Gladiator tiger, p.1
Gladiator Tiger, page 1
part #5 of Gladiator Shifters Series
GLADIATOR TIGER
GLADIATOR SHIFTERS
BOOK FIVE
MURPHY LAWLESS
GLADIATOR TIGER
Copyright © 2022 by C.E. Murphy
All rights reserved.
Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the author. Any use of this work to train or develop generative artificial intelligence technologies (“AI”) is expressly prohibited. The author expressly reserves all rights to license use of this work for AI.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover Art: Ellen Million Graphics
For Ailsa
who figured them all out
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
Excerpt: OctoBEARfest
Also by Murphy Lawless
Acknowledgments
About the Author
CHAPTER 1
Elissa's phone rang with a number she didn't know, and like an idiot, she answered it.
"Babe," the voice on the other end said instantly. "Babe, don't hang up."
Elissa hung up and blocked the number.
Ten seconds later, the phone rang again, this time with her best friend Olivia's image popping up on the screen. "Liss," she said. "Liss, Travis just called me from a new number. I've got it so you can block it."
"He already called me and I blocked him as soon as I answered, but you are truly the best friend ever." Elissa Grant put her phone on speaker so she could set it beside herself as she sat down on the edge of a display and rub her face. Only after she'd rubbed it did she remember that she'd worn extra-careful makeup to work that day, since the museum director was supposed to drop by.
Well, he'd never shown up, and it was after hours now, so it didn't matter if she looked like a raccoon who'd lost a bar fight. She took hand sanitizer out of her pocket to clean the mascara and eye shadow off her fingers, and said, "Yeah," to Olivia's worried, "Are you okay, Liss?"
"Are you sure?" Olivia asked, and Elissa smiled toward the phone.
"Yeah. Really, I'm fine. Obviously I didn't expect to hear from him—god, he cannot take a hint!—but I'm okay."
"Can't take a hint?" Olivia said incredulously. "It's not that he can't take a hint, it's that he refuses to accept that the goddamn Titanic of 'nope' has been dropped on him. Look, seriously, do you think he knows where you are?"
"I don't know." Elissa lifted her gaze, looking around the work-in-progress Roman gladiators display that was meant to be the museum's big summer draw. "Probably not? Usually at this time of year I'm on a dig."
"Well, I'm coming over," Olivia said firmly. "Just in case. I want you to have backup."
Elissa said, "Um," and got up to walk around the main display.
Or part of the main display, at least. There were two aspects to it, one of which had been funded by an anonymous benefactor. Not just an ordinary "put my name on the wing" style benefactor, but a "you can expand the whole museum around this donation," kind of benefactor.
And for the past eight months, that's what they'd been doing. Building at breakneck speed, bringing in experts in every field, and ultimately replicating the Roman Colosseum at about 1/10th scale.
That didn't sound very impressive, even to Elissa. Not until she'd come into the new hall, and found herself staring up at a replica, more than sixty feet long and fifty across, standing nearly twenty feet high, of the world-famous Flavian Amphitheater. In an epic display of pure professionalism, she'd said, "Holy shit," and the museum director, Victor Olumide, had laughed aloud.
"That's kind of the reaction we're going for," he had said cheerfully. "We'd like you to work on the display for the gladiators themselves. We've been told you've a knack for engaging an audience with your historical stories, and our goal is to keep people here and learning as long as possible. This is our other main display piece."
Back then, Olumide had gestured her away from the mock-Colosseum and into the other new main room, which was where most of her own work was to be done. He'd led her down a curved ramp that led into what Elissa could only call an alcove. That was where she went now, saying, "Um," again to Olivia. "It's not that I don't want the backup, but I wouldn't put it past Travis to have called you figuring you'd come straight to me to make sure I was okay."
"Ooh." Olivia managed to put a lot of fury into that single sound. "You're totally right. Maybe I'll go for a jog and case all the vehicles in the neighborhood before I come over. If he's around, I won't come, obviously."
"Yeah. That sounds good. Call me back and let me know if you're coming or not?"
"Will do. Mwah!" Olivia hung up, and Elissa stopped at the heart of the alcove, eyes downcast and her shoulders sinking as she sighed out a breath of…not exactly defeat, maybe. But tiredness, for sure. The gladiator display was enough work without having to deal with an ex who refused to accept that they'd broken up.
But for a minute, standing in the quiet of the after-hours museum, safe in the heart of the alcove, she found herself relaxing. She always did, right from the first time Director Olumide had shown it to her.
Or maybe since the second time. The first time, she'd laughed. At least she hadn't sworn, the way she had with the Colosseum replica, but honestly, the heart of the alcove was worth an incredulous laugh.
It contained an absolutely magnificent replica statue of a piece she'd heard about, but had never seen in person. The original had been beautifully sculpted out of white marble, and even though Elissa knew this was a replica, for a heartbeat, even she believed.
