The Druid Chronicles: Four Book Collection

by Phillips, Christina

  They hadn’t made the connection. Yet. Perhaps they wouldn’t, for what did Romans know of her culture or the gods her people worshipped? They saw only land to conquer and precious metal to claim. Perhaps the silver had already been melted down, and sold.

  She smothered the shaft of pain that speared through her chest. The torque had been her mother’s, but it was only a torque. And even if the Romans took everything she possessed, they would never own her memories.

  Her memories were engraved into her very soul.

  “The physician removed your torque before he operated.” The Roman opened a leather pouch that had been on the ground beside him. “He didn’t want any constriction around your throat.”

  Bemused, she stared at her torque on the palm of his hand. He was returning it to her? Did he not know how valuable it was?

  But then, if it was plunder he wanted, he could have stripped the bracelets and earrings from her while she slept.

  He had not. Nor had he brutalized her. Finally, the question she should have thought of instantly slid through her mind.

  What did this Roman want with her?

  Half suspecting this was a trick, she picked up her torque between finger and thumb, careful not to touch his hand. Since fixing it around her throat required two hands, and she had no intention of asking for his assistance, she held it on her lap.

  Perhaps it was no trick. The queen and princess were still safe, her medicine bag hadn’t been found and no sharp-eyed Roman had seen the similarity between the embroidery and engravings.

  It was time to discover the fate this Roman had in mind for her.

  “So, am I free to go now?” She managed to give him a haughty look, although in this dim light she wasn’t sure whether he noticed or not.

  “You wouldn’t get very far.” He glanced at her injured shoulder. “You need to recuperate.”

  A flicker of comprehension dawned.

  “Is this your place of healing?” She tried not to feel awe that the Romans treated their injured enemies so well. Celts didn’t go to such lengths to ensure captured Romans recovered from their wounds. Not that Romans generally allowed themselves to be captured, but that was scarcely the point.

  Had a wounded Roman ever been captured in battle, he would be sacrificed to the gods amid much rejoicing.

  “These are my private quarters.”

  “You’re a healer?” Such a thing had never occurred to her. She had thought him a foreign warrior, and nothing else.

  “No.” Was it her imagination or was that a trace of amusement in his voice? “I’m a Tribunus Laticlavius. You’re here so I can ensure your safety.”

  His rank meant nothing to her, except that he was an officer in his Legion and, as such, was responsible for the rape of her homeland. Once again, the thought hovered in her mind that she was exchanging idle conversation with her deadliest enemy. And yet somehow she couldn’t help herself.

  As she hadn’t been able to help herself back at the mountain stream. And look what had happened to her because of it.

  “I don’t need the protection of a Roman.” But why does he feel the need to ensure my safety? If all he wanted was to use her, he could have done that already. There had been no need for him to go to the trouble of healing her wound. With shaming reluctance, she pushed herself to her feet, praying desperately her muscles would support her. But as she had feared, her legs buckled, her torque tumbled to the ground and she knew she was going to collapse back onto the bed.

  Her injured pride scarcely had time to manifest before the Roman was by her side, one arm around her waist, supporting her weight. As his strong fingers curled around her hip, as his muscular body pressed intimately against hers, lightning streaked across the shadows in her mind. And she recalled in vivid, mortifying detail how she had tried to seduce him last night.

  Chapter 7

  Tacitus felt her entire body stiffen in clear affront as he held her upright. Unfortunately, her reaction to his touch did nothing to diminish the erection he’d woken with.

  He tightened his grip on her. Although her mind had obviously recovered from the effects of the opium, her body hadn’t. And he had to stop thinking about her body. It made no difference how she tensed her muscles in outward denial. Lust sizzled between them, in every uneven breath she took, every resentful glance she gave him. Her thigh pressed against him and his chest crushed the warm swell of her breast. His arm supported the small of her back and curve of her waist and his fingers cradled her hip. Defeat thudded through his mind. He could scarcely think of anything but her body.

  “Unhand me.” She sounded infuriated. “How dare you maul me like an animal.”

  He let out a measured breath, and attempted to convince himself that her words of condemnation hadn’t fueled his lust further.

  “I’m not mauling you.” He’d done a lot more than maul her in his erotic fantasies during the night. “I’m preventing you from falling. Sit down until you’ve regained your balance.” He hooked his ankle around the leg of a chair and jerked it toward him.

  “Don’t order me around.” She glared at him as if he’d just ordered her to strip naked. Gods. That was the wrong thing to have thought. He forcibly sat her on the chair and then stepped back before he was tempted to force her to do anything else.

  She was still in absolute ignorance of her new status. Was it possible he could prevent her from finding out? If she didn’t know she was a slave, she wouldn’t behave like a slave. And if, tonight, she wanted him without benefit of the drugs, he could have her.

  Because, in her mind, she retained the choice.

  There were so many drawbacks to that plan that it wasn’t even worth seriously considering. And yet he considered it. Because it was the only way he could envisage them consummating the mutual desire that had ignited between them by the spring.

  “Suggesting you sit before you fall is hardly an order.”

  Her hand clenched against her thigh. “If you hadn’t brought me here against my will, I wouldn’t be in danger of falling.”

