"In a bush?" he asked with disbelief. "Lots of you? In a bush?"
"Yes," she said, not seeming to understand his confusion, and then her eyes widened. "Not the bush like a plant, not arbusto. Bush like a small woodland area or forest, bosque."
"Ah . . ." Domitian nodded, a wry smile curving his lips. "I learned English centuries ago and still cannot get it right. I am impressed you mastered it in a summer."
"I wouldn't say I mastered it that summer," she assured him, seeming amused. "I still struggled my first year of high school, but I knew enough to get by. Besides, you speak English perfectly. New words and terms or slang pop up all the time. Even speaking it daily it's hard to keep up sometimes. The kids are always coming up with something I've never heard before."
Domitian smiled softly. She was trying to make him feel better as if he might feel stupid that he'd made a mistake. His self-esteem wasn't that weak, but it was sweet of her to be concerned for him.
"Anyway, like I say, everything was pretty normal after that. I finished high school, went to university to get a criminology degree, went through police training, and--" she shrugged "--now I'm living the dream."
Domitian's eyebrows rose at the tinge of sarcasm in her voice. "Your dream was not to be a police officer?"
Sarita made a face. "Yeah, it was, but--" she shook her head "--I wanted to be a police officer to help people. To make sure no one else lost their mother the way I did. Instead, I'm scraping drunks up off the sidewalk, stopping speeders, and arresting shoplifters. And none of them take responsibility for why they're in trouble. Do they just say, 'Thank you, Officer, for not leaving me to freeze to death on the sidewalk' or 'Sorry, Officer, you're right. I was speeding' and take their ticket or whatever? No. They're always trying to give excuses. The drunk we pick up every night like clockwork never drinks too much, someone must have roofied him. The speeder was unfamiliar with the road and thought the speed limit was higher, or their speedometer must not be working, or everyone else was doing it, or they were speeding because they had to pee. And the shoplifter? Oh no, they weren't shoplifting, they just absentmindedly dropped it in their purse or pants and forgot to pay."
She puffed out a breath of exasperation. "And when those excuses that we've already heard a hundred times don't work? Then they start cursing and shouting at us, and kicking out at us and struggling so that we have to wrestle them to the car. And the whole time they're yelling at their friends to videotape this. 'It's abuse! It's abuse!'
"It gets pretty fricking depressing at times, I gotta tell you. I became a police officer to help people, but they don't want the help when it's directed at them. Oh yeah, they're happy when it's directed at someone else but--For instance, a couple months ago Jackson and I pulled this guy over for speeding and weaving. He--"
"Speeding and weaving?" Domitian interrupted. "I understand speeding, but by weaving you do not mean--?"
"Weaving all over the road," she explained.
"Ah." Domitian nodded. "Sorry. Proceed."
"So, he blows over the limit and--I mean on the breathalyzer," she stopped to explain. "It reads how much alcohol they have in their system."
Domitian nodded.
"Right, so he blows over the legal limit, and then freaks out when we arrest him. Starts cussing us out and even took a swing at Jackson. Fine. Nothing new there, right?"
Apparently it was a rhetorical question, because she went on, "Fast forward to two weeks ago. We're called to a traffic accident. This cute little six-year-old was hit crossing the road from her house to her neighbor's across the street. Turns out the driver was speeding and over the limit."
"And it is the man you arrested two months earlier," Domitian guessed.
"No. He's the kid's father. This drunk is a neighbor. But the father, who let the kid cross that busy street without supervision, and who wanted to kill us both just a month and a half earlier for arresting him for doing the same thing, and on the same damned street, starts shouting at us now about how we don't do our jobs and stop speeders and drunk drivers in his area.
"Ack!" she exclaimed with disgust. "I wanted to plow the guy. But no, I had to be polite and take his abuse. And the whole time he's yelling at me, I'm trying to comfort the little girl with a shattered pelvis and broken leg as we wait for the ambulance."
When she sat back with a little exasperated grunt, Domitian said gently, "It sounds a very thankless job."
"It is," she assured him, and then added, "And it isn't."
"Which is it?" he asked with a faint smile.