The statue was nearly seven feet in height, larger than life, and depicted a man so preposterously gorgeous that it seemed unlikely the model had been a mere gladiator. The original had been found in a shrine, surrounded by carved beasts of the arena—particularly tigers, for some reason—and with all the weapons and armor that a gladiator would have carried. There had been no information about the 'gladiator,' but the design and placement of everything in the shrine had suggested a burial site.
Except, of course, there had been no body to go with it. Details like that bothered archaeologists, but it was hard to argue with the popular assumption that the original shrine had been a gravesite. It was harder still when the statue was of a man as handsome as this one: people wanted a romantic story about someone like this. He was strongly built, but tall enough that he looked slim, even in his gladiator-style armor, with greaves and a shield, and a helmet tucked under his arm instead of obscuring his face as it normally would.
Elissa totally understood why. The statue's face was extraordinarily beautiful. If if he'd really looked like that, it would have been a crime to put a helmet on him. And she'd seen pictures of the original, so she knew this was the face of the man who'd been sculpted, not an attempt to flatter the anonymous benefactor who had funded the mini-Colosseum by making this sculpture look like him, rather than the original from the shrine. No doubt the ancient sculptor had been flattering his subject, too.
But assuming this really was what he'd looked like, even now, thousands of years later, there seemed to be a depth in his gaze, and the fineness of his features were lovingly remembered. He had a beautiful mouth, and an excellent nose, although the very tip of it had broken sometime in the centuries between its carving and the modern day. He wore his hair cropped in short bangs the way the emperors had done, and he looked, even as a statue, like he could probably kill you, if necessary.
For some ridiculous reason, Elissa felt completely at home when she stood beneath the statue. She felt safe and content there, as if no real harm could come to her or anyone else.
On a day when goddamn Travis had shown back up in her life, that feeling was very welcome.
She stood there for several minutes, breathing deeply and reveling in the calm and quiet. Then, feeling quite a lot better about everything, including goddamn Travis, she exited the alcove and got back to work on the displays. Almost nothing had protective glass over it yet, which meant she had to be very, very careful, and she found it easier to work carefully in the post-closing quiet than during the day. The new display hall was at the end of a corridor, with ropes and 'Do Not Enter' signs in front of the corridor and all down the hall, but somehow at least thirty people every day managed to find their way down to her with a question.
Frequently that question was "Where's the bathroom," which she could answer. Those people would just go away. It was the ones who thought any room in
At night, though, that all went away. She was able to arrange and rearrange the pieces, often settling on a layout and then walking through the whole room, seeing if it flowed organically. She'd long since settled on the introductory pieces, including two glass 'birds' that dated back over two thousand years. One of them still held the perfumed oil in its belly that the tiny, beautiful vessels had been made for. It was worth about a jillion dollars, and Elissa practically held her breath when she walked past it. She would be incredibly relieved when the custom glass cases for the birds arrived early in the next week.
Versions of the perfume-carrying glass birds, or their fragments, had been found all over the ancient world, providing a kind of documentation for modern archaeologists who mapped Rome's trading routes. They had been status symbols, of course, and gladiators who had found high enough favor—whether with the emperors, wealthy lovers, or dedicated fans—were known to have had them. Elissa imagined their perfumes had helped to disguise the smell of sweat in a hot country long before deodorants were used.
She also loved the idea that the first thing visitors would see in a gladiatorial display was evidence of delicacy and beauty. She hoped it would upend their expectations, and open them to new ideas as they explored the new wing. It had better, because the next bit of the tour would bring visitors through the Roman bath houses, and then to the street food that was so modern in delivery that people didn't quite believe it. Occasionally Elissa got to lead a tour group of school kids coming through the museum, and one of her favorite moments was always when she told them that the Romans had had drive-thru restaurants.
Voices echoed in the corridor leading to the hall. One sounded familiar: Director Olumide. The other was male, but that was all Elissa could tell. Neither of them had any reason to be at the museum at—she glanced at her phone. At 9:30 in the evening. Frowning, she headed toward the entrance, arriving just in time to watch Olumide duck under the last set of do-not-disturb ropes and hold them up for the other man.
Her phone rang, sudden and sharp and very loud in the quiet. Director Olumide flinched backward, and Elissa watched in slow-motion horror as his elbow struck one of the glass birds and sent it falling. She was much, much too far away to do anything about it, but could see the realization and dread on the director's face as he twisted toward the falling bird, making a desperate bid to save it. But twisting only threw him farther off balance: Elissa could see him starting to fall, too. Somewhere beneath her slow cry of dismay, she was also relieved to realize he was falling the other direction, away from the second glass bird. At least one of them would survive.
