Aurelius looks startled, before awkwardly holding his hands behind his back.
His cheeks pink.
I wrap my arms around myself, shivering.
I wish that Daire was here. Now that we have bonded, it feels wrong that the three of us aren’t discussing this together.
Where did Maximinus take Daire? What is he going to do to my soulmate?
Drawing in panicked breaths, I rest my hand protectively over the delicate snowflake on my wrist.
Agony.
It burns through the bond. It feels like poison is bubbling in my veins, turning me to ash from the inside.
It’s horrifying.
What in the name of the Shadow Gods is being done to Daire by Maximinus?
I gag, bending over. I fall to my hands and knees, groaning. My eyes scrunch closed with pain.
My stomach cramps, before I vomit.
Spark, Spark, Spark.
Sweat dampens the back of my neck.
Confused, I wipe my hand other my mouth, wracked with tremors.
Spark…
Someone is calling me urgently.
Then they are wrapping me in a soft towel, and I am being scooped into their arms.
I look up through dazed eyes at Aurelius, as the pain begins to settle. I rest my head on his chest.
Aurelius is holding me tightly, striding across the gold threaded marble floors of the baths toward the back wall.
His jaw is clenched.
Sunlight dances across his cruelly sensual lips. I know that they can kiss softly or savagely bite.
Is it wrong that I still crave both sides of him? The kiss and the bite?
Aurelius and Hadrian?
I nuzzle closer to Aurelius, as he lowers himself into a velvet padded alcove, which is frescoed with silver, ruby, and pearl dragons in flight. I take deep breaths of his tunic, which smells of his reassuring smoky, leather scent.
He washes calming pheromones over me.
“Feeling better?” Aurelius settles me on his lap, briskly drying my shoulders, before moving to run the top of the towel over my damp hair. “You shouldn’t stand around wet like this. You’ll catch a cold.”
“Strangely,” I reply, “I was distracted. And you called me Spark.”
His hands still. “Should I be calling you Queen Freya, while you’re hurling over my floors?”
I blush. “How aboutYour Majesty?”
