Page 61 of Firebird
“Wouldn’t? Or couldn’t?”
There was a distinct difference. It was like he knew about the tether,about my magic sinking her claws into him, winding deeper, curling around his bones, seeking the essence of his soul. My magic never wanted to let him go.
“Your secret is safe with me,” I assured him, unable to confess how far I’d fallen already. “But… why tell me?”
“Because while I’m forced to maintain my role as legatus, I would do anything to relinquish it. I don’t want to kill those rebelling against us. I understand them and why they fight so fiercely. Battling them is like battling myself.”
He combed a hand over his short hair, mussing the longer strands toward the front. I suddenly had the urge to comb my hands through it, to see if it was soft or coarse.
“But I must.” Then he looked at me again with a plea in those amber depths. “It’s all a means to an end, you understand. I must play my part until we are ready to strike.”
I shuffled closer on my knees and reached across to place my hand on his where it rested on his knee. “I will help you.”
He turned his hand and opened his palm, closing his large hand around mine. “All I need is for you to be near me. And safe.”
I swallowed hard at the implication he was making. I couldn’t protest, for I couldn’t deny what the gods had already told me. Their magic was my gift and it pronounced loud and clear that this Roman, this dragon, was bound to me. And I to him.
He gave my hand a squeeze and rose to walk toward the pitcher and bowl. “It’s late. And I’ve got to get an early start tomorrow. Let’s go to sleep.”
His weariness was evident, but there was a lightness between us that had never been there before. I rose quietly and tucked myself in the bed that was constructed a foot off the ground. His was a bit longer and wider, on the other side of the carpet.
I didn’t watch to see if he was naked when he blew out the oil lamp and climbed into his bed, the creaking of the wood proclaiming it hadbeen used many nights on many campaigns. Strangely, I felt calmer and more peaceful than any night since I’d been captured by him.
I thought he’d fallen asleep but then he spoke in that deep, low timbre.
“My mother rode my father as a dragon.”
I turned to look at him but, sadly, could not make out even the slightest curve of his face in the dark.
Surprised, I asked, “Your mother was human?”
“Yes. She was a slave in a Roman province in Thrace when my father met her.”
I could barely breathe. His mother had been a slave? It hardly seemed possible.
“She worked in the household of a noble family, one of his comrades from his legion. My father—” He broke off with a chuckle. “He told me, ‘one look at her and my heart was gone.’ He begged his friend’s mother to sell her to him. She protested but my father had always been rather charismatic and persuasive.”
“He was a charmer, your father?” I asked lightly, even while I was breathless with this new revelation.
“Believe it or not, yes. I’ve always been more stoic like my mother.”
He shifted in his bed and when he spoke again, it seemed like he was facing my direction.
“My father said he took her back to Rome and straight to the public office of records and signed the papers to free her.”
“Right away?”
“Instantly. He knew he couldn’t marry a slave. Under Emperor Adolphus’s rule, it was also illegal to marry a slave, but you could marry any freed person from any country.”
Yet again, my poor heart galloped faster, knowing these intimate confessions tied us even tighter to one another.
“My uncle never accepted the marriage. Of course, he and my fatherwere never close. My father was content to retire early from his military career as prefect, while my uncle continued to rise in the ranks.”
“What did your father do when he retired?” I asked.
“He started a family.” There was a bittersweet tenor to his voice. “They could only ever have one child.”
“I’ll bet you were spoiled,” I teased, wanting to ease the pain I knew he was feeling since his parents were gone.
