One With the Darkness (15 page)

Jergan chewed his lip. “And this … illness is why you cannot stand the sun?”
She nodded. She wanted to tell him the rest. But she couldn’t. But she must. Everything depended on it. It was all tied up with the feeling that she had to
do
something.

“Your servants told me about the blood. But not about the eyes, and why the slave will not remember.” He paused and gathered himself. “Are you a witch?”

She sighed, half-chuckling under her breath. That at least she could answer truly. “No.” How to explain
without
telling him all? “Do you know the snakes called cobras from the east?”

He shook his head.

“They stare at their prey, willing it not to move. Or … or perhaps it is like the shepherd dogs that stare at their sheep and the sheep obey. You know such dogs. Only my eyes change color. Not sinister, I swear. And I used it only for the slave’s comfort.”

“And your convenience.”

“True.”

“What else?”

Words rose in her throat as if they were whispered by someone else inside her.

Say it! “I am vampire. I have lived seven hundred years already. I am stronger than you by many times. I can hear things you can’t hear, see things you can’t see, and I can raise the power of the thing that courses in my veins and wink out of space to appear somewhere else….” You must tell him. It is the first step on the path to righting what went wrong.

But she didn’t say it. She wanted to groan with the urges battling inside her. She had to say something. “I smell of cinnamon from the east and ambergris from the leviathans of the far north. It is not perfume but my condition. And I seem … energetic to others.”

He nodded slowly. “You feel more alive than anyone I have known.”

She smiled, not daring to say more, much as she wanted to. So she just shrugged. He rubbed his chin. After a moment she felt more in control. “Are you afraid of me?”

He shook his head and looked surprised that she would think one of his courage, one who had faced the Roman war machine and slavery, could be afraid of her. “No. You may still be a witch.” He considered her. “But that does not mean you are evil.”

“Well,” she chuckled. “If I must be a witch, I’d like to think I am a good witch.”

“Do you want my blood? Is that part of serving you?”

“No. I will never take your blood unless you want me to.”

He recoiled almost imperceptibly. “Why would I want you to suck my blood?”

It was distasteful to him. What else could she expect? She gathered her courage. “Some think it is a sensual experience.” Why had she admitted that? It was as if some part of her was not quite under her command.

He paused, considering. “You do this during the sexual act?”

“When my partner wishes it.” Though she hadn’t done it in a hundred years.

His eyes glowed. “And why did you not have sex with that slave tonight?”

Breath seemed hard to get. Best that she remember why she hadn’t used that slave. “It would not have been an equal exchange. Slaves cannot say no.”

He came forward, uncoiling like that cobra she had described. His eyes were hot. “And what if one says yes, even before you ask?”

The voice inside her was practically shouting at her to
take him up on what was obviously an offer. She managed to push it down. “I … I would say he wanted to curry favor with his mistress.” Now that was the hardest thing she’d said in a long while. “Come. We must return home.” She pushed past him and out into the main room of the brothel.

S
HE HAD TURNED
him down again. He could hardly credit it. Or himself. Why was he accepting what she was? Why did he not think her a monster? He turned to follow her, his cock swelling against the fabric of his loincloth. Because she had been kind to the slave. Because she thought that forcing slaves to her bed was not honorable.

Damn her honor.

In spite of what he had seen tonight, he wanted her. Maybe because of it. She was dangerous. And the thrill of danger about her was almost as attractive as her vibrant energy or her beauty.

He stalked out to stand behind her as she thanked Drusus, the slave she had freed to found his own business, even if it was a brothel. At least it was a brothel with standards for its patrons and slaves who were well cared for and could earn their freedom. Better than the brothels in Jergan’s own country. He remembered hollow-eyed women, dirty, beaten. He had never spilled his seed there. Pleasure could not exist side by side with cruelty. Taking them was not an achievement, something valuable to be earned. Because they could not say no? He understood Livia Quintus Lucellus because there was something they had in common.

That was a dangerous thought.

