by Eve Langlais
“Because they don’t want to war.”
At her reply, he snickered. “They are angry because they want to know why I haven’t sent out a general muster so they can join the fight, too.”
A reminder of the discord between their worlds.
“Why is there such a rift between our people?”
“Not just yours. The Ifrits are the most hated of all the realms.” Desmond shrugged.
Adara didn’t understand. The Dark Lords, and even the weaker Ifrits, weren’t that much different from everyone else. However, the hatred ran deep.
“If I could just talk to the king.”
Desmond shook his head. “Get that idea right out of your head. You can’t return to Babylonia, ever.”
“You can’t tell me what to do.” A childish retort.
“Perhaps not. However, there are two things you should remember. One, as a Forsaken, you are not allowed to step foot in your realm, much less the capital city.”
Given the strong compliance with their laws, she could end up dead before gaining audience.
“Fine, but I could still send a message and tell them what happened.”
“No!” Desmond barked. “I know you’re not stupid. Surely, you realize that whoever betrayed us is still out there. We have to find them.”
“Us?” She arched a brow. “They betrayed me. And finding the culprits won’t change anything.” A lie that she wondered if Desmond saw through. Adara was pretty sure watching those responsible for her fate die would help with the gaping hole in her heart.
“Are you going to tell me you don’t desire revenge for what they did?”
Of course, she did. And that bloodthirsty realization was what she struggled with—the honorable Erela pitted against the broken Adara. Vengeance solved nothing. Yet someone should pay for what they did. Suffer as she’d suffered.
“Why do you care what I do? I am the one cast out and hurt. You’re still a lord. What happened to me had no effect on you.”
“Didn’t it?” Desmond’s eyes bored into hers, intense and sparking with inner fire. “I lost you.”
“And are free to take another.”
“What if I want no other?”
“Then you are stupid,” she spat. “Things can never go back to how they were. I am not the same woman.”
“And I am not the same man.”
“That’s just it, though. You’re not a man. You’re an Ifrit, one of the damned. As for me…I don’t remember what I am. My memories, they haven’t all returned.” She put a hand to her head as if she could heal herself by touch alone.
“You can’t recall because you never knew.”
“Impossible.” A frown creased her brow. “A heritage is the most basic thing. I am half Babylonian and half—” She drew a blank.
“Half something that no one will admit to. I know of no race with your platinum tresses. No one with your distinctive violet eyes. You are something never seen.” He said it with a serious expression that brought another memory of them talking about it. Her lying atop his chest while he told her of the books he’d searched only to find no answer.
“Somebody, somewhere knows what I am.”
“I agree. They know and don’t want you finding out.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Have you forgotten all the accidents you suffered before Mammon even attacked you?”
She blinked. Then paused as incident after incident poured into her mind. The near miss of a falling tree. The loose railing on her balcony. The poisoned apple she’d grabbed to eat but had given to a hungry horse. It had barely survived.
“Those were all accidents.”
“One is an accident. Seven is someone bloody trying to kill you. And when that didn’t work, they had you forsaken. Made you forget everything. Ensured those left behind reviled your name.”
“All part of the Forsaken curse.”
“Except, it’s not. I read up on it since I found out about your curse. According to the texts, the Forsaken are allowed no help, no succor, they lose who they are. Become without family, friend, or identity. But nowhere does it allow for torture. Nor do the Forsaken lose all their memories. Part of the punishment is knowing why they lost everything.”
His words sent her pacing. “You’re lying.”
“Why would I lie?”
“Because if there’s one thing I can be sure of, it’s how soundly my memories were wiped.” She slashed her hand through the air. “I have had to fight for every single image. I still battle each day to not forget myself.”
“And that’s not supposed to happen.” Desmond, her dark lord, strode toward her with an intent gaze, and for a breathless moment, she saw him striding across a field, his pleasure at seeing her equal to her own. He grabbed her by the arms, gave her a light shake. “Listen to me. This loss of memory, the spell that has been wound around you so intricately, was done to make you weak. Make you forget.”
“Why?”
“That is what we must discover.”
“We?” She broke free of his touch and the temptation to lean closer. “There is no we. I will search and find the answers.”
“You don’t know where to look.”
A burning reminder of how little she still knew. “My recollections increase every day.”
“Do you remember the first time we met?”
She didn’t want to. Closed her eyes against the softness of Desmond’s query, and yet the memory unfolded. Gave her no choice.
It was one of the clearer ones. She stood guard over her king in the reception hall. The room was vast with columns reaching many stories in the air.
The man—no, scratch that, the Ifrit—wouldn’t stop staring at Erela. In and of itself, not an unusual occurrence. Many tended to stare at her because she didn’t resemble the other guards.
It was more than just the hair, platinum where theirs was golden to sun-kissed brown. Or the fact that her skin held a hint of pink rather than the tan to mahogany color of those around her. Erela was a half-breed, one-of-a-kind, and given the strict rules of procreation, forbidden.
Which made her exotic.
The Ifrit lord noticed her immediately, although he didn’t let it ruin his entrance or his manners.
Dressed in a fitted uniform of the darkest fabric, his raven-black hair with hints of red was swept back from his brow to touch his shoulders. His features were square, strong, almost blunt in their chiseled cut. His gaze was flat and cold. Lips firm and unsmiling. Yet there was no denying he was handsome.
