39 parts Ongoing MatureOne moment, I'm tracing my bleeding hand over vivid, newly unearthed frescoes of three striking men in a Late Republican villa, their features eerily reminiscent of the fresco I've studied since I was ten: Roman Senator Marcus Valerius, whose family vanished from history in 50 BC. The next, I'm sprawled across a marble floor in ancient Rome, pinned beneath the hard, commanding body of Marcus himself-flesh and blood, pulsing with raw power. And good grief, nothing captured the fire in his piercing stare or the way his touch ignites my traitorous body.
But the history books lied. Marcus isn't the last Valerius. He has three brothers, each more dangerously captivating than the last-men I now know match those cryptic frescoes. Lucius, the battle-scarred warrior, whose heated grappling in the training yard leaves me breathless. Flavius, the silver-tongued diplomat, whose calculated caresses in shadowed corridors unravel my resolve. And Rufus, the freedman with knowing eyes, whose gentle touch conceals a hunger that sets my heart racing.
Trapped in ancient Rome with no way home, I'm ensnared in a web of desire and deceit. The Valerii brothers want me-each in their own intoxicating way-and resistance feels like a losing battle. Worse, there is a fifth fresco, and it hides a chilling secret that threatens to upend everything I know. Am I a stranger in Rome, or the key to the Valerii family's mysterious erasure from history? With enemies closing in and time itself against me, I must choose: fight for a way back to my world or surrender to a fate that could rewrite the past.
