Leon made love to me for the first time that night. Although I had been with more men than most women of that time, it felt entirely new. Leon was not plagued by my gift; the excitement he felt was entirely natural. He was tender with me in a way none other could be. We kissed and caressed for hours, taking breaks to whisper compliments in the dark, while his strength gathered.

Sally gave me what privacy she could. She retreated to a corner of our mind, immersing herself in some old memory. I knew she was there, could feel every skipped heartbeat, though it felt as if she were in another room.

Leon took his time. When we finished, he asked if I was pleased with his performance. I assured him I was. “Why do you ask?”

“I have not taken a female lover in over six decades.”

The thought of Leon lying with another man should have repulsed me but it did quite the opposite. It was a different time, with different sensibilities. I, even then, was a modern woman. Laying there with his warm, hard body pressed against my back, I felt bold. I admitted it had been fewer years than that since my last female lover. He chuckled against my skin and kissed my shoulder blade. He did not make demands that I stop all relationships with others. He did not chastise me for my loose behavior. He considered us equals and I was in complete control of my own life, free to make my own choices. I could do no better than this man. I was starting to love him.

“Why wait so long for something you clearly enjoy?” I thought of all the superfluous women. He had enough money to buy any sort of companionship he desired, something new for every day of the week.

Leon answered, “I have never enjoyed a casual sexual relationship. A lifetime ago I fell in love with a woman. A human woman who feared growing old as I stayed the same. Knowing what I was, she put me off for ages, refusing my proposal time and again. She did not want to hold me back. She was happy just to be with me; she would not think of herself as my equal. She only agreed after seeing how my life stagnated.” He paused and I felt hot tears splash on my bare shoulder. “Illness, a fever brought on by the birth of our son, took her from me after only three years of marriage. He died fourteen months later and I vowed not to lay with another woman because of the danger of pregnancy.”

Then I had been brought to the club, and it had been announced that I was a Carrier. The idea that a woman existed as resilient and immortal as he had never crossed his mind. It wasn’t love at first sight. He felt a duty to me first, the deep desire to protect me and see that I was not misused by Archelaos. Then he set out to woo me. We fell asleep in each other’s arms, our secrets laid as bare as our bodies.

 

Waking before it was yet light, I caught Leon sneaking out of bed. His movements were unsteady as he attempted to dress silently. From his recent ride, I assumed. He seemed in complete control of his faculties last night, Sally teased. I giggled, embarrassed.

Leon froze at the soft sound then slowly turned toward me. I smiled sleepily, patting his now-vacant half of the mattress. “Come back to bed,” I murmured.

“I need to go out.” His statement lifted at the end, almost like he was asking.

I shook my head, saying, “We are locked in, remember? You can’t get out any more than someone could get in.” I wanted to know what he needed to do in the middle of the night but I didn’t press for information. I wasn’t one of those women who was always questioning the motives of her spouse any more than I wanted him to be one of those men.

We had sex again. I say “had sex” because it was different than before when we “made love.” This was what women of my time referred to as rutting. I am not complaining, mind you, just stating the fact. Jumping straight to the main action suited me just fine. It was frantic fucking on seemingly stolen time.

When he was finished, Leon commented on how long it had been since he’d been with a woman, how long since he had felt so masculine and virile. Perhaps his age was starting to affect his memory. He’d just told me the story. I was so spent that I didn’t say anything when he got back out of bed.

He pulled on the wing of a cherub adorning the fireplace mantle. It had been the trigger for the secret door. “I sealed them,” I declared as I turned over.

I heard the door click closed as he grumbled, “Not all of them. She couldn’t have possibly found them all.”

 

I slept longer than I had in years, waking after 10 a.m. I had also stayed up much later than I had in years. That is what having young children will do. That wasn’t a complaint. The house was overstaffed and so I had more help than I knew what to do with. I could not even imagine the exhaustion of working-class mothers.

Leon was absent as I headed toward the adjacent dressing room. I put on a conservative day dress, having been wanton enough for a while. Leon waited for me in the breakfast room, patiently reading the newspaper, his breakfast platter untouched. My children flanked him, their own manners not as refined. They shouldn’t have to wait for me. This was their home.