Sarita smiled crookedly back. "Sometimes you can make a difference and really help someone. And sometimes they even appreciate it, and those days--" she blew out a long breath "--those days make up for all the crap days. But man, they are few and far between. I've only been on the job for a year and already feel like I've aged ten. Seeing the things people do to each other?" She shook her head sadly. "Sometimes I'm ashamed to be human."
They were both silent for a minute. Sarita was peering thoughtfully down into her cappuccino cup. He was peering just as thoughtfully at her, thinking that her job sounded incredibly thankless and stressful. Most police officers no doubt got into it because they wanted to help people. But he suspected the things she'd described probably wore them down pretty quickly. He didn't like the idea of her being worn down. And he wondered how much of the hard outer shell she presented to the world had been there before she'd become an officer. Perhaps they trained them to be that way. She was expected to be strong on the job, and in control in emergency situations. It would mean being tough he supposed.
Once he'd persuaded her to be his life mate, perhaps he should talk to her about changing her career and--
Domitian stopped his thoughts there and gave his head a little shake. If all he'd wanted was a Barbie doll to do as he thought best, he might as well have picked any mortal who caught his fancy. But part of the reason life mates were so special was because they could not be controlled. And the entire reason he'd left Sarita to grow up rather than claim her when he'd found her while so young was so she could grow into her own woman and hopefully wouldn't be led by him.
No. He wouldn't try to convince her to change her career. He would let her make her own decisions and simply support her in those decisions the best he could.
Sarita drank the last of her cappuccino, and set the cup back on the tray with a little sigh, then straightened her shoulders and glanced at Domitian. Judging by his expression, she'd depressed him as much as herself with her little rant. Time to change the tune of this conversation, she decided and said, "So, that's me. Your turn. Let's hear about you."
Domitian jerked his head up and eyed her with surprise. "Me?"
She chuckled at his expression, and then teased, "What? A pretty boy like you has never had a gal want to stare into your dreamy eyes and hear all about your life?"
"Not that I recall," he said with a smile.
Sarita snorted with disbelief. "Yeah right."
"I am telling you the truth," he assured her.
Sarita eyed him suspiciously, and then arched an eyebrow. "So what do you do on dates then? I mean most people at least tell a little about themselves."
"I do not date."
"Right," Sarita said slowly and then shook her head. "Sorry buddy, no one gets as talented as you are in the bedroom, or should I say bathroom and lounge chair," she added dryly before finishing, "without a couple thousand sexual experiences under their belt."
"Ah." Domitian murmured, and then shrugged mildly. "I have had sex, of course."
"Of course. You just didn't bother to first talk to the women you bedded," she said with disbelief and then sat up straight as she realized that was how it had gone with her. She hadn't known a damned thing about him other than his name and that he was an immortal when she'd jumped him in the bathroom.
"I undoubtedly did speak to the women I bedded as you so charmingly put it," he said with amusement. "However, it was so long ago I don't recall
if they asked about my life first."
That was sufficiently distracting to pull Sarita away from fretting over what she feared might be considered slutty behavior, and she eyed him now, wondering how long it had been since he'd slept with a woman. He was immortal--he could be two, maybe even three hundred years old. Had it been ten years? Twenty? Maybe even fifty years since he'd slept with a woman? As her father used to say, the only way to know was to ask, so she did.
"How long has it been since you slept with a woman? Before me," she added quickly in case he tried to avoid the answer by naming the incident on the lounge.
"Hmm." Domitian tipped his head, apparently having to think back a bit to remember, and then he nodded and said, "I believe it was when Auletes succeeded Alexander II."
Out of cappuccino but still thirsty, Sarita had just reached over to pick up the glass of wine he'd poured for her. Straightening with it in hand, she glanced to him with confusion. "Who? What now?"
"Sorry," Domitian said with a wry shrug. "I should have said when Ptolemy XII Neos Dionysos succeeded Ptolemy XI Alexander II as King of Egypt."
Sarita stared blankly, and then simply said, "Huh?"
Domitian frowned and offered, "Neos Dionysos was also known as Auletes or Nothos, does that help?"
