Champion in Love (bxb)

CHAPTER 30. Something Borrowed

I woke up to the sun warming my cheek and another, unfamiliar, sensation. My lips stretched softly, so I must have been smiling in my sleep. Without letting go of the smile, I groped for Victor. Blanket shrunk under my touch, too cold for comfort.

"Victor?" The call didn't quite echo off the walls, but, like my hand, it encountered emptiness. It was a stupid question, for there was nowhere to hide in my room. I had to only rub the sleep from my eyes to see that my lover wasn't with me. Even more stupidly, a new shred of hope squirmed in my heart after I sat in bed and stared at every corner for long enough.

"Victor?"

With a groan, I pushed to my feet and patted to the balcony to ascertain that he wasn't relieving himself or watching sunrise. The balcony was empty, and so was the street when I leaned over the railing. Victor was well and truly gone.

The only sign that I didn't dream up last night were the sprigs of thyme blown by the wind into the balcony's corner. The same morning breeze ruffled hair at the back of my head as I bent to pick up the withering herbs and touched them to my nose. They kept a faint scent and a promise that thyme would always remind me of Victor's hands. Call me a fool for love, Senators, but I blew the dust off of the herb's tiny teal leaves and stuffed the dead twigs into my belt. I also hid the vial of the Bite-of-Life that Victor left sitting on the shelf next to the oil flask.

Once dressed, I returned to the balcony and slumped against the wall where Victor had kissed me last night. It was hard to tell if my mind or my side felt more numb. They both refuse to move anywhere from this place, that moment in time.

However, slowly, torturously, the questions popped up. Why did Victor leave me? Where could he go?

There was only one way to find my answers—and it required me to move.

With a sigh, I separated myself from the wall. I slunk down the first flight of stairs, walked the next two, and bounded down the third. Once on the streets, I navigated Fidelium without truly seeing her beggars, hopeful pickpockets and kids on their imagined adventures. Rhea called out to me from the innards of her shop, but I waved at her and plunged on, at an ever-increasing pace. I wanted to know why Victor left me.

The guesses swarmed me, as I came closer to the school. He wouldn't make a run for the border, would he? A branded barbarian, crossing the breadth of the Empire on his own would be... what? Stubborn? Pig-headed? Insane? Had he gone mad, or did I miss an important clue in the elation of lovemaking? Did I offend him? Hurt him?

I arrived at the training yard breathless from my hobbling run, my head threatening to burst like an overripe melon tossed against a stone wall.

My students jogged or jumped on the sand, warming up for the day or rummaged through the rudii or... whatever. I witnessed the morning routine day after day, for eleven years. All I wanted to look at was the tall, broad-shouldered figure laying waste to a training dummy already with two rudii.

"Victor!" I remembered myself in time to stifle the rest of my exclamation. Thank Jupiter you're here, safe and sound. I grabbed the pillar supporting the gallery's roof with one hand, wiped sweat out of my eyes with the back of the other. Yes, he was here, and he still left me.

"Tat! Form up!" I stepped on the sand without noticing the crunch under the soles of my sandals, walking like I was on ice. "Victor, grab a shield and take Didius, Valentine and—"

I decided to put Quintus with Victor's quad yesterday, but just before I confirmed this choice, Victor's gaze fell on me. Naturally it did, because I'd just hollered to him. What shifted behind his eyes, though, was unexpected. My tongue glued itself to the roof of my mouth for a heartbeat.