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Authors: Monica Burns

BOOK: Assassin's Heart
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Chapter 2

DEMETR I.
Phaedra awoke with a start. She’d been dreaming again. No, more of a nightmare, because she’d been scared. The fragments of the dream were like dark tendrils she recognized but couldn’t really see. The only thing she remembered clearly was that she’d been in ancient Rome. Lysander had been there as well, but how or why, she couldn’t remember. It wasn’t the first time she’d had this type of dream. But it had never made her feel this disoriented and scared before.
Even her bed felt wrong. She shot upright. It wasn’t her bed. It was a sleeper chair in Lysander’s hospital room. A quick glance at her watch said she’d been asleep about two hours. That made for a total of about four hours in the last thirty-six. Her ability was always weaker when she didn’t get enough sleep or if she drank too much. And she wasn’t sure her touch would be strong enough to help Lysander if he woke up, let alone if he actually agreed to her performing the
Curavi
this time.
Her gaze focused on the still figure in the hospital bed, and the soft sound of the heart monitor filled her ears as if it were a booming church bell. Between his internal injuries, sword wounds, and the side of his face stripped of skin, he was lucky to be alive. Bandages covered most of his face, while she could see the black sutures on his lower lip. A white sheet and blanket covered the rest of his visible injuries.
An overwhelming need to touch him swept through her, and she left her chair to move toward the bed. She brushed her fingers through his short blond hair. He looked so helpless, something she instinctively knew he’d hate. He shouldn’t be here. He should be completely healed.
She closed her eyes for a brief moment. Why had he refused the
Curavi?
What had possessed him to reject her healer’s touch? The only answer she could think of was that he didn’t want her to suffer what he had. He’d been afraid for her. A tear slid down her cheek. Didn’t the man understand she was willing to go to the depths of Tartarus for him?
The delicate creak of the room’s heavy oak door drew her attention away from Lysander as she saw Ares enter the room. She immediately averted her head, and with a furtive swipe of her hand, she dried her damp cheek. A strong hand clasped her shoulder, forcing her to turn around.
“I just talked to the doctor. He’s going to be okay,” Ares said. “He can have plastic surgery to eliminate most of the damage.”

The words eased some of her fear, but not all of it. He’d been through a Praetorian torture session. Something few Sicari had ever survived. The physical trauma was repairable, but the emotional toll it extracted was high. A large number of survivors had deliberately thrown themselves into combat situations where there was no hope of survival. The

thought of that happening to Lysander terrified her.

“Hey, you don’t have to stay here,” Ares said gently.

“No,” she whispered and looked at the wall clock. “There may still be time. It’s not been quite twenty hours since we found him. There’s still a four-hour window. It might be enough.”
She’d not explained her reasons for coming with Lysander to the Order’s central headquarters in Genova, Italy, but Ares had agreed to her demand without any objection. Her brother probably thought she was hoping to convince Lysander to accept the
Curavi
once he woke. Doctors could repair his face, but she was the only one who might be able to give him back his sight, and there wasn’t any guarantee she could do that for him. But there was a window of time for healing wounds, and it hardly ever extended past twentyfour hours. The longer the time frame, the less likely the
Curavi
would work. Ares frowned at her.

“Phae, you’re the best healer the Order has, but the odds are he’s already past the turning point, and not even you can heal him then.”

“Maybe, but I need to at least try.” She shook her head at her brother’s exasperated expression.

“If Lysander rejected the
Curavi
when he was close to dying, what makes you think he’d accept it now?”
“I don’t, but if he wakes up in time, I have to try.” She didn’t look at Ares. Instead, she turned away from the bed and went to stand at the sliding glass door.
Designed with an eye toward a patient’s physical and spiritual needs, the secluded and fortified hospital gave the Order’s patients access to sunshine and fresh air as part of their recovery process. A large garden stretched its way outward from the small patio adjoining Lysander’s room. In the early-morning light, the beauty outside was a stark contrast to the pain and darkness she knew Lysander was experiencing.
Deus
, she hated the
bastardi
who’d done this to him. For almost two thousand years, the Praetorians had hunted the Sicari. At one time, the Sicari had been a part of the Praetorian Guard. Like their enemy, they’d served as bodyguards to the Caesars of ancient Rome, they’d had wealth, position, and power. But the Guard had split at the time of Constantine I, and those in power had cast out a select group of brothers. They labeled the outcast Sicari. Assassins.

