“If that is your wish.” Her voice pierced his languid thoughts and he frowned at her. She was looking at him, but it was nothing like the way she’d looked at him the last time they’d fucked. There was no soft smile on her face, no unfocused glaze in her eyes. Tension radiated from her as if it took a great deal of willpower for her not to leap on him and scratch out his eyes.
Suspicion stirred. He took her hand and tugged her toward him, but she was surprisingly resistant. “Come back to the bed.” He’d been so ensnared by her sensuous seduction that he’d failed to notice Nimue hadn’t come. “Let me please you as you’ve pleased me.”
She wrenched her hand from his loose grasp. “There’s no need.” The look of venom she glared his way belied her words and he stared at her, bemused by her contradictory mood.
“Does your shoulder pain you?” He knew he should have stopped her. He should have been the one bracing his weight but lust had blinded his reason. And now Nimue was suffering for his indulgence.
She bared her teeth but it was nothing like the smiles she had bestowed his way earlier. Was she truly snarling at him?
“My blood is not poisoned,” she said, although poison dripped from every word. “Therefore what does it matter if my wound pains me or not?”
Irritation spiked through him. He might have been remiss during their recent coupling but it wasn’t as if he’d deliberately set out to deny her pleasure from the act. “It matters to me.” His voice was sharp and he swung his legs off the bed, imprisoning her between his thighs.
“Pray, do not think of it.” She pushed the words between gritted teeth and then shuffled backward until she was free of his embrace. “Do you wish to eat now?”
Did he want to eat? She glared at him as if she wanted to gut him and instead of telling him what was on her mind, she offered him food? He stared at her in disbelief. Nimue was naked, on her knees before him and the evidence of his lust soiled her thighs. He had never taken an unwilling woman, but for one gut-churning moment, he imagined she looked as if that was exactly what he’d done.
But she’d wanted him as much as he wanted her. Her arousal had scented the air, her body eager and willing. Despite her status in the eyes of Rome when they were together like this she was free. And she had a choice to deny him. A choice he knew she wouldn’t hesitate to claim if she wanted to.
He knew full well that some of his peers used women purely for their own pleasure. Whether the woman was a wife, lover or slave made no difference. A slave could expect nothing more. And to his knowledge, no gently bred Roman noblewoman would complain if her husband or lover had failed to satisfy her.
But Nimue was no Roman noblewoman. She wouldn’t pretend satisfaction merely to stoke a man’s pride.
So why was she holding her tongue when he knew she wanted to accuse him of denying her climax?
He leaned toward her. She didn’t flinch as a slave might have done nor lower her gaze as he might expect from a Roman woman. “I wish you to tell me what the matter is.”
A blush swept over her aristocratic cheekbones, but it wasn’t from modesty. It was mortification. “Why? Do you also own my thoughts?”
Realization punched through his chest. She knew. Who the fuck had told her? Rage thundered through his brain. It didn’t matter who had told her. The damage had been done. Now he had to defuse it.
“I have no desire to own your thoughts.”
“Only my body.” The derision in her voice slammed into him as if she had physically attacked him.
“That’s not true.” But if anyone saw her now, naked and on her knees before her master, what else would they think?
Except he wanted more than simply her willing body. He wanted her irreverent responses, no matter how shocking he sometimes found them.
It was too late for regret. He would have to explain his plans for her now, and then she would see he had no wish for her to be a slave. That it was only temporary. That, in reality, he offered her an honorable status as his concubine.
Her lip curled. “So you bought me for my conversational skills.”
Nimue watched Tacitus grit his teeth and she dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands. What in the name of the Great Goddess am I doing? Every word out of her mouth deliberately provoked him and she couldn’t seem to stop herself.
She hadn’t meant to say anything after he’d finished rutting with her. She’d held onto her control only through the formidable strength of her Druidic willpower, but it had all but shattered her to rise from his body before embracing her own glorious orgasm.
But frustration thundered through her blood and clouded her good reason. She had intended to be the perfect, malleable slave so he’d find no reason to doubt her. Yet the look on Tacitus’ face suggested that any advance in gaining his trust had now vanished.
All because she couldn’t hold her rebellious tongue.
“I did what I had to do in order to protect you.” He sounded irked. She was torn between wanting to goad him further and belatedly behaving as an obedient slave should.
Except she had never been a slave, and the thought of submitting her will to a master caused her stomach to churn and bile to rise. That the master in question was Tacitus, whom she had foolishly believed to possess honor despite his Roman heritage, made everything unimaginably worse.
If she didn’t bury her pride she could bury all hope of saving the Briton queen and princess, and Nimue’s own honor would be forever tarnished.
She might not be able to fake subservience for her own sake, but she would do it for the sake of those she’d been charged to protect.
“I understand.” She fixed her gaze on the ground between them so he couldn’t see the fury in her eyes. “Do you wish me to bring you the food now?” And I hope you choke on it.
He hissed out a violent curse in Latin, one she had never heard before but its meaning was plain. Clearly, food was not on his immediate agenda.
“I don’t expect your gratitude, Nimue,” Tacitus said and she only just stopped herself from clenching her fists in reaction. She had to view this as she would any other battle maneuver and not allow her personal feelings to dictate her next strategic move. “It was never my intention to enslave you. Once we reach the garrison I intend to secure your manumission.”
He made it sound as if he was bestowing a great favor. She ignored the dull throb in her injured shoulder, ignored the eerie whisper that craved the cursed opium, and focused on finding the right words to respond.
Curse your barbarous Roman guts would gain her nothing but fleeting satisfaction.
