46. Kiss & Kill

Kiss & Kill

Luella

The Senate dinner is a once per clipse affair for Praetors and Senators to dine with the Emperor and the Dominus. Of course, the Concilium Plebis is technically allowed to attend, but somehow the date always seems to change and they are not notified. Cassius didn’t want to bring me, but I reminded him that I need to see the Emperor and interact with him if I am to eventually fulfill our plan.

Which is how I end up three seats down from him, smiling politely as he tells Cassius that without a familia there is no way to ensure I’m not a ‘common meretrix.’

“Her status doesn’t matter, does it brother? I want her, so I will have her,” Cassius says. I remember his measured words that first night we danced and I can see now that he’s played this role for years. He likely did the same to protect his siblings.

“So protective, brother.” The Emperor smirks, the sharp planes of his face falling into the expression naturally. Then he shifts his eyes to me and I see what I picked up on before. Jealousy. Envy. Possession. He doesn’t care for me, of course, but he doesn’t like that Cassius has something that he doesn't.

The conversation moves to matters of state. The other women look down at their plates, eating quietly as I am expected to do. So, I do. But I listen as well.

The senator next to me is speaking to the man at his side. “The date can’t be set until he chooses his sacrifice.”

“Well he needs to hurry,” the man next to him says. “Everyone else is ready.”

“Bacchus prefers a specific style of sacrifice, and you know he won’t take one who doesn’t fit his type for that.”

“If it has tits, it should be enough.”

I don’t look up, but they must decide they shouldn’t be discussing the matter here because they quickly change the subject to more appropriate dinner conversation, like the price of prostitutes and grain, and eventually healers.

“They are filling up, not saving any beds,” one of the Senators says, “it’s not right.”

“You’d have them turn people away?” Cassius says.

“What if a Senator or Praetor needed care, and there were no beds?” a different man says. Praetor Caul I think.

“And your life is worth more than theirs?” I hear myself say, from a stupid, far away place.

Caul’s face reddens. “Excuse me?”

“I just mean that you are less likely to need care than the common people, Praetor,” I say, looking down. I’ve made a mistake.

“Control your whore, Cassius. Or I will.” Caul’s voice cuts through the low din of conversation.

Cassius stands so quickly his chair falls back. Before I can blink, he’s holding Caul’s throat. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten that I am the Dominus, Caul. And you are a Praetor.” He tips his head to the side, considering. “Are Praetors divined by the gods to rule?”

Caul doesn’t answer, because of course they are not. The Evandia line rules until the gods help another line to topple it, as the Evandians did to the Gaius line and the Gaius line did to Nepos before them. The Dominus might not be Emperor, but he’s the second most powerful man in the republic.

“You,” Cassius hisses, “were chosen by my line. And you can be replaced.” He shoves Caul back in his chair and holds his arm out to me wordlessly.

I stand, tilting my chin and placing a hand on his arm. When he walks me by the Emperor he says, “I apologize Imperator, but I’ll be retiring with my betrothed.”

The Emperor nods, but he’s looking at me again. So I look back, channeling something shy and hopeful and naive. Something that might remind him of his youth, and I drain one of my stones just a little so that for a moment my eyes shift colors into the dead ones of my past.

His eyes widen ever so slightly, and I smile.

Cassius leads me through the corridor, and some might think he is taking me away to punish me as Caul suggested, as is his supposed right. Only I know his hand is featherlight, the warmth of his fingers a caress instead of demand. Pulling me into his rooms, he releases me. “Jupiter’s stones, what an idiota.”

“Dominus, you can’t lose your temper like that,” I reprimand. Perhaps with my little trick of the eyes it could still work. I have to lead the Emperor on the perfect amount, and if he thought Cassius was so affected by me, his need to push his brother might overtake his desire to have me. I needed the latter to take over, not the former. I let out a breath through my teeth. “I shouldn’t have spoken, though. I’m sorry.”

“Shouldn’t have spoken? He was being absurd!”

“Yes, but women have no place to speak over a Praetor.”

“I know you don’t believe that,” Cassius says.

“Usually men don’t care if we believe it.” I smile, the bitterness coating my lips.

“I do.” He steps closer, his eyes searching mine.

I reach my hand out to touch his jaw, dragging my nail along the stubble the way I’ve longed to for days. “You’re delightfully naive sometimes, Dominus.”

His hand presses against mine, holding it to his face and he leans into the touch. “Maybe I’m just an idealist. Maybe I see a different future for the republic.”

Heat floods me at the look in his eyes, the warmth in his hand, and hope in his words. It’s reckless to touch him. I’m the naive one, pretending that Cassius is doing any of this for any reason besides his own revenge, his own ambitions. I know exactly what will happen when I kill the Emperor.

The republic will need a new one.

I reach into my pocket and wrap my fingers around a cool stone. I don’t need to see it to know the color is leaching from it, the yellow, orange, or red paling and then bleeding to black.

He knows I can do this, but I’ve never shown him. That was a mistake. I need us both to remember who and what I am.

The black widow.

Tisiphone.

Venefica .

I mold myself into a younger woman with dark hair and umber skin, dark eyes and thick full lips. I transform into temptation, but not just for him. “I’m restless. I’m going into the city.”

“What are you going to do?” Cassius asks, still holding my hand.

“I’m going to play a game.”

“I want to come,” he says, just as I knew he would. Just as I hoped.

“You can decide.” I shrug as if it’s no matter to me, as if I thought he’d be content to let me leave all alone after the dinner we’d had. “It’s called Kiss and Kill.”