Christina Phillips - [Forbidden 01] (8 page)

Speech was beyond her capabilities. Instead she extended her right hand, and with only the merest hesitation, her Roman took it in his large, firm grasp. He raised her hand to his lips, without bowing his head toward her, and brushed a kiss across her fingers.

“You will meet me here later?” It was more demand than request, but she nodded her acceptance. How could she do otherwise? Her mighty Roman warrior had agreed to her terms.

Over her captured hand, his eyes smoldered. “There’s one question you haven’t asked of me, lady.” She heard the challenge in his tone, as if the fact somehow irked him.

She tried to calm her racing pulses, her incoherent thoughts. There was a question she hadn’t asked, because she hadn’t thought he would respond.

“Would you tell me if I did?” Her voice was breathless.

“You’d have to ask me first. Then you’d find out.”

She darted the tip of her tongue over dry lips, saw the way his eyes followed the movement before once again locking with hers. “What is your name, Roman?”

The breath stilled in her chest as she awaited his reply. A part of her was convinced he wouldn’t reveal such a personal detail, simply because she refused to share hers. But another part of her, the illogical part, wanted to know his name. Wanted to savor it on her lips, wrap it around her mind and hold it close within her heart.

His mouth twisted into an enchanting lopsided smile, and for one shimmering moment Carys forgot he was a Roman, the enemy of her people, and saw only a man who had haunted every moment of her life for the last three moons. A man she feared could, too easily, haunt the remainder of her existence if she wasn’t careful.

“Tiberius.” He kissed one knuckle. “Valerius.” Kissed a second knuckle. “Maximus.” He turned her hand and drifted his lips across her open palm.

“Tiberius.” The foreign name sounded strange on her tongue. He smiled once again, released her hand and stepped back.

“Close friends call me Maximus, my lady.”

The thought slithered through her mind. Strange, for until this moment she hadn’t considered he might have other lovers back at the settlement that she’d been told now surrounded the Roman fortification.

And the thought grazed her senses, wounded her soul. Even though she knew she had no right to be so injured. What the Roman did—what
Maximus
did—when he wasn’t with her was none of her affair.

“Then I shall call you Maximus.” She saw his eyes darken as she said his name, and banished her troublesome concerns. She would please Maximus so thoroughly this eve that he wouldn’t wish to fuck any other woman but her.

“And I shall call you”—he paused for a telling heartbeat—“my lady.” And his firm, sensual lips twitched, as if he tried to prevent a smile.

“Yes.” She was his lady. She would always be his lady, even after their paths diverged. But she wouldn’t think of that. Not now. Not when she had other, far more fascinating things to consider. Such as discovering before tonight the secrets of satisfying a man so thoroughly he would rather fry his eyes in boiling oil than look with lust upon another woman.

“Meet me here at sunset.”

Again it was a demand. From a man used to having his word accepted without question. But what did she have to question? She wanted this as much as he did. And sunset was the time she would have suggested herself.

Had he thought to ask.

“Very well.”

Beneath her leather-clad feet the earth stirred and discordant vibrations shivered through her soul. Maximus’s soldiers grew impatient by his absence.

She couldn’t explain how she knew such things, or why the wise Cerridwen had chosen her as her acolyte. She knew only that the two were intrinsically connected, and to ignore the signs of the earth was to ignore her beloved goddess herself.

With a soft sigh she bent to retrieve Maximus’s helmet. It was heavier than she expected. She brushed her fingers through the proud plumage before handing it toward him.

“My lady.” He inclined his head in thanks as he took his helmet. “Until tonight.” He paused, and gave her a searching look as if trying to see inside her mind and find her secrets. “Keep safe.” And then he turned and marched back into the shaded woods.

Aeron bowed before the ancient Druid in the small oak grove at the outer edge of the sacred spiral’s protective perimeter. As always, he hoped she couldn’t see into his heart and discover the bubbling resentment that festered. But she never had before. He was a master of deception, and this Druid had no reason to suspect him of anything less than absolute devotion.

“Aeron.” She held out her wrinkled hand, and he took it and kissed the fragile skin, even as his senses recoiled from the touch of her skeletal fingers. “My dearest child. Come, sit with me and tell me what you see.”

He sat beside her on the moss-covered log that once, long ago, had been a mighty oak. It reminded him how all great things could fall, no matter how powerful or revered.

The old woman by his side was the most powerful and revered Druid in all Cymru. But her time was coming to an end. Aeron had seen her demise in a terrifying vision while still a child, a vision of such lucidity it had ensured his rapid elevation within the spiritual ranks.

Yet even at the age of eight he had known better than to divulge the bloodied climax of that vision. The line between savior and murderer would have been too blurred to distinguish.

“Druantia.” He extricated his fingers from her possessive hold under the pretext of clasping both hands around his hazel rod. “The situation beyond the sacred spiral grows more precarious by the day. Soon the invaders will have subdued all of Cymru in a fountain of blood.”

Druantia didn’t answer and Aeron shot her a surreptitious glance from the corner of his eye. She often didn’t answer directly, a trait he found irritating when directed at him. He was no lowly acolyte. Nor even a highly respected Druid of distinction. His place in the hierarchy was second only to hers. As such, he deserved more respect from her.

