by Monica Burns
“Both, carissima. Both. I should have been more vigilant. I should have taken extra precautions. Fotte, none of this would have happened if I’d—”
“You give yourself too much credit for what you can and cannot control,” she snapped. “Your responsibilities as a Sicari Lord would have eventually torn us apart. Gabriel’s loss wouldn’t have changed that. Blaming yourself is pointless. The Praetorians are the ones who turned our son into a monster. Not you.”
“A monster that needs to be destroyed,” he said as he turned to face her again. The hard words were like a blow to her body, and it sent a tremor through her.
“Then ask Dante to do it. Surely he’s ready. Don’t let your arrogance blind you to what might happen if you face Gabriel on the field of battle.”
Marcus drew in a deep breath then exhaled it slowly, his eyes closing as he seemed to be absorbing her words. When he looked at her again, he gave her a brusque nod. “I shall give it thought.”
The silence was tense and awkward between them, making her wish he’d never sent for her. No, it was the news he’d given her that made her wish that. Being here with him was a small taste of the Elysium Fields, despite the knowledge it wouldn’t last. Suddenly eager to escape the raw emotion hanging between them, she bowed in respect to him.
“Is there anything else, Eminence?”
He didn’t answer her for a long moment, and she waited in silence for him to say something. She glanced up at him, and her heart slammed into her chest at the hunger in his face.
“One day soon, Dante will assume the role of reigning Sicari Lord. When he does, I intend to come for you.” The deep note of confidence in his voice made her heart skip a beat before it began to race at a frightening speed.
“I said your arrogance was expected of a Sicari Lord, but I forgot how arrogant you really are,” she bit out in a sharp tone.
“Is it my arrogance you find so irritating, or is there something else that disturbs you?”
The determination and wealth of emotion in his voice sent a tremor through her. This was the Marcus she’d fallen in love with. Strong, determined, and insistent on getting his way. She was definitely in trouble if Dante became the reigning Sicari Lord. Best to ignore his high-handed declaration. Particularly when it terrified her that he meant every word. She wasn’t certain she could risk giving her heart to him one more time.
“Do I have your permission to leave, Eminence?” She deliberately kept her voice neutral, her thoughts closed to him.
“Yes.” He gave her an abrupt nod. “But don’t mistake my words, Atia. I will come for you. Only this time I won’t let anyone, or anything, make me give you up.”
This time her mental control did slip, and the slow smile curling his mouth said her thoughts had revealed more than she cared to. Not a good thing when one was dealing with a Sicari Lord.
Chapter 7
LYSANDER strode into the small library of the Rome guild’s satellite office to find Atia seated at a library table. The Prima Consul had sent for him a short time ago, and he’d deliberately kept her waiting out of anger. Not a prudent thing to do, but if he’d come any sooner, he might have been prone to doing her harm. In front of her, a large book lay open on the tabletop. He fought the urge to probe her thoughts and find out what she was up to. Instead, he settled on reading her body language. She was upset about something. Someone had done or said something to throw her out of her usual controlled behavior.
Good. He wanted to thank them for unsettling the Prima Consul . The woman deserved to have someone destroy that calm reserve of hers for what she’d done to him. He came to a halt beside the table and waited in silence for her to speak.
“You’re angry with me.” She didn’t look up from the book as she trailed her finger across the page. When he didn’t respond, she raised her head and met his gaze with exasperation. “Speak your mind, Lysander.”
He clasped his hands behind his back and frowned at her. “DeLuca’s presence here presents not only a grave danger to her but to the rest of the team.”
“Danger is a way of life with us, Lysander. We’re always looking over our shoulder on some level.”
“She’s too valuable an asset to the Order to toss her into this viper’s nest. Her safety here is far more precarious than if she were in Chicago.”
“Hmm, perhaps.” Atia nodded as if weighing his words seriously before she shrugged. “But you needed a good healer, and Phaedra is best suited for the task. Marco tells me you’re her partner for this mission. I can’t think of anyone else better qualified to ensure she remains safe.”
He drew in a deep breath then slowly released it. The woman should be grateful he had a firm grip on the monster inside him. If he were to release it … he swallowed hard but didn’t respond to her dismissive comment. She eyed him carefully.
“The fact that you have Praetorian blood running in your veins doesn’t make you any less Sicari, Lysander.” The Prima Consul frowned as he didn’t react to her words. “You’re one of our best warriors. It’s time you come to terms with who you are and what was done to you.”
