by Hazel Hunter
“Do you wish to stay up longer, little lioness?” he asked, or at least he started to.
With her hand at the back of his neck, she pulled him down for a long, deep kiss.
“I do,” she said when she released him.
She turned to Lucius, who was watching them with hooded eyes. It was hard to tell what he felt, whether it was rage or resignation, lust or joy.
“I want this,” she said, nakedly and honestly.
“I would never deny you anything,” he said, his voice a soft, velvet rumble.
“And me?” Gaius stayed where he was, watching Lucius carefully.
“You,” Lucius said, “well, I might make you beg first.”
There was a slight quirk of humor to Lucius’s mouth, so lovely that Liona wanted to kiss it too. She leaned up to press her lips to his. Behind her, she felt Gaius’s hand sleek down her back before coming up to tangle in her dark hair.
Somehow, all three of them tumbled into the bed together. She found herself pressed between their powerful bodies, all heat, all pleasure, and all for her. For now, this was all she wanted. She did not want to think about the ship that waited to sail, one of the last of the year. She did not want to think of what came after. Instead, she had these two men that she loved. She had the hours of the night. That was all she needed.
She twisted so that she could kiss Gaius. Their first real kiss was surprisingly gentle. His mouth was light on hers, lapping at her lips until she moaned with the sensation. His clever fingers unbuttoned her dress before pulling it over her head. Underneath, she was bare and clean. For a moment, she felt shy, though she had certainly been naked in front of him before.
“So beautiful,” Gaius murmured, leaning down to plant a soft kiss on her collar bone.
She would have replied, but there was Lucius’s mouth, hot and wet against the back of her neck. He had parted the thicket of her hair to reveal her tender nape. She squirmed as he nibbled the skin there lightly.
Gaius was stripping his clothes off. Now she couldn’t keep her hands off him. She couldn’t stop touching his warm skin, his powerful frame. She ruffled her fingers through the light hair on his chest before leaning in to suck gently on one of his pale nipples. He tensed at the contact before cradling her head in his hands.
From behind her, Lucius wrapped his arms around her body, cradling her breasts gently. She could feel his arousal pressed against her hip. It called forth her own response. Over the months that they had been together, their bodies were in tune, like two parts of the same song. Now she found that there was room for a third part as well.
She stroked her hand down Gaius’s body, pausing just short of his cock. After a moment of hesitation, she wrapped her hand around it, making him groan. She watched in fascination as he wrapped his hand over hers, showing her how he liked to be touched. She could feel the droplet of moisture at the tip of his cock, silky and warm. When he let go, she bent her head to it, lapping at it with her tongue.
She heard a soft sound from Lucius when she took Gaius in her mouth. At first she was startled, worried that it had been too much for him after all. Then she felt his hand on the back of her neck, and his mouth inches from her ear.
“You have no idea how beautiful you are when you do that, beloved.”
His soft words made her groan. Though she never raised her head, she pushed her hips against Lucius, trying to show him what she needed.
“Don’t let her go unsatisfied, legatus.” Gaius’s tone was teasing, but also breathless.
“I think you have other things to be worried about, sorcerer.”
She glanced up in time to see Lucius thrust his fingers into Gaius’s mouth, making the other man’s eyes widen in surprise before he began to lap at them. When Lucius thought they were wet enough, he pulled them away, grinning like a demon.
“Come here, love.”
Still lapping at Gaius’s cock, Liona raised up on her knees as Lucius directed. He spread her legs slightly, purring at how beautiful and perfect she was. When he pressed his slicked fingers between her legs, she thought she was going to die of pleasure. He stroked her folds tenderly, finishing each stroke with a light circle around her clit.
Gaius pulled her away from his cock, making her moan slightly with disappointment. Instead, he pulled her up to kiss him. When she looked into his eyes, his pupils were so wide that there was only a scrim of gray around the edges.
“I think I’ve wanted you since before we spoke two words,” he murmured.
She leaned in to kiss his mouth, an oddly tender and slow thing. Behind her, Lucius dropped another kiss on her shoulder while working first one, then two fingers inside. She kept on kissing Gaius, still aware that her hips were rocking towards Lucius.
“Do you want this?” Lucius asked, his voice as dark as night. “Hmm? Is this what you like, little lioness?”
She moaned into Gaius’s mouth. It must have sounded like a yes because Lucius took a firm grip on her hips. She groaned as he entered her, something that made Gaius wrap his arms around her tightly.
Lucius didn’t stop until he was lodged inside her fully. She whimpered, arching her back so that he would start moving, but he only laughed.
“I want to look at you like this,” he murmured. “I want to see myself inside you as you kiss this man.”
His words brought a hot flush of heat to her body, making her press back against him.
“Give me more, harder,” she pleaded.
She felt his hands tighten on her hips. He thrust into her hard enough to push her into Gaius, who held her even more tightly. The position was awkward and cramped, but she still managed to slide her hand around Gaius’s cock.
She was consumed by the noises that they made. She could hear Gaius moaning in her ear. From behind her, Lucius murmured a litany of praise to how good she felt, how beautiful she was, and how much he wanted her.
