by Georgia Fox
"It has stopped its noise for now," the soldier muttered warily. "But who knows when it will start again?"
He looked at it from a few feet away and then advanced with three bold steps, to assure the soldier that he was not afraid. The object was surely too small to be of any danger and its edges were softly rounded so it would not make a good weapon. "It is wrought of metal. Some sort of metal."
Suddenly it let out a high-pitched sound and a bright light flashed across its flat surface.
Marcus almost dropped the torch. He stared as the noise continued in short bursts of fury. Then the light dimmed and the object was silent again.
"See, general?" The soldier came up behind him, his voice ragged. "That's what it does. Without rhyme nor reason. Even when it is not touched, it protests in that manner."
Well, he may not believe in magic, but this was something inexplicable.
"Give me your gladius," he said, holding out his free hand. The soldier complied immediately and Marcus walked slowly around the hay bales, holding the gladius, trying to ascertain if the object had a face. Finally he poked it with the tip of the blade.
Nothing.
He poked it again and then slid the blade beneath and flipped it over. The other side was covered in jewels that gleamed in the torchlight.
It was clearly an object belonging to someone noble.
"We found it among the red-head's clothing, general," said the soldier.
Marcus nodded.
All the facts began to add up in his mind.
She could have let herself be caught, just to spy upon him for her people. Certainly she had a rare beauty and could be using it to draw him in by his prick. Women were devious, cunning creatures and she would not, by any means, be the first to try getting under the skin of Marcus Cassius— whether for reasons of her own advancement through the slave ranks, or to carry his secrets back to the enemy.
"Where are you going?" she had demanded, as if she had a right to know.
Hmm, that was indeed suspicious. And he, like a green fool, had answered her.
The way his body already responded to her was dangerous and now that she was no longer immediately in his presence he began to see the warning signs more clearly. She had shown anger when he caught her, but not fear. Was her spitting and kicking all an act? Her demeanor at dinner was almost that of one accepting her fate. The turnabout came too quickly. And while she asked a lot of questions, she answered few about her own people.
He passed the gladius back to its owner. "It is good that you found this thing. Keep it guarded here. Tell no one else. I will deal with this matter, and with the woman."
The soldier bowed respectfully and Marcus strode angrily out of the barn. When he got to the door, he paused and turned back.
"Have you heard any mention of a native tribe called the A-Dahmus?"
"No, general. I don't believe so."
Of course not. She had lied.
"What is it, slave? Tonight I will allow you to ask me one more question."
"Just one? Don't you think I might have more than one?"
"There is no reason for many questions. I have explained you your place here and who I am. You need know nothing more."
"But I want to know more."
A spy. He pressed his lips together in fury and continued on his way. He had a horse to take care of. Then he would handle the witch who had tried to enchant him.
For a moment he had let himself believe she was interested in him as a man. But it was likely her interest was only that of an enemy spy.
Chapter Five
Amanda had not fallen asleep, so she heard him coming. His footsteps echoed on the marble and then he jerked on her collar chain.
"Up, slave."
That was different tone to the one of mild exasperation he had last used on her.
"I know why you are here," he announced, looming over her, firelight slashing across his face.
Good, she was glad someone did. But she guessed this was not the time to be flippant.
"You are here to pry into my movements, eh? Perhaps to ascertain a way in which I can be murdered?"
"What? No!" She put a hand on her collar. "I am not a spy. I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Marcus paced at the foot of the bed. "You allowed yourself to be caught today in the forest. You were set there to capture my attention."
"No! That's—"
"What is the thing that squeals and makes bright light?" He stopped and glowered at her, knuckles resting on his hips. "It is a weapon more advanced than anything I have seen among these primitive tribes of Britannia."
She stared. It took her moment to understand. "My phone? You found my phone!" Thank goodness. For a moment she felt less stranded. Until she realized it may not work here. At least she would know now whether this was a dream or if she really had gone back in time.
"So you are Phoenician? I should have seen at once you are not from this place."
"I am from this place. Just not this time, Marcus."
When she spoke his name the soldier’s eyes flared and his shoulders stiffened, but he made no comment. No doubt he was considering her capable of far worse transgressions and so let the mistake slide. "What do you mean to tell me, woman? You speak nonsense."
May as well try to explain, she thought. It wasn't as if she had any other story to give. "When you found me in the forest today I had just walked through a bathroom door in the twenty-first century A.D." She held up her hand, palm facing him. "I know it sounds ridiculous and I have no idea how it happened, but it's the truth."
"Your lies are as lush and entertaining as your body," he remarked coolly.
"I am from the future. Let me have my phone and I can prove it. Or I can try."
"You want your weapon back? I think not, slave. The weapon is kept under guard and shall remain there until you confess your mission."
"It is not a weapon. It's a device for communication over great distances."
"Aha! So you want to report your progress to those who sent you here. You have done well, for here you are already in my bed."
Amanda groaned, pressing fingers to her forehead. In all likelihood her phone would only increase his confusion and suspicion. "I don't know what else to tell you, except that I mean you no harm. I was just as surprised today in that forest as you were."
