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  Her eyes darkened, dilated pupils almost obliterating her mystical, bicolored irises. Lust burned deep in his groin. Hot. Painful. He traced his thumb across her soft lower lip, felt the heat of her breath scorch his flesh. “Your husband’s?” His voice rasped, as if he had been lost in the desert for days without liquid sustenance. As if the thought of this girl belonging to another man grazed his soul.

  It made no difference if she were married or not. If he wanted her, he would have her, and to Tartarus with her entire family if they attempted to deny his desire.

  The tip of her tongue moistened the seam of her lips, and he imagined that tongue slipping between his own lips, invading his mouth, and his fingers tightened around her jaw.

  “I belong to no man.” Her words were low, breathless, yet clear and melodic to his ears.

  “You belong to me.”

  Her eyes never left his. “Do you take everything by force, Roman?” Her words were slow, deliberate, as if she wanted him to understand everything she said. She made an expressive gesture with her hand, encompassing the virgin forest. “My land. My people.” She paused for a heartbeat. “Me?”

  He rammed his gladius into the ground and cradled her face with both hands. “I don’t need to take you by force, my lady. But I’ll use force against any who try to keep you from me.”

  Her hand came between them, and the tips of her fingers touched his naked skin over the heavy beat of his heart. Her pressure was so slight he could scarcely feel her at all, and yet her touch branded him, reached deep inside and twisted his gut.

  He didn’t know her name. Didn’t know which noble claimed her. But none of that mattered. Because he had conquered their land for the mighty Caesar and everything and everyone was now owned by Rome.

  And here, he was Rome.

  Her fingers grazed over his chest, as if the texture of his flesh and hair fascinated her. His hands slid from her face to her throat, and the rapid beat of her pulse against his fingers sank into his blood, an erotic echo.

  “Aren’t you going to kill me?” Her whisper flickered through his brain, making no sense. Had he misunderstood? His grasp of her language was far from comprehensive. An oversight he intended to remedy forthwith.

  “Were you sent to spy on me?” Inconceivable anyone should send this fragile female on such an assignment, especially with only an ornamental dagger for defense. And yet the Celts were not Roman. Their women were rumored to be as ruthless as their men in battle.

  He’d witnessed such himself, from those villages whose inhabitants hadn’t surrendered voluntarily beneath the might of the Eagle.

  She looked up at him, fearless and silent. While he couldn’t imagine her engaged in bloody battle, she still had the courage of a warrior to stand up to him.

  He lowered his head as his hands slid over her shoulders. “If you weren’t sent to spy on me, then why should I kill you?”

  Her hand flattened against his chest, as if she meant to push him away but the touch became an irresistible caress as her palm rubbed over his erect nipple. His cock throbbed at her gentle touch, and the soft linen did nothing to hide the extent of his erection. Curling his fingers around her upper arms, he pulled her against his hard body, wanting her to feel how much she aroused him, wanting to feel the softness of her skin against him.

  Her lips parted in a startled gasp as he ground his shaft against her stomach. Sliding one hand down her back, he cupped her round buttock and anchored her securely against his rigid heat.

  He wanted more. But for now, this sufficed.

  “My beautiful, fearless Celt,” he said in his own language. He squeezed her firm buttock, and she sucked in a shocked breath, even as she squirmed against him. “Would you look at me with such misplaced trust if you knew how much I wanted to rip this gown from your body?” He slid a finger between the crease of her tight little bottom, and her fingernails dug into his chest as she jerked toward him.

  He wound his arm around her waist to keep her from any thought of retreat. His finger delved deeper into her hot crevice and she gave a low moan. “Do you know how much I want you, my little Celtic lady? How I want to bury my cock inside your body until I feel you writhe around my shaft? Would you let me, if I asked?”

  She pulled, perhaps unconsciously, at his chest hair, and the stabbing pain shot straight to his straining erection. Gods, he needed to fuck her. But every word of her barbaric language had fled his mind, to be replaced by images of her naked beneath him as he filled every tight channel she possessed with his hot seed.

