I raised both eyebrows in surprise. Remembering some of Amina’s features, including the jade color of her eyes, I could see the resemblance. “Really? You were born after she went missing, though, right?”
He nodded. “Yes. She’s a third cousin. She was born a Dorchadas, but married Ryker before they boarded the delegation, and joined House Abraxian.”
“House Abraxian…” I muttered, trying to remember where I’d heard that name before.
“House Abraxian were some of the first to sacrifice themselves in the war against Azazel,” Jax replied, sadness adding weight to his voice. “Their ten sons were only children at the time. I took them under my wing, and they became my Wards.”
I now remembered. The name Abraxian had been tattooed onto the wards, along with the swamp witch symbols that allowed them to feed Jax with the energy he needed to perform mass mind-bending. He’d never told me about the origin of his wards, but I’d spotted the name whenever they removed their tunics during combat practice. Their torsos, necks, and arms were covered in black ink, and it lit up white when they channeled their energy into Jax.
“Don’t you miss them?” I asked, slowly leaning in to him.
“I don’t think ‘miss them’ is the term I’d use,” he replied, putting his arm around my shoulders. “I’m worried I won’t see them again. I know I shouldn’t, but I’ve seen enough on Calliope to know that when I look at what the daemons are doing here, there is still a chance we won’t succeed.”
“I know what you mean. I’m worried I won’t see my succubi again, either. Or my sister… my daughter…” I croaked, swallowing back tears. “I also understand why you’re fearful. We’ve seen greater plans fail miserably, after all, if you remember. But we can’t let despair get the better of us, can we?”
Jax kissed my forehead, then exhaled deeply. “Remember the day we vanquished Azazel?”
“How could I forget?” I scoffed. “Azazel compelled Jovi into shooting me with a poisoned arrow, and I nearly died.”
“And not a day goes by that I’m not thankful for the Daughters. For Viola, in particular, for bringing you back,” he murmured. “Thing is, that day I was scared witless. Not of dying myself, but of never seeing you again. It’s a crippling fear. It stiffens my limbs and it makes it hard to breathe. Not seeing my Wards again scares me, Hansa, but not as much as the thought of never seeing you again. And I know that’s exactly what will happen if we let the daemons and the Exiled Maras win. So, yes, I’m holding on to my fear, but not to pull me back, but rather to motivate me to keep going, to fight back harder than ever, until you and I can go back to Calliope and try to make sense of this wonderful thing between us.”
I was speechless, unable to hold my tears back anymore. I lifted my head to look at him. To my surprise, his eyes were just as wet, stoically darkened beneath his frown. His jaw muscles throbbed uncontrollably as he cupped my face and pulled me closer, to the point where his hot breath tickled my lips.
“I love you, Hansa, more than I could think possible,” he whispered. “I might’ve said it before, but I will burn this whole planet down before I let anyone or anything take you away from me. And that’s the only thing that keeps me going, the only thought that adds strength to each blow of my swords. My love for you, you raunchy, tough-as-nails, volcanic succubus tribe chief.”
My tears escaped and streamed down my cheeks, and I could see myself light up even brighter in his eyes. “You know, for a Mara Lord who doesn’t say much most of the time, you sure have a way with words.” I sniffed, prompting him to chuckle before he kissed me, this time deeply, with an intensity that made the world around us disappear.
He was right. Being afraid was natural, but letting that fear cripple my judgment and my actions was going to get us killed or, worse, separated. I had to take that fear and use it as fuel, like he did. Like I used to do, too, before the Sluaghs and the Destroyers decimated my tribe. I was still recovering from that blow. That tragedy had changed me in more than one way, it seemed. But Jax brought out the warrior in me, and that just made me love him even more, because he gave me myself back, in a way.
“You know, you could at least say you love him back,” Vesta interjected from across the greenhouse, brutally reminding me that she was still there, albeit with her back to us, and that she’d heard everything.
Jax groaned, then hid his face in the warm, small space between my neck and my shoulder, while I let out a small growl, jokingly scowling at Vesta. “Seriously, though, don’t you have plants to grow, little fae?” I muttered.
