As Sure as the Dawn(190)

“Why didn’t you feed the sheep?” Rizpah would weep as she had this morning before he had awakened. And then she, too, was gone, swallowed by the encroaching darkness, and he was left alone, facing unspeakable terror.

Atretes wanted to shake away the memory of the dream.

“Feed the sheep.”

“I tried!” Atretes groaned aloud. Angry, he looked up into the sky. “I tried, and no one listened!”

“Are you talking to yourself now, Atretes?”

He turned sharply at the soft, faintly mocking voice and saw Anomia standing at the corner of the longhouse. She smiled at him, a slow, provocative smile, and came into the open. As she walked toward him, he couldn’t help but notice her body, lush and graceful. “A long night of drinking?”

“What are you doing here?”

“Oh. A headache, as well.” She dangled a leather pouch. “I have something in here that will make you feel better.”

He grew wary at the glowing look in her blue eyes. She came closer, close enough that he could smell the sweet musk scent she had rubbed on her body. Desire stirred. When she looked up into his eyes, he felt the hunger in her, insatiable, dark, beckoning . . . and his flesh responded.

“Shall I make you feel better?”

The temptation lay before him, stark and bold. He struggled against it. “Where’d you come from?” He glanced back in the direction from which she had come. “It’s hardly a beaten path.”

Anomia’s eyes barely flickered. She still smiled, but he felt her anger as strongly as he had felt her passion and knew the cause of it. “I was gathering herbs in the forest. Every morning about this time I go by myself to replenish my stores. Sometimes I go in the evening as well. Tonight, for instance. It’ll be a new moon in a few days. There are things I need to gather in preparation.”

“Indeed?” His blood caught fire, though his mind cooled with deeper understanding.

“Indeed,” she said, smiling again, a faint, toying smile that plucked his nerve ends. She let the leather pouch swing back and forth on the end of her finger. “Shall I mix a little of this in some wine?”

“I’ve had enough wine.”

“Ale, then, if you like it better. Or honeyed mead.”

His head pounded harder. Maybe a little wine would help. Turning, he went back inside the longhouse. When he filled a horn and turned, she was standing in the shadows. “How the mighty fall,” she said, sounding amused. He didn’t know whether she was looking at him or the others passed out in the hay.

“We were celebrating.”

She laughed softly. “Celebrating what?”

“I don’t remember. Does it matter?” He brought the horn to her. When her fingers brushed his, his blood stirred. She opened the small pouch with her teeth, and he found himself staring at her mouth. She added the herbs, swirled the brew slowly, moistening her lips before she took a sip of it herself, and then held the horn up to him, her eyes glowing.

“Drink all of it, Atretes.”

He drank, his gaze still fixed upon her. He drained the horn. “Not too bad,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Now, sit.”

His eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“You sound like a belligerent child. Are you afraid of me?”

He gave a derisive laugh.

“Then do as I ask. You want to get rid of the headache, don’t you?”

He sat cross-legged in the hay. She moved behind him and began to knead his temples.

“Relax, Atretes. I’ll do you no harm.” She was laughing at him. He forced himself to relax, feeling ridiculous for his hesitance. He crushed the feelings of warning within him.

“Are you having dreams?”

“They never stop,” he said, feeling the effects of whatever she had put in the ale. The pain was departing. She smoothed his hair back. Her hands were like magic, strong, yet gentle, knowing just where to press and give. He felt, too, the unspoken intimacy as she explored his muscles.

He heard the hay rustle behind him and felt her warm breath on the back of his neck. His body went hot.

“Does this feel good?”

Too good, he thought, but couldn’t bring himself to draw away. How long since he had felt the heat of something besides wrath? Not since he had held Rizpah in his arms the night before Theophilus had been murdered.

Rizpah.

Anomia’s hands gripped his shoulders. “I can make you feel better.”

Her whisper sent his mind reeling. Sucking in his breath, he closed his eyes, fighting the lust rising within him. Like a sharp bang, he heard a cell door closing, and he was back in the ludus. With an uttered curse, Atretes jerked from her and stood.