Aurora left the dining hall then.
It was still quite early. Many guards still roamed about, although most stumbled and swayed from all the wine. Only when the entire house was quiet, the guards passed out and slumbering, would Aurora make her way to Claudius’ chambers. But there was still one last thing she needed to do first.
Holding two goblets of wine, she sauntered down stone steps into the quarters beneath the villa, strolling through the shadowed corridors, until she stood before a single door.
Thrice, she struck the door with the toe of her sandal until it opened.
“Since you refuse to partake of the festivities, I thought I would bring the festivities to you.”
She stepped inside Cyrus’ room, and he closed the door behind her. When he faced her, she held out one goblet of wine, but he would not take it as he shook his head.
“You know I do not imbibe spirits.”
“Not even on this night to celebrate what you made possible?”
She sighed when he still refused, setting his cup down beside his pallet.
Aurora shrugged. “Well I shall celebrate for the both of us then,” she said taking a deep gulp from her cup before placing it beside his on the ground.
Upon entering his chambers, she’d noticed his face was drawn, his eyes shadowed, so she was happy to see that a small smile now tugged at the corners of his mouth, even if it was fleeting.
Her smile fell from her lips when she looked into his troubled eyes, and with a sigh she sat down on Cyrus’ pallet, her gaze roaming his face.
“I once unburdened my soul to you, in this very room. I am here, if you wish to do the same.”
Somehow Aurora’s words found their way past his defenses. The woman herself had seemingly torn down every single wall he’d erected around himself—his heart—his soul. “It is selfish of me to burden you with my troubles on the very day this entire house celebrates a victory you have well earned.”
“A victory that was made so by you. A victory that if you cannot share with me, is truly no victory at all.
“Come,” she whispered, her arms outstretched, beckoning him to her.
Cyrus could not resist her, nor did he wish to, and he found himself beside her with his arms around her and her head resting atop his chest.
For a long while no words were spoken as they held one another in silence. When he thought he’d gathered up enough courage to speak, he tensed, the words lodging inside him.
“What is it, Cyrus?” she asked quietly, lifting her head to meet his gaze.
A weary sigh tore out of him, and he closed his eyes, resting the back of his head against the wall.
“I hesitate because it is not fair to you that I would speak of another woman on a day that belongs to you, and while I hold you in my arms.”
She stilled against him, but the disquiet he felt coursing through her body was absent from her gentle voice when she said, “This other woman, does she fill your thoughts often?”
“Not as often as you, but she is there, too.”
He tightened his arms around her when she started to pull away, and he opened his eyes then, to lose himself within hers.
“You mistake my meaning, because I did not do well in choosing my words.” He almost lost his fortitude until he remembered Aurora had bravely bared her soul to him. He considered himself a man of honor, and such a man would also possess courage, but he still reached for the cup of wine she’d brought with her, and drained it in a single gulp.
“I wed Sorina so there would be peace between our two tribes,” he said finally, as the wine pooled warmly in his belly. “I was the second son to my father, and by custom, my brother, Orthon, should have wed Sorina.”
“So why did he not?” Aurora asked when he fell silent.
“Because he was camped along the banks of the Mesta River
fighting the Romans.” Cyrus frowned, remembering the argument he’d had with his brother before Orthon had departed to battle. “Had he done his duty before going off to war none of this would have happened. All of this could have been avoided.
“Sorina was with child when he left, but she did not know this until Orthon was long gone, and had her father discovered her condition, the matter would have incited a war between our two tribes in defense of her honor.”
“So she was wed to you, instead, to protect her honor and to secure peace.”
He nodded. “But when Orthon returned a year later, he was furious. He refused to see reason, he refused to accept that wedding Sorina had not been my choice, but my duty. For two years he was inconsolable and when our father died, there was no longer a reason for him to restrain himself.”
Cyrus did not realize he’d tensed beneath her, nor that embittered anger now poured off of him as he remembered what his brother had done on the heels of their father’s death. Cyrus was unaware that his eyes now glittered with black rage until Aurora caressed his cheek with gentle fingers, instantly quieting the restless storm in his gaze.
“Within days of our father’s death, Orthon challenged me for Sorina. I tried to talk him out of it, but he would not listen, because he felt he had no other choice. Unlike the Romans, my people do not take wives and husbands and then discard them later. To wed Sorina, only to divorce her, would have been an insult to her, it would have shamed her. The only way for Orthon to have her justly was to challenge me and win. But he did not win. I defeated him before our entire tribe, and refused to kill him when he begged for an honorable death.
“Orthon lost everything—Sorina, his position as our sovereign, his honor. He felt he had nothing left to lose, so he became desperate.”
“It was your brother who betrayed you, who sold you to the Romans.” she said quietly, and Cyrus almost did not finish when he heard the tears within her voice. “I know he wished me dead,” Cyrus managed to get out, though his throat burned just to say the words, to know his beloved brother had longed for his death. “But he did not believe his soul would ever find peace in the afterlife if he murdered his own brother. So yes, he sold me, and on this very day now
four
years ago is when I arrived here within Claudius’ home.”
The expression on her face told him she understood. That while others celebrated their victories in the arena, on this day he was reminded of his brother’s betrayal, the brother he’d loved dearly, the brother he’d worshipped since he’d been a boy. While others celebrated, Cyrus was reminded of the life he’d once had, the life he’d lost. Cyrus did not celebrate on this day, he never did. Instead, he mourned this day.
“You loved him very much, didn’t you?”