  “And if I’d left you on the mountain, you would have been rounded up with all the other rebels.”

  He didn’t need to elaborate. The way she ground her teeth together and slung him another condemning glare made it obvious she knew exactly what he was talking about.

  But she didn’t appear to make the connection that, despite not being in the prisoners’ tent, she had been enslaved as surely as the rest.

  She would not be a slave for long. He could free her before she even knew, and he could make her his official concubine. Her lack of reverence for his social status would ensure the remainder of his term in this gods forsaken province would be entertaining, to say the least.

  Her glare slid from his face and traveled down. Renewed lust scorched through his groin when she paused, her eyes riveting on his erection as if she could not help herself.

  He didn’t have to look down to know his tunic hid nothing of the extent of his arousal. And knowing she looked, that she continued to look, caused his shaft to thicken further.

  “You need not think,” her voice was husky and his cock jerked with appreciation. “I have any intention of continuing what you started last night when I was full of your heathen, hallucinatory drugs.”

  He stepped toward her. And recalled her seductive promise of holding him in the palm of her hand.

  “Are you certain of that?” He ached to take her in his arms. For her to wrap her legs around him. But he kept his distance by sheer force of will. She had to come to him.

  “Of course I’m certain.” She sounded offended that he could even suggest such a thing. “You took advantage of my vulnerable state. It won’t happen again.”

  “I didn’t take advantage.” But he nearly had. “Rape isn’t something I find enticing.”

  She opened her mouth as if she was about to disagree, and then narrowed her eyes instead. Obviously his words weren’t what she had anticipated.

  “I did not sugg
est you raped me.” Her voice was haughty. “I know full well you didn’t violate me. I’m merely telling you that you won’t find me so—responsive to your loathsome touch now. I’m no longer in thrall to your foreign drug.”

  Despite the lust hammering through his veins, he grinned. The look of disbelief on her face only served to heighten both his amusement and his desire.

  Extraordinary.

  “You find my touch loathsome?”

  “Utterly.” Her fingers twitched against her thigh. She either wanted to grip his cock as she had promised, or scratch out his eyes.

  He knew which he’d prefer.

  “So the only way to lower your inhibitions is when you’re under the influence of an aphrodisiac?”

  Her lips parted in clear annoyance to his accusation. But as he fixed his gaze on those luscious lips, he thought only of how they would feel wrapped around his cock. Gods. She was so close to him. He could feel her erratic breath through his tunic, caressing his shaft.

  Such fucking agony. He strangled the groan in his throat, fisted his hands by his sides and tightened the muscles in his thighs.

  None of it helped.

  “An aphrodisiac?” She spat the words at him. “How dare you suggest I have inhibitions?” She sounded as though he had flung the worst insult imaginable at her. It was enough for him to drag his attention from her lips and his cock to focus fully on her face. Even in this light, he could see the flush on her cheeks and the way her eyes sparkled in obvious affront at his comment.

  “Of course you have inhibitions.” Gods, how intensely exhilarating it was to have such an unorthodox conversation with a woman. He had never imagined such a thing before. “You’re a woman.”

  She leaned forward in her chair, her eyes never leaving his, apparently unaware that her mouth all but grazed the head of his engorged cock. So close…

  “I do not have inhibitions.” She heaved herself to her feet, her immobilized arm dragging up his erection with agonizing disregard. “I’ve no need for aphrodisiacs when I’m with a man I want to fuck.”

  He’d had plenty of girls and women in the past, both plebeians and nobles. They had been enthusiastic lovers, agreeable companions and not one of them had ever suggested by look or word that they found his presence distasteful. On the contrary, they made it plain they desired his attentions.

  Until this Celt, he’d never had to do much more than smile at an available woman to indicate his interest and without fail, he’d always received encouragement in return.

  “And you don’t want to fuck me?” The top of her head barely grazed his shoulder, and she glared up at him as if she wanted to tear the flesh from his bones. But her breath was erratic and the scent of feminine arousal drifted in the charged air, thickening his blood and twisting through his gut.

  She could say what she liked. Her body told the truth.

  “The very thought of it nauseates me.”

  Her words were insults. Her breathless delivery an erotic caress. It was hard to draw breath, to think straight; to keep his hands from cradling her face and silencing her with his mouth.

  “What really nauseates you is the fear you’d enjoy it.”

  Her eyes widened, her lips parted and her tempting breasts heaved, straining against the delicate wool of her ruined gown. She was in need of a bath and her hair was messy with loose tendrils curling over her cheeks and shoulders. There was no reason why he should find her so irresistible in her disheveled state. Yet he found her as sexy and fuckable now as he had when they had met by the mountain stream.

  “With a Roman?” She flicked her gaze over him, and once again lingered on his cock. Would she really protest if he just took her now? He’d never been so fucking hard before. “I hate Romans.” Her eyes were fixed on his groin. Her words of condemnation weaved through him like a potent aphrodisiac. “I despise them and everything they stand for.”

