He reached out for her again, and this time his arm slid about her waist and drew her resisting body close to his. "I have never experienced love, and yet I enjoy lying with a beautiful and passionate woman. None have ever complained to me before, goddess. This foolishness is but in your mind. If you would simply enjoy the feelings I can engender within your body, you would see that I am right."

"You are a wicked man," she said softly. "I will not allow you to destroy me."

"I will not destroy you, goddess," he murmured, and his breath was warm against her ear, the little puffs of his words causing her to shiver slightly. "Let me love you, Zenobia. Don't fight me." A hand began a slow, gentle caressing of her breasts. "Ah, goddess, my beautiful goddess," Aurelian whispered, his lips moving against her soft, fragrant hair.

Zenobia felt his hands and his lips tenderly questing. She heard the restrained passion in his voice, and her soul seemed to draw back deep within her where she might watch him in safety. She was, despite her long nap, still so very weary, and she had no strength left to fight him. Opening the delicate silver filigree fastenings of her sleeping robe, he pushed it back and off her shoulders. He was being very careful, very gentle. For several long moments he simply sat and stared at her firm golden breasts as they rose and fell with her breathing.

Then he tenderly pressed her back among her pillows, and began to place delicate kisses upon her chest and breasts. His lips touched lightly, quickly, moving here and there, never lingering very long in one place. "I am a soldier, goddess," he said low. "A rough soldier, and I have never had the time to make proper love to a beautiful woman; but here in your perfumed palace I shall linger, and adore you until it is time for us to depart for Rome." Then his lips returned to her flesh, this time moving slowly and sensuously, coaxing alive within her tiny flames of pure desire.

She did not fight him-whether from simple exhaustion or because she was admitting her surrender to Rome even Zenobia did not know. What she did know was that his lips, his hands, his seductive words all combined to vanquish her. She had lost Palmyra to him, and whatever she said, or did, he would take her body, for, as he had said, he was the victor. Perhaps by yielding she might regain some measure of control over the situation. Briefly she thought of Deliciae. Was this what it had been like for her in the days before Odenathus had given her in marriage to Rufus Curius? Forced to barter her body in order to survive. How scornful Zenobia had been; but then she had not known. Still, she had sworn to herself that she would survive; and if to survive she must use her body, then by the gods she would do so!

Zenobia focused her silvery eyes upon Aurelian, and said simply, "Love me."

Startled, he looked up at her, and when she repeated those two words he groaned like a starving man being offered a fine feast. She would have sworn that his hands trembled as he bared her completely. Gazing at her passionately, he ran his hands over her silken skin, moving upward to cup her large breasts, then sliding down across her thighs; his fingers hesitant at first, then surer, probing tenderly between the plump lips of her Venus mount. She wasn't really quite prepared when his blond head dipped quickly and his tongue touched the tiny secret, sensitive flower of her womanhood. She gasped, but then his fingers were gently spreading her nether lips, and his tongue was caressing her expertly, forcing the liquid fire to flow, and she realized she didn't care. There would be no escape from this man, and so, uncaring, Zenobia allowed herself to be swept up in the whirlwind of pleasurable sensations that Aurelian aroused within her body.

He was a lover of incredible stamina, and having suffered these last nights from his brutality, she was quite surprised that he was capable of such sensitivity and gentleness. His hungry mouth was beginning to wreak havoc with her senses as he sucked sensuously upon that tiny morsel of tender flesh, yet she was unready when the first starburst exploded within her, and she cried out still fearful of the feelings that this man could arouse within her.

Aurelian understood, and pulling himself back level with her, he smoothed the tangled hair from her forehead and placed a kiss upon it. "You are so beautiful in your passion," he said softly.

"Hold me," she whispered in a shaking voice and, turning, clung to him, her whole frame trembling.

He was instantly protective of her, enfolding her within his strong arms. "Here," he said quietly, "within the privacy of your chamber, I am with you as I have never been with any woman. I know that I stir your senses, goddess, but do you know how much you stir mine? It is with me as it has never been before. I do not think that I shall ever get enough of you!" His voice was thick with his emotion, and she felt his staff, hard and eager against her thigh, yet he made no move to force her this time.

Suddenly Zenobia realized that if Cleopatra's Roman lovers had destroyed her, it was surely because her ancestress had loved and trusted them. I will never love or trust this man, she thought, but if I can please him, and obviously I can, then perhaps I shall yet save my son's inheritance. She shifted her body so she might see his stern face, and freeing her hands from her sides, she reached up, drew his head down, and kissed him sweetly, her soft lips moving against his almost shyly. "You are right, Roman," she said low. "Lust is a powerful thing, and not altogether unpleasant. Would you be very much shocked if I said I wanted you?"

Looking down upon her, his blue eyes searched her face for signs of mockery, but finding none he said, "No, I should not be shocked, goddess."

"Love me," she answered him, her lush body beginning to move provocatively beneath his.

Aurelian needed no further encouragement, for his manhood felt close to bursting with his desire. Feeling her long legs parting to encourage him, he pushed his aching weapon deep within her warm, wonderfully willing body, a groan of pleasure escaping his tightly clamped lips. The long and lovely legs wrapped themselves about him, and he had the fleeting thought that she was really the goddess Venus herself, come to earth to give sweet pleasure to him. Her hands ran smoothly down his back, then caressed his taut buttocks; her touch was more exciting than anything he had ever known. She was making love to him!