“I do, but it’s hard to concentrate with you two smooching twenty feet behind me,” she shot back, giving me a dry grin over her shoulder and making both Jax and me laugh hard.
Out of everything we’d endured on Neraka, after nearly getting ourselves captured or killed more than once, I could still count some wonderful gifts we’d earned along the way.
Vesta was, by far, the best thing to come out of this Nerakian insanity. She was mostly quiet and distant but had a heart the size of a pit wolf and a mouth on her that made Anjani seem like a Bajang cub, all cute and fluffy by comparison.
And I was always a sucker for a strong character. After all, I’d fallen in love with the Lord of Maras and I’d joined the company of GASP. Clearly, strength was also my soft spot—yet another reminder that, whatever came next for us, I was more than capable of handling it, especially with firecrackers like Vesta on our side.
Harper
It didn’t take long for Caspian to fall asleep. He was still a little weakened from the earlier fight, and he’d taken significant hits from Cayn and a couple of other daemons as we’d made our way out of Draconis. By the time I came back from the bathroom, he’d already drifted away, hidden beneath a layer of linen sheets.
I slipped into a long cotton nightgown I’d found in the dresser and lay next to him on the bed. My senses were still hyped, so I spent some time just watching him, peaceful as his eyes moved beneath the eyelids. He was dreaming something quite intense. He huffed and frowned between long, lazy smiles. Whatever it was he was seeing and experiencing, deep down in his subconscious, it elicited a wide variety of emotions from him.
Resting on my elbow, I relaxed against the soft pillows and drew imaginary lines along the sharp contours of his face with my spare hand. His pale skin was perfectly smooth, while his faint stubble tickled the tips of my fingers. His heartbeat was mellow, his breath even as his chest moved rhythmically… up, down… up, down.
All kinds of nocturnal bugs chirped outside the window. The moons sent down milky and amber rays of light into the room. It gave Caspian an iridescent glow that made my heart flutter. His short black hair created a dramatic contrast, while the blade of his nose cast a dark shadow over his lips, which were pale pink and begging for my kiss.
It would’ve been difficult to pinpoint where along the line of this tempestuous trip to Neraka I’d fallen so deeply in love with him. The one thing I could admit, at least to myself, was that I couldn’t undo any of it. Caspian had become embedded into my very being. My soul ached for him whenever he was out of sight. My body reacted in ways I’d never thought possible whenever he touched me.
Despite the madness, there wasn’t much I would’ve wanted to change, if given the chance. The blood oath, maybe, but even that had served its purpose—at least for me, on a personal level, because it had forced my instincts to work overtime as I tried to figure Caspian out. Even that was worth all the trouble because, when it was all revealed, I felt the immeasurable relief of knowing that I’d been right all along. That I’d fallen for one of the good guys. I didn’t even want to think what it would’ve felt like to discover that Caspian was just as bad as Darius, Emilian, and the other Lords. No, Caspian was good. In a lot of pain and angered by his inability to stop his own people from committing such atrocities, but good.
I couldn’t help but smile, in awe of how intense my feelings for him were. We’d come a long way in a short period of time
, from glaring at one another and leisurely trading stinging remarks, to being unable to see a future that didn’t keep us together. He deserved better. And we both deserved a life lived freely. I was only beginning to peel away at the layers that made him who he was, and I was already head over heels. It made me wonder what the depths of my love for him would be once I got to feel him the way my parents felt each other.
The door opened with a mild creak. I lifted my head and saw Fiona standing in the doorway, giving me a shy smile. She’d had her turn in the bathroom, her hair still dripping wet and a towel in her hand. She’d also found something to wear for the night, some hilarious long johns and a baggy shirt, both of which failed to mask her natural grace and beauty. I motioned for her to come in, then gently slipped out of bed. We settled on a wooden loveseat by the window, basking in the moonlight.
“Sorry,” she said slowly, drying her hair with the towel. “I was hoping I’d find you still awake.”
