Chapter Twenty
CHAPTER TWENTY
The next three days could only be described as a fiendish war of attrition.
For three days, Julia was present at feasts and bonfires as Alaric flaunted Brisca before her, her hand lightly brushing his forearm as they sat on their high-backed thrones in the cavernous feasting hall. But not as much as he flaunted himself . Bare-chested and glorious, golden torques about his biceps and throat. Julia did not miss the way his gaze went to her, even as his hand lingered on Brisca’s thigh. He was doing it on purpose, and relishing her discomfort.
So Julia retaliated. She hadn’t missed how Alaric had stared the first time she’d appeared before him in a borrowed Gothic dress. So she took care with her appearance, braiding her hair as she’d seen the women in the village do. And she flirted outrageously with anyone nearby, ignoring Alaric utterly. Soon she had a throng of admirers. He did not fall to his knees and offer her a kingdom for a night between her thighs. But sometimes she could feel his gaze upon her; a hot, scorching need.
She would not crack first. She would not crack at all.
* * *
On the third night since Alaric had come to her guesthouse, Julia sat by a bonfire in the shadow of the feasting hall, the twins nearby, drinking and laughing and telling stories. She’d never had fun like this in Ravenna. If Alaric weren’t nearby, she would be perfectly happy.
But Alaric was nearby. Ruining her happiness.
Brisca’s great hall had once been a Roman villa, but its upper stories had been razed and a great, beamy Celtic hall had been built on its bones. A columned portico jutted out of one wall, a remainder of the old building. Alaric stood on the portico, in intense conversation with Brisca, smiling down at her with such bold, warm sexuality that Julia felt the force of it like a rising tide. Her famished gaze traveled from his gleaming bronze hair to the broad, sculpted beauty of his shoulders and chest beneath his tunic; the lazy violence pulsing beneath his skin.
She was positively miserable with jealousy.
Across the fire, Riga was coaxing a tune from an instrument stringed like a cithara, its neck long and slender, the end carved in a horse’s head. No Roman instrument sounded like this, the notes dripping and sliding from his fingers in one long, eliding lament.
“Something grieves you, pretty woman.” It was Berig, nephew of Brisca’s late husband, the young man she’d met the day she arrived. He was younger than Alaric, perhaps closer to her own age, and his voice was—nice. Not a force of seductive persuasion like Alaric’s, but sweet, with a musical lilt. “Perhaps I should try to distract you from your troubles.”
“My troubles are legion, I’m afraid.”
“And I would take them for you, if I could.” This man reminded her of Cornelius—his kind eyes, his unthreatening demeanor. Here was a man who would not turn her heart inside out and leave it in the dirt.
Julia smiled. “Perhaps I would let you.”
“I wonder if you will allow me to speak plainly, Princess.” Berig studied her intently. “I don’t like seeing women kept prisoner. Is it your wish to escape him?”
Alaric was leaning into Brisca’s space now, far too close. Was he— nuzzling her neck? Julia gritted her teeth. That required retaliation.
“How could I?” She let her fingers trail across his thigh. “I cannot go back to Rome, and I cannot cross these mountains myself.”
Berig’s lips brushed close to her ear. “I’d take you.”
His sudden closeness caught Alaric’s attention. Just one sharp slice of a glance, glittering in the dark, and it was coldly murderous. Julia froze, imagining Alaric cutting Berig’s throat. That was a very real possibility.
Don’t be ridiculous , she admonished herself. Alaric wouldn’t murder Brisca’s kin under her own nose. Perhaps she would lie with Berig. It was only fair.
Julia picked up a stick and stabbed viciously at the fire. Riga was still plucking away at his instrument. “Riga, perhaps you know a cheerful tune to play on that thing.”
A grin spread across Riga’s face. Pure malevolent glee. “For certain.”
* * *
Berig was touching her again. Alaric imagined cutting off his hands.
His exhaustion made him savage. The past few days he had been up at dawn, training with the twins, hunting with Brisca’s warriors, proving his mettle and cementing his legend—and then awake till past midnight, listening to the men’s boasting and their tales of woe.
Through it all, Julia had been always at the edge of his vision and just out of reach. Laughing and flirting, the firelight tangling in her hair. Alaric glanced at Julia and her paramour, heads bent together by the fire. She looked like a young goddess in the firelight, and jealousy ripped right through him. He could still fucking taste her from the last time they’d kissed.
