Assassin's Heart

by Monica Burns

  She came willingly, and in the next instant desire engulfed him in a blaze of heat that only she could quench. Her lips parted against his, giving him free rein to explore the inner sweetness of her mouth. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d tasted anything this wonderful. Sweet and hot, her tongue swirled around his in a silent demand for more.

  Seconds later, her lips were setting his body on fire as she trailed her mouth down his throat. Her teeth nipped lightly at his skin, pulling a growl of pleasure from him. Deus, he wanted her worse than the last time he’d made love to her. Everything came rushing back at him as his hand caressed every inch of her he could reach.

  He’d not forgotten how good it was between them, but he didn’t remember it being this intense. There wasn’t a thing about her that didn’t make him crave more. The scent of her filled his nostrils as he remembered how good she’d felt when he’d slid into her velvet heat. She gasped, and he realized she’d felt him stroking her inner core with his thoughts.

  She immediately lifted her head to stare down at him. Passion lit those gorgeous brown eyes of hers as she rubbed her hips across his stone-hard erection in an erotically suggestive move. It dragged a tortured groan from him, and she rubbed against him again, making his cock ache for her. He drew in a sharp hiss of air and rolled her over onto her back.

  With desire raging in his blood, he lowered his head to kiss her hard. His blood thickened and roared in his veins as she met his demanding caress with equal fervor. Christus, he needed to find a way to regain control of the situation. His senses immediately shut down the thought as the scent, taste, and feel of her pulled him back into a place he didn’t want to leave. Her mouth left his and lightly trailed across his marred flesh. He stiffened at the touch. There was a tenderness in the caress that tightened a vise around his heart.

  “Lysander, please.” Her whisper was almost like a prayer and it slammed into him with a force that sucked the air out of his lungs.

  Fuck. He was out of his mind. He’d been right on the edge of making her his again. With a growl of fierce anger, he quickly rolled away from her. In a single fluid move, he was on his feet. Surprise widened her eyes before a haunted look swept across her face. It was the same expression she’d worn when he’d sent her away at the hospital.

  Unable to bear looking at the pain in her face, he whirled away from her. One hand running through his short hair, his brain churned frantically to come up with some logical explanation for kissing her. He’d been trying for the past year to make her believe he didn’t care about her, and now he’d come close to making love to her.

  How in Jupiter’s name was he going to make her believe things hadn’t changed without her hating him? That was the point, wasn’t it? No, he didn’t want to hurt her again. And he was certain he was about to do just that when he turned around to face her. Damn.

  An impassive expression on her face, she had risen to her feet and stood ramrod straight, staring at a point over his shoulder. Except for the wild pulse fluttering in her neck, anyone else would have thought her well composed. He knew better. But her response to him seconds ago still surprised him. Over the past year, he’d worked hard to make her despise him. He’d thought he’d succeeded, but now he wasn’t sure, and the knowledge scared the hell out of him.

  “I ask Indulgentia, il mio signore. I have no excuse for hitting you.”

  “Christus,” he muttered. She sounded like she expected him to sentence her to the Castigatio for striking a Legatus. With a sharp gesture, he dismissed her statement. “Forget it. I have.”

  She flinched, and he immediately regretted his sharp tone. He’d made it sound like he’d already forgotten what it had been like touching her again. Nothing coherent formed in his mind to say, and he just stared at her in silence. The tension between them was an invisible thread stretched taut, and the minute it snapped, it was going to hit him like a baseball bat.

  “About just now—”

  “Forget it. I have.” She coldly threw his words back at him.

  Her bitterness was a sharp-edged blade gutting him with delicate precision. It went right to his middle then slid upward to his heart and cut it out of him. Merda, he deserved her wrath. He’d managed to hurt her again. If this was what it was going to be like working with her every day, he was in trouble.

  Maybe he needed to pair her off with Pasquale. No. The only person he trusted to keep her safe was himself. The question to answer was whether to tell her now or later that they were going to be partners for the duration of the mission. He glanced at her impassive features. Somehow, he didn’t think she was going to react well to the news.

  Later. He’d tell her later.

  “May I go?”

  The sudden husky note in her voice wound his muscles up tight. Christus, was she on the verge of tears again? He couldn’t let her go like this. There had to be some type of explanation he could give for his behavior. The only thing he could think of was the one thing he wasn’t about to say. He ignored the temptation to deny her request. Instead, he gave her a sharp nod of permission and watched in silence as she darted out the door. He was going to have Atia’s head for this. The Prima Consul was playing games with not only his life, but Phaedra’s as well.

