Enslaved (The Druid Chronicles Book 3)

by Christina Phillips

  He turned and she couldn’t drag her fascinated gaze from the way his cloak swung about his muscled legs, nor the arrogant way he marched through the legionaries. Only when he finally disappeared did she heave a silent sigh and sweep her glance around the glade.

  She was desperate to relieve herself. And she had no intention of waiting for Tacitus to produce a loathsome bucket. Stealthily she made her way to the tree line. She would be only a few moments.

  No one accosted her. No one gave her more than a fleeting glance. If she had intended to escape, who would stop her?

  The thought hammered through her brain. Would anyone try? How far could she get before Tacitus returned and began a search?

  As she slid into the edge of the forest, the thought persisted. She was under no illusion that all these Romans and their mercenaries knew Tacitus considered her his personal property. And yet clearly he had not given orders that she was to be prevented from wandering as she pleased.

  Peering through the barrier of bushes at the activity as a camp was constructed, that knowledge glowed, bright with promise. She couldn’t escape tonight. Not only was she ill-prepared but she still had to find the queen and princess.

  But she’d discovered something valuable. Something she intended to use. Tacitus trusted her to obey his command. When the time was right, she would use that trust to secure the freedom of the Briton queen and her daughter.

  Feeling considerably more cheerful with an empty bladder and new possibilities of escape, she stepped back into the glade. A shadow loomed from the darkness of the trees and her heart slammed against her ribs in sudden alarm. Has someone been watching me?

  “Don’t you know how dangerous it is for a Celt to wander alone out here?” The voice was mocking, accented and she couldn’t place it at all.

  “Who are you?” Her voice was haughty. She would never show how his sudden appearance had so badly startled her.

  He moved from the shadows and she glared at him. He was no Roman but one of their auxiliaries. How dare he creep up on her?

  “I’m the one who saved the worthless skin of the Roman you intended to gut.”

  Jagged thoughts pounded through her brain. She had never intended to gut Tacitus, but she remembered advancing toward him, dagger poised.

  “You shot me.” She didn’t feel particularly angry at him. She was, after all, his enemy and in his shoes would likely have done the same to save one of her own.

  “I did.” Although the sun was sinking onto the western horizon, the twilight illuminated the glade and she could clearly see the dislike ingrained in the auxiliary’s features. “Next time I’ll ride away.”

  What did he mean? That he regretted shooting her? Why would he regret something like that?

  “Bearach.” The voice was sharp, authoritative. “What in the gods’ names are you doing?”

  Another auxiliary. Nimue drew the cloak around her more securely and stiffened her spine further. If Tacitus came upon her now he would never believe she hadn’t been trying to escape. He’d jump to the conclusion these two barbarians had prevented her, and then she could forget about her tribune extending even a modicum of trust toward her again.

  “I’m doing nothing, Gervas,” Bearach said. “Isn’t that right, Celt? I haven’t touched a hair on your head.”

  “Enough.” Gervas towered over her, but his attention was focused on the other man. “It’s not the girl’s fault. Get out of here before her master discovers to whom she speaks.”

  Her master? Nimue shot Gervas a glare of intense dislike, but he missed it since he was entirely focused on Bearach.

  Bearach gave a bitter laugh. “He must value you highly, Celt. Not many Roman officers go so far as to buy a foreign slave when her charms can be had for free. You must be a mind-blowing fuck.”

  “Go.” Gervas didn’t raise his voice, but it was enough for Bearach to turn and stalk back to camp.

  Nimue glowered after his retreating back, his words pummeling inside her skull. She didn’t believe him. Not for a moment. Tacitus had not bought her.

  “You must forgive his uncouth tongue,” Gervas said, indicating with a sweep of his arm that he expected her to precede him back to camp. She remained rooted to the spot, and could do nothing to prevent the waves of mortified heat from pounding through her body and flooding her cheeks. Am I a slave?

