Coventina Read Online Free PDF

Britons hated us.”
    “Many of them loved us dearly, and we loved them,” Quintus said quietly.
    “So, how far away from your fort was the patrol?” Layla asked.
    “We were on our way back to the fort,” Marcus said. “I sensed that we were being watched, being followed, but we could not tell who or what, or from where. The sun was setting, the sky, filling with stars, when a light appeared above the tree line to the south.”
    “A light?” Lucilla asked.
    “Yes. It moved towards us,” Marcus continued. “We seemed to be frozen in the moment. It was as if one of the gods was paying us a visit.”
    I think I can tell where this is going? Denise said.
    I wonder where the gods are at this moment? Layla said.
    “When it was directly above us, it seemed to sing to us. The sound was like that of a dozen young females,” Odumnus said.
    “That is when it emanated a light that was blinding. It seemed brighter than the sun. We were frozen in place, unable to move,” Marcus said.
    “Unable to move in any direction but up, into the light,” Quintus said.
    “All of you were pulled up at once to the light?” Layla asked.
    “Yes. We struggled fruitlessly but continued to rise,” Marcus said.
    “How large was the source of the light?” Denise asked.
    “Like the Amphitheater of Pompeii,” Venutius offered.
    “Yes, but the light that IT rose to was larger than Rome itself,” Marcus said.
     
     
     
9
    Time
     
    Lucilla and Layla sat outside under the stars with five men, bringing them up to date on present day Earth as much as they could in a way that they might understand. When Lucilla explained that to this day, the fate of the Ninth Legion remained a mystery, they did not speak for some time.
    Denise and Quintus shared a bottle of wine in the house.
    “So she was going to have your child when you were taken away?” Denise asked.
    “Yes,” Quintus said quietly.
    “Then there is a good possibility you have family somewhere, if they survived through the ages.”
    “A dream too good to be true perhaps. Before meeting Coventina I was a warrior. All I knew was the Roman Army. She touched and nurtured that part of every person, even a warrior, who knows first hand the horrors humans are capable of, that ability to love.”
    “You have not explained why you search for Coventina now, more than 1900 years after time spent with her.”
    “Those that took us know she is back. Lucilla speaks of living past lives as a Roman. Coventina lives here on Earth again, now.”
    “She’s back, ok, I get it now. How can they be certain?”
    “I cannot say. They have returned us, to stay here if we choose, or return with them to age at a far slower pace, on a new world, with mates.”
    “They have returned here with you to find mates?”
    “Yes. They know we are incomplete without them. They know now that we are not heartless killing machines because we are warriors, because we have killed many times in the name of honor and duty to Rome.”
    “Why are you here, with me now? Do they know where Coventina is?”
    “No. They brought us here because you received our message. It is believed that you can help us find her.”
    Denise pondered that for a moment in silence. The last time it was a search and rescue mission with ample help from advanced beings. How could she possibly find one woman who could be anywhere? She had Layla. She had a broken record of past lives of legionnaires; she had a walking Roman Encyclopedia in Lucilla and nothing else.
    “Where are they now?” Denise asked.
    Quintus looked up at the sky full of stars. “Out there, somewhere.”
    “Can you communicate with them?”
    “We can’t but the one who brought us can.”
    “Who is that? Are they here? Can I meet them?”
    “I can ask.”
    “Let me guess, it is the small arena size craft that comes from the one the size of Rome?”
    “Yes. There are only three of them on it. When we return tonight after we leave here, I can ask them to give you an