“Maximus.” She drew his hand to her face and gently rubbed his knuckles over her cheek. Her surrender was sweet, and it was sheer torture he didn’t have the leisure to enjoy it.
But later he would indulge every blessed moment of her surrender. And reassure her that, in reality, she surrendered nothing.
“These rooms are only temporary.” In that moment he knew he could never be satisfied with Carys living in the settlement. She belonged with him. “We’ll have larger quarters before the week ends.”
Her fingers tightened. “I want to stay with you.” Her words were barely above a whisper, and yet she looked in torment as if she had just admitted treason.
“Then all is well.” He resisted dragging her into his arms to comfort her. He wasn’t sure why she required comforting, but he was sure that if he held her, he would be unable to stop himself from taking her.
“But I can’t.”
He heard her words. But they made no sense. Perhaps she had misunderstood him. “I’m not giving you the choice, Carys.”
She let out a ragged sigh, and brushed her lips over his captured thumb. He remained rigid before her, not trusting himself to move a muscle.
“My kin—”
“Your kin should take better care of you.” He didn’t try to hide the rage simmering through his blood. He could scarcely believe she still dared argue with him over this matter. How could she even contemplate leaving him?
Did she truly imagine he would allow her to go?
Instead of shrinking before his wrath—which would, he acknowledged grimly, have infuriated him further—she clasped his fisted hand to her breast.
“Would you truly wish me to cause my great-grandmother’s sister such pain?”
He glared at her, uncomprehending. Her great-grandmother’s sister? Surely such an ancestor couldn’t still be alive. “By Mars, woman, what are you talking about?”
Far from flinching at his tone, as virtually everyone else he could think of would have done, her face softened.
“She is strong of spirit, Maximus, but this is her ninetieth summer. If I don’t return, I fear what my absence might do to her.”
Her ninetieth summer. Despite the heat pumping through his veins, an awed chill snaked along his spine. He’d not believed attaining such an age possible.
“Then you’ll send her a message, assuring her all is well.” With his back to the window, blocking her from sight, he dared to cradle her face with his free hand. “She must have other descendants, closer in kin than you.”
Carys leaned into his palm. Her eyes never left his. “Her daughters are all continuing their journey. And they had no children of their own.” Their journey? Did she mean they were all traveling? “My grandmother is her closest kin, but she is frailer than her mother’s sister.”
The chill from his spine wormed into the pit of his stomach, and curled into an icy knot. “What of your brothers, Carys? Your uncles?” And yet he knew what her answer would be, and the knot tightened.
“I have no brothers.” Regret flickered in her eyes. “No sister either. I dearly wanted a sister, Maximus, but my mother wanted no other children.”
Her mother wanted no other children. Had her father no say in the matter?
Yet he couldn’t mention her father. Not when the knowledge that his Legion was responsible for her father’s death weighed heavily on his conscience.
“Your mother is there also?” Dread seeped from his twisted guts, chilling his blood, tormenting his brain. Yet still he resisted allowing the thought to push through his mind and gain substance.
For a moment he thought she wasn’t going to answer. “No.” Her voice was oddly hollow. “She left before the invasion to visit distant kin.” She sucked in a quick breath. “But my cousin and her son are.” She paused, and a soft smile tilted her lips. “He is but three years old.”
Maximus stared into her lovely face in horrified disbelief. The only male relative she had was three years old.
She lived somewhere out in the wilds with three other women—one of whom was frail and the other surely hovering close to Erebus—and a small child.
He’d assumed when Carys and her kin had fled the invasion that her male relatives were behind it, and damned them for their cowardice.
But instead Carys had escaped with the female members of her family. Had all the men perished alongside her father? Was that what she wasn’t telling him?
His hand fisted against her soft flesh. “You know eventually you’ll have to leave your haven.” His knuckles traced the line of her proud jaw. “You can’t hide forever, Carys.”
Her fingers tightened around his hand she pressed against her tempting breasts, and pain filled her eyes. “I know.”
He wanted to crush her in an embrace or shake her until her brains rattled, or find the words to convince her that her duty did not lie with her vulnerable female relatives.
Words he would never utter, even if such words existed. Her loyalty earned his respect, even as it drove him insane.
“You know?” He gave a brief, hollow laugh. “And yet still you insist on hiding like common criminals.”
