Barbarian's Soul (19 page)

“I did not beat the boy, though perhaps his nursemaid should be switched for asking such a thing.” He tipped the cup in his hands to his mouth frowning into the empty chalice before continuing. “I seared his ears with my displeasure and left him to contemplate his actions. He rests now on his own pallet.”

Adria felt a whisper of relief, though the boy and his acerbic tongue—he’d referenced her as Bran’s
whore
more than once during his suppertime diatribe—deserved a sound thrashing, she would not have seen him hurt. She tilted her head and studied Bran. She got the impression he was relieved as well.

“The children. They are not yours?”

He raised one brow but remained silent.

“Julian and Cyma. They say their mother was a fighter, that they never knew their fathers.” The look on Bran’s face was so dark that for a moment, Adria thought she may have stepped over an invisible boundary from which there would be no return.

He gave her a long, considering look before he spoke. “Her name was Beatrix,” he answered in a low voice. “She had been sparring in the arena for seven years before I was enslaved and trained as a gladiator.”

There was a bitter undertone in his voice. Adria could not imagine what it was to be a slave, to be owned and bent to another’s will. “I did not know that women fought as gladiators.”

Bran gave a humorless snort. “The Romans will pit anyone and anything against each other as long as it feeds their thirst for blood and entertainment. Women. Animals. The physically weak and addle minded. Even dwarves who struggle to hold their weapons.”

“Not all Romans enjoy the games,” she answered.

Bran raised his gaze. “Perhaps not, but enough do that the owners of the
ludi
will do whatever it takes to fill their purses. Beatrix’s master ran a school in Alexandria, a more prosperous, successful one then the one where I trained. My...” his lip curled, “...master was an imbecile who knew nothing of training or fighting. He lost many students before they ever made it to the arena.”

“How could the school succeed if the students,” Adria hesitated, “died?”

Bran’s jaw clenched. “Rome’s conquests. If a student was too weak from hunger to dodge an oncoming trident then it was no strain to replace him. Prisoners of war cost next to nothing.”

If not for the shadows in his eyes, Adria would think they were discussing the simple trading of grain or livestock. “He could not continue in that way.”

“No. He was not total fool. By the time I was purchased by the Egyptian he had come into an agreement with Beatrix’s
lanista,
her owner
.
He would provide a trainer from his own school in return for a share of Hapu’s profits.” Bran stood and went to the wine jar, growling when he found it empty.

Adria had not counted on such revelation from her simple question. The wine must have loosened his tongue. She’d witnessed her share of loud bragging and arguing in the local
tavernas
to know that spirits did more than dull the brain. They could make a boisterous man brooding and turn a surly man like Bran into a chattering magpie.

Bran lifted another wine jar from a shadowed corner of the room. He filled his chalice and drained the cup then filled it again increasing Adria’s unease. Living in a crowded tenement, she’d witnessed drunken husbands and lovers staggering home, not caring who heard their demands of conjugal rights. She eyed Bran and tried to judge the amount of wine it would take to crumble his reserve. Best to keep him talking. “Did this trainer show you how to fight?”

“No,” he answered coldly, looking out the window once more. “He taught me how to kill.”

Adria’s heart wrenched at the pain in his voice. “But...were you not a warrior in your own country?”

Eyes narrowed, Bran started to cross the suddenly very small room. He didn’t just walk, she thought, he moved like a predator, a creature stalking its prey. A shiver went through her as she imagined him looking just like this entering the arena.

Her stomach muscles clenched when he crouched before her, hot panic flaring in her belly. He was so close she could smell the tartness of wine on his breath, see the dark shadow of his beard along the chiseled line of his jaw. His eyes, bright as they were from the spirits, reminded her of a pine forest, cool and green and beautiful until you were lured into its depths only to be lost in the shadows.

“Warriors have honor,” he said in a low voice. “They fight with a purpose. To defend their land, to protect the lives of their people.”

He leaned close, until there was only a hand’s width between them. The spicy musk of his scent filled her, touching something within that made her blood feel as if it were on fire. She searched his face, the deep creases around his mouth, his eyes lending a harsh cast to his strong features. Her gaze fell to his firm lips and a vague thought that she wanted him to kiss her, to hold her as he had this morning dulled the strain of having him so near.

