Worst of all was the knowledge that she'd failed the others. Now no one would come to save them. And she would pass the centuries here, like the others whom she'd pitied for so long. All of them doomed to a living death.
And Bastian would never know she loved him.
Time passed slowly. Hours, days, weeks. She slept little and swam in and out of consciousness. She heard nothing, saw nothing. There was nothing to occupy her mind except hopelessness. At some point, she began to hallucinate. She saw family members, long dead. And friends. And Bastian. Always Bastian. Visions of him haunted her, making her feel when she wished to be numb.
At times, she was comforted when he whispered to her in the dark, promising to come for her. Telling her he loved her. She'd been so angry when they'd parted. So foolish and prideful. She should have trusted him with her secrets. He was a good man, one who might have helped her free the others. Now it was too late.
His phantom visits to her chamber became a torture, for each time he appeared and she tried to explain, he did not seem to hear her. Still, she would call to him, trying to make him understand. To give him the only gift she could. Her name. “Silvia,” she would whisper. Then he would fade to nothingness, and she would be alone.
And so one day, when she heard his dear voice yet again, and felt the strong comfort of muscled masculine arms surround her, she didn't believe it was really he. And it wasn't.
“Bastian?” she croaked, her voice a barely discernable sound.
“No, I'm Sevin,” came the terse reply, and she saw that it was indeed Bastian's brother who held her. His handsome face gazed at her with a mix of pity and anger. Turning his head, he shouted over his shoulder to someone across the room. “She's here! Safe.”
Silvia turned her head to follow his shout but, unaccustomed to light, she was blinded at first and recoiled. Sevin held her close for a moment, his big hands running over her in search of broken bones or other wounds, no doubt, as he whispered soothing words to her. Beyond him, she heard the clank of swords and knives. A battle was in progress. Squinting, she managed to view the scene unfolding in Pontifex's throne room. Bastian, Dane, and Lucien were laying siege to Occia and almost two dozen of her guards.
Bastian.
Silvia mouthed his name, but this time no sound came forth. Yet, as if he'd heard, his silver eyes caught hers briefly. At the same moment, Occia's blade sliced toward him, wounding him. Silvia gasped. “Occia, no!” she croaked, and in her terror, she managed to make her voice carry. At the sound of her name, Occia darted a look toward the Wall of Doors. Taking advantage of her distraction, Bastian swung a powerful arm at her. Taken by surprise, she was flung backward and then screamed as she fell into the poisonous acidic waters of the moat. When she was gone, her soldiers desisted in their fighting and ran.
In a half-dozen long strides, Bastian was beside Silvia, taking her from Sevin's arms and lifting her in his own. “I've got her. Open the other doors and see what you find,” he told his brother. Sevin nodded and left them.
“Gods!” Bastian gazed down at her, and she saw tears on his face. He folded her close, clutching her to him as if he would never let her go. She felt the rumble of his words in his chest. “I'm here now, my love. You're safe. I'm here.”
Over his shoulder, she saw his brothers working at the other nine doors to pull the other Ephemerals from the Wall. Floronia was released first. Then Lucinia. They looked dazedâsilent, pale zombies after having been caged for hundreds of years. And then, “Aemilia,” she breathed. Struggling from Bastian's arms, she went to the others, unsteady on her feet. Dear friends who'd been apart for centuries hugged and wept. Aemilia smiled her sweet smile, and as they embraced, she whispered, “I knew you would come for us.” Her eyes darted to Bastian and his brothers. “But I didn't know you would bring such handsome gentlemen with you.”
Silvia laughed and then put a hand to her forehead, feeling suddenly dizzy. Bastian was there instantly and he lifted her again, his jaw grim as he carried her from the room. “Thank you,” she murmured. “Thank you for freeing them.”
She must have fallen unconscious, for her next lucid moment found her lying upon fresh sheets in an unfamiliar bed, still in Pontifex's lair. She'd been bathed and dressed in a soft gown, and her wild, tangled hair had been tamed with a comb. Under her ear, she heard Bastian's heartbeat, strong and reassuring. His hand smoothed desultorily up and down her side, as if he needed the contact with her.
Urgency welled in her and she pulled herself higher to gaze down at his dear face. His eyes flew open and his arms encircled her. He looked so tired, his jaw shadowed by the soft blue-black beginnings of a beard. “My name,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. His entire body went still, his expression riveted. “It's Silvia.”
And so it was that she was made mortal, and willingly left her Ephemeral life behind, so that she could have a life with this wonderful man. Her rescuer. Her beloved. Bastian.
“Silvia,” he said, tasting the word. “It's beautiful,” he breathed, pleasure stealing over his face. “You're beautiful. And mine. At last.” He laughed and rolled her under him, kissing her long and deeply, and only then did she discover he was naked. And hard. “Gods, I love you. And I was so damned worried. I saw you in my nightmares every night, trapped here.”
“I'm sorry,” she soothed, stroking his beard and enjoying its texture. “How did you find me?”
“You mentioned Pontifex when last we met, and once I came through the Tuscan gate, this place wasn't difficult to locate. But as to how I knew where you were specificallyâyour door in that wall was the only one that appeared to me in color.”
