“Him.”

“Leo?”

The Roman woman shook her head. “He is but the instrument of your oblation. The blade plunged into your heart.”

Instinctively, Anne’s hand crept between her breasts, shielding herself. “I do not understand the purpose of this sacrifice.”

“He serves another. The Dark One.” The temple turned to mist and became an elegant chamber with gilt friezes upon the walls. In the middle of the room stood a stylishly dressed man with white hair and irises as pale as diamonds. The guise of the elegant man melted away like liquefying flesh, revealing a humanlike creature of immense height, its skin the color of ash, curving horns atop its head scraping the mural on the ceiling and its cloven hooves tearing the Kidderminster carpet. The eyes remained the same, pale, cold. Ablaze with power and malevolence.

“He has never seen the Dark One’s true face,” continued the Roman. A priestess, she must be. A witch. “And on the day he does, it will be too late. His doom shall be sealed, and with him, the doom of countless others.” The elegant chamber shattered into pieces like broken glass. Anne shielded herself from the shards. When she lifted her arms, she saw the world ablaze. Cities leveled. A never-ending war. Famine and misery. And over all of it, the horned beast watched and applauded.

This scene crumbled away, and Anne and the priestess stood once more within the temple.

“My allies are too few,” said the Roman. “This half-world imprisons me, and only two willing fighters exist in your realm. Not enough. We need others to wage war.” The priestess turned her gaze to Anne. “Powerful warriors.”

Anne held up her hands, palms up. “I have nothing. No power of my own, and am certainly no warrior.”

The Roman’s eyes glittered as she advanced. “Strength lies within you. As for the rest, I shall bring it forth.”

Anne backed up, until she felt slickness under her feet. Blood from the sacrifice. “No.”

“Think you there is a choice?” The priestess looked scornful. “Death is your only other option.”

“I want out of this place. I want to go home.” Anne sounded small and terrified, precisely how she felt.

“We have not the time for this,” snapped the woman. “My hold here weakens.” As she spoke, the edges of the temple blurred and grew hazy. “There is no safety at home. You sense this, and my warning presence. That place is a haven for wickedness.”

“Not Leo.”

The Roman’s mouth twisted into a cruel smile. “He is most wicked of all. The Devil’s operative who makes the world ready for his master.”

Not the same man who held her, who gave her so much, who believed in her strength even when Anne had been uncertain it existed at all. “I don’t believe you.”

The priestess made a sound of irritation as more of the temple turned to smoke. “Time draws apace.”

She raised her hands and chanted. Anne did not understand the words, though some sounded vaguely familiar. Tempestas, ventus, maleficus. The air grew colder. A wind began to gust. It swirled, its movement marked by eddies of dust. Torches flickered. Faster and fiercer blew the wind, cold and lacerating, until it howled like the gates of Hell being opened.

Anne staggered, fighting to keep standing, yet the wind had the force of a storm, pushing her back.

The wind screamed, and the priestess’s voice raised to a shriek, her words barely audible above the tumult. She curled her hands into fists, and the wind spun around her, gathering, collecting. Building momentum. Her hair came loose from its elaborate arrangement, her tunic billowed, and her eyes blazed as she chanted.

Then she opened her hands and shoved the wind toward Anne.

Certain she would be torn apart by the vicious storm, Anne darted to the side. But too late. The wind slammed into her. She stumbled against the altar and fell to her knees. The pain of impact was nothing compared to the sensation of bitter, cutting wind reaching into her, filling her veins, pushing through her.

She screamed. The torches guttered and went out, sinking the room in darkness.

“Anne?”

She jolted, then felt Leo’s large, warm hand on her thigh. There was a hiss of a tinder being struck, then the flare of lit candle. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the light, but when they did, she discovered herself sitting upright in bed. Leo stared up at her, concern furrowing his brow.

“A nightmare?”

Yes, that’s what it had been. Only that. She looked around. No underground temple. No bloody altar. And no Roman priestess speaking of things Anne could not understand. There was no howling wind, nor even a breeze. The bedchamber was warm and still.

“I think so.” She resisted the impulse to check her feet to see if they were sticky with blood.

“You’re bone cold.” He drew her down beside him, surrounding her with his heat. He felt so solid, so real and alive, and Anne relaxed into him. “Better?”

She drew from his warmth, his substance. Her body slowly thawed.

A peculiar ache resounded through her, but she dismissed it as the aftereffects of very thorough, very enthusiastic lovemaking. In time, she might grow used to such physical activity, but she hoped and rather believed she would not. How could she grow accustomed to so much sensation, to a man like Leo?

“Better.” Still, when he began to nibble along her jaw, she added with regret, “I think ... I may be a little sore.”

He chuckled. “Madam, your husband is a brute.”

“Which is one of his more charming qualities.”

Leo gazed over her face. “Tell me what you need, sweetheart. How to keep the nightmares at bay.”

It was strange, she was seldom plagued by bad dreams, and this one had been particularly vivid. Yet Leo’s presence shoved away the last vestiges of the nightmare.

She snuggled closer. “Having you here is enough.”

He pulled away just enough to blow out the candle, then wrapped his arms around her.

“Sleep well, sweetheart.”

“And you,” she said, then added shyly, “my dear.”

His arms tightened, holding her closer. They lay together. Anne felt the gentle, rhythmic rise and fall of his chest as he drifted into sleep, and it lulled her. The darkness felt more comfortable now, everything secure, everything as it should be. Because of him.

Yet as sleep began to claim her, the priestess’s words echoed in her head.

He is most wicked of all. The Devil’s operative who makes the world ready for his master.

The world spread beneath Leo’s hands. Seas, continents, nations. The span of his hand covered the whole of an ocean. If he so desired, he could crush all of it into a ball and consign it to the fire. He grinned.

“Have an interest in maps, do you, sir?”

Leo glanced up from his perusal of the map spread out on a table. The shop’s proprietor watched him with an eager smile. “I begin to.”

“My shop has all that you could desire. The very latest. The Americas, the East Indies. Even the newest geographical surveys of England. Here.” The proprietor hurried behind a curtain and emerged with a globe upon a turned oak stand, surmounted by a brass meridian. “Just come from France, sir. A beautiful example.”

He set the globe down on another table and waved Leo over to it. “Can’t do any finer than this. The latest in the cartographer’s art, and a stunning addition to the home of a distinguished, worldly gentleman.”

Leo peered down at the globe. The cartouche was in French, so he could not read it. He rested his finger atop the dot marked Moscou. How many souls beneath his finger? Giving the globe a push, he watched the world spin on its axis, the passage of days in a matter of seconds. A godlike power.

“My purchases today will not be for myself,” he murmured.

“A friend, then.”

Smiling, Leo moved away from the spinning globe. He perused charts hanging on the walls, with the shopkeeper trailing after him. “I believe so. My wife.”