“No worries. It’ll take a while for me to go into sleep mode, I think. I’m exhausted, but, I don’t know, maybe I’m too exhausted. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, just… just wanted to relax a little, spend some time with you,” she replied. “Usually I go to Scarlett with this stuff, but she’s not around, and to be honest, we’ve known each other since we were kids, and you’re more level-headed than most, so I was hoping I could maybe tell you something, and you could tell me if I’ve lost my mind? Maybe?” she added, wearing a sheepish smile.
I stifled a chuckle, combing my fingers through my damp hair, absently mimicking her hand movements as she kept drying hers with the towel. I’d known Fiona for as long as I could remember and, to be honest, I’d always had kind of a soft spot for her. Despite her petite size, she surprised everyone with her titanic strength. I loved that about her. It was her element of surprise, and it also pretty much mirrored her character. Soft and gentle on the outside, yet deadly fierce and resilient on the inside.
“Talk to me, Fi, whenever you need to,” I said. “We’re family and we are friends. If anything, Neraka’s only brought us closer to one another. Consider this a judgment-free zone.”
She chuckled, then took a deep breath and exhaled over the length of a few seconds. “It’s common knowledge now that Zane abducted me, then let me go,” she murmured. “I’ve also told you and the girls about my encounters with him back in Azure Heights, shortly before we figured out what the Exiled Maras were up to.”
“Ah, yes,” I replied, nodding slowly. “I specifically remember Zane being super liberal with those knock-out powders.”
“Yeah, well… In his defense, it was the only way for him to get me to sit still and not try to attack him. I was still riled up from the whole abduction issue.”
I covered my mouth to stop myself from laughing too hard, then briefly glanced over to Caspian, who seemed still submerged in deep sleep. “In all fairness, I would’ve been just as spikey about that,” I murmured.
Fiona then frowned slightly and took another deep breath. “Thing is, I think I’m into him. And he’s not making a secret of how he feels about me,” she whispered. I felt my eyes widen with surprise—not at what she was saying, because I’d already caught a whiff of it from the stolen glances between her and Zane. No, I was surprised by how candid she was about it. Knowing her, I would’ve expected to have to pull it out of her in a similar fashion as one would pull a rusty old nail from a piece of wood. With a strong pair of plyers.
“Okay,” I said, then waited for her to continue. I had a feeling that wasn’t the part that made her feel like she’d gone crazy.
“He kissed me.”
“Oh. Oh… Okay…”
“Correction. He kissed me twice. The first time was a shock, but the second time around, I was so into it, I completely forgot where I was and what I was doing, which, ironically, was getting him out of prison. I liked him kissing me. A lot. Have I lost it, Harper?” Fiona rambled on in a single breath.
“What? No!” I replied, then covered her hands with mine and squeezed gently, in a bid to reassure her.
“I mean, I know he’s a daemon, obviously. Can’t ignore the horns and red eyes. Daemons are the enemy and whatnot, but I look at him, I look at Velnias and the others, and I hold on to the hope that they’re not all evil. That Zane isn’t evil and that I’m not making the biggest mistake of my life by allowing myself to fall for him because… good grief, Harper, I’m falling for him.”
We stayed like that for a while, as Fiona came to terms with that admission. It made me smile, because I had had similar doubts about Caspian, back when we were still suspicious and tangled with the Exiled Maras. But in Fiona’s case it was clear as day. Zane, despite being a daemon and the son of our chief enemy, was one of the good guys. He probably didn’t like having to be so different from his own people, but his nature didn’t lie.
“Maybe I’m seriously suffering from Stockholm Syndrome,” Fiona added, muttering mostly to herself. “I’ve joked about it, but maybe it’s true.”
“Fiona, chill, seriously,” I replied gently. “I would get Stockholm Syndrome if a hottie like Zane abducted me… and Caspian didn’t exist,” I added, chuckling and feeling my cheeks burn. “You’re not crazy. And I don’t think that daemons are inherently bad, either. I think they were molded this way by the culture. But if you change the culture, you could change the people, too. And if you fail to change those already living, you can at least set new guidelines for the generations to come. It’s not impossible to think that, I don’t know, a hundred or two hundred years from now, all the daemons will hear about soul-eating and simply cringe. Zane is different already. We all know it. It’s why we rescued him.”