He wondered how many he would have to kill to kiss her again.
“Black Nathan sent a message. He’ll arrive tomorrow afternoon,” Brisca was saying. “He had some choice words about the last time you came through these mountains.”
“He’ll think better of me when he finds himself on the point of a Roman sword.”
“A sword you brought to his doorstep for the sake of Theodosius’s daughter.”
“Is that how you see it?” Alaric asked her. “What will you tell him?”
Brisca shrugged. “He needs to believe you’ll affix the head of any man you find in my bed to your saddle.”
“You don’t need to share my bed to ask for my protection. I’ll kill any man you point to.”
“I don’t need you to actually kill anyone, Alaric. I need the threat of it.”
Julia’s faint laughter cut through the conversation. He glanced down to see Berig whispering in her ear and in an instant he was gripped by raging jealousy.
“I’ll tolerate a lot from you, Alaric, but I’d appreciate if you’d not kill my kinsman,” Brisca said drily. “Take that girl to bed if you must, but I won’t have it keep you from doing as you promised me .”
Annoyance gritted his teeth. “She’s nothing to do with us.”
The music quickened under Riga’s hands and he recognized the tune. It was the dance of ēostre, nowhere near the proper season. The way Julia had been draping herself all over Berig, he wouldn’t wait for the song to finish before dragging her off into the shadows to finish the rite.
Riga was doing it on purpose, just to make him stark mad.
* * *
Hengist’s hand was slicked with sweat. His hold slipped, and the circle spun faster until Julia felt she’d fly off her feet.
In Ravenna, one listened to music with remote decorum. One did not fling oneself into the dance, music thundering up from the ground like a commandment from the heathen gods. The drums were a driving bedrock beneath Riga’s leaping arpeggios; sweat plastered her hair to her neck, and she was only one of many here, sticky and unkempt and free . She had the strongest feeling this was exactly where she was meant to be. She spun through a night sky lit with fire. Dizzy and laughing, she came down with a jolt at the edge. A shadow rose from out of the dark.
Suddenly she found herself pressed up against the palisade in the shadow of the mead hall, out of sight of the others. Alaric loomed above her. The fire sent up lazy sparks behind him and lit his hair to molten bronze.
Her face went numb, then flushed bright hot. “Hello.”
“You and I must have words.”
“I can’t imagine what would be so urgent now .” She couldn’t keep the reproving tone out of her voice. “You’ve barely spoken to me in two days—”
He silenced her utterly with his thumb at her lip. Stroking, gentle as a kiss. The place between her legs was suddenly a mess of throbbing heat.
“What is it you chase with your wine and your opium? Tell me.”
“Pleasure.”
His eyes darkened with lust.
“Oblivion. Both.”
“I’ll be your damned oblivion. You’ll remember nothing before me, and nothing after will ever be enough. Come to me in the dark and let us both for once be happy.”
Julia raised a brow. “Are you—cracking first?”
“Maybe I am.”
Words failed her as she stared up into the savagely beautiful face of this man who had conquered and killed. This man who was asking her now. “And my price?” His silence cut deeper than any blade. Her temper rose. Why couldn’t he make it easy for her to say yes and save her dignity? “I see nothing has changed,” Julia said icily. “What will you do now, Alaric of the Goths? Drag me off to your longhouse? It’s what you barbarians do, is it not?”
“So that is what you want.” His self-assured grin flashed. Glint of pirate gold at the end of the world. “Not until you beg me, Julia.”
She had her pride. “I’ll never do that.”
She had no warning. The next instant he’d spun her around and pressed her hard against the skinned poles of the palisade. She gasped, “What are you doing?”
“Making you beg.”
Oh gods, she was weak. She was eager , gasping a whispered yes as one hand clamped down on her mouth. Huge and hard and calloused, a warrior’s hand. He’d killed with it, many times, and now he used it to silence her breathless moan, as his other hand slipped beneath the waistband of her skirt.
Not fair. Julia arched her back, grinding her ass into his rigid erection, and was gratified to hear him curse between his teeth as his fingers convulsed in her hair. Yes. She’d be the one to win this game; she—
Then his thumb brushed the white-hot center of her desire.