  Chapter 6

  ATIA Vorenus entered the main door of the Santa Maria sopra Minerva and paused just inside the doorway. The church rested on the site of one of the ancients’ temples-Minerva, goddess of wisdom. The irony of her presence here was not lost on her. She’d given her bodyguard the slip some time ago, and if Ignacio knew where she was, the man would have a heart attack. Even as recent as twenty years ago, her presence in this church would have placed her life in jeopardy. She was still at risk if she really thought about it. The capture of the Order’s Prima Consul would mean a promotion for any Praetorian. Something Ignacio was going to drone on about when he finally caught up with her.

  The Santa Maria sopra Minerva was all the more alarming simply because of what it had been so long ago. Masquerading as holy men, the Praetorians had used this particular place as a breeding ground for their ethnic cleansing of the Sicari. The bastardi had abused the Carpenter’s teachings for centuries, convincing others that it was a divine task to root out evil. An evil they’d labeled Sicari. This very church had produced some of the more zealous of inquisitors during the Middle Ages, all of them Praetorian. Even the great Galileo had not escaped their wrath, as his trial had taken place here.

  She tensed as she saw a clergyman enter the nave and move to the front of the altar. Immediately, she closed her thoughts off, but not before the man turned to study the place of worship. She inhaled a sharp breath of trepidation. Capture meant her death. She was too old to be used as breeding stock, but the Praetorians would try to cull every piece of knowledge they could from her before they killed her.

  Despite her aversion to showing the Carpenter disrespect with the pretense of penitent worship, she stopped at the ornate fount a short distance into the nave to avoid drawing any attention to herself. Better to pretend than be found out and possibly lose her life. Dipping her fingers into the water, she genuflected in the direction of the altar with an unspoken apology. Somehow, she didn’t think the Carpenter would mind.

  The pretense done, she quickly skirted the back row of pews to follow the aisle along the north wall. She moved with the speed and silence she’d learned in early childhood. From the moment they could walk, the Sicari learned how to move with great stealth and quickness. It wasn’t just because of what they did—it was how they’d survived over the centuries.

  Even though she was in her mid-fifties, she was still in excellent shape, which played to her favor when it came to avoiding detection or capture in a Praetorian stronghold. Marcus had always enjoyed hiding right beneath their enemy’s noses. It was a game to him. A deadly one. Particularly in this place.

  But she had little say in the matter. As Marcus was the reigning Sicari Lord, she had to

  obey him. At least he ha
dn’t commanded they meet at the site of Nero’s Circus. It would have meant braving entrance to what was hallowed ground to so many of the Church’s faithful. It would have been much more dangerous. The Praetorians were great in number at the house of the man who’d denied the Carpenter. As she hurried down the north aisle, she saw a small tour group admiring the architecture of the flying buttress on the opposite side of the church. In one of the front pews, an old woman and a child knelt on the prayer benches. Mindful of the potential threat at the altar, she quietly darted to the left and past the beautiful Risen Christ started by Michelangelo centuries ago.

  Past the statue and the choir area behind the altar, she found the spiral staircase leading down into the crypts. Whenever she met Marcus in one of these places, this part of the journey was her least favorite. All the rotting death behind the walls abhorred her. The fiery cleanliness of a Sicari burial ritual was far preferable to putting a body into the ground to feed the worms.

  At the end of the crypt’s corridor, she paused. Nothing other than her own breathing filled the silence in the dim passage. Reassured that no one had followed her, she slid her fingers along the top edge of the stone ridge that bordered the crypt she faced. Just as Marcus’s message had told her, she found the slight bump in the stone directly above the intersected P and X of the Chi-Rho symbol.

  The moment she pressed the stone trigger above the Church’s ancient symbol for the Carpenter, the crypt’s roughly hewn facade rolled to one side with a quiet rumble. She quickly slipped through the narrow opening and tugged on the iron lever inside. The grit beneath her fingers was a reflection of how long it had been since someone had used this secret Sicari hiding place. Still, the stone slid softly back into place behind her as if time had not aged it at all.

  All this intrigue and danger. Why Marcus didn’t pick an open venue where the danger would be far less puzzled her. She wondered if he did it as a form of punishment for past transgressions. His or hers, she couldn’t be sure. Blind, she reached to the left, her fingers fumbling to find the candle and tinderbox on the shelf. Less than a minute later, Atia used the lit candle to illuminate her way down a short corridor to a stone stairwell. She peered below and saw the faint glow of light.

  Damn, he was already here. Her hand on the cold wall to steady her, she hurried down the steps. She’d hoped to be here when he arrived. She grimaced. Marcus always seemed to be one step ahead of her. It was irritating. She’d almost reached her destination when the sound of a deep male laugh echoed out into the stairwell. Just as he always had, he could easily tell what she was thinking. Disgusted with her inability to shield her thoughts from him better, she entered the small shrine and waited silently just inside the doorway.

