The Lost Centurion (The Immortals Book 1) (21 page)

“I don’t understand.”

“Claudius created a holy tent for you. Blue light reinforced the healing power of his blood.” The girl finally turned enough to give Diana a once over. “I thought you weren’t going to make it.”

“Sorry for the disappointment.” Diana kept her voice low, but she knew the other had heard.

Laura stopped without warning and jerked Diana by her arm. “I’ll see that you suffer for taking the place that is rightfully mine.”

“I don’t want it.” Diana tried to free herself from the girl’s hold.

“I don’t care what you want.” The girl’s eyes filled with tears. “He wants you.”

“I’m sorry.” Diana stopped struggling.

The girl looked at her first with disbelief, then a different sentiment flickered through her eyes and her mouth opened as if to say something.

Diana waited for Laura to form her words, but the girl closed her lips in a thin line and averted her gaze. She sighed. “Believe me when I say I’m really sorry we are both in this situation.”

Laura looked at her again. The same guarded expression lit her eyes as before, yet she kept silent.

The forced stroll resumed. Diana recognized the hallway she had walked with Carlo just the day before. A doubt about that passed through her mind. “How long was I out?”

“Three days.” The girl paused at the door on her right.

“Three days?” Her worries for Marcus flared anew. “What happened to the centurion?”

“No more and no less than what he deserved.” Laura lowered the handle of the door and pushed her inside.

As it had happened the other time she had been there, the warm aromatic fog of the sauna engulfed her upon entering the baths. This time though she wasn’t to enjoy the premises by herself.

****

Marcus’s back hurt, but he couldn’t change positions. The metal chain attached to the shackles anchoring him to the floor wasn’t long enough to allow him any movement. After Claudius had discarded him, two men had dragged him to that damp cell. The place must have been situated several stories under the palace judging from the humidity and coldness, but he wouldn’t know for sure. Diana’s death had caught him unprepared and he had lost his mind. He kept seeing her, feeling her presence. But he knew it was happening because he didn’t want to believe Diana was dead. He had already gone through that kind of pain once with Aurelia and it had taken months to accept reality. This time, if he were lucky, Claudius would put him out of his misery soon.

He looked down between his feet, but he couldn’t look at anything else given how his jailers had made him crouch. They had shackled hands and feet together, then linked them to a short chain bolted to the floor. As a human, he couldn’t tolerate physical pain as he had before, and he tired faster. He had also lost track of time after the third meal they had brought him. They had served him bread and water at different intervals and kept the harsh, white light constantly on. His jailers had changed also. Some were vampires, others humans. Still chained, he had been allowed bathroom breaks and took full advantage of the small walks.

Several steps resonated in the silent place. Marcus tried to raise his chin to look at the newcomers, but his neck couldn’t hold his head’s weight.

“Release him.” Claudius’s voice reached him.

Marcus’s eyes were on the terracotta tiles on the floor, but he could sense the vampire looking at him with malice. “I was waiting for you to come pay a visit.”

“I am not done with you.” The point of a polished black shoe came into Marcus’s line of vision.

“That I figured out already.” Despite the flippancy of his tone, Marcus involuntarily flinched, expecting a kick to his face that didn’t come.

The shoe backed a step. “You owe me answers.”

Hands worked around his shackles, and Marcus started laughing while he was freed and put to sit on the floor. “You killed Aurelia and now Diana, and
I
owe
you
answers?” The mere thought of Diana dead felt wrong. His body shook and his neck ached when he tried to look up at Claudius. “That’s rich.”

Claudius paced from one wall to the other of the small place. “Their deaths are on you.”

“I came back home one night and found my wife drained of all her blood.” Marcus couldn’t believe he was having that conversation. “You’re a sadistic murderer who has never been stopped thanks to an obsolete agreement between the Immortal Council and the Vampire Nation.” He stretched his legs in front of him and massaged his calves. “I’ve become a renegade only to catch and kill you.”

The vampire laughed. “Well, isn’t that funny?”

Marcus managed to raise his chin to look at the man from under his lashes. “We don’t share the same sense of humor I’m afraid.”

