His hands, so much bigger and rougher than mine, skim my bareback in slow strokes as I tremble in ecstasy. The hands that speak of harsh warrior training but of ultimate gentleness at the same time.

I move closer to his warm body, goosebumps rising on my arms at the cold early morning wind entering our sleeping spot made on the palace's roof.

"Mila," he whispers, and it feels like soothing honey being poured into my ear.

Overwhelmed by the way we were last night, so much pleasure for me to handle; I hide my face in his chest, clutching on the flimsy linen covering our upper bodies.

The hand stroking my back now tightens its grip, holding me so strongly against him, I didn't want to break free.

Taking my head from his chest, he places it deliberately over the pillows. With his body over mine, a lazy morning smile graces his rugged face.

I quickly shift my gaze, reddening profusely. But that only encourages him to press his lips over my now exposed neck.

"Julian…" I breathe out. His kisses have become stronger, not allowing me to calm my heartbeat as he nibbles at my collarbones, down toward the armpit and below, sucking at sides of my tender flesh, around the curve when I gasp out, pulling his head right above my face as I catch my breath.

"Mhm, what did you stop me for?" he slurs, jet black morning hair all dishevelled over his forehead.

"I- it's daylight. Y- You can see me," I stutter urgently, but his smile only increases.

"I have a good night vision," he nods to himself, bringing his mouth next to my ear. "Should I remind you that a particular someone was moaning my name while in deep sleep?"

He chuckles into my ear and heat razes my barely covered upper body. Oh, God. I must be mumbling his name in my sleep.

Even though I want to stop him, that voice inside me seems like a hallucination. The bigger voice is of a somewhat changed Coretta who wasn't shying away from relishing the feeling that she was feeling for the first time.

"Isn't it obvious? After what you did last night," I retort somehow, taking him by surprise.

His light brown eyes twinkle in satisfaction. "So I guess you don't have any qualms with practising step two again?" The linen covering us was long gone as I cover my chest in a futile attempt, just to entice him. Because his single hand was enough to pull my hands apart and pin them beside my head.

He grins, eyes locked on mine. "I wonder if you'll remain this feisty once I iterate what all you were mumbling about me."

More so from my semi nakedness, I am panicked by what he must've heard.

Because God damn me if I wasn't dreaming about him.

A bit too sleazily.

I gulp in trepidation and he notices that single action, bringing his mouth to the centre of my throat to suck harshly and I'm left out of breath.

I am lost. This was too much and too good for me to feel.

"Julian…" he tries to mimic my voice, failing miserably but continues anyway, "You are so sexy-"

I slap my hand over his mouth, my eyes wide as his' turn to mischief.

"Don't." I give him a pointed look.

He's laughing behind my hand, which he easily removes, continuing. "I wish I could please y-"

"Julian, no!" Now I am burning hot at what I must've mumbled in my sleep. Oh Lord, no. He did not hear that.

"Just as you do to m-"

"I will not talk to you for the entire day!" I cut him midway, looking anywhere but at his fun-filled face.

"Is that so?" he laughs. We are pressed chest to chest and I could feel the rumble of his deep voice in me. "When I can make you take my name, right this moment?" He's confident and revelling in the feel.

My heart is tumbling out of my chest. "No, you can't," I say.

"A bet it is, then?" He smirks. "I lost the last one, but not this one, Mila."

"So, do you accept the bet, Althea Rosemary?" he challenges.

I accepted, and I lost.

And that was the reason I didn't talk to him that morning thereafter. But I didn't know that I could never talk to him again.

Romanowski and Rosemary were never meant to be.

My eyes welled up. Taking in a deep breath, I exhaled through my mouth, blinking back my eyes.

"You're still left with so much work. Complete this one fast," the lady spoke with a scowl, jolting me back to reality. She strutted away to the other workers to give them what she liked to call, a piece of her mind.

I sighed. Now, when I thought about it, life in the twenty-first century seemed mundane.

Just collecting loads and loads of data, both manually and digitally, looking after excavated sites and making reports, simultaneously working on my PhD thesis, seemed overwhelmingly boring.

My current work as a novice priestess, to light candles at the inner borders of a fourth-century temple, seemed much better.

The past few days were difficult due to managing Cheryl's dead body because Lorenzo was hellbent on not leaving her. He said he wouldn't until the department sent us a message regarding the situation.

I looked around the golden interiors of the temple, all spick and span with fresh offerings served at the large idol of Aphrodite. My bestie, priest Remun Ra was in another corner, smiling and talking with that said cute priestess, with a five-feet distance between them.

Smiling a little, I looked around at the other amateur priestesses like me, going about their chores. It had been a few days since I was selected. Dunkin had talked to the senior priests, and fortunately, they had agreed. There were other priests like Dunkin too, who wanted to marry and, therefore, were the other priestesses like me around here.

Although I was happy with the new settlements, the quickness of it unsettled me. They had accepted me and the other young priestesses with no issues, saying that they needed new priests because a new religion was in the making.

Majority of the priests were changed from the last time I saw them. Even the head priest was changed.

For precautionary measures, Dunkin had dyed my honey-coloured hair black, with a temporary hair spray because I didn't want to change my natural colour. I also wore black eye contact, so no one could identify me as the court writer of Romanos.

