Chapter XXVIII Lela #3
“Well, at least he chose the right room. That’s Ruskus’s bedchamber. Where you two will be sleeping together, I imagine?” Malina arched a questioning brow at me.
We hadn’t discussed my relationship with Trajan, but my sister was an empath. She could read the emotions of us both without me ever saying a word.
I simply smiled at them. “Good night.”
When I entered the room and closed the door, it was to find Trajan at the window, both arms on the corner edges. Outside, it was dark.
“It’s cold,” I told him. “You should shut the shutters.”
There was a fire already crackling in a much smaller fireplace in the room, but it was hardly a match for the chilly night air coming in through the shutters he’d opened.
He didn’t move or answer, his body rigid while he sucked in deep breaths.
Slowly, I walked to him and pressed my body to his, wrapping my arms around his waist, trying to ease him down from the emotional cliff he stood upon.
After a few moments, his breathing evened out but he remained staring out into the cold night.
“I was prepared to give you up,” he finally said.
I stiffened, still holding my arms tightly around him.
“I brought you as far away from the place that had hurt you the most. I wanted you safe. In mind and body. You can’t go back.”
I realized I’d hurt him in my demand to return. I released him and straightened.
“Look at me, Trajan.”
He remained where he was, huffing one more great gulp of air before finally closing the shutters and latching them. He turned, his arms stiff at his sides, his expression so full of pain. My heart ached at it.
Placing my hands on his chest, one palm over his heart where I could feel it beating a rapid rhythm, I held his gaze.
“I don’t want to be left behind. I don’t want to be parted from you … my fierce dragon … my dearest protector.”
My darling love.
His eyes slid closed, the pain still present as he dragged me into his arms, bending over me, his mouth at my temple.
“Don’t make me do it, Lela. Don’t make me put you in danger. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you.”
“That’s the problem now, isn’t it?”
“What is?” He pressed a kiss to the crown of my head before meeting my gaze again.
“I can’t bear it either. But together, we can protect each other.”
He wasn’t convinced, fear still etched into his brow.
“This war isn’t just for you and your kind. It’s for me and mine as well. It’s for my mother, my father, my grandmother, Jardani. It’s for Fausta. And every innocent who has lost so much under the brutal fist of Igniculus.”
“You’re asking too much of me,” he whispered.
“Even so, you will take me,” I demanded. “I’m not the scared slave girl you met in the temple, Trajan. I killed the man who held me captive. I tamed guards with my magic. I killed those who murdered Fausta.”
I reached up and cupped his face, the bristles of his beard a familiar comfort. “I gave my trust to you, and you know how hard that was for me. After what I’ve been through.”
He winced, but he needed to hear it.
“Now you must trust in me.” I smiled, smoothing my thumb across his pinched brow. “It’s for us too,” I whispered, “if we are to ever have a future together. You said so yourself, didn’t you? We must topple Rome and build it anew if you are to marry the one you love.”
He nodded, staring in hopeful wonder. “I did.”
“Then let us topple it together, Trajan.” I wrapped a hand at his nape.
“Lean on me as I have leaned on you. Let me be who I was born to be, a bloodsinger witch who can kill with a word. Believe in me as I believe in you and I promise, we will not fail.” I shrugged as I pulled his head down to me and whispered against his lips, “And if we die, at least we die together, and that is what I choose. To die fighting alongside my soulmate.”
He buried his face against my neck and held me close. I held him back for a long, long time. I suppose we were both in disbelief, for I hadn’t allowed myself to believe I could love again. And it seemed he couldn’t allow himself to believe I could ever love him if I did.
But Euphemia had been right more than once. Jardani was the soulmate of who I’d been before the Romans came.
“I feel like I’ve been three people in my lifetime,” I murmured against his shoulder.
“How is that, my love?” He brushed a hand from the top of my head down my hair falling at my back.
“I was the innocent woman betrothed to the village boy back in Dacia. Then I was the slave woman used by the cruel master in Rome. And now…”
He pulled back, his palm cradling the back of my head. “And now?”
“Now, I am the free woman who loves a Roman dragon and fights alongside him. I am who I was destined to be.”
His eyes sparked ethereal blue, his beast watching me alongside the man, then he leaned down and gave me a gentle kiss. He lingered, brushing his lips against mine, tasting me sweetly but never deepening it. Finally, he broke away and stepped back, taking my hand.
“Come. Let us get ready for bed. We’ll need rest for the days ahead. We’ll need to leave tomorrow for Rome.”