Leon stood, folded his paper, and greeted me with a smile and kiss on the cheek. Ambrose grinned at us, at Leon, in a peculiar and almost scheming way. Julian used to give me a similar smile when Archelaos had terrible plans for me. Dawn’s expression was difficult to read. Her “good morning” was pleasant though she blushed. Her brother might be too young to understand, but she suspected that Leon had not spent the night in his own bed.

She quickly made her excuses and left to start her day. Ambrose sat watching us while we ate, making it impossible to have an adult conversation. The governess came along to collect Ambrose and he left begrudgingly.

“I would marry you today, if you would have me,” Leon said to me as soon as we were alone.

“Today?” I asked incredulously.

“Yes,” he nodded. “Right this minute. Sadly, we will have to wait until the noon hour. The clergyman will be along unless I send him word to stay away. Should I?”

“No, don’t do that. I will be ready.” Smiling, I said coyly, “So that’s where you were sneaking out to this morning. Off to see the friar, Romeo?” I referenced the Shakespearean love story that featured the friar of the same name as my late husband.

“I sent my man to make the arrangements. Funny you should mention that when I was planning to ask you how I wound up fully clothed in the hall this morning.”

“You don’t remember…last night?” I was wounded, hurt.

“I do. It was the most wonderful night of my life. I will never forget making love to you, even if I live another thousand years. It was perfect.” He looked down at his hands. “At least until I told you about my wife and son. I am sorry I brought them up. I didn’t mean to ruin the moment. No woman wants to hear about her lover’s dead wife.”

“You are wrong. I quite enjoyed hearing your secrets. It was very intimate.” Blushing, I asked him, “Do you remember what happened after that? Getting out of bed, getting dressed?”

He shook his head. “I fell asleep in your arms and woke up in the doorjamb of a very impressive piece of security equipment. It was locked and I got the feeling it was also impenetrable.”

The curiosity was clear on his face but he restrained himself. He did not ask. Leon trusted me and I rewarded that trust by making him my confidante. I explained, “Paetus believes I am Archelaos masquerading as Ramillia. Those two have an odd relationship, just as I did with Archelaos when he wore Julian’s body. I provided Julian with the pain he needed to feel. Now, I have that same control over Paetus. Come. I will show you.”

My confidence waned with every step. Why had I decided to share something so depraved? What if he changed his mind and put me aside instead of marrying me? I wished my corset was not so tight. Then Leon laced his fingers in mine, something no other man could do without my touch sending him into a fury, and my breathing returned to normal. It would take more than this to turn him from me.

I punched the code into the number pad and used the singular key to open the vault-like door. Leon didn’t speak but took in it all: the smell of fear and pain, the instruments of torture prominently displayed on every wall, the various restraints, the cold clinical metal walls, and bare floor. “We call it the tenebrae. In this room, Paetus is under my thumb. He will say or do anything to please me, anything to keep the pain coming.”

After a long pause he said in a hoarse voice, “Doing this pleases you?”

“With Julian, it did. I was happy to repay him the pain he caused me. I missed it more than I missed him during my seclusion in the country. I was surprised to find that I was happy to find that Paetus needed the same treatment. I do not owe him the same spite I did Julian, but I need the violent release. Without it I become short with those I love, angry at every servant’s mistake, ferocious with no warning. I am not sure I can give this up if and when Paetus doesn’t require it.” I closed the door.

“Thank you for showing me.”

“You are not disturbed by my behavior?” I asked.

A single slow nod indicated he was. “A little. We are a breed entirely different from our human counterparts, with different desires. I have my own secret.” He slipped an arm around my cinched waist and pulled my body against his. “I want to see you work, to see you take control of a powerful man like Paetus and reduce him to a quivering mass.”

Tugging a handful of hair on the back of his head, I gently forced his face up to look at mine. He waited, his mouth slightly agape. “Why?” I asked him.

“Women are considered the weaker sex, but I have long believed you could ravage the world as men do if only you had less self-restraint. You run the world from behind the shield of men who think they are in control. I am glad to be that facade for you. I can give you what none other is willing—independence. You will have control, not only of the lives of others through manipulation and social games but of your own without pretense.”

I kissed him hard. Sally was there; I could feel her acceptance. We went down to be married.

