Page 43 of Realms of Swords and Storms (Empire of Vengeance #3)

I gasped for air, one hand at my throat where Septimus's thumbs had nearly crushed my windpipe.

The pressure of his fingers lingered like a phantom touch—intimate and violent in equal measure.

My vision cleared slowly, the red edges receding as oxygen returned to my starved lungs.

Across the room, Septimus stood trembling, his face a battlefield of conflicting emotions.

The killing rage had faded from his eyes, replaced by something worse—a hollow, haunted look that cut deeper than his hands ever could.

Livia moved first, grabbing her discarded tunic from the floor and pulling it over her head.

Her movements were quick, efficient, her face set in lines I recognized from the arena—the expression she wore before facing a particularly dangerous opponent.

She positioned herself between us, though whether she was protecting me from Septimus or him from me, I couldn't tell.

"Sit down," she said to Septimus, her voice leaving no room for argument. "Both of you."

Septimus didn't move. His eyes were fixed on me, as if looking at Livia was more than he could bear. I recognized the emotion twisting his features—it was the same expression he wore after our encounters, when the pleasure faded and the self-loathing took over.

"I said sit down," Livia repeated, and this time there was a crack in her voice, a thin thread of desperation that made both of us respond. I sank onto the edge of the bed, while Septimus took the chair near the window, his posture rigid, a caged animal ready to spring.

"How long?" he asked, the question directed at the floor between us. His knuckles were bleeding from where they'd connected with my jaw, little drops of crimson falling unnoticed onto the worn rug.

Livia and I exchanged a glance. "Since the ludus," she answered softly. "Before we escaped."

"Before we—" Septimus's head snapped up, his eyes wide with disbelief that quickly hardened into fury. "All this time? While we were still in the fucking arena?"

He laughed, a harsh, broken sound that held no humour. “All this time,” he repeated, shaking his head as if to clear it. “You let me warn you about him. You let me tell you he was a monster. And you were fucking him.” The accusation hung in the air, aimed at Livia but stinging me just as sharply.

“He’s not a monster,” Livia said, her voice low and fierce. “He never was. That’s just a lie the Empire fed you, a lie you were too afraid to question.”

“Afraid?” Septimus shot to his feet, his chair scraping violently against the floor. “Do you know about the dark, depraved things he likes to do in the dark? He’s a sick, twisted monster, Livia.”

My control snapped. I surged to my feet, fury blazing through me like wildfire. "Say what you want about me," I growled, "but don't you dare speak to her like that."

Septimus whirled on me, closing the distance between us in two quick strides until we were chest to chest. "Or what, half-breed? You'll show me what you really are? The demon beneath the skin? Go ahead. Prove me right."

For a heartbeat, I felt the change begin—the familiar heat rushing through my veins, the tightening of my skin as scales threatened to emerge. But I forced it back, refusing to give him the satisfaction, refusing to confirm his worst fears about what I was.

"I know what I am," I said instead, my voice dropping to a dangerous quiet. "The question is, do you know what you are, Septimus? Because from where I'm standing, you look like a man so afraid of his own desires that he'd rather destroy everything around him than face the truth."

"Don't pretend to know me!" he shouted, shoving me hard. I staggered back a step but held my ground. "You don't know a damn thing about me!"

"But I do know you," I countered, refusing to back down. "I know how you sound when you come apart under my hands. I know the way you beg for more even as you hate yourself for wanting it. I know the man you could be if you'd stop letting hatred define your heart."

His face paled, then flushed a deep crimson as his eyes darted to Livia. The shame and horror in his expression would have been comical if it weren't so tragic.

"You told her?" he whispered, the words barely audible.

"I told her a few days ago," I confirmed. “I wasn't going to keep secrets from her anymore. Unlike you, I'm not ashamed of who I am or what I feel."

That was a lie, of course. I had kept our relationship secret for months, had hidden it from Livia out of fear—fear of her reaction, fear of her rejection, fear of being forced to choose. But in that moment, my anger made the lie taste like truth.

"You son of a bitch," Septimus breathed, his body coiled like a spring. "You had no right—"

"He had every right," Livia interjected, stepping between us again. "Just as I had every right to know that the two people I care about most in this world were keeping something this important from me."

