by Joan Kayse
“Menw! We’re hungry!” Julian shouted as he dashed into the kitchen.
Adria paused at the doorway, scanned the spacious cooking area. Miriam’s rooms would fit several times over in this space. Cupboards lined the far wall, exposed shelves stacked with a variety of bowls, bronze plates, tin goblets and a handful of green glass beakers. Dried herbs hung from a thin rope strung across the wall that separated the cupboard from the raised hearth where a cauldron bubbled on a tripod set over a charcoal fire. She inhaled, her mouth watering at the savory scent. It had been almost a full day since she’d last eaten.
Menw looked up from the mortar and pestle he was using. “Are you, muirichinn?” Tucking the mortar into the crook of his crippled arm, he turned away from the work table and added the powdered ingredients to the pot with his other hand. “Julian, fetch that wedge of cheese from the cupboard. Cyma, bring along the bread as well.”
Adria watched the children scatter to do Menw’s bidding, gathering the food then standing expectantly by the table. She looked past them to the outside door. Beyond was an outer gate that led to an alley. The ideal opportunity. Bran was gone, the children would think it a game and she’d be through the gate before Menw could think twice.
“My lady, you know you cannot leave.”
Adria shot a look to Menw, whose back was still to her. A chill crept along her arms. His voice had sounded close, as if he’d been behind her, whispering in her ear.
Menw turned and smiled. “Adria, would you bring that pitcher of water to the table?”
Adria did as he asked but kept a wary eye on him as she lifted the clay pitcher from a spot by the hearth. At his direction, she also retrieved four goblets and a bone-handled knife from the cupboard. He smiled again when she offered him the knife.
“Would you cut the portions?” He glanced down at the stump of his arm. “I find it a bit difficult to manage.”
Adria gave him a long, sideways look as he expertly balanced the pitcher and began to fill the goblets. She imagined there wasn’t anything Bran’s servant could not manage well when he set his mind to it. She considered the knife in her hand, curled her fingers around the handle. It wasn’t as well-weighted as the one Bran had taken from her, but it was still a weapon. Menw looked up, the warning clear behind his kind, gray eyes. Adria met his gaze and shifted the blade to her other hand in silent reply. What could the servant do to stop her from leaving?
In a blur of motion another knife materialized in Menw’s good hand and sailed through the air. The thunk of the blade buried in the wooden lintel reverberated in the room like a cymbal. Julian and Cyma whooped in delight.
Menw smiled at her. “My apologies. Clumsiness is a curse for a one-armed man.”
Adria pressed her lips together. Clumsy like a viper. Holding his gaze she drove the dull blade into the round of cheese and demonstrated her own skill by slicing perfect portions. Menw nodded in silent salute and handed her a plate with a large slice of bread spread with honey.
Julian and Cyma begged to sit outside and Menw agreed. Once he’d settled them on the crumbled remains of a low stone wall he returned and offered Adria a tall stool while he leaned against the table. “My thanks for cleaning the entry.”
“Thanks?” She licked a drop of honey off of her thumb, savoring the sweetness. “I was ordered to do it.”
Menw tilted his head in thought. “Aye, perhaps you were.”
Adria gave a short laugh. “I was. I distinctly heard the directive in the growl your master uttered as he left.”
Menw smiled and offered her another slice of bread.
Adria tried not to snatch it off the plate. She took her time spreading honey on it before taking a delicate bite. A difficult feat when her instinct was to devour it like a ravening wolf, so deep was the ache in her belly.
“’Tis no shame in being hungry,” said Menw, adding a handful of dates to her plate, “I’ve had a fair portion of days when I thought I’d go mad from hunger.”
Adria nearly choked on the date she was swallowing. “Your master starves you?”
Menw frowned and then smiled. “Bran? No, he would never do so.” He looked past her, his eyes unfocused, shadowed with pain, as if he were looking at something far beyond the kitchen. “He’s had his days of deprivation as well.”
“You are not a slave? Is the barbarian not your master?”
His mouth curved into a wry smile. “No, the barbarian is my clansman.” He poured her another goblet of water. “Which would make me a barbarian as well.”
Adria bit her lip. She’d not meant to repay Menw’s kindness with an insult but he continued on in a genial tone.
“Bran rescued me from my enslavement nearly two years past. I owe him my life.”
Bran coming to the rescue of anyone was difficult to imagine, yet it was obvious from the expression of gratitude on the man’s face that he was sincere. “Menw,” she said slowly, “you know I do not wish to be here.”
“Aye, I know that, my lady,” answered Menw. “But Bran, for reasons even he does not yet understand, does.”
Of course Bran knew the reason, she thought. He enjoyed being a domineering ass. Before she could explain this, Menw continued.
“Adria, Bran is a determined man, more so now than I have ever known him to be. You took from a man who has had too much taken already. It is not something easily forgiven.”
Adria clung to her pride, used it to suppress the tendrils of guilt that threatened her composure. She knew it would be useless to remind Menw that Bran had his property and the coin from Tiege as well, leaving her with nothing. He had grown in wealth while she remained in dire circumstances with a master thief after her, eager for revenge and a family depending on her. “I do not see how being nursemaid to his children—a task I have no skill for or knowledge of—evens the debt he feels owed. What of the children’s mother?”