“A gladiator is nothing more than a slave, a puppet manipulated to feed the lust for the mob that calls themselves conquerors.”

Gods, why had she asked about Linus? Why did she care? Caring about others had landed her in this mess. Mili’s grandmother’s desire for oranges had drawn Tiege’s attention, Miriam’s dire circumstances had led her to Paulin and that fateful decision had delivered her into the hands of this heathen.

A sensual, powerful, incredibly handsome heathen.

Adria licked her lips, her alarm spiking when his gaze shot to her mouth. Questions. She needed to ask more questions to divert his attention and her interest. “How did all this bring the children to your care?”

Bran did not answer. He was still staring at her mouth. Hunger burned in his eyes. His breath quickened and she saw him clench his right hand into a fist. Adria held her own breath until he dragged his gaze up to hers.

“Beatrix’s owner lent my master a trainer.”

There was such a hollow pain in his voice. “This trainer taught you how to be a gladiator?”

“I was tortured,” he replied in a husky voice. “In true Roman fashion, it is believed a gladiator must submit to total humiliation and pledge to die for his school before he is ready to fight.”

“Tortured,” she whispered, her gaze flitted to a trio of scars on his arm. Skimmed along another near his shoulder and neck.

His jaw tightened. “My subjugation took longer than most. I was a difficult student.”

Adria’s mind whirled. In her years living in the streets she had watched parades of gladiators march with stoic resolve down Rome’s thoroughfares, the patrician ladies swooning and throwing them favors. She’d thought it a privileged life despite their servile status.

The scars. She’d wondered at their origin before, had thought them the natural consequence of swordplay. It had not occurred to her that they might be the result of abuse, of torture. She swallowed against a wave of tears. The pain must have been agonizing. There had been no one to care.

“What of you, Adria?”

She blinked. “What?”

“Who trained you to be a thief?”

The seeds of sympathy she’d begun to feel for Bran, scattered beneath his question. She gauged his expression. It was guarded as seemed his habit. “Starving people teach themselves.”

He seemed to consider this a moment before taking another drink. “Hunger is a strong motivation.” He propped his arms on his knees and pinned her with a look. “But gold, silver, gems. They make a poor meal, thief.”

His obsession with her affairs was past irritating as were his efforts to intimidate her. Did he think she would cower before his bullying? Life in the streets had taught her about bullies. Call their bluffs, show them no fear and they backed away.

Slipping her feet beneath her, Adria knelt before him, braced her hands on her thighs and leaned forward until their noses were near to touching. “Stop calling me a thief.”

The only sound in the room came from their breathing, their gazes locked onto each other. She would win this battle. She could ignore the heat, the awareness that radiated between them like flames licking at kindling. If she focused on her purpose—and avoided breathing—the spicy musk of his skin would not deter her. She could remain still and in one position for as long as it took. Adria fought back a triumphant smile.

The bully threaded his fingers through her hair and crushed his mouth to hers.

Chapter Eleven

S
he tasted of mint and melted honey and seduction. Bran shuddered. She tasted like paradise.

In the arena, every move was calculated, decisions made in split seconds, gut instincts guided your hand. There could be no hesitation, no second guessing. Impulsive reactions could leave a gladiator dead in the sand. Bran had learned that at the point of a hot iron and the stroke of a whip.

How had he ended up on his knees like a supplicant worshiping a goddess?

It had not been impulsiveness, he reassured himself through the wine-induced fog his brain had sunk into. No, he’d been thinking about this kiss since the moment he’d looked over the wall of Paulin’s domain, seen the surprise in her eyes flash into amethyst fire, defiance and spirit daring him to act. The gladiator in him had not been able to turn away from the challenge. The man he was could not now turn from the sensual woman pliant beneath his mouth.

Bran tilted Adria’s chin with his hand, then deepened the kiss. Her hair was soft and thick as he’d imagined, her lips warm and sweet beneath his own. She’d gone rigid with outrage at his first touch, but she was not trying to pull free and that startled and pleased him.

