Nest of Vipers by Luke Devenish Read Free Book Online Page A

Apicata whispered to herself, 'the lowest and filthiest of sluts. She's on heat like a she-wolf while she carries an innocent in her belly.'
    Apicata stayed where she was for some minutes, crouched low and inhaling, willing her hatred to empower her.
    Livilla felt in darkness for the crack in the wall and found it – then gently pushed forward. At once the sounds and scents of the Emperor's night-time garden caressed her as the hidden door invited her outside. The air was warm and tinged with honey, but she was not there to admire the flowers. The garden was her thoroughfare, the secret path she took to her secret devotions. Livilla intended worshipping her god tonight.
    She felt the thrill of anticipation and the longing for pleasure. Her god would need his comforts, she told herself. His spirits had been brought very low, and she, his most loyal acolyte, would be assiduous in her ministrations. The libations she would make would heal her god, replenish and inspire.
    Livilla entered the little grotto that lay behind the secret door, throwing a backward glance into the corridor as she went to pull the door closed behind her. She thought she heard a footfall and listened. But there was nothing. The scented breeze lured her into the garden.
    Her shoes in her hand, she tripped lightly along the path, which led to a gate opening onto the street. Her god's attendants were already waiting patiently as Livilla's thighs rubbed together, slick and pungent. She had been suffering in an unbearable state of arousal all day, all through the wedding and the calamity that followed. Her senses had been addled by it. She had spoken like an automaton to Claudius and Sejanus of her sorrow at what had happened, but her emotion had been false. All she could think about was her god and the pleasures she would gift to him. She brushed her sex with her fingers, as if by accident. Her bead was hard and full.
    The attendants nodded a greeting to Livilla while they held the heavy gate open just enough for her to glide through to the litter. She thought she heard another footfall and a shiver shot along her spine. She threw a glance behind her but the only noise to be heard was from the velvet wings of a bat.
    'There is no one there, Lady,' one of the attendants whispered, knowing what she feared.
    She smiled at him, thankful, but she had a recollection of a moment like this before, when she had passed through the same gate and looked over her shoulder to see the face of her little daughter, Tiberia, staring back. The girl had vanished like a ghost on that occasion and Livilla had later wondered what she had really seen. Had it been her own guilt?
    She dismissed all notions of shame and remorse from her mind. Why should there be guilt in worshipping a god?
    'Hurry, Lady,' the slave whispered.
    Livilla stepped forward and the gate clicked closed behind her. The garden was gone. She reclined upon the litter cushions and felt the hard, swollen bead in her sex again as the curtains were drawn around her, protecting her from Rome. Still she sensed the eyes that remained hidden behind the wall – eyes that knew her and knew her secrets. Knew what she really was.
    She had been seen – of course she had – by eyes that would say nothing of what they saw for now. They were not her daughter's eyes, nor the sightless orbs of Apicata. These were the eyes of another. Eyes that loved her like a child. Eyes that loathed her like coming death.
    When the castrated slave Lygdus returned to the great house, he clutched his domina 's secret to his heart, with no inkling of how he might use it. He had seen her slip from her bedroom and had not intended to trail her as far as the Emperor's garden. But when she failed to notice him and he followed further, Lygdus became intoxicated by the tiny amount of power this gave him. She did not know he was there. She did not know he knew. He had stealth.
    But the castrated boy failed to see the other set of eyes that watched from