She canted her head, her look questioning.
He took her face in his hands and then combed his fingers through her hair, appearing mesmerized by its color and texture. “I told you I was imperfect and I amâI'm color-blind. Or I was, until you. No matter what form you take, I see you in color. It's the way I've been tracking you, for it leaves a residual trail in your wake. The hue deepens when I touch you. And it always has the effect of making me want you, physically.”
“Do you want me now?” she whispered, a smile curving her lips.
He muttered a self-deprecating laugh, knowing she must feel his hard length at her belly. “Do you have to ask?”
“Then come inside me,” she pleaded softly.
At his concerned look, she said, “I'm fine, and I need to feel physically close to you. It's been too long.” He lifted the hem of the gown he'd procured for her to her belly and lifted her thighs around him. She gasped and arched as he pushed inside her without preliminaries. Gently, he rocked her, and lovers kept too long apart came together swiftly, their bodies reaching fulfillment in sweet harmony, their arms wrapped around one another.
His cock was still pulsing inside her, when he rose on his elbows over her. “Remember the auction?” he asked.
“Hmm?” Her eyes slitted open.
“In Venice.” He toyed with a lock of her hair, brushing it over her nipple. “You owe me the answer to one last question.”
She arched a brow. “Now?”
He shifted his hips, pushing deeper, and another pulse of warm seed flooded her, bringing on a strong echo of her orgasm.
Mmmm.
Her eyes drifted closed and her body went boneless.
“Marry me.”
She opened one eye. “Was that a question?”
His face went serious, his voice stern. “Will. You. Marry. Me?” His hips continued the lazy, rhythmic thrust, and a gentle quake of pleasure rippled inside her with his every word, with each push.
“If you'reâ”
“I'm sure,” he told her. “My dear.” A kiss on her brow. “Delectable.” Another on her scarred cheek. “Silvia.” And another on her mouth.
She looped her arms around his neck and spoke against his lips. “Yes, then.”
“Via?” She looked beyond Bastian to see Aemilia in the doorway, watching them as she herself had once watched him with Michaela. How long had she been there?
Bastian eased his body from hers. “Privacy is at a minimum here,” he said. “We return to Rome tomorrow and we'll wed the following day.”
At her nod, he bestowed a parting buss on her lips and then rose from the bed, with one of its sheets wrapped low at his hips. Wide-eyed and half-besotted, Aemilia watched him saunter past. Silvia knew just how she felt.
When he was gone, the two of them joined the other Vestals for the lighting ceremony. Each time Silvia had visited the hearth here after the temple's destruction, it had only managed to produce a frail flame. Now she waited breathlessly as each Vestal placed a stone in the hearth. There were nine in all, for Michaela and Occia were dead and Silvia had made herself mortal, and therefore unable to conjure fire. But it was enough. Vesta's fire leaped to vibrant life for the first time in fifteen centuries. And it was a beautiful sight to behold.
Basking in its ethereal glow, Silvia looked on as three new initiates from among the Lares were inducted to replace the three who had been lost from the order. But unlike herself and the others, these new girls had
chosen
to serve, for no longer would Vesta's servants be brought to her by force. There would be no more scourgings, no premature burials. The Vestals would govern themselves now. But Silvia could no longer serve even if she'd wished to. For she was mortal now and wanted to be with him whom she loved.
She left the next day, promising to return often, for she still had ties to the goddess and always would. And then she traveled with Bastian and his brothers through the gate to Tuscany, and then homeward to Rome.
“Something's different,” said Silvia as their coach neared the outskirts of Rome. In the eyes of every human they passed, she saw curiosity, mistrust, even fear.
Two knocks came from the front of the conveyance. Lucien and Dane were driving and were signaling a warning to them. Bastian's hand came to rest on her thigh and she felt the tension in him. Across the coach, Sevin's worry was easily read as well.
“They know what we are,” Bastian gritted. “ElseWorld's existence has been discovered.”
Just ahead, a dozen human men had backed a centaur into the corner of a courtyard and were trying to throw a harness over his neck. Silvia eyed the scene in horror. Farther along, several boys were chasing a fey girl and shouting insults at her.
Sevin made as if to leave the coach and render assistance, but Bastian caught his arm. “It's too dangerous. Stay inside.”
“We can't just leave them to the mercy of these barbaric humans!” Sevin argued.
Bastian yanked the small window curtains closed. “Will you fight them all single-handedly? No, the best way to handle this is to bring our two worlds to the bargaining table.”
“It's because of the firestones, isn't it?” asked Silvia. “Because they're gone from Rome.” She hadn't taken them to ElseWorld herselfâOccia had. Still, she could not help but feel somewhat responsible for their loss and its catastrophic effect.
“Do you mean to say that it was those opals that protected us all this time?” asked Sevin. “As you once told me the philosophers' texts suggested?”
“It brings me no pleasure to be right, I assure you,” Bastian replied. “But I believe that when the first six stones left this world over the centuries, the magic that protected us began to fail. And when the last six left several weeks ago, it failed entirely.”
