Enemy of My Dreams

Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN

Alaric’s plan was simple enough. The Roman army was overtaxed by rebellion in the north, and Stilicho couldn’t withdraw those troops without losing the provinces. Alaric would bet that with as few troops as he had, he would try to draw his net tight at the border. All they had to do was slip through. Which was easier to do in bands of five or ten.

And while on their way, they could shut the door behind them. The mountains were full of tribes with shifting loyalties. Alaric’s men would take different routes through the mountains and renew alliances with the hill tribes. If Stilicho’s thoughts did turn to war, the allies would hold the mountain roads. They could not hold it forever, but that would at least buy them reprieve.

An hour before dawn, Alaric watched his men ride off into the war-blasted landscape. Remaining with him were a small band: the Batavi prince Thorismund; the Hunnic mercenary Riga; and Gaufrid’s twins. And the princess, who’d clearly never ridden a horse in her life.

Alaric knew these lands; among these hills, he and Stilicho had stalked each other years ago. He’d memorized the maps, knew every village and garrison. He stuck to the secret paths, the thicker forests, stayed away from ridgelines and populated areas.

By day’s end, his men could barely stay in the saddle. He stopped in an isolated grove and let the princess down off his horse, then tramped up to the top of the ridgeline to keep watch. Once he was alone, he took out his leather satchel and spilled the princess’s treasure in the dirt.

Sixteen necklaces, seven rings, and a pile of looping bracelets. Most of it gold—white gold from mountainous Anatolia; green gold from Lydia; and the purest, softest yellow gold from the mines of Sicily. And that opal. Trash rock that would have been tossed aside in the mines. He almost tossed it himself. But then he remembered the princess’s face, that guarded look as she asked for it back. Maybe it could provide some kind of leverage over her.

Horsa and Hengist approached, Horsa swinging his seax at the undergrowth.

“Put your blade away, Horsa. You’ll dull the edge.” Alaric sighed. “Sit.” The boys did, eyeing the jewelry with avid curiosity. “Have you ever seen green gold before?” He held out one of the rings. “That’s from Lydia. Ten times the value of ordinary gold.” He picked up a bracelet with emeralds the size of his thumbnail. “This is from Dacia. I could feed an army for a month with that.” Alaric shoved down a memory, an old one, of crawling through some crack in the earth, searching out veins with his fingertips. Those days were done. Now he could tell Dacian gold from Spanish at a glance, and the boys would have that knowledge without paying the price he had.

Hengist let out a low whistle between his teeth as a strand of pearls spilled out over his hands, each one worth a castle. It was the pearls that were the most valuable. The boys passed the jewels between them, admiring their glow.

“How did you come to be taken hostage?” Alaric asked it with deceptive mildness. “Horsa?”

“It wasn’t my fault,” Horsa said, just as Hengist insisted, “It was my fault.”

“Hengist, quiet.” Alaric raised his eyes to Horsa. “You, speak.”

Horsa launched into an elaborate tale in which he and Hengist had gotten too close to the walls, through no fault of theirs. As usual, Hengist backed his brother up. Alaric knew them well, knew them both inside out. Horsa had dragged his levelheaded brother into it, as he usually did.

He interrupted the litany of blamelessness. “It’s clear enough the capture was Horsa’s fault. And I saw you stab that guard at the banquet, Horsa. If not for that, we might have walked out with a deal.” As soon as he said it, he knew it wasn’t true. There would have been no agreement, not then or ever. “But there’s also the matter of both of you letting the princess escape her tent last night. Which of you is responsible for that?”

“There was something in that drink! It wasn’t our fault—”

“Of course there was something in the drink, and of course it was your fault. She isn’t your friend.” Alaric glanced between them. “You are both old enough for a man’s blame and a man’s punishment. I won’t tan your backs, despite you deserving it. I can’t have you diminished in a fight.” He drew a breath. “Don’t twitch a muscle without my order. Understand? Otherwise it’s the Romans who’ll dole out your punishment. Now go.”