"Priestess Chryseis," Priest Remun Ra came forward with a bow, a few stalks of wheat crop in his hand.

"You really had to name me after that priest's daughter in Iliad, who got abducted," I snorted.

"Coretta, Chryseis, Coretta is in crisis, so Chryseis. What's better?" he explained. I rolled my eyes.

"A priestess is not allowed to roll her eyes, if I may tell," he chided. "Welcome to the strict life of us pure souls," he sighed, then lowered his voice, "Man, I must've committed some grave sins sometime in my life to be at God's feet 24×7."

I raised my hand to lay an assuring hand on his shoulder but stopped midway. No touching between a male and female allowed.

After a while of completing our chores, everyone was called to the temple courtyard, where priests and priestesses were made to sit on the ground in separate groups.

It was like a huge square hall with a dome-shaped roof. The fourth wall had the gates to the outer garden, which was a pale yellow coloured screened wall. The night approaching dusky sky was visible through the many Greco-Egyptian patterns carved into that wall.

The fire burning on copper stands at every corner cast a shadow of the head priest as he came to acknowledge us. He had a humble face with peaceful eyes, looking at each of us with a small smile.

"A gentle evening to all of you in mighty Alexander's Alexandria," he began. It pained me because I was expecting to hear the word, Romanos.

"With our great Lord accepting different cultures of all the kingdoms he is conquering, it is a reminder of his greatness, as with open arms he accepts all faiths and beliefs. So taking his legacy forward, we have come forward with a new religion, which would be the amalgamation of the two strongest cultures, Greek and Egyptian. The people who want to worship this combined religion are welcome to be a part of this newly formed syncretic cult. And this religion would be called syncretism."

I listened on carefully, having read about this religion during training. It was an amazing way to unite people of two or several faiths through this inclusive approach. For example, a syncretic God, Serapis, was formed with the combination of Zeus, the Greek God and Osiris, the Egyptian God and a variety of Sun deities from both cultures.

It would be amazing if I write an in-depth analysis of this topic for my book.

The head priest did a once over the priestesses, then fixed his gaze on the priests.

"Since the priests are well aware of their duties in the temple, but the new priestesses aren't. So we'll send them to a training temple soon," he announced.

I felt a surge of nervous heartbeat soar into my throat after hearing that. Still, I calmed myself.

Did you hear? That was the reason I didn't want you to be a priestess! I have no idea where the hell are they gonna send you, I'm NOT OKAY- Dunkin's message boomed in my head.

Chill chill chill you don't have to be a babysitter I replied.

We argued for a while, which involved me convincing him like some dad who wouldn't allow his daughter to go to a party. After I was done persuading him I would be alright, he burst out with another message which left me confused.

Holy shit, Cors, I completely forgot to tell you this message I read in my AI book a few moments ago. It's sent by the department and is hella bizarre…

The head priest, after informing the group of priests and priestesses about the new religion, walked into his chamber, which was the largest in the temple quarters.

Sighing as he arranged the several papyrus sheets lying over his desk, he arranged them to produce a new leaf. After the hectic work all day as the head priest, a smile, a big one, finally graced his lips as he wrote the letter.

Greetings,

The procedure to remove the previous head priest wasn't easy, but what say, fate played right for us and the great honour appointed me. I learned about the new cult of culture amalgamation from various parts of Alexandrian Egypt and proposed it to Alexander. He was highly impressed. An order from him was enough to shut that Romanowskian ruler. I swear he was close to disclosing us, given his connections with that snake damsel. But all's fine now.

The good word is that I will send the new priestesses for training there. Each of them has beautiful eyes. And a particular one caught my attention. Although her eyes are black, on a closer look, they seem to be blue underneath. Maybe they looked dark in the nighttime and were a shade lighter in the daytime? I don't know, but what I know is that they are truly unique.

They would make beautiful gems.

Yours truly,

Long live the eye cult

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I started RITRE with only 20 chapters in mind to test out a fun idea I had since forever. But today, I have a sequel?!

I'm so emo that so many of you gave it a go. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, you all have been so lovely

■ It would be more mature than RITRE. (Though I prefer detailing the emotions & feels and not the human anatomy lol, but let's see how it goes.)

■ There would be some scenes that may be triggering/disturbing for some readers.

The above 2 rules shouldn't really affect you, but if you're a very sensitive reader, I'll warn it wouldn't be as light-hearted as RITRE.

■ The incident of eye sellers is a fictional event. ()

■ No warnings would be put at the start/end of any chapter like in RITRE cause I already warned you guys here.

■ It may have less chapters than that of RITRE.

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It would be heart (wrenching+warming?) scary 'n sweet.

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Studies & health before hobbies :)

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Of course! You just have to click that orange star at the left bottom of every chapter. It'll help the book score high tag rankings (like #1 historical fiction, #1 romance etc) thus, becoming visible to more readers.

The characters of Cheryl, Lorenzo, Dunkin and Aarmen are inspired by my classmates back from senior year of high school lol (though I've exaggerated them and changed their names!)

(P.S. you need to be a follower to receive the announcement notification)