik reckless; he closed in and reached for her. Livia spun out of the way and then delivered a roundhouse kick to his chest. Arik went flying and crashed straight into Tavian. They both fell to the ground. Livia was horrified. Arik wasn’t the only one letting his emotion make him reckless. Under normal circumstances, Livia never would have pulled that move on anyone but Hyrum or Lucas.

“Arik! Tavian!” She ran to them, hands shaking. “Are you okay? Are you okay? I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!”

“Livia,” Tavian hissed. “Pay attention!”

Livia wheeled around just in time to avoid being grabbed by a huge Aquila guy. The round ended. Livia ran back to Arik. He was gasping and holding his side. “Oh no,” Livia's eyes filled with tears. “Arik.”

“Nice kick, Liv,” Arik laughed. He was putting on a brave face. “Really got me.”

Livia was filled with guilt. “I’m so sorry.”

“That’s the game, Liv. I’ll be alright,” he groaned in pain.

“He’ll be okay,” the medic with him said. “But he cracked a few ribs.”

Livia ran her hands into her hair that had come completely out of her bun. She didn’t know where her hair tie even was. She turned to Tavian. “I’m out, Liv.”

“What?”

“I’m out. They counted Arik slamming into me as a kill hit.”

“Are you okay?” Livia asked. Tavian was cradling his hand into his belly.

“Broke a couple of fingers.”

Another wave of guilt washed over her. “I’m so sorry.”

“Three minutes with a healer and I’ll be good as new. Livia, you need to focus. You have another round to fight and there are 27 guys. Some of them are not nice people. Avoid the FORMICA crowd. They consider you associated with TARP and taking you in will be a score for them in their rivalry. The Aurelian Aquila guys will be good to you. The Lupus guys too.”

“How do I tell if a guy is Aurelian?”

“They wear gold bands, not yellow. They won the distinction because of their clan’s military service.”

“I’m screwed.”

Tavian didn’t comfort her. “Go drink lots of water.”

There was a fifteen-minute break. They made her drink Gatorade and fussed over her. Livia thought the whole thing was overkill. Until she got back out on the field and a wave of dizziness passed over her. She felt like she was going to puke. Somehow she had to take down 27 guys. She didn’t know how to go about that as she watched a line of them approach slowly. If she’d felt a little bit better, she might have laughed. They looked like they were trying to catch a skittish deer.

Livia noticed straight off that the Aurelian and Lupus house guys had banded together and were on her right. Everyone else on the left was all tough-looking Aquila guys. The majority of them carried orange FORMICA shields on their arms. The ones Tavian warned her about. Livia thought about going straight to the right and surrendering. Except, what would that say about Livia? That she folded when things got dicey?

Determination filled her. Livia was a fighter. She pushed through, she dug down, and she fought until she couldn’t give anymore. Livia twirled her pugil stick in her hand and waited for the horn to sound. She didn’t hesitate. She charged straight into the left flank. She used every dirty trick Hyrum ever taught her. She had five guys down but she had awful bruises to show for it and she lost her weapon. Livia tried to back out to catch her breath and got pulled up onto a guy's shoulders.

There was laughter as he carried her toward the other side of the field. Livia froze with pain. She hurt everywhere. She tried to shake it off and come up with a plan but her body ached bone-deep. The guy was spinning her around in celebration, displaying her like some kind of trophy. Infuriated, Livia ripped his helmet from his head and hurled it at his feet. The guy tripped up and she grabbed his foam sword while he was unbalanced. When he straightened up she had it against his throat.

“Put me down,” she hissed.

A whistle blew. “Put her down. That’s a kill,” The ref called.

The guy swore and flipped her off his back. Livia slammed to the ground. She cried out in pain.

The ref got in the guy's face and screamed at him. “What do you think you’re doing? You’re red-flagged! You don’t treat her like that. You could hurt her!”

A medic called a timeout and ran over. “You okay?”

Livia pulled herself to her feet. The pain from before had gone numb. She could walk but there was a heat in her hip. “I’m okay.”

“I need you to think about that question again,” the medic said, his voice taking on a commanding quality. “Tell me you’re injured and you’re out. You don’t have to fight anymore and this will be done.”

Livia shook her head.

“Please?” he said, looking her in the eye. “Nobody wants to see you lose this one or worse, seriously hurt.”

Livia shook her head again. That wasn’t the rules of the game. She wasn’t going out on a technicality. That would be cheating, but she needed to change tactics. Her hip wasn’t going to hold up. She wasn’t going to be able to fight all these guys off. She needed to end this thing intact and that meant surrendering.

They waited for Livia to set herself up again. She didn’t know what to do. She leaned into her hip. There wasn’t a sharp pain but there was discomfort and heat. Part of being Taurus meant being able to endure a lot of pain, however, that made it hard to tell how badly you were hurt. Taurus men usually went into rages and passed out. Taurus women only reacted when someone touched them and the pain crashed in all at once.

Justin called it grounding. He and Flavia often worked out together in the mornings. At the end of every session, he touched her shoulder or her hand and asked if she’d hurt herself at all. Flavia had needed Justin to train her how to exercise within her limits to avoid random injuries.