Riga and Thorismund strolled up just as the boys stalked off.

“Your royal guest is mad enough to cut your throat,” Riga said cheerfully in Hunnic. “I see she’s falling prey to your legendary charm.” Riga was always cheerful, and it did not lessen his brutality an inch. Alaric had seen him merrily flay a man alive once.

“That woman wants to drag us all into a war over her siblings’ squabbles,” Thorismund muttered, settling beside him with his back to a tree. “I don’t trust her.”

“I don’t need to trust her to ransom her, Thorismund.”

“It won’t be worth the trouble.” Thorismund snorted derisively. “Better to knife her, drop her in the sea, and be done with this cursed business.”

“I like her,” Riga said. “She stood up to our fearless leader, and him in a surly mood.”

Thorismund shot Riga a glance of disgust and deliberately changed the subject. “Which route will we take through the mountains, Alaric?”

“Through Brisca’s territory.”

“You must be fucking mad. Those passes almost killed us last time.”

“We must take the risk,” Alaric said. “Brisca is our strongest ally there. If Stilicho no longer holds that road, he can threaten war all he likes but the eastern passes are closed to him.”

“Let’s see what the gods have to say.” Thorismund untied the pouch of oracle bones at his waist and cast them into the dirt, speaking an old Batavi incantation. Eventually he fell silent, blond brows knitting together. “I hate to tell you this, but we’re fucked no matter which way we take through the mountains.”

“Better ask my gods. They’re far more optimistic,” Riga said.

Alaric began to sharpen his seax as the men fell into a debate over the merits of their gods. He himself gave little weight to religion. But Thorismund was not wrong to worry. The Empire had the relays and the fresh horses, and all the roads were watched. They would need whatever help they could get.

“I better ask the gods again,” Thorismund muttered. “They were nothing but doom and gloom just now. Perhaps a sacrifice—”

“No sacrifices,” Alaric said firmly. “No hunting, and no fires.”

He stood, sliding his seax back in his belt, and descended the ridgeline to their temporary camp. On the other side of the clearing, the twins were arguing over an obscure latrones rule and Julia sat as far from everyone as she could, knees drawn up to her chest, seething quietly in his direction.

He supposed he could take pity on her.

He found a piece of smoked deer meat and a full waterskin in his pack, and crossed the clearing to her. Even now—eyes smudged with kohl, coppery hair an irredeemable tangle—she held an arresting, wrecked beauty as if he’d already bedded her.

It took a moment to realize he was simply staring at her. Devouring her with his eyes. Meanwhile she was looking at the deer meat as if he had offered her a dead rat.

“No thank you, King of the Goths.”

Alaric felt a stab of irritation. Not a man among his own hadn’t eaten bark and dirt to ease the hunger pangs, and here she was, refusing perfectly good food. “Go hungry if you wish,” he growled. “But trust me. It won’t take many days of it for you to start boiling your own boots.”

She said nothing to that. He felt her eyes on him all the way across the clearing.

* * *

Lie on her back as she was made to do indeed.

Julia would admit, in the interest of fairness, that she had drunk far too much last night. And she’d perhaps overestimated her own ability to hold the foreign liquor, which did not agree with the Blue Lotus. She’d vomited twice this morning.

But nothing about the situation had required him to mock her before all of his men. The man wasn’t just a terrifying warlord; he was rude . And for no good reason! She could give him everything he wanted, if only he would help her with the pesky little problem of not currently being empress. Why wouldn’t he take what she offered?

Why wouldn’t he take what she offered?

Julia sat with her back to a tree, watching the men roll themselves in their cloaks and prepare for sleep. She didn’t have a cloak. They all expected her to sleep on the ground and eat shoe leather. Her body still ached in places she didn’t know existed from the long day spent on the horse. In Alaric’s arms.

A slow flush heated her cheeks.

