The Patrician Page 34

  “It is not too late for redemption.”

  Bryna’s attention snapped back to Gideon. He had paused again. This time the light from the torch glinted off the long blade of a knife in his hand. He stared down at her, the depth of malice in his eyes so black she held her breath.

  “Shifra was to be saved that night. As head of the family, it was my responsibility to save her soul. Her devil child was to be the sacrifice. It was supposed to happen so smoothly. The Roman garrison only needed a small bit of information to convince them to hunt for zealots.”

  Keep him talking, she thought desperately. Keep him distracted. “But Shifra died.”

  Gideon leaned close to her face. Bryna refused to turn away, yet having the evil so close caused her to shudder in revulsion.

  “Yes. The sacrifice was not completed. But tonight Shifra’s soul will be saved.” He raised the long knife above his head.

  Bryna’s heart slammed against her ribs, her gaze fixed on the deadly blade. Gideon would have his sacrifice. Jared would never know it was his uncle, a man he trusted, a man he loved who wished him dead.

  Worse, she would never be able to tell him how she loved him. Hot tears coursed down her cheeks. He would never hold the child she carried.

  A deep throated roar sounded again. Gideon tilted his head toward the noise then looked down at Bryna, a crooked smile twisting his face.

  “A sacrifice more befitting a barbarian.” He motioned to someone beyond the circle of light.

  Suddenly, Bryna felt the tension on her ankles lessen. Her heart clutched. If she could get free from Gideon’s makeshift altar there was a chance she could break free.

  Just as quickly, the leather ropes were twisted back around her ankles, effectively squelching her hope. Still, she tried to sit up when the ropes slackened on her arms. Bucking wildly, she fought with all the strength of desperation. A muffled curse came from the darkness as her fist connected with a fleshy jaw.

  “Baram! You are so inept!”

  Bryna stared at Elizabeth who held the torch up higher. It was just enough time for her husband to finish tying her wrists together. “Elizabeth! You must stop him.”

  Elizabeth sneered. “Stop him? I intend to help him. My parents died that night in the village. It’s Jared’s fault and it is only justice that he lose someone he loves.” Elizabeth stood regally by her uncle’s side, the hatred that fueled Gideon’s delusions shining in her eyes.

  Bryna stared in disbelief. “Did you not hear your uncle? He sent the soldiers. He killed your parents, not Jared.”

  “Be quiet both of you!” snapped Gideon. He grabbed Bryna by her bound arms, swung her to an upright position.

  Bryna tossed her hair from her face, met Gideon’s dark gaze. “Do you not have enough blood on your hands?”

  “Blood? The God of my fathers bade us cleanse ourselves from all that is corrupt. It is the beginning of reparation!”

  Baram was sweating profusely, uncertainty played across his jowled features. Could it be that Elizabeth’s insipid husband had a conscience? “Baram, do not let this thing happen! Jared has been good to you. He has helped you set up your own business. He has given much to you.”

  Baram smiled weakly. “That is true, but with him dead, I can have so much more and without half the effort.”

  Despair sank into her stomach as one of Gideon’s slaves stepped forward and hoisted her over his shoulder.

  Using her bound hands, Bryna beat at the man’s neck, jabbed him in the ear with her elbow. She wriggled and kicked. It may well be that she was going to die, but she would not die easily.

  The sound of snarling grew louder. The man stopped, set her down on her feet, both arms wrapped securely around her. Elizabeth walked around the room lighting torches set into iron scones bolted to the walls. In front of her was a cavernous pit.

  Bryna’s eyes widened at the sight below her. A half dozen lions, a male and five females paced back and forth, looking up at them, yellow eyes gleaming with anticipation, snapping their jaws over razor sharp fangs.

  Her feet were planted just at the edge of the abyss. The slave holding her loosened his grip, eliciting a gasp of terror from her. He laughed, dragging her to the other side.

  “How fortunate to know the owner of a gladiator school,” said Gideon. He watched, morbid fascination playing across his face as the cats tried to leap up the sharp incline to reach them. “They look hungry.”

