He wanted to understand, to know my secrets. But he was a dragon. Perhaps not of Valerius’s ilk, but he was a dragon all the same. If I ever truly trusted him, that meant I could care for him. That I could open my hollow heart and let him in. The mere thought was horrifying. I simply had no heart left to give.
XIVTRAJAN
Fucking hells.
I sat in a stupor, trying to catch my breath, all while the beast languished in the pleasure of her scent.
She was my mate, the dragon’s one true treasure.
I’d noted my attraction from the first time I set eyes on her, but it wasn’t difficult to be attracted to Lela. She was exquisitely beautiful, by any man’s standards. I’d also thought my obsession was merelybecause she was enslaved by Valerius, a man I hated more than any other.
But no. As I sat back on my haunches in the olive grove, having heard the depths of her pain, my dragon roared deep inside me, clawing at my skin, wanting to come out and destroy whoever had hurt her. Valerius was already dead, but the dragon was an instinctual beast. He sensed her loss and pain and longed to avenge her. I’d swallowed his fire and kept him in his cage, but there was no other reason for his violent reaction. Lela was meant to be mine.
The realization was shocking and glorious and vexing. While the beast inside me both reveled and raged, I tried to accept the fact that the woman the gods destined for me would never want me. Never trust me.
I was no fool. The only reason she shared her secret with me was because I’d given her my blood. It was the only way she’d ever trust a man now, especially a Roman. After being the property of that filthy fuck Valerius, it was no surprise.
But the gods were never mistaken. The dragon inside our blood was gifted from the gods. His intuition was a direct line from the heavens. Whether I accepted it or not, and whether she knew it or not, Lela was mine to care for and protect. And that was what I would do, as if I could deny the dragon’s will. As if I wanted to.
Heaving a sigh, I stood and followed the path through the trees to the back steps that led to my bedchamber. When I reached the top of the stone steps, I stopped, hearing the water trickle in the bath. I waited, knowing she was bathing and would want privacy.
When the dragon started to growl, I stifled it and shoved him back. I needed to be civil andhuman. Listening to her light footsteps as she toweled off then slipped into a clean tunic, I waited until I heard her climb into bed and pull the blanket over her.
Then I stepped across the room and behind my dressing screen.Quickly, I stripped and changed my tunic. After washing my hands, I walked back into the bedchamber and sat in the chair next to the bed. There was still one oil lamp burning on a small table near the bed.
She lay on her side facing my direction, her eyes open, watching me with no readable expression at all. I held her gaze, holding back everything I wanted to say, venturing for another way to make her trust me. I had to give her more secrets, more information.
“I learned something today,” I told her softly, ignoring the fact that she’d stormed away in anger only moments before. She appeared calm now. “Something that could help us.”
I learned two actually, but I wouldn’t tell her the second.
She sighed softly, likely grateful I wasn’t going to discuss what had just happened in the olive grove.
“What is that?” she asked.
“Caesar made a sacrifice at the Temple of Vesta. And his soothsayer forbade him from killing the Visigoth until after Lupercalia.”
She blinked drowsily, her eyes heavy. My gut tightened, knowing I should let her rest. But I couldn’t leave her. Not yet.
“There are plenty of evil things he can do besides kill a man,” she said sleepily. “What does this matter?”
“Because that means he has to wait to kill the Visigoth king Drussus captured in Thrace.”
“I still don’t see why this matters.”
“I know what favor I need from you now.”
This jarred her awake. She sat up. “Tell me.”
“I need you to help me get through the guards without killing them so I can speak to this king of theirs. If I kill the guards, it will raise the alarm to Caesar. Can you make men forget they even saw us?”
“Yes. But why would I do this favor?”
I found myself distracted by her unbound hair falling in darkwaves over one shoulder. She always wore it partially up or entirely on top of her head in the formal way of most patrician women. Valerius had required it of her apparently, and she kept to that habit since she’d been in hiding here at my home. To see it falling loosely to her waist made me lose my train of thought.
“Trajan?” She snapped me back to attention. “What do you want to speak to this king about?”
Clearing my throat, I lifted the chair I was sitting in and turned it to face the bed then sat back down. “Before I became tribune to the senate, I was an officer in a legion. My general and I encountered these barbarians in Moesia. They were like ghosts—there, then gone quickly, out of our reach. We had to return to Rome defeated by them after one skirmish in the forest.”