That man had no right to be so beautiful. Just looking at him made her angry. What right had he to be so tall? And so perfectly built? She couldn’t stop staring at the swell of his chest beneath his tunic, the chiseled strength of his arms. But looking at his face was perhaps the most dangerous of all. Clean-shaven and arrogant, skin tinged with gold as if he spent all his time in the sun. And those eyes . The shock of meeting his gaze was enough to make her forget her own name. She could hate him for that alone.

He was across the clearing now, rubbing his horse down with a handful of grass; Julia couldn’t help but stare at the way his back muscles shifted beneath his tunic. The way he placed a hand on the horse’s haunch, speaking low. She sucked in a furious breath.

He hadn’t touched her last night. She’d woken up in the tent that morning, freezing on the hard ground and her head pounding worse than it ever had in her life, thoroughly untouched. She’d been at his mercy and he hadn’t touched her.

He did want her. Did he not? Had she imagined the heat that seemed to scorch her skin whenever he looked at her?

If he ransomed her back to Honorius, she was done for.

Julia felt her hands clench into fists. He had refused her alliance; all that was left was seduction. She could admit last night hadn’t been her most elegant attempt. But since when did a woman have to be elegant to seduce a man like that? He was a barbarian, was he not? Accustomed to taking what he wanted.

She would have to try again. Sober this time.

* * *

Dark had fallen by now. Alaric was still awake, sharpening that wicked curved sword of his while he kept watch; he looked like everyone’s nightmare of raiding barbarians in the night come true. She felt a slash of fear. A man like that wouldn’t be gentle. He would take what he wanted, use her as he liked.

A hot, explicit pulse bloomed between her thighs. Julia shifted uncomfortably on the ground. Stupid body.

It would work , she told herself. Did men not fall at her feet? Cornelius had.

And he had died for it. Julia felt a stab of sudden, crippling guilt.

She shoved it away. Think , she told herself. How should it be done? She was a princess of Rome. She would not simply crawl under his cloak like a camp follower. But—there was a river, between the trees. It would be the perfect place for a seduction. Moonlit and private.

Julia rose to her feet. Alaric’s gaze fell to her and for a moment she couldn’t move as he lazily perused every inch of her. She felt it, a wave of heat that ignited an answering burn beneath her skin.

Oh yes. He wanted her. He did. This would work.

She turned and started walking through the trees.

The water broke the moon’s reflection into a thousand shards of silver. Soft mosses cushioned her footfalls. It was a very mythological place. She would have chosen a perfumed bed for her first time, piled high with silks and cushions. But this would do.

Her throat was suddenly dry with terror.

Julia had always been aware of the effect she had on men. They blushed and stammered and averted their eyes, made fools of themselves to gain her favor. Of course, her body would be pledged as her father willed, and if she turned up pregnant before marriage, that was a dire offense. In addition, her mother’s death in childbirth still gave her screaming nightmares.

None of that prevented her from taking lovers, of course. But she had always chosen very carefully: men like Cornelius, sweet and biddable and easily controlled. Men so grateful for her favor that they would never dare transgress beyond what was offered. Which was to say that the princess with the reputation for orgiastic revelry was still, technically, a virgin.

Alaric was completely unsuitable to share her bed, of course. If she’d ever met a man like him at court, she’d run in the opposite direction. But now she needed his favor. It was all so terribly unfair. Would it hurt, the first time? Not with a considerate lover, but Alaric would surely be a brute.

Stupid. What did it matter if it hurt? Starving on Pandateria would hurt worse.

Julia eyed the sluggish water with trepidation. There were probably snakes and bugs and eels in that water. This was the furthest thing from her seduction of Cornelius. There was dirt under her nails and her hair was long and loose and tangled, crusted with something she shuddered to name. Her gown was a torn, soiled wreck. She had no armor .

Julia sighed. She knew what had to be done, and she did not want to. Did not want to go into the river and rise from it nude, hair streaming wet down her back. She would keep her gown on. It was silk; it would cling.

Julia dipped a toe into the water and flinched. It was freezing . Hopefully the barbarian warlord would at least concede to do the deed on the bank.