"Are you kidding me? Hell no, it doesn't help! What are you talking about?" she asked with exasperation. "Egypt has presidents not kings, and right now it's some guy named el Sissy or something."
"El-Sisi," he corrected with amusement. "And yes, they have presidents now, but the leaders were kings when I lived there. Or Pharaohs."
"Pharaohs?" she gasped. "Seriously? Pharaohs?"
"Si." He nodded, seeming fascinated with the expressions flittering across her face.
"But Pharaohs are--That was back before--Christ, you--"
"Si, pharaohs reigned before Christ," he said with a nod. "Then the Romans invaded in about 30 b.c. and they carried the title of emperor for--What is the matter? Are you all right? Why are you gulping your wine?" he asked with concern.
Sarita just shook her head and downed the rest of the wine in her once-full glass. By the time she finished, she was gasping for air. Setting the empty glass on the tray, she gave her head a shake and then glared at Domitian for a minute as she regained her breath, before saying, "Please do not tell me that you are trying to tell me that--you're telling me--"
"Concentrate, mi Corazon," he encouraged. "You can get it out."
"You are not telling me that you were born in 30 b.c.," she said firmly.
"No," Domitian agreed, turning to tug the sheet aside and grab the wine bottle off the bedside table.
"Thank God," Sarita muttered, her body relaxing.
"Thirty b.c. is when I last enjoyed copulation with a female . . . other than yourself of course," he explained, letting the sheet drop back into place and turning with the bottle. "I was born in 260 b.c."
"No, you weren't," she said at once.
"Si, I was," he assured her and began to pour more wine into her glass.
"No, you--Just give me the bottle," she muttered and snatched it from his hand when he stopped pouring and glanced to her with surprise at the request. Ignoring that, Sarita raised the bottle to her lips to drink straight from it.
"The detective I hired did not mention a drinking problem," Domitian said dryly as he watched her chug.
Sarita glared at him around the bottle, but then stopped chugging and lowered it. She held on to it, though, and simply stared at him for several moments.
Ignoring her, Domitian slid another profiterole onto a plate and offered it to her.
Sarita was so annoyed with him she almost refused out of principle. But the profiteroles were so good, and it wasn't their fault she was annoyed with him. It seemed unfair to take out her anger on them so she took the plate, muttering a very short "Thank you."
"De nada," Domitian murmured, watching her cut off a large piece of profiterole and pop it in her mouth.
In her irritation, she wasn't paying much attention to what she was doing and the piece was much larger than she'd intended. Not dangerously so, but it meant a lot of chewing and moving food around in her mouth before swallowing to be sure she didn't choke. The entire time she did, Sarita glared at Domitian.
"I do not understand your distress," he said as he watched her chew. "You said that Dressler had explained about the nanos and our being immortal and such."
Sarita swallowed the food in her mouth, took a drink of wine from the bottle to clear her throat, and then nodded. "Yes. Immortal. But I was thinking--you know--a hundred years old, maybe two . . . not two thousand!"
"Two thousand, two hundred and--"
"Oh my God!" The words exploded from Sarita's mouth and her eyes went as big as saucers. "Two thousand years?"
"Two thousand, two hundred and--"
"In Egypt?" She interrupted his second attempt to give her his exact age.
"Si. I lived in Egypt two thousand, two hundred and--"
"So you wore those little white skirts and stuff?"
"What I wore was a shendyt not a skirt," he said stiffly.
"If that means little white skirt, that's what I'm talking about," she said with a grin and then started to raise the bottle to her lips again, but stopped as a thought occurred to her. "Were you still there when the Romans took over?"
"Si."
"Oh God!" Sarita gulped down some more wine, and then lowered the bottle to say, "Please don't tell me you had to trade in your skirt for those ridiculous long togas and those silly-looking leafy things they wore on their heads."
"I fear so," Domitian said with amusement as she raised the bottle again for another chug. "Although as a gladiator, I had to wear a subligaculum and--"
"Oh my God! You were a gladiator?" she asked the minute she could get the bottle down and swallow what she'd taken in. "Oh, I bet you were super hot as a gladiator."
