“As I said,” the centurion’s strong voice boomed, “you aren’t well. We’ll take you home. It isn’t far. By Mars, you weigh no more than a feather.”
Physical sensations both pleasant and amazing made her gasp softly, but so did rising dread. Her father couldn’t see her like this, clothed in a soldier’s garment and riding on his horse. If he did… She wriggled in the big man’s arms, and when she caught him staring down at her, the seriousness in his eyes said he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Fear blossomed and returned, but not because he held her so close. “Please, sir, don’t. If my father sees me like this, he’ll—”
The centurion’s arms tightened. “He’ll what?”
When she didn’t answer, he lifted her high onto the horse. She hadn’t ridden a horse in a long time. The centurion swiftly pulled himself up to settle behind her. She barely held back a gasp as hips pressed into hers, and his long torso covered her back. Surrounded by his power, she didn’t know what to say or do. She’d never felt this comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time. A man had never ridden a horse with her like this, had never held her back against him. A man had never, ever protected her. Sensations new and delicious danced within her. She didn’t know how to react.
It stunned Adrenia into silence.
The centurion set the horse in motion, and the optio rode alongside. They headed across the field toward her home. As they progressed, wild sensations filtered up and down her body. One of the man’s arms tucked up under her breasts, his hips pressed into her butt. Her nipples peaked tight against their tunic, and between her legs moisture gathered in a sweet, delicious rush. She quivered at the forbidden feelings. She’d felt this way before, once when she’d seen a slave shirtless and working hard in the field. His muscles had flexed and rippled. She wondered what the centurion would look like half dressed.
Naked.
She flushed with heat.
“Where are your people?” the centurion asked.
“My father is probably working the fields or perhaps in town.”
“Who else is in your family?”
“My mother. Ulpia Flora.”
“You said you have sisters.”
“They are married and live in town.”
“No brothers to help work your farmland?” the optio asked.
“I only had one brother, Severianus Primus, and he was…he disappeared three years ago when he was ten.”
The centurion’s arms tightened around her a fraction, so slight she couldn’t say for certain if she’d honestly felt it. “Disappeared?”
Panic raced up her throat, constricting muscles to a painful degree. She rubbed at her throat absently. She couldn’t…shouldn’t speak so freely. She stiffened in his arms. He didn’t seem to notice, his grip firm but not painful. What would she do when her father saw them? Maybe if she got off the horse quickly and sent the men on their way, no one would see her.
They’d almost reached the long house with its thatched roof when her father walked around the side of the building. The soldiers slowed their horses to a stop at the front of the house.
“Adrenia?” Her father’s gruff voice held an instant accusatory tone. When he looked closer at the centurion holding her in his arms, he straightened and smiled.
She licked her lips and managed to press words through her throat. “Centurion, this is my father. Severianus Adrenus Brigomalla.”
The centurion nodded. “Your daughter was taken ill along the road, and I thought it best to bring her home quickly.”
Her father approached, his expression filled with an appreciation she knew was false. “Why thank you, soldier. Who may I thank for this good service?”
“Terentius Marius Atellus. This is my optio, Domitius Quintus Victor.”
Victor’s expression stayed closed and wary, and he didn’t speak.
The centurion left his horse and reached up for her. As he settled her on her feet, his entire body brushed along her length. Once more, pleasant shudders coiled in her body. At the same time, trepidation made her heartbeat faster. She pulled back from the centurion and hurried away to stand by her father. She started to unhook the cloak.
“Keep it, Adrenia. I will purchase another,” The centurion said as he mounted his horse.
Her father’s expression slipped from pleasant to angry in a disturbing flash as he glared at her. Then, almost as if she’d imagined it, his gaze returned to fatherly concern. “My dear, why are you wearing his cloak?”
“She was in the elements unprotected.” The centurion’s voice was terse. He glanced up at the sky, which had turned darker with the approach of more storm clouds. “Where I come from, women are provided such necessities.” He turned his horse so it faced her father, and the inflexibility in his eyes matched her father’s.
“Of course.” Her father’s voice came without rancor, his nod deferential. “My daughter is a weaver. She makes her own clothing.”
The front door opened with a loud squeak, and her mother stepped out. She stood next to Adrenia and dwarfed her with considerable height. Large for a woman, she was taller than her husband by a couple of inches. The centurion and the optio both saluted her.
Terentius nodded. “Good day, madam.”
Her mother’s lips went firm with disapproval. “What is going on, Brigomalla?”
“Nothing to concern yourself with, Ulpia,” Adrenia’s father said. “These men assisted our daughter along the road and brought her home to us.”
Her mother’s frosty eyes warmed as she walked closer to the centurion’s horse. Her voice went throaty, almost seductive. “Thank you kindly. Our daughter is indeed precious to us. She shouldn’t be out alone.”
“My thoughts exactly.” The centurion’s gaze lacked the warmth Adrenia had basked in earlier. “Come, Victor. We’re off to the fort.”
With last salutes, the soldiers drew the horses around and left. Adrenia’s entire body braced for what would come. The inevitableness of it beat in a slow, painful way inside her heart. Once the men reached a sufficient distance away, her mother and father turned toward her.
Her mother’s mouth curled in derision. “You,
whore
. You never, ever wear a soldier’s cloak unless you’re his bitch.”
Adrenia fumbled with the broach. A stinging slap cracked across her cheek, whipping her head back. Reeling with dizziness, Adrenia fell on her butt to the ground and looked up at her mother with pure hate. Blood welled up Adrenia’s lip and dribbled onto the cloak.
No. No.
She imagined the centurion’s anger if he knew she’d soiled his cloak.
“He insisted I wear it,” Adrenia mumbled.
Her father stood over her, his expression filled with coldness. “Are you his bitch, Adrenia?”