He deserved more respect from Carys.

Her name scorched through his brain, temporarily obliterating the grove from his sight. Fucking Carys with her hypnotic eyes, hair spun from sunlight and impossibly independent nature.

It was intolerable she continued to refuse him. Blood pounded against his temples, threatening his outward composure, and his hands gripped the holy hazel rod with compressed rage.

He knew that soon she would submit. His visions foretold such sweet victory, and in such visceral detail, his cock thickened with anticipation even now.

“And yet we will survive, Aeron.” Druantia’s voice, as fragile as a decaying autumn leaf, invaded his personal world.

Curse the hag for still clinging to this life. By rights he should possess her coveted position, for his power deserved nothing less.

Just as he deserved Carys.
And he would possess both
.

“We will always prevail.” He bowed his head. Yes. They would prevail, for he would never allow their beliefs to die at the hands of the heathen invaders. But they would survive on his terms. And there was no place in his new world for decrepit old women and their ancient goddesses.

“And yet Carys still denies you.”

Aeron ground his back teeth together. Only Druantia would dare throw that in his face. “She’s still too young to know her own mind.”

“On the contrary, my dearest child.” Druantia’s voice scraped along his raw nerve endings. “Carys knows her own mind very well. Don’t become disheartened, Aeron. The time will come when she sees you for what you truly are.”

Her one and only master
. The words drummed through his brain, pounded along his arteries, throbbed along the length of his erection. It took all of his considerable willpower to remain unmoving on the mossy log, when every particle wanted to roar his frustration to the heavens.

“I trust you’re right, Druantia,” he said instead, bestowing a gracious smile as he imagined how easy it would be to snap her neck like the dried twig it was.

Druantia stared at him from her age-glazed eyes. Eyes that always sent shivers of revulsion skittering along his spine. “The Morrigan is never wrong, my child,” she said softly. “She sees Carys is our future. And who better to share that future than you, Aeron? It is written in the stars. So shall it be.”

Aeron only just prevented a sneer from escaping.
He
saw the future. And the Morrigan was no part of it.

“I’m humbled the great goddess feels I am worthy.” The words choked him, but Druantia didn’t appear to notice. “Can she bestow advice as to how I might win Carys back to my bed?”

Druantia considered him in silence, and he thought she wasn’t going to answer. Not that he needed advice from this bitch or her redundant goddess. Carys would be his because that was his desire. And when that time came, whether she submitted willingly or not was entirely up to her, but made no difference to him.

And then Druantia spoke. “Bring us fresh moon blood from Carys’s next cycle. This must be collected by your own hand, Aeron, to prevent any contamination from another.”

Interest flared. The image of sequestering Carys’s blood aroused him, caused his shaft to thicken and balls to ache.

“I understand.” Yet he had no intention of attempting any such thing. He had no need of the Morrigan’s help in this or any other matter. He took Druantia’s hand and bestowed another fleeting kiss. “Thank you, Great Queen.”

It was late afternoon before Carys made her daily visit to Druantia. The wise Cerridwen had not been forthcoming as to how Carys could ensnare her Roman’s continued interest, but Carys knew that wasn’t a bad omen. It was simply because Cerridwen wasn’t overly interested in sexual liaisons.

Besides, it wasn’t hard to bring the conversation around to sex with her fellow Druids. Sex was a topic they all discussed frequently, and in great detail. It was simply that before today, Carys hadn’t been especially interested in the specifics.

“Carys.” Druantia rose from her moss-covered log and held out her arms. Carys embraced her great-grandmother’s sister, secretly sorrowing at the Druid’s fragility. She sometimes feared the faintest breeze might splinter her slight physical form. “My sweetest girl. Still you put yourself in danger for your people.” Pride laced the old lady’s tone.

Carys helped Druantia resume her seat upon the log before sitting in her usual place at her feet.

“There isn’t much danger. Cerridwen protects me, as she has always protected me.”

Druantia began to unwind the ties binding Carys’s hair. “Alas, child. There is always danger. Only here within the spiral are we truly protected from the invaders.”

Carys gave an impatient sigh. “But what good are we here, Druantia? How can we help our people if we aren’t with them?” She turned as Druantia began to gently tug her fingers through her still-damp hair. Hair she had washed with scented flowers for the pleasure of her Roman.

She shivered and thrust the thought aside. She couldn’t think of Maximus now. Not when she was in the presence of Druantia, and in the sacred grove of the Morrigan herself. She forced her mind back to the present. “How much longer do we have to hide?”

Druantia continued to unplait her hair. Normally Carys found the ritual soothing. But this afternoon she couldn’t be soothed. Because all she could see was an endless existence stretching before her, where she could never be allowed the true freedom her soul craved.

“Darkness is descending.” Druantia’s voice was hushed with sorrow. “Everything we cherish is on the cusp of oblivion. How else can we protect our ways, Carys, except by shielding them from the Romans?”

Carys turned to stare at the great Druid. “But for how
long
?” Maximus hadn’t derided her religion. Why couldn’t it be possible for the Druids to educate the Romans into the light? Was that truly such an impossible dream? That they might, someday, live in harmony with each other?