Liona could feel Lucius shake as his climax began. She quickened her hand on Gaius’s erection, making him cling to her. They spilled almost in the same moment, both crying her name, both pushing as close to her as they could.
She had never been so close to other people before. She never wanted to leave them. Liona listened to their breathing slow. Against her will, tears slipped down her face. She buried her face in Gaius’s chest, desperate to hide them.
She must have been successful because Lucius chuckled.
“Poor little darling. You look quite exhausted and you’ve not even climaxed yourself. Let us take care of that for you.”
Liona found herself spread out on the bed while both men lay on either side of her.
“So very beautiful,” Gaius murmured.
Perhaps another man might have thought this was a single night’s pleasure. She could tell that for him, this was something real. His heart was there if she wanted it, if Lucius wanted it.
Four hands sleeked over her body, cupping her breasts, stroking her hips, carding through her long hair. Two mouths found the sensitive points at her neck, her shoulders, the sides of her breasts, her fingers and the dip of her waist.
Experimentally, she turned from kissing Gaius to kissing Lucius. Lucius was more urgent, she thought hazily, while Gaius’s mouth was so soft. The sorcerer would kiss her forever if she wished. She could feel a low heat deep in her belly. She would have been pleased to let it go at that, with that pleasure, but apparently neither man agreed.
“Show me what she likes,” Gaius murmured. Lucius laughed, taking the other man’s hand.
“She’s brilliant,” Lucius promised. “Stay with us, sorcerer, and you’ll see.”
Liona’s eyes drifted closed as Lucius guided Gaius’s hand between her legs, showing him how to glide his fingers along her slit before spreading her swollen folds. She was slippery from Lucius’s entry, but that didn’t seem to bother Gaius at all. Soon he was pumping two fingers inside her channel, drawing the wet up to her clit to rub it as well.
His touch was gentler, a little slower tha
n what she shared with her warrior, but soon the pleasure started to spread through her. It was a gradual build, soothing and sweet.
“Relax and enjoy, darling. You’ve worked so hard today.”
That was Lucius’s voice tickling her ear. She turned her head to him, and obligingly, he kissed her. This was a kind of paradise, a night she could live in for a million years if the gods were kind.
The soft cries that Gaius wrung from her throat grew louder and louder. Her hips bucked up against his touch. Soon she was squirming, wanting more, but paradoxically not wanting it to end. She fought off the pleasure, but it was too much. Lucius kissed her just as she tipped over the edge. The sounds of her pleasure were muffled by his mouth. With one hand, she clung to his shoulder, with her other, she held Gaius’s hand. They were three, they were one. In a strange way, she could see the pleasure spill between all three of them. She lay shaking for several long minutes. She came to herself as they were kissing her softly and soothingly.
“I love you,” she said to Lucius.
“I love you,” she said to Gaius.
Lucius grinned, planting a kiss on her forehead. She could see that the wound left by being ousted from Rome was healing. He would never be what he was before, but then, no one ever was.
“I love you well,” he murmured, nuzzling her ear.
Gaius looked solemn, thoughtful. She had come to know him nearly as well as Lucius over the last few weeks. She had never met a man as gentle or as kind. He could be roused to a vicious temper by cruelty, but in bed with her, he was so achingly tender and sweet.
“I love you,” he whispered. “Thank you for having me.”
They drifted in silence. There were no gods who would consecrate their union. There was no marriage, no house, and no peace for them. There would never be another night like this, even if she was the only one who knew it.
She heard their breathing smooth and even out as they drifted to sleep. But she didn’t dare. She tried to memorize the feel of their bodies instead, the weight of Lucius’s arm thrown over her hip, the way Gaius felt pressed against her back.
Though Liona wished the night could last forever, at last she could see the gray light of the pre-dawn between the shutter slats. Using every trick of stealth she had ever learned, she slipped from between them and dressed herself. She smiled to see them slumbering still. It was the image she would carry with her on the perilous journey.
There was an enormous man in a heavy cloak waiting for her outside the inn. She offered no resistance when he took her by the wrist.
As the sky lightened, she knew that Lucius and Gaius would wake up to find her gone. The scene broke her heart, but even that was a lost and distant thing.
• • • • •
Liona was silent for a long time. They sat facing each other on the bed. Liona had talked the sun down. The light in the infirmary had dimmed.
“You still feel it, don’t you?” Hailey whispered.
“That morning? It lives inside me, as so many memories do. I had suffered heartbreak before, and I do not think you live for centuries without experiencing it over and over again. That one, though. That one was the worst. I think it always will be.”
Liona’s eyes were dark and unfocused, seeing a different time. Hailey wondered what it would be like to survive leaving two people she had grown to love so well. It didn’t shock her to think of Liona growing to love two men. It was not the same love, no more than you could love two parents or two children in the same way. Instead it was a natural thing that grew up between them. It made her own heart ache for Kieran and Piers. Her love for them was like a knot that had no end. She would never come to the end of what she felt for those two, no matter where they were or what they did.
