Rapture's Edge

9

Constantine watched as D, who’d apparently had enough of beating trainees senseless for the moment, jumped the ropes and leapt down from the ring. The crowd, still cheering, gave him a wide berth as he stalked away into the gloom of the far corridor and then broke into a run. After only a few long strides, he was swallowed by blackness.

The gathered Legiones began to disperse and make their way out of the sparring chamber and into one of the dozen winding tunnels that fed it. The catacombs where the Roman colony made their home included miles and miles of those tunnels, deep beneath the city, dark and chilly and scented faintly of mold and more strongly of the incense that burned everywhere in gold censers to mask it.

“Maybe it’s not anyone else he wants to kill, Lix.”

Even in the semi-gloom that was the constant of the catacombs, he saw Lix blanch. He turned to Constantine, his long hair falling, as always, into his eyes. “He would never…do that,” he said, scandalized. “It’s forbidden.”

“You know as well as I do that D doesn’t give a damn about rules. Ours, the gods’, anyone’s. I hope you’re right, though, brother.” He sighed, feeling a lead weight settle into the center of his chest. “I really hope you’re right. But we’re going to have to do something about him soon—before we find out the hard way.”

The therapeutic waters that fed the underground baths of the thermae were bubbling hot and faintly salty, as always, but for D they provided little relief. His muscles would be helped, but that wasn’t where the real ache lay. He settled his heavy bulk lower into the water, dragged his hands across his face, and closed his eyes.

Eliana.

Her image sprang to life beneath his lids. She was on the forefront of his mind every moment. Sleeping, waking, fighting, eating…he carried her with him always, and the need for her was like a sickness that had spread to every organ, eating him alive.

There would be no relief from it until he found her…or died.

He’d been in love with Eliana so passionately and for so long that the pain of her disappearance three years ago had transfigured itself into a morbid kind of obsession, burning and black and weirdly alive, like an agonizing cancer in his gut that was slowly devouring him from the inside out.

It was relentless, this obsession. He thought of nothing else. He dreamt of nothing else. He ate and breathed and lived for one thing only, and that was the day he’d find her and apologize for the mess he’d made and explain that contrary to what she thought, it wasn’t him who’d done the terrible thing that had driven her away in the first place.

Unfortunately, D had no idea where Eliana had gone. Rome was a huge city, ancient and sprawling, with a million places to hide. Or disappear altogether. But he knew the city and the particular musk and heady sweetness of her scent equally well and had high hopes he’d be able to find her before too much time had passed. Before things got even more complicated.

Before things got dangerous.

He failed, though. Every day and every night for years he’d searched, all for naught. He scoured the city, the surrounding countryside, as far north as the Alps and as far south as the tiny island of Malta, but not a trace of her could be found. He knew there was the possibility she’d left the country, though he couldn’t really get himself to believe it. Like all predatory animals, the Ikati had a home range. He thought she’d stick close to hers.

Wrong. She was gone. And he had no idea where she went.

That and the dreams he’d been having about her were killing him.

“Bonum vespere, Bellator,” said a soft voice. D’s head jerked up.

On the smooth rock floor on the opposite side of the thermae pool stood a young woman, robed in red. Dark haired and dark eyed like all of their kind, she also was very young. And very lovely. In layer over pale, wavering layer, light from the moving waters danced over her face, her body, the walls of the room. He searched his memory for her name…Iris. Former member of the Electi. Celian had disbanded the harem when the old king had died, but the Bellatorum were still sought after by the unmated females for s****l partners and breeding studs; the warriors were the most Gifted, and their genes were in high demand.

Among other things.

D nodded a curt greeting.

Encouraged, she smiled at him shyly and walked around the ledge of the pool, gazing down into the bubbling pale green water, sending him an occasional glance as she moved toward him. He saw the curves of her body beneath the flowing robe as she walked and imagined she might be nude beneath it.

Eliana.

His body responded. Naked in the hot water, he grew hard.

Iris stopped beside him. Silent, he looked up at her. She said, “May I join you?” Without waiting for a response, she opened her robe and slid it over her bare shoulders. It billowed into a pool of red silk around her ankles and settled against the wet stone.

Nude, she was more than pretty. She was ripe and perfect as a summer peach.

She crouched and swung her long legs over the side of the pool, and D watched with dark, gnawing need as she arched back and shook her hair from her face. She sat on the edge, leaning on her hands, her feet in the water, flat stomach and full breasts and a little smile as she looked down at him with an eyebrow raised like a cat with all the cream.

D stood abruptly. Water streamed from his naked body, and Iris lost her smile as her gaze traveled over his chest, down his abdomen, even lower…

Her eyes widened. Her mouth formed a startled O.