He followed her into the night, conscious only of the fact that the enigma of her made her even more attractive
to him. She was like no woman he had known. A witch? She acted almost like a man, assuming equality as her right, demanding it in her sexual partner.

And she did not deem him an equal.

He sucked in a breath as though he had been struck. He wasn’t her equal. He was her slave, and that stood between them.

If he were not …

If he were not her slave he would have pulled her into his chest and ravished her mouth with kisses just now until she was weak and breathless, and then he would have pulled her down on the bed in that room and pleasured her until she moaned in his embrace, and then, only when she was gasping and wet with desire, would he have swived her well and fully, feeling her cling to him as their ecstasy overtook them and he spilled his seed into her.

Jergan took a ragged breath. It had been raining while they were inside. The streets were wet and shiny black. The Nubian bearers brought her litter up. He handed her into it. His fingers burned where she touched them for support.

“Home,” she ordered the bearers. The curtains fell between them as he walked beside the litter. His mind was so filled with wanting her, he could attend to almost nothing else.

Movement took his eye. His hand leaped to his sword hilt. Out of the darkness to his left, three men came rushing, crouched low. A glint of steel in the moonlight told him they had knives. He spread his legs for stability and drew his sword with a metallic slither against the metal fittings of the scabbard. He glimpsed two other shadows in the background. The first three were on him even as he felt the litter rock against his back. Others were attacking from the far side. She would be helpless against them. He
slashed and cut an arm, raised a knee to throw off a thrust, and parried another with the hardened leather at his wrist.

“My lady,” he shouted as the three drew back before another charge. One of the two who had hung back ran round to help the ones attacking Livia. “Are you well?” There was no answer, only the sounds of scuffling. Jergan thought he heard a male voice grunting in pain. The Nubians dropped the litter with a crash and backed away. He did not blame them. They had no weapons. The three attackers charged in again, now joined by the remaining one from the shadows. This time Jergan’s sword was waiting. He slashed to his right, kicked another in the groin. Did the others have her yet? Rage maddened him.

One of his attackers fell, his shoulder cleaved to the bone and beyond. Jergan hacked low, at a thigh, and another collapsed. Jergan turned on the others and saw a Nubian come up to help. “Go to your mistress,” Jergan yelled as he cut at an attacker’s neck. The man toppled even as his fellow turned tail. The Nubian scrambled around to the other side of the litter. Jergan would have pursued his adversary, but he had other priorities. He whirled around the litter to see Livia standing, the breeze ruffling her
palla
, among a heap of bodies with limbs askew. The Nubian stood there, stunned, staring at the carnage.

“Are you all right?” Jergan growled, not sure how she lived.

She looked up, her eyes clear, and nodded. Then her eyes got big. “Jergan!” she shouted. “Behind you.” She lunged toward him as he turned. Another assailant from who knew where had raised a short sword. It was descending, inches from Jergan’s neck. The sword moved slowly, as things will when death is imminent. And he seemed to move even more slowly as he ducked to the right and rolled his shoulder so that he fell in a ball. The clatter of the
sword against the frame of the litter echoed. He rolled to his feet and cut off the arm that held the sword extended, then thrust into the belly. The man folded over Jergan’s sword. Jergan yanked it out and the man collapsed onto the paving stones.

Jergan scanned the street for a second before he took Livia’s shoulders and examined her for wounds. There was a cut along her bare arm. She seemed about to wilt in his arms, now that the danger was past.

“Are you all right?” she asked breathlessly before he could ask the same.

He nodded. “You?” He turned her arm so he could see the cut. Not deep, but it needed attention. He examined her face. She would have a bruised cheekbone and chin.

“I thought they would kill you.” She sounded dazed. “I saw it in my dream last night.”

“I don’t see why you aren’t dead,” he said, looking at the bodies that surrounded her. One’s neck was obviously broken. One’s throat was slit. There were five of them. She had killed four. She held a bloody knife she must have gotten off of one of them. “How…?”

“I’m strong. I forgot to mention that,” she whispered, shaken.

