Chapter I Lela #2
His eyes glinted with menace and a promise that he would never give me a second chance to kill him.
In that first fit of rage, I’d ruined my opportunity.
Rather than plan it out and find the right moment, I’d reacted to the fear and dread of being raped.
I’d given my heart and body and soul to Jardani and couldn’t allow another man to take what wasn’t his.
I’d reacted like a free woman, not the slave I’d become.
And so now, it was hopeless. This was my life, unless I ended it.
I longed for the coolness of the temple in the back of Valerius’s home. My only place of solace. For when I was within its quiet, chilled walls, I could imagine that I was in fact in my own crypt. I welcomed the stillness like death.
“Good thing you don’t need her mouth to make good use of her,” added Quintus.
They all laughed, except for the younger senator. His blue eyes flared bright for a fleeting second.
“Beware, Consul Valerius.”
His voice had dropped deep, his dragon present. A prickle of power skated across my skin, raising gooseflesh. The other three stopped laughing and looked at him.
“Death lurks everywhere in Rome. We should all heed caution. None of us suspected Legatus Julianus of being a traitor and yet he was. Legatus Ciprian didn’t suspect him, and now he’s dead.
Julianus even fooled me, his own second-in-command.
Best be mindful, senators, or death will find you sooner than you think. ”
The handsome senator in blue of the House of Sapphirus spoke in a low, rumbling timbre, his dominance radiating across the room, pressing these smaller men down with only a few words.
Again, my pulse quickened and not out of fear for once.
But because I knew there was a power greater than my master, greater than my misery.
“You’re quite right, Trajan,” conceded Valerius, clearing his throat nervously.
Trajan.
I let the name sift through my mind as the man himself picked up his own cup and drank, his gaze flicking to me, the piercing blue of his dragon brightening before he looked away again.
With a warning that put my master and his foul comrades in their place, Trajan had given me something I never dared dream to let flicker inside my heart again … hope.
With a wave of his hand, Valerius cleared his throat and said, “Dance, Roza. Give us something pretty to look at.”
Quintus chuckled, his lecherous stare returning to Roza. Without hesitation, I moved to the side of the atrium, deeper into the shadows of a column.
Quintus was right about one thing. My heart was cold, and I did often dream about ways I could kill them all.
But after my punishment last time—chained to Valerius’s bed for a week, suffering the whippings with his leather crop and the violent violations of my body, all proving he was my master—I never dared step out of line.
Survival was my goal now. To outlive this monster and hope to be sold to a better master. That was no true hope at all. But it was all I could manage to realistically imagine.
They laughed at something I hadn’t heard. I was no longer listening, though I did watch the senator named Trajan. He’d served under the infamous general, nephew to the emperor, who’d defied his uncle and killed a fellow patrician for his slave woman.
Why couldn’t that have been my fate? Why did the gods abandon me for this miserable existence?
I needed the temple and the relief I could find only there.
Andreas entered with another carafe of wine.
He wore the silky green tunic that was no more than a short skirt and a thin sash crossing one shoulder, leaving his shoulders and most of his chest bare.
Andreas was a beautiful man, a sandy-haired Greek taken into slavery when he was a boy.
He’d been in this household since he was twelve, serving Valerius’s varied sexual appetites since he was little more than a child.
When I fell too far into despair, I’d remind myself that Andreas had been here his entire adult life, and though his body was not his own, his soul was whole, beautiful and bright.
Perhaps it was worse for me because I had known freedom and love.
I understood what I’d lost the night those Romans in half-skin had killed my family, my Jardani, and had stolen me away.
At least Malina had escaped, I reminded myself.
I hoped she did anyway. Papa had yelled for her to run, and I’d seen her flee into the woods.
None of the Romans had followed. I hoped and prayed many times since that night that my wild sister had escaped across the world, far away from Rome.
If she had escaped to live a better life, then I could withstand anything.
As Andreas refilled Leto’s wine goblet, he met my gaze across the room, giving me a subtle smile. Always checking on me. I wouldn’t have survived this madhouse if it weren’t for him.
Something about tonight had me on edge, feeling fragile and raw. It was no different than any other dinner party Valerius had, so I wasn’t sure why.
My gaze landed on the handsome senator Trajan, finding his piercing blue eyes on me again. I was surprised he didn’t look at me the way Valerius or Quintus did. His brow furrowed as if he were trying to work out a puzzle.
There was no puzzle here, I wanted to tell him. I was exactly what he saw. A woman with the power to kill my enemies who’d been silenced and muzzled in a golden bridle and iron fear.
Miserable despair began to sink its claws into me. If I didn’t get this cage off my face soon, I’d edge toward the brink of insanity again. It had happened before, and Andreas had found me catatonic on the floor of my bedchamber.
Andreas lifted his chin toward the doorway, telling me to slip away.
Valerius had allowed it many times before.
Once I’d served my purpose to impress his visitors, I wasn’t of much use.
Not for the party anyway. One reprieve I could be grateful for was that Valerius didn’t share his slaves with his guests.
We were all for his use and abuse alone.
When Roza spun to the far side of the room, luring the eyes of the men, I eased down the steps, but not before catching the blue-fire gaze of the young senator. On silent feet, I slipped out of the triclinium and down the long hallway toward the Temple of Diana.
My heart beat faster, blood surging through my veins, my mind and body aching for relief. For release.
Lit by oil lamps in sconces, the sculpture of the goddess of the hunt within the circular temple loomed ahead. It was in a small chamber ensconced by pillars and plants, with an oculus opening to the sky above.
The goddess Diana was the one who struck the heart of a Sapphirus dragon with her arrow while he had sex with her favorite nymph, Egeria.
When her arrow struck him, he instantly lost his blue coloring for the shade of the meadow.
The story is told that while Diana despised the dragon for taking her nymph’s affections without her consent, the higher gods sanctioned the match by not killing him and spawning a new class of dragon.
That was how the Chrysocolla House was born.
And why they revered Diana as their patron goddess.
I worshipped her for a different reason.
Her white marble sculpture depicted a fierce warrior, her wings spread, bow drawn and aimed at some unseen enemy.
Delicate horns curled out of her head, short stola pushed tight against her strong body, brow creased in concentration as she held an enemy in her sights.
I imagined she was aiming at my enemy, my master, and that was why I knelt at her feet as I did now. This quiet, cold place was the only room in the house where I found solace and a small sense of comfort.
Sliding my fingertips along the cold stone, I reached behind the potted plant where I kept my hidden key and stolen knife, closing my eyes in welcome anticipation of the relief I always found here in the silence and the dark.