The bottom of the river was thick with mud that squelched between her toes. Julia waded into the river up to her thighs. Then—missing nothing in the world so much as her clean, heated baths at home—she sank into the water, up to her breasts, and waited.

And waited.

Really. Julia gritted her teeth. She was shivering violently now. Was it possible he had misinterpreted her blatant invitation? Who did he think he was to make her wait?

Something cold and slimy brushed her feet. Julia leaped up with a yelp.

When she looked back, he was leaning against a tree on the riverbank. Watching her.

“Is this elaborate performance for me? I’m honored.”

Casually she stood, wringing out her hair like she’d seen Aphrodite do in a famous portrait. “What performance? I’m simply having a wash. You gave no orders not to.”

He smiled faintly. “You don’t strike me as the kind who follows orders.”

“Very perceptive. I prefer to give the orders.” Julia let her voice drop to a suggestive purr. “I will only obey a man worthy of commanding me.” Slowly she began to walk toward him, trying not to slip on the treacherous river bottom.

His eyes were on her with the fierce attention of a wolf watching a wounded deer. Suddenly she was extremely aware of how her wet clothes stuck to her body.

“Is this what you want, woman?” There was a harsh edge to his voice.

He was so direct . Her face heated. “Does it matter what I want?”

“Yes, it damn well matters, Julia .” He purred her name, a mocking edge to his voice.

Then he pulled off his tunic and stood before her, naked from the waist up. Her face went up like a bonfire. Julia had seen plenty of men’s naked torsos before, but with the exception of gladiators, those had been very different from Alaric. In her circles, the smooth, slim perfection of youth was the ideal. No hint of vulgar excess.

Excessive wasn’t how she’d describe Alaric; magnificent was more fitting. She saw a broad, muscular torso, hard from a lifetime wielding sword and spear, crossed with scars that only made him more breathtaking. The only thought she could summon was that everyone she knew had been wrong about male beauty. Completely wrong.

Suddenly she wasn’t cold at all. She was burning in her own skin, and he hadn’t even touched her.

Then he looked at her with a mocking turn of his mouth and tossed her his shirt. “Since you’re down there, wash this.”

She caught it on instinct. It smelled of man and horse and sweat. His laughter curled her toes in the riverbed and she had never hated anyone more.

“You—you bastard .” She made as if to rip it in half.

“I wouldn’t if I were you.” He turned and started back to the camp. “And wash yourself while you’re at it, Julia. There’s vomit in your hair.”

* * *

Alaric sat with his back to a tree, sharpening his blade while his men settled into sleep.

The image of Julia was burned into his mind, rising from the river like a ravaged goddess. Rich red hair tumbling down her back, just asking for a man to bury his hands in. Wet silk clinging to spectacular curves. He’d had to admire her commitment. That river stank . She’d slipped in the mud in her attempt to glide effortlessly to the bank.

He’d wanted her so much he shook with it.

How stupid did she think he was? Clearly she expected no better of him than to allow himself to be led about by his cock. It was insulting to the core. He’d been enslaved. He knew exactly what it was to offer his body to get what he needed. He would not be a target himself.

What a fucking lie. If Stilicho had marched his army along the riverbank behind him right then, he wouldn’t have noticed. At least he’d had a good laugh, deflating that enormous pride of hers. The expression on her arrogant face when he’d tossed her his shirt had been worth a city’s ransom.

Thorismund sat up in his cloak. “My watch, is it?”

“No. Keep sleeping.” It was Thorismund’s watch, but Alaric didn’t mind. He wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway.

After a while, Julia came crashing back, loud enough to wake the dead.

He smirked. “Well. Look who it is. You look like a drowned cat.”

She held up his soaked shirt as if it were a dead animal. “I’m afraid I couldn’t get the stench out, King of the Goths.” She balled it up in her hands and tossed it at him.

He caught it lazily and stood to hang it on a branch. “Given up on seduction, I see.” He couldn’t resist stalking closer to her. Letting himself loom. “It looks like you used it to clean a latrine floor.”

