The Winged Serpent (The Order of the Oath) Read Online Free PDF Page A

unwavering, penetrating him. He must have gleaned something from her expression because he blinked in surprise, then glanced away.
    “Aurora,” Claudius greeted, and she reluctantly dragged her attention away from the man who held her captivated, to gaze upon Claudius Norbanus.
    “As the dominus and master of the House of Norbanus, I welcome you to my home.”
    Aurora bowed her head in response, a nod of subservience, out of remembrance of a past life she’d done all but forget.
    “I am told you have met Cyrus, the doctoris of this ludus ,” Claudius remarked, a comment to which she nodded again. The governor had not asked her a question, so she did not answer in kind. Another remembrance of the life she’d once lived as a slave a long ago.
    “He tells me you do not wish to fight.”
    Aurora stiffened at Claudius’ direct words and her gaze speared Cyrus before returning to the governor, seeing him truly for the first time.
    He was not a handsome man, he was frail and wrinkled, his skin splotched with age. His eyes, however, were sharp—clear and discerning. They also brimmed with an emotion she’d glimpsed in the eyes of many men from an early age.
    Lust burned in their depths, desire darkening his pupils as his attention slid over her, slowly appraising her figure in the worn tunica .
    Had this been a time long ago, his rapt attention would have curdled her stomach, now it compelled her, arming her with another weapon. He desired her, which meant he could be manipulated, he could be used.
    “Is this true? Do you not mean to fight for the House of Norbanus?”
    Her lips, full and lush, curved into a smile that teased, that taunted. Such a smile had felled men of a far stronger purpose. He was not such a man, when she watched his nostrils flare with lust.
    “My apologies, dominus. It is not that I do not mean to fight, for I would fight to honor the House of Norbanus. And that is why I have refused. Because it has been some time since I was last in the arena. I would not wish to dishonor this house with my lack of skill. Not when I possess other skills to please my master.”
    Her bold words were met with a sharp cough.
    She cast a baleful glare at Cyrus, for his interference, until she realized the cough had not come from him. It had been distinctly feminine.
    She turned at the same time a radiant, almost painfully beautiful woman entered the room. Adorned in an elegant stola , the deep indigo hue of the shimmering garment stood in lovely contrast to skin as rich and smooth as goat’s cream, skin that was then gently kissed by hair of silken, lustrous sable.
    As lovely as the woman was, her features still managed to twist into an ugly frown that was for Aurora alone.
    She did not appear pleased to see her.
    Aurora experienced a similar feeling for the raven haired woman’s interruption.
    “You would tempt my husband so boldly, and you have only but arrived here? She is insolent, is she not?”
    Cornelia. Claudius’ wife. At least that explained the animosity radiating from the woman.
    Aurora was surprised, however, that Cornelia directed her last question to Cyrus, a slave, and actually expected an answer, when she said, “I asked you a question, Cyrus. This new slave is insolent, is she not?”
    Claudius seemed to be as uncomfortable as Aurora, the both of them caught up in the web of sexual tension that hovered between Cornelia and Cyrus.
    Aurora recalled what Artemisia had said earlier and understood immediately the events unfolding before her. Cornelia longed for Cyrus’ touch, but he refused her, and she could do nothing. He was the champion gladiator of her husband’s house. Cyrus brought in denarii , while she spent it. Cyrus was a slave and she could be executed for betraying her husband with him. Cornelia could not compel Cyrus to lay with her, they both knew it, and it ate away at her, to be denied by a common slave .
    “I imagine Aurora is many things,” Cyrus answered finally.
    Every brow in