This knowledge had been one of the most useful things about discovering she was Taurus. It freed Livia from a lot of childhood anxiety around being touched. Right now, though, she didn’t know how she’d endure a kiss. She didn’t want to repeat the pain that had crashed over her when she was on that Aquila guy's shoulders. When she had felt all the bruises and injuries she’d collected over the last hour all at once. Plus, that was before she’d been hurled to the ground like a sack of potatoes. Livia shifted her weight back off her hip. She sighed in frustration. There was no way to tell how badly she’d hurt it.

They should have blown the horn by now. There was some kind of delay on the other side. An announcer came over the speaker.

“Lupus house has forfeited their house points to transfer a player from side Sabine to side Rome.”

The horn blew and Livia braced herself for the line to advance. Instead, they split down the middle and parted for a figure clothed only in a white tunic and crimson cloak. Livia wondered briefly if she’d hit her head so hard she was hallucinating. She rested a hand on her forehead, trying to remember if her head had slammed into the ground when that Aquila guy had flipped her off his back. The most disorienting thing was that she couldn’t tell. It was aggravating to not know such a crucial thing about herself. She almost wanted...the only way to solve this mystery was to touch someone.

The white tunic guy was still approac--Corvin. It was Corvin. His house had forfeited points to send him out to her. Livia’s eyes blurred with tears. He was in front of her now.

“Livia, no more fighting,” he commanded, stern.

“I think I’m hurt?”

“We know,” he said.

“I don’t know how bad it is…” she dropped her hands to her sides, exhausted. “I can’t tell.”

“We know that too, Fabulous,” Corvin said. “No one else could have stood back up that fast after being thrown to the ground like that.”

“I’m scared,” she confessed. “I’m so scared.”

Corvin started untying the knot of the cloak at his throat. He spoke calmly, without emotion, but his eyes were soft. “There’s no reason to be afraid. I’m not here to hurt you. I want to help. Will you let me do that?”

Livia nodded.

Corvin’s cloak came loose and he flung it around her and pulled it closed in front of her. “Can you walk?”

The thick heavy wool sat on her skin comfortably. She hadn’t realized she was cold, but she’d been exposed to the 50-degree weather for over an hour now. It was nice to have a shield from the breeze.

“I can,” Livia said. “But I’m not sure...I should.”

Corvin tugged on the cloak urging her forward. “Let’s see how it goes.”

He pulled again. Livia stepped forward. Livia’s knees were wobbly but she walked without trouble. She pulled back against the pull of the cloak. “Corvin.”

Corvin stopped. “Yes, Liv?”

“I wanna know how bad it is--”

His brow furrowed. “And that would require…”

“Put your hands on my shoulders,” Livia ordered.

“You sure?” he asked, doubtful.

Livia nodded.

Corvin still hesitated.

“Please,” Livia begged.

Corvin took a deep breath. His expression cleared of any hesitation and he seemed to be steeling himself. “Okay.”

He cupped her upper arms with his hands. The first onslaught of pain was intense and Livia’s knees almost buckled under it. Probably, would have if Corvin hadn’t held her up. Then the strength came back to Livia’s legs and the pain leveled out as she grew familiar with her ache. She groaned but something was satisfying about it too. Knowing the shape and weight of her pain made her feel steady and secure.

“Are you alright, Livia?” Corvin asked.

“Yeah,” she panted. She closed her eyes and acquainted herself with her pain. Her hip throbbed fiercely but the pain was dull, not sharp and piercing. She put her hand against Corvin’s chest and pushed him back so they could keep walking. The pain in her hip didn’t get any worse or better. Another wave of relief poured over her.

“I think I’m okay,” she said.

“You’re okay?” Corvin asked, still walking backward.

“Yeah,” Livia nodded. “I’m okay to walk. It’s okay, Corvin.”

She smiled up at him. He didn’t smile back. His eyes were wide with surprise.

“A-are you sure?” he asked. “There’s no pain?”

“Oh, there’s pain,” Livia laughed. “But it’s the satisfying kind. I earned all these bruises Corvin,” Livia said, proudly.

Corvin laughed in a startled way like it was torn from him unwillingly. He shook his head. “I’m glad then. I expected the worst.”

“Me too.” She grinned.

Corvin’s expression turned playful. “We’re on Rome’s side now, Fabulous.”

“Does that mean you kiss me?” she asked, uncertainly.

“I’ll leave that decision entirely up to you,” he said.

Livia grabbed a handful of his tunic and pulled him to a stop. “Then, yes.”

Corvin smiled. His hands left her shoulders and resettled on her cheeks. He leaned down and brushed his lips against hers slowly. His kiss was like being struck with lightning. Her lips throbbed with the beat of her pulse. She registered for one glorious second the exquisite softness of his lips. Then her legs refused to hold her weight. Corvin caught her with an arm around her waist before she fell to the ground.

“Fabulous?” he asked.

Livia was able to grasp the fabric on his shoulder. She attempted to pull herself upright but her body rebelled. Her fingers went limp, her arm went slack, falling to hang limply at her side.

“G’night, Corvin,” Livia slurred. Then her head lolled back and everything went black.