Free Every Never After by Lesley Livingston

for his .”
    “Shut your mouth! He’ll awaken. He has to,” the younger soldier snarled. He looked over at Allie, his gaze travelling the length of her from head to foot. For a long moment his eyes rested on her workboots. Then his glance flicked up over her face and he took a deep breath. “Come on, Junius,” he said in a more reasoned tone, lowering his voice. “I know you’re angry. And I know you’ve lost friends out there. I have too. Just … think first before you act in a way you might be made to regret.”
    Allie fervently hoped he was getting through to the other man, who stood glaring so fiercely at her that she could almost feel theheat of it burn on her skin. She avoided meeting his eyes, glancing instead at the one who was arguing on her behalf.
    Suddenly, that heat was replaced with a shocking, icy cold as she looked directly into the other one’s eyes for the first time. Now, if there was one thing Allie knew about the Roman army from Clare’s experiences, it was this: they were always angry about something. They were ruthless. They’d conquered most of the ancient world by main force, after all. Their soldiers were coldblooded murder machines. They killed without a second thought. Hobbies included good old-fashioned frontier-style rape-andpillage potlucks Saturday nights.
    Right, right … okay. I get it.
    Allie did her best to tune out Clare’s voice in her head and concentrated instead on not fainting from fear, caught as she was in the baleful gaze of the legionnaire who’d rescued her. The baleful, angry gaze. She could sense a simmering rage coming off him. But unlike Clare’s hypothesis that ire was just the standard Legion grunt’s default mode, the anger Allie saw in the young soldier’s eyes was more than that.
    It felt … personal.
    Allie quickly looked away, but that offered only a less-than-scenic view of another group of soldiers who were—she noticed with a squirming twist of fear—very purposefully making their way toward her. One of them wore the crested helmet of a higher rank. Allie guessed he was a centurion.
    Her acrimonious self-appointed captor/guard/possible saviour saw them, too. He turned away from her, sheathing his sword as the other men approached, and Allie got a good look at him for the first time. He was taller than most of the other soldiers and there was something a tiny bit different about the way he carried himself. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. His arms and legs were long and deeply tanned, as was his face, and their planes and contours were all sharply defined under the light of the scary red moon. It was hard to tell what colour his eyes were under the brim of his helmet, but she’d gotten the distinct impressionthat they were dark. Probably brown or a deep hazel. His posture was upright and the set of his head gave him an air of arrogance. Maybe even callousness.
    Before the centurion reached him, he turned and gave her the coldest, hardest stare she’d ever had the displeasure of receiving. And even though he’d ostensibly saved her life—twice—Allie decided that she probably kind of hated him. She mustered just enough spirit, under the circumstances, to glare defiantly back. And was surprised to see him frown a little and blink in what might have been confusion.
    But then he turned away from her again and threw a stiff-armed salute to the officer leading the other soldiers toward them—a grizzled, hard-looking man who returned the greeting with casual precision.
    “Legionnaire,” the centurion growled in heavily accented Latin. “Report.”
    The young soldier answered back, the words spilling from his lips fluidly and forcefully. He spoke with confidence and passion and—now that these Romans weren’t barking at each other— Allie had a chance to really listen to what they were saying. She was surprised to hear just how much actual Latin sounded like modern Italian, all rolled r ’s and fiery intonation. It was much more