Her dress was twisted around her waist, her legs spread wide apart. Ugly, red marks circled her wrists. Blood trickled from a gash that ran across her throat. Her face, still so beautiful beneath the swelling and bruises was tilted toward him, her eyes open and unseeing. Jasmine mingled with the sharp copper scent of blood. Jared’s fingers trembled as he tried to cover her with her tattered clothing. “Mother, wake up.” The words came out in a choked sob. “Don’t leave me. Oh, don’t leave me.” He kept stroking her, as if his touch alone could bring her back to life.
“Makes your heart bleed, doesn’t it?”
The mocking voice pierced the haze of his grief. Jared raised his head, the sorrow in his chest twisting into something hard and cold. The soldier sneering down at him was holding his cock in one hand, his mother’s veil in the other.
Rage and grief fueled the animal sound that erupted from him. Jared surged to his feet and attacked the soldier, pummeled the man with his fists, kicked him, bit any piece of exposed flesh he could find.
Pain, white and hot, shot across his left temple, but it was nothing compared to the agony of losing his mother. His legs crumpled beneath him. Through black spots dancing across his vision, saw a second soldier standing next to the first, his hand fisted around the hilt of a sword.
The soldier he had attacked spat on the ground. “Kill the brat and be done with it.”
Jared crawled to lie against Shifra. If he had stayed, had confronted the Romans, told them who he was, who his father was, then his mother would still be alive.
It would be so easy to give in to the dark abyss that waited to engulf him. But then that would be too simple. And he did not deserve to die so easily. If not for him, if not for his coming of age, Shifra would not have been in the village, would not be dead. None of them would be.
He rolled onto his back, his head propped on Shifra’s arm and stared at the short
gladius
suspended over his chest. The Roman blade would pierce his heart, but that part of him was already dead. He closed his eyes and waited for the blow.
“Wait a minute. Look at that!”
Cracking his eyes open, he saw the second man restraining the first and pointing to Jared’s chest.
The soldier with the sword leaned down and ripped the thin, gold
bulla
from around his neck. Placed there by his father, eight days after his birth, it was engraved with the symbol of the Antoninus clan and held a charm of protection. The Roman gods had failed as miserably as his mother’s, he thought, bitterness searing his soul.
“The brat could have stolen it,” reasoned the first man. His eyes darted back and forth from the
bulla
to the soldiers hustling around them. Slanting the shell shaped piece toward the light, the soldier read the inscription. “Jupiter, protect the son of Flavian Antoninus Septimus from all ill.” The soldier’s eyes narrowed on Jared. “Flavian Antoninus is a scholar and wealthy patrician. A favorite of the Emperor. It is well known he has a Hebrew wife.”
“The slut spoke the truth!” The second man looked anxiously at Jared. “The brat is Roman!”
Swallowing convulsively, the soldier flung the
bulla
down. It landed across Shifra’s outstretched arm. “Even Jupiter won’t be able to save us if the centurion finds out.”
From beneath his lashes, Jared watched the two murderers hurry away. His headache worsened, drawing him into oblivion. Only one thought formed in his mind, a contrast in clarity as the blackness claimed him.
“
I am not Roman
.”
Alexandria, 52 AD
T
he mud brick walls spun like a whirlwind back into focus.
Head spinning, heart pounding against her ribs, Bryna struggled to clear the fog in her head. Fear clutched at her throat, terror knotted her stomach. The urgency to get out, get away clawed at her chest.
One bare foot on the cold, dirt floor and the dazed confusion dissipated into cold reality. Blinking, Bryna looked around the tiny, bare room with the bolted door and the barred window.
Her prison.
Hands trembling, she clutched the ends of the veil that had slipped from her head and wrapped it around her shoulders, the threadbare silk a poor shield against the despair welling in her chest.
The visions were getting stronger.
She’d been receiving them daily for the past ten days, though today’s count stood at three. She didn’t get impressions like her mother or her grandmother—a flash of insight, a sense of knowing, a foreshadowing of events to come. No, nothing so simple.