  The slave holding Bryna looped another length of rope around those binding her wrists. She watched numbly as the lead stretched up to slide through a wooden winch set in the roof over the pit, ending around a spoked wheel anchored to a wooden rack.

  Gideon drew out his knife. She braced herself for the killing blow. Instead he bent and drew the sharp tip along her calf.

  She hissed at the stinging pain and watched blood flow down her leg, soaking the bonds at her feet. Gideon then nodded to Baram, who began to spin the wheel.

  Bryna’s arms were stretched upward until she was lifted into the air. Baram stopped when she dangled directly above the pit, several feet above the lions. She stared in horror as the blood from her wound dripped into the pit below, stirring the starved beasts into a frenzy.

  “Accept the blood of the sinner’s whore as reparation for the sin of impurity visited upon my family,” Gideon intoned.

  “Let the sacrifice begin.”

  “I think not, Uncle.”

  ***

  Sheer terror gripped Jared when he saw Bryna hanging and bleeding into the pit. He wanted to run and snatch her to safety but with Baram standing with his hands on the wheel he could not risk it.

  Threatened with the promise of a slow and miserable death, Hapu had wasted no time in divulging all. Jared had listened. Listened with the pain of betrayal with which he was so well acquainted. From the first theft through his kidnapping, his ruin and demise had been planned and implemented. All at the direction of Gideon.

  Outraged and wounded as he had been to hear of his uncle’s plotting, it had not begun to match the horror of discovering Gideon had taken Bryna. Vaguely, he remembered Bran howling a deep throated battle cry, Damon cursing as Hapu slipped out of the warehouse, running for his life.

  Slowly, as if he had all the time in the world, he walked toward the pit his sword hanging loose in his hand struggled to keep his gait unhurried when in truth he wanted to launch himself at Baram and the wheel he held.

  A loud snarl erupted from the pit, reverberated off the walls. It was answered in kind by the other cats thirsty for blood.

  Jared chanced a look at Bryna. She was grasping the rope that suspended her, reaching futilely upward, trying to climb away from the danger. Her cheeks were tearstained. Deep green eyes locked on him with complete trust. He swallowed convulsively as a tawny paw edged with inch long claws and dappled with Bryna’s blood—leapt from the abyss. It missed her foot by a hair. He turned, fixed his deadly gaze on his uncle.

  Gideon stood as if rooted to the ground, his expression devoid of any emotion, except for his eyes. His black eyes burned with hatred. “Release my wife,” Jared said. “And I will let you live.”

  Gideon’s eyes narrowed. “You, the abomination whose very existence calls for cleansing of our bloodlines, dares to give orders?” He lifted his hand. Baram grabbed the handle of the wheel.

  “No!” Jared’s chest constricted. Baram looked uncertainly at Gideon awaiting his instruction.

  Jared eyed his uncle. There was an unnatural light filling his eyes, an energy fueled by twisted ideals and misplaced blame. There would be no negotiating or reasoning. No matter how simple, it would not penetrate Gideon’s distorted thoughts.

  If he was to save Bryna, save his heart, he would have to convince Gideon on the grounds of his own madness. “Bryna is innocent of any wrong. It would serve nothing for her to die.”

  “She is different. An outsider. The blood of Abraham’s children does not run in her veins.”

  “As it ran in my mother
’s? As it runs in mine?”

  Gideon snorted in disgust. “The purity of the family was contaminated when Shifra ran off with that. . . that Roman! I warned her, time and time again, to stay away, to avoid contact with the vile subjugator of our nation.” He began to pace back and forth.

  Keeping one eye on Baram, whose shaking hand still held the wheel, Jared took a few more steps around the pit. He sensed Damon and Bran fanning out from behind him. He signaled them to hold back.

  “She wouldn’t listen,” continued Gideon, throwing his hands in the air. “She spouted off nonsense about love and destiny and all manner of rubbish. Our father was too soft hearted so I had to take matters into my own hands. I forbade her to have any more contact with Flavian.” Gideon spat out Jared’s father’s name like a curse.

  A few more steps. He had to keep Gideon talking, keep him distracted enough to forget to order Baram to loose the wheel. “But she did not listen, did not heed your advice.”