"I should have given you to the governor tonight! In truth I have no room for another female slave. I keep too many well fed already."
She was up on her knees now. "Fine. Give me to him. I can't wait!"
"So you want to go with him, eh?" he shouted, eyes hot and dark.
"It's called sarcasm," she shouted back. "I'd tell you to look it up, but you probably can't even read."
"You dare raise your voice to me!"
"How else can I make you listen, stubborn Roman ox?"
"Keep talking, slave. Every word will get you another lash."
"You said you don't believe in beating your slaves."
He stuck out his jaw. "I'll let Gaius do it!"
"If you give me to him, you'd be cutting off your nose to spite your face." Whatever happened, until she escaped this world, Amanda knew she wanted to stay with Marcus. Even a Marcus who doubted her motives, but fed her with his own fingers, was better than a Gaius who wanted her beaten, starved and used for breeding stock.
She knew Marcus wanted to keep her. They had a connection from the first eye contact. It was so strong it had terrified her. And Amanda Adams was not easily scared.
"So," he jabbed a finger at her, "you threaten to cut off my nose, eh?"
"Now you're just being stupid," she screamed, frustrated.
He curled his long fingers into great fists at his sides and Amanda suffered a flicker of fear then. She shrank back to the far end of the bed on her chain. "Why should I keep you?" he demanded, "Why?"
"At least if I am here you can keep an eye on me. Who knows what I might do when I am out of your sight?"
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He glowered down at her. She thought desperately for some way to be of use to him— beyond the sex.
"I could tell you some things that will happen in the future."
"Then you confess to witchcraft?"
"No! I know about things because I am from the future." Amanda paused, searching her mind for facts. "What year is this?"
Marcus spat angrily, "The tenth year of Emperor Nero's reign, of course."
Then it was A.D. 64— although this man would not know that calendar—and according to the buds on the trees it was spring. Therefore she had some knowledge of a coming event with which to impress him. "In July of this year Rome will burn in a fire. A terrible fire."
Through narrowed eyes he surveyed her. "July?"
"Julius as you would call it."
"I see. You have knowledge of the plot to burn our great city? Who are the instigators of this planned crime? Confess all to me and I may be lenient."
Oh, no. Had she just landed herself deeper in trouble with her eagerness to be clever?
"Speak, woman!"
"I don't know," she cried. "I don't know how it starts, but when it burns some will blame Nero, so he will seek a scapegoat. That is when the persecution and torture of Christians will begin."
He drew back, shaking his head. "Christians? They are a small religious sect, harmless and insignificant."
"But Nero won't think so and he will feed them to the lions. The fire will be his excuse. Apparently you people didn't need much reason to enjoy a bloodthirsty, cruel entertainment."
"You people." He squared his shoulders and she saw the veins on the back of his hands. "This you say with disdain in your voice. But I know it is envy. We Romans are the greatest race that ever lived and ever shall live. We have conquered the world."
"In four years Nero will kill himself. In another four hundred years your Empire will be dying, Marcus."
"Never! We are the—"
"There will be military losses, taxation, inflation, an over-reliance on slave labor. And Germanic tribes will finally sack Rome in 476 A.D."
"In the name of Jupiter, you are mad, woman! You speak seditious lies."
"It's history and you're a part of it." Had Marcus Cassius truly existed? As soon as she got back to her own time, she'd Google his name, she thought, with a sudden burst of excitement.
"I thank you for the information about our enemies planning to set Rome ablaze. Now what else will you confess, slave?"
"It wasn't a confession," she exclaimed, exasperated. "It's nothing to do with me. I should be sitting in a dark corner at a party right now, picking fruit out of a lethal combination of alcoholic beverages and waiting for my friend Chrissy to pick a quarrel with someone so we can leave. I'm just a woman minding my own business and trying to get through life."
"You are a woman, yes. That much is true. And as such you are here as a receptacle for my strong seed."
"Oh, good grief. Is that all you people think about?"
"There, again! You people."
"Well, I'm sorry if it offends you, but I think I'm the one with more right to feel insulted, after the way you treated me today." She grabbed her chain and shook it.
"Insulted? I have honored you by making you my bed slave, woman, and promising you the fucking of your life."
She yelled, "Be still my heart!"
He tore his tunic off over his head, leaving his short, black curls rumpled and on end. He tossed the garment across the floor and she saw he was already erect. "Get on your hands and knees," he growled, breathless.
"What are you going to do?"
"Silence! Get on your hands and knees on the bed." He spat on his hand and ran it over his rampant organ. "I have been too soft with you, as the governor said. You will not make a fool of me, spy."
Chained to his bed, she had no other choice but to comply. Perhaps now she would finally wake up. If he did to her what she suspected he was planning, then that might be the event that catapulted her back to her consciousness and real life.
"Down," he ordered, pushing her shoulders to the bed. "Keep your arse high." With his other hand he spanked her hard on her bare bottom. She was so shocked she didn't know what to say. It stung meanly. And then he spanked her again. "Beg me to keep you, slave." A third slap made her knees bounce and she muffled her cries in the sheepskin bed cover. "Beg me, Axa, or I will send you to Gaius Damianus and let him dispense your punishment."