It was the air of quiet menace he used to put the fear into upstart warlords who needed a reminder of their place. Julia stared him down as if he was a recalcitrant servant. “And will I be allowed dry clothes? Perhaps you haven’t noticed, this dress is silk.” He’d noticed. “I’ve been wearing it for days. I tried and failed to insurrect in it. I saved your miserable life in it. And now, as you can see, it is soaked.” Her shaking, he realized, wasn’t all from fury. She was cold. “You will not make me sleep on the ground, wet from washing your shirt, in this ruined dress. Unless your grand plan to secure your homeland involves letting me die of cold before you can ransom me.” She looked at him expectantly. “Well?”

Alaric’s jaw clenched. There wasn’t a single thing about this woman that didn’t set his teeth on edge. She was in a temper now; her eyes flashed mercurial fire and a red flush spread down her neck. Perfect breasts pushed up against wet silk. Nipples hard through near-transparent cloth.

He sucked in a breath. Fuck.

“Hengist,” he snapped over his shoulder, in Gothic. “Give her your extra shirt.”

“I don’t think it will fit.”

“It’ll serve,” he said grimly. “Horsa. Your spare trousers.”

When the boys handed her the folded clothes, Julia thanked them quietly. It surprised him. He didn’t think the woman had an ounce of thanks in her.

She turned to him with one aristocratic brow arched. “That is a start to an apology. Now make me a bed to sleep in.”

Did she just give him an order ? Behind him, Riga and Thorismund were snickering. He was well within his rights to drag her into the woods and teach her respect with a stout switch. It would even be expected.

But there were other ways to do this. More amusing ways.

He crossed his arms over his chest and grinned. “Make me a bed, Julia.”

“I’ll do that when the Capitoline Hill turns into a giant dormouse and scampers off into the sunset.”

“If that’s how you want it.” Alaric gave a bored shrug and crossed the clearing. As he passed, Riga grinned widely and Thorismund muttered something about the balls on that woman being the size of a Bactrian bull’s. Alaric reached his pack and pulled out a length of rope.

Julia eyed him warily. “What are you planning to do with that?”

“One guess, woman.” He turned back to her, rope coiled in his hand. “Annoying prisoners sleep bound.”

* * *

How dare he?

There was nothing for it but to curse. Julia did so loudly and at length as she stomped off into the woods. And to think she’d been planning to offer him her virtue on a platter!

That man’s half-naked body was a blight on coherent thought.

Julia gritted her teeth. He didn’t want her. That made everything so much worse. He should be the one stunned to silence before her , as was the right and proper order of things. The rude barbarian rendered speechless before civilized beauty. Instead the world was upside down and he’d made her his washerwoman .

How dare he reject her? He’d ruined everything.

Julia stripped off the dress and pulled on the barbarian tunic and trousers, and almost wept in relief. They were warm. Dry. Not a day ago she’d have been scandalized to wear such garments. But now she felt nothing but relief to be clad as a barbarian boy. How far she had fallen already.

She hoped Alaric galloped into a thornbush and got himself impaled.

She set herself to gathering up boughs for his bed. The branches were heavy. One slid out of her arms, then another, rough bark scraping her hands. “Pluto’s stinking ass ,” Julia announced to the trees. The very idea that she would have to make a bed for this man—that he would make her touch his bed —scorched her pride to ash.

His bed. Her skin flushed hot. She’d been shivering, but now she was uncomfortably warm, just thinking about herself in proximity to this man’s bed. As she bent to retrieve the branches, her hand brushed against something that sent stinging pain up her arm. She yanked her hand back and peered into the shadows. A silvery-green clump of spiky leaves trembled in the undergrowth.

An idea took shape in her mind. A very stupid idea.

* * *

Everyone was awake now. Alaric gave the wildly giggling twins the next watch, and turned his attention to sharpening his sword. There wasn’t a chance he would sleep.

