Böcker av Diana Philbrick

She turned around and obeyed. She stood there almost naked and tall, an obedient CELT; no sound, no movement, no false modesty. I took her arm and led her past the library, and down steps to the cellar. There was a faint hesitation in her body when we started down the cold, stone cellar steps, but no resistance. Jesse's story is a futuristic one; a future where it is legal for girls to contract with men for sexual services, even an extreme BDSM relationship. Jesse's contract is held by a gambler, a deceitful man who misuses her. Howard witnesses first-hand this abuse, and although not wanting to get involved is goaded into a sucker bet, and against the odds wins Jesse's contract. He tries to do the right thing by her, recognising the girl as an innocent victim, but his acts of kindness are frustrated at every turn. Slowly he begins to learn that something is driving Jesse, something fundamental and primitive, and he's set on discovering what it is no matter how much pain is involved.

Legate Plecio sends for his wife and daughter, but while they are under Centurion Metella's protection, the new Pict chief, Drust, captures the daughter, Lollia. Eager to embarrass the Romans, he has Lollia's handmaiden killed and takes the girl back to the Pict village to complete his vengeance. The legate blames Metella and a tribunal has him scourged and banished. What happens next shocks even the unflappable Metella.

Xara had never heard of Rome until the legion invaded her village and killed her parents. She knew about slaves of course, but her people took just a few slaves and made them part of their village; the Romans took thousands of slaves and treated them like animals, pets...like possessions. When the legion's commander noticed her and tried to take her, she rebelled and escaped, only to be recaptured during the battle of Wolf's Glen. Once again in captivity, she met a different kind of Roman-a warrior with values much like hers. He treats her the same as the other Romans did, but she respects him and in the confusion of war, helps save him from the Picts (predecessors of the Scots). Their continuing story is based on the novel "The Roman's Woman."