“In a way, that agreement has saved you from me as well. At least in regards of this last century.” Claudius stopped his manic ambulation and crouched before Marcus. One of his cold smiles illuminating his face. “At first, I wanted you alive. Then, when I tired of you, it didn’t make sense to me to go against the Council”—he waved a hand in the air—“but you wouldn’t possibly understand. When you kidnapped one of my newborns and broke the agreements, you made possible for me to come after you.”

Marcus closed his eyes and shook his head. “I’ve given up everything to kill you. I’ve lived estranged from my race.” He shrugged. “And yet, at the end, it didn’t matter.”

“Seeing you suffer matters to me.” Claudius stood and dusted his pants with swift gesture of his hands.

Marcus saw the vampire had tired of the conversation. “That night—?”

Claudius had already exited the cell, but froze at the door.

“Did you try to turn Aurelia?” Marcus didn’t want to die without knowing.

“She was dying already.” Claudius grabbed the doorjamb, the knuckles on his hand whitening as he spoke. “Did you even know that?”

Marcus slowly got on his feet. His legs shook from the effort and he saw white light exploding behind his eyelids, but he reached out a hand toward the wall to keep himself up. “No. It isn’t true.”

Claudius turned halfway to look at Marcus from over his shoulder. “She had a tumor growing inside her womb.”

“No. I would’ve known.” Marcus stepped back to lean against the wall.

“When she told me she was pregnant with our child, I bought a house for us in Apulia. It was a farm nested on a ridge overlooking the sea with orchards, pastures, horses.” Claudius’s lips curved up in what looked like a genuine smile. “A place where we could raise our family far away from Rome, far away from you.”

“Aurelia was never pregnant.” The temperature in the cell had dropped by several degrees. Marcus knew he was going into shock, but refused to succumb to his body’s desires.

Claudius opened his hand and looked at it, then flexed his arm. “No, you’re right. She wasn’t. We discovered it when she started losing weight and her belly never grew. I hired the best physicians in Rome who prescribed all sorts of remedies, but she wasn’t getting any better. Finally, one told us the truth. She was dying.”

“I would’ve known she was sick.” Marcus couldn’t accept the vampire’s words, but Aurelia had been withdrawn for a long time before she died.

Claudius lowered his hand by his side, then turned and stepped back inside the cell. “You were never home. Either warring or whoring. She couldn’t stand your presence and was so much happier when you weren’t around.”

Marcus’s strength left him suddenly and he was on the floor, his back to the wall, black dots obscuring his sight. He and his wife had lived separated lives for almost two years and she had never let him close during that time. She had claimed all sorts of ailments to avoid marital duties until he had stopped seeking her embrace.

Claudius headed for Marcus and stopped before him. “Even before she became ill, I would’ve killed you, but she wouldn’t let me. She wrote to her father asking for a divorce, so our union would’ve been legal.”

Marcus pressed his palms over his eyes to dissipate the flickering lights that had exploded inside his head. Despite himself he smiled. It was typical Aurelia to organize the end of their marriage taking account of the legal aspects. She would have lost her social status for nobody.

“I watched as she withered before my eyes and it killed me that I couldn’t be the one sleeping with her at night. She refused to leave your house as a married woman.” Claudius’s voice broke.

Marcus pitied him. Aurelia hadn’t loved Claudius. Diana had taught him that true love wouldn’t care for social status. Love didn’t care for possession. Or revenge. Love only cared about love. “You turned for her?”

Claudius looked down at him; his eyes were liquid, red pooling at the corners. “I would’ve done anything to save her. Anything.” He wiped a tear from his right cheek. “One of the physicians I had hired dabbled in dark magic and told me there could be a way if I was willing to sacrifice my humanity.”

Marcus placed his arms on his bent knees, his head resting on the wall.

“The physician took me to his master and I was turned the same night. As soon as I woke from the change, I asked my sire to save Aurelia, but he wasn’t interested in turning her and punished me for having dared asking something of him. I was kept away from her for more than six months. Meanwhile, you had come back from your campaign. You were with my woman while I was chained to a wall. She was alone with you.” Claudius didn’t bother to clean the bloody tears staining his pale face. Red splotches stained his immaculate button-down white shirt and his charcoal-gray silver tie.