  Amethyst and jade eyes stared up at him, dark with passion, devoid of fear. A man could lose his mind and soul looking into such mystical eyes. “Thank the gods you don’t speak my tongue.” He abandoned her tempting buttocks and his palm molded the curve of her hip. “You’d spit in my face.”

  Her fingers stilled in their tentative exploration of his battle-scarred chest. “Roman barbarian.” The words were whispered in Celtic, yet he understood them perfectly.

  His arm tightened around her slender waist, and he wound the end of her plait around his other hand. Silken strands caressed his palm and he barely noticed the sharp edges of the jewelry embedding into his skin. “Rome can teach you much, my lady.” And he would start the lessons here. Now. And when his lust was sated he would take her back to the settlement so she was always readily available.

  “Rome is barbaric.” Her voice was breathless and she shifted against him, rubbing herself over his engorged cock. Again her language failed him, but that was of no consequence. He would show her how much Rome could teach her, and, by the time he finished, she would never wish to return to her primitive life.

  He brushed his mouth against hers. She was so soft. So sweet. His tongue traced the seam of her lips, teasing for entry, pressing against the barrier of her teeth. When she finally opened to him he plunged inside, invading her heat, exploring every secret corner, and tangling his tongue around hers, stroking and stoking the scorching embers.

  She moaned inside his mouth, and the sound vibrated against his flesh, sizzled along his blood and sent waves of fire coursing through his agonized shaft. Still bound by her braid he clasped her head, holding her still for his pleasure as he plundered her mouth as a ravenous man plundered the fields of Elysian.

  Crushed against him he could feel the firm muscles of her thighs, and the exquisite damp heat of her pussy burned through her gown, through his linen robe, and tortured his last remnants of restraint.

  Maximus tore his mouth from her, captured her bottom lip between his teeth. She panted into his face, her eyes glazed with passion, and with a growl of possession he released her lip and nibbled kisses with his lips and teeth across her face before sucking her earlobe into his searching mouth.

  Her nails dug into his chest, and her earring scraped along his tongue. His hand slid up from her waist and cupped her breast, curled his fingers around the tempting fullness and imagined suckling her erect, rosy nipple until she screamed for release.

  He flicked the tip of his tongue into the hollow of her ear, felt her shudder in his embrace, and slid his hand between their tightly meshed bodies. Her arousal shimmered all around, tantalizing and frustrating, edging his lust to unbearable heights.

  He needed to touch her feminine folds, her swollen clitoris, the wet heat of her slit. As his finger grazed over her through the cursed barrier of her gown, he rasped in Latin, “You deserve more than a quick fuck in the forest, my lady. I promise once we’re back at the settlement I’ll see to your every comfort.”

  She tensed, as if his touch had shocked. Surely he hadn’t hurt her? He stilled his finger, although every impulse urged him to explore further, to seek her hidden treasures. “Don’t fear me, lady.” His voice was husky, but he couldn’t help that. She knew he wanted her. “I won’t allow any other to touch you but me.”

  The very thought of another man touching her boiled his brain. She was his. She would always be his. If a husband came searching for her, the cho
ice was plain. Surrender his wife to Maximus or die.

  Her hand flattened against his chest and this time there was no pretense in the way she pushed him. “Please.” Her voice was low, yet he clearly detected the panic clinging to that one word.

  He dragged his hand from the apex of her thighs, although the action went against every screaming nerve in his body. Frustrated desire shredded his mind, wiped every word of her language into oblivion.

  “Come with me.” If only she understood him. “You know that sooner or later we’ll find your kinsfolk. With me, you’ll be safe.” They had obviously fled to the hills to escape the invasion, but that act of cowardice had gained them, at most, only a few months of extended freedom.

  And this girl was no coward. She didn’t deserve to be hunted down like a rabid dog and either slaughtered in the rage of battle or taken as a spoil of war.