When her gift manifested itself, she experienced it as if she were there, scenes as real and solid to her as the rough stone ledge biting into her back. Bryna pressed damp palms against her forehead as she replayed the latest one over in her mind. It had been the strongest yet.
It had begun as always with a glorious spring day, the sun soft and muted like a pearl yet it had warmed her skin, contrasting with the cool breeze that kissed the rich green of the hills of her isle and sent white clouds scuttling across a deep blue sky. Even now she could feel the cool grass beneath her feet as she’d walked along the river, tugging at the willow stems that grew abundantly along the marshy edges. Birds flitted from ground to tree, trilling and chirping, the smile their melodious song brought to her lips fading as storm clouds roiled in the distance. Sick dread had started in her stomach at the certainty of the nightmare to come.
Shouts and curses, sword striking shield, Bryna spun around to find herself standing in the middle of her kinsmen who were locked in fierce battle with the Ileni who had come to trade. Her cry of warning went unheard before being swallowed by shouts of victory. A black shadow blocked the sun. Stumbling over the bloodied bodies of her clan littering the lush hillside, the stench of death sharp and acrid filled her every breath, choking the tiny spark of hope that she would find her brother.
Bryna
!
Bryna turned, as she always did, to see Bran standing by the rock strewn beach staring at her, eyes full of disbelief at her betrayal.
Sorrow crushed her heart every time, crushing it so tight she thought it would never beat again. She reached and caught his hand, slick with blood. But the gods relished their punishment of her pride and as with each reliving of the scene, Bran’s hand slipped from her grasp and he faded into the shadows. And every time she squeezed her eyes shut against a rush of hot tears and the fresh pain of losing her brother again.
Dropping her head against the ledge Bryna wrapped her arms around her knees and drew them tight against her chest, desperate to stop the quivering in her limbs. The vision always ended there, with the weight of guilt crushing her. But not this time. This time the vision had continued.
There had been a momentary confusion when Bryna had realized she was lying on a goose down pallet instead of the blood soaked ground. She’d glanced down at a length of turquoise material draped across one of her thighs, followed the flow of it between her legs, over the flat plane of her stomach, just covering the swell of her breasts. Lifting the fabric with one hand, she marveled at the way the cool silk rippled like water through her fingers. It was unlike any cloth she’d ever seen. Certainly not practical like the woolen dresses the women of her clan wore.
As Bryna continued to admire the coverlet, a sudden shift in the air sent a shiver skittering across her bare skin. Anxious, she peered into the white mist surrounding the bed, her breath catching as the dark figure of a man emerged from the fog.
Watching him approach had held her in thrall, his graceful stride that of a hungry predator and wondered why desire to see more overshadowed the fear seizing her chest.
He paused beside the pallet. Bryna tilted her head to look up at him, noted the proud set of his shoulders, the wide chest that tapered to a narrow waist and long, well-muscled, powerful legs. Though he wore no armor and carried no weapons he exuded the raw power of a warrior. He was handsome but not in the refined way her Roman captors immortalized in their statues of marble. No, his was a rugged attractiveness, all angles and strength with the bearing of royalty.
Bryna’s gaze lingered on his mouth, so full and sensual that she licked her lips for the want of a taste. Hair, blacker than a moonless night matched the shadow of stubble on his square jaw, thick curls of it brushing the broad expanse of his shoulders. His only flaw came from a thick, puckered, crescent-shaped scar on his left temple. Even as she wondered who had dared to mar his beauty, she became aware of the power that pulsed from within him. Power that reached out with remarkable ease to encompass everything in his path. Including her.
But it was his eyes that unnerved her. The color of molten gold, he pinned her with a look so full of fire that it seared her to the core. Try as she might, Bryna could not pull her gaze away even when he knelt beside the bed. A wolfish smile played on his lips, as he raked her with that smoldering gaze.
He smelled of sandalwood and sea but it was the scent of pure male that caused Bryna’s pulse to race. The overwhelming sense that he was her doom had her trying to scramble away. But the length of silk tightened as if a living thing, holding her motionless.
