Bastian Read Online Free PDF Page B

swirl of silk and perfume and scurried to stay her, her grip on her arm urgent. “It doesn’t have to be this way. You could stay here. You could show yourself to Bastian when he returns in a few moments. His family is powerful. They could fight Pontifex.”
    Shaking her head, Silvia eased away. “Don’t pity me.”
    â€œI don’t!” Michaela tucked a lock of Silvia’s unruly hair behind her ear, her gaze soft. “It’s just that I love you. And I love him. If you and he could learn to love each other, everything would be so perfect.”
    â€œPerfect?” Silvia echoed in surprise. Searching Michaela’s eyes, she realized what she had in mind. “You want me to join the two of you here, in his bed?”
    â€œYou watched us,” Michaela began urgently. “You saw that his passions run high, that his male endowments are generous. He’s well able to accommodate another female in his bed, at least from time to time.”
    An erotic image of them all locked together in a voluptuous embrace rose unbidden in Silvia’s mind, and she quickly banished it. Pulling from her hold, she stepped back, smiling ruefully. “I’m not sure he’d see things as you do, dear Kayla. Rather, he might find your suggestion beyond the bounds of his generosity .”
    â€œI’m serious,” Michaela insisted, stamping a bare foot.
    But Silvia only went for the door, unlocking it. “Enjoy your new love, but don’t think to include me. I’ll continue our search for the missing firestones, and once I have them, I’ll return to Pontifex a final time, and do what it takes to free the others. As planned. I can look no further than that for now.”
    At the mention of Pontifex, Michaela crossed her arms. “What will you tell him of me?”
    Suddenly reminded of that awful long-ago night when Michaela had shielded her from harm at Pontifex’s hands, Silvia felt a fierce surge of protectiveness toward Michaela rise within her. “Whatever lies will keep you safe,” she replied simply. Rendering herself invisible, she then departed the room and the house, managing to avoid another encounter with their owner.
    But shortly after she arrived at the Forum, Lord Satyr did as well. From her position atop Palatine Hill, she watched, her hungry eyes following him across the grounds until he eventually entered the large white tent that dominated the landscape. She sighed. If she were to choose a man to lie with, he was certainly an appealing specimen. But now was not the time in her life for such things.
    She spent the entirety of the morning and early afternoon along the periphery of the Forum, scouting it from the adjacent hills that overlooked it. Time had changed the terrain, and it was with some difficulty that she exacted the location of the temple, which now lay buried beneath centuries of accumulated soil. Once she was certain, she made her way into the lush orchards of nearby Aventine Hill, which were on the property of Lord Dane Satyr, one of Bastian’s brothers. There, in solitude, she briefly assumed her corporeal form again in order to dine on what fruit she could find that was not yet rotten.
    As dusk approached, she quickly changed into the noncorporeal form she’d decided she would take for this venture. That of a child—the very same six-year-old girl she’d been fifteen centuries ago on the day she’d been chosen to serve Vesta.
    And then she went calling on Michaela’s lover.

3
    W ith a dramatic flourish of white canvas, Bastian threw back the front flap of the expansive tent, which served as his office in the middle of the Roman Forum excavations. He tossed his topcoat onto the stand, where it caught at the collar and draped its length into neat folds, as if it didn’t dare do otherwise in his commanding presence.
    â€œSignor Satyr?” His foreman, Ilari, had followed him across the Forum