One With the Darkness (14 page)

She turned and saw him, hair still wet, clothed in a clean tunic colored like sage leaves. It matched his eyes. He smelled like sage, too, and underneath that, like a human man. “Good. I would be off.”

He turned and retrieved his sword from beside her bed. Two red stripes soaked through his tunic. “Why are you bleeding?” she barked.

He shrugged. “Tufi was zealous with the salt. It is nothing.”

“It is
not
nothing. How are you to heal if the idiot boy scrapes away the scabs?” She turned to her maid. “Catia, get the unguents. Jergan, remove your tunic. Now the welts must be treated all over again.”

He unbuckled the wide leather belt and drew his tunic over his head as Catia scurried away. He seemed … resigned. The ribbed muscles on his belly moved and
caught the lamplight. Livia swallowed. At least he still wore his loincloth. But as she stalked around him, she saw some blood spotting there as well. “Your loincloth, too.” After all the trouble she had gone to avoid his bath, here she was with his body naked before her, making her feel exactly the way she didn’t want to feel.

Catia hurried in with the basket. “Why for God’s sake was he not more careful?” Livia asked, trying not to look at the round muscles of Jergan’s buttocks. Anger rose inside her to see him laced again with red.

“I relayed your message that he was to be thorough.”

“Not at the cost of blood! Does no one have any sense? Must I do everything myself?” She didn’t know why she was railing at Jergan, except that he was sending shocks of feeling down between her legs. “I should give him welts so that he might see how they feel.” She opened the jar and filled a finger full of the sticky, translucent goo. “And no poultice for your shoulder. Catia, go prepare a poultice. Must I think of everything?” Catia ran from the room.

“This will hurt.” Livia laid the unguent along a welt that had opened.

“Not as much as the salt,” he muttered.

She sniffed and kept to her work, trying not to let the feeling of his flesh shake her resolve to be absolutely in control around him. “And now I am late.”

Catia entered with Lucius as protection. “I have sent word ahead to expect you at your leisure, my lady,” he said. “There is no cause for haste. Would you prefer Catia tend your slave?”

Livia glanced to the comely girl. “No, I would not. I’ve had enough incompetence this evening.” She sighed as the girl flushed. “I’m sorry. I’m sure you would be most effective, Catia. I am sharp because I feel responsible for his condition.”

Lucius glanced to Jergan and repressed a smile. Dear Juno, was he…? She turned around. Took a breath. Let it out. He was. Erect. And blushing for it.

“I canceled your audience for tonight,” Lucius continued, covering her blush in response. “I hope that was acceptable.” He knew she needed blood.

“Yes. The ones I care to see are busy. I must make myself available tomorrow, however.” She finished her job in haste. “Bind your loins, Jergan. Lucius, a clean tunic for him.”

Lucius nodded. “Catia?” When the girl had gone for the tunic, he came closer. “Be careful tonight, my lady.” He turned to Jergan. “And you, slave, guard her well.”

8

J
ERGAN STALKED BESIDE
the litter, senses on edge. He scanned the passersby. The streets of Rome were wide here. Channels cut at the stone edges carried the rainwater away toward the Tiber. Even at night the avenues were busy. Citizens and slaves, rich palanquins and poor men, all jostled one another. At one point a phalanx of soldiers marched past them. Black square shields with the symbol of Rome picked out in imperial purple, black brushes on their shining black helmets, they were like no soldiers he had seen. The veil of Livia Quintus Lucellus’s litter parted, and she watched them pass. The captain seemed to glare especially hard at her.

“Who are they, my lady?” Jergan asked under his breath.

“Praetorian Guard—the emperor’s personal bodyguard. They are the only soldiers allowed inside the city,” she murmured.

“They look like guards to the gates of hell.”

She chuckled ruefully. “You may be right. But even Pluto is divine. Perhaps the Guard will surprise us one day and prove they have souls, too.” Her head disappeared inside as the veils fell down around her.

Their destination was a large and lavish house off a narrow street. As the bearers laid down their burden, a chubby man wrapped in a voluminous toga stepped out
on the portico. “My dear Livia Quintus, how good to see you again so soon.” He gathered her out of the litter and protectively into one arm and led her up the steps. She wore blue tonight. Her garments were more colorful than those of Roman women. “I have just the slave for you tonight, well muscled, eager.”

