Queen of Kings - Maria Dahvana Headley [106]
“Give her to me,” Chrysate whispered, leaning over Augustus, pressing him back onto the floor, letting him feel her softness, letting his hands linger on her skin. “Give her to me, and you will have everything you could desire.”
The emperor’s hands came to life, grasping her thighs. She’d never met a man who could not be manipulated with the simplest tools. They were all the same. She prayed her illusion would hold long enough to accomplish what was necessary. The body beneath the spell was nothing the emperor would want to touch.
“I want only one thing,” Augustus said, resisting her hands. “Cleopatra must be destroyed, by order of Rome.”
She’d thought him more easily controlled than this.
“I cannot destroy such a thing,” she informed him, kissing him hard enough to bruise. “And I do not choose to.”
Augustus sat up suddenly, his hands grappling with her wrists, knocking her off balance. Chrysate was startled to find herself swiftly immobilized beneath him, her wrists held behind her, her cheek against the stone floor. He was stronger than she’d imagined. His injuries should have weakened him sufficiently, but the magic she’d used tonight had weakened her. It had been a hundred years since she’d felt anything like this.
“Do you serve me, Chrysate?” he asked, his mouth next to her ear, the rasp of his beard against her face. “Or do you serve another?”
“I serve you,” she said, and then stretched beneath him, emphasizing the point. She had not lost him yet. “You and I are not so different. We both want more than we’ve been given. Do I misunderstand you, emperor of Rome?”
“You do not,” he said. She could feel him hard against her. One of his hands stroked her throat, pressing roughly. She wondered if he would try to strangle her. There was a thrum of thwarted violence in him, a weak boy made into the ruler of the world, and all she needed to do to rule him was to make him think he’d won.
“Everything in Rome is yours to command,” she said. “And the world is Rome. I am yours to command. Will you give me what I want?”
She slowly lifted her hips off the ground until he was nearly inside her. She felt his pulse quicken.
“Selene,” she said.
“Yes,” Augustus said, and laughed softly. “You could ask for gold, and instead, you ask for a girl. You can have Cleopatra’s daughter if you want her so desperately. She’ll make a good apprentice.”
Chrysate arched her back, and he groaned, pulling her closer.
He thought that he controlled her. Chrysate nearly laughed, but then she found herself moaning. She had not expected to enjoy this. Perhaps she had not been lying when she’d told him they were two of a kind.
“The box that cages Cleopatra must be locked away,” he said. “There is a room lined with silver, here in my house. I had it made for her. You will place the box there, and it will be guarded.”
“I agree. She is precious. She should be guarded,” Chrysate said, smiling. Locks and silver would not bar her from the queen, not if she wanted to reach her.
“Do you not fear her?” he managed.
“I do not,” she said. “She cannot touch me. You can.”
They were finished talking.
26
Elsewhere in Rome, the senator’s man stood looking at the piece of green stone he held in his hand. It was such a small thing, to have had so many people going to such trouble over it. Nothing precious at all. It looked like old glass.
Still, he had his instructions. He placed the holding stone on the ground, taking little notice of the way it glimmered and shone in the dark. He was paid well for this task.
The senator’s man picked up the hammer he’d brought, and with a single blow, he smashed the witch’s stone. Shards of it flew everywhere, but it was broken irrevocably.
With his heel, he ground the remaining bits of magic into the dirt of Rome, and then, with a grunt of satisfaction, he walked on.
Suddenly, she was falling, pulled deep into the darkness,