“Did I give you leave to answer me?” Maximus’s voice was still even. He watched the legionary scramble to his feet. A fucking disgrace to his cohort, even if his cohort was one of the less prestigious ones.
“No, sir.” The legionary stood ramrod straight, blood dripping over his lips and chin.
Maximus reeled in the bloodlust raging through him, which demanded satisfaction worthy of the offense. And if he discovered this misbegotten maggot had physically assaulted his Celt, then a broken nose would be the least of his punishment.
“Meet me after evening mess.” For answering back a superior officer, extra duties went without saying. Maximus would have him cleaning out the latrines for the next month, as well as doubling his training shifts.
Finally he focused his attention on her. She still hadn’t moved, still didn’t look at him. He slid a finger beneath her chin and forced her head up, and a thread of unease slithered through his simmering rage.
He knew his Celt was proud, was instinctively aware she’d hate him to witness any weakness. And if she hid her face because she cried, he would personally flog the legionary responsible.
She glared up at him, her eyes sparkling jade and amethyst, but no tears streaked her flushed cheeks. Without conscious thought his touch became more possessive, cupping her jaw, his thumb nudging the corner of her mutinous lips.
She was here. She was safe. She was his. His head began to angle toward her, aching to savor those lips against his, to reassure himself she truly was uninjured.
And she jerked back, severing contact. His jaw clenched, and his fury at how close she’d come to harm sizzled with renewed vigor.
“What the fuck are you doing, walking around unprotected?” He ground the words at her in Latin, too incensed to bother with translation.
The look of unadulterated loathing she gave him increased his temper.
“Would you keep me under lock and key, Roman?” Her Latin dripped venom. “Is that how you treat your women? Lock them away or abuse them in public?”
Mars help him, he would kill those useless turds who had accosted her and string their guts up for the crows.
“This is an occupied land, Celt.” He fisted his hands to prevent himself from gripping her shoulders and giving her a thorough shake. Or perhaps he’d forgo the shaking and instead drag her into his arms and hold her close, safe within his protective embrace.
“Yes. I know.” Every word a stinging condemnation.
“Look at you.” He raked his gaze over her, from the top of her shining, golden head, to her full breasts that gave a tantalizing glimpse of cleavage, the dip of her waist, the swells of her hips. “It’s a wonder you had only three legionaries sniffing around you.”
Something shifted in those mesmerizing eyes of hers. As if she didn’t fully understand his meaning.
“I kept my eyes lowered.” She sounded oddly defensive. “I shouldn’t have drawn unwarranted attention. I don’t know why I did.”
She didn’t know why? He could scarcely credit it. “Do you not possess a mirror, Celt?” Perhaps she didn’t. He would rectify that instantly. “Have you never looked at yourself in a still pool?”
Her confusion vanished. “I was disguised.” Her voice was haughty and she jerked her head to a crumpled blanket that lay in the dirt.
Maximus curled his lip. “It would take more than that to disguise your beauty, lady.”
And then she took a step toward him, as if she didn’t realize what she was doing. “I shouldn’t have to.” The words were a whisper that condemned all of Rome.
Condemned him. But if he openly claimed her as his mistress, she wouldn’t have to hide at all. Because no other man would dare offend her by either look or word.
“You must be aware of how you affect men.” Gods, he had only to think of her to become aroused. Any red-blooded man would be eager to part her thighs, brand her as his.
She’d fucked men in the past. The thought corroded his pride. Twisted his guts. The image of her wrapped around anyone but him caused bile to rise.
And yet she’d told him it had been three years since she last took a lover.
Why?
He would find out. And ensure she never entertained another but him.
Chapter Thirteen
Carys clenched her fists in a futile effort to stop her limbs from trembling. Part of her wanted to fling her arms around Maximus, show him how grateful she was that he’d rescued her from multiple rapes.
But another part of her, the part that was inextricably entwined with the core of who she was, what she was, boiled with resentment.
She wasn’t a weak female. And yet that was how he saw her. How he expected her to see herself.
“It doesn’t matter how I affect men.” She still spoke Latin, unwilling to allow any of her people to inadvertently overhear their conversation.
Not that anyone was close enough. Were they being given a wide berth deliberately? And how much more conspicuous could they be, standing in the center of the road for anyone to observe?
“It does when they don’t show you respect.” He still sounded angry. She couldn’t tell if the anger was directed at her or at his despicable soldiers.
But she seized on his remark.
“Your men”—she loaded that word with all the derision she could muster—“don’t know the meaning of the word respect.” She sucked in a shaky breath, hid her shaking hands in the folds of her gown. “I’ve never been treated so—so brutally.”
An odd expression crossed his face, as if his anger had suddenly vanished. Instead he reminded her of a predator watching its prey, waiting for the chance to pounce.
The analogy stung.
“My lady.” His voice was gentle. As if he tried to soothe her. But she didn’t need soothing. Not from him. Because she had just experienced a slice of life, a slice of raw reality that her people had faced from the moment the Romans had invaded.
