FIONA OPENED HER eyes, squinting until she adjusted to the dark. She was in the cavern. The iron chains of her manacles rattled as she moved, and a moment later a chalk-faced centurion loomed over her.

“This one is awake, Prefect.” The Roman grabbed her hair and used it to haul her to her feet.

Sobs poured from Fiona as she saw the two druids being led away by guards, and met the dreamy gaze of the younger of the pair. Cailean Lusk didn’t seem fearful, but the druids were a strange lot. She gave him a tremulous, tearful smile that vanished as soon as they were gone. She straightened and held her shackles to the guard yanking on her curls as she looked at Quintus and Gaius, where they were conferring on the tribune’s dais.

“Take these off me,” she told the guard.

The prefect murmured something to his commander before he walked down to join her.

“Well done, Mistress Marphee. I am a little disappointed that we could not also take your lover this night.”

“I told you he wouldnae come.” She shook out her wrinkled skirts and tucked her curls back behind her ears. “He never does after we’ve swived like that. It guilts him.”

“Wait here.” He returned to Gaius.

Fiona’s skin crawled, as it did every time she was obliged to come to the tunnels. Being brought in as a captive revived the old, hateful memories of when the undead had taken her the first time.

She’d been but a girl then, looking after her widowed father and learning to work the loom. She’d said her prayers that night before going to bed, and had fallen asleep without a care. The men who had taken her had come in so silently they’d had her bound and gagged before they carried her out into the night. Fiona had seen the blood on the floor by her da’s room, and knew him to be dead. That was the moment her heart died with him.

In the tunnels they stripped her naked, touching her white skin as if she were a prize hog about to be slaughtered, and put her in the women’s pen. Her young body had almost glowed in contrast to the filthy bodies of the captives. Some of the older women had pushed her to the back when the Romans came to choose, but they remembered her. They cast lots to decide who would have her. One tall, heavy soldier with a scarred face won her. He told her his name was Marius as he carried her off to his cave, but she would address him as Master.

Fiona never thought about that night, all those hours, what that monster did to her. It made her scream and cry and puke when she did.

She lay in a stupor in the pen for most of the next day. When the choosing time came again, the prefect ordered her brought to his chamber. There he had pierced her wrist with his fangs, and drank from her veins, but then had another man bathe her and wrap her in a blanket.

“What is your name, child?” the prefect asked.

She peered at him. He was not hurting her like the other one. He had kindness in his voice.

“Fiona Marphee, Master.”

He nodded, and asked, “Fiona, how would you like to go home now?”

The real tears that spilled down her face were the last she would shed. “I would, sir. Please.”

Quintus Seneca had told her what she would have to do, and took her back to the cottage himself. He had helped her clean up the blood on the floor, and arrange her father’s body in the bed. He’d told her how to make it look like plague. Then he’d told her how it would be.

“If you wish to remain free, you must help us,” the prefect explained. “I will call on you when I need you. You must do whatever I ask, Fiona, and I will keep you safe. If you tell anyone, or betray me in any way, I will take you back to the tunnels. I will make you Marius’s blood thrall. Do you understand what that means?”

Fiona had. She’d done everything he’d asked of her. She’d spied on mortals and seduced important men and stolen and lied and hoored herself. She would have killed for Quintus Seneca, although he never asked that of her.

She hated him. He disgusted her with his false kindness. He had used her for ten years, and would go on using her for the rest of her life. She would never be free of him. Yet even now, as the prefect came to her, she knew she would do whatever he wanted.

“The tribune wishes to speak to you directly,” Quintus said. He glanced at the dais before he added in a lower voice, “His blood thrall took her own life, so he is in a foul mood. Prostrate yourself before him, and say nothing out of turn, or you will be the next to feed him.”

Fiona didn’t doubt him. The prefect had been using her as his spy since killing her father, but she had no illusions about her importance. Mortals who failed the legion were easily replaced, and the undead especially liked pretty wenches and lads that they could fack while draining them. The only way she had survived this long was by using her wits to make herself more valuable than food.

Quintus marched her through the tunnel to the dais, where she stopped short of the steps and dropped to the cave floor, flattening herself against the stone.

“You’ve brought your little pet whore for a visit, Quintus. How delightful,” Gaius said. “I take it she still hasn’t fucked the location of the McDonnel stronghold out of that cunt-snared seneschal?”

“No, my lord,” Quintus answered for her. “But she was helpful during our assault on the village, and lured to us two druids who may be important to the highlanders.”

“Those heathens are useless to everyone,” the tribune said as he came down to stand over Fiona, and nudged her with his boot tip. “You may rise, slut.”

Fiona remembered not to look directly at Gaius as she stood. “Thank you, Tribune. Forgive me for no’ pleasing you.”

“I gave you no leave to speak.” The tribune backhanded her with his gauntlet.

The heavy clout made her face hurt so much her eye began to tear, and blood pooled in her mouth where her teeth had cut the inside of her cheek. Fiona swallowed and hunched her shoulders. Quintus had warned her.

“I cannot imagine why the McDonnel would wish to put his cock in such a fat little cunt.” He walked around her. “Still, you have done your best, I suppose, and I can be merciful. I think it pleases Quintus when I am. Can you send word to the McDonnels? Not to your swain, but to the laird himself?”

“Yes, Tribune.” Fiona felt bile rise in her throat as he fingered one of her curls. “What should I say?”

“Tell him that he and his men are to come to the grove of stones, before tomorrow dawn, and surrender to Quintus. If he does not, I will have all of the children from the village turned.” He released her hair. “Now go back to your hovel.”

“I cannae.” Fiona cried out as he gripped the back of her neck. “Please, Tribune. Evander has the village watched. He will come as soon as he learns it has burned.”

“Then you will fuck him one more time, and while he grunts over you, you will stab him, here.” He pressed on a spot between the bones of her neck. “Drive the blade deep between the bones at the base of his skull. Then bring proof to me that he is dead.”

Fiona nodded tightly. When he released her she looked down at her trembling hands. She had heard the Romans talk about how hard it was to kill the highlanders, and that only fire or a blade to the back of the neck could end them. Even now she carried a small dagger tucked between her breasts that would do the work. Evander didn’t suspect her of being anything but a common, ignorant village wench.

But the thought of jamming her blade into his neck while he was naked and atop her made her belly go sour.

“I will return her to the village, my lord,” Quintus said as he gripped her elbow.

“No, I need you here to question the heathens, for perhaps they know something of value to us. Give her a mount and send her on her way.” Gaius walked back up to his throne and clapped his hands. “I’m bored. Bring me a thrall. Something with some fight left, but not too many teeth.”

Quintus bustled Fiona out of the cave and through another tunnel that led to their underground stable.

“Do as the tribune says, and all will be well,” he said. He drew his own dagger, and pressed it in her hands. “After the McDonnel is dead, cut off his manhood with this, and bring it to me. I will give it as proof of his death to Gaius, and we will talk about where next to move you.”

Fiona chose a quiet mare from the legion’s mounts, and led her out of the tunnels, where the sentries watched with greedy eyes as she mounted the horse. She rode sedately until she was out of sight, and then jumped down, falling to her hands and knees as she puked up everything in her stomach.

She had seen terrible things in her short life, and it had hardened her. It did not even shock her that Gaius had ordered her to murder her lover, or that Quintus had asked her to castrate his corpse. She had known from the moment she was told to seduce the McDonnel seneschal that it would come to a bad end.

Her only mistake had been to fall in love with him.