Zenobia quickly realized the effect that her boldness was having upon Aurelian. It roused him more than anything she could have done, and his excitement communicated itself to her. Together they fanned the flames of their desire, their bodies writhing passionately, both seemingly inexhaustible as he drove again, and again, and again into the lush and lovely woman panting beneath him. Her movements encouraged him onward. Never had he felt so strong, so manly, so immortal as within the throbbing sheath of this magnificent creature.

Then suddenly Zenobia cried out, "Ah, sweet Venus, I die!" and Aurelian, with a low growl of triumph, waited but a moment to assure himself that she had attained Olympus before releasing his own boiling offering to the goddess of love. He was shaken to the core of his being, and he could see that Palmyra's queen lay in a deep swoon, her beautiful body covered in a faint silvery sheen of dampness that highlighted the pale-golden color of her skin. He would have believed her dead but for the pulse that fluttered in a tiny, provocative hollow at the base of her throat.

She soared upward, floating free and happy, seeing below her the mountainous home of the gods; and then as suddenly she plunged downward into a whirling, light-filled abyss that battered both her body and her soul. Something was wrong, but she could not understand what it was. With a low moan she tried to escape the sinking feeling. Slowly, almost painfully, she fought her way back to consciousness, her first realization of returning feeling being the firm kisses being placed upon her lips. Zenobia opened her eyes, and Aurelian smiled down at her before his lips took charge of hers once again.

His mouth demanded and she acquiesced, kissing him back with equal fervor, opening her mouth to receive his questing tongue. The tongue touched the sensitive roof of her mouth, and she shivered. It rubbed against her tongue in a sensual gesture, then sucked, attempting to draw her very spirit from between her lips. She eluded him, and attempted to imitate his actions. She was pleased when he shuddered against her, and then he drew away from her. "Goddess, you will destroy me yet," he murmured against her ear, and for the first time in months Zenobia felt genuine amusement bubbling up within her. Her laughter sounded warm and mischievous in his ear, and he was forced to chuckle himself.

They lay together for some time, and then she realized that he had fallen asleep, and so Zenobia slept, too. In the morning he made no attempt to hide from her servants the fact that he had slept with her, and Zenobia wisely refrained from comment. She desperately wanted to ask him what, if anything, he had decided for Palmyra; but she believed to ask such a sensitive question after their extraordinary night together would make it appear as if she had deliberately set out to use her body to influence him. She had, of course, but although she was willing to be totally honest with herself, she would not, could not be with Rome's emperor. He would ever be her enemy, though she be his mistress. He would tell her when he was ready to tell her, and then, if necessary, she would try to soften his terms and see that Vaba remained Palmyra's ruling king.

She helped to bathe him, and then bathed herself. When young Adria, Bab's assistant, attempted to brush Zenobia's long hair, Aurelian took the brush from her hand and did it himself, reveling in the silken swath that fell to the middle of her back. His big hand smoothed it after each passage of the brush, and when Bab, scandalized, clucked her disapproval he mildly ordered her to be silent. Then, on reflection, he said, "Bring your mistress a kalasiris the color of flame. I want to see her gowned in the bridal color." Then he bent and whispered in Zenobia's ear, "For you are my bride, goddess. You are the only woman who has ever made me feel. I believe that I am falling in love with you."

"Is this how you treat all your captives?" she half-teased him.

"Do not jest with me, goddess. I mean what I say."

Zenobia sighed. "Do not fall in love with me, Roman. I have warned you that I shall never again give myself into any man's keeping. You are my enemy, yet in this I cannot hurt you. I am being honest with you."

"You have been hurt," he answered her. "In time you will come to trust me, goddess."

"Will you call the Council of Ten into session today?" she asked him, attempting to change the subject.

"The meeting is already arranged for the midday hour, goddess. While you slept yesterday afternoon I gave orders that Gaius Cicero see to it."

She turned her head to look at him, and could not resist asking, "What have you decided, Caesar?"

"As you come to know me, Zenobia," he said slowly, "you will learn that the secret of my success is always to keep my private life and my public duty separate. We will never discuss the business of the empire within the walls of our bedchamber." He then bent and kissed her mouth lightly. "I am ravenous, goddess. Do you think we can persuade that disapproving old crone who serves you into bringing us something to break our fast?"

The reproof had been a gentle one, but nonetheless Zenobia felt a chill of premonition. Forcing it down, she called to Bab, "The emperor is hungry. Why have we not been fed?"

"Can I do several things at once?" Bab snapped. "First there was the bath, then the overseeing of this useless wench that you insist aid me, though the gods know she is more trouble than help, then he commands that I fetch a flame-colored gown for you! When am I supposed to have the time to get your breakfast?!" With a snort she turned upon the hapless Adria. "You, girl! Go and fetch breakfast for the queen-and him! I must remain and see to flame-colored garments. Humph!" Still grumbling under her breath, Bab waddled off into the queen's wardrobe while the flushed Adria hurried off to see to the food.

"How can you put up with that sour old woman?" the emperor asked.

"She raised both my mother and me," Zenobia said. "She is very dear to me even if in her old age she becomes impatient and frequently oversteps her place. I love her, Roman, and she loves me.

He smiled. "I had an old grandmother like that. She was fierce and gruff, but somehow she always had a sweetmeat for you." He reached out and pulled her into his arms. For a long moment they stood together, their nude bodies touching, his warmth and male scent suddenly familiar and almost comforting in her nostrils. They broke guiltily apart as Bab bustled back into the room, still grumbling beneath her breath about flame-colored draperies.