20. Marcus
CHAPTER TWENTY
MARCUS
T he knock at his door doesn’t wake Marcus. That would require being asleep in the first place.
Sleep has eluded him from the moment he arrived back at the palace.
He can’t stop thinking about how Dru left him standing in that alleyway, about the deep hurt in her warm brown eyes branded there by his words and his actions.
How his own soldiers interrupted something he’s dreamed of happening for nearly a decade.
How they treated her like one of their whores, who they have no qualms regarding as possessions to use and discard.
And then expected him to feel the same.
Once the men settled into their next brothel, he bought them all a round of wine, then managed to slip away without their notice. He also paid the woman of the house handsomely to keep his presence there quiet. No matter how brief and uneventful it was, he has to protect Cato’s image.
Any other time, he’d have told those men to fuck off.
But those particular guards have taken advantage of other women before and would’ve done the same to Dru if he hadn’t agreed to go with them.
He wouldn’t have let them anywhere near her, of course, and even if they bested him, she would’ve slit their throats before they could reach for her.
But while he’s praetor to the king and could’ve easily ordered them away, he also can’t afford to have his own soldiers mistrust him at such a crucial time. Not when this great an enemy has infiltrated the country. Better to let them believe he’s one of them than to start strife over it.
Now, he can’t help worrying about her, wondering if she found her way back to the palace or not. And for good reason.
This being the night before the first trial means the Tredici will be conducting their ceremony over the sacred Viverna, Anziano’s greatest secret.
Despite his concerns with the visiting Phaedrans, the high priestess assured Marcus their ritual would be impossible to find unless they want it to be found, and he can’t imagine Dru, an outsider, being invited.
He sits on the edge of his bed, restlessly staring out into the black sea.
With the festival over and the sounds of merriment disappeared, quiet settles over the night.
Too much quiet for the thoughts in his mind.
He considers going to Dru’s door to apologize again.
To tell her he wanted to kiss her and still does.
Stellae, I do . But she’ll be asleep by now, along with the rest of Anziano.
Which is why he’s surprised when the knock on his door turns out to be one of the Tredici.
Marcus knows her—Aradia, the orphaned daughter of the head council member to the late king.
He left the palace late one night a few years’ back and was found the next morning trampled to death by the horse of a traveler on the road, leaving Aradia with nowhere else to turn.
Luckily, they had need for a floor washer at the temple, and then brought her into their fold when the last high priestess passed.
He has no qualms with the Tredici; none of what they do is his business, so long as it doesn’t pose a threat to the king. And he checked on the king himself when he got in: passed out in bed, but home .
Yet, the Tredici wouldn’t have come to him unless absolutely necessary. Not unless he was the only one who could help.
“You are needed, Praetor Marcus.”
Marcus clears his throat. “Unless someone has stumbled into the bad end of your ritual, there’s nothing?—”
The high priestess, Ginevra, steps out from the shadows, holding Dru’s lifeless body in her arms.
Marcus sucks in a breath. No. Fear ties his tongue and wraps around his entire body, squeezing too tight. His knees nearly buckle at the sight of her, horror and fury ravaging him as he advances on Ginevra. On Dru, deathly still in her arms.
Before he can lose his mind, he recognizes the shallow movement of Dru’s chest. She’s not dead, at least. It placates only a fraction of his concern.
Without waiting to hear an explanation, he gently takes Dru from her.
Dru’s face is pinched in pain, her breath coming out in shallow bursts. Something black covers her arms, but he’s too distraught to properly see what it is. Wrath and primal dread continue to war inside him as he watches her, spreading through him like wildfire.
“What the fuck happened?” he demands in a whisper, his attention snapping to Ginevra.
“She got too close to the Viverna,” the high priestess explains. “His magic called to her.”
Marcus peers down at what he barely noticed before, finding Dru’s arms and hands encased in dark ashes, the thick salve conforming to the curves of her wrists and fingers.
On her forearm, at the edges of the ashes, a glimpse of the bubbled skin peeks out. The sort of burns only dragons’ fire can produce. She trembles in his embrace, her chin wobbling. Deodamnatus, Dru, what have you done to yourself.
“What can I do?” he begs, not caring how desperate he sounds.