 

Our wedding was private. There was a celebratory dinner, though it was served buffet style and all of our Carriers were invited. There were so many they had to eat in shifts. Leon and I sat at a table the whole while, accepting pledges of allegiance from each man. I lost count at around four hundred and there were at least that many over again. My first wedding’s meal was for Julian and I, but the second was thrown for those in our household. It represented the difference in my two husbands. Carriers were chattel to Archelaos and valuable allies to Leon.

That night was another of pleasant unhurried experiences. Julian’s gift of touch had held a certain allure but Leon’s counteracted mine, allowing me the luxury of normality. I didn’t cause him to shift into an impassioned, inflamed stranger. He was Leon and he wanted me naturally, without influence. It was refreshing. This was what most couples felt. He gave me a new experience more valuable than all my unique adventures put together. What we were feeling was real.

After, while lying in bed satiated and relaxed, I traced the odd shapes inked on his skin. Foreign symbols, arranged in rows, circled his torso and extremities. Leon had so many, each different, be the difference slight or great. Those oldest were faded and more primitive than the newest. The implications were clear. Leon had many Carriers bonded to him over the years and his method had been discovered centuries ago.

Sliding his arm from beneath me, he pointed out a series of letters across his upper arm. “All the men of my legion were volunteers, career soldiers, not conscripts. As a mark of dedication, we tattooed our identifying numbers, all identical. The practice was taboo, but soldiers often operate outside of the norm. Many of my men had dozens of markings. It was then, as this was placed on me and another of our kind in my legion, that I discovered my method of bonding and riding. He was my first Carrier.”

“Is he still with you?” I asked. One of us that old, content to live as another’s, would be a rare find, a man of complete and dependable loyalty.

“He was killed in battle. It was agony. I felt his death, and while Archelaos and Sophus reveled in the sensational experience, I suffered. I vowed not to take another Carrier under my bond but was unable to keep my promise for long. A man came to me in a panic, fearing for his life. Archelaos had begun to show interest in him and the man, Nevio, had seen the way Archelaos’ Carriers were treated. Nevio didn’t want to belong to him. He begged me to bond with him so that Archelaos could not. I reluctantly agreed. Nevio’s friends, some of those already bonded to Archelaos and Sophus, followed him and I was forced to pay for them.”

This got Sally’s attention. She sat us up and the bedsheet slid off our body. “So Carriers can be bonded to more than one Incola,” she reasoned.

“Not at the same time. When I purchased a man from another, the first Incola had to relinquish his bond so that mine could take over.”

“How is a bond relinquished?” I knew that Carriers were bought, sold, and traded, but I had always assumed only those not fully bonded could achieve this. Sally wondered if they might be stolen but thought better than to ask in that manner.

“Depends on the Incola. Most protect that technique just as fiercely as they do their bonding. I must simply slice off the Carrier’s mark from my body or mine from theirs.” Our healing ability meant new skin would replace the old quickly and without scarring. “For this reason I am more careful with the method than most. Paetus must never know.”

“No man will ever hear it from me.” I could see his reasoning. His wards could be stripped from him as easily as flaying his skin. It was a horrifying thought and one that cold, greedy Paetus would employ without hesitation. “Could I wear your mark?” As long as it was believed that Archelaos had taken my body as his own, most wouldn’t risk his wrath by attempting a bonding. But if someone figured out my secret I would be vulnerable. Sally and I could always push an Incola out but they might be able to do some damage before we managed it.

Leon sat up at my question. “You would want to wear my mark?” His eyes spoke of the weight behind his words. This meant something to him. Sally, who was not in love with Leon as I was, worried.

Percy Richards, our taste tester, burst into our room armed with an antique sword from my library wall. I screamed and tried to cover myself. Leon jumped up, naked as he was, and faced the man. His heroics weren’t necessary. Percy turned his back to Leon, pressed the sword tip to his own chest, and said to someone in the corridor, “I will not allow you to choose other men above me. Your blood is mine. You belong to me.” He then fell on his sword, impaling himself. The weapon went in silver and came out the other side crimson.

I wrapped myself in my dressing gown while Percy took his last breaths. I got to him just as he gave his final twitch and went still. Feeling for his pulse and finding none, I knew he was dead. I looked into the corridor to see to whom he could have been speaking. Dawn stood there staring with shock on her face and tears streaming down her cheeks. She had Ambrose on her hip, his face buried in her neck.