While she, and the rest of her kin, had scurried like spineless cowards to the protection of the sacred spiral.
“At least the men of my people don’t attempt rape on a crowded street.” Her voice was beginning to rise. She couldn’t help it. Sweet Cerridwen, don’t let her lose control.
And she knew even as she uttered the words they were untrue. Some men raped. Some were caught. Punished.
But even the most degenerate would never have dared touch Carys.
Before.
Would they now? Had her world changed so irrevocably that her former status meant nothing?
No one had attempted to intercede while she was being molested. Had no one recognized her? Or had they simply looked the other way, unwilling to become involved with a Druid whose very existence might rain disaster upon their heads?
Before she realized his intention, Maximus flung his arm around her shoulders, an iron embrace, and attempted to drag her along the road.
She recoiled. “Are you mad?” Panic whipped through her, pounding against her temples. “If I’m seen with you—”
“I believe half the populace has seen you with me.” But he released her, and then swiftly reclaimed her dusty blanket. “Walk forward. As if you have no choice in the matter.”
Stunned that he appeared to have understood her reluctance for physical contact, she slowly obeyed.
Because he was right. She had no choice. And if anyone saw her, they would know she had no choice.
He adjusted his stride to accommodate hers. Carys stared resolutely ahead, but she saw the furtive glances in their direction. Noticed how other legionaries, and even centurions, reacted as they approached.
She slid her Roman a surreptitious glance. He appeared oblivious. As if the deference was his right.
Her stomach clenched with renewed nerves. She’d always known Maximus was a warrior who commanded respect.
And yet, despite the long-ago lessons from her tutor on such matters, she knew almost nothing of the hierarchy of his Legion. In truth, it had scarcely crossed her mind, f
or what did she care about his rank?
But now she had to face the fact that previously she’d managed to ignore. He wasn’t simply a fearless soldier who followed orders. He was an officer who issued them.
“Here.” His command broke into her thoughts as he directed her from the main street into a side road that, by the look of it, housed the barracks.
He pushed open the door to their left, waited for her to enter. The room was quite obviously used as a military base with a large desk at one end, a smaller table at the other, and detailed maps nailed to the walls.
Carys shot the maps a second look. They were frighteningly detailed. Just how much longer could the Druids remain hidden within the spiral’s protection without the geographical anomalies raising suspicion?
She dragged her attention from the maps as Maximus pulled out a chair. “Sit.”
“No.” Carys straightened her already rigid spine. Even if every strained nerve welcomed the thought of collapsing into a chair, the last thing she intended was to obey any more of Maximus’s orders.
His look was calculating. As if he guessed her thoughts. She tensed her muscles further, ignoring the way they ached in protest.
She wasn’t one of his subordinates, and she refused to bow to his dominance. He could beat her as he beat his legionary, but she would still be his superior because she was a Druid and he was nothing but a barbarous, murderous invader.
It curdled her stomach to admit that, perhaps, Aeron had been right when he’d told her no Roman could ever look upon her without wishing to fuck her before killing her.
“My lady, please sit.” His voice was gentle, at odds with the granite planes of his face, the watchful look in his eye.
She flicked him a resentful glance, then stiffly lowered herself onto the proffered chair.
After a moment’s strained silence where he stared at her and she refused to meet his eyes, he turned and opened a chest. In her peripheral vision she watched him extract a pottery amphorae and goblet.
As if she would drink anything he offered. She would take nothing he offered. Not now that she’d been subjected to how the Roman scum abused those whose freedom they had crushed.
Besides, she would never let Maximus see how badly her hands shook. She gripped her fingers tighter, and pressed her hands into her lap.
He diluted the wine with water before crouching in front of her and handing her the goblet. “The wine will calm you.”
She gave him her haughtiest look. “I don’t need calming, Roman. But I suggest some of your men need castrating.”
And by the Morrigan she would wield the dagger herself.
His jaw tensed. “Had they raped you, I would castrate them personally and force their cocks down their throats.”
The painful lump lodged in the center of her chest eased marginally. Just as all Druids were not the same, neither were all Romans.
She took an unintentional sniff at the wine, and its rich bouquet snared her senses. Perhaps one small sip would steady her.
As she took the goblet, Maximus wrapped his hands over hers. For a moment she considered protesting, but it was only her head that protested. Her wounded pride.
Her heart and soul took comfort from the warmth of his fingers, the strength she knew those hands contained. And so she allowed him to lift the goblet to her lips and took a reviving sip of the deep amber wine.
“How often do you come into the settlement?” His voice was neutral. It wasn’t a demand, just a question.
“Today’s the first time.” She looked at him over the rim of the goblet and, despite everything, melted at those impossibly blue eyes. “I imagine it will also be my last.”
There was no doubt it would be her last. Once Morwyn and Gawain discovered she had been marched off by a senior centurion—and they would discover it; too many people had witnessed her humiliation to keep such a thing hidden—they would think the worst.
And whatever story she concocted when she saw them, nothing would change the fact she had been noticed. Just because she’d escaped the enemy this time didn’t mean she’d be so lucky a second time.