They called the Sicari heretics, and yet like the vermin they were, the Praetorians hid from the world behind the robes of the Carpenter’s church. Using the banner of righteousness, they’d sought to exterminate the Sicari, inflicting terrible atrocities on her people as well as the innocent. A soft groan drifted through the air to pierce her thoughts.

She whirled around to see Ares move quickly to the bed, his hands on the bed rail, bending over his friend.

“Hey, how you feeling, amici?”

“Like str
onzo
.” Lysander’s voice was so soft she had to strain to hear him.

“Yeah, well you could be feeling a lot worse,” Ares joked. From where she was standing at the door, she saw Lysander suddenly grab her brother’s hand.

“Marta?”

The one word question was little more than a hiss of air, and she saw Ares struggle to come up with an answer. They’d found Dominic and Peter, but the Sicari woman was gone. Marta would live, but in a living hell. The Praetorian
bastardi
would rape her constantly both for physical pleasure and in an effort to impregnate her. Any children Marta bore would be taken from her. The males raised in the Praetorian Collegium and the females murdered. The woman would have been better off dying in that warehouse. Without hesitating, she went to the opposite side of the bed.
“They took her,” she said, hating herself for it. She should have lied to him, but he would eventually learn the truth. Stretching out her hand, she lightly touched him on the shoulder. With a violent jerk, he retreated from her hand.
“
No.
” His dark growl was fierce and intense.
“Take it easy, pal.” Ares gently grasped the warrior’s arm. “It’s just Phae. You’re safe here.”
“Leave,
now
.”
He didn’t say her name, but she knew he meant her, and the demand sent pain slicing through her until she swayed on her feet. Fingers wrapped tightly around the cold metal of the bedside rail, she met his gaze with her heart pounding like mad in her chest. Something wasn’t right. She could almost feel the erratic swell of his emotions crawling across her skin. It was unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. Nothing was truly discernible except the bleak darkness that consumed him. Wild and thrashing, it was frightening in its intensity.
Deus
, it would eat him alive if he didn’t release it. It wasn’t unusual for her to feel or see emotions or images when she healed someone. If she healed him, he might be able to release some of the dark emotion inside him through her. The thought of taking on that horrifying darkness sent a streak of terror slithering down her spine like a serpent poised to strike. She shuddered. It didn’t matter. She could do this. She could do it for him.

“Ares, leave us.” Her soft command whispered across the bed, and Lysander almost

managed to jerk upright.

“
No.
” This time his objection was stronger, more forceful. Determined to get him to agree to the
Curavi
, she glared down at him.

“Lie back down, you dumb
bacciagalupe
. You’re going to rip out some stitches or worse, your IV,” she snapped fiercely. “Ares, get the hell out of here,
now
.”

The furious response silenced both men, and without another word, Ares left the room. Alone with Lysander, she held on to the metal bar of the bed guard for dear life and stared down at the stranger in the hospital bed. Her voice died in her throat at his granite expression. D
ulcis matris Deus
, what had they done to him, and would she survive the knowledge?

“Leave, Phaedra.” Cold and detached, the command made her flinch.

“Not until you let me try to heal you.” She fought to keep her voice steady, yet resolute. “There might still be a chance I can—”

“You don’t know when to give up, do you?” His voice was husky with pain, but there was an odd note in his voice that had her nerve endings standing on end.

“No. Not if I believe I can help you.”

