Altar of Blood: Empire IX Read Online Free Page A

Altar of Blood: Empire IX
Book: Altar of Blood: Empire IX Read Online Free
Author: Anthony Riches
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centurion who, without any change in expression, had drawn his dagger and walked across to the pair of captives.
    ‘So, Madam, choose which of these two should die and which should live.’
    Felicia had looked over at Annia with an anguished expression, shaking her head slowly.
    ‘I can’t.’
    ‘But you can. And you will. Because if you don’t I’ll just have them both put to the sword and then, just to reinforce the lesson, I’ll make you choose between your own child and your friend’s daughter in just the same way.’
    Annia had looked across the garden at the pair of captives to find Arabus staring back at her with a weary, knowing look, nodding at her in acceptance of his fate. Knowing that a choice had to be made, before Commodus followed through with his threat to their children, she had spoken out loudly, staring hard at Felicia in an attempt to persuade her to see the only way out of the situation.
    ‘Arabus.’
    Felicia had started at the man’s name, looking first at Annia and then turning her head to stare helplessly at the German.
    ‘Yes.’
    Commodus had grinned, nodding delightedly.
    ‘Yes? Yes is no good to me. You have. To say. His name .’
    Felicia’s face had turned to face the emperor’s with a sudden hardening of her expression, her voice soft in the silence.
    ‘Arabus.’
    While his face had been suddenly beatific, exultant in his breaking of her will to his own, the emperor’s command to the waiting centurion had been issued in a matter-of-fact tone that told both women how accustomed he was to ordering the death of his subjects.
    ‘Kill the German.’
    She felt Julius shake his head behind her, his voice incredulous despite already knowing the story’s outcome.
    ‘They put an innocent man to the sword? Just like that? There was no hesitation? No sign of—’
    ‘Remorse? None. It didn’t feel like the first time the order had been given. The bastard cut poor Arabus’s throat with his dagger and then wiped the blood off on Lupus’s tunic.’
    ‘Would you know any of them if you saw them again?’
    ‘Only the centurion. He had a scar through one eyebrow and down his cheek.’
    Julius thought for a moment.
    ‘And then?’
    ‘And then? They took Arabus’s body and left, leaving a man on the gate to make sure we didn’t try to escape. We heard nothing for two days, then on the third they came back. And that filthy bastard took Felicia to her bedroom, forced her to lie with him and left her sobbing on her bed with his seed in her belly. He came back three times in less than a week, before he tired of fucking an unresponsive victim and moved on to whoever it was that was next in line for his attentions.’
    ‘And that was all?’
    ‘If you can call something like that “all”, yes. When he failed to come back the fourth time we thought that it was over, that she might be able to reclaim her old life, and never tell Marcus of the indignities that had been forced on her. Until she missed her monthly bleed.’
    Her husband was silent, and Annia stared into the room’s darkness for a moment before continuing.
    ‘I know what you’re thinking, Julius. You’re wondering why she didn’t get rid of the baby while it was still unformed.’
    ‘I—’
    ‘An abortion? How could she? She was a doctor, Julius, sworn to care for her fellows and never to knowingly do harm. She could never have murdered an innocent child, and that’s all there was to it. She planned to have the baby and then have it adopted, find a family without children who longed for such a gift and pass the infant to them. We would never speak of it again, and Marcus would never be any the wiser.’
    ‘She’d have kept it from him?’
    Annia laughed softly at his incredulity.
    ‘I’d have kept it from you, if the emperor had chosen to put his child in my womb. Look at what’s resulted from him discovering the truth! What sane man takes to these streets at midnight dressed in no more than a tunic? If she’d
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