Though Liona sniffed and her eyes gleamed with unshed tears, she smiled sardonically at herself.
“It’s honestly ridiculous. I know what’s going to happen.”
“Does…does it have a happy ending?”
Even to herself, Hailey sounded so young and nervous. But it made Liona laugh. She wrapped Hailey in a warm embrace, planting a soft kiss on her forehead.
“How should I know?” Liona said, her voice light and sweet. “It hasn’t ended yet.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THEY PUT LIONA below decks in a cell where she could touch both walls with her arms outstretched. Once a day, they came to empty her bucket and to bring her food. It was never better than hard bread, and a fingers’ width of old cheese. She had no one to speak to, and the only light came from a window that she couldn’t have pushed a rabbit through.
When she thought of Lucius and Gaius, it was like a hand clamped around her heart. Instead, she tried to think ahead, to a time when she could be with her sister. She would be able to find Augusta. They would escape.
She tried to access her power regularly, but everything she tried only left her with a splitting headache. Whether her power had been mangled by her kidnapping or whether the future was still so uncertain that she could not see it, she was unsure. There was nothing there that she could see, so she stopped looking.
Her hair was the worst, for some reason. She could keep it braided and behind her, but when it was loose, she couldn’t stand it. She could only remember the times her lovers had touched it so sweetly. One day, she begged the man who came with her food for his knife, and as he watched, wide-eyed, she hacked it off at the nape.
At first she spent all of her time shivering under the meager blankets they gave her, but slowly she realized that the air was warming. They were sailing south again.
She thought the voyage would go on forever, but finally one day, the sounds changed. She sprang to the window, staring out. Instead of blue water, she could see the outline of a city in the early morning light. It was enormous, stretching out along the coast, but she could tell that it was not Rome. Liona did not have long to look at the coast. There was the pounding of footsteps in the hallway, and then two men came in. Before she could start to ask where the ship had arrived, a bag was placed over her head, and she was forced out. She concentrated on keeping her feet, listening for what she could. There were a mash of languages all around her. She could smell the salt of the sea, fish, grilling meat, and the smell of what must have been thousands of people living and working together.
She winced as she was pushed and shoved like a cow. She knew that she looked like one of the many slaves that were brought in and out of the major cities. No one would remember her passing. Soon enough, though, she went from the packed dirt roads to stone steps, and then she was descending down a twisting staircase. The air grew cool and damp; she was underground.
Finally, with a muffled curse, her captors shoved her forward, and a steel gate clanged shut behind her. Her hands reached for the hood that she wore, and when she pulled it off, she had to blink a few times before she could see clearly.
“Liona?”
Her eyes still needed to adjust to the dimness, but that voice, she would know that voice anywhere. She stumbled forward into her sister’s arms. Augusta had lost weight, and there was an iron to her that had never been there before, but oh it was her sister. The moment she could feel those arms around her, Liona’s eyes filled with tears.
“Oh Augusta, gods above, it’s you!”
The sisters held each other tightly, rocking back and forth in wordless joy and relief.
Liona pulled back to inspect her sister closely. In the dim torchlight, she was gaunt and her long blond hair was stringy and matted, but she looked whole.
“Have they hurt you?”
Augusta’s face twisted.
“They do terrible things here,” was all Augusta would say. “They want to know more about our powers, and what we can do.”
Liona felt a red tide of rage rise up in her, something that brought her closer to life than she had been in weeks. Touching her sister, she could see some of what she had experienced. There were blows across the face, a man with an iron bar. There was a funnel of cold
water, which could be poured ceaselessly over a trembling body. There were men who laughed, but worse, there were men who took notes, who planned, who saw people of power as aberrations to be judged and found wanting.
“I will get us out of here,” Liona swore. “I will.”
Augusta looked as if she very much doubted that, but instead of saying it, she touched Liona’s temple.
“What have they done to you? Your hair’s growing in white.”
Liona blinked, touching her temple in surprise. She had not thought of her hair in what felt like years.
“Nothing’s happened to it except shock I suppose. Augusta, you must tell me about this place.”
Augusta sat down with her sister on the hard wooden bench that was the cell’s only furniture. Now that her eyes had adjusted, Liona could see that there was a long line of cells, separated from each other by the same steel bars.
“This is the stronghold of the Sacred Order of the Dragon,” Augusta said in soft tones. “They are seeking to bring about the awakening of their god, a being of fire and wealth. They believe that they can do this through the blood of those with power.”
“They’re killing us?”
Augusta’s laugh was hollow.
“They bleed us. Sometimes they kill us.”
She brought Liona’s hand to the many small cuts along her arms. Liona received a flash of brass tubes that caught the blood, that funneled it down over the head of a huge grimacing stone idol. Something occurred to Liona.
“They’ve taken a man named Titus, a legionnaire…”
To Liona’s surprise, Augusta’s manner changed. She rolled her eyes, looking again like a girl in the marketplace asked about a man she found annoying.
“Oh that old bag of bones? Who cares about him?”
“Keep a civil tongue in your head, you arrogant little mare,” said a man nearby. “Who needs you to talk anyway?”