  Gideon nodded absently. “Without the slightest thought of the shame she would bring to her family, she slipped away and married the bastard.” A dark cloud descended over Gideon’s tortured features.

  Jared was losing him. He had to direct Gideon away from Bryna. “She was cut off, shunned by her family. And then I was born.”

  Gideon scowled. “A symbol of her treachery. Shifra brought you to our mother whose soft heart clouded her judgment. I was the only one who could see the danger.”

  Jared stilled his advance as Gideon pinned him with a cold stare.

  “I thought I could ignore the situation. For thirteen years, I arranged to be away whenever she visited, for I could not bear the knowing looks, the snide remarks, the gossip. The scale balance was cast askew the day she brought you for your entry into the temple. I knew then a solution had to be found.”

  “The soldiers,” Jared said through gritted teeth. “You sent the soldiers who killed my mother.”

  Gideon squared his shoulders. “A well placed word, a subtle suggestion that Hebrew rebels were seeking refuge there. The Romans need little excuse to persecute us.”

  A whirl of emotions spun inside Jared. All these years he had blamed his father, blamed himself, blamed God for his mother’s death. And all the while a madman had been the one to ruin his life. Resolve tightened his hand around the hilt of his sword. He’d be damned if he would let the same madness steal his love from him.

  Baram, who had been listening and watching Gideon, turned to find Jared within a few feet of him. Making a sputtering gasp, he grabbed the wheel.

  Jared sprang at him, knocking him away from the contraption. From the corner of his eye, he saw Bryna swing, heard her gasp of fear.

  He managed to pull Baram toward the wall of the room. Jared’s fist connected with the soft flesh of his jowls. He crumpled into a sniveling heap at his feet. Disgusted, he turned to find Gideon moving with surprising agility toward the wheel.

  “Jared! Behind you!” The warning from Bryna barely gave him time to spin around. Elizabeth raced from the shadows, a dagger lifted above her head. He deflected the blade’s descent by rapping his cousin sharply on the elbow. Grabbing her injured arm, she cursed him, called him a murderer then fled through a doorway, Damon close on her heels. Jared spun his attention back to his uncle.

  Gideon’s hands were gripping the wheel’s handle. But the wheel was not rotating. The rope was tangled in the mechanism. Gideon began to saw at the thick rope with his blade.

  “Move away from the wheel. Now!”

  Gideon looked wild-eyed over his shoulder. “The sacrifice must be offered.”

  “Not today, Uncle.” Jared reached him, pulled him away.

  Gideon spun around, the metal in the curved sword he held glinting in the meager torchlight. “Reparation will be made! With your blood!”

  The force with which his uncle charged surprised Jared, but only for the space of a breath. Sword met sword, the scrape of metal sharp against the roar of the cats.

  Insanity gave the man inhuman strength. Jared thrust and parried, pushing Gideon backward toward the edge of the pit. Gideon stumbled, angled his sword down to catch himself. Jared took the opportunity and slipped his blade beneath his uncle’s, then swept upward, knocking the weapon across the room.

  Gideon’s foot slid on the loose dirt along the pit’s edge. He made a grab for Jared, but lost his balance. In the instant before he fell, Gideon’s dark, unremorseful gaze, met Jared’s. His uncle’s scream was cut off as powerful jaws ripped flesh and crunched bones.

  Jared’s gaze flew to Bryna. Her eyes were closed, shut tight against the sight of Gideon’s fate.

  Bran was already at the winch. Together, they untangled the rope. With shaky hands, Jared reached out and guided Bryna to the edge of the pit. He untied the rope connecting her to the winch, wrapped his arms around her, and drew her against him and away from the danger.

  “Jared, I’m so sorry,” she rasped out.

  He held her against his chest, released the ropes around her wrists, rubbed life back into her cold, mottled hands while searching for any other sign of injury. Satisfied that she was whole, with the exception of the cut on her leg, he buried his face in her hair.

  “Sorry? Why should you be sorry?” He swallowed past the lump in his throat.