She winced at the pain in her lip and the freezing, slicing tone in his voice. She felt a tremendous need to defend the soldier after his kindness to her. “He’s a gentleman and did nothing improper.”
“Get up.” Her mother glanced warily at her father, as if suddenly afraid. “Get up and go into the house. You’ll clean and cook tonight. Your sisters and their husbands will be here in two hours.”
Aching in every bone, Adrenia stood slowly. She unhooked the cloak, holding the broach in one hand and draping the heavy wool over her left arm. When she went inside and headed for her room, she ached with the horrible knowledge that she’d experienced something wonderful. Terentius, as she would think of him privately, had talked with her and touched her the way no man had before. As her fingers felt the rough, warm weave of his cloak, she wondered what god or goddess had sent him to her, only to have him leave. Foolish wants she couldn’t remember having before assaulted her as she spread the cloak out on her bed. The large cloak almost covered the entire surface and draped over the edges. She sat on the bed and listened wearily to her mother’s voice droning outside the house. She drank in the overwhelming thoughts swirling unfettered in her mind. Three words pounded in her skull and chased away all aches, pains, hunger, and worries.
Terentius Marius Atellus.
She drew in a deep breath and remembered how he smelled. Musk. Leather. Powerful male. An entity almost foreign. Oh, she’d seen attractive men before, even a few pleasant-looking soldiers from the auxiliary at the fort. Still…none had stirred inside her something new, awakened a part that once aroused could never be suppressed or forgotten.
She smoothed her hand over the rough cloak. Amazing that mother and father hadn’t taken it from her. When the front door opened, she rose to her feet and prepared to face an interminable evening. A small smile touched her mouth as did a gentle light in her heart. No matter what happened this evening, she would have this small treasure to remember always.
Her parents stalked into her doorway, their frowns deep and hateful.
Her mother reached out and snatched the broach from Adrenia’s hand. She smiled. “This is beautiful. Gold perhaps?”
Her father took it in hand and turned it this way and that. “No. It is bronze. Cheap.” His gaze assessed Adrenia before he tossed it at her. It hit her in the stomach and landed on the floor. “You may keep it. Since it was probably your only payment for being his whore.”
Anger sliced deep inside Adrenia, and her silence shattered. “
I. Am. Not. His. Whore
.”
She leaned over to pick up the broach, and her father grabbed her by the shoulders. He hissed his recrimination in her face. “You are lucky I don’t pen you up with the hogs.”
Shaking with rage, Adrenia’s fingers tightened on the broach painfully. “Do it. Why don’t you just do it?” She jerked out of his grip and tried to walk away.
He grabbed her by the arm, his grip biting until she gasped. An answering loathing boiled in his eyes. “Ulpia, get the knife.”
Caught between a staggering fear and dejected apathy, Adrenia allowed him to drag her into the main room. She dropped the broach in the process. Impotent fury at herself roiled inside Adrenia. Why couldn’t she have kept her mouth shut?
Her father threw her a disdainful glare, but didn’t speak as he shoved her into the table, and her stomach hit the edge. Her breath whooshed out, and she gasped for air. Powerful hands held her down, and then she realized that her mother had returned with a huge knife her parents seemed very fond of.
“Hold her down, Ulpia.”
Ulpia complied as Adrenia’s father held the knife in front of Adrenia’s nose.
“No!” Adrenia struggled. “What are you doing?”
“Punishing you for your filthy mouth. Since you’ve let a soldier soil you, you no longer need your crowning beauty. You’re used goods, my dear.” Her father almost growled the words.
Fear she’d tried hard to restrain screamed upward as her father grabbed her ponytail. He yanked it upward, pulling harshly at her scalp.
He sawed.
She screamed.
“Strange lot,” Victor said as they passed the actual villa.
The villa appeared close to five acres in spread. A very decent size for a citizen veteran to own.
Terentius, though, barely heard his optio’s comment. “What?”
“That girl’s family is odd. So is she.”
“Hmm.”
“Is that
all
you can say?”
He usually didn’t spill his innermost thoughts to anyone, not even Victor, but this time words slipped from Terentius without his usual restraint. “Her father may be clever, but he’s brutal.”
“So?”
“He mistreats women.”
“How do you know?”
Terentius slowed his horse. The animal plodded while Terentius’s thoughts ran at lightning speed. “Adrenia’s mother has bruises all over her arms.” He turned a quizzical gaze on Victor. “Didn’t you see them?”
“They’re farmers. They work hard. Maybe she’s overworked the crops or fell.”
“That’s shite and you know it. They were bruises made by a man’s fingers. I’ve seen that type of injury before.”
“I did not think anything of it. My father regularly beat my mother and me. My five brothers too.”
Terentius winced at this new information. “Do you beat women?”
“Not women.” Victor shrugged, and quietness came into the brute’s eyes. “Now you must tell me what you plan to do about the girl.”
Terentius pondered, his thoughts turning full time back to Adrenia. “Did you see how she stood her ground with us? She might have run at the sight of us. My gut tells me something is wrong. Very wrong in her family.”
“What do you plan to do about it?”
“Nothing this minute. We’ll pay a call to this Cordus at the villa and in the next few days once we’ve settled at the fort we’ll see how Adrenia fairs.”
“Why do you care?”
As the horses picked up the pace, Terentius didn’t have a reasonable answer. “She intrigues me.”
“Really? I thought she was too—”
“Thin. I know.” Terentius threw his optio a grin. “You didn’t have her in your arms.”
Victor’s perplexed expression filled with amusement “She is very skinny.”
“Sweetly small. She could use more meat on her, but I felt her breasts on my arm.” Just the thought of her breasts cupped in his hands hardened his cock to granite. Yes, he would like that very much.