“Mm.” He trailed his lips across her neck, and bit lightly on her earlobe. She shivered and burrowed closer. Her hands were bolder now, roaming over his arms, his back, even down to his buttocks. Against her skin, he smiled. She was indeed a tempest, too long confined to a teacup, but now released.
“A request.”
He did not hesitate to answer. “Anything.”
“When you take a mistress, don’t let me find out.”
His head lifted, and he stared down at her. “What?”
She did not look away, and her expression was grave. “Your mistress.”
“I don’t have a mistress.”
Her tension eased minutely. “But you will take one. All men of means have them.”
“Who the hell told you that?”
“My mother. And ... others. One hears things.” Her lashes lowered. “Every married man known to my family keeps women. Lord Haverbrook spends more time with his mistress, Mrs. Delphi, than he does with Lady Haverbrook. The Earl of Macclestone had his bastard son educated at Cambridge.”
Leo only stared at her.
“It’s how things are. The only recourse for wives is acceptance.” She raised her gaze once more, and a storm stirred within. Only a few days earlier, she would have been too guarded to reveal this much of herself, yet now things had changed, they had changed, and she spoke with strength. “When you do take a mistress, keep silent. I don’t wish for ignorance, but of this, it’s preferable to knowledge. Thinking of you, doing this”—she glanced down at their entwined bodies—“with anyone other than me is ... insupportable.”
Leo, who seldom found himself at a loss for words when finessing deals on Exchange Alley, discovered he could not speak. Not for a full minute. At last, however, he gained his voice.
“Mark me, Anne. I have no mistress. Never did, and never will.”
Her eyes rounded. “All men—”
“Not all. Not me.” When she began to protest, he would not allow her to continue. “My body is yours. Only yours. If that makes me a baseborn peasant, that’s what I am.”
“That is not how I think of you.”
He knew this, and it weighted his words. “You are my wife. I am your husband. We shall know the pleasures of no one else’s flesh but each other’s.” The very thought of touching a different woman made him feel sick. And the idea that she might have another man kiss her, let alone make love to her ... he’d never experienced such rage.
“Only you.” She held his gaze. “That is all I want.”
“Good,” he said, lowering his mouth to hers. He wanted their bare torsos pressed together, but knew it could never be. He had to keep his secrets. If ever she discovered the truth, he would lose her, and that he could not allow. “For I find that when it comes to sharing my wife, I’m damned miserly.”
Anne walked in a temple. It was a strange temple, its walls solid stone, and stone loomed overhead. Torchlight flickered, and she saw that the temple was actually underground. Or perhaps set within a hill or mountain. She did not know the where of the place, nor how she came to be there. One moment, she had been lying in Leo’s arms, warm, replete, her body tired and her heart full to bursting. Then she was here, in this place.
The stone floor chilled her bare feet, and she clutched herself close to stay warm. Columns had been carved into the walls. At one end of the temple stood an altar, surrounded by bronze lamps. Cautiously, she approached, then recoiled. A lamb had been sacrificed. Recently. Its body splayed across the altar, steaming, and blood dripped onto the ground.
“You see yourself there.”
Anne spun around. A woman stood a few feet away. She wore a tunic in the Roman style, with golden brooches pinned at her shoulders, and her dark hair was piled atop her head in elaborate curls. She stepped closer, the torchlight revealing her to be a woman of lustrous, aristocratic beauty, her gaze proud and cunning—and urgent.
“To what am I being sacrificed?” asked Anne.
“Him.”
“Leo?”
The Roman woman shook her head. “He is but the instrument of your oblation. The blade plunged into your heart.”
Instinctively, Anne’s hand crept between her breasts, shielding herself. “I do not understand the purpose of this sacrifice.”
“He serves another. The Dark One.” The temple turned to mist and became an elegant chamber with gilt friezes upon the walls. In the middle of the room stood a stylishly dressed man with white hair and irises as pale as diamonds. The guise of the elegant man melted away like liquefying flesh, revealing a humanlike creature of immense height, its skin the color of ash, curving horns atop its head scraping the mural on the ceiling and its cloven hooves tearing the Kidderminster carpet. The eyes remained the same, pale, cold. Ablaze with power and malevolence.
“He has never seen the Dark One’s true face,” continued the Roman. A priestess, she must be. A witch. “And on the day he does, it will be too late. His doom shall be sealed, and with him, the doom of countless others.” The elegant chamber shattered into pieces like broken glass. Anne shielded herself from the shards. When she lifted her arms, she saw the world ablaze. Cities leveled. A never-ending war. Famine and misery. And over all of it, the horned beast watched and applauded.
This scene crumbled away, and Anne and the priestess stood once more within the temple.
“My allies are too few,” said the Roman. “This half-world imprisons me, and only two willing fighters exist in your realm. Not enough. We need others to wage war.” The priestess turned her gaze to Anne. “Powerful warriors.”
Anne held up her hands, palms up. “I have nothing. No power of my own, and am certainly no warrior.”
The Roman’s eyes glittered as she advanced. “Strength lies within you. As for the rest, I shall bring it forth.”
Anne backed up, until she felt slickness under her feet. Blood from the sacrifice. “No.”
“Think you there is a choice?” The priestess looked scornful. “Death is your only other option.”
“I want out of this place. I want to go home.” Anne sounded small and terrified, precisely how she felt.
“We have not the time for this,” snapped the woman. “My hold here weakens.” As she spoke, the edges of the temple blurred and grew hazy. “There is no safety at home. You sense this, and my warning presence. That place is a haven for wickedness.”
“Not Leo.”
The Roman’s mouth twisted into a cruel smile. “He is most wicked of all. The Devil’s operative who makes the world ready for his master.”
Not the same man who held her, who gave her so much, who believed in her strength even when Anne had been uncertain it existed at all. “I don’t believe you.”
The priestess made a sound of irritation as more of the temple turned to smoke. “Time draws apace.”
She raised her hands and chanted. Anne did not understand the words, though some sounded vaguely familiar. Tempestas, ventus, maleficus. The air grew colder. A wind began to gust. It swirled, its movement marked by eddies of dust. Torches flickered. Faster and fiercer blew the wind, cold and lacerating, until it howled like the gates of Hell being opened.
Anne staggered, fighting to keep standing, yet the wind had the force of a storm, pushing her back.
The wind screamed, and the priestess’s voice raised to a shriek, her words barely audible above the tumult. She curled her hands into fists, and the wind spun around her, gathering, collecting. Building momentum. Her hair came loose from its elaborate arrangement, her tunic billowed, and her eyes blazed as she chanted.
Then she opened her hands and shoved the wind toward Anne.
Certain she would be torn apart by the vicious storm, Anne darted to the side. But too late. The wind slammed into her. She stumbled against the altar and fell to her knees. The pain of impact was nothing compared to the sensation of bitter, cutting wind reaching into her, filling her veins, pushing through her.