The emperor’s jaw tensed, and Kallias braced himself. His mind raced, attempting to summon different approaches he could leverage to allay Gaius’s anger. Usually, words jumped to his tongue easily, but fear seemed to have frozen his mind, rendering him stuck, helpless.
Then the emperor’s gaze returned to his sister, and he smiled. “Of course. It was all for Drusilla.” He held out a hand to her, and she replaced the bracelets and rings he’d removed before the fight.
The dark cloud Kallias had sensed hovering around the emperor seemed to evaporate, and Kallias let out a tight exhale of relief.
Gaius waved a hand toward the Praetorians. Finally, Kallias allowed himself to turn and look at Lea as the guards pulled her from the courtyard, presumably toward the exit. Her lip had been split by the guards’ brutality, and the sight of the blood smearing her skin made an impotent rage ignite within him.
Indignant anger blazed in her eyes, but she went quietly enough as they drew her away, perhaps realizing she’d been spared.
Kallias needed to make sure she made it out of here safely, so he scrambled for an excuse to leave. He addressed Drusilla. “Perhaps you would like a tea, my lady, to soothe any soreness that may arise from your exercise?”
Drusilla had been staring after the Praetorians with a look of concern, but turned her attention to Kallias when he spoke. “Yes,” she murmured. “That would be most welcome.”
Gaius nodded in dismissal, and Kallias bowed his head and left the courtyard.
As soon as he entered one of the back corridors used by the staff, the tight grip he’d been keeping on himself fractured. His hands shook, and his breath came in quick, light gasps. He wanted to lean against the wall, take a moment to steady himself, but he couldn’t waste any time.
He jogged to his office, quickly instructed Sextus to grind the ingredients for a tea of willow bark and chamomile, and then hastened back through the narrow passages until he reached the exit. If Lea hadn’t gone far, he’d have just enough time to see her and return to the palace while Sextus brewed the tea.
His pace slowed as he passed through the outer door, not wanting to give the bored-looking guard any reason to note him leaving, and then headed for the street Lea would have taken back to her ludus.
He caught sight of her ahead before he’d made it a block; her upright, assured posture was impossible to mistake. He broke into a run. “Lea!” he called out.
She stopped, turned, saw him. “Kallias—” she began as he caught up with her.
Her words cut off with a little gasp as he reached for her, folding her into an embrace. He couldn’t stop himself. He had to have her in his arms, had to fill his senses with her, reassuring himself that she was real and safe and mostly unharmed.
Kallias would have broken the embrace sooner, not wanting to overwhelm her, but then she was clinging to him, her lean arms wrapping even tighter around him. “Thank you,” she murmured against his chest. “If you hadn’t been there—I don’t want to think about where I’d be right now.” It was the first hint of fear she’d shown; perhaps the gravity of what she’d faced had only just sunk in.
You’re welcomeseemed like an inadequate thing to say, so he kept silent. His fingertips found her cheek, brushing over the small smear of blood by her lip. His stomach tightened. “They hurt you.”
She gave a low chuckle. “I should have kept my mouth shut.”
“You are very brave and very stupid,” he informed her. Both for mouthing off to the guards and for thinking it was a good idea to overpower the emperor in the first place.
She snorted. “Required traits in any gladiator. Luckily, I have someone much smarter to rescue me.” Then, she pressed closer and brushed her lips against his.
A shiver ran over him, but he tipped his face away from hers. “You don’t need to thank me like this, Lea.”
She twined her arms around his neck, her body a warm, delicious pressure against him. “I’m not thanking you,” shemurmured. “I’m kissing you.” She captured his mouth in a firm, unyielding kiss, and this time, he didn’t resist.
14
KissingKalliaswasanexcellent distraction from the frustration and fear of the last half-hour. She’d been certain she was about to find herself thrown into some dungeon somewhere, never to see the light of day again. She’d already been calculating how long it would take Lucullus to figure out she was missing and what his chances of success would be in retrieving her.
But it hadn’t come to that, thanks to Kallias.
She slid her hand into his hair, glossy and soft against her fingers, and pulled him closer. His breathing hitched as her leg crooked around his, angling their bodies together. He was usually so calm, so composed—even in the face of Praetorians manhandling her, she would have thought him completely unaffected if she hadn’t known better. So it gave her a thrillof satisfaction to hear the change in his breathing, feel the increased urgency beneath his touch as they kissed.
His hands found her waist, and she allowed him to guide her backward until her body found the wall of the alley behind her. His fingertips skimmed up her throat, taking soft hold of her chin to tilt her face up to him. His touch was so gentle, as if she were made of the most delicate glass, but his gentleness made her crave something rougher, darker. She wanted to feel his restraint break, his refined manner snap. She wanted him to succumb to his hunger and forget to be gentle.
Kallias’s mouth found a spot on her neck that made her gasp and arch against him. Desire swelled, throbbing and insistent, between her legs, and she could already feel the stiff jut of his arousal against her belly. Her body urged her to take him by the hand, lead him back to the ludus, and sink into bed with him.
But despite the temptation of that prospect, something made her hesitate. She was supposed to be keeping him at a distance. She had decided it was best that way.
And this—their bodies pressed together, heat burning between them—was the opposite of distance.
He must have sensed the direction of her thoughts, for when he next pulled back to catch his breath, he gazed down at her instead of going in for another kiss. He tucked a loosened curl of hair behind her ear, and even that innocuous touch made her shiver.