Marcus pitied Aurelia as well. She had refused him, his love, and had preferred to die alone.

“The night I was released I ran to her…” Claudius looked at a point on the wall beyond Marcus. “I was late. She had died already.” He slowly reached for the floor and sat. “But I couldn’t accept that. I tried to turn her anyway. I drained the diseased blood from her and tried to feed her mine. I almost drained myself as well.”

The image of Aurelia reclined on the triclinium, blood on her pleated toga, played back for Marcus.

“She had been waiting for me. She wore that dress made from the silk I had ordered for her. She had dyed her hair with that shade of red I loved so much… it accentuated the black in her eyes. And I was late.”

“Why did you leave her?” Aurelia’s father had to pry Marcus from her side, and he would’ve followed her shortly if his slaves hadn’t taken care of him and kept him alive. Even so, he spent the first month after her death at her tomb, lying on the cold marble covering her burial site, crying, talking to her, asking her forgiveness for being a failure of a husband.

Claudius closed his eyes, blinked, then looked directly at Marcus. “Because I knew that if I stayed I would’ve killed you.”

“I loved Aurelia. Why do you hold me accountable for her death?” Marcus wanted to understand. “
She
stopped loving me.
She
refused me.”

Claudius stilled for a moment as if considering his question. “I should’ve married her.” He shook his head. “Not you.” He lowered his head to the floor and fisted his hands. “I was there for her long before you appeared.” He opened and closed his hands several times. “Aurelia and I grew up together. Our families owned adjacent, prosperous lands—the combined acreage enough to feed the Roman Army. It would only make sense we would marry.” He paused to sneer. “Then, one day, the centurion decided to court her with exotic gifts and promises of adventures, and I wasn’t enough anymore.” Claudius leaned and grabbed Marcus’s shirt to raise him up. “I had waited for her as she deserved—” He shook Marcus. “And you took her without a thought.” He opened his hands and let go of Marcus who fell with a thump on the floor. “But she soon saw through your deceit and lies. Aurelia came back to me and I forgave her.” He spat by Marcus’s feet. “Since you didn’t have the decency to die in war and free her to be with me, you didn’t deserve to have your sufferance cut short either. If I had to live forever without Aurelia, you deserved the same fate.”

Marcus swallowed. “You didn’t…” He struggled to get up, but his legs were made of lead.

“I had already lost my humanity. I studied dark magic under the most powerful magi in existence at that time. I mastered my skills until my teachers became my students. I was the first true necromancer the Roman Empire had. Both Caligula and Nero sought my services. Do you think summoning gods was such a stretch at that point?” Claudius let out a chuckle. “In fact, cursing you with immortality was one of my first assignments.”

Without warning, Marcus was thrown back to another time and age to a dreary morning that had started in the worst of ways two thousand years before.

He had chosen to conduct a grueling training the night before because the anniversary of his wife’s death was the next day. Lately, the drinking wasn’t helping him. He didn’t seem to be able to lose consciousness as easily as before, so he had thought that extreme physical activity combined with opium-spiked wine would put him out of his misery when the sun set on the horizon and the memories would assail him. But he had to endure several hours before he could drag his tired body to Laurentius’s minuscule taberna—no more than one person could stand upright inside that stall at the Trajan Market, but it was the only place in the whole Rome that sold his favorite wine, a red from one particular vineyard in Pompeii. Marcus had gotten acquainted with that vineyard’s production during one of his most recent campaigns and soon became addicted to the sweet bouquet of their wine.

Marcus looked at the half-completed palisade while sharpening the point of a wooden log. The sun was high and the day promised to be hot and humid. His men stoically accepted his orders, but the auxiliaries the general had sent to him to train were openly complaining. He sighed.

“Tullius.” He pointed his spatha toward his recently appointed first aid in the field.

“My Dux.” My Leader. The man was several years older than him and very experienced.

“Give my troop an hour break, food and retsina on me.” He knew his men loved the aromatic wine spiced with rosemary and kept a good number of amphoras in his quarters for such occasions when he wanted to reward them.