But then somehow, impossibly, the man with the director was there, flowing toward the falling bird with such speed and grace that it looked casual. He caught the bird gracefully in one hand, with an open-palmed snatch that somehow reminded Elissa of a cat catching a quarter in its paw. The bird didn't even wobble as it landed safely in his palm, and he didn't appear to have the slightest impulse to clutch it to make sure it didn't tip. It simply landed softly, like a real bird, and he rose, still moving so quickly and smoothly that he hardly seemed to be putting any effort in at all. With his free hand, he reached out and caught Director Olumide's upper arm, keeping him from falling, too.
By the time Elissa's phone had finished its first ring, the whole thing was over. Olumide was wide-eyed, and Elissa knew she must be pale with fear. The stranger settled the bird back on its display, patted both of Olumide's shoulders to make sure he was stable, and turned to Elissa with an absolutely devastating smile. "All is well. Perhaps you should answer that?"
Elissa, fingers cold with shock, lifted the phone to her ear and said, "Liv? Everything's fine here, I don't need backup tonight, okay?"
"Really? Travis isn't around. You sure?"
"Yep!" She sounded bright and casual to herself, but her heart was hammering so hard she felt dizzy. "Director Olumide's here with a guest, so if I need an escort home, I think I'm good."
"Okay. Gimme a call when you get home, just so I know it's all cool."
Elissa, still brightly, said, "Will do," and hung up, without ever having taken her eyes off the stranger.
He was well-built, but tall enough to look slender, and wore a loose, woven-cotton shirt and trousers over sandals that showed off glossy toenails. He kept his dark red hair long enough to fall over his shoulders, and his rich sepia skin absorbed the overhead lighting warmly. Elissa thought his eyes were probably green, but somehow in the museum light they looked golden, and his smile was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. Looking at him seemed to awaken some deep, quiet part of her that now whispered home with soft conviction.
A much less deep, quiet part of her was equally filled with conviction, if in a very different way.
Elissa Grant had absolutely no doubt in her mind at all that this man and the gladiator statue in the alcove were one and the same.
CHAPTER 2
Eight times.
Joash Namur had found, and lost, his soul mate, his fated mate, the person he was supposed to be with, eight times over two thousand years. She—usually she—had lived and died eight times, while he carried on in an aching circle of hope and love and loss. He had learned to stop searching, at least. Either she would come into his life again, or she wouldn't. Looking into the eyes of ever-changing billions, desperately seeking the soul he knew, was the path to madness, and he'd been forced to choose a certain kind of sanity a long time ago, so he could carry on at all.
It never stopped him from hoping that the thunderstruck sensation of certainty, the relief of discovering her again, would take him off guard one day, giving him another chance to break the endless cycle.
Now, looking down into Elissa Grant's dark eyes, Joash was struck not just by her beauty and quiet strength, but by the thought that this was the ninth time.
Cats had nine lives.
It meant nothing. A fanciful, passing thought. Except it lingered, unbanishable, because so much had changed in the past year. Not so much for Joash himself, but for the shapeshifters descended from those born out of the gladiator arenas, so many years ago.
Joash shook the thought off almost physically, although he was afraid it made him look like a cat escaping from a tub and trying to shake water off. Elissa Grant gazed up at him with a too-familiar expression, confusion marked with confidence. This was how humans reacted, when fate struck. Love at first sight was a thing out of fairy tales, not something that happened after hours in a museum of antiquities.
She was so devastatingly lovely. Black hair bound in a professional knot at her nape, wide, intelligent eyes in a long face. Aquiline nose, not so fashionable in the modern era, but it knocked Joash back to his youth, to his actual gladiator days, and the women whose magnificent profiles had made them the great beauties of their time. Full lips, currently turned down in disbelief, although he could easily imagine the width of her smile and how it would brighten her brown eyes. She was tall, even in sensibly flat loafers, and dressed as an archaeologist might in the field, in light layers that she could move in easily. She had a scarf tucked into her collar, a flare of bright color that disappeared beneath the buttons of her shirt, and he had a terrible urge to draw that soft fabric away so he could see more of the shape of her.
Just as well Director Olumide had knocked the glass bird over before Joash had seen Elissa. He never would have caught either of them, if he'd been fully aware of her.
Olumide had clearly said her name, or Joash wouldn't know it, although he could hardly remember anything the director had said. Something about her being the lead on the development of the wing Joash was sponsoring. He was fairly certain Olumide had also said his name, but that didn't stop him from offering a hand and saying, "Joash Namur. A pleasure, Dr Grant."
"The museum owes you a great deal, Mr Namur. Thank you for your generosity. Also for catching that bird."
"It would have been a shame for something so beautiful to come to such an ignominious end after so long." He glanced up, waving his hand at the museum wing. "I only wish I'd thought of it before, so we might have met earlier."
