I expect him to pull out of me, but he doesn’t. Instead, he bends his elbows, his cock still buried inside of me as he lowers down and then his lips gently brush my own. He murmurs something against my mouth, ending it in what I now realize is a pet name of some kind for me, melculum.
Sliding my tongue along his bottom lip, I whisper something that I shouldn’t. I’m just glad that he cannot understand me.
“I don’t know how I ended up with you, but I’m not sorry. Not at all. I should be. I want to go home, but if I can never get back there, I’m glad that I’m married to you, Tiberius. Even if all of this, including you, scares the shit out of me.”
He grunts, touching his mouth to mine again. Only then does he gently pull out of me before he stands. My legs are hanging over the side of the bed as I push up on my elbows and watch him take a few steps back.
He holds out one of his hands and I slip my palm in his. He tugs me to my feet then immediately reaches for my ropes and begins to untie them. He doesn’t even bring my gown over my head, he tugs the wide neck off of my shoulders and I look down as it pools around my feet.
Next, he extends his hands and reaches for my crown. I hate that he has to take it off, but I allow it because I’m exhausted. I watch as he turns and sets it down on a small table before he turns back to me.
He jerks his chin toward the bed. Taking the hint, and loving it, because I’m tired as hell, I climb into the bed. I frown, because it’s seriously not as comfortable as the other one, and I wonder why we can’t sleep there. The room is so much nicer and the bed, a million times more comfortable.
But then, it doesn’t matter, because he gathers me in his arms and picks me up, placing me against his chest. No, not just against his chest, he forces me to lie completely along his body. He’s super muscular, so he’s not all that comfortable, but I find that I don’t mind too much. In fact, I fall asleep in just seconds.
TIBERIUS
I watch as the boats are loaded. Felix neighs as he’s being taken to the animal ship. No doubt thinking that he has the right to be with me on my ship. I call out to him, but he ignores me. He’s angry and I can’t blame him. He’s yet to meet my empress and I haven’t been to see him the past week as much as I usually would. He will be fine and he’ll get his time with me and with Drucilla when we arrive on Curia.
Speaking of my bride, I hear her in the distance, though I don’t hear her voice or even her footsteps, I hear her breath. Turning around, I look over my shoulder and see her in the distance.
Snapping my brows together, I’m unsure how I can hear her actual breathing. She is so far away that I can hardly see anything other than her shape moving in the rising sunlit morning as she makes her way through the woods to the beach.
Closing my eyes for a moment, I concentrate and it’s still there. She is still breathing as she walks. It is her too, there is no other sound quite like hers. That breathing I hear when she finds her release, when she sleeps next to me, when she is anywhere near me and apparently when she is far as well.
Shaking my head once, I shift my gaze over to Marcellus. “You’ll keep the country running while I’m away?” I ask.
He dips his chin, then his gaze finds mine. “I wish you would not go. I do not have a good feeling about any of this, frater.”
Clearing my throat, my gaze catches his. “All will be well, Marcellus. The gods have started this and they do not make mistakes.”
“Do they not?” he interrupts.
I think back to the fables and stories that I have heard over my childhood years, and he is not wrong. It seems as though there have been a fair share of issues and problems that were caused by the hands of the gods.
“Perhaps they were not mistakes? Perhaps the gods knew what they were doing and it was as it had been meant to be.”
Marcellus grunts. “This is what people say in order to feel better about everything bad that happens. They push it off on the gods, then say that the gods meant for it to happen just this way. As if there was something bigger in play.”
“Do you hear yourself?” I ask. He doesn’t say anything, his gaze focused on mine. Taking a step toward him, I lift my hand and clamp my fingers around his shoulder, giving him a squeeze. “Drucilla would not be here without the gods making it so. The prophecy, no matter what it is meant to achieve, would not be in play without them. This was all orchestrated by the gods and whatever their bigger plan is. I can do nothing, but attempt to follow the path they have laid out for me.”
“That path includes love for your wife, Tib.”
I don’t answer him immediately, but I know what he is inferring and I know that he is correct. The past is supposed to include love, something that I am unable to give. Something that will no doubt affect the path of the prophecy. I must prepare for this, and I must prepare my people for this as well.
“Use this trip, this time, to open up to her. If you believe that the gods have laid this path for you, for her, for this prophecy. Then, open up to your chosen, fated, mulier, Tiberius. You have no other choice. You are
