To Crown a Caesar (The Praetorian Series: Book II) (51 page)

She managed a small half-s
mile and leaned in to kiss me.

She pulled back and said, “I’ll be here.”

***

Fifteen minutes later, Helena and I were still waiting on the beach for our remaining teammates to make their way back.  We sat there looking at the moonlight, her head on my shoulder, listening to the crashing waves and annoying banter from the peanut gallery back in the camp.
  I held her hand as we sat, my mind processing everything I could think of.

Everything besides the mission,
of course.

But
at least my mind wasn’t wandering
on
mission, for once.  We weren’t planning to hit Agrippina until the following night, so I had time to think.  But it was still frustrating.  I couldn’t get Helena out of my head.  This was a prime example of why the military frowned on combat operatives engaging in romantic ventures with one another. It was feared that one member of the pairing would becoming over protective of the other, usually the male towards the female, and in an act of desperation or overprotectiveness, do something that could threaten a mission.  As chauvinistic as it may seem, it was basic social upbringing 101.  Since our cavemen ancestors, it had always been the man’s job to protect the women, and the sense of duty subconsciously stuck.

But, it was hardly my fault Helena and I ended up this way.  Maybe it was fate.  Stupid fate.  Or maybe it was simply dumb luck on my part.  Either way, it was currently spelling my downfall
and leading towards my distraction.

If tomorrow was going to be as important and dangerous as we all thought, we had to talk now.  Not later.

Thankfully, despite opportunity, I didn’t have much time to focus on it because Vincent, Bordeaux and Madrina finally arrived.  Santino, Wang, Titus, Gaius, and Marcus were already on the beach, likewise shoeless, and examining my craftsmanship.  Five minutes later, ten bodies, all lacking footwear, stood around my two by one yard drawing of our target location.  Santino, of course, felt the need to point out that his five year old equivalent could have done a better job, but after I threw a clump of wet sand in his face, everyone was laughing at him, not with him.

Once everyone settled down, I started the briefing.

“All right, everyone, let’s keep this short.  We’ll go over the finer details tomorrow after a good night’s sleep.

“
Based on UAV scans and ground based observation, our clearest point of insertion is the docks.”  I used a small stick to circle the area of my sand painting I had designated as such.  “A small team will amphibiously assault that spot, while the rest of us provide cover and sniper support from the north and south.”

I pointed at the shoreline I’d added to my diagram.

“Once inside the perimeter, our scout team will clear the guards within the courtyard while the rest of us make our way to reinforce them.  From there, we’ll sneak through village and make our way into the villa.  Once inside, we have three objectives; one primary and two secondary.  Our primary one is to obtain Agrippina.  Wang, as always, you’re on hostage detail.”

I glanced at Wang.  He stood with his arms crossed, all business.  He nodded in affirmation.

“Good.  Our first secondary objective is to find Varus.  The last time I encountered him, he was not happy about being employed by Agrippina, but chances are he’s still there and I’m certain he’d appreciate a rescue effort.  Finally, if we find the second orb, we take it.”

I sighed.  “Keep in mind, the
orb is still a secondary objective.  Finding it means shit if we can’t fix the timeline, and that means turning over Agrippina to Vespasian.  Once we have Agrippina, we extract immediately, no matter what.  Understood?”

I glanced around the circle, receiving nods and quiet affirmatives all around.  Everyone seemed confident, maybe a little nervous, but that was normal.  Only Titus and Madrina seemed a little worse for wear, but at least they had close companions to look to for guidance and reassurance prior to the mission.

“Any questions?”  I asked finally.

There were none.

“Good.  Go get some sleep.”

***

I glanced over at Helena as Vincent helped me wash away the diagram.  She’d moved closer to the water and sat close enough so that the waves could lap up against her bare legs.  I watched her draw circles in the sand, only to watch them disappear with the ebb and flow of the tides.  She looked so distracted.  So flakey.  It was so unlike her.  That was my MO.

I patted Vincent on the back, thanking him for his help with the diagram.

He gave me a reassuring smile.  “Good luck, Hunter.  It looks like she has a lot on her mind.”

I nodded and parted company with the elder sage.  Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly to build up my courage, I made my way to Helena at a
slower pace than she deserved.  I couldn’t believe it.  I was actually worried.

Upon my arrival, she was so out of it that I
caught her completely off guard.  She actually flinched at my touch, even though she must have known I was coming.  Smiling to cover it up, she took my hand and guided me to sit in front of her.  I plopped myself down in the sand, and spread my legs in a V, my feet extending past either side of her waist.  She scooted in a bit closer, arched her knees over my legs, and gripped my hands.

“You ready to talk?”  I asked.

She smirked.  “Not really.”

“Just keep it simple.  Like what you said with Vespasian.”

“The issue is simple by nature,” she explained.  “Saying the actual words is not.  I’ve been struggling with whether you should even know, considering what we’re about to do.”  She laughed again.  “I don’t even know how to put it in a way you, of all people, can understand.”

“Then start with the most confusing,” I suggested.  “
Blindside me with it.”

Her smile lingered.  “Okay…well, let’s start over then.”

“Works for me,” I said, shaking my shoulders to ease the tension.  “Hit me.”

She cleared her throat.  “Jacob, there’s something I need to tell you.”

“What is it, Helena?”

“I… I think I missed a period.”

I leaned in and squinted at her in confusion.  “In which sentence?  I’m already lost.”

She rolled her eyes.  “
Why do I ever listen to you?  Of course that would be too confusing.  No, Jacob.  I think I’m pregnant.”

