“Silence!” he bellowed, stretching out of his toga and shifting into half-skin. Red-scaled and tail lashing, his four horns curled backward along his massive skull, he was a frightening beast.
My grandfather took a step back, and I positioned myself slightly in front of him.
Caesar raked his ripped toga from where it dangled across his body, now a gargantuan monster among his guests. I noted Drussus and others like General Sabinus smiled at the effect the emperor had on everyone here.
When there was little more than whimpers from the nobility standing around in shaken horror, Caesar turned to me and Grandfather, towering over us in his beastly form. My dragon huffed and clawed, wanting to take my skin, but I held still. I needed to get my grandfather and myself both out of here in one piece.
“Now, Gaius,” said Caesar in garbled speech, his voice a grating rasp. “Kneel before me.” He gestured with his scaled hand toward his claw-tipped feet. “Abolish the senate as your last action as consul and renounce your claim as consul before your brethren.”
Acid churned in my belly at what he was asking. The senate—even though corruption lived there—was the only power the people had. If there was no senate, the emperor ruled not simply as a king but as a tyrant. He would have unlimited power and could transform Rome into a living hell, a pit worse than Tartarus.
My heart now pounding, I watched my proud grandfather lower himself to kneel. A noblewoman sobbed, but there was no other sound. Caesar’s dragon purred in his chest.
“I renounce my position as consul,” said my grandfather, “but I will never take action to abolish the senate. The people must have a voice.”
Caesar snarled, and I gripped my grandfather’s shoulder, readying to haul him behind me when there was a sudden commotion in the corridor. Everyone turned, then someone cried out and people pushed aside.
Through the archway, four praetorians entered, the one in front holding a red-soaked sack. They marched directly across the courtyard, patricians parting for them as they made their way to the foot of the dais where Kato’s body still lay.
“Caesar.” The one in front thumped his chest with a fist. “We smelled fire coming from a home on Palatine Hill. It was Fausta Ovidius’s home.”
“Fire?” growled Caesar, taking one step down the platform.
“Yes, Caesar. Her slaves were burning her body in a funeral pyre. We found three praetorians cut to pieces, slain on the premises.”
Then he opened the sack and lifted Hektor’s severed head. That was when I knew for sure he was the one who’d stopped me and Lela in my litter last night. I hadn’t bothered to look at the mangled bodies on Fausta’s floor earlier today. My only thoughts had been for Lela.
I squeezed my grandfather’s shoulder, warning him to keep quietand still, not that he was unwise enough to draw attention. For the fury radiating from the emperor was a palpable, stifling force.
“The slaves did this?” he asked in his throaty voice.
“No, Caesar. They said it was the woman who’d come the night before. They called her a bloodsinger.”
The emperor roared and charged down the steps and across the courtyard. “I’ll sniff out this bitch myself. Come, praetorians!”
Everyone moved out of the way and watched as the emperor in half-skin marched toward his hall. His dragon wanted to hunt, urging him into action.
“Thank the gods,” I muttered down to Grandfather, realizing the distraction had possibly just saved us both.
The second Caesar was out of sight, there was mayhem. Everyone leaped toward the door, obviously wanting to get home and behind closed doors since the emperor was on a rampage. There was no telling what he would do in this state of temper.
“This way,” I told Grandfather, hauling him to his feet and leading him through another archway that led into a garden with a fountain where there was a back gate.
I’d been here plenty of times with Julian as I’d had to report with him following some of our campaigns. This gate was closer to the woods as well.
Once we were on the footpath, we broke into a sprint.
“You go that way, get Jovian and Lupus. Leave the litter and meet me at Kato’s alleyway.”
He instantly ran in the opposite direction. It sounded like chaos on the road as everyone was clamoring to get as far away from the palace as possible. My only focus was getting to Lela.
Racing through the woods, I smelled her before I saw the exact spot where we’d left her. But she wasn’t there.
“Lela?” I glanced around then sniffed the air, following the trail to an oak tree.
She’d sat here. Then I scented her on the wind, and something else—blood.
“Fuck.”
