Chapter 30 Lela
XXX
LELA
Trajan led us back down the same streets, but they weren’t as empty as when we’d come this way.
He took my hand and kept me close as we turned down another street that seemed much fuller with people, musicians beating their drums and playing pipes, half-naked dancers laughing and frolicking in their wake.
“This way,” said Trajan, turning down another road to avoid the crowd. “This one leads past the forum then straight to the Aventine.”
The German remained behind me, his hood and cloak completely engulfing him. Not that anyone was concerned with us at all. We were moving through easily until a clamor of music and singing erupted suddenly from a tavern on our left.
A throng of people rushed out following three naked women, spring flowers adorning their hair. Trajan tugged me back closer to the wall of the building. Alaric pushed to the wall as well.
Behind the women, a line of eight men chased after them—all naked except for masks depicting satyrs with horns.
One of them wore no mask but a crown. I recognized him as one of the senators who’d visited Valerius’s house once, but he wasn’t a regular that I knew his name.
Just one of the many of the elite who controlled this city.
He caught one of the women first, who wasn’t truly trying to get away.
She squealed with laughter as he threw her over his shoulder. Two clothed men carried out a settee into the middle of the street, all while the crowd pushed out of the tavern, wanting to get a good look at the display.
The king of the group placed the woman on all fours on the settee. She arched her back and looked over her shoulder with desire, while another man joined him, already stroking his cock.
Trajan pulled me forward, trying to get across, as the crowd continued to file out into the street and others nearby hurried over to watch.
The king of the satyrs gripped the woman’s hips and penetrated her. When she cried out, one of the other satyrs fisted her hair and gripped his cock then thrust into her mouth.
The cheers went up as the orgy commenced, the banging of drums intensifying and people shoving at us in the crowd to get to the other side, where three of the satyrs and one of the women with spring flowers were sucking and fucking each other.
“Are you a player too?” a barrel-chested man said as he brushed my shoulder, grinning blearily down at me.
Before I could say a word, Trajan pushed the man away.
“Step back,” he barked.
“Come on, now. You can share.” The drunk reached for me, but Alaric knocked his hand away and shoved him harder than Trajan had.
The drunkard fell back into another, who turned and punched him, then the crowd around us erupted in violence. Someone fell between Trajan and me, breaking the hold he had on my hand.
“Lela!”
A brawl broke out even while the music played on and the people having an orgy in the street moaned and groaned above it all. It was sheer madness.
Trajan and Alaric were punched and pushed to the far side of the crowd by the fight between a dozen drunken sots. The crowd on the street had doubled in only a few moments, pouring in from the direction of the forum, now separating me from Trajan and Alaric.
Trajan scowled over the crowd, looking up and down the street. When I caught his gaze, I pointed to the right. He nodded. We’d walk farther down the street where the crowd thinned then meet and continue on toward the Aventine and the docks.
Keeping Trajan in sight as he kept watching me over the crowd, I pushed through the people, all clamoring to get a closer look at the fornication outside the tavern.
Up ahead, coming from the direction of the forum, were three men in demonic-looking masks, wearing short black togas draped in a way that left their chests bare and crossed one shoulder.
It was obviously done to flaunt their physiques, for they were well-built younger dragons.
Then one of them laughed, and my entire soul chilled to the bone. It was Quintus. I knew that laugh anywhere.
Instantly, I tugged my hood farther over my head and looked at the ground. My path would have me walking within an arm’s length of them since they were following the horde to the public show in the street.
Quintus walked in the middle of the other two, carrying a wine goblet. I kept my gaze down until I’d passed them, thankful that the crowd was beginning to thin.
Wrapping the flap of my cloak across the bottom part of my face, I glanced back over my shoulder, and froze.
Quintus had turned, his eyes fiery red with his dragon, peering through the demon mask.
He looked like a creature from the underworld, come to drag souls down to Tartarus with him. And he was looking at me.
He pulled off the mask, his friends having walked on, but his attention was fixed on me now with a murderous glare.
I faced forward and moved on at a fast clip.