His mind was full of Julia’s hardened nipples under wet silk.

He tried to distract himself by cataloguing all the things that could go wrong from here to the mountains. They could be spotted at a checkpoint or rounded up in a Roman patrol. Speared on stakes along the Appian Way. And then what would happen to his people? Scattered and enslaved. The twins dead, or in servitude. Meanwhile the princess was crashing around in the forest, loud enough to scare away game for miles. At least he’d hear her if she tried to run.

Finally she strode into the clearing, arms full of bracken and a rebellious set to her jaw. The twins’ oversize clothes did nothing to lessen her allure. With a glance, he indicated where she should arrange his bed; she kept her eyes lowered and did as she was told.

So she’d finally learned to fear him. Good. She’d walk all over a man she didn’t fear.

The bed she had made was surprisingly comfortable. Alaric settled into it and folded his arms behind his head, watching the moving lace of branches overhead.

Sharing a horse with that woman all the way to the mountains was going to kill him.

Her body had been a soft, yielding temptation pressed against his own for the torturous length of a day. All he could think about was pulling her off the horse and laying her flat beneath him, burying his hands in all that bright hair and thrusting hard into her until the Romans came to put him on a cross. He let out a strained curse. Now he was aroused and ready as a gang of barbarian thugs about to sack a town. He could either put a stop to these thoughts or drag Julia into this bed with him. He rolled over onto his side, no closer to sleep.

A line of burning pain streaked up his arm.

Alaric leaped to his feet with a roar. In the fading light, he could see the stinging nettles woven among the darker green of birch and oak. Treacherous woman.

A twig snapped and he turned to see Julia standing at the edge of the woods, her delicious little mouth curved in a smug smile. I did it , that smile seemed to say. What are you going to do about it?

Alaric bit back a curse as he strode in her direction.

* * *

Julia stood rooted to the spot as Alaric stalked toward her, all towering, muscled fury. Her momentary satisfaction was completely erased by her terror. Of all her stupid ideas, this ranked as the stupidest.

He caught the front of her tunic in his fist and hauled her up against a tree. “I have been gentle with you, woman.” His voice a lethal whisper, his hand curling around her throat. “I could stop.”

He could break her neck with that hand and he looked like he wanted to. Julia held his gaze and tried not to show her fear. “I am worth more to you alive than dead and you know it.”

“Are you?” His grip tightened, making her gasp. “I’m starting to believe you are far more trouble than you’re worth.”

Julia licked her lips and his gaze fell to her mouth; something savage gleamed behind his eyes. “Well? What are you waiting for?” she snapped. “If you’re going to rape me, get it over with.”

For an instant the air crackled between them and Julia knew for a fact he’d leave her bleeding and broken on the forest floor. Then he dropped his hand from her throat. His gaze raked over her with palpable contempt. “Woman, I wouldn’t touch you with a barge pole.”

* * *

He dragged her back to camp; then let her go abruptly and she staggered and fell, skinning her palms in the dirt. Julia looked up to see Alaric stalking toward her with a length of rope coiled in one hand.

She scrambled to her feet. “Don’t you dare .” Her eyes darted to his men. No rescue there; they’d nail her to a tree if he asked it. His hand closed on her wrist, and panic rendered her witless. She lashed out, barely striking a glancing blow before he had her spun around, her back pressed against the battle-hardened length of him. She twisted in his grip and he clamped one arm down across her rib cage, pinning her arms to her sides.

Julia trembled, overcome by the sudden closeness of his body. She could feel his heartbeat, thundering through her as if they were already joined. He was standing rigid as well, every muscle taut. Both of them breathing hard. “Don’t make this difficult.” His voice a lethal growl in her ear. “You’ll only hurt yourself.”

He started to loop the ropes around her wrists. It was the final insult. She’d been humiliated and rejected, manhandled and laughed at. Rage burned all sense to ash. “Eat filth and die, you vermin .”