  The sole occupant of the small room knelt in front of an ancient altar to Minerva. Marcus was one of the few Sicari she knew who kept the old ways. But then Sicari Lords were trained to follow the way of justice and wisdom. And their wisdom had guided every Prima Consul who’d come before her. With a light touch to the icons on the laraium, he blew out the candle on either side of the small display and rose to his feet. Even without his monk’s robes, his height would have made him an imposing figure. Pushing his hood off his head, Marcus turned to face her. It had been more than five years since their last meeting, and he’d changed. His face was still youthful, but his vivid blue eyes reflected a change in spirit.

  “Not too much of a change I hope.”

  “Certainly not when it comes to probing my thoughts.” She sent him an annoyed look.

  “You never did care for that particular talent of mine,” he said with a chuckle. “You’re as lovely as ever.”

  “You need glasses.”

  “You’ll always be beautiful to me, Atia.”

  The sincerity in his voice made her heart skip a beat, and the years faded away to when they were both younger. She frowned as the old sorrow lanced through her, and she reached up to touch her silver hair. It was impossible to go back. He changed the subject, giving her the chance to shove the painful past aside.

  “I understand Ares has taken a domina.”

  “Yes, they’re enjoying an extended honeymoon at the Rennes le Chateau estate. Emma found some interesting evidence at one of the nearby ruins.”

  “I see.” His gaze narrowed as their eyes met. “As I recall that part of France is quite beautiful this time of year.”

  “Yes,” she said with an abrupt nod and dragged her eyes away from his. She didn’t want to remember how happy they’d been those first four years at Rennes le Chateau.

  “Ares is an excellent fighter. He’ll keep her safe.”

  “You say that as if …” She sucked in a sharp breath. “You. It was you in the alleyway the night Ares first met Emma. You were the one Ares fought that night.”

  “Now why would you think that?” A note of amusement drifted beneath his words.

  “Because there had been no reports of a rogue Sicari anywhere in the country. The fighter appeared out of nowhere and vanished just as quickly.” Atia narrowed her eyes at him. “And no Sicari would run from a fight.”

  “There is a difference between surrender and benevolence,” he growled. “You know as well as I do Ares is no match for my skills and abilities. If I’d known the boy had planned

  to act as Emma Zale’s protector, I wouldn’t have interfered.”

  The indignation on his face made him all the more imposing, but she faced his anger with the same defiance she always had. The minute he leaned into her, the full power of his presence engulfed her in a storm of sensation she thought she’d long forgotten. An odd expression crossed his face as he leaned even closer.

  The scent of him filled her nostrils, a clean, woodsy smell. It sent a pulse of awareness through her, and the years faded away to the first moment she’d angered him. A moment that had erupted into a night of passion that had changed everything. The memory of those moments so long ago filled her with a longing she thought she’d forgotten. She brushed them aside. She was older now, much wiser, and certainly not one to give way to impulse or passion.

  “Your thoughts reveal a great deal, mea amor.”

  “Do they, Eminence?” she said in a stilted tone.

  Marcus lifted her chin with one hand, a gentle smile on his firm lips. A mouth that had pleasured her so exquisitely so many years ago.

  “So formal. Have you forgotten what there was between us?”

  “No. The past is always with me,” she said quietly. “But I thought you asked me here to discuss the Tyet of Isis and some new information you’ve uncovered.”

  The cerulean blue of his watchful gaze made her close herself off to him. The annoyance in his expression said her efforts to keep him out of her head had been successful. He scowled at her then uttered a soft oath and nodded sharply.

  “I’ve received an analysis of the mutilations on the bodies of Emma’s parents and her mentor. My resources believe the marks carved into the cheeks of the Zales and Russwin are symbolic to the murderer. They believe the symbol is Praetorian in origin.”

  “Why in Juno’s name would they think it’s Praetorian?”

  “Because if you add two lines to the mark, it forms the sigla.”

  “The Chi-Rho,” she said as she drew in a quick breath. She remembered the P and X symbol on the stone covering the entrance to this ancient temple.

  It was so simple. Although her researchers had noted the similarities between the ChiRho symbol used by Constantine I at the Battle of Milvian and the mark left on the victims, they’d not made the connection. But then she hadn’t had a forensic psychologist review the symbols, something she was now certain Marcus had done. She couldn’t believe she’d made such a stupid mistake. She should have done that herself.

  “But why not complete the mutilation?” she murmured and frowned. “It would signify that justice has been administered.”

  “I’ve been told the individual making the mark is most likely a fanatic who feels it would be sacrilege to ma
rk their victims with a symbol of the Carpenter’s. A symbol with deep ties to the birth of the Praetorian presence in the Church.” A tic in Marcus’s cheek made her realize how deeply this information concerned him. “Instead, the murderer uses the partial symbol as a way to mark the victims as heretics who are a threat to the Praetorians.”