Menw’s expression sobered. “Their mother is dead.”
Adria glanced at the two children chattering out in the courtyard and felt an instant pang of sympathy. “The fever?” she murmured.
“No,” replied Menw. “She was killed.”
Chapter Eight
She was still in the domus.
Bran rolled his shoulders and poured a goblet of wine in the now-quiet kitchen. Menw and the children had sought their beds long ago. And Adria? He had no idea where Menw had put her but she was still there, every fiber of his being certain of it. He took a long drink, stared at the shadows flickering across the wall from the lone clay lamp. Bran felt her presence; his share of the familial gift assured him she had not fled.
Wise girl.
Oh, he had little doubt that escaping was uppermost in her mind. It would have been his first inclination. But some shred of good sense had caused her not to test him. He set his mouth in a grim line. If she had, he would have hunted her down and dragged her back by those silky, ebony curls. Though he had no sane explanation why.
Hours of work over his brazier, heating and shaping gold, hammering and etching, had eased his frustration with Linus but failed to banish Adria from his thoughts. He’d labored until his vision had gone bleary and the muscles in his back screamed with fatigue and still he’d seen images of her lush curves, violet eyes filled with defiance and chin tilted in challenge. Bran took another drink, savored the burn of the wine down his throat. Gods, why was he allowing her to plague his thoughts? It was nothing more than his body reacting to a woman, demanding needs long ignored be sated. Any female would satisfy and his selection was unlimited, he thought darkly. Patrician women—wives, daughters, hell even mothers of some of the most powerful Romans would consider being laid by a gladiator the supreme triumph.
The thief would not.
He recalled the flash of fear in her eyes when she’d thought he would seek retribution by forcing himself on her, recalled also how it had been replaced by challenge.
That same spirit had intrigued Bran when he’d tracked her to the thief’s den and wat
ched from the shadows. As a warrior and a gladiator he’d met more than one enemy at a time but he’d been armed with sword and knife and skilled in battle. He shook his head at the memory. Adria had faced the roomful of scum alone, her wits her only weapon. Foolish was what she’d been, just as he’d been foolish to declare her the children’s nursemaid.
He snorted in self-derision, filled the goblet a second time and drained it. A rash decision made in anger and fueled by pride. Arrogance such as that had led to his life being torn apart. He’d refused to listen to Bryna’s warning not to trade with the Ileni, had brushed it off as overreaction, confident in his abilities and his decision to trade with the Ileni. That confidence had led to his being sold into slavery, his sister and friends innocent victims of his own conceit. The weight of that guilt never left him.
His captors had tried to beat the pride out of him. Insolence they’d called it, unacceptable in a slave. They’d plied their whips, their canes and chains and when those had failed, subjected him to utter humiliation. They’d thought him cowed when he’d stopped rebelling at every turn when in truth he’d come to realize that a dead man could not serve vengeance.
So he’d honed his skill, learned the way of their unholy games, killed and kept enough of his pride intact to go on living.
But now that same arrogance had caused him to complicate his life further. It would be a simple matter to do as Adria demanded and release her. Allow her to return to her thieving ways. Bran could not refute the logic in her argument that he had retrieved his property and while the profit had been less than he’d planned, it had been made up for by the coin from Tiege he’d confiscated.
But his pride demanded that the thief pay for his trouble and what better punishment then to put into her care three children who would test the very patience of the gods. Two problems solved, he thought, then frowned. Or another beginning?
He wanted to believe the thoughts of Adria that had plagued him all afternoon stemmed from his body’s demand for release. He’d not lain with a woman since Alexandria. Abstinence wrecked havoc on a man’s mind and the pleasure of his own hand was a poor substitute. He emptied the flagon into the goblet. Devious ways aside, her body taunted him, fired his blood, taunted his own into feeling alive.
It had nothing to do with her spirit, her wit, her intelligence.
He finished the wine to quell the anxiety rising in his gut. Life and any enjoyment of it had ended when the tip of his gladius plunged into his first opponent’s neck. With every victory the wall of dark, cold numbness had grown thick around him, his harsh control the only thing keeping him sane. He’d be damned if a mere slip of girl would jeopardize it.
Then why not let her go?
Bran sighed, weary to the bone. Perhaps he’d already slipped over the edge into madness. By Dagda, he could not recall a time when he had not felt drained. He picked up the lamp and walked down the hall that led to the bath. He had little tolerance for Roman ways and customs but did enjoy the pleasure of their bathing rituals. He would soak the aches from his body and push the dilemma of the girl out of his mind. Then he would continue to drink himself into a stupor.
Bran felt the heavy tug of steam as he stepped into the short corridor that separated the kitchen and bath and sent a silent thanks to Menw for his forethought in setting the water to heat. The open door flickered with light from lamps already hanging from chains in the ceiling. He paid no attention to the inner room as he blew out his lamp. A splash sounded from the pool. By the gods, if Cyma had allowed that kitten to get loose to foul his bath with fur... Bran turned, prepared to scoop the soggy little beast out and banish it to the garden. Instead he froze, rooted in place.
