Chapter 13

After Vulpes had left her for Caesar, she returned to their tent, impatiently waiting on the bed. But her sleepless night bested her, and she dreamed.

It was not the recurring dream of the Humid Cave. It was Silus with the whip giving chase. She heard his voice in her head.

'I would never let you talk to me that way if you were my wife.'

She started at a touch on her shoulder, but when her eyes flew open, it was Vulpes outlined in late morning sunlight. Her stiff neck told her that Dream Slius must have chased her for hours.

"I apologize for my tardiness. Lord Caesar required my presence for longer than expected."

But as she blearily blinked at him looming over her, she did not feel the agitation he seemed to have expected. Instead, she felt something entirely different, some primal hunger gnawing in strange intimate places.

Despite the heat of the Mojave Desert, the air in the tent felt crisp, and it feverishly flushed her cheeks and legs with fiery heat. She suddenly craved for his touch, remembering how he had embraced her, how he stroked her neck two nights ago.

Vulpes, noticing some foreign change in his usually combative wife, elected to remain silent, watching her with careful eyes. She remembered his promise on their wedding night with clarity.

'I won't touch you, not unless you desire it.'

And she definitely desired something.

Trembling with anticipation and insecurity, she gripped the back of his neck and pulled herself up to meet his lips.

That was all the encouragement he needed.

Without missing a beat or breaking from her hungry kiss, he snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her closer to him. His other hand slowly trailed down her leg in slow, tingling patterns. His simple, efficient caresses were enough to drive her mad.

She removed his armor with impatient efficiency, throwing it to the floor in haste. He simply watched her, his diamonds eyes ablaze.

When she finished, he placed his mouth over a sensitive spot on her neck. Still tracing circles on her hips, he merely skimmed his lips over the skin of her throat. When she began unwittingly rocking her hips back and forth, he sucked just a bit hard, causing her to jerk in pleasure.

He pushed her down flat on the mattress, and his mouth traveled from her neck, slowly, agonizing to her collarbone. He slipped the wool tunic off of her, and he caressed her breasts with that same calculated tenderness she had experienced from him.

His tongue then drew a line down to her navel, gripping her hips with both of his hands. She gave an involuntary jerk of her pelvis as he inched further down. She felt his hot breath blowing across her exposed skin when he chuckled at her impatience.

"My queen," he merely breathed, relishing the word with fervent reverence.

Then he plunged at the delta of her legs, providing the fiery heat that fueled her passion until she shuddered at its climax.

He paused at the appropriate time, rising to look at her sweating and shaking figure. Between her vibrations, she saw his own eyes aflame for lust.

For the moment, he reclined next to her, and she buried her face against his neck, every thought or concern obliterated from that moment. There was no past full of death, no uncertain future of servitude. There was just the now.

He rose a second time, but she pushed him to the bottom and mounted him instead.

She chose the rhythm, slow and rocking at first, then rapid and pumping, until, finally, he cried out a name.

"Mary!"

It wasn't the Maria she had heard from him before, and she didn't question it. It suited the moment, and her, and she collapsed back onto the mattress in a tangle of blankets and his pale limbs.

Everything settled in their aftermath, silent and waiting.

Vulpes rose from the bed and began to slowly, methodically dress himself. She watched him, a new tense anxiety knotting her stomach. Now awake and fully aware, she was unsure of what to make of what had just happened.

It was undeniably nice, if she dared to call it that. She admittedly enjoyed it.

But she might regret in that moment the impulsiveness of her decision. She still had questions, and she demanded answers.

But before she could voice her thoughts, Vulpes was first to speak. "Is that why you were so eager to speak to me?" His voice held no shaky aftermath of their recent intercourse. It remained smooth, retaining its calculating timbre. While the past few minutes had been of physically bliss, Vulpes was unchanged. Always calculating. It clenched something in her chest to know he would rarely impart his personal thoughts. Physical closeness was not closeness otherwise.

"You said something to me when you left yesterday," she said.

He stopped his movements, watching her. "I bid vale to you before the Frumentarii left the Fort."

"There was something else, a bit more specific."

He crossed his arms, and she noticed the tight skin of his forearm. "I'm afraid you'll have to refresh my memory."

She swung her legs over the bed and stepped closer to Vulpes, barely aware of her still-naked state. "I'll come back for you at Sunrise. A fox always knows where to go."

His expression was guarded. "I fail to understand your point. Did I not return at dawn? Did you yourself not realize the translation of vulpes? It is not difficult to decipher my meaning."

Her frustration with his obviously cryptic manner obliterated any memory of pleasure of from minutes before. She tried a different approach. "Why do you call me Maria—or Mary," she sneered.

He was unphased. "Maria is the Latinized form of Mary, because of its declension compatibility."

"But why Mary?"

He was quiet for a long time, his diamond eyes deliberating, choosing whether or not to divulge whatever he knew.

"Do you like the name?" he asked at length.

But she was having none of that caution. "Do you know who I am?" she asked, face flushing as she—quite literally—bared everything before him, waiting with bated breath for the truth.

And this is what he gave her, "When I first beheld you, I had almost believed I had recognized you. Though, it has become increasingly apparent that we do not know each other."

Calculated.

He continued, "I am not inclined to call you Courier, and it is my belief that Mary suits you, alluding to a New Age, as the queen of Roman Christianization. If you do not like it, I will cease to use it."

She put no argument against the moniker, though still harboring a suspicion that he was not very forthcoming with her.