Fantasy Lover(51)

Julian must have been fabulous on the battlefield. Closing her eyes, she tried to imagine him on his horse, riding out against his enemies. She had a vivid image of him in his armor, his sword raised as he fought hand to hand against the Romans.

"Iason?"

She tensed as she heard him whisper in his sleep.

Rolling over, she looked at him. "Julian?"

He tensed behind her and started speaking in a jumbled mixture of English and ancient Greek. "Don't! Okheel Okhee! No!"

He sat straight up in bed. She couldn't tell if he was awake or asleep.

Instinctively, she touched his arm.

With a curse, he grabbed her and pulled her over his body. He threw her back against the mattress. His eyes were wild as he held her down, his lips curled.

"Damn you!" he snarled.

"Julian," she gasped as his grip on her arm tightened and she tried to make him let her go. "It's me, Grace!"

"Grace?" he repeated, his brows drawing together into a deep frown as he focused on her face.

Blinking, he pulled back from her. He lifted his hands and stared at them as if they were alien appendages he'd never seen before.

He looked at her. "Did I hurt you?"

"No, I'm fine. Are you all right?"

He didn't move.

"Julian?" She reached for him.

He pulled back from her as if she were poisonous. "I'm fine. It was just a bad dream."

"A bad dream or a bad memory?"

"A bad memory that always haunts my dreams," he whispered, his voice laden with grief. He got out of bed. "I should sleep somewhere else."

Grace caught his arm before he could leave, and pulled him back toward the bed. "Is that what you've always done in the past?"

He nodded.

"Have you ever told anyone about the dream?"

Julian stared aghast at her. What did she take him for?

Some sniveling child that needed its mother?

He'd always borne his anguish inside. As he'd been taught. It was only when he slept that the memories were able to sneak past his defenses. Only when he slept that he was weak.

In the book, there was no one to hurt when his nightmare came upon him. But once released from his prison, he knew better than to sleep at the side of someone he might inadvertently grab while in the throes of it.

He could have accidentally killed her.

That thought terrified him.

"No," he whispered. "I've never told anyone."

"Then tell me."

"No," he said firmly. "I don't want to relive it."

"If you're reliving it every time you dream, then what's the difference? Let me in, Julian. Let me see if I can help."

Dare he even hope that she could?

You know better.

And yet…

He wanted to purge the demons. He wanted to sleep one night in peaceful slumber, free of torment.

'Tell me," she gently insisted.

Grace sensed his reluctance as he rejoined her in bed. He remained seated on the side, his head in his hands. "You asked me earlier how I became damned. I was cursed because I betrayed the only brother I ever knew. The only family I ever had."

His anguish reached deep inside her. She wanted desperately to run her hand over his back in a comforting manner, but didn't dare touch him lest it make him withdraw again. "What did you do?"

He ran his hand through his hair, then balled his fist in it. His jaw more rigid than steel, he stared at the carpet. "I allowed envy to poison me."

"How?"

He paused for a long minute before he spoke again. "I met Iason not long after my stepmother sent me to live in the barracks."

She vaguely remembered Selena telling her about the Spartan barracks where sons were forced to live away from their homes and families. She'd always thought of them as a kind of boarding school. "How old were you?"

"Seven."

Unable to imagine being forced from her parents at that age, Grace gasped.

"There was nothing unusual about it," he said without looking at her. "And I was big for my age. Besides, life at the barracks was infinitely preferable to living with my stepmother."

She heard the venom in his voice and wondered what the woman had been like. "I take it Iason lived in the barracks with you?"

"Yes," he whispered. "Each barracks was divided up into groups where we chose the boy we wanted to lead us. Iason was the leader of my group."

"What did these groups do?"

"We functioned like a military unit. We studied, performed chores, but most of all, we banded together to survive."

She started at such a harsh word. "Survive what?"

"The Spartan lifestyle," he said, his voice laced with acrimony. "I don't know how much you know about my father's people, but they didn't have the luxuries of the other Greeks.