The Witch of Carnuntum

They inked the old world’s knowledge into her skin so she’d carry it into the bog. Then a Roman stole her death.

Clara is three when a stranger lays gold on her parents’ table. Soon after, the farm is ash. For nineteen years, druids pass her from master to master and needle every lesson into her skin: stars, poisons, the language of wolves. The water is waiting.

At the bog, the sickle is already at her throat when the arrows fly. Raiders haul her south in a cage, merchandise for Rome’s arenas. Forty captives make it to the Danube. In Carnuntum, nobody asks how many set out.

Marcus Valerius Iaccus, called Jack, wears a slave collar’s scar around his throat. The freedman once led Rome’s cavalry. Now he waits for something without a name. At a feast thrown by the master of the games, he gives her a name. When she stands naked on the mosaic as if in armor, he talks his way into a fight: one man against eight.

He cuts her down from the cross and nearly bleeds out. She stitches him shut with a sharpened bone and silk thread, and his household learns fast: speak against the stranger, and you pay. Clara never wanted saving. She’s the predator. And Rome wants its condemned woman back.

What does a man who has survived everything do with a woman who could kill him with a cup?

Historical dark romance on Rome’s frontier · Warrior and poisoner · Cut down from the cross · Slow burn with claws · Happy ending

🌶️🌶️ Bloody, sensual, and unflinching: the violence isn’t softened, and the heroine is more dangerous than any man in the arena.