Septimus's head snapped toward her. "You care about—" He broke off, disbelief written across his features.

“So all those warnings, all my attempts to keep you away from him… you were laughing at me the whole time.” It wasn’t a question.

“No,” Livia said, her voice shaking slightly but firm. “I wasn’t laughing. I was trying to protect you both. I was trying to—”

“Protect me?” His laugh was a raw, ugly bark of sound that filled the small room. “By fucking a half-breed? By lying to my face for years? You’re a whore, Livia. A filthy whore who likes to rut with animals.”

The words struck Livia like a slap. I saw her flinch, a flicker of pain crossing her face before being replaced by a mask of cold fury. A low growl rumbled in my chest, a sound more Talfen than human.

“Don’t you dare,” Livia said, her voice dropping to a low, dangerous growl. She took a step toward him, and for the first time, I saw genuine fear in Septimus’s eyes. Not of me, but of her. “You don’t get to stand there and judge me. You don’t get to talk about filth.”

He flinched. “I was trying to keep you safe!”

“Safe from what?” Livia shot back, her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists.

“From love? From happiness? Or were you trying to keep me safe from the truth, Septimus? The truth that you’ve been fucking him for months.

”Septimus stared at her, his face blank.

I couldn’t read him at all and that worried me.

“I can’t believe you let that… thing… touch you. Come inside you.”

His voice cracked on the last word, and his gaze flickered to me, filled with a hatred so pure it was almost beautiful.

“All those months I kept my distance, trying to protect you from what I was becoming, from the filth I felt after being with…” He couldn’t even say my name. “And you were already tainted.”

The word was a brand, sizzling on the air between us.

Tainted. He’d called me that a hundred times, and while it had stung, it had never felt like this.

Hearing him spit it at Livia was like having my own heart ripped from my chest. My hands curled into fists, my knuckles screaming in protest, the urge to tear him apart a living thing inside me.

But before I could move, Livia did.

The sound of her palm striking his cheek cracked through the suffocating silence. He stumbled back a step, more from shock than the force of the blow, his hand coming up to touch his cheek where a red mark was already blooming.

"Don't you ever," she snarled, her voice a low vibration of absolute fury, "call me that again.

I am not a victim. I am not some fragile thing you needed to protect.

I am a woman who makes her own choices. The only filth here," Livia said, her voice dropping to a deadly calm that was far more terrifying than any shout, "is the poison you carry in your own heart. The hate you wrap yourself in like a shield because you’re too much of a coward to feel anything else. "

She stepped forward, invading his space, forcing him to look at her.

"I am not tainted," she snarled. "I am loved.

By him." She jabbed a finger in my direction.

"And by you, though you'd rather die than admit it.

This isn't about me. This is about you. You look at him, and you see everything you hate about yourself.

You're not protecting me, you fool. You’re just trying to take your fury out on me, so you don't have to look in the mirror. "

"Love," he repeated, the word dripping with contempt. "Is that what you call it? Spreading your legs for a monster's spawn?"

I moved to her side, placing a hand on her arm.

She was trembling with rage. "He's not worth it," I said softly, my eyes on Septimus.

The anger in me had burned away, leaving only a cold, hollow pity.

"He can't see it, Livia. Because if what you and I have is real, then what he and I have is real, too.

And he would rather burn the world down than admit that. "

Septimus's head snapped toward me, then back to her. "You're not disgusted? That I've been with... him?"

The genuine confusion in his voice pierced through my anger.

He truly couldn't fathom that she would accept this part of him, that she wouldn't reject him for wanting me.

It was a stark reminder of how deeply Imperial indoctrination ran, how thoroughly he'd been taught to hate himself for desires that fell outside the Empire's narrow definition of acceptable.

"The only thing that disgusts me," Livia said softly, "is that you've been torturing yourself all this time. That you've been so afraid of your own heart that you'd rather hurt the people who love you than admit what you really feel."

Love. There it was again, that dangerous word. I watched Septimus's face as he processed what she was saying, saw the conflict raging behind his eyes—hope warring with fear, longing with self-loathing.