This was a brothel. Jergan was stunned. She wouldn’t take her pleasure of him but would buy it from some prostitute? But no … Tufi said she took more than sexual pleasure at a brothel. She drank blood. Jergan sucked in a breath. Best he was on his guard tonight for many reasons.

“Excellent, Drusus Lucellus. You may settle with Lucius on his price tomorrow.”

“I warn you, my lady, he was expensive.”

She laughed. “I’ll pay your full cost for him, Drusus. Don’t give me discounts.”

The owner was her freed slave as well. Was the city littered with them? No wonder he kept her secrets. Perhaps the secret was that she meant to kill the prostitute. Why else would she pay Drusus the slave’s cost but that she would kill him? Tufi had said she didn’t hurt the ones she drank from, but what did Tufi really know?

Jergan swallowed. She
was
a monster. All the legends of blood-suckers, soul-stealers, shape-shifters that decimated entire populations, everything his people talked about in whispers, came to sit in his mind.

He shook himself mentally as he followed her up the shallow stairs. Jergan’s father had taught his sons not to believe in those tales. He heard his father’s rational voice admonishing his brood to believe in what they could see and what they could do with their own two hands. There. That was better. He had hold of himself now. She was just going to let this sex slave sate her.

That was bad enough.

“And who is your glowering companion?” the man called Drusus asked, glancing back.

Livia smiled. “My new slave. He is fresh from Britannia and still rough around the edges.”

Jergan clenched his jaw.

“I wonder that you frequent our small establishment when you have such fodder at home.”

“Don’t tease me. You know why, my friend.”

Before they could enter, a man strode up the shallow stairs from the street, wrapped in a fine toga. Two companions, obviously drunk, wavered on their feet in the street below. “Drusus, we require women,” the one who had bounded up the steps slurred.

The portly man frowned briefly, then pasted on a smile and bowed. “I regret that my establishment is not able to serve you, citizens.”

“Our money is as good as anyone else’s,” the leader said, drawing himself up.

“Ahhhh. Regrettably, it is not. I will not have my slaves injured.”

“An accident. I paid.”

“I cannot afford accidents. My property is my livelihood, citizens.” He nodded to the two tall Nubians wearing loincloths and little else except great golden pendants that stood out against their smooth, black chests. They opened wide the door and then closed it pointedly on the sputtering would-be patrons. Inside, Jergan expected the crowded scenes of drunken orgy he had seen last night at the “banquet.” Instead, music was being performed by a quartet in the corner. A woman danced among three or four groups being served food and wine. She was draped in sinuous fabric, but she was fully clothed. No sexual activity was in evidence, though private rooms opened off the central area. The prostitution probably took place
there. His owner remained behind a screen, concealed. Drusus guided her directly to one of the private rooms.

“Guard the door,” she whispered to Jergan as she entered. Jergan caught a glimpse of a well-built young man, naked and ready for her. His muscles were smooth and hard. His body was hairless except for a patch at his groin. His features were almost girlish in their ripe vulnerability. He held an amphora and a goblet of wine.

Jergan turned his back on the curtain that swung into place and crossed his arms over his chest, frowning. Drusus sailed off to take care of his other guests. Murmuring voices could be heard inside the room. Jergan couldn’t quite make out the words. She was going to take her pleasure of that creature. Jergan found that distasteful in the extreme.

He felt her in the room. The vitality that always hummed around her ensured that he would always know exactly where she was. Her presence was that imprinted on his brain. Or on his cock. The very thought that she was …

He gritted his teeth and stared ahead, not really seeing the patrons before him choosing their companions for the evening.
Keep your mind off what she is doing in there. With him. And not with you.

He felt her energy quicken and expand even through the curtain. It was sliding up some scale like a flute, until it seemed to feather his spine with tingling energy. What was happening in there? Was she letting that young buck suckle at her breasts?

He heard a moan of pleasure. It sounded male. Brid and her handmaidens! The creature was no doubt filling her with his cock.