Adria gave a small moan into his mouth. He slid his hands to the back of her head, cradled her close and inhaled the sweet, fresh scent of her skin, eager to drive away the dark memories her questions had resurrected. She tasted so good.

Her lips parted beneath his. White-hot lust crashed through Bran’s belly straight to his groin. He took full advantage, plunged his tongue into the moist recesses of her mouth, explored and savored the taste. A low groan rumbled from deep within his throat when her tongue met his, the small, tentative strokes sending fire through his veins.

Adria ran her hands along his arms to his shoulders, cool against his fevered skin. Speaking of his time as a gladiator to this fractious female had also startled him. He spoke of that time in hell...of Beatrix...with no one. While he could blame the wine, it had been an unreasonable desire to shake her image of him as a barbarian that had prompted it. If he did not stop now he would become the very image of what she thought him to be and ravage her right here on the floor.

He pulled away. Her small whimper of protest sent another shaft of hot pleasure through him.

“That,” he said on a ragged breath, “should not have happened.”

She stared at him, a confused look in her eyes now darkened with desire to the purple of bell heather that covered the meadows of Eire. Her lips, still parted, were swollen and pink which only made him want to kiss her more. Bran sucked in a ragged breath, brushed his thumb across her plump lower lip. Gods, he wanted to do so much more.

As regret tugged at him, anger replaced confusion, heightened the rose flush desire had brushed across her cheeks. Of course, she would be appalled. She was Roman. Of course she would look at him, a slave, a gladiator, in horror.  He was ten kinds of fool for feeling any regret.

He schooled his features into his battle expression. “Beatrix had earned her master a fortune,” he said in a flat voice, the lust cooling in his veins. “She had an agreement with him that were she to die in a match, her children would be set free.”

Adria sat back on her heels, shook her head as she ran her hands through her hair. She gave him a sharp look. “Their mother was killed in the arena?”

Bran stood and stared down at her. “Their mother died at my hand.”

***

“You look like you’ve been dragged the length of the Tiber by a team of horses. Did I not leave enough wine to send you into your usual oblivion?”

Bran glowered at Menw as he straddled the bench beside the table. “Your wit is unamusing.” He grimaced as he took a drink of the water Menw set before him. “I did not sleep last night at all.” Not when he’d spent the balance of the night in his workshop. There was no way he could have stayed in the same room with Adria.

The memory of the look in her eyes at his confession in his role in Beatrix’s death, the look that said
murderer,
was branded in his mind as surely as the brand of ownership marred the back of his neck. It didn’t matter to him.
She
didn’t matter to him. His dark thoughts were interrupted when Menw laughed and set a bowl of porridge before him.

Bran’s stomach roiled at the sight of the grey, boiled millet. There had been many days during his captivity when he would have considered this a banquet. Now, he pushed it away. “Have we more wine?”

Menw raised up from the hearth where he’d been stirring the cauldron and gave him a narrowed look. “It is not your habit to consume spirits so early in the day. Were the dreams worse last eve?”

His clansman could not begin to fathom.

Bran would have never conceived that his nightmares would follow him into the light of day. But what else to call last night?

Not that Adria was a nightmare, not of the standard night-terror sort. Gods, just the opposite. From the moment he’d pressed his lips to her warm, soft mouth he’d felt as if every hope, every dream he’d ever wished for had manifested there in his arms. Even within the wine-induced haze a lamp had been lighted, dispelling the darkness that clung to his heart, the darkness that fueled the barriers that kept him from feeling. Kept the hurt and pain that he feared would destroy him at bay. It had lasted for one exquisite moment, dropping him without ceremony right back into the hell of his life when he forced himself to stop.

Dagda, was he a fucking poet? He knew nothing of the woman save her inclination to wreck havoc in his life. His poor judgment last eve was nothing more than his body, too long celibate and muddled with too much wine, responding to an opportune female. Any woman would have sufficed. It was absurd to consider for even a moment that Adria touched him in a way no one else ever had or ever could. Made him feel as if he were not in control.