“I wasn’t aware that I hadn’t already done so,” he said coolly. Behind his back, he tightened his grip on his wrist and his free hand clenched into a tight fist.
“Don’t take me for a fool, Lysander. Many have done so to their regret.” She frowned at him, but he refused to show any emotion in the face of her warning.
“I am not so unwise as to take you for a fool, Consul.”
“Christus, you are far too hardheaded for your own good. You long for a woman you think you cannot have, all because of the circumstance of your birth. Are you really that uncertain of your ability to control the dark side of you?”
Atia’s words hit him like a blow to the side of his head. Merda, was the woman that good of an intuitive? No. Cleo. He was going to have the woman’s head on a platter for this. The scarred side of his face ached as the muscles tugged against the thin layer of skin. He struggled to suppress the demon inside him as he responded with an abrupt shake of his head.
“I am in complete control of my abilities.”
“But not the emotions that came with the discovery of who you are.”
“And your point being?”
“My point, you stubborn fool, is that it’s time you accept that what happened that night was out of your control.”
“It was within my control,” he bit out through clenched teeth. ” I made the decision to go into that building with only three fighters. As team leader, I was responsible for their safety.”
“You made a leadership decision,” she snapped. “And it’s a miracle you survived.”
“A miracle?” he rasped as his wrist ached from the way his fingers dug into his flesh. “Two fighters were tortured to death, a woman was carried off to be a brood mare for those bastardi, and that Praetorian son of a bitch who claimed to be my father let me live because he knew it would be a punishment far worse than death.”
“No, he recognized you had your mother’s heart, and not his,” she said with quiet determination. “In letting you live, Nicostratus hopes you’ll surrender to the darkness inside you. Why else would he tell you who he was? It’s a game to him.”
“This is a pointless conversation,” he said without emotion.
“Va bene. Just remember that you are not your father’s son.” She directed that piercing gray gaze of hers at him. It was a direct command by the Prima Consul. “Praetorian blood might run in your veins, but your heart is all Sicari.”
The reminder was of no comfort. Atia was mistaken. With each passing day, his dark
blood was howling for revenge. The sinister half of him whispered constant words of encouragement, urging him to hunt Nicostratus down and retaliate. Where Praetorians were concerned, there was no Sicari code to adhere to, and his friends would be willing to go after the man with him. But Nicostratus would announce his paternal pride the minute they got within shouting distance of the man. Tensi
on laced through him at the thought. An image of Nicostratus smiling down at him in cold amusement chilled him until he had to suppress a shiver of fear. He shoved the memory back into the hole he’d buried it in more than a year ago.
“Your message said you wanted to ask me something.” He sent her a steely glare to signal the matter was finished. Frustration tightened her lips into a thin line, and she nodded.
“Yes, I wanted to know if you’ve had any strange dreams of late? Moments of strong deja vu?”
Damn, was the woman half Praetorian like him? The Prima Consul knew he’d always been fond of ancient Roman history, but he’d never mentioned anything about his dreams. He danced around the question with an ambiguous response.
“If you’re worried I’m still having nightmares related to my … to that night—don’t.”
“No, I was simply interested in knowing whether you’d been dreaming about ancient Rome.”
The observation made him go rigid. What in the name of Jupiter was the woman fishing for by asking such a question? He knew better than to lie. Atia had this uncanny ability to spot a lie faster than most people could tell one. He hedged once more.
“I don’t see how dreams like that would signify anything.” He shrugged.
“An old legend I know of might convince you otherwise.”
She resumed her perusal of the book in front of her, a frown of concentration furrowing her brow. When she didn’t speak, he folded his arms across his chest and scowled at the woman. It wasn’t the first time Atia had aroused his curiosity with some mysterious comment.
The woman was a master at it where he was concerned. She knew how much he enjoyed digging through history books. If there was something she wanted him to research for her, she just threw him a tidbit to pique his interest before she reeled him in. Well, he wasn’t biting this time. He could play the waiting game as well as she could.
She outlasted him.
“What legend?” he growled with exasperation.
Once again, he’d allowed the woman to play him, and it pissed him off royally. She didn’t look at him, but he saw her struggle to bite back a smile. Her gaze still focused on her book, she waved her hand slightly.
“It centers around Maximus and Cassiopeia.”
“That’s not a new story,” he said with disgust. The carrot had been nothing more than a ruse. For what reason, he had no idea. Perhaps for no other reason than she enjoyed teasing him. She raised her head and turned those piercing gray eyes of hers on him.
“It’s an old story, and few but the Prima Consuls know the tale. The legend says Maximus will return to find the Tyet of Isis.”