  Gervas shot her a glance. “He meant nothing by it. He’s merely…irked by his punishment.”

  She tilted her head and gave Gervas a proud look. “So he lied about my status?”

  Gervas narrowed his eyes and lowered his arm. For a moment he stared at her, assessing her, and she maintained eye contact. Finally he exhaled a slow breath and took a step back.

  “You didn’t know.” It wasn’t a question. But his words answered so much. Too much. Her stomach cramped and only by sheer force of will did she remain utterly still and not curl up with humiliated disbelief. She was a slave.

  “I was not paraded on the block.” The words choked her. She’d been so smugly certain she had escaped that fate. So sure she was Tacitus’ special prisoner. But what was a special prisoner except a sex slave?

  Nausea roiled. Somehow, while she had been unconscious, she’d been put up for sale. And Tacitus had bought her.

  As if she was nothing more than a horse, or a goat, or a piece of fine jewelry he admired.

  “No.” There was a thread of sympathy in Gervas’ voice. She wanted to cut his throat for his sympathy. I don’t need a filthy auxiliary’s sympathy. “You were never with the other slaves. The tribune bought you after he brought you back from the mountain.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Nimue couldn’t look at the auxiliary. She couldn’t bear to risk seeing the sympathy in his voice reflected in his eyes. Instead she glared straight ahead, to where the camp was constructed, and attempted to smother the pain coiling through her breast.

  Just because she was Tacitus’ slave didn’t change anything. She would still earn his trust. Still make plans to find the queen and princess and ensure their escape. The fact she was his slave made no difference in how she felt about the relationship she had with Tacitus.

  He was a Roman. She was a Druid. And yet no matter how logically she tried to look at the situation the knowledge that she was his slave changed everything.

  He had intended to enslave her from the moment he’d come across her on the mountain. And when she’d been shot, he’d taken instant advantage. How naïve of her to believe, for even one moment, that he could have intended anything else.

  What else could there have possibly been? She would never have gone with him willingly. But her wounded pride recoiled from the truth.

  She hadn’t for one instant seriously considered the possibility Tacitus had bought her. Nothing in her life had prepared her for such an ignoble revelation. Druids were tortured and murdered by the Romans. They weren’t kept as slaves.

  “I see.” Her voice showed none of her turmoil. Her spine was so rigid she feared it might shatter. Tacitus might have reduced her to the status of a slave in his world, but she was not of his world. She would never be of his world. And in her own, she was not only freeborn. She was a noble and the blood of the gods flowed in her veins.

  “The tribune saved you from a worse fate.” There was a hint of distaste in the auxiliary’s voice. “If he hadn’t bought you from the quaestorium you would be with the other captives. And they are all destined to be bought by the slave traders back at the garrison.”

  A shiver trickled along her spine. She knew of the brutality of slave traders and the possibility of being under their control chilled her soul.

  “I imagine that fate waits for me, also.” Her voice was as icy as her blood. Arianrhod hadn’t prevented Nimue’s enslavement but the Goddess had given her enough freedom to complete her mission. It was enough. Her wounded pride was nothing but an indulgence.

  “No.” This time when Gervas indicated she should head back to the camp she forced her fe
et to move. “He’d never recoup the price he paid if he sold you to traders. Continue as you have, and I’m certain the tribune will remain entertained by you for some time yet.”

  She stopped dead and slung him a freezing glare. “I’m not a whore who entertains men for their benefit.” But she was a slave, and Tacitus had bought her for sex. If that didn’t make her a whore, what did?

  Gervas gave her a calculating look, as if he saw far more than he should. “I’m from Gaul. Unlike the Romans, I’m not blinded to innate strength by gender alone. Your beauty has captivated the tribune. That and your apparent fragility are your biggest weapons if you want to survive.”

  Once again, she moved toward the camp. Her weapons of choice were her dagger and her bow. She relied on speed, on surprise, because in hand-to-hand combat she knew she stood little chance against a male warrior.