  He couldn’t help himself. He reached out and grasped her untidy braid, letting it slide along the palm of his hand. She didn’t gasp in outrage, didn’t jerk her head or push his arm away. She simply stood there, and slowly dragged her gaze up his body until their eyes meshed.

  “Yet you still desire this Roman.” It wasn’t a question. He could see the answer in her eyes. He didn’t need her to like him. What did it matter if she despised him?

  All he wanted from her was her willing compliance.

  Her breath hitched, as she attempted to drag air into her lungs.

  “I’m not a bitch in heat.” The tip of her tongue moistened the seam of her lips. He recalled the feel of her tongue inside his mouth, demanding, exploring. Uninhibited. “I don’t need to act on every desire that attacks me.”

  He wound her braid around his hand. Imagined unbinding her hair and spearing his fingers through the honey-gold tresses.

  “So you admit that you do desire me?” Satisfaction hummed through his blood, threaded through his voice. He tightened his grip on her hair. “What else do we need between us, Celt?”

  Her eyes were dark, seductive, the green almost obliterated. Her hand pressed against his chest, against his heart, but it wasn’t a defensive gesture. It was as if she couldn’t help herself.

  “Respect.” The word was little more than a whisper, but the unmistakable thread of despair pierced through his pounding lust. He released her hair, cupped her face and stroked his thumb across her silken cheek.

  It hadn’t occurred to him she might fear such a thing. She was not, after all, a gently bred Roman girl. Celtic women took lovers whenever they pleased. Even their chieftain class did not, to his knowledge, demand that their women remain virgins until their wedding night.

  Somehow, this unexpected fissure of vulnerability caused an odd sensation deep in his chest.

  Perhaps this Celt wasn’t as experienced as he’d imagined. He found that notion pleasing. More than pleasing. He found it excessively arousing.

  With his free hand, he tenderly stroked errant curls from her face. She had a sharp tongue but it was nothing but a shield to hide her relative innocence.

  “When you belong to me,” he whispered, “I will still respect you.”

  She continued to gaze at him for endless moments, as though she did not quite understand his meaning. Then her hand slid from his chest and her eyes widened in comprehension.

  “When I belong to you?” She sounded incredulous. “I don’t care for your respect, arrogant Roman. I speak of mutual respect between a man and a woman but more than that—I speak of the respect I have for myself.” She tossed her head, to dislodge his hands, and he was so stunned by her response that he released her without protest. “Not that I expect you to understand that, since Romans don’t know the meaning of the word.”

  She glared at him, as proud as if she was the Emperor’s daughter and as indignant as if he had grievously offended her honor. When all he had intended was to comfort her with his words.

  “It’s you who appears not to understand the concept of respect.” Or self-preservation. But although he knew that, with another, her belligerent attitude could cost her life, right now he was more irked that she clearly did not care a fig about possessing his respect.

  “I respect those who have earned it.” Her voice was scathing, but still her breath was short. Her breasts rose and fell with erratic distraction. He battled against the primitive urge to pin her to the mattress and ride her until she screamed with orgasmic delirium.

  At the mountain stream, he’d been enchanted by her forthright manner. It was refreshing to meet someone—especially a desirable woman—who didn’t defer to his rank or social standing.

  But she was pushing the boundaries. If she behaved in such a disrespectful manner in public, or insulted another officer, they would think nothing of wrenching her tongue from her mouth.

  If she didn’t learn a modicum of obedience or, at least, a sliver of common sense, he’d have no alternative but to keep her in utmost seclusion.

  He wound his hand around her thr
oat. A gentle grasp, only to remind her how vulnerable she was. Her pulse fluttered against his thumb, an erotic counterpoint to his own hammering heartbeat.

  “If you want to survive in this world, you had best learn to hide your disdain for your conquerors.”

  She didn’t break eye contact. Didn’t try to wrench his hand from her throat. It was as if she possessed no fear of him at all.

  Instead, she jabbed her finger into his chest with unbelievable lack of deference. “You will never be my conqueror.”

  He leaned in close until their lips all but touched, and offered her a grim smile. “I already am.”

  Chapter 8

  Nimue attempted to convince herself the flutterings in her stomach, the tightness in her chest and inability to think clearly was because she had been injured. But her swollen pussy, her trembling clit and the unmistakable dampness between her thighs told the true tale.

  No matter how this Roman’s arrogance should inflame her fury, his words only inflamed her despicable lust.

  His hand encircled her throat. She had no illusion that if he so desired he could snap her neck as easily as he might a bird’s. Yet, irrationally, it wasn’t fear that flooded her body and tampered with her mind.

  How much easier would it be for her sanity, if she feared this Roman as she should.

  Her hand flattened against his chest, against his hard muscles and a tremor raced from the tips of her fingers, along her arm and shimmered across her exposed cleavage. She longed to pull his tunic from his body, run her hand over his naked flesh and feast upon the glory of his cock.

  There was no doubt it would be glorious. Even through his tunic, she had been mesmerized by its tempting promise.

  Despite all her convictions, her body softened, and no matter how she clenched her inner muscles it did nothing to stop the frantic need pulsing in her blood. His mouth was so close to hers. His gaze, intense. And the tips of his fingers scorched the vulnerable column of her throat.