Felicia took his arm, pulling him close so that the baby was sandwiched between them.
‘You do seem happier. Perhaps you just needed a few good fights to get whatever it was that was troubling you off your mind?’
He smiled back at her, musing on the havoc he intended to wreak if he ever got the opportunity to return to the city of his birth. Praetorian Prefect Perennis and the four men known to him only as ‘The Emperor’s Knives’ were enough of a list for the time being, although he was sure that other names would come to light once he started working his way through the first five. His hand tensed on the dagger at his belt, the scarred skin over his knuckles tightening until the marks disappeared into the white flesh.
‘Yes my love. Perhaps I did.’