  Never before had her looks or delicate bone structure been considered assets when it came to battle strategies.

  “I wonder why you tell me such things.”

  “I’m a warrior. And I recognize a fellow warrior when I see one.”

  They neared Tacitus’ horse. She glanced at the Gaul who walked by her side, close enough for confidential conversation yet not close enough to raise undue comment from any passing legionary.

  “You would have shot me too, wouldn’t you?”

  A brief smile touched his lips. “Had we been alone, yes. In the presence of a Roman tribune?” For a fleeting moment he caught her gaze. “No. Their women aren’t warriors. When confronted by one who looks as you do, they cannot even conceive such a thing.”

  Gervas inclined his head, a mark of respect, of farewell, and as she resumed her place by Tacitus’ horse, she watched him until he disappeared from view.

  To survive, Gervas expected her to disarm her Roman master with her face and her body and a sweet-talking tongue, until he believed her incapable of making any decision without his prior approval.

  She gritted her teeth. What was so different between the Gaul’s expectation of her strategies and the ones she had already formulated?

  Nothing.

  Except she’d never thought of Tacitus as her master. Never considered herself his slave. And while she had deliberately made the decision to fuck him in order to lower his suspicions, until now she’d never imagined that might equate to whoredom.

  Her fingers clenched around his cloak and as if an invisible thread guided her, her gaze shifted and caught on the figure of Tacitus as he marched through the camp toward her.

  She despised the tremor of lust that caused her pussy to quiver and nipples to harden. No matter how she tried to convince herself she had taken him purely for strategic gain, her body disdained the lie.

  She’d taken him because she’d wanted to. Desire had fogged her brain. Would he have trusted her enough to leave her alone just now, if they had not rutted like wild creatures?

  As he approached, her heart hammered against her ribs in a tangled wave of fury and despair. Her strategy was working. It should make no difference to her feelings whether Tacitus considered her a free woman or his slave. Except now that she knew the truth, her plans of seduction no longer held any appeal. As a free woman, she had the choice. As a slave, she had none. Yet this should make no difference to how she felt because she had been a slave from the moment she had woken in the Roman camp.

  But I didn’t know then. And now that she did, the knowledge that she had willingly had sex in the hope it would help Tacitus trust her brought her no pleasure, only an aching sense of disgust.

  “Come.” He held out his arm, a silent command to follow him, but ruined the effect with a warm smile that twisted her rage and fed her self-revulsion. He showed no surprise that she was standing exactly where he had left her. Why should he? She was his slave. It was her duty to obey without question or demur.

  Without a word, she stepped toward him. She would play her part. She would play it so perfectly that when she finally left him, he would be staggered by her duplicity, horrified by his own gullibility.

  “I’ve arranged for a bath for you in my quarters. You’ll have as much time as you need to dress your hair.” He shot her a sideways glance, his eyes glinting with apparent mirth at how she’d been unable to tame her hair to her satisfaction earlier that day.

  She didn’t respond; merely ground her teeth so she wouldn’t be tempted to tell him what she thought of him. She’d never respond to his taunts again. She would be the perfect, silent slave, obedient to his every wish. And his guard would tumble and she would take her revenge.

  For a moment, he continued to look at her and she continued to stare doggedly ahead, refusing to succumb to the insistent voice in her head that urged her to turn. I won’t look at him. She would give him no reason to doubt her.

  Her fingers ached, they gripped his cloak so tightly. Better to focus on that, than the scorching words that incinerated her brain.

  “Are you unwell, Nimue?” His voice was low and a thread of false concern weaved through his words. “Did the journey tire you overmuch?”

  Did he think her incapable of enduring a half-day’s march? When she had been on horseback? A scathing retort scorched her tongue, and then she recalled Gervas’ words.

  When Tacitus looked at her, he didn’t see a woman who was trained as a warrior. He saw a woman of noble birth. A woman he believed more familiar with a loom than a bow.

