He lunged toward me and slashed the air.
With an exasperated growl, I caught his wrist and wrenched the weapon from his hand. “Stop! Look, you’re weak. We can’t afford to keep fighting like this. I want to find Olivia and sort things out—like where the hell we are and what we will do to survive.”
“What makes you think she’s here?” Marcellious spat out more bloody phlegm.
“Because she’s a Timeborne, asshole. She’s the one who got us here.”
Marcellious’ gaze turned flinty. “The fuck you say?”
A loud crack came from my left, followed by another.
“Keep quiet!” I whispered.
I crept toward the sound and hid behind a tree.
Marcellious did the same, disappearing behind a tree next to me.
“Fuck,” he hissed as a half-dozen soldiers came into sight. They led a donkey laden with supplies.
I silently groaned—they looked to be American soldiers, dressed similarly as when I was fighting in the Revolutionary War in the Americas. There were some differences, but they looked eerily similar. Which meant…
We’ve been cast somewhere close to when and where I left before landing in Rome. And we’re dressed only in loincloths, our hair long and unkempt. They’re going to think we look savage.
Idiot that he was, Marcellious hissed, “Give me back my knife. I need to defend myself.”
The soldiers paused, heads cocked.
I gestured to Marcellious to keep quiet.
Dumb fuck that he was; he leaped out from behind the tree and attempted to wrench the blade from my hand. I shoved him away from me. He pushed me so hard my back slammed against a gnarled tree trunk. I let out a loud groan, dropping the knife.
Marcellious swooped up the dagger. “Got it!”
“Indians!” one of the soldiers cried. “Get them!”
And there was the confirmation—the cry had come in perfect American English, a language I hadn’t spoken in a long time.
“Whatever you do, don’t attack them. Let me talk to them,” I hissed at Marcellious, still in the ancient Latin we used in Rome.
Before I’d even turned to address the soldiers, we were surrounded by four muskets trained at our heads. The fifth guy kept hold of the donkey’s lead rope.
We both put our hands up, but I was the one who spoke. “Don’t shoot. We were attacked and barely managed to escape. This war, you know? It’s been brutal, and we only wanted to escape it. We got drunk, dipped in the river, and lost our clothes.”
I swept my arm up and down my bloody body like that explained everything.
“You look like Indians,” one of them said, “but you don’t sound like Indians. Who are you?”
My mind scrambled for a plausible explanation. “Soldiers like you.”
Another guy said, “We don’t wear no skirts. Not ever.”
He pointed at my loincloth.
I didn’t know what to say to that.
Without warning, Marcellious leaped at one of the soldiers, caught him off guard, and slit his neck. The young soldier slumped to the ground, blood spurting from the gash in his neck.
My jaw slacked. I wanted to choke Marcellious.