  But she couldn’t understand him and his words didn’t sooth. Instead she pulled from his arms and her braid slithered around his hand before escaping.

  She stood before him. It would take no physical effort to simply sweep her into his arms, toss her over his horse and take her back to the settlement. Once there, he could imprison her as an insurgent. Could have her whenever the urge gripped him.

  The image churned his stomach, made bile rise in his throat. He wanted this golden wood nymph, but not at any cost. What pleasure would he derive from her total subjugation?

  Chapter Two

  The fear that had previously been absent now clouded her fantastical eyes. Incomprehension tore through him, melding with fiery frustration and creating a maelstrom of fury against a foe unknown. Why did she fear him now? What had he done to make her so afraid?

  He fisted his hands but still she didn’t move. Why didn’t she run from him, if that was what she wanted? He wouldn’t follow. Wouldn’t take her captive. While he’d have no compunction in slaughtering anyone who attempted to take her from him, she had to go with him willingly.

  “You shouldn’t wander the countryside unattended.” His throat was raw. His voice didn’t sound like his own. He searched for the right words to tell her to be careful, to remain safe. To avoid the scouting parties systematically searching the hills for renegades.

  But her Celtic eluded him. “Stay with your menfolk,” he said instead. Perhaps they would be able to protect her. But no man could protect her as he could.

  Maybe he should take her with him despite her reluctance. She would come around to his way of thinking eventually, when she saw the futility of resisting the might that was Rome.

  He searched her face, unwittingly memorizing the proud angle of her jaw, her high cheekbones and her strange, captivating eyes. If he was Rome, she was Cambria, and if he took her against her will, everything that she was would die.

  “Farewell, my Celtic lady.” His voice was hollow, an echo of the void filling his chest and seeping through his heavy limbs. He pulled his gladius from the earth, took two backward paces, then turned and marched from her.

  Carys watched the Roman disappear into the forest. Her breath stuttered in her chest and she curled her hand around her throat, the erratic pound of her pulse against her fingers echoing along every traumatized nerve.

  Moths fluttered within the hollowness of her legs and she stumbled against a tree for support. What had just happened?

  The Roman had left her. She had seen it with her own eyes and still could scarcely believe it.

  She closed her eyes and sucked in long, calming breaths, attempting to regulate her heartbeat, center her psyche. Her fingers ached around the handle of her dagger and she loosened her grip, horrifically aware that not once during the encounter had she even thought to gut her sworn enemy.

  Finally her pulse slowed and, with a shiver, she glanced around but he had long gone from sight. She pressed her fingers against her throbbing pussy, trying to alleviate the maddening throb of her swollen clit, but the pressure only increased the sensation, and wet heat dampened her.

  She leaned back against the tree, sheathed her dagger at her waist and gazed into the leafy canopy above. Her Roman was more magnificent up close than anything her imagination had conjured. Her finger teased her clit as she remembered his sapphire blue eyes. She had never before encountered anyone with eyes as blue as the clearest summer day.

  He had told her exactly what he wanted to do with her. And when she had resisted, he had left her. Perhaps, after all, Romans did have a sense of honor.

  A low cry escaped and she grasped her head, digging her fingers into her scalp. She had expected death at his hands. Perhaps brutal violation. But she hadn’t expected to be kissed the way he had kissed her. Hadn’t expected the touch of his hands to ignite flames in her blood or send tremors through her limbs.

  He affected her more profoundly than she had dared dream. And instead of fulfilling every fantasy she harbored, fantasies she knew he shared by the dark passion in his eyes, his erratic breath and the hard, glorious erection she had felt beneath his scrap of linen, he had left her.

  She forced herself upright. Her selfish desires had almost cost her people everything. If the Roman enslaved her, the blood shed in her rescue would haunt her forever. He had set her free and, while she knew if he’d had the slightest inkling she was a Druid—or whose blood she shared—he would have slit her throat, releasing her elevated his status from barbarian to her equal.