Neither one of
us said anything for a long time.  I just stared at her as I attempted to process this new information when for no apparent reason, I felt nothing but suspicion.

“And who, may I ask, is the father?”
I blurted.

She started to laugh, but then
noticed my unflinching expression, causing hers to shift almost immediately.  Angrily, she pulled her hands away from mine and hit me in the chest with more force than she ever had before. 

“Ow!”  I yelped,
my hands moving to protect my chest.  “What was…”

“You are, you
fucking asshole!”  She yelled as she rained more blows against my body. 

I tried to grapple with her to calm her down, but she stubbornly avoided me.  Her punches turned to wild slaps as she frantically tried to bat me away. 
She was so wild that I wasn’t ready for her when she shoved her open palm into my nose with almost as much strength as her original punch.  The assault knocked me into the water where a large wave crashed into me, soaking me to the bone.  I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees and felt blood stream down my chin.

Helena
stared angrily at me before soccer kicking me in the gut a moment later.  It knocked the wind out of me and sent me careening into the waves once again.  She reared back and kicked me two more times before she threw her hands down and screamed in frustration, doubling over in another uncontrollable pain attack at the same time.  But her pain wasn’t going to quell her anger, and I watched as she turned on her heels and made her way down the beach.

Idio
t!  How could you be so stupid?

Pinching my nose, I cleared my head with some sea water and limped my way after
her, my hand clutching my abdomen.  She was hugging herself as she fled, and was also crying.  I ran up behind her and put my hands on her shoulders, but she shrugged me off.  I tried again, only to have her turn around and beat against my chest again, this time, however, with considerably less force.  After enduring a few more blows, I was finally able to successfully grab her by the wrists and keep her at bay while she continued to cry.

God, I was a fucking idiot.

I pulled her in close, but she continued to struggle, and it was minutes before she finally ceased her assault and cried against my shoulder.  I dropped us down to our knees, trying to pacify the situation while waves continued to flow around us.

“I’m so sorry, Helena, I don’t know why I said that.  Please, I… it was a stupid thing to say.  I wasn’t thinking.
  I have so much on my mind, I can’t…”

I stopped, realizing there really was no excuse for what I’d said, but h
er sobs began to slow as I spoke and she eventually pulled back and sat on her heels.  She coughed and cleared her throat, rolling her eyes at the sky as she did both.

“And you wondered why I couldn’t tell you,” she
said around a few lingering sobs.  “I knew you would react like a child.  Say something stupid like that.  I just knew it.”

“I’
m sorry, Helena.  It was the only thing that popped into my head. I can’t think straight anymore and you surprised me,” I paused.  “I still can’t believe it.”

“Well you’d better start, you jerk.”

“But how?”  I asked, looking at the sand for answers.  “It hasn’t happened before.  We were always so carefu…”

“These things sneak up on people all the time, Jacob.”  She sniffed.  “It must have happened that night during the siege when we were suppos
ed to be covering Santino again.”  She shook her head.  “Or even back in Byzantium, I don’t know.  Tracking these things has become more and more difficult the longer I’ve been here.  I can’t tell for certain how far along I am.”

“
But you’re certain?”

She pounded my shoulder again.  “I know this isn’t the kind of thing you know anything about, b
ut everything has been mostly normal for a long time and to miss…”

“All right, I get it.
”

Female biology
not only confused me, it practically scared me.

Still.

A baby?  A son?  A mini-Jacob…

My family had
never been large.  It had been left small and became strained because of my father.  As a result, ever since I could remember, I’d always wanted kids of my own.  Fifty for all I cared.  But I always figured it would be in a cushy suburb with a white picket fence, and a guy who still delivered milk to our front door.  Not in the first century A.D., surrounded by people who wanted to kill me, not to mention an empress who probably wanted to chew on my guts
while
she killed me.  I couldn’t imagine raising a kid in Rome.  It almost seemed… irresponsible.

“What are you thinking?”  Helena asked
.

Most of the anger was gone from her voice
by now, but the wake of tears were still evident on her lovely face, tears that caught me off guard.  She really must have been worked up over this child to actually cry.  Her reserved attitude over the past few weeks made sense all of a sudden… over the past year really.  Had she wanted this all along?  Was I really that blind?

I glanced up at her.  “A baby?”

She smiled.  “Yes, Jacob.  A baby.  Yours and mine.” 

She reached out and placed my hand against her stomach.  I didn’t feel anything.  I
suppose I wouldn’t this early on, but something told me she was right.  My child was there.

“But how can we raise him here?”  I asked.  “Now?  He doesn’t deserve to grow up in the ass end of civilization.”

“She won’t.  We’ll find a way to get home.”

I pulled away from the future mother of my child,
stood, and walked back towards the scene of our fight.  I rubbed my chin and thought.

“What
?” she asked as she slowly caught up to me.

“I… it’s… look, I just don’t
know if we can responsibly raise him here.  Not only that, but we also have no idea how a journey through the orb could affect him.  Remember how painful it was?  And what if we go when you’re still pregnant?  Who knows what could happen.  I just don’t see how we can do this.”

She stepped around to face me, her eyes narrow.

“You’re not suggesting that we…”

“What?  Of course not.  I just feel…”

“Jacob, stop.  There’s something else I need to tell you.”

“We’re not having twins are we?”

She smiled.  “You know I can’t know that, but there is something else you need to know.  The reason I debated telling you for so long, and especially tonight, was because I have no idea what’s going to happen to us.  If I die tomorrow, I wasn’t sure I wanted you knowing you lost your unborn child as well…”