“I guess.” She sighed, then grinned. “I mean, he’s killed his own people to get you guys out of Infernis. And he didn’t hesitate to come with me when I broke him out of Draconis.”
“Exactly. Fiona, you’re falling for someone, and that’s okay. Granted, you’re falling for the son of our mortal enemy, but he’s here, on our side. He’s fighting with us,” I replied. “He’s strong, he’s brave, and he’s fierce, just like you. You have every reason to like the guy. And he’s obviously very different from the rest of his family. He had no choice but to fall in line, not just because of the daemonic culture but also because his mom’s in Shaytan’s… harem. His plight is much like Caspian’s, it seems.”
Fiona thought about it for a minute, then giggled. “He is hot, though, isn’t he? Horns and all.”
“Are you kidding me? You could fry eggs on the guy’s abs in the dark,” I replied, tearing up from my struggle to not laugh out loud. “He’s the definition of hot. I bet they’d add a picture of him in the Nerakian dictionary to illustrate the term—”
“Honestly, I’ve seen better-looking daemons than Zane, but from his generation, I tend to agree with you, ladies,” Caspian interrupted us, his tone flat from across the room.
Both Fiona and I froze, then snorted and burst into a bout of hysterical laughter. Tears streamed down our cheeks as we both tried to come to our senses but had a hard time. Whenever I thought I was done, I caught a glimpse of Fiona’s puffed-up cheeks in a hilarious attempt to contain herself and ended up chortling again.
Caspian lay on his back, supporting his weight on his elbows, and watched us quietly, but was visibly amused. His jade eyes were small and groggy, his hair ruffled. He was more beautiful than ever.
“I’m so sorry,” I said to him, finally calming down. “We didn’t mean to wake you up.”
He gave me a warm smile and a playful wink. “The moment you left my side, I lost my ability to sleep.”
Fiona got up, then dropped a kiss on my cheek. “I’ll leave you guys to sleep. Thanks, Harper, seriously. I needed this,” she said, then walked over to the door.
“Fiona, for what it’s worth,” Caspian said, “you’ve got your sights set on the right creature. You don’t strike me as someone whose instincts would take you somewhere other than where you
belong.”
“Thank you, Caspian,” she replied with a brief nod, then closed the door on her way out.
Once again, Caspian and I were left on our own. He gazed at me from the bed, while I shrank in the wooden loveseat. I couldn’t take my eyes off the warm, golden glow of his aura as our eyes met. “I’m serious,” he said. “She shouldn’t worry. Zane is the fruit of the earth to anyone who crosses paths with him. And I can tell he’s crazy about her. Frankly, I’m not surprised to see they’re becoming an item. They might be from different worlds, but they were definitely made for each other.”
The way he said that resonated deeply with me, mainly because I recognized the double layer of his statement. He wasn’t referring only to Fiona and Zane. Not at all. He meant us, too.
I left the chair and climbed back into bed with him. He pulled the linen cover aside, his clouded eyes inviting me to join him. I noticed his wounds were fully healed, though I was more focused on the ropes of muscles drawing shadows on his torso, his skin smoothly stretched over his pecs.
Wearing a lascivious smile, I reached his side and lay down next to him. He covered me with the sheet, then snaked his arm around my waist, while I rested my head on his chest, relishing the echoes of his heartbeat.
“Do you know Zane, personally? I mean, from before?” I asked, relaxing against his warm body.
When he didn’t answer, I looked up and found him staring at me. He blinked, reminding me of his blood oath. He couldn’t say it out loud, but he made me understand that yes, he’d met Zane before. It didn’t come as a surprise. I assumed the Mara Lords had repeatedly met with Shaytan and his Council over the years. Zane and Caspian were bound to know one another, maybe more than the others might have thought.
“You two are kindred spirits, in a way,” I said.
A Charge of Allies Page 18