“We’ve already done all we can,” Ginevra tells him softly. “The ashes of the plumeria will heal her burns and she will be well again by morning.”
Convenient, Marcus thinks, although at least it won’t be permanent.
“You knew this would happen,” he accuses. “That she would find her way to where you keep your pet and be pulled in by his magic. By your magic.”
She stares at him, unforgiving. “We considered it, given what happened tonight at the festival.”
He nearly asks her to elaborate, but it’ll achieve nothing except to infuriate him further.
He glares at her. “Why not keep her with you and your ilk? Why bring her to me?”
“She needs to be with someone who cares for her as you do,” she explains plainly. “Our magic won’t set without constant human contact; otherwise, she might not make it through the night.”
He sucks in a breath at the thought. “What could my touch possibly do that yours can’t?”
She ignores his ire. “All magic has limits, Praetor. The plumeria ashes have merely been made a conduit—for burns as intense and deep as hers, it needs a life force to take from.”
Marcus clenches his jaw, fury clouding his thoughts. “And what makes you think I care about her enough that I’d be willing to do that?”
A smile stretches across her red lips—not what he expected. “I see into your soul, Marcus Scaevola. There’s nothing you wouldn’t do for this woman. It won’t take much, though it will leave you weakened for the first trial tomorrow.”
He grunts, wanting to curse her out a thousand different ways.
“Fine,” he says finally. “Tell no one of this.”
The high priestess and Aradia shut their eyes and incline their heads in acquiescence. He wouldn’t trust the high priestess at her word if he wasn’t certain of her loyalty to Cato as king, and therefore himself .
When Dru whimpers in his arms, he takes her inside, closing the door behind him without another word to the Tredici.
He places her gently on top of his sheets, watching her closely. He’s imagined her in his bed before, but not like this. He brushes the dark, errant hairs away from her sweat-slick face and she groans. Dru . Desperation squeezes his throat, making it difficult to breathe.
I should’ve told those men to fuck off and stayed with her, walked her back to the palace, kissed her goodnight if it meant she avoided all this.
Her eyes flutter, and he thinks about all the things he said to her to get her to leave, to convince the soldiers she meant nothing to him and therefore wasn’t worth keeping around for whatever they had planned.
There’s a chance she knew it was a ruse, but after the way he treated her before leaving the Faithless, he wouldn’t blame her for thinking the worst of him.
He takes a steadying breath, focusing on the task before him. What did Ginevra say? Human contact. Otherwise, she won’t make it through the night.
Can he simply hold her hand? Or touch her arm? No. He can’t risk that the smallest of touches won’t be enough.
Climbing into bed, he positions himself carefully around Dru.
He slides his arm beneath her neck and curls it around her shoulder, flush to her side.
He places her arm over his midsection so he doesn’t disturb any of the ashes, then presses his leg against hers.
She trembles again, her body warm and feverish.
She doesn’t stir beyond that.
“You are not allowed to die, Drusilla Valerius,” Marcus murmurs, pushing sweat-slick strands of dark hair back from her forehead with his free hand.
Little time passes before her breaths begin to deepen, enough to know she’s out of immediate danger. All his hope lies with the Tredici, that they healed her before the fire poisoned her heart.
Holding her in his arms, he stares up at the ceiling, wondering if sleep will take him tonight.
Marcus has never felt this tired in all his life.
Morning sun pierces through his eyelids. He groans, stretching out his sore back. A fitful sleep weighs down his body, his muscles aching from the position he managed to find rest in.
Dru .
His own sheets curl beneath his fingers as he feels for her beside him. But when he only grasps silk, his eyes wrench open to see she’s gone.
He scrambles to his feet despite exhaustion threatening to drag him back down, and searches the room—finding her standing on his balcony, her back to him.
The dress she wore to the festival is wrinkled from sleeping in it and her dark hair hangs down her back in wild tendrils.
He can’t see her arms from here, and he wonders if the ashes healed her like Ginevra said they would.
His stomach clenches from not going to her, from not taking her in his arms simply because she’s alive when, by all accounts, she shouldn’t be.
She glances at him over her bare shoulder, expressionless, before turning back to the sea. An invitation , he thinks. Hopes.
He takes his place beside her but keeps his distance, unsure how she’ll react after everything that happened the night before. Or what she even remembers of it.