Page 28 of Taming the Eagle
While she oiled and scraped, Kahina disappeared behind the bank of honeysuckle, leaving her alone.
Fenella’s pulse kicked up a notch. Two days earlier, she’d have taken the opportunity to escape. But now she resisted the urge to leap up and flee.
She’d wait until she had a plan firmly in place, for she couldn’t risk the Eagle catching her again.
Fenella had just finished scraping off the last of the oil, and had to admit she liked how clean and supple her skin now felt, when Kahina returned. She’d taken Fenella’s soiled clothes away and now passed her a plain green tunic, similar to the one she wore.
With a sinking heart, Fenella took it.
Her vest and skirt might have been filthy, but she didn’t want to don that slave tunic. If she did, it would be cutting the fragile thread between her old life and this one.
How could Kahina be so accepting of her situation here?
Swallowing her reaction, Fenella got dressed.
Entering his home through the atrium, Justin spied his new slave hard at work.
Slowing to a halt, his gaze settled upon Fenella, on her hands and knees as she scrubbed at the tiles of the entrance hall. A wooden pail sat at her elbow, and her brow was furrowed in concentration.
Jaw set, Fenella was scrubbing at those pavers as if they’d done her a personal injury.
Justin’s mouth curved. No doubt she was imagining they were his face.
He didn’t mind. He was merely relieved she’d eventually capitulated. Justin hadn’t liked leaving her in the pit, especially at night, but she’d left him with little choice.
Fenella was no longer dressed in the revealing leather garments he’d captured her in, but a demure green slave tunic. However, the clothing couldn’t hide her long limbs and lush curves. The slave’s firm, rounded backside moved from side to side as she scrubbed, and Justin found himself staring.
He couldn’t help himself.
In an instant, he imagined her naked in his bed, her pale skin gleaming in candlelight as he took her from behind. He envisaged what it would be like to unbraid that heavy plait of brown hair and tangle his hands in it, pulling her head back so that her back arched—so that delicious arse thrust up against him.
Sweat sprang up on Justin’s skin, lust jolting through his groin.
Sensing someone’s presence behind her, Fenella’s chin kicked up. She then swiveled around, her gaze spearing his. And for a long moment, they merely stared at each other.
Justin cleared his throat, trying to ignore the ache in his balls. “Good afternoon, Fenella,” he greeted her in Latin, before switching to her tongue. “You’ve settled in already, I see.”
Her full lips thinned, and she sat back on her heels, scrubbing brush clutched in hand. The woman was bristling with resentment. She might have sworn not to escape, but she couldn’t hide her displeasure all the same.
Justin wasn’t gullible by nature, although after what had happened with Toutorix, his new slave likely thought so.
Fenella had been anxious to get out of the pit that morning—desperate enough to promise anything, to swear on her own life if need to be. But viewing the mutinous glint in her eye just now, Justin knew he’d need to keep a close watch on her.
X. WAITING ON THE GENERAL
“TRANSI MIHI VINUM,” Fenella repeated the words. She then frowned. “Better?”
In response, Kahina nodded and passed her the ewer of wine as she’d requested. “Much.”
A few yards away, Aedan snorted. “You speak Latin like a three-year-old,” he said in their own tongue.
Fenella scowled. She’d been in Ardoch around ten days, long enough for her to learn a few phrases. However, she still understood little of what others said around her. Her progress was slow, and she didn’t need reminding of it. “And you’ve got the manners of a goat,” she growled back.
“Enough talk,” Ava, the cook, spoke up in Latin, her tone impatient. The short, stocky woman of middling age with curly brown hair and flushed cheeks was stirring a stew that would be served for supper later, over the hearth. She then waved Fenella away, “Go!”
Grasping the ewer, Fenella made her way around the edge of the table and headed toward the door. However, once she stepped out into the portico—the covered walkway that lined the courtyard—she slowed her pace.
Many of her daily tasks in this household grated upon her, but the task she hated the most was waiting on the general. She’d rather have scrubbed pisspots.