“I don’t want your help.” He shifted in the bed slightly, a grunt breaking past his lips. She had to stiffen her body to keep from reaching out to touch him.
“I know you’re worried about my pain, but it comes with the territory. I promise you, I won’t melt.” Her words tugged a soft laugh from him. It was a cruel sound, and it made her flinch.
“Stop trying so hard, Phaedra. There’s no need to get sentimental on me.” The chiseled expression on his face didn’t reveal anything. “We both know you can’t give me back my eye.”
“You don’t know that, and we won’t find out if you don’t at least let me try.”
“Why?”
“Why?” she gasped. “Because I want you whole again.”
“You want me whole again.” He repeated her words with a sarcasm that cut deep.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

She grabbed his forearm in anger. He knew damn well what she was trying to say. She

wanted to erase the horror he’d endured. She wanted to try and ease the darkness she sensed in him. Free him from the inner pain that was gnawing at him like a mad dog. An invisible pressure pried her fingers off his arm.

“Look, all I want is y
ou
out of this room and away from me,” he said in a disgusted voice.

She shivered. He was hurt. That was all. He’d seen the horror on her face last night. He knew what a healer went through during the
Curavi
. He had to have known that first sight of him had triggered fear. It was why he’d refused her touch. It’s why he was rejecting her now. He was looking for a reason to get rid of her. But she wasn’t going to let him get away with it.
“
Christus
, do you really think it matters to me what you look like?” She smacked the cold stainless steel barrier between them with desperate fury. “I don’t give a damn what you look like as long as I’m with you.”

Her words hung in the air for a long minute as he just stared at her, his expression slowly easing into one of amusement. It sent a wild streak of fear winding through her.

“With me?” His snort of laughter held a note of cold cruelty that made her clutch at the bed rail in a frantic effort to stop her trembling.

“Yes, the other night …” Her voice trailed off for a second as a sneer tugged at his mouth and his eyebrow went skyward. When he didn’t speak, she stumbled forward. “I thought that … you and I—”
“Come on,
bambina
.” His green eye held an insolent gleam as he raked his gaze from her face to her breasts then back up again. “The sex wasn’t bad, but did you re
ally
see it going beyond a onenighter?”
The words hit her with the force of a hard slam to the training mat. She couldn’t move. All she could do was struggle to find a way to absorb the blow. Her grip on the steel rail tightened to the point she was certain she would bend the metal. He was lying. He had to be. Didn’t he? She stared at the amused condescension on his face, her stomach lurching with a nausea that made her want to throw up.
“If you’re doing this because you think last night changed things between us—”
“Look,
dolcezza
, it was just one fuck. Let’s not make it into something bigger than that.”
If his words weren’t crippling enough, the boredom in his voice was the same as if she’d taken a Praetorian blade in her back. The pain of it made her legs buckle beneath her until the only thing holding her up was her deadlock on the metal rail of the bed guard. Desperation snarled its way through her as she stared down at him.

“You bastard,” she breathed as humiliation churned her stomach so hard she thought

she’d throw up what little food she had in her stomach.

She turned away from him slowly, her legs feeling rubbery. His face was almost out of her vision when she thought she saw a flash of agony cross his face. She paused to look back, but she realized she was wrong. He still wore the same contemptible smirk. Unable to bear looking at him, she stumbled out into the hospital corridor. Ares was walking toward her and tried to stop her. She brushed him off and headed for the main entrance. The sooner she was back in Chicago the better. There were Praetorians to kill, and maybe, just maybe, she’d get lucky enough to find a way to end her misery. The glass doors of the hospital entrance opened with a quiet swish, and she walked out into the sunshine knowing the life she’d thought she had was over before it had even begun.

Chapter 3

ROME, SEAT OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
310 A .D.

“I intend to marry him.” Cassiopeia stared across the atrium at the tall Roman general
conversing with her father. Beside her, Octavian Julius Valeria frowned darkly.

“It’s a ridiculous notion, my pet. Maximus has nothing to offer in the way of family or
fortune. You should marry me.”

“I don’t love you, Octavian. But I do love Maximus.”

Her gaze never left Maximus. She was grateful for the cool night air that streamed in
through the opening in the atrium’s roof and the cross currents that pulled a soft breeze
into the peristylium. Watching Maximus made it much warmer in the house than it was.
The sight of him filled her with an ache that heated her blood with Apollo’s fire until it
settled between her legs in a rush of liquid warmth.

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