Dominus by JP Kenwood

Author:JP Kenwood [Kenwood, JP]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: JPK Publishing
Published: 2014-04-21T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Gaius Fabius’s seaside villa, Campania

When Allerix regained consciousness, every muscle and every fiber ached from strain and fatigue. His long arms were stretched taut, his biceps pressed against the sides of his head. With each thumping beat of his heart, a painful lump at the back of his head pulsed.

He opened his heavy-lidded eyes; his vision gradually adjusted to the low light. Several feet in front of him was a fuzzy, large rectangular shape—probably a bed. There were smaller silhouettes in the large space, furniture of some sort or other. But no lamps lit, no windows open, only a few faint streaks of orange light seeping in through the narrow crevices between the closed shutters.

How long had he been here, wherever here was?

Allerix looked up at the leather straps ensnaring his wrists. He pulled and jerked them, but the restraints were tight and sturdy.

He was trapped, vulnerable to whatever happened next.

It suddenly occurred to him that perhaps nothing would happen. Perhaps the monster would leave him here, like a helpless calf strung up at market, until he died from thirst. He licked his chapped, cracked lips and tasted blood.

To die from thirst would be slow. Perhaps the Roman would be merciful and return with a sacrificial knife, slice open his abdomen, and pull out his liver. Would his eviscerated guts reveal a favorable omen, a divine sign from their sadistic gods?

Shit, he was going mad.

He looked down at his bare feet, bound at the ankles, and wiggled his toes. He’d been wearing a pair of flimsy sandals when he’d dashed across the yard to follow Max and Simon into the main house. They were gone. He closed his eyes and thought back to that tenth birthday, when young Allerix received his first pair of hunting boots. He could still see his father’s beaming smile as he tied the final knot of the thick string with a proud harrumph.

There was nothing left now, was there? No mines of gold, no stockpile of weaponry, no future, no honor—nothing, except a few useless baubles packed away by the surviving elders on the day before their frantic escape to the mountains. His city, his home, and his past—everything was gone, razed to the ground and destroyed forever by these ruthless savages.

At least he would die clothed. Fuck, he despised this shapeless slave costume from that very first day Max had pulled the scratchy fabric over his head. His favorite woolen shirt and his long trousers had been left behind in the field where those soldiers had taken him. Taken Gorgas. Allerix tried to shake the memory of that brutal day from his aching skull, but all he could see was the anguish in Gorgas’ tear-filled eyes, pleading for help that would never arrive.

Shit, his head hurt.

Allerix temporarily lost his balance as the room began to spin. He leaned to the right, pulling against the bite of the bindings. Dizzy and disoriented, he watched dumbstruck as a vision of Tarbus’s ruddy face materialized like a cloud of smoke in the dim air.

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