“And what makes you think this legend is true?”
He wasn’t sure where she was going with this story and he was beginning to wonder if he really wanted to know. Christus, he was an idiot for having even taken her bait. Her gaze still on him, Atia stood up to face him, a glint of excitement in her eye.
“A number of things have happened over the past year that make me think the legend has merit. Perhaps the most important one is what Emma saw when she touched the Dagger of Cassiopeia.”
“She told me she’d read the Sicari Lord’s coin, not the dagger.” He shook his head slightly in puzzlement.
“She didn’t say anything because she saw something that troubled her deeply.”
Something about Atia’s expression set off a warning signal inside his head. The Prima Consul had the look of someone about to spring a trap. He grimaced as he tried to form a plan that would let him leave the room without being caught in the woman’s web. He couldn’t. He was a sucker for a historical mystery.
And it didn’t help that Atia had a way of making the most far-fetched possibility sound almost realistic. He was more than familiar with Emma and her ability. Since formally sealing her blood bond with Ares in front of the Order, she’d read a number of artifacts in the Order’s possession in an effort to find the Tyet of Isis. Her visions had been fairly accurate, based on firsthand recorded accounts in the Order’s library. Whatever Emma had seen, Atia was convinced it had everything to do with this story that Maximus would come back from the dead to find the Tyet of Isis.
“Va bene,” he growled at his inability to restrain his curiosity. “I’ll bite for a second time. What did Emma see?”
“She saw Maximus Caecilius Atellus, scars and all.” The Prima Consul arched her eyebrows at him as she offered him a mysterious smile.
“How does she know it was the first Sicari Lord?”
He knew Emma’s gift was an extraordinary one, but he wasn’t sure he was willing to go so far as to believe she’d seen Maximus himself. Images from his own dreams pushed their way to the front of his thoughts, and he shoved them aside. They were irrelevant to the current discussion.
“She knows, because she saw him kill Cassiopeia.”
“Il Christi omnipotentia,” he breathed. Emma’s visions often included a great deal of violence, and he knew she sometimes found those images traumatic to watch. Seeing Maximus kill his wife couldn’t have been an easy thing for her.
“I think it was quite troubling for her,” Atia said quietly. “In fact, I think she saw a great deal more than she shared with me. However, she did tell me about an extraordinary image that might interest you.”
She had his full attention, and she knew it. He clenched his teeth as he bit back his desire to ask her what else Emma had seen. Atia arched her brow at him and waited. Patiently. This time he wasn’t going to give in. He glared at her, and she sent him a conciliatory smile.
“Emma said she saw you.”
“Me?” He met her gaze with a frown of amazement. “Why would she see me?”
“She saw you as Maximus.” The quiet announcement was all the more dramatic because Atia didn’t raise her voice. He snorted with laughter as he met the Prima Consul’s calm gaze.
“I know Emma’s gift is strong, but I find it highly doubtful it was me she really saw in her vision.”
“Perhaps, but then how do you explain your dreams of ancient Rome?”
“My dreams have nothing—” Merda, the witch had tricked him. He glared at her smug features. “This game is over, Madame Consul.”
“This is far from a game.” Atia quickly stood up and crossed the floor to clutch his arm. “I’m convinced it’s a matter of life or death when it comes to the Tyet of Isis. I believe Emma saw the truth, Lysander.”
“What truth?”
“I think you already know the answer to that,” the Prima Consul said softly. “Why else
would you be dreaming of ancient Rome?”
Dulcis Jesu, how in the hell had the woman known to even ask him about his dreams? He’d not told anyone about them. Like some women in the Order, the woman’s strongest ability was her telekinetic power, but he knew she was intuitive as well. How she’d found out about his dreams he didn’t know, and to tell the truth, he didn’t care. The woman had already tricked him into admitting that he had the dreams, but it was one hell of a stretch between those dreams and what she was suggesting. And he really didn’t want to contemplate what she was suggesting.
“You’ve been smoking crack again, haven’t you?” The sarcastic comment earned him a smack on his arm.
“Damn it, this isn’t a joking matter.”
“I wasn’t joking. I’m serious,” he said harshly. He threw off her hand with a snarl of frustration. “You’re playing connect the dots with clouds. You’re trying to make a legend about a man dead two thousand years, my dreams, and Emma’s image from the past all add up in one small package. That’s not truth. That’s reaching for straws.”
“Then answer me this question. When you dream about Maximus, are you Maximus or are you a member of the audience watching a play. Do you experience the dream?”