Gilded Serpent by Danielle Jensen (top 10 novels txt) 📕

the kettle, which he’d thankfully filled with snow earlier, on the top of the stove, then retrieved some meat to thaw for their next few meals. While she swore and kicked and shouted, he smiled when he saw that one of the jars contained a few handfuls of oats and bran, another some salt. The rest, unfortunately, were empty.

Teriana had gone to sit on the cot, the flames reflecting in her eyes and making it impossible to tell what color they were. “Is this what every day will be like? Running not only against the clock but with those animals biting at our heels?” She shook her head, braids swinging back and forth. “I’m exhausted and everything hurts and my guts feel like they are being murdered from only eating meat.”

He considered telling her the side effects of a meat-only diet—which were not inconsequential—then decided to pour her a cup of water instead. If the rest of the shelters had scraps of grains and such, they might stave off the worst of it.

“I hate this.” She drank the water. “All of it. I’m pissed off, and I want a proper drink, not gods-damned melted snow.”

The shelter had grown warm, and Marcus stripped off his extra clothes, wrinkling his nose at the smell as he set them aside to dry.

“I want a bath!” She flung aside her mittens and hood, which Marcus hung up with his. “With soap. I’ve never smelled this bad in my life. And,” she said, casting a baleful glare in his direction, “I want you to shave your face. There was a certain appeal to a bit of scruff, but this”—she waved a hand at his face—“is terrible.”

Marcus was inclined to agree, but there wasn’t a chance he was shaving it off with a belt knife and no soap. “Keeps my face warm.”

She cast her eyes up at the ceiling and called him something in a language he didn’t know. He suspected it wasn’t flattering.

The kettle boiled, the soft whistle barely audible over the racket the wolves were making outside. Putting the grain into the lone pot, he added water, stirring it until it was an acceptable consistency, then he handed Teriana the other spoon and sat next to her on the cot. “A change for dinner.”

Her mouth curved up in a smile. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

They ate in silence, then sat elbow to elbow watching the fire burn and listening to the wolves. His legs were starting to stiffen, and Marcus knew he should stretch them or he’d be paying for it tomorrow, but instead, he asked, “Were you born on the Quincense?”

 52TERIANA

The question was so utterly unlike anything Marcus had ever asked her before that it snapped Teriana out of her misery, curiosity taking its place. “Why do you ask?”

“Just curious. You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to.”

“Why wouldn’t I want to?”

The muscles in his jaw tightened, less visible now thanks to the facial hair, but enough for her to know that he regretted asking the question. And would use silence as a way to get out of answering hers. But she didn’t feel like letting him off so easily. “You’ve never asked me anything about my past before.”

“Haven’t I?”

She gave him a long look, smirking when he turned away first.

“We don’t spend that much time alone and talking,” he said. “Didn’t seem like the sort of thing to ask you with others around.”

“Interesting. Quintus asked me that very same question next to the fire with at least five of your men present. He’s asked me dozens of questions about myself, as has Servius. But never you.”

“Yes, well, neither of them have ever interrogated you.”

He rose to his feet, refilling his water cup and drinking deeply before filling it again. “Every time I ask you something, you must wonder how I’ll use what I learn against you.”

“I don’t think—” Teriana broke off. Because she had thought that very thought more times than she cared to count. Her past was full of secrets of her people. Of the secrets of the West. And he was too clever not to glean details that would help the legions, no matter how hard she tried to hide them. While he wouldn’t use them against her right now, that might not always be the case. “Don’t you worry the same thing when you tell me about your past?”

“It’s not the same. You’ve never forced me to tell you anything. Not in the way I forced you.”

It was easy to find ways in her head to excuse him. That it had been Cassius who’d ordered the interrogations. That Marcus hadn’t had a choice, or at least not one that wouldn’t have had significant consequences for him. That she’d have broken under the questioner’s torture, so it wasn’t as though the Empire wouldn’t have gotten the information, with or without Marcus’s involvement.

Yet a hard choice was nevertheless a choice, and he’d made his. And she wasn’t certain that even if she could forgive him that she should.

“I shouldn’t have asked you anything,” he said, breaking the silence. “Forget I spoke.”

As if such a thing were possible.

Not knowing why she couldn’t let it go, Teriana said, “But you do want to know?”

“What I want is irrelevant.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

He exhaled a long breath, then turned to meet her gaze. “If the story of your life were a book, I’d carry it with me across the world. I’d read it every night. And whenever I reached the ending of what had been shared with me, I’d open it to the first page and begin reading it again.”

Teriana’s eyes burned and she blinked rapidly. “It would be a very heavy book. I’ve had a very interesting life.”

“It would be worth it.” He crossed the shack, hands curving around the sides of her face as he bent to kiss her forehead. “Everything you tell me is a gift.”

She buried her face in his throat, trying not to cry. “You must think we’re