Caroline Storer - The Roman’s Revenge

“Come with me. It is your only chance of staying alive,” he finally said, his voice rough as he stepped further into the cabin. He held his hand out towards her, the gesture forceful, demanding her attention, his open palm commanding a response from her.

Livia hesitated, unsure what to do as she weighed up his words. Her reluctance to go with him must have annoyed him, because she saw his lips flatten in irritation, and anger blazed in his grey eyes at her perceived resistance.

“If you do not come with me you will drown. Now give me your hand. Up on deck you will have a far better chance of survival.”

“But what about Magia? I…I can’t leave without Magia,” Livia pleaded, her eyes going to where her tire-woman lay comatose on the other bunk.

She saw him frown, before he looked away from her to where the old woman lay on her bunk bed.

“What ails her?” He demanded, his words clipped, harsh.

“She has been suffering with the sea sickness. She has been so very ill and I have been looking after her. When…when the storm started she fainted and I cannot rouse her.”

The man’s frown deepened, and the nerve twitching along his jaw line pulsed harder as he gritted his jaw, making the scar on his left cheek stand out even more before his eyes once more impaled hers. “I can’t take you both,” he bit out, “I need all my strength to fight the storm.”

“But I can’t leave without her! Please, I beg you. Help her,” Livia pleaded. She couldn’t leave Magia. The poor woman had been petrified from the first moment she had set foot on the trireme , and had been a virtual recluse in their cabin ever since. And if that wasn’t bad enough, she had suffered from such terrible sea sickness Livia had spent the whole time on board the ship tending to her. She couldn’t leave her; her conscience just wouldn’t let her.

The man stood staring down at her, before he nodded abruptly, “Come up on deck with me first, and I will return for her,” he said, his voice demanding, as he stared at her with a dark brooding look on his face.

Livia looked up into his harsh face for a long moment. Realising she had to trust him to return for Magia, she nodded in acquiescence and uncurled her body. As she stood up, she placed her left hand on the cabin wall to steady herself. The ship was rolling so much, she was in serious danger of falling flat on her face.

“Give me your hand.”

Livia looked up in surprise, but seeing the closed look on his face she didn’t protest, and she held out her other hand. She was immediately aware of the smallness of her hand being enveloped in his much larger one, felt a jolt of awareness shudder through her when the flesh of her hand met the flesh of his. And even though his hand was as wet as the rest of him, the heat emanating from his skin where it touched hers was enough to make her look up at him in wonder.

He didn’t seem to be affected by her touch, as all she saw on his face was bland indifference. But then all thoughts of his touch disappeared, and her breath escaped on a gasp when he pulled her forward so she came within touching distance of his large body.

“W…what are you doing?” She squeaked, trying to pull her hand out of his firm grip, when she saw he was trying to wrap some rope around her waist with his free hand.

He yanked her hand back, and trapped it in his strong grip, carrying on with his task, his face grim. “I’m tying the rope around your waist so you don’t get washed overboard. Now be still woman.”

His rough command halted her movements, and she watching in stunned fascination as he tied the rope first around her waist, and then around his own, and Livia couldn’t help noticing how the rope cut into the tunic he wore, emphasising once more the sheer strength of his body.

“No matter what happens on deck, stay as close to me as you possibly can.”

Lost for words, all Livia could do was nod her head, but she wasn’t even sure if he had seen her gesture, as he had already turned to walk out of the cabin.

A series of lightning flashes illuminated the lower deck as Livia followed in his wake, before he started to climb the wooden steps leading up to the top deck of the ship. Livia squealed in shock when a deluge of icy cold water crashed down through the open hatch, soaking them both. Shivering with cold, and trepidation, she couldn’t help but wonder if she was doing the right thing. Did she really have a better chance of survival up on the top deck, there at the full mercy of the raging storm? Rather hysterically, she realised, she didn’t have much choice about it as she was irrevocably joined to the man by a thick rope.

As they climbed up the slippery steps, Livia heard the huge timbers of the ship creak all around them as the vessel fought against the forces of nature. The noise was so frightening, it was as if the ship were screaming its own protest about being battered by the storm.

Once she reached the top rung of the ladder, a hand was thrust down towards her. “Take my hand, and don’t let go, or you will be washed overboard.”

She placed her hand in his, the smallness of hers lost once more in the strength of his, as she allowed herself to be pulled up onto the deck of the heaving ship. Once she was standing on the deck she was unprepared for the force of the wind as it tore through the thin silk of her gown, the lashing rain saturating the fabric so it moulded against the slimness of her body, hampering her movements. Icy tentacles of cold speared her, and her teeth started chattering. She turned to where the man stood, his free arm holding onto one of the wooden masts as he used every ounce of his strength to stop them both being swept overboard.

He pulled her roughly into his body, so they stood fused to each other as he used the thickness of the mast as a makeshift shelter. Shock coursed through her as she realised how close they were, breast to breast, hip to hip, thigh to thigh. If it had been any other situation she’d found herself in, she would have been mortified at the intimacy of their embrace.

But this was survival. Pure and simple.

Deep in her heart, even though she didn’t want to acknowledge it, she knew he had lied to her. There was no way he would be able to go back and fetch Magia. The sheer ferocity of the storm would make it a suicide mission, and if she was brutally honest with herself she didn’t want him to release her. She knew her only hope of survival lay with him. Tied to him – literally.

As the howling winds screamed above their heads, the storm raging all around them, Livia burrowed deeper into the solid strength of the man who held her. She had never been so frightened in all her life as wave, after wave, of ice cold water crashed over them time and time again, battering them both with its intensity and ferocity.

“If we get washed overboard, you must kick out as hard as you can. If you don’t, you will drown. Do you understand?”

Livia heard his words shouted above the cacophony of noise which swirled around them, as the storm lifted the huge ship higher into the night sky before a great swell rolled in once again from the dark depths of the ocean.

“Yes!” She shouted, just before another deluge of icy water washed over her, choking her, salty water filling her mouth and nose, threatening to suck the very life out of her lungs.

The crest of the wave passed beneath them, and the massive ship dropped like a stone, and water once again cascaded down the length of the deck. Then, as if things couldn’t get any worse, another massive wave tore through the ship, and this time the stranger’s strength wasn’t enough to protect them as they were washed along the length of the ship, powerless and totally at the mercy of the mighty storm.