Raising one long, lean finger, he traced a line along her throat to the deep valley between her breasts, following the same path with the heat of his lips. It felt like a trail of fire and she feared she’d erupt in flames.
“I want you wet for me,” he murmured, his beguiling voice, so low and deep, reverberated through her core like the strike of a drum.
Bryna cringed remembering the way she’d arched her neck, as if a willing sacrificial offering. She’d wanted to demand he leave, had opened her mouth to do so, and been embarrassed all the more by the moan that came out instead when he took one of her nipples into his mouth and suckled hard. Her breasts tightened at the memory.
“Stop. Oh...please.” Words of protest or begging, she’d not been able to tell for they’d died in her throat as he teased her nipple to pebble hardness with his tongue. When he gave the same attention to her other breast, warm moisture pooled between her legs. He laughed.
Bryna massaged her temples, angry that the blasted dream was so vivid, that her mind refused to let it go. The images flashed onward.
So much had been taken from her, but she refused to give up the few choices she had left even in this dream world. Grabbing handfuls of his hair, pushing away the thought of how thick and luxurious and wonderful it felt between her fingers, she’d pushed him away. The hard golden eyes that met hers were not filled with surprise or disappointment, not even anger. He’d laughed again, the dark sound sending fresh waves of trepidation coursing through her as he took her arms, held them over her head and caught her mouth in a punishing kiss. Her body had reacted, wanting more, her blood on fire, flaming through her body. Her mouth opened beneath the onslaught, ready to meet his demands.
The dream shattered.
Bryna’s breaths came in short, harsh rasps. Cold settled in her bones, even as lingering heat pulsed between her legs. Gods, she wanted out of this fetid hole!
She pushed to her feet, jerked the veil from her shoulders, wadded it into a tight ball and threw it across the room where it unfurled limply against the bolted door. It had finally happened. Six months of confinement had finally taken its toll—she was going mad.
She rubbed her temples wearily. Coeus would not be pleased to discover that his prized possession had turned into a raving lunatic.
Possession. Aye, in the eyes of Roman law she was now that. A possession. Bartered with less consideration than a farmer might give to his ripened crops or fatted cattle. No longer a person with thoughts or feelings or choice. A slave.
Less than a year earlier, she’d never heard of Rome or the empire it was methodically carving out of the world. Éire dealt with its own. A land of
tuaths
, clans, led by chieftains, struggling to unite beneath one High King. Her father was one of those chieftains.
Bran would have been one of those chieftains.
If not for her willful pride.
Bryna swiped at the tears burning behind her eyes, fought them back. She had not cried the day she was captured along with Bran and their kinsmen. Not one tear had been shed during the long, arduous journey to this place called Alexandria. Only as she’d watched her brother being auctioned, sold, and led away in chains, had she wept.
And her captors had laughed.
She took a deep breath. They’d never see her cry again.
She began to pace. But it was getting harder to keep that vow. The heat and the humidity of this cursed Egyptian city were wilting. And the people—crowds and crowds of people. Even within the confines of her cell she was not spared the incessant noise of so many people. A din so loud even the crumbling stone walls separating the
taverna
proper from the rest of the household could not contain it. Drunken brawls rife with cursing in a dozen languages competed with bawdy banter from the clients of the brothel above stairs. Day and night, there was never a quiet moment. Bryna massaged her aching temples again. And now she was plagued with visions of a demon.
A throaty giggle interrupted her thoughts. She walked the few steps to the lone window and stood on her toes, peeking out through the narrow aperture into the courtyard.
One of the
taverna’s
prostitutes was leading a dark skinned man with a hump on his back toward the outer stairs. The girl was rail thin with limp brown hair that framed a worn and weary face. Heavy layers of powder failed to mask her peaked complexion and the kohl lining her eyes only accentuated the dark shadows beneath them, making it difficult to tell her age. The whore turned as she reached the steps and their eyes met.
Bryna’s breath caught in her chest at the depth of desolation in the girl’s black-rimmed eyes. Her spirit was gone, broken into pieces so small that even with her sight Bryna doubted she could ever find the whole. A tremor of fear went through her. How long did one have to be a slave before reaching such wretchedness?