  “Gideon was your family and you loved him.”

  Jared pressed his forehead to hers, his voice strangled. “I almost lost you!”

  She reached up, stroked a lock of hair from his eyes. “I love you, Roman.”

  Jared’s heart filled, every hurt shattered, every betrayal in his life turned to dust.

  He swept her up into his arms, captured her mouth with his. “And I love you too, my little barbarian, my wife, my heart.”

  ***

  Damon returned with three of his men, forcing a sullen Elizabeth down next to her bumbling husband. He joined Bran, watched Jared and Bryna holding each other. She whispered something in Jared’s ear, placed his hand on her stomach. Jared looked stunned then smiled the most ridiculous smile Damon had ever seen. He also had never seen his friend so filled with joy.

  “I think that I shall be returning to Eire alone,” Bran said out loud.

  Damon shifted uncomfortably at the pang that pricked his insides. Not everybody could be as fortunate as Jared. He shook it off, slapped Bran on the back. The barbarian sent him a baleful glare. “Alone is not such a bad thing, my friend. Come, I’ll buy you a drink and fill you in on the secrets to aggravating your new brother-in-law.”

  ---The End-–

  Author Bio

  Joan Kayse believes love spans the ages. She crafts stories that transport readers to other time periods and other realities. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky where she shares her home and keyboard with two baby cats, Cricket Marie and Grayson the Monkey Cat.

  www.joankayse.com

  facebook.com/joankayseauthor

  twitter.com/joankayse

  romancebandits.com

  Also By Joan Kayse

  The Patrician’s Fortune

  EXCERPT:

  The man and the officer conversed briefly then walked over to where Damon stood with his guard. Damon was taller than most, but this man was a colossus. A puckered scar ran along his neck and the irregular line of his nose spoke of multiple breaks. A large gold earring swung from his left ear. Damon blinked again, tried to clear the thickening cobwebs from his mind. The man reminded him of an old Sicilian pirate he’d once met in Antioch. A smile tugged at his bruised lips. A pirate in the middle of Rome? He was about to die and that would be the last person he saw? Gods, his life—what little was left of it—was like a Greek comedy.

  The pirate crossed massive arms across his chest. He scowled at Damon then addressed the officer. “Is this the best you have?”

  If he hadn’t been so close to passing out, Damon would have taken offense at the insult.

  “It’s the only one left alive.” The officer shrugged. “Another few minutes and he’d be ha
nging on the cross too.”

  The pirate stroked his chin. “I do not…”

  “Kaj.”

  The voice floated from behind the wagon, soft, soothing, and swirled around Damon like a fine coverlet of Egyptian linen. Surely nothing less than a goddess possessed such a voice. A goddess? Damon shook his aching head. He really was in bad shape. Now he was hallucinating about beings he didn’t believe in.

  The big man strode back to the wagon and spoke in hushed tones to the deity. Damon could not make out what was said but he hoped it didn’t involve human sacrifice. Some goddesses were known to crave such things. After a few moments, the pirate called Kaj stomped back. “Fetch a torch, so that my mistress may see how she wastes her gold.”

  Pio raced back to the campfire, returning with a lighted bundle of rushes. Damon was shuffled closer to the wagon, the torch held so close to his face that he felt the flames singeing his beard. He gritted his teeth as the officer fisted his hand in his tangled hair and jerked his head backward, angling it toward the light.

  Through the glare of the fire, a petite figure wrapped in a palla of sea blue stepped forward. The material of the cloak swathed her from head to foot, draped over her head like a veil and concealed her features. All Damon could see was one slender, alabaster hand holding the garment together.

  He watched her cautious approach. She moved with an innate grace, and though she would not stand any taller than his shoulder, there was an air of imperial confidence about her that would put the stodgiest Senator to shame. Even in his dazed state, Damon appreciated the way the material flowed as she walked, shaping to her lush, female curves with each step. A sharp twinge of disappointment struck him when the pirate positioned his hulking form between them. The goddess whispered something and sent her servant a chiding look as he stepped away. The man gave no indication he’d seen it though Damon would wager the pirate missed little.