Heedless of who might see her, Livia appeared before him, her face tight and grave.
“This is how it will be,” she said. “I’ve seen all of it before. I know what will follow. Whether you believe it or no, this world is truly going to hell.”
Chapter 5
She was coming to know his bedchamber very well. The tall windows that looked out upon a narrow, well- tended but never used garden. The heavy furniture, carved from dark wood. The silver paper-covered walls, sparsely adorned. The bed, large and canopied also in silver. The man slumbering in that bed.
Livia stared down at Bram as he slept. A restless, active sleeper, he’d twisted the covers around him as he shifted his long body, sometimes muttering faintly in the half-coherent language of dreams. At that moment, he’d turned onto his back and flung one arm overhead. Both his hands were knotted into fists.
A sliver of light worked its way between the drawn canopy curtains, tracing the contours of his body, its planes and ridges. The light caught along the sharp lines of his face, no softer, even in sleep. Already stubble darkened his chin, despite shaving earlier in the day. She placed her palm against his jaw, wanting to feel its roughness, and silently cursed when she felt exactly what she always did—nothing.
He muttered again, his muscles tightening, and she moved away. Spending the long hours whilst he slept in a study of him offered no distraction, only emphasized what she couldn’t have. Enough slack existed in the bond between them that she might go elsewhere in the house. So she had, invisibly exploring its numerous floors, the narrow chambers where the servants slept, the countless unused but elegantly furnished rooms. Yet she had returned here, to the bedchamber, and its sleeping occupant.
She could loosen her hold on the mortal plane, drift back to the in-between place where time dissolved and the world retreated. But she’d spent too long there already. The realm of mists and shadow held no appeal. She wanted to be in the world, and of it. Which left her here, spending the hours alone and keeping watch over a restively slumbering man.
An empty decanter of wine lolled on the floor just beside the bed. He’d drained it in order to sleep. He didn’t say as much, but she knew that the murder in the brothel shook him, deeply. Bram had lingered as men of the law were summoned, the body carted off, the girl who had killed him also taken away. Livia had not seen the murder itself, coming upon the girl moments after it had happened. To the men of the law, the girl had tearfully explained her self-defense, but whether the law would show her mercy, that was uncertain. Even when Livia had been alive, whores hadn’t received much in the way of justice. This modern era didn’t seem so different.
Too much was familiar. Over and over again, she witnessed echoes of her own time. Everything reminded her of her own folly, and the chaos that had followed.
She drifted to a window to watch the smoke-veiled stars, but her gaze saw a clearer, older sky. The night sky over a distant outpost of the Empire. Londinium. Much smaller than it was now. But large enough to become a living hell.
She saw not the tall brick and plaster buildings of London, but the courtyards and villas of her time, ablaze, smoke churning up into the night. Livia had stood upon the roof of her own villa and watched as the city destroyed itself. Screams and shouts rose up, as choking as the smoke. The cries of children. The shrieks of a blood-crazed mob.
Through the haze of time, she still felt the tears dampening her cheeks.
The thrill she had felt in summoning the Dark One turned fetid. A sick cavern had opened in her stomach, watching from up high as the Dark One’s wicked influence transformed the people of Londinium into vicious animals. Yet it wasn’t only mortals who tore the city down. Vile creatures from the depths of the underworld had clawed their way to the surface, mixing with the humans, urging them on to greater brutality. Or tearing the mortals apart, their human blood splattering on frescoed walls and mosaic-covered floors.
“Can’t you think of something peaceful?” Bram’s voice growled out from behind the canopy. “My dreams are full of blood.”
He shoved back the silver silk of the canopy with one arm as he sat up in bed.
She glided closer. “What did you see?”
“A Roman city on fire. Demons in the streets. Nothing pretty.”
“My memories.”
He pressed the heel of one hand into his eye. “We seem to share them now.”
“Then you know that mine are as pleasant as yours.”
A humorless smile curved his mouth. “A shame you didn’t spend your life tending flower gardens or making love to beautiful women.”
She couldn’t stop her laugh. It caught them both by surprise, and they stared at one another for a moment, uncertain.
“It’s damned cold with the canopy open.” He jerked his head in a summoning motion. “Come and sit or hover or whatever it is you do.”
She raised a brow. “I’m to join you in bed?”
“If you’re going to keep me awake with your memories, I’d rather be awake someplace warm. So either come here or stop thinking.”
She wavered. Sharing a bed with him seemed far too . . . intimate. Ridiculous. He was mortal. She was spirit. There would be no shared intimacies.
Drifting forward, she moved through the canopy. Her torso emerged from the mattress, near the foot of the bed.
He frowned. “Can’t you
“But I don’t need to sit.”
“Just . . . do it.”
“For a man of such esteemed breeding, you’ve terrible manners.”
“A benefit of privilege.” Seeing that she wouldn’t comply without a little more finessing on his part, he said, grudgingly, “Please.”
She decided to be amenable. Concentrating, she hovered higher, until her body fully emerged from the mattress, then lowered herself back down, tucking her legs under her. She focused her thoughts on creating a solid surface beneath her, and exclaimed in surprise when she actually found herself sitting atop the bed.
“Sitting,” she murmured. “How novel.”
“Many people seem to enjoy it.” He let the canopy fall back, enclosing the bed in soft shadow. She heard more than saw him edge back until he sat upright, propped against the headboard. “Even myself, on occasion.”
“What a rich and varied life you lead.”
“I used to think so.”
“And now?”
He rubbed his palms against his face. “Now I’m rethinking my original assessment.”
“That seems to be the way of it,” she said quietly. “We see the past so much more clearly than the present.”
For a moment, he was silent. She studied the pattern on the blanket rather than look at him, for he was a man, beautiful to look upon, and she felt clutched by a surge of loneliness, cut off forever from the company and comfort of the flesh.
“The Hellraisers,” he said, breaking the silence. “We didn’t know what we were doing. When we opened that box in the underground temple, none of us knew who or what was kept within it. I remember seeing the box in that Roman skeleton’s hands, and all I could understand was that I
“The Dark One’s doing. Even within his prison, he wasn’t without influence.” She stared at the images of