When the crowd thinned, Trajan pushed hurriedly to me and wrapped an arm around my shoulder as we rushed down the side road leading to the docks.
“What is it?”
“Quintus,” I whispered. “I believe he recognized me. He turned in the crowd.”
“Fuck,” he cursed. “He smelled you. He’d know your scent from visiting Valerius’s so often.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Keep going. Hurry.”
I didn’t dare look back. We practically ran through the street. Once we made the next corner, Trajan looked behind us.
“He isn’t there. I thought he was following.”
“Let’s hurry,” I urged him, my magic prickling along my skin, like she knew I needed her.
We didn’t try to blend with the crowd anymore, rushing through the Aventine toward the docks. Every block, there was another throng of revelers—drinking, dancing, fornicating in the street. It was madness.
Careening around another corner, we took a direct line to the docks. My heart raced when I heard the rushing of the Tiber and could see masts jutting into the starry sky.
“Almost there,” Trajan shouted as we ran.
Alaric said not a word, his gaze darting in every direction as we hurried down the cobblestone to the harbor.
All three of us panted, not slowing down when our feet met the wood planks of the long dock.
Up ahead, I could see the crew of the Mercury unmooring its ropes, readying to depart, the captain watching us from the deck.
Beside him was Koska, who lifted a hand to wave then stopped.
“Lela!” came a guttural shout behind us.
It was Quintus. I’d know his voice anywhere. Trajan stopped running and spun back in the other direction.
“No!” I shouted, turning back to him.
Trajan was already shifting into half-skin as he ran toward Quintus and two other centurions in the emperor’s uniform marching down the dock toward us.
“On Jupiter’s cock!” Quintus shouted with glee, his fangs lengthening, body bulging, and skin rippling with black scales as he shifted into half-skin. “I knew you were a filthy fucking traitor!”
He shed his torn toga and charged toward Trajan. The two centurions unbelted and tossed their scabbards and swords to the dock, shifting into half-skin.
Alaric growled and charged toward them, flinging off his hood, but he remained in human form. I shoved back my own hood, needing to see them, needing to focus.
I rocked side to side, whispering to myself, to my magic, “Come to me, come to me, come to me.”
My power had ignited quickly at the prison, but I was calm and prepared.
Right now, all I could think about were the dozens of nights Quintus lay on a settee, ogling me as I stood in the corner wearing the muzzle Valerius had put on me.
Quintus had helped put it there, too, for he was the one who came into my village, killed my groom, then carried me back to his nightmare.
Trajan and Quintus clashed with snarls and growls, their bodies hitting hard, wings beating, claws flying. The two centurions flew into the air over them, one heading for Alaric, the other coming straight for me.
“Goddess help me,” I whispered, my magic beginning to stir, but not fast enough.
Trajan roared, catching sight of the centurion diving for me, too distracted to see Quintus clawing toward his face. He snarled, whipping in a circle, his tail swiping Quintus’s legs out from under him.
“Run, Lela!”
I wasn’t about to run. It would do no good anyway.
He was already upon me, his arms extended.
I slipped my hand to my waistband, unsheathing the slim dagger Trajan had given me before we left Britannia, and gripped the hilt hard.
I watched the creature dive closer, his fangs bared, his red-scaled body shining beneath the moon as my power slowly warmed my blood.
The centurion landed, claws digging into the dock and splintering it while he scooped me up and tossed me over his shoulder, his beating wings brushing my back as he flew up into the night.
“Lelaaaa!” bellowed Trajan, his voice dropping deeper.
I didn’t have to look to know Trajan was shifting into his dragon.
My captor flew erratically, crossing over the water where the moonlight glittered on the surface, making it difficult for me to know where to cut easily.
I tried to slice at his tail, thinking the scales looked thinner there.
He jostled me again, right as I thrust the dagger forward, the blade sinking deeper into the small of his back than I intended.
He jerked to the right and snarled, dropping me into the air. I screamed, the dagger flying from my hands as I pinwheeled, falling backward into the frigid waters.