“I did.” But no longer. Such betrayal killed one’s love.
“And Sorina? Did you love her as well?”
Sorina’s face flickered before his eyes, then vanished as quickly as it had come.
“No.” Not at all, and that was why he felt such guilt. “Sorina was a sweet woman, a kind woman. She loved my brother, but she also hated him for leaving her. She tried to be a good wife, but I would not let her.” Cyrus closed his eyes, blowing out a deep breath. “I wronged her terribly. I never touched her. I treated her as one would a friend, and not a wife.”
“Because you did not love her. You did what was asked of you, but that did not mean your feelings would ever change. You cannot fault yourself for that.”
But he did, because she’d never deserved his coldness. She’d been as much a victim as he.
“What of the child she carried? What happened to her child?”
Cyrus’ gut knotted with Aurora’s question. That was the worst of it all, that was why his guilt remained his steady companion.
“She lost the babe soon after we were wed, but she longed for another. Yet, she was the only one who wished for a child.” He dragged his hand across his face and would have closed his eyes, but Aurora would not let him shut her out. She refused to let him retreat as she twined her fingers with his and held them tight. “When I said I never touched her that was not a lie. Many nights it would torture me to listen to her cries as she pretended to sleep, and I pretended as well. It pained her to know I did not desire her, that I did not wish to give her a child. But I could not bring myself to do it. Sorina was my brother’s lover, not mine, and I could not seem to forget that she belonged to another whenever I looked at her.
“What I did was selfish. Sorina was blameless, but I treated her with coldness.”
Aurora must have noticed the change in his voice because her hand clenched tighter within his.
“When you have your freedom, will you return to her?”
Cyrus longed to lie to her, to tell her what she wished to hear, but he would not do that to her. Aurora deserved the truth, even if it hurt her, even if it killed him to say the words.
“My honor demands that I see to the obligations I left behind.”
Aurora had never known love so she was not certain if this searing pain inside her chest was her heart breaking, but she imagined that it was. She had always suspected there was more to Cyrus’ story of the life he’d left behind, but she’d not wished to pry, for she still harbored many secrets of her past life as well.
“A man does not abandon his duty, Aurora, nor the promises he once made,” he said, his eyes begging for her to understand. “What would you think of me if I did not at least return to see how she fared? I imagine she has moved on to another given our arrangement and all the time which has passed, but what if I am wrong? What if she is now poor and starving? What man would I be to go about my life as if I’d never made a promise to see to her welfare?”
Aurora could not answer him, because she could not speak. Her mind told her a man did not do such a thing—he did not abandon his duties.
Her heart, however, told another story entirely. It did not matter that after this night she would never see him again. The heart was a curious thing. It was foolish and fickle, and wholly irrational.
She wanted his love, as ill-fated as it was. She longed for his devotion, though she knew she could never be his wife. She understood he had obligations to his homeland, and why he’d not told her of them before, but that did not mean she happily accepted such knowledge.
Aurora did not realize moisture had gathered in her eyes until he rolled her beneath him, and with a curse on his lips, he cradled her face.
“You will forever have my heart, Aurora, you must know this. No matter what happens between us, you are the only woman I have ever loved, and nothing shall change that.”
Her eyes were sad, even as her heart soared. For so many reasons she could not savor this moment, she could not fully bask in the beauty of his words.
Now that Aurora finally knew what it meant to love, she still could not truly have it. Because while she had Cyrus’ love—another would forever have
him.
Forming words escaped her so Aurora did the only thing she could, she lifted her hand, her fingers tangling in his hair as she brought his face closer to hers. She then joined their lips in a kiss that scorched through her, searing her heart, inflaming desires only Cyrus could awaken, and then satiate.
She kissed him with the passion of her needs, and the love that weighed down her heart. Words continued to escape her, so with her kisses, with her body, she conveyed her deepest feelings, her rawest emotions.
They tore off their garments with urgency, as if they could spare only seconds before they had to touch one another once again. Cyrus’ body was hot and hard against hers as the weight of him pressed her down into the pallet beneath her back. She welcomed the heaviness, because it assured her that he was real, that she had not imagined him, not conjured him from the deep abyss of her longings.
As he began to push his way inside her she wrapped her legs around him, her hips lifting, sending him tunneling deeper.
Her sensuous movements beneath him snapped his control and a curse rent the air as he filled her on one smooth thrust until he was buried to the hilt of her.
He stroked inside her at an almost frenzied pace, and she matched the rhythm of his surging flesh, with a desperation that mirrored his own.
Cyrus made love to her as if he knew this would be their last time together, as if he knew what she plotted. He made love to her as if he knew he would never feel her skin against his, her body beneath his, her sheath surrounding him, accepting him, gripping him tight.
Aurora soon became convinced his intuition
had
to have hinted that this was to be their final time together because he pounded inside her with a desperate urgency, until Aurora knew she’d been branded, she’d been claimed, she’d been marked so thoroughly, so irrevocably that Cyrus would be forever tattooed upon her heart.
They found release at the same moment, and he roared out his completion as she cried out her own. He filled her with his seed, and she felt it stir warmly inside her womb until the tight fist of her sheath had milked him thoroughly.
Aurora held him to her when he collapsed atop her. And when he rolled to his side, she turned her head to smile at him, but instead of smiling back, his eyes were angry, and a dark glower spread across his face.
Cyrus reached out to her, but his arm would not move, his entire body was heavy and clumsy as if he’d drunk too much wine, but he knew that he had not.