  Did she dare spy on him again? It was a dangerous game. And yet one that sent dark thrills of excitement spinning through her senses despite, or perhaps because of, the risk of recapture.

  But she wouldn’t be recaptured. And even if she was, and they shared another breath-stealing kiss, she would still somehow retain her freedom.

  Because this Roman possessed honor.

  She retrieved her tightly woven bag from the tangled tree roots and turned and hastened through the forest, taking hidden paths known only to a select few, her sense of direction unerring as she delved deeper into the untamed wilds. Every few moments she paused, ears attuned to the slightest crack of a twig or misplaced scurry of woodland creatures. But aside from the beat of her heart, the breeze shivering through the leaves and the expected rustlings from the undergrowth, the forest was silent. She wasn’t being followed, either by Roman or random villager.

  Finally reassured she was truly alone, she doubled back on herself and took the direct route to the enchanted enclave of the Druids. The sacred spiral, a magical veil created by the combined power of all their gods and goddesses that pulsed from the spiritual core of the hallowed bluestones, had been their haven and hidden them from the enemy for these last seven moons.

  Aeron dy Ehangwen, High Druid, stood in the center of the holy cromlech, at the heart of the protective spiral invoked during the Feast of the Dead. The fingers of his right hand drummed impatiently on the polished stone altar. Yet again, Carys had disobeyed his decree and left the security of the sanctified circle.

  Rage bubbled through his veins, pounded against his temples and threatened to incinerate his brain. Did she have so little regard for her own safety? For the safety of her people? Did she not realize that if caught by the enemy, the barbarous Romans would rape her senseless before ripping her limb from bloodied limb?

  Through a gap in the outer ring of the immense bluestones, he saw her emerge from the forest into the sacred oak glade. Relief tempered his anger, but not enough to quell the fire in his blood. But then, nothing could ever quell the fire in his blood when he saw Carys.

  She paused beyond the inner circle of megaliths and looked his way. He doubted she could see him, deep in the shadows cast by the flat capstone roof, but he had learned years ago never to underestimate his little Carys. She had formidable powers, powers she was scarcely aware existed, but that didn’t excuse her behavior.

  When it became clear she wasn’t going to enter the heart of the cromlech, Aeron fought against the compunction to go to her. His fist clenched on the altar, and flames licked through his chest. She never
came to him.

  He grasped the hazel rod with his left hand and stepped from the inner sanctum into the sunlight. Carys neither moved nor looked surprised to see him suddenly appear.

  “So you’ve returned.” He allowed an ember of emotion to heat his words, to show his condemnation.

  “Yes.” Just that one word. No hint of apology or attempt at denial. The hazel rod burned his palm, such was the pressure he exerted.

  “Which village?” It didn’t matter which village she had visited. They were all occupied by Roman scum. Only here, where the sacred spiral pulsed, were they safe from the invasion.

  She took a step toward him. “I don’t go to the villages, Aeron. I’m not that much of a fool.”

  She wasn’t a fool at all. Except for the way she denied him.

  But she wouldn’t deny him for much longer. Destiny shimmered on the precipice and soon all their futures would alter irreversibly.

  He held the knowledge close. She had no reason to know what he planned. None of them had reason to know.

  “Then where have you been?” Against his will he strode toward her and then stopped dead as the scent of her arousal, as heady and intoxicating as the most potent of hallucinatory elixirs, drifted on a sensual breeze.

  Disbelief ripped through his brain as betrayal thundered through his blood and collided with brutal force along the length of his cock. Desire and disgust warred for supremacy, but desire always simmered beneath the surface whenever Carys was near. Disgust simply fed his hunger, gave it an ugly, jagged edge.

  His fingers ached to grip her shoulders, shake her till her hair tumbled free of its restraints. How dare she fuck another? For one incandescent moment a haze of red mist clouded his view, clouded his mind. Clouded his entire purpose. Carys had opened her thighs to another man.