There was no chance Morwyn or Gawain would risk letting her accompany them to the settlement again. And if today taught her nothing else, it was the brutal reality that she wasn’t safe walking through Roman-occupied territory.
Maximus’s eyes darkened. “How could your father allow you to come into the settlement by yourself?”
Carys decided to ignore his obvious implication that she required male permission before she went anywhere. “My father is dead.”
Tension radiated from him, as if he instinctively knew her father’s death was linked to his beloved Rome.
“I’m sorry.” The words sounded strange from his lips, as if he rarely uttered them. And the words he left unsaid hung heavy between them.
She stared into the liquid gold of the wine, unsure of how she should respond. Part of her wanted to tell him about her father. And yet another part urged caution.
Would she forever be torn between the logic of her brain and the feelings in her heart for this Roman?
In the end her heart won with barely a skirmish. There was so much of herself she could never share with Maximus. Yet this, if she guarded her words, was something she could.
“He died soon after the Roman Legion crossed the border into Cymru.”
His hands tightened around hers, as if he thought she might follow her disclosure by tossing the contents of the goblet in his face. “I regret your loss.”
An odd pain speared her heart. His forbidding expression told her more clearly than his stilted apologies that he expected her to hate him.
She should hate him. The enemy of her people, the murderer of her father. Yet from the first moment she’d spied him beneath the waterfall her feelings for this Roman had been nothing short of treasonable.
“We heard he fought bravely.” There was quiet pride in her voice. She had met her father infrequently as a small child, and that had been more than ten years ago, but although she didn’t love him the way she loved her mother, he was still blood of her blood.
And he had been killed by the Romans. Perhaps even by Maximus’s own hand.
Yes. She should hate him. Hate him with such virulence that she’d sooner take her own life than allow him to touch her. But she’d done more than allow him to touch her. She’d taken him inside her body, the first man she had independently chosen for such an honor, and more than that, she knew, in this strained echoing silence that drummed against her ears, she had taken him inside her heart.
Maximus maintained eye contact. “You heard true, lady. They all fought bravely. And yet still I regret the loss of life. I wouldn’t wish to cause you pain intentionally.”
“I know.” How strange to say that to her enemy. Yet she knew he meant his words, just as she meant hers. “It was a battle. You won.” It would always hurt, forever leave a scar on her soul, but hating Maximus could never change the past.
Only the future.
The eerie whisper shivered through her mind and she froze. The thought wasn’t hers. Disbelief meshed with shock, momentarily paralyzing her. Sweet Cerridwen, was the goddess here with her now?
And what did Cerridwen mean? That Carys should hate her enemy—or that she should not?
“Had the Druids not driven the people wild with bloodlust, the carnage would have been greatly reduced.” Maximus’s grim voice rammed through her brain, shattering the tenuous connection with Cerridwen—yet there had been no connection after those cryptic words—forcing her back to the present.
“The Druids?” Her tongue could barely articulate the words as dread trembled through her soul. Her father had been one of the greatest Druids in Cymru. It was the reason her mother had allowed her favorite lover’s seed to grow within her womb.
Her father had led the revolt against the invading army. They’d received sporadic reports in the following weeks from spies and those who had escaped the slaughter. The bloodi
ed accounts mirrored Aeron’s visions in spine-shuddering accuracy, adding to his already formidable authority.
When he’d told them the time was upon them to seek the sanctuary the gods had offered, there had been little dissent. The gods favored Aeron. They would show him how to defeat the enemy once they were safely within the sacred spiral.
And they were still waiting.
Maximus took the goblet from her, placed it on his desk, then enclosed her chilled hands, as if he wanted to protect her from whatever words he next uttered.
“We offered honorable surrender. The Druids refused to even contemplate our terms. They fought like creatures possessed.”
A heavy weight expanded within her chest, hurting her lungs. Hurting her heart.
“Is there such a thing as an honorable surrender?” Her father would never have surrendered. She may not have known him, but she knew of him. And her mother had chosen him because of his inspiring spiritual power, because of his incomparable beauty and because his courage, even as a boy, was legendary.
“Yes.” Maximus’s blue eyes didn’t waver. He sounded completely sincere.
She choked in a breath. “Would you have surrendered if the positions were reversed, Maximus?”
His eyes flickered the merest degree. But it was enough, as if she’d needed evidence. Of course her brave Roman centurion would never have surrendered because, as for Druids, surrender was never an option.
And then he honored her with the truth. “The Legion never surrenders, my lady.”
Chapter Fourteen
Maximus waited for her response, knowing she saw the hypocrisy of his words although until this moment he’d failed to recognize them as such.
But she didn’t say anything. Simply stared at him with those bewitching bicolored eyes, and he had the sudden conviction she could see beyond a normal mortal’s vision; that her eyes could see into the hidden depths of his soul.
An eerie shiver snaked along his spine, in much the same way as it had when, as a child, he’d been forced to visit oracles back in Rome.
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