She lost all thought of retribution. Caught between the palisade and his pulsing arousal hot at her back, Julia dissolved into a sea of fire. Somehow he knew the exact alchemy of pressure and speed to drive her out of her mind. He kept her pleasure going, chasing that pinnacle she’d felt in the cave—that pleasure that had sent her back arching like a strung bow.
When he tilted her head back and seized her mouth with his—fingers splayed along her jawline, holding her captive—Julia had no sense left. She kissed him back wildly—even as his fingers slowed. Became lighter. Leisurely. “Please,” she whispered. “Please.”
He made a sound halfway between a laugh and a growl. His thumb was turning slow, lascivious circles around the center of her pleasure now, and it was torture . He drew back from their kiss, and when she tried to chase him for more, his free hand gripped her by the hair, pressing her cheek against the wood as his other hand made her come apart. Something was building, the same huge, explosive pleasure that had ripped through her in the cave. Her fingers arched against the wall. “Gods. Alaric. Please— ”
“I told you I would make you beg.”
In the next instant, his hand was gone. He was looking down at her, both hands planted on the wall above her head, a smug grin lifting his lips. He’d left her dangling off a cliff; now he was standing above her as she clung to the edge, laughing at her plight.
How dare he? How dare he bring her to this precipice and then pull away, leaving her panting and aching for him? “I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.” His voice so rough and soft. “I am no ravening barbarian who forces women to my bed, Julia. You come to me . Walk across that yard and come to my longhouse. If you ask nicely, maybe I’ll finish you off.”
Outrage flushed through her. “You bastard.”
“Suit yourself.” He seized her chin and kissed her once, hard and swift and possessive; his thumb dragging across her cheekbone. Then he was gone.
* * *
Julia let out a shuddering breath. Her body still ached and throbbed, the delicate flesh between her thighs swollen and hot with need. She pressed her legs together, barely stifling a moan. How could he leave her in this pathetic state! His self-assured grin flashed before her sight. I told you I would make you beg. Fuck him. He’d brought her to the edge, and then demanded she walk across this yard in full view of everyone to beg him for her satisfaction.
It would be a cold day in hell before she did such a thing.
Julia went back to the fire, trying to act as if nothing had happened. The crowd had emptied out, young couples disappearing into the dark. Alaric’s kiss still scorched her mouth.
She stared into the fire, furious. She would not go running to his longhouse and offer herself up like a sacrificial virgin. She would not .
Except—why not? What did it matter? She was ruined anyway. Why should she not take her pleasure where she could? Just a few dozen steps, and she’d be in his arms again. Drowning in his kiss.
Fine , she thought. I’ll crack.
Horsa sat with his arm flung around the shoulders of a wheat-blonde woman and a dark-haired young man—he seemed to prefer both. He gave her a sly grin when she rose to her feet. “And where are you going?”
“None of your business. Nowhere. To bed.”
“I’ll walk you.”
“There is no need. Please don’t go to any trouble. No— sit down .”
She was so consumed with arguing that she almost didn’t notice when Brisca swept down the steps to the portico, crossed the half-dozen yards to Alaric’s longhouse, and slipped inside.
* * *
Alaric paced his room like a caged animal. What was taking her so long? Fuck.
He thought of her in his arms, pressed up against the palisade, her breath coming hot and fast as he pushed her to the edge of desire. He’d thought to teach her a lesson about who exactly was in control here. Had thought to bring her to the edge and then walk away, defy her low opinion of him, and force her to make the choice herself.
It never occurred to him that he would be the one on the edge of begging. And that her choice might not be him.
Alaric bit out a curse. Fires burned in metal fire bowls next to a bed piled with furs, a bed he’d planned to put to better use than sleeping. He stripped off his fine embroidered shirt and stalked to the window, naked to the waist, staring out toward the bonfire where he’d left his woman. The one he’d killed for. The one he was risking a war for.
To hell with these power games. He’d drag her into his bed where she belonged. He would give her whatever it took. Armies, conquest— No. Then she would know the true extent of her power over him. A child of Theodosius. This game was too dangerous. It would not end well.
Alaric drove his fist into the wall. Plaster exploded onto the floor.
A knock sounded. Alaric’s heart leaped in his chest as he strode to the door and ripped it open. “ Finally. What the hell took you so—”
But it wasn’t Julia staring up at him, her eyes gleaming in the torchlight. It was Brisca.