The barbarian twisted to one side and stared up at him, eyes wide. Lucius’s arm wavered. This enemy was even younger than the last, not yet old enough for battle paint. Dirt smeared his face and checkered tunic. His hands clutched his wounded leg.
The boy’s soft cries brought to mind a kitten, not a warrior.
Lucius sheathed his sword and propped his shield against a gnarled trunk. The young Celt had showed courage and a steady hand on the bow. If the gash on his leg was not deep, he could be sold as a slave, perhaps to be trained as a gladiator. He dragged the boy into a shaft of sunlight and knelt to inspect the wound.
His gaze caught instead on the archer’s face. Thick, coppery lashes fringed golden eyes, flecked with blue. Wisps of russet hair framed a delicate sweep of cheekbones and a perfectly formed nose. Lucius’s gaze drifted lower, taking in moist red lips and a firm pointed chin.
The boy’s chest heaved.
Lucius drew in a sharp breath. By Jupiter’s mighty rod …
He grasped the neckline of the barbarian’s tunic and ripped the garment apart, exposing bare flesh. His hand closed on one small, pink-tipped breast.
He swore.
A girl. He’d been shot in the ass by a girl.
She barked a word and bucked, knocking his arm away. In the brief moment before he gathered his wits, she scrambled backward, clutching the edges of her torn tunic with one hand.
Lucius sat back on his heels, stunned. The girl snarled another imprecation and this time the words she hurled at him were in his own language.
“Roman dog! Pig! Defiler!” She jumped to her feet, golden eyes savage, a doe facing the wolf’s teeth. A thick coppery braid fell over one shoulder.
Lucius rose slowly, his gaze never wavering from the incredible vision before him. Had he believed in such creatures, he would have thought the Celt girl a forest nymph.
His loins tightened.
He moved closer. The nymph sprang back, her full weight coming down on her wounded leg. She cried out as she crumpled to the ground.
Lucius darted forward. Never before had he lifted a sword against a woman, but now a dark trail of the barbarian archer’s blood stained the forest floor. The wound needed tending, and quickly. He scooped her into his arms. Her small fists pummeled his breastplate.
“Quies,” he said. “Quiet, little one. I’m not going to hurt you.” She struck one more time; then her eyes rolled upward and she went limp.
He emerged from the forest into a scene of carnage punctuated by soft moans and angry curses. Too many Romans lay sprawled in the dirt. Others crouched by the road, cradling their wounds. Demetrius knelt beside one soldier, binding his arm. Marcus hunkered at the physician’s side, pale but steady, assisting as well as he could. The supply wagons, which had avoided the worst of the battle, creaked to a halt on the road.
Out of habit, Lucius’s gaze sought Aulus, but his ghostly brother was nowhere to be seen. He came to an abrupt halt, wrenched his head around, and looked to the rear. Nothing. By the gods! The specter had haunted Lucius night and day for more than half a year.
Now, inexplicably, it was gone.
He frowned. At what point in the battle had the ghost disappeared? Lucius couldn’t say.
The centurion, bloodied but unhurt, hailed him. Lucius strode toward the officer. The man dropped a startled glance at the woman in his commander’s arms.
“Losses?” Lucius asked.
The centurion recovered his composure quickly. “Fifteen dead, sir, or nearly so. Twenty-two injured.”
“Unload the foodstuffs onto the road and gather the wounded into the wagons. The slave price of any Celt you salvage is yours.” His gaze dropped. Even unconscious, the barbarian archer looked more alive than Lucius had felt in a very long while. His arms tightened on his prize.
“This one is mine.”
Chapter Two
Tendrils of warmth caressed Rhiannon’s body, stroking her limbs with the tenderness of a mother comforting her new babe. Had summer come so soon? She snuggled deeper into her blanket and grasped at a dream, but the pleasant fragments scattered, laying wide a path for the pain. The sensation drove forward like a sliver of winter ice, growing sharper the nearer it came. It sliced into her leg.
Her spine arched. A strong hand pushed her back into soft cushions. Not her own straw pallet. Where, then?
A low, rich voice spoke a single word. “Quies.”
She opened her eyes. A face wavered in the dim light. She blinked and the vision stilled.
A man with features that surely belonged to some dark god. A wide brow, harsh cheekbones, and somber eyes. Streaks of grime marred his bronze skin. A proud nose crooked to the side—had it once been broken? Black curls clung to a high forehead. Full, sensual lips pursed in a grim line.