"Er . . ." Domitian said, unsure how to respond to that. He had a healthy ego, but it seemed kind of egotistical to agree with her that he had looked hot in his subligaculum.
"Tell me what it was like?"
"Wearing a sublig--?"
"No, no," she interrupted. "What was it like being a gladiator?"
Domitian shrugged. "Up early, good food, hard training, the most amazing massages I have enjoyed in my life, and--"
"Wait, wait," Sarita said with a frown. "You're a vampire."
"Immortal," he corrected stiffly.
"Whatever," she said, waving one hand. "But as a gladiator you'd have to be out in the sun all--"
"No. I can control minds, remember?" he said gently. "I just made sure our doctores always placed me in the shade for practice."
"Doctors decided where you would fight?" Sarita asked with surprise.
"Not doctors, doctores," Domitian corrected her gently. "It is what the trainers were called."
"Oh." She shrugged. "Okay, so you got to train in the shade, but you couldn't gladiate in the shade. That would have been out in the coliseum, in the open."
"Si, but each gladiator only had to fight three or four times a year, five at the most," he said with a shrug.
"What?" she gasped with disbelief.
Grinning Domitian nodded. "Si. The rest of the time it was just good food, training, massages, baths, and willing women. Life was good."
"Hmm. Sure," Sarita muttered, suddenly seeming annoyed. "If that's all you want from life."
"I was young then," Domitian said with amusement. "It was all I wanted from life."
"Um, no," she said dryly. "You said Rome conquered Egypt in 30 b.c., so if you were born in 260 b.c. you were . . . er, let's see, we have to go backward, right, so two hundred and thirty minus thirty . . . two hundred and thirty years old," she said, and then arched an eyebrow at him. "Two hundred and thirty years old is not young."
"Actually, I was only one hundred and fifty. I was a gladiator in 110 b.c. while I still enjoyed food and sex," he explained. "And it was in Rome, no
t Egypt that I was a gladiator."
"Oh," Sarita frowned. "For some reason I thought you were born in Egypt."
"I was. My family was from Egypt, and I lived and worked there for my first thirty years."
"Worked as what?" she asked curiously.
"I was trained to be a sesh--a scribe," Domitian explained. "That was what my mother wanted me to be, and I did try, but it was terribly boring to me and when I was about twenty-five I ran off to be a soldier. I thought that would surely be more interesting, and it was at times, but in peacetime it was just hard labor, helping to move stones for pyramids and such. I only stayed with it for five years or so."
"Really? You helped build a pyramid?" Sarita asked with fascination.
Domitian smiled faintly at the question. "I think calling what I did 'helping to build a pyramid' a bit of an overstatement. I helped move a few large blocks, but that was about it, and it was backbreaking work, even for an immortal," he assured her. "Anyway, I soon grew tired of that and landed in Ostia, where I was a urinatores for a decade."
"Er, what is a urinator?" Sarita asked, wrinkling her nose.
"Urinatores," he said on a laugh. "A salvage diver. We dove down as far as thirty meters with nothing but a diving bell with air trapped in it that we could breathe out of as we worked. Once it ran out we had to surface and trap fresh air to go back down. A dangerous job for mortals, but not for me, which is why I made out so well monetarily."
"From there I landed in China where I ended up becoming a praegustator for a decade for Emperor Qin Shi Huang. I pretasted food to test it for poison," Domitian explained, and then added, "Another very dangerous job had I been mortal since the emperor wasn't well liked. But I was immortal, so . . ." He shrugged. "I was well paid while there, which is part of the reason I stayed a full decade, but it was also because I found I quite liked food."
"You didn't like it before that?" she asked with amusement.
"Oh, yes. Well, sometimes. Soldiers did not exactly eat gourmet meals, and I was not much of a cook myself so my time as a urinatores was not very educational in that regard, but the emperor had proper cooks and he did like his food. And so did I. The food there was new and different. I decided I wanted to travel around and try food from other cultures. So, despite being offered a great deal of coin to stay, I left and started my wandering, looking to try different foods and such. At least until I started to lose my taste for food."