Her skin was on fire from the crack of his hard hand, but a frisson of wicked delight shot from her sore cheeks to her pussy. It gathered there in heavy waves that made her sway slightly off balance and arch her spine to push her bottom higher still.
"In heat, eh?" he exclaimed, spanking her again. "Like a bitch in heat you throw your cunt up at me. Luring me in. That's where you want me, isn't it, Axa?" He pinched her labia and then slapped it. "You think you will own me with this tight cunt of yours."
She knew he did this out of frustration and sexual arousal. He did not know how else to manage his feral princess spy. "That's right," she muttered over her shoulder. "My pussy is just a trap. Isn't that what all men have thought since the beginning of bloody time?"
Marcus leapt onto the bed, his big form covering her, straddling her lower half. He licked his fingers and began forcing them between her buttocks. "Now beg me to keep you," he hissed, his breath dampening her neck.
She felt his index finger pushing into her anus and she cried out, "Why should I beg? You know you want to! You just don't want to admit it."
He worked that wet finger in and out, cursing under his breath. The hard planes of his chest pushed into her shoulders and his massive cock pushed at the back of her thigh, the fleshy head of it throbbing against the curve of her arse. "I will fill you, Axa, again and again. There will be nothing left for Gaius or any other man who comes after."
She groaned as he entered her with a second finger. "Marcus!"
"Beg me. Say you wish to be my slave, Axa."
It hurt, but she was so aroused, the endorphins released set her being on another plane, high above. She wanted sex. She needed it now. With him. Their quarrel had raised her body heat, and not far beneath the exchange of words and insults there was violent lust. She had seen in his dark, dark eyes the temper of an angered lion. But she refused to back down and quake before him. Until that moment, Amanda had never known exactly what she wanted, what she had waited for all these years.
No man had excited her like he did.
She expected to feel his phallus breaching her pussy, but instead it followed where his fingers had been.
He was entering her back door.
"Ouch! Stop. Not there! It's too big for my arse," she cried.
Marcus Cassius disregarded her protest. "Here I come, slave."
"Oh...oh... god," she groaned through gritted teeth. "Yesss. Oh god, yes!"
"I am your master, Axa. I do as I please with you and you welcome it." He thrust a half-inch and she felt her tight muscles opening under the intense pressure. "Whatever my pleasure must be yours too."
She tried to take a breath. "I thought you... wanted... my virginity."
"Oh, I'm saving your maidenhead," he purred in her ear as he held himself poised partially inside her threshold, "for a special celebration later."
Amanda struggled to catch her breath. His hands reached under and cupped her swaying breasts, his callused fingers teasing her nipples.
"Open for me," he growled, his teeth skimming her ear, "I must spend inside my pretty slave. Naughty, naughty spy who plots for my undoing."
She could not believe what he was doing to her, mounting her like a bull. Gasping, panting, she arched her neck, her head falling back. His teeth skimmed her ear and the side of her neck, where he planted a kiss as he eased his cock deeper. Her bottom felt full, her anus stretched beyond capacity. As he slowly began to ride Amanda, his heavy balls occasionally swayed forward enough to kiss her damp, sticky pussy lips. It was a slight, teasing touch that maddened h
er, made her want to grind back, impale herself on his huge rod.
His blood was clearly boiling too, his needs slipping beyond even his stern self-control.
"This makes me even hungrier for your cunt," he whispered huskily, sliding one hand down, over her belly, to her vulva. His hot fingers fondled her, circling her clit, while his cock still plundered her back passage with slow, steady strokes. Then he pressed the heel of his hand against her core, pushing on her roused clit, holding her as the tension built to an explosion.
"Marcus!" Amanda began to orgasm with a ferocity that made her spit, her body flexing wildly under his. "Don't give me to the governor."
"Excusa?"
"Keep me, Marcus. Keep me, damn you." Her muscles clamped hard on his battering ram and her master celebrated with a grunt of pleasure as he spilled his load.
She felt the pulsing flood of his semen and when he pulled out it trickled from her anus and down her inner thigh. Every part of her ached.
He rolled onto his back on the bed.
"You're right, slave," he murmured, "'tis for the best I keep my eye upon you. I'll keep you a while yet. Until I grow tired of you."
She was still struggling to get her breath back and make sense of this rough, animalistic thing she'd allowed him to do to her. And she was embarrassed that she'd begged. What a blow for the feminist inside her. "You said you would remove my collar."
"That was if you behaved. I find that you did not."
"I have done nothing against you," she protested. "What have I done? I even begged you, just the way you wanted!"
He considered this for a moment, his gaze searching the ceiling, as if he might find evidence there of her guilt. "You did not beg me very nicely. And you climaxed, slave, before I gave you permission. You lack the humility I expect in my slaves."
She was outraged. "Before you gave me permission!? You bastard! I'll never—"
"Silence!" He sat up suddenly and grabbed her wrists. "I have endured enough of your defiant mouth. Remember, Axa, you please me or you go to Gaius Damianus. And now you will work even harder for my entertainment, since you schemed to be here and your task was to seduce and then kill me. You have much evil to make up for, Druid woman."