Selena indicated Julian with her thumb. "If women start to stampede, take my advice and get out of their way. I still don't have any feeling in my right foot from the last group."
Laughing, Grace headed for the road, knowing Julian would follow her. In fact, she could feel him right behind her. His presence undeniable, he had an awful way of invading every thought and sense she possessed.
Neither one of them said a word as they crossed the busy street and headed into the first shop they reached.
Grace glanced around the department store, looking for Menswear. Spotting it, she made her way over to it.
"So, what's your style preference?" she asked Julian as she paused by a display of folded jeans.
"For what I have in mind, nudity works best."
Grace rolled her eyes. "You're trying to shock me, aren't you?"'
"Perhaps. I have to admit I rather like the look of a blush on your face."
He stepped toward her.
Grace retreated, placing the display of jeans between them. "I think you'll need at least three pairs of jeans while you're here."
He sighed as he gazed at the pants. "Why bother, when I shall be gone in a few weeks?"
She glared at him. "Jeez, Julian," she snapped in aggravation. "You act as if no one ever dressed you during your past incarnations."
"They didn't."
She froze at his hollow, empty tone. And the significance of his words.
Grace looked skeptically at him. "Are you telling me that in the last two thousand years, no one has ever bothered to put clothes on you?"
"Just twice," he said in that same flat tone. "Once during a blizzard in the English Regency period, one of my summoners covered me in a frilly pink dressing gown before she shoved me onto her balcony to keep her husband from finding me in her bed. And the second time was far too embarrassing to mention."
"You're not funny. And I know no woman would keep a man for a solid month and not put some clothes on him."
"Look at me, Grace," he said, spreading out his arms to show her his hard, delectable body. "I'm a sex slave. No one before you ever thought I needed clothes to perform my duties."
His heated gaze held hers enthralled, but what made her ache was the pain in those deep blue eyes that he tried so hard to conceal. A pain that touched her profoundly.
"I assure you," he said quietly, "once they had me inside them, they did everything they could to keep me there, including one summoner in the Middle Ages who bolted her bedroom door, and told everyone on the outside that she had the plague."
Grace averted her gaze as his words singed her. The things he described were unbelievable, and yet by the look on his face, she could tell he wasn't exaggerating the tales.
She couldn't imagine the degradations he must have suffered over the centuries. Dear Lord, people treated animals better than what he was describing.
"They summoned you, yet none of them ever conversed with you or clothed you?"
"Every man's fantasy, is it not? To have a million women throwing themselves at him, wanting no commitments, no promises. Wanting nothing from him, other than his body, and the few weeks of pleasure he can give them?" His flippant words didn't quite mask the acid undertone.
That might be other men's fantasies, but she could tell it wasn't his.
"Well," she said, returning to the jeans, "I'm not like that and you're going to need something to wear when I take you out in public."
Anger snapped so menacingly in his eyes that she took an involuntary step backward. "I wasn't cursed to be viewed by the public, Grace. I am here for you, and you alone."
How nice that sounded. Still, she wasn't about to fall for it. She couldn't use another human being the way Julian described. It was wrong, and she would never be able to live with herself if she did such a thing to him.
"Be that as it may," she said in determination. "I want to take you out in public. So you'll need clothes." She started digging through the sizes.
He fell silent.
Grace looked up at him and caught the dark, angry look on his face. "What?"
"What?" he shot back.
"Never mind. Let's see which of these fit best." Grabbing several sizes, she handed the pants over to him. One would think she'd handed him a load of dog crap the way he reacted to the jeans.
Disregarding his appalled look, she had to practically shove him into a fitting room and close the partial door sharply behind him.
Julian entered the small cubicle and froze, assaulted simultaneously on three hostile fronts.
The first was the smallness of the space and the cold, fierce terror that washed over him from it. For a full minute, he couldn't breathe as he fought the urge to run from the tight, cramped space. He could barely move without bumping into the walls, door, or mirror.
But even worse than his claustrophobia was the face in the mirror. He hadn't seen his own reflection in centuries. And the face staring back at him looked so much like his father that he wanted to splinter it. He saw the same smoothly sculpted planes, the same contemptuous eyes.
The only thing missing was the deep, jagged scar that had run down his father's left cheek.
And for the first time in countless centuries, Julian saw the jarring sight of the three thin commander's braids that hung to his shoulder.
His hand shaking, he reached up and touched them as he did something he hadn't done in an exceptionally long time; he remembered the day he had earned them.
It had been after the battle at Thebes when his commander had fallen and the Macedonian troops had started to panic and retreat. He had grabbed the commander's sword, regrouped them, and led them to victory against the Romans.
The day after the battle, the Macedonian queen herself had braided his hair, and placed her own personal beads on the ends.
Julian gripped the tiny glass beads in his fist.
Those braids had belonged to the once proud and mighty Macedonian commander who had led a conquering army so strong that he had forced the Romans to flee in cowering terror.
The sight haunted him.
He looked down at the ring on his right hand. A ring he had worn for so long that he had grown immune to its presence, and had long ago ceased to remember its significance.
But his braids...
He hadn't thought about them in a long, long time.
Touching them now, he remembered the man he'd been. He remembered the faces of his family. The people who had once rushed to serve his needs. Those who had respected and feared him.