Slave to the Empire (Historical Erotic Romance Novella Book 1)

by Fey, Lilly

  Slave To The Empire

  By: Lilly Fey

  Copyright © 2013 by Lilly Fey

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Please note all persons portrayed are 18 years of age or older.

  Lucilla woke up in complete darkness. She heard shouts and cries in the distance, but she couldn’t quite identify where they were coming from or what they were saying. Completely disoriented, she tried lifting herself up.

  That’s when she realized that she had shackles on her wrists.

  A wave of panic immediately swept through her body, which sobered her up very quickly. Lucilla looked around in the darkness, trying to force herself to remember what happened to her or even find a clue as to where she was.

  The last thing she remembered was working at her stand in the market at the city square. She was tending to her candlestick stand as she normally did on market day. She didn’t remember seeing anyone or hearing anything that would justify being shackled to the floor in a dark room.

  At this thought, Lucilla’s heart started to quicken as she began to panic again. Where was she? Why would anyone do this to her? What did they want from her? Thoughts were rushing through her mind, scary and disturbing thoughts, which was only making things worse.

  She knew of a better way to get to the bottom of this.

  She could scream.

  “Hello!” she yelled.

  “Can anyone hear me? Please! Hello? Help me! Please!”

  She stopped yelling for a second to hear a response, but heard nothing.

  “Please! Can anyone hear me! Why am I here?”

  Still no response. Genuine fear started to build at the pit of her stomach. Either no one could hear her or no one cared and chose to ignore her screams, which seemed far worse. Lucilla tried to calm herself back down so that she could properly deal with the situation.

  Temporarily giving up on screaming, she decided to try to lift herself off the ground and see exactly where she was being held. She found that the chains on her wrists allowed her enough room to sit up, but not quite enough room to stand, so she crawled around the floor trying to feel her way through the darkness.

  After crawling for a few minutes, the only thing that Lucilla could conclude was that she was in an empty windowless cell and she had no clue how she got there.

  She crawled to a corner of the cell and curled into a ball, hoping that she could somehow bury herself into the corner. A part of her was hoping that no one would be able to see her once they actually decided to come and get her.

  ***

  It felt like hours went by before she heard voices outside the door. She heard the rattling of keys hitting the keyhole and she instantly felt a wave nausea and fear shoot through her body. Lucilla didn’t know who or what to expect and she just spent several hours thinking of the worst scenarios possible.

  The door slammed open and Lucilla stayed in her corner, not moving or making a sound. The light shining through blinded her sensitive eyes, so any hope of seeing who was in the room with her was gone. She decided to just close her eyes and hope this nightmare wouldn’t get worse. And just as quickly as the door opened, she heard the door slam loudly.

  She opened her eyes hesitantly to let herself adjust to the darkness once more. Unsure of what just happened, she crawled out from her corner and crept closer to the door. Her hand landed in something soft and gooey and she yelped and yanked her hand back like she had been burnt. Upon further inspection she realized her hand just landed in what was supposed to be food. She thought. She hoped.

  Hoping that the person who just gave her food might still be outside her door, she yelled again, “Hello! Please, are you still out there? Please, help me! Please open the door! Please!” She heard her pleading becoming more frantic. She was then startled by a loud bang on the door.

  “Shut up in there! Keep your mouth shut! No one is going to help you, so shut it,” a loud gruff voice from the other side of the door yelled back.

  Lucilla was taken aback by that response and pulled back from the door. She was in a state of shock by the person’s coldness and confused that they didn’t care that she was so scared.

  “Please…someone…help…” she whispered quietly, but only to herself. Lucilla was beginning to realize that no help was coming and things were probably going to be getting a lot worse.

  Up until this point, Lucilla had mostly felt shock and fear, but now the gravity of her situation and the powerlessness she felt all came rushing to her at once. Hot tears began streaming down her cheeks. She couldn’t help it and she didn’t see the harm in it. She felt a few large drops land on her bare arms. She was scared. She was confused. She was hungry and she was fairly certain that something really bad was going to happen to her. But out of all the emotions she was feeling, she felt confusion the most.

  Why would anyone do this to her? She did nothing wrong to anyone. She was just a simple person who lived a simple life while trying to support herself and her sick mother.

  Instantly her thoughts moved to her mother. Who was going to take care of her mother? Who was going to tell her that she had gone missing in the market? Did anyone even notice? Then she realized these were the least of her concerns right now. She had bigger issues to deal with.

  Always the practical person, she decided to inspect the food they threw into her cell. She wasn’t entirely sure how long she had been in the cell, but her stomach was telling her that she had missed at least a few meals. She crawled her way back to the middle of the room and tried to feel for the plate of slime that she fell into a little bit ago, but found a metal pale instead. She quickly realized the pale was something to be used later, after she consumed the slime.

  “Great, they are a thoughtful bunch, aren’t they?” she yelled out at the door, hoping to be heard by someone.

