He laughed. “Your concern is touching but misplaced. I’ve wanted ye since I saw ye in the fort hospital, and I’ll have ye tonight. If your woman’s flow is truly on ye, ye may service me with your mouth.” His hands curled into fists.
Rhiannon didn’t doubt he would use them on her. Her gaze strayed to his dagger, lying unprotected such a short distance away. She took a step toward it, her hands lifting as she did so to the pin that fastened her cloak. The mantle fell away. Brennus’s gaze raked her, leaving her feeling soiled.
She took another step, positioning herself between Brennus and the table as she twisted her fingers into her skirt and pulled the hem up over her knees, then her thighs. Swallowing her revulsion, she swept the fabric over her head.
He was on her in a heartbeat, pressing her bare buttocks against the cold granite. His arousal prodded her legs. Her fingers groped the table behind her and closed on the hilt of the dagger. When Brennus’s hands moved to untie the laces on his braccas, she struck.
Her blade slashed across his throat, loosing a river of blood. Brennus stared at her with disbelieving eyes as his knees crumpled. Rhiannon kicked free of him and scrambled out of the path of his body. Lurching for the corner of the room, she doubled over and retched. Brennus’s soul burst from his flesh in waves of pulsing rage.
When it was over, Rhiannon sprawled on the floor, gasping. A rivulet of blood made its way toward her across the tiles. She heaved herself to her feet, snatched up her tunic, and dressed swiftly. Dagger raised, she crept toward the door, praying Brennus had dismissed the guard before entering.
Her prayer went unanswered. The door opened, revealing two men in Gaulish helmets and mail. She made a desperate stab at the closer one’s neck only to have her wrist caught in his unrelenting grip.
“Rhiannon. Be still. It’s Lucius.”
“Lucius?” She blinked up at him. “But … I was coming to save you!”
Lucius’s gaze swept past her, taking in Brennus and the pool of blood in which he lay. “I thought to rescue you,” he said. His mouth lifted, first one side, then the other, in a genuine smile. “I might have known you would need no help.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Lucius watched Rhiannon greet Marcus with a glad cry. “You’re safe! Thank Briga.” She enfolded him in a fierce embrace.
“But Magister Demetrius …” He buried his face in her tunic.
Rhiannon’s questioning gaze met Lucius’s eyes. “Dead,” he said. “But we have precious little time to mourn him. We must flee before my absence from the yard is noted.”
They left the house by the front entrance, avoiding the boisterous soldiers in the courtyard. Though dawn was a few hours off, some of the men sprawled in the avenue connecting the east and west gates were already starting to stir. Since the barracks flanked the north gate, that route promised to be even more trafficked.
Lucius led them down a side alley toward the south gate, sword at the ready. His fingers gripped the wolf’s head. He’d counted Aulus’s gift as lost until Rhiannon had lifted it from the Egyptian table in the receiving room. She’d taken Brennus’s dagger for herself, belting it in a sheath at her waist.
Lucius hadn’t seen Aulus since before the Celt attack began and now, with Rhiannon nearby, he would not appear. It might be that his brother had found rest at last, but Lucius doubted it. A dread intuition whispered that when Aulus materialized again, he would be in worse agony than before.
He led his small band at a snail’s pace between the granaries, only in part because of a need to avoid discovery. The bruises from Brennus’s fists ached and one rib was certainly cracked. Vivid agony tore through his side with every step he took.
Marcus and Rhiannon trod softly at his back. Lucius knew that his son’s store of strength, sapped by his illness and his flight over the rooftops, was nearly depleted. The boy leaned heavily on Rhiannon, but when he ventured a whisper, it was not fatigue, danger, or even Demetrius’s death of which he spoke. His main concern was that Hercules had been lost. Lucius suspected the boy’s numbed and grieving mind had seized upon this topic to avoid replaying the horror of the last few hours.
“He will find you,” Rhiannon soothed. “He’s a clever beast.”
If Lucius entertained some doubts on that score, he kept them to himself. No use distressing the boy further, when they all might be dead by morning, like the two Gauls sprawled face down in the alley. The unfortunate pair had been stripped of their armor, leaving them with only torn shirts and braccas to cover their tangled limbs. Lucius kicked them aside to unblock the path, then paused to let the stabbing pain in his side pass.