Page 92 of Firebird
Malina danced on, spinning and swaying and hypnotizing the crowd with her bewitching dance, her sinuous movements. The song went on and on, and Malina never stopped, a bead of sweat trickling down her temple and dropping onto the white marble.
I was about to step in and stop the dance—etiquette be damned—when the music came to a crescendo. Malina spun faster and faster until she struck a final pose, reminding me of the girl on the stage in Dacia.
Everyone applauded while Igniculus barely roused and Ciprian was dead asleep on my carpet. My uncle pushed to stand groggily and ambled toward me, seeming more than a bit drunk when I knew he hadn’t imbibed nearly enough to be intoxicated.
“Thank you for hosting, nephew. I’d best be going.” He yawned and clapped his hand on my shoulder. “The day’s been long.”
“Yes, uncle. Happy to be of service.”
As he walked toward the foyer, his praetorian guards melting out of the shadows to flank him, he called back, “The Colosseum tomorrow. At noon.”
My gut clenched, but a sense of relief washed over me. The emperor leaving meant it was time for everyone to leave. The guests began to thank me for a lovely evening while I summoned Ruskus with a finger.
When he was at my side, I leaned down to say, “Fetch Ciprian’s litter bearers to come and get him off my carpet.”
“Yes, dominus.”
Fausta stopped and bowed before me. “Thank you, Julian, for having me in your home.”
She didn’t simper or flirt or make any of the overtures she did earlier. I wondered if she had that feminine intuition and understood that Malina meant more to me than a slave should. She cut me with disapproving eyes as I expected, but she held her chin high, her gaze cold, full of the poise of a woman of the dragon aristocracy.
“Good night, Fausta. Thank you for coming.”
“Good night.” She followed the others filing through my foyer toward the front, where their litter bearers and litters had been waiting all night to carry them home.
Trajan stopped before me. As always, he’d kept his distance from me. Though he was my military tribune, we’d tried to keep a show of only casual acquaintance off the battlefield.
“So,” he murmured, his expression dark, “I suppose we won’t be meeting with my grandfather tomorrow.”
“Fuck.” My temper had thrown everything off course. “I am sorry, Trajan.”
“Don’t apologize. To be fair, you handled him with more calm than I imagined you would.”
“I wouldn’t have been able to for much longer.”
“Then Malina came to the rescue. Her dance seemed to distract everyone.” He watched as four of Ciprian’s large male slaves carried him, dead asleep, toward the exit. “Seems Ciprian drank too much. Can the blood do that to him?”
“No.” I searched the atrium, finding no sign of Malina. “It wasn’t the blood that put him unconscious.”
Trajan seemed about to ask another question, but then nodded. “I’ll be in touch.” Then he called to General Sabinus, complimenting him on the spoils of war he brought back from Macedonia on his last campaign.
Trajan always knew how to work the crowd, how to make them likehim. I never had that in me. Tonight, I’d been as amiable and cordial as I could possibly manage. But right now, I wanted everyone gone. I wanted no one’s company but hers.
Storming back toward where she struck her final pose, I inhaled deeply and followed her scent straight down the corridor toward my bedchamber.
XXVII
MALINA
I stood at the entrance to Julian’s private terrace in his bedchamber. From here, I could see a corner of the street where his guests were being carried in their litters down Palatine Hill to their own homes. I remained in the shadow of a column so no one could see me.
When all of the litters seemed to be gone, hearing no more of the sandaled bearers clomping along the stone street, I finally exhaled a sigh of relief.
But then I felt him near me. When I spun, my breath caught. Hestood only a few feet away, having moved with predatory silence. His eyes burned so bright, like sparks of glowing embers.
“I know you’re angry.” I was aware he wouldn’t want me to dance, to be in the line of sight of Ciprian. “But I knew that I could solve two problems at once. You had no entertainment, and I, of course, am a dancer. But also”—I gulped hard as he stepped slowly toward me—“I knew that I could tether Ciprian and the emperor. I could make them sleepy and want to go home.”
It was strange, that knowing, when the idea had come to me in the kitchens while Ruskus argued with Kara over what to do since the dancers weren’t coming.