Adria sat submerged to her waist in the water, her back to him and the entry. She seemed oblivious to his presence, though Bran could not say the same. His very skin tingled with awareness and his cock tightened. Mist swirled up from the steaming water, framing the long, sleek lines of her exposed back. Wet and loosened from its braid, a wild tangle of midnight curls fell well past her shoulders, the thick tresses providing only glimpses of the smooth golden skin of her shoulders. His hands flexed against the urge to run his fingers through the glorious mass.
Bran opened his mouth to order her out but the words caught in his throat when she lifted her left arm and ran a sponge from wrist to shoulder, his gaze tracking the rivulets of water as they trickled down the side of her torso. He leaned forward and cursed the flickering light of the lamps that cast the front of her chest in shadows.
Gods, he was acting like a youth besotted with his first glimpse of a female! This was absurd. This was his house and his bath and he’d be damned if he was going to let the thief keep him from it.
He took a step toward the bath as Adria sighed and sank beneath the water. Within moments she surfaced only this time there were no shadows to hide her luscious body as she twirled around and faced him, her eyes closed against the water.
Bran devoured the sight of her breasts like a starving man. They were perfect, just as he’d imagined. Full, round, generous enough to fit with ease into his large hands. His mouth went dry when she raised her arms to smooth her hair from her face, the dusky-rose tips pebbled into tight buds from the brush of cool air. He ached to touch them. Closing his eyes he imagined suckling first one then the other while Adria writhed beneath him. His cock, hard as a stone already, strained for release. A sharp gasp cut through his reverie, snapping his eyes open to stare into a pair of wide, violet eyes.
***
Adria slapped her arms across her exposed chest and slipped beneath the water to her neck, her heart tripping in her chest. It’s not Tiege come to slit your throat, it’s not Tiege, it’s not Tiege, she mentally chanted. It was just her captor. She took a steadying breath then blinked. Her tall, virile captor. Her heart did not slow its pace.
Adria was aware that she was staring at Bran, held by the powerful sight of him standing like a statue, a scowl marking his handsome features. His battle stance sent a small thrill through her which she quickly tamped down. She could not allow her guard to slip. He was not her friend and could not be trusted.
Still there was something alluring about him even though his tunic was damp around the neck and sleeves, the lower portion soiled with black soot as if he’d wiped his hands upon it. Dragging her gaze upward, she noted matching smudges along his chin and nose.
The muted light from the wall lamps accentuated the angles of his features, angles made more striking by his shadow beard. He looked dangerous and deadly and fully capable of killing. She met his furious gaze, the forest-green depths full of anger and annoyance and she swallowed hard. “What are you doing here?” The question came out on a croak.
Bran narrowed his eyes. “You dare to ask me a question such as that?”
Did the man ever speak without growling?
“This is my house. I will come where I please!”
As any good barbarian would, she thought ruefully. “I asked your servant for a basin of water so that I might bathe. He directed me here.”
Bran tightened crossed arms across his chest. “Then I am directing you out.”
And how was she to accomplish that when he stood like a stone block in front of the only exit? She pressed her lips together in irritation. She’d been enjoying the hot bath, the first proper one she’d had in months. A visit to the public baths was costly and when Menw had shown her to the pool she’d felt as if she’d been granted a boon from Olympus. Now the barbarian was going to ruin it.
“I am not finished,” she said in the lightest tone she could muster. The look on his face was beyond price, but her amusement faded when those firm lips lifted in a mocking smile.
“It is no matter. I have no objections to sharing my bath.”
Gods.
His gaze locked on hers, filled with smug challenge.
He presumed to frighten her, cause her to run like a frightened hare. Adria tightened her jaw.
He quirked one brow and to
ok a step.
Adria backed against the pool’s edge. She forced herself to take slow breaths to keep the knot of anxiety tightened in her gut from unraveling. She was not fainthearted. She knew how to keep her head, watch for openings to turn the situation to her advantage. Miriam called her fortunate but Adria knew better. Living in the streets honed such a skill to a sharp edge and if one did not learn to wield it one died. This man was no different than the venders she evaded every day in the marketplace.
Save you are his prisoner.
Adria frowned. A temporary inconvenience, she assured herself, one that she would use to her advantage. She only needed to wait for the right distraction.
Bran shifted his gaze away allowing Adria a breath of relief. But it was short lived. She watched open-mouthed as he bent over, muscles gliding beneath the bronzed skin of his arms and began to unlace his boots. The flickering light from the lamps fell across his hands, holding her attention. Blunt-tip fingers loosened the leather strips. Nimble, she thought vaguely, despite their size. He was no clumsy boy. Adria longed to know the touch of such strong, skillful hands.
Distraction? Oh, she was indeed distracted.
“Be still,” she commanded. “I will leave. Just step outside a moment while I clothe myself.”
He glanced up from removing one boot, that mocking half-smile curving into a sneer. “You give me orders?” He kicked off the other one, picked up both boots and flung them with more force than was necessary into the corner of the room. He turned back to her, the look in his eyes on the edge of deadly. “I stopped taking orders the day I stopped being a slave.”