Page 108 of Firebird
Gaius raised his hand for quiet. “Then we are agreed. When Legatus Drussus returns from his campaign, we will strike immediately.”
That caught my attention. “But Drussus could be gone forweeks.”
“Our intelligence has told us he is near an end,” added Gaius. “Two weeks at the most. Possibly three.”
“Three…weeks?” My voice had dropped deeper with the dragon.
Trajan stepped forward from where he’d been reclining. “Julian, you know that Drussus is the emperor’s strongest general other than you, and possibly Sabinus, and with his blood of the Ignis line, he would certainly believe he has rights to the throne if we assassinate Igniculus while he’s away. We can’t allow him to live, and the assassinations must all be done at once, so no one can flee and hide and then return with an army.”
All of this I knew. I wasn’t a fool. But my dragon and my heart and my soul rebelled at the idea of Malina being in danger for three more weeks.
“Then Ciprian must fall to some untimely, accidental death,” I added. “Immediately.”
Ciprian was one of many on our targeted list who would all die in the same night. But I couldn’t wait for Drussus to return before taking him out.
“The emperor will know it’s you, Julian,” said Trajan.
“Then we must devise a way that it couldn’t possibly have been me who is responsible.”
“I don’t understand,” said Horatius. “Why must Ciprian die now?”
Everyone here had heard, or most likely had witnessed, when the emperor handed over Malina into Ciprian’s possession at the Colosseum. But none of them except Trajan understood her importance to me. And I wasn’t going to bury or hide my love for Malina like a shame.
“Because Ciprian holds my dragon’s mate in his home.Mymate.”
They froze and stared in shock, for it was rare a dragon would choose a human as a mate. Maybe it was my father’s blood coursing through me. His dragon had also chosen a human as his god-given mate. Or perhaps it was simply the gods righting the wrongs, giving me a powerful, magnificent female to be my partner against the demons of this world. I didn’t know. And I didn’t care. All I knew was that it was right and true.
“Are you sure?” asked Gaius, unease etched into his brow.
“I am certain Malina has been anointed as mine by the gods. On Jupiter’s stone, I swear it.”
A cool breeze wafted over the terrace from the water. It should’ve calmed me, given me some relief on this hot and oppressive night. But nothing would ease me or my mind until I had Malina safely back in my arms.
“It’s too risky,” said Appius. “It could alarm Caesar.”
“He’s right,” Gaius said to me. “How can we possibly do this when we’re so close to success?”
Holding my temper while my dragon growled in my belly, I said, “I understand if none of you want part in this. But there is no way in this fucking world that I’m leaving her in Ciprian’s home for three more weeks. My dragon won’t stand for it. If you’ve had a mate, then you understand what I’m telling you.”
Gaius flinched, for he had a long marriage with his true god-given mate and he understood. They all understood that when the dragon takes hold, there is no stopping him.
“My house is on the same street as his,” said Horatius. “My slave girl goes to market with one of his every week. Perhaps we can slip him a poison.”
“A poison would be too obvious,” I said. “It needs to be something else.”
“I could help,” said Agrippa, a distinguished senator from the Media Nocte line. He was a somber dragon who wore a close-cropped beard and a scowl most of the time. “I hold no love for my cousin Ciprian. My son is his new prefect and might be able to get him where we need him for an untimely accident.”
To my great relief, the conversation fell into the many accidents Ciprian might encounter in the city—a loaded cart of grain crushes him when a wheel breaks, an angry vendor shifts into half-skin as he passes by and accidentally claws his throat, or a street fight runs amok where he’s caught in the mayhem and stabbed through the heart. The last was my favorite.
While the senators argued over what was best, I pulled Trajan to the side.
“I need one of your farthest homes to hide Malina once Ciprian is dead.”
He nodded. “And you shall have it.”
“Thank you, brother. When Ciprian is dead, I’ll fly her there, then return to Rome.”
“You can’t both be missing when word reaches Igniculus that Ciprian is dead. He’ll suspect you first.”