She sighed heavily, and shook her head. “You’re right, Maximus. We can’t hide forever. And we won’t. I know, in my heart, this can’t go on for much longer.”
“Then end it now.”
A frown creased her brow. “It’s not yet time. I can’t explain. I wish I could. I only know the end is approaching and—there’s nothing I can do to change that.”
Shudders crawled over his flesh, as if the wings of Mors brushed death across him. He braced his muscles against the unnatural reaction and rationalized her words.
She wasn’t speaking of the end as gods would have it. She merely knew that, sooner or later, her hiding place would be found by him.
“Who accompanied you here?” His question was harsh. A command. He couldn’t help himself. Frustrated desire mated with impotent fury at the knowledge that yet again he would have to allow Carys to leave.
Intolerable. And yet there was no choice. He knew she was a healer, although her youth precluded that she could know much of any use. But if the health of her elderly relatives relied on her skills, such as they were, how could he refuse to let her go?
“Why do you want to know?” For the first time she sounded wary, and he gripped her shoulder, unreasonably stung she should think he intended harm to any of her blood.
“You didn’t venture here on your own.”
She didn’t immediately respond, and for one eternal heartbeat he thought she was going to remain silent. Did she not trust him?
“No.”
“Carys.” Her name was a growl in his throat. She knew he would never harm her kin. He’d sworn such to her on more than one occasion. How dare she doubt his word?
“With two companions.”
He sucked in a long breath and attempted to smother the leaping rage consuming his chest. She had been answering his question, not his thought. Was this woman turning his mind? Could he no longer think clearly?
“When must you return?” He couldn’t believe he was asking such a thing. He didn’t want her to return to her people. And yet if she didn’t, he knew she would never fully be his.
“Very soon.” He gained little satisfaction from the fact she sounded reluctant. “Maximus, they’re sure to have heard I was taken by a centurion. I can’t allow them to worry unnecessarily.”
He knew what she was saying. She couldn’t be late. Did she think he intended to prevent her from leaving, after everything she’d told him?
He glared into her eyes. And saw the truth.
She knew he wouldn’t keep her against her will. Perhaps she’d always known that, even before he’d reached that conclusion himself.
The thought didn’t improve his temper.
“It’s not safe for you to walk around the settlement alone.”
Her fingers twitched around his hand, and he unclenched his fist, and cupped the weight of her breast.
“I know.” She sounded irritated, but her breath hitched as he tightened his hold around her luscious globe.
“I forbid you to stroll through the markets and streets unaccompanied.” Not until she accepted the mantle of his protection would she be safe from further molestation. And even when all knew she belonged to him, he would procure her a constant companion.
Her eyes flashed mutiny. She opened her mouth, and then shut it again, and he could feel her mind working furiously as her jaw clenched beneath his palm.
“Answer me, Carys.”
Her breath escaped in an indignant puff. “I won’t stroll through the markets and streets unaccompanied, Maximus.” She put exaggerated emphasis on his name. “But only because I have no desire to be manhandled by obnoxious Romans.”
He rubbed his thumb over her nipple, and even through the wool of her gown felt her nub harden. He wasn’t sure whom he was punishing by his actions. Her? Or himself?
“And you will meet with me at the spring in two nights.”
She shifted, so her breast pushed more insistently against his thumb. “You will meet me at the spring in two nights.”
His thumb stilled against her. Her eyes mesmerized him. And then he tweaked her erect nipple until an involuntary gasp spilled from her disobedient lips.
“Meet me in two nights.” He’d be damned if he would agree with her demand, when she refused to bow down to his. She was a woman, his woman, and as such shouldn’t even question him, let alone presume she could have the last word.
And then she lifted his hand from her breast and grazed her lips across his knuckles. Her breath was hot against his flesh, her lips soft. And her eyes never left his.
“Come to me in two nights.” Her whisper caressed his skin, soothed his injured pride. Although why that should be so, he couldn’t fathom. Yet again, she was determined to undermine his authority.
Long moments passed. She was so small, so fragile. What did it matter if he allowed her this one small concession?
He pulled her hand up. Kissed each finger in turn. “Yes. I’ll meet you at the spring in two nights, Carys.” And then he couldn’t help himself. “Don’t be late.”