“And you know how to fight,” he muttered, scanning the street. It was empty. That was strange. The streets on previous nights had been busy at this hour. Did everyone know they should not be abroad on this street just now? Or had someone blocked it off? He turned to the litter. Only one Nubian had stayed to help. “We’ll have to walk home.”

He took her upper arm and pulled her along. The loyal Nubian trailed in their wake. Why had she bought Jergan as a bodyguard? What did a woman who could kill five men need with him?

“Thank you,” she was saying to the Nubian.

“Others were afraid, my lady,” he said.

“I know. I don’t blame them.”

“Which way?” Jergan growled.

She pointed up a hill crowned with majestic stone buildings. “Over the next hill.” She looked back. “We can’t just leave them.”

“Yes, we can.” He pulled her along. He had to get her back to the protection of her house before someone came along to see whether the attack had been successful. She might have been able to kill five men, but perhaps she couldn’t have dispatched nine.

L
IVIA STUMBLED UP
her street behind Jergan, who stalked ahead with his sword ready in one hand and her hand clutched in his other. The Nubian trailed them, glancing around fearfully. She was shaken by the death she’d caused tonight, the boldness of the attack, the fact that no one was about. Someone, if not Caligula, knew that she was behind the plot. The attacks proved that if nothing else. Who had leaked the information? Had she slipped up somewhere? Everything seemed to be closing in around her. She was not afraid for herself, of course. But there was so little time to accomplish what she must before the chance to make a difference was gone forever.

And then there was the fact that Jergan had nearly been killed in her service. If she lost him … What? Had he become so important to her in only two days? That was nonsense. Things didn’t happen like that. She had a fear in her belly, though. It must be because another of her dreams had just come true. That was nonsense, too, but how could she not call it real?

As they approached the house she saw the telltale black shields and horsehair crests standing at the portico. The Guard. Her steps slowed. She pushed down panic. It
would do no good to run. She could not leave Lucius, Jergan, and the others to face the wrath of Caesar and his Guard. She felt Jergan go quiet beside her. She glanced over to see him fingering his sword.

“Do nothing,” she said as she started forward. “They will cut you down without a thought.” She glanced to the Nubian, who was visibly shaking. “Be calm, Edo. They will not hurt you.” That might well be a lie.

As she approached, the six soldiers parted for her. One removed his helmet as he stepped forward, and held it under his arm. He was a cherub-faced creature perhaps no older than his Caesar. He bowed.

“Lady Lucellus,” he said. “Your slave must give up his weapon.”

“In my own house?” she asked sweetly.

“Consul Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus honors your house with a visit.”

Ahhh. Surprising. But thanks be to the gods that’s why the Guard was here. They protected the Claudian line ferociously. Even Claudius. She nodded to Jergan, who reluctantly handed over his sword. The young guard took it and opened the door for them.

Lucius met them in the foyer, his eyes round. He had probably never seen a member of the imperial family this close, let alone had to entertain one.

Livia peered beyond his shoulder. “Where is he?”

“Your audience room.”

“Thank you, Lucius.

“Come with me,” she said over her shoulder to Jergan. She didn’t want to let him out of her sight.

Entering, she saw that Lucius had provided the consul with wine and a selection of cheeses and nuts. Claudius lounged on a chaise picking through the plate. He was not an unattractive man, like his cousin. He was perhaps fifty,
with regular features and well-opened eyes. His body gave no evidence of his infirmity. But all of Rome knew he had been born defective. His limbs were weak and sometimes gave out on him. His hand shook, and occasionally his head as well. He was the shame of the Claudian line. “To what do I owe this honor, Consul Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus?”

“L-Livia Q-Quintus Lucellus.” And then there was his stutter. It made them all think he was stupid. His cousin had made him consul as a joke. Caligula was a great one for joking. And now he made such fun of his cousin in public places like the Senate, berating him, asking him to speak on ridiculous topics, that the poor man looked positively haggard. “A-are you w-well?”

At his words she looked down and saw that her
palla
and
stola
were torn and muddied. “A slight misunderstanding in the streets.”