  The plate of food was only a few feet away from the pale and after a somewhat general inspection in the dark, Lucilla deemed the food to be edible enough. After she finished the food, she quickly retreated back to her corner. Her mind was reeling with questions, but ultimately she came to the conclusion that if they wanted her dead they wouldn’t have given her food. That brought her a very tiny bit of comfort. And with that, her exhausted mind finally forced her to doze off to sleep.

  It wasn’t until several hours later that Lucilla was startled awake by a harsh kick to the leg.

  “Get up, girl.”

  Once Lucilla remembered where she was, she instantly scurried further into her corner. She only saw a large shadowy figure looming over her, but couldn’t make anything else out. The light from the open door offered no help.

  “I said, get up!” The figure then grabbed her by her neck and hair and dragged her to her feet. Her legs were asleep from not being able to walk while in the cell, so she instantly fell back to the ground. Unfortunately, the man still had a hold of her hair. She screamed from the pain and thrashed at him out of instinct.

  “Oh! We got us a little temper, do we?” he laughed. “Well, that will get taken care of soon enough.”

  Lucilla blinked back the tears in her eyes from the pain. “Who are you? What do you want
from me?!”

  “There isn’t anything that I want from you, dearie…well, I suppose I could use you for a little something, but it’s not me you need to be asking these questions to. So shut it and move!”

  A slight whimper escaped her mouth, but then she grabbed hold of the man and allowed him to drag her out of the cell.

  Once they were out of the cell, Lucilla was instantly blinded. She had to shield her eyes for a good while. She could only hear men talking and vaguely make out cell doors as they were walking. They were in a dungeon. Why was she in a dungeon? She broke no laws. She was a law-abiding citizen of Rome and paid all taxes and dues without question to avoid being in situations like these.

  After several minutes, her eyes started to adjust. She looked at her surroundings and her fears were confirmed. She saw the Roman guard stalking the hall and heard cries beyond the doors that she walked past. She also noticed that she was surrounded by guards, it wasn’t just the one man who pulled her out of the cell.

  She looked to the guard who was now standing next to her. He wasn’t the one who dragged her out of the cell, so she was hoping he would be a little more forthcoming with answers.

  “Why have I been brought here?” she quietly asked the guard.

  He didn’t respond.

  “Please…tell me…” she pleaded.

  The desperation in her voice must have done something. Maybe he just wanted her to shut up, but he quickly replied, “I can’t tell you why, but I can tell you that you got the attention of someone very important. Now be quiet, girl.”

  And with that she allowed them to lead her down the corridors in silence. Oddly, they were not taking her deeper into the dungeons. They were actually walking her through a series tunnels. Initially, she was trying to keep track of the turns just in case, but she abandoned that notion pretty quickly.

  It felt like almost 30 minutes of walking went by before they came to a set of stairs. The guard next to her led her up the stairs and unlocked the door as the rest of the men waited in the tunnel. Now the lone guard was her only escort.

  The two of them entered an open corridor with marble pillars lining a garden. Lucilla couldn’t help but look at her surroundings a bit open-mouthed, taken aback by its simple beauty.

  “Where are we?”

  The guard smirked almost bitterly, “You’ll see soon enough.”

  Lucilla looked over at the guard to get a better look of him and was surprised by what she saw. He was tall and clean-shaven and didn’t look rough like guards usually did. The two things that stood out the most were his piercing blue eyes and his strong jaw line. And his jaw was clenched very tight at that moment, as if he was uncomfortable or angry about something.

  He must have felt her eyes on him. He paused for only a moment and then jerked her arm forward to bring her attention back to walking and looking ahead. She complied and decided to look around at her surroundings instead. They were walking along an open corridor with a garden on one side of it and a very large building on the other side. It was beautiful and adorned with arched doorways every 10 feet or so.

  Before she could make any further observations, the guard led her through one of the archways. Lucilla tripped but the guard had a firm hand on her and kept her upright and walking forward. Wherever they were going, he was very eager to get her there. Lucilla kept trying to absorb her surroundings, trying to find a clue as to where she was, but this kept causing her to lose her footing. And trip.

  The guard squeezed her tightly. “Stop walking like a drunkard. I will drag you across the floor if I must, but it would be a lot simpler if you just walked.”

  “It would be a lot simpler if I knew where I was going!” she snapped back.

  At this the guard stopped quickly and looked at her. He looked at her face, like he was assessing her, his piercing gaze made her uncomfortable. “What?”

  He held onto his gaze for a second more and then just laughed. “You don’t shut up, do you?”

  “You know there’s an easy way to remedy that problem. You can let me go!” she replied snappily, but also somewhat hopefully.

  The guard smirked and just pushed her forward to continue to walk. They walked in silence for another minute before they came to a giant door. Still holding onto her arm, he knocked twice.

  Lucilla held her breath as she felt her heart beating rapidly in her chest. Whoever responsible for her being here was behind that door and she suddenly found herself wanting to be back in her dark cell.