  “No.” She forced the word between her teeth, and couldn’t bring herself to call him master. She would likely choke on her own vomit if she attempted such base humility.

  “Does your shoulder pain you?” He sounded so genuinely concerned it was hard to remember he had enslaved her without her knowledge. Without even having the decency to inform her of her status afterward, before he’d taken her with such forceful disregard.

  She pried open her lips to respond with another surly no when once again Gervas’ words echoed in her brain.

  Romans believed women were weak, not only in body but also in spirit and mind. She’d heard rumors in the past, and hadn’t always believed them. But now she knew for certain.

  It went against everything she believed in, but if it helped weave a web of complacency around Tacitus then she would bury her pride a little more.

  “Yes.” It wasn’t a lie. Her shoulder did pain her. But not enough to comment upon. Not enough to expect sympathy or special treatment. But she was no longer in her clan. She was fighting for survival in the enemy camp, and she had to use tactics she had never before in her life contemplated.

  He cursed under his breath and for a moment she thought he was about to wind his arm around her. But then he pulled back, as if recalling the lowly status he had thrust upon her. It was unheard of for a master of any race to embrace his slave in public.

  No matter what they might do in private.

  She entered his tent. Lamps illuminated the interior, casting a magical golden glow but it did nothing to ease the injustice curdling her stomach. When he approached her she forced herself to remain absolutely still, instead of lashing out and gouging the flesh from his arrogant, aristocratic face.

  “Let me see.” Without waiting for her response—as if her response would make any difference—he gently eased his cloak back from her shoulders. She smothered the urge to cling onto the cloak and instead allowed him to drop the offending article to the ground.

  Of course he wanted to examine her wound. He wanted to ensure his investment wasn’t putrefying.

  How much had he paid for her? How much pleasure would she take in forcing those cursed coins down his throat, until he choked on them?

  ***

  Tacitus eyed the thunderous glare on Nimue’s face and waited for her outburst. It was sure to erupt. She’d been almost incandescent with stifled fury from the moment he’d returned to her.

  But she didn’t say a word. Had he read her mood wrong? Was she so silent only because her wound gave her so much pain?

  Since it was unlikely s
he would hold her tongue if something had annoyed her, he could only assume the ride had exhausted her more than she was admitting. Not that he was surprised by her fortitude. Nimue had scarcely complained about her injury at all.

  His tunic was far too big for her. The material had slipped over her right shoulder, exposing her creamy skin and tempting swell of her breast. Through the linen, her nipples were clearly defined, erect and proud and the lust that had thudded between his thighs all day broke through his rigid control.

  For a moment he was tempted to cup her breasts and drag his thumbs over those luscious nipples. But if he started he wouldn’t be able to stop. And he had no intention of repeating the hasty coupling they’d enjoyed earlier that day. He battened down his smoldering desire before untying her leather belt. It was her own and several leather pouches hung from it. He’d examined their contents the previous day for possible weapons, but they had mostly contained personal items.

  He dropped her belt on top of his cloak and still she didn’t say a word. But the look on her face said volumes.

  For a moment he hesitated. He hadn’t known her long but he knew her well enough. And when Nimue looked at him with such venom she never remained silent.

  The bandage was clean. Relief surged through him. At least the wound was not weeping poison. She stood absolutely still and if he was inadvertently hurting her, she didn’t let it show.

  With infinite care, he began to unbind her dressing. It would be easier if the tunic wasn’t in the way, but if she was naked he’d be tempted to admire her body. He didn’t want her to think all he was interested in was fucking her. No matter how much he desired her, he also wanted her to know of his concern for her physical well-being. He might not have shot the arrow that had injured her but he was responsible. He should have been able to protect her, and he had failed.

  He frowned at the wound that marred her perfect skin. Marcellus’ stitches were neat, but Nimue would still be scarred for life. But at least she would still have her life.