They were dragged out, Flavia shrieking, her husband turning to all sides for the help that didn’t come, the two princes white-faced. My thoughts leaped ahead like quicksilver. If Domitian had no heirs now, perhaps he’d want a wife who could give him one . . .

“Now for you!” The Emperor took a limping step toward Vix on his bleeding foot, smiling. “Goodness, what am I to do with you?”

“Fuck you.” The boy bared his teeth like a cornered rat, but I saw fear flick across his eyes.

“Oh . . . I think not.” Gently tugging a bloody flap of skin on his foot, the Emperor addressed the Praetorians again. “Take that Jewish whore out of the city and dump her.”

“No!” Thea threw herself at his feet. “No, no, keep me, just let Vix go—”

The Emperor smiled. Bleeding, vicious, genial, he smiled. “Afraid now, Athena?”

She stared up at him.

He flicked his fingers at the Praetorians. “Take her. But first—” He bent over her with a knife, and in three sawing strokes sheared raggedly through the welded collar on her neck. Then he turned, the black eye shining in his hand, and with a grunt of effort he bent the silver band around the neck of Thea’s son.

Thea moaned again as they dragged her out. “Excellent!” Domitian beamed, seeming not to feel his maimed foot. “Now take the boy to his mother’s old quarters. Search them first for sharp objects. And will someone clear all this mess away?” His eyes swept the spilled wine and dishes, the bloody footprints that tracked the mosaics. “Paulinus, you should take your father home. He’s too old for all this excitement.”

Paulinus’s face was white, glazed with shock. Slowly, never taking her eyes from Domitian, Calpurnia reached up and tugged at his sleeve. Moving like a puppet, he rose and put an arm under Marcus’s shoulder. They huddled out in Vix’s defiant wake.

Only one was left.

Me.

I arched subtly on my couch as the Emperor’s eyes flicked toward me. Thank the gods no blood had splashed onto my dress.

“I think I owe you a reward.” He came closer, an odd excitement flickering through his eyes. Being stabbed hadn’t dimmed his ardor. “For bringing all this about. What shall it be, Lady Lepida?”

“Oh . . . I think you have an idea, Lord and God . . .” I slipped off my couch and sank to my knees before him, trailing a finger down his leg. “You’re hurt. Let me tend you, Lord and God.” I bound a napkin around his bleeding foot, then bent my head and kissed away the tendrils of blood about his ankle.

He yanked me up and kissed me with his teeth. I nailed my body against his, thrills of excitement racing up and down my spine.

“Yes,” he said decisively, pulling back. “Yes, you’ll do. Come here.”

He took me in the middle of that bloody room.

Twenty-eight