  The door opened and it wasn’t until Lucilla heard a girl’s voice that she realized that she had closed her eyes. Lucilla opened her eyes only to see a beautiful young woman, probably 16 or 17, waiting at the door with a smile.

  “Hello, Captain! It’s good to see you today.”

  The “Captain”, who had been Lucilla’s warden and had been dragging her along like a child for the last 30 minutes, gave a very deep and gracious bow. Lucilla looked to him in confusion and then turned her gaze to the young woman. She was very pretty and while her robes were beautiful and of high quality, the young girl was dressed very simply and not adorned with jewels like most in the higher class.

  While she was openly assessing the young girl, Lucilla felt the guard tug at her elbow firmly.

  “Don’t be so insolent, girl! Bow before the priestess,” the Captain murmured.

  “Priestess…?” Lucilla quickly looked up at the Captain and saw more than a hint of frustration.

  “Yes, girl, she is an honorable Priestess of Vesta,” he said gruffly. He eyed the priestess, who was gazing at him expectantly, and then added, “And she is to be respected by the likes of you and me.” And with that, she felt him pull back on her arm harder and forced her on her knees.

  Satisfied by the display, the priestess smiled sweetly and replied, “Oh Captain, there’s no need to be rough! The poor thing is probably frightened out of her mind!”

  On her knees and staring at the ground, Lucilla was now completely confused. The Vestal Virgins? Why was she here to see them? What would they want with her? She knew who they were and knew that they were adored and worshipped throughout the entire Roman Empire. They kept the sacred flame of Rome burning, therefore kept the Roman Empire’s heart burning. They were good. And the fact that she found herself at their doorstep brought her a huge amount of relief, although, she was still confused as to why she was abducted and taken to them. She was way too old to be considered for the priestesshood. They usually took girls from their homes when they were only 5 or 6 years old.

  “Come, child, rise to your feet and look at me.”

  Lucilla felt the Captain’s hands help her back up to her feet. She didn’t realize how nervous she was or how unsteady she was on her feet until she unconsciously leaned onto the Captain for support when she met the priestess’s gaze.

  The Captain gave her a steady hand and let her lean against him without an argument.

  The young priestess smiled warmly and said, “You must be so scared. And I imagine hungry too! I’m sure you have many questions, all of which will be answered soon enough, child.”

  The young priestess then reached out her hand to Lucilla, beckoning her to following her through the doorway. Most sane people would run quickly into her arms and rejoice in being saved, but Lucilla couldn’t shake the feeling that she was actually safer with the guard who had been her escort.

  Lucilla quickly looked back up at the Captain and he unintentionally looked down at her and met her gaze. For a brief moment, she could have sworn she saw something flash in his eyes. Pity? Regret? His eyes weren’t cold or full of frustration like they were before. And with that, he gently pushed her towards the priestess. Lucilla looked back to the beautiful priestess and reached for her hand.

  The priestess took Lucilla’s hand and hugged her reassuringly, “Captain, thank you so much for escorting her and for your services.”

  She then gave Lucilla an appraising look and said, “She is beautiful. We will take care of her.”
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  The Captain, Lucilla’s guard, bowed deeply. His eyes then fell briefly on Lucilla and he gave a quick nod to her and then walked away.

  Lucilla wanted to call out to him and tell him to take her with him, to take her home…to help her, but the priestess shut the door as soon as she had Lucilla in the room.

  Once in the room, Lucilla was mesmerized by what she saw. The “room” actually appeared to be a sort of giant marble courtyard. There was no roof so the late afternoon sun was shining down onto the floor like a giant sparkling mirror. There was a fountain in the middle of the room and the splashing water sounded like music against the marble walls and floor.

  There were beautifully tall exotic plants and trees that Lucilla had never seen before surrounding the entire room. But what had caught her eye the most were the great big cushions laying around the floor. She was exhausted and would have loved nothing more than to sink into one of those cushions and sleep for a few weeks.

  “Now, we must get you cleaned up and fed, mustn’t we?”

  Lucilla’s attention immediately snapped back to the priestess. Still unsure of why she was even there, Lucilla replied somewhat timidly, “Yes, thank you that would be lovely…but would you be able to tell me…what happened to me? Why am I here?”

  The priestess replied warmly, “All in good time, my child. You will have all your answers soon enough.”

  The priestess then led her to an adjoining room to the courtyard. The room was the most luxurious room Lucilla had ever seen. There were lounges with silk cushions, a large table with all sorts of delicious smelling food and a small bath at the center of the room.

  The young priestess turned to Lucilla and off-handedly said, “I imagine you’re hungry…and in need of a bath, so please feel free to help yourself to either. The High Priestess will be here shortly, so please be presentable.”

  “Presentable? But…I don’t understand. I just – “

  “My child, now is not the time for questions. Listen, I must go now but please feel free to take advantage of the comforts of this room.” And with that the young priestess gave her a tightlipped smile and exited the room, closing the door behind her.