“And then I may leave?” She risked glancing up at him, and then couldn’t tear her gaze away. Why did he not look like a hideous monster? Why did he have to glare at her with that indefinable air of injury, as if she was the one in the wrong?
Why could she not simply hate and despise him, the way she should?
“Then you will be my concubine.”
“Your concubine?” What did he mean? In her world a concubine was little more than a sex slave. But Tacitus said the word as if there was no shame attached.
“You will have status as my concubine. You’ll be free but still under my protection and therefore no other man will dare accost you.”
“I’ll be free?” Being the concubine of a Roman sounded different from being the concubine of a high-ranking Celt chieftain. “I can leave if I wish?”
Tacitus’ jaw tightened. “You misunderstand. I’m offering you my continued protection as my concubine. As a free woman as opposed to being a slave.”
He was speaking in riddles. “As your concubine I’ll be free? Why would I need your protection if I can leave at any time?”
Tacitus curled his hands over her shoulders, taking care to avoid her injury. She refused to acknowledge the treacherous tremors that attacked her wherever he touched her. Then he frowned, pulled a cover from his bed and draped it around her as if he had noticed her chilled flesh.
Curse the man. He likely had noticed. Why did he have to be so considerate of her comfort? It made it so hard for her to remember that everything between them was nothing more than a strategy for her survival. But if he was offering her freedom that meant he trusted her. It meant he didn’t truly consider her his slave. She knew it shouldn’t make any difference to how she felt, and yet it did.
“No, Nimue.” He continued to frown at her, his large hands grasping the edges of the blanket across her breasts. “As my concubine you’ll belong to me until the contract is dissolved. Until that time you can’t leave without my permission.”
The foolish hope that he might think more of her than a spoil of war sputtered out of existence. Disbelief flooded her veins, but it was more than disbelief and anger. She was hurt that the best he considered her worthy of was the status of a whore in all but name.
Tacitus wasn’t offering her freedom at all.
She straightened, secretly shocked that somehow she’d leaned closer to him during their exchange.
“I don’t see the difference between what you’ve made me now and what you offer me in the future.”
He actually recoiled, as though she had physically attacked him. When all she’d done was unravel his lying Roman words and displayed the truth for them both to see.
“You don’t see the difference?” He sounded as if she was being deliberately difficult. “You’ll have everything you desire as my concubine. You’ll be safe and want for nothing. It’s an honorable status, Nimue. Not so different from a contracted marriage.”
A Roman contracted marriage. Furious that she needed help to rise from the ground she braced her weight against his leg with her good arm and shoved herself upright. Clutching her makeshift robe around her she glared into his eyes.
Don’t think of his eyes. But it was impossible to look away.
“A Roman wife is little better than a slave.” Her voice was haughty but it took everything she had to keep the foolish tremble locked inside. She wouldn’t let him see how easily he could wound her. She despised the fact he could upset her. “I see no advantage in becoming your concubine when my freedom remains subject to your will.”
“You’re refusing my offer?” Tacitus sounded staggered, as if such a response had never occurred to him. “You don’t wish to become my concubine?”
Why did he care? If he wanted to make her his concubine, what choice did she have?
She tilted her chin at him. It was a futile gesture of pride when, for the moment at least, he wielded power over everything she held sacred. But she couldn’t bow her head, couldn’t beg for his mercy. It would crucify her from the inside out. Yet it was more than that. She knew, deep down, that this Roman would never fall for such a false display of humility. Not from her. She’d lost that advantage, if it ever could have been an advantage, from the moment they’d met in the mountains.
“No, I don’t wish to become your concubine.” It would be tantamount to agreeing she wished to be his slave. “I don’t wish to belong to you at all.”
The silence after her words pressed against her ears and thudded inside her skull. Tacitus just looked at her as though he’d never seen her before. As if the fact she’d thrown his offer back in his face was somehow blasphemous.
Then he stood and it took everything she possessed not to take a hasty step backward. He towered over her, a mighty Roman warrior. Her bitterest enemy. And yet she didn’t crave for her dagger so she could carve out his blackened heart. She craved, despicably, for him to hold her in his arms.
He stepped around her, as if by touching her he would become contaminated. He strode to the flap of the tent where he paused and glanced over his shoulder.
“What you want is irrelevant. You belong to me.” His words should have infuriated her, but there was no trace of autocratic pride infusing his voice. Instead his tone was oddly flat, as though his statement gave him no pleasure. “Bathe and eat. Don’t attempt to escape. I will return later.”
He disappeared through the flap in the tent. She followed, pushed open the flap with her shoulder and watched him march into a gloom that was kept at bay by the torches that burned around the Roman camp.
Her fingers clenched around the material and she took a deep breath. The urge to take more opium seeped through her mind, a compelling imperative that Tacitus’ presence had managed to subdue. But now that she no longer constantly fought her body’s responses to the Roman, the alarming need for the drug increased.
She would search the tent in his absence. Surely she would find his hiding place.
As she began to lower the flap, a flurry of darkness swept across the cloudy sky. She froze and narrowed her eyes, peering into the night, but the nocturnal creature had vanished into the surrounding woodland.
And then the unmistakable, haunting sound of an owl shivered through the darkness. Nimue gasped, strained her eyes but could see nothing through the shadows, but it didn’t matter.
Her beloved Arianrhod was with her, in the form of her sacred owl. It didn’t matter how dire her situation appeared. She would prevail. The Goddess had sent her a sign.
With a smile, Nimue closed the tent flap, and the ravaging need to find the opium faded.