Page 3 of Ensnaring the Dove

Everyone, even the slaves, was watching him now, with rapt fascination. As if they were all wondering what he’d do next.

“Congratulations,” he ground out. The words were difficult. He had to force them up his throat and between his teeth. There was a part of him that wanted to fly across the hearth and smash his fist into his brother’s smug face.

Aedan and Bronwen had grown up knowing they would wed one day—knowing that they were meant for each other. They’dbeen close, two halves of one whole. They’d been lovers too, unable to wait for their wedding day, which had been just five days away when he’d ridden off to fight the Caesars.

Memories of the pair of them lying naked together in a woodland glade, in the aftermath of their loving, had sustained Aedan over the long years of his slavery.

But no longer.

That fateful battle had changed everything, and Aedan had been a fool to think he could return here and step back into his old life.

Seven years was a long while. Had he really expected his lover to wait for him?

Bitterness flooded his mouth as he realized that he had.

“Thank you,” Bronwen murmured.

Deaglan’s mouth stretched into a smile. However, his gaze narrowed. “Bronwen has borne me two strapping sons.” He patted her belly with a possessive air that made Aedan itch to kill him. “And now carries another.”

“Congratulations,” Aedan repeated, even as his pulse roared in his ears. Dizziness swept over him then.

“Why did you come back, Aedan?” Deaglan asked finally. His tone was bland, yet there was no mistaking the iron just beneath. “Are you here to challenge my rule? To claim yourbirthright?”

Aedan’s hands curled into fists at his sides. Once he might have answered ‘aye’—but looking around this smoky roundhouse, at the warriors who had sworn blood oaths to his brother, he knew he was an interloper. None of these men would follow him.

“We thought you’d fallen in battle,” Bronwen said then, her voice barely above a whisper.

“He should have done,” Deaglan replied, his tone sharpening. “A chieftain’s son who has lived as a Roman slave has forfeited all honor.”

The chieftain’s words fell like axe blows inside the roundhouse, each one cleaving deep into Aedan’s chest. Whatever frail hope he’d been clinging to that he’d find peace in this place dissipated like morning mist on a hot summer’s day.

The memories that had sustained him, the hopes that had kept him going over the years, crumbled. Aquila had freed him, yet his former master couldn’t erase the dishonor that now followed Aedan like a foul stench. A Brigante warrior couldn’t live as a Roman slave and expect to be welcomed home again.

Aye, it had been a grave mistake to return here.

He was a ghost—and ghosts had no place amongst the living.

II. A WOMAN OF THE WORLD

Dere Street, Brigantia

Northern Britannia

A year later …

“LOOK AT THEM … arrogant turds.”

“Aye … yet their conceit will be their undoing. Look at all those carts. This will be our richest haul yet.”

Lying on his belly, on the edge of a scrubby hill, Aedan listened to his companions’ whispered conversation, while his own attention remained focused on the long shadow that traveled the valley below.

The first warrior, Lucon, was right.

The Romans marched across this territory—Brigantia—as if they held dominion over not just Britannia, but the sun and the moon as well. They made no attempt to conceal their passing or to blend in with their surroundings. Soldiers, both on foot and on horseback, led the supply convoy—crimson cloaks flashed as bright as blood, and silver armor gleamed despite the dull day. Their pilums bristled, making it look as if a giant, prickly caterpillar passed through the vale.

Aedan’s mouth thinned as he caught snatches of their sharp-edged tongue—a language he was fluent in—and watched a standard rippling in the wind.

He understood these people, had lived amongst them, but a year since gaining his freedom, a deep resentment now soured his belly. Aquila had let him go, but the man had also destroyed his life.