Rhea Silvia: The First Vestals of Rome Trilogy, #1 by Debra May Macleod

Author:Debra May Macleod
Format: epub

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Proculus Julius had been attacked by animals before. He had been attacked by wolves, lynxes and wild boars, but only after trapping them. He had even been attacked once by a mad goose—the creature was as vicious as any wolverine, though no one believed him—after accidentally happening upon its goslings. But those animals had not stalked him.

The large brown bear, the one he could hear rustling in the woods along the road, was stalking him. He clutched the handle of his dagger tighter and glanced nervously into the trees, trying to catch a glimpse of the beast and yet hoping not to, and especially trying to shake off the anxiety that came with being so vulnerable, so alone. Without the speed and security of his horse under him, the road seemed different. Dangerous. Proculus wasn’t accustomed to the feeling.

He cursed himself again for letting his horse graze on a grassy slope some way back. It was there, while sampling a particularly lush shrub, that the animal had stepped into a deep rabbit burrow and, panicking at the stumble, managed to break its leg badly enough for the bone to break through its flesh. Proculus had seen no other option but to kill the animal where it lay.

And now he was on foot, praying to Callisto and Diana that the predatory bear in the woods wouldn’t do to him what he had done to his horse.

From behind the wall of trees that ran along the side of the road, there came a sniff and then a low growl. A branch snapped. Proculus held out his dagger, well aware of how pathetic a defense it was against the bear. He had only seen it briefly through a break in the trees, but that had been long enough to gauge its size. It was big. Unusually big: a predatory male, perhaps new to the area and so aggressively establishing its territory.

When he had first noticed it, Proculus had tried to scare the beast away by throwing rocks and shouting, but that had only agitated it, causing it to huff louder, angrier. His only hope now was that it would realize he was no threat, get bored, and wander off. He had been clinging to that hope for too long now.

He was still clinging to it when the bear launched out of the trees and charged at him. It moved fast, faster than he would have imagined possible for an animal of its size, and was upon him in an instant. He hollered out in pain as its thick, white teeth sank into the flesh of his right arm. A moment later, he found himself on the ground with the bear’s massive, long-clawed paw on top of his chest, pinning him in place, its shocking weight pushing the air out of his lungs.

The animal’s large black nose nuzzled into Proculus’s neck as it sniffed curiously at its prey, deciding where best to pull off the first strip of flesh. Proculus felt the

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