If she
were
drinking the prostitute’s blood, he wouldn’t moan in pleasure. Jergan fidgeted. He had rejected that accusation. It couldn’t be true. Could it? The choice was
clear. Monster, or a woman who took her pleasure from prostitutes instead of from him. He chewed his lip. The energy emanating from inside the room had reached a fever pitch. Either way, she would be distracted. She wouldn’t notice if someone was to …

He turned and eased the edge of the curtain away from the door frame. The young slave lay across a large bed. His muscled limbs arched against her. She was fully clothed. She lay against his side. She’d turned his face toward her to expose his neck and she was sucking there. The slave was moaning in pleasure, his prick rock hard.

Jergan could hardly believe his eyes. It was true.

Even as he watched, she pulled away. Her eyes opened.

They were a deep red.

Jergan sucked in a breath.

“My fine young slave,” she murmured, “you will remember only that we made exquisite love tonight. You were masterful. I was nearly insensible with pleasure.” The slave smiled up at her, knowing, sure of himself. He didn’t seem to notice the twin drooling rivulets of blood that wound down his neck. “And tomorrow Lucius will buy your freedom. Tell him what you would most like to do and he will help you do it,” she continued. “Do you know what you want to do?”

“My father was a potter.”

Livia Quintus Lucellus smiled at the young man. “Then a free potter you shall be. Make me a graceful amphora in remembrance of this evening.”

She kissed him once, quite tenderly, and rose. Her eyes slowly faded to the fine dark brown with which Jergan was familiar. The slave was already heavy-lidded, half-asleep. Jergan let the curtain slide back into place as quickly as he could without attracting her attention, and turned, crossing his arms. She had never even undressed herself. His brain
vibrated with questions, not the least of which was whether he should be horrified.

She pushed out of the room. The whole thing had taken less than half an hour. She was flushed, her energy more pronounced. She looked like a woman sated with sex.

But she wasn’t. She hadn’t coupled with the young man. She drank his blood with eyes that went red as no human’s could, just before she freed him. Emotions churned inside Jergan. His thoughts caromed from one extreme to another. She had been incredibly generous to the slave. But she was a monster. At least she hadn’t taken her pleasure. Because Jergan wanted to be the only one who pleasured her.

He was going mad to think that.

L
IVIA GLANCED UP
to Jergan as she came out. Wondering horror sat in his eyes.

Jupiter and Juno, no! Could the man not follow orders? She set her lips. Now she would have to use her powers of compulsion to erase the memory of what he had just seen.

“Come,” she said, and gestured to another room that had the drapery pulled back against the door frame, indicating that it was empty. “We must talk.”

As she walked into the room, her intentions to erase his memory crumbled. A certainty pounded at her from somewhere deep inside. She
wanted
him to know what she was. It was unbelievably important that he know.

What was she thinking? She could not trust a slave she had owned for less than two days with this most precious of secrets. Not even Lucius knew the whole. Yet she did trust Jergan. And it was the most important thing in her life that he know what she was. All of it.

Ridiculous! She was
not
going to tell him she was a vampire. She was going to compel him to forget what he
had seen. He was horrified and would tell anyone and everyone what he had discovered about her.

She turned to face him as he let the curtain fall behind them. He was wary, but he was not afraid. He looked … confused.

“You spied on me.”

“Yes,” he answered thoughtfully. He wasn’t embarrassed or repentant. More important, he didn’t look so entirely appalled as he had a moment ago.

She paused, searching his face. The feeling that she must tell him what she was almost overwhelmed her. She wavered there, resisting. Secrecy was her only protection. It was forbidden to tell humans about their kind. Their lives depended upon it. Sweat broke out on her forehead. The urge to tell him seemed irresistible. Her breath came in labored gasps. Perhaps she could appease whatever it was inside her that wanted her to tell him with a partial truth. If she didn’t find some way out of her dilemma, she might just stand here, quivering, until she rotted.

“I have a … condition,” she blurted.

“You are ill?” His eyes narrowed.

“In a way. I am….” She cleared her throat, pushing down the urge to utter the word “vampire” and be done with it. “I have an illness. I was born with it. You cannot catch it,” she hastened to add. How to say this? She must tread some line. “I … grow weak if I do not drink … what you have seen … every fortnight or so. I … I do not harm them. He will be healthy as well as free in the morning. And he won’t remember what happened.”