“Can't you bespell all these humans? Cloud their perception? Make them forget?” Silvia asked desperately, as they passed a pixie being evicted from his home, his belongings tossed into the muddy street.
“Bespell all of Rome? All of Italy? All of Europe? All of humankind?” Bastian shook his head. “Impossible. Now that the secret is out, it cannot be bottled again.”
“Then let us hope sunlight will prove to be the best antiseptic as you once posited, brother,” said Sevin. “And let us work toward a better future.”
Bastian nodded, his face grim. “We'll work toward harmony. But one way or another, it's a new day for our kind here in this world.”
20
One month later
“I
s that a new urn?”
Bastian looked up from his desk to see Silvia entering his canvas work tent where they'd first met in the Forum. By sheer force of his will, he'd managed to retain his position here as lead archaeologist, in spite of the new human suspicion toward his kind.
Since the veil of protection had fallen after the removal of Vesta's relics, he and his brothers had been at the forefront of Interworld negotiations. Between the ElseWorld Council, human politicians, and Sevin's new business enterprise, Bastian had found little time for the excavations. Or for his new wife. And he'd missed her.
As she bent to examine his newest find, his appreciative eyes moved over the line of her slim back and hips. Quickly, he tossed out a bespelling of the tent's perimeter that would repel even the most cunning of intruders.
“Come here, wife,” he said. When her attention was slow to leave the urn, he added, “I have chocolate.” He rattled the confectioner's box he'd purchased for her earlier that day.
She looked at him over her shoulder, smiling that sweet halfsmile of hers. Because of her, the color in his life was constant now and had spread to every corner of his world. He no longer needed the constant touch of his beloved to maintain it, though if they were apart for an entire day, the color began to deplete. Its effect on his libido was a low hum when she wasn't near. But when she entered his orbit, it rose to the same flashfire of need it had once been. As it did now.
The continued frequency of their matings remained a constant source of teasing by his brothers, but this was a small misery and he bore it well.
“I've always liked this desk,” she said, smoothing a hand over its glossy surface. “It's so big.” She kicked off her slippers and came around to his side of it, insinuating herself between him and his work. He pushed books, maps, and papers away, stacking them neatly, so that she might perch on its surface before him. Then he drew his chair closer so her feet were tucked on either side of his thighs.
“You shouldn't travel alone,” Bastian chided, his hands finding her stockinged ankles under her skirt and roving higher. “It's not safe. Not yet.”
“It's less than a mile from here to the house. Besides, humans think you and your brothers to be quite fierce and are afraid of bothering me since I'm under your protection.” She leaned forward and cupped his face in her hands. “And I missed you.”
“I'm covered with Forum dust,” he said in an apologetic tone. But he was already pushing up her skirts and rising to stand in the lee of her thighs.
She only drew him closer. “You know I don't mind.”
“Open your bodice and take down your hair,” he bade her as he unfastened his trousers. Her hands moved to obey him, her clear blue eyes gazing up at him through the fans of her dark lashes. He would never tire of the sight of her full pinktipped breasts peeking from the soft coppery gold waves of her shiny unbound hair. And when her bodice was open and her hair down, he rubbed his cockhead along her slit and opened her. “Did I remember to tell you how glad I am that you are female?” A laugh escaped her and then faded into a moan as he thrust his heat hard and long into her slick feminine welcome.
A half hour later, she lay flat on her back amid a jumble of maps and the like atop the desk's surface, her legs wrapped around his hips and her heart still pounding in the aftermath of his lovemaking. He stood before her still, but now his torso half lay over hers and his cock was buried so deep inside her that it kissed her womb. Her arms were bent high on either side of her, her eyes closed, and her bodice had been tossed to the floor at some point.
“I think you deserve a reward for that effort,” he told her. Without leaving her, she felt him shift. Heard the rustle of tissue. And then came the captivating aroma of chocolate. She parted her lips and felt him place a bonbon between them. She took it into her mouth and sighed with delight.
Her arms encircled his back, her hands smoothing over his strong muscles. “Mmm. New artifacts, rapture, and now chocolate. My day is complete.” She opened her eyes and smiled at him, then said softly, “Take me home, husband.”
Moments later, they were walking across the Forum together, his strong arm wrapped protectively around her, his woman. Night was falling and the Forum sparkled with bobbing lights that swayed in the gentle breeze.
At the edge of the valley, they would hail a coach and head for Esquiline and his home. Their home now, though his new wife had made few changes in it, professing to enjoy its fastidious, museum-like quality. Inside the house there would be a dog named Sal to curl at his feet. There would be a warm fire burning in the hearth. And another fire in his bed as they made love again, later.
In the time since he'd met her, he had located the House of Vestals and the Temple. And within their bounds, he'd found fifteen marble tablets, eleven life-sized statues and nine more fragments, twenty-seven busts, 835 coins, jewelry, columns of breccia that ranked among the finest specimens of marble ever uncovered, as well as numerous other artifacts, which in themselves would be regarded as great treasures in a less productive dig.
But the greatest treasure he'd found in the Forum was this woman at his side. The love of his heart, his life.
And her name was Silvia.