Read Online Bastian by Elizabeth Amber - Free Book Online

Vesta’s temple. Although he was incapable of love, Pontifex enjoyed toying with her, and she ate it up—ate him up. Silvia had seen him invite guests to lift the back of Occia’s skirts and fornicate with her while he transacted business with them. On a whim, he might ask the woman to suckle one of his guards or even a dangerous beast. Occia craved humiliation and pain and sex at his hands, and she was jealous of any other creature Pontifex looked upon with favor. She was the only one of the Vestals who’d ever serviced him . . . voluntarily.
    â€œWhat have you brought me, Virgin?” he demanded of Silvia.
    â€œI’ve come to Replenish myself at Vesta’s altar.”
    â€œFirst things first. What do you offer in return?” Eager to depart this depressing place, Silvia took the shard from her pocket and hurled it toward him. It sailed high, but fell short, landing on the back of the woman who knelt at his feet.
    â€œWh-what?” Occia abruptly bowed up from his lap, startled. When she turned in profile to see what had struck her, her lips glistened wet in the candlelight. The shard clattered to the ground and she picked it up.
    Slap! Pontifex backhanded her. “Give that to me.”
    Whimpering, she scrabbled over the marble floor, crablike, and brought it to him. He took the shard and examined it. Then he looked at Silvia, clearly disappointed. “It’s not one of the stones.”
    She shrugged. “No, but it’s a step closer. Be happy with it.”
    â€œYou dare give me orders!” Standing, he tapped his ornate walking stick on the polished, platinum-veined floor, sending sparks of white fire in every direction and causing his audience to cringe.
    Although he was elaborately dressed, her peripheral vision informed her that his naked phallus stood high, ruddy, and grotesque from his crotch for all to see. As usual.
    She gestured to it and made a tsking sound, her voice dripping with false commiseration. “No cure yet? Pity.”
    Most of his considerable powers had been stolen from his rivals over the years. A decade ago, he’d become enamored with the size of Priapus’s cock and had made the colossal mistake of murdering the demigod and absorbing his essence. And now, like Priapus himself, his phallus had grown freakishly large. But there had been an unforeseen side effect. Pontifex’s cock now stood eternally erect, with little hope of ejaculation. It required almost constant suckling or he sickened. These days, she rarely saw him without a mouth or some sort of orifice attached to his organ.
    â€œWatch your tongue, Virgin,” he warned. “Or put it to better use as Occia does.”
    He sank back onto his throne and turned the shard over and over in his fingers. “Where did you find this? And what the hells is it?”
    Crunch. She finished off her pear and tossed its core into the moat, where it fizzed into oblivion. “I found it in the Forum Romano . On the eldest Satyr lord’s desk. It bears the word Amata as you see. There can be no doubt it’s from Vesta’s temple.”
    This presumed betrayal of the goddess on her part brought more insults her way from the Lares. “Silence!” Pontifex thundered. Immediately, the disparaging remarks subsided.
    As he studied the shard, her gaze flicked surreptitiously upward, her heart weeping at the sight of those nine doors. For beyond them, secreted deep in the wall itself, were unseen cages. Some were only a dozen inches across and others as big as three feet or so. None were large enough to house a woman. But all were big enough to jail an Ephemeral spirit.
    The doors were designed in quirky, haphazard shapes, like cells in some crazy, outsized honeycomb. If she weren’t careful, two more would be built there, and she and Michaela could wind up in residence against their wills, along with dear Licinia, Floronia, and so many others. She grieved most especially