She lashed out with the panic of a cornered beast. Hands and legs and feet. A fierce battle, and they were falling in a tangle of limbs. Alaric twisted so he would hit the ground first; she landed flush against his chest, and his body was no soft landing. The force of it knocked the air out of her lungs and he rolled her beneath him. In an instant, Julia found herself on her back, Alaric straddling her hips; wild shadows streaked his face, beautiful as some avenging god come down to ravage the earth.

There was a furtive struggle. Everything she had, in a single burst of strength. He put an end to it quickly, locking her wrists to the bare ground above her head. “You brought this on yourself,” he grated, tying her hands with quick, efficient movements. “I offered you freedom. I was merciful. You threw yourself at my feet and begged me to take you.”

Her face went white-hot. “I didn’t throw myself —”

Alaric’s hand clamped over her mouth. He leaned down, the heat of his breath sending little shocks down her spine. “I don’t give a damn if you find me worthy of obeying. You will obey me anyway. Understand?” Only when she gave a resentful nod did he take his hand from her mouth. He tightened the ropes at her wrists and ankles. When he was done, he rose and looked down at her, a pitiless glint in his ice-pale eyes. “Sleep well, Princess.”

Humiliation had a taste , she realized. Hot and astringent at the back of her throat.

* * *

Alaric stalked to the other end of the clearing in a seething rage. His arm felt like it had been flayed to the bone, and a savage, violent lust still thundered through him.

If you’re going to rape me, get it over with. It was a dire insult. Alaric had waded up to his neck in blood, for the Empire and against it, but he had never forced a woman to his bed in his life. Even so, there had been a moment when her little pink tongue had darted out to wet her lips and his control had come dangerously close to slipping.

He rummaged in his pack for his salve and spread it over the reddening rash, then ripped off a length of cloth from a spare tunic to wrap it.

Only when he finished did he glance up to see his men staring at him. “What?”

Thorismund spoke first. “We just watched you wrestle a woman to the ground and truss her up like a feast-day heifer.”

“What did she put in your bed?” Hengist’s eyes had gone moon-round. “Nettles?”

Horsa cracked his knuckles. “How will you punish her? Can we do it?”

“Nobody touches her. No one even looks at her. Is that clear?”

“You bungled your chances by that river,” Riga said, slinging an arm around his shoulder. “Next time she makes an offer like that, try not tossing her your shirt to wash.”

“Bring her a freshly killed rabbit,” Thorismund added blandly. “It would work on me.”

Now everyone was off in gales of laughter. Alaric didn’t find it funny. “Since the lot of you would rather cackle like demented old women than check our perimeter, I’ll do it myself.” He rose to his feet. “Try not to bring our enemies down upon us with your laughter.”

They were audibly ignoring that advice when Alaric tramped off into the woods, his mood blacker than ever. He traced a rough circle around their camp, moving swift and silent, then spiraled it outward. Nothing in the forest moved.

He made his circuit back to their camp, halting at the edge of the trees. His men had curled themselves up in their cloaks and gone to sleep; all but Riga, who had taken the next watch. Julia was still awake. Weeping. The muffled sound filled the clearing.

He didn’t know how she’d managed to manipulate things so that he was the one with the burning arm and he still felt like the scoundrel.

It wasn’t his watch yet, so he spread his cloak on the ground and tried to sleep. Julia lay with her back to him, and he couldn’t stop staring at the long sweet curve of it; the high, tight rise of her ass. He wanted his hands on that ass, gripping hard enough to bruise as he spent all his violence inside her. He wanted to quiet her tears this way, surging endlessly into her, one hand fisted in her hair and his mouth at her neck. Alaric shifted uncomfortably on the ground. This was Theodosius’s daughter . She didn’t deserve even his own brutal form of comfort.

Alaric didn’t mean to listen so closely for the fade of her weeping into silence, or to rise to his feet when he was sure she slept. He certainly had no intention of crossing the clearing to stand over her, staring too long at the vulnerable curve of her body on the ground, before spreading his cloak to cover her.