For a Dark Lord straight from Ha’el.
Realizing she stared, Erela shifted her gaze straight ahead while he offered a head bob of courtesy to her king. Despite being only an heir to the throne, he thought himself equal.
As if. No one in Ha’el could come close to equaling her king, and it wasn’t just pride as his ward that made her think so. Everyone knew the Ifrits and their demon minions were no match for Babylonian royalty, the strongest wielders of magic known.
While her king could easily take on this Dark Lord, she nonetheless kept close watch in case he decided on treachery and drew a weapon. Her tutors warned nobody from that hellish place could be trusted.
The king and the Lord, exchanged pleasantries, and she learned his name.
“Welcome, Prince Desmond. You’ve grown since our last encounter.”
“It’s been a great many years since my father last visited your court.”
A very long time, since Erela had no recollection of the Ifrits ever visiting this land. The last two decades had been spent at a tense impasse, not quite at war but not friendly or allied either.
The Ifrits were looked down upon due to their close association to demons, vile creatures that knew only violence and evil. At the same time, the Ifrits were owed a wary respect as they were the reason the demons no longer raided Babylonian lands. The Ifrits held them within their borders, ruled over their legions. Most of the time. Every now and then, a stray few escaped
to wreak havoc.
As part of a truce between their people, centuries ago, a contract had been written, acknowledging the limits of their power. Between their worlds, a strip of land was declared a neutral zone, a buffer that both sides watched carefully. Although, given the lack of action, the scrutiny had lessened over the years. The borderland became a place for young soldiers to test their mettle against the monster that chose to squat in the woods. Sometimes, they even dared to enter the crevice that led to Ha’el. None ever returned.
Face-to-face with her first Dark Lord, she realized her education sorely lacked. Lessons painted the Ifrits as horrible monsters who lived in a wretched plane—Ha’el, a place of brimstone and fire, demons, and wickedness. Nothing like Babylonia, with its beautiful architecture and tiered gardens overflowing with life.
The man conversing with her king didn’t appear as a monster. His body filled out his dark uniform, thick in the chest, the thighs corded with muscle displayed by his tight-fitting leather breeches. No scarring marred his countenance, although he did bear the shadow of a beard along his rugged jaw. No sign of a tail or horns.
Perhaps he hid a tail in his pants? Her gaze strayed a moment too long, and he caught her examining him.
The smile he sent her way was full of mischief and heat—the kind that sent a flame licking between her legs.
Startled, she refused to look at him after that. Stared straight ahead instead. The king remarked on it as he led the way to dinner, his voice a soft aside meant for her alone.
“Be polite to our guest.”
“I haven’t even spoken to him.”
“And you will avoid doing so. He is dangerous.”
“So am I,” she reminded.
“I am ordering you to stay away from him. They are filthy beasts, not fit for company.”
“Yet you met with him.”
“To conduct a trade deal. No more. You will keep yourself far from this lord.” His tone brooked no nonsense.
But for a young woman, was there anything more tempting than the forbidden?
Still, she did her best, standing behind her king’s chair at the dinner, guarding him in the unlikely chance an assassin chose to attack.
She owed King Marduk her life. In this world of perfection, a half-breed such as her would usually have been left in the woods to die.
Yet, according to the tales, the king himself took pity on the child swaddled in a basket left on the castle steps. He’d declared Erela his protégé, called her daughter. He had her educated, showered with clothing and gifts, even gave her the sword she still bore, Diimon Makir. When she hit her teens, she trained to become one of his personal guards. All she wanted to do was serve the man who had saved her life. Who raised her as his own.
At times, she wondered what kind of mother abandoned her child, knowing the fate that would likely befall her in Babylonia. As to the true identity of Erela’s mother and father?
Unknown. The only thing the clerics seemed certain of was that at least one parent was Babylonian. Not that her heritage mattered. The king was her father. Adoptive, but it didn’t matter. He treated her as a daughter, which bothered his sons to no end.
The dinner seemed interminable, with the flowery speeches, ever-flowing wine, and the constantly loosening morals of those attending. Erela kept her gaze averted from the alcoves where couples strayed.
Even the king partook of the ribaldry, his laughter boisterous, the woman on his lap the newest contender for role of queen. Erela could have told her to set her sights lower. Shortly after the death of his first wife, the king had declared that if he could not have the woman he loved, then he would have no woman at all. This, in turn, led to a never-ending supply of bed partners.
The Ifrit lord remained seated and watched the revelry, rarely touching his goblet of wine, which meant his aim was rather intentional when he launched olives at her.
The first one bounced off her chest and was ignored.
The second hit her cheek.
The third, she caught, and while she refused to give him the satisfaction of looking, she did glare straight ahead.
From the corner of her eye, she still caught his reply. An unrepentant grin. The kind that once more ignited a spark between her thighs. A flame that no man had ever managed.
But she ignored it. Her king had given an order. Even if he hadn’t, she wouldn’t get involved with an Ifrit.
A servant boy stumbled into her, spilling wine on her uniform, the burgundy stain spreading over her white habit.
“So sorry,” stammered the boy.
“Not your fault.” She knew who was to blame. It only served to make her angrier. Such petty acts. And for what?
Why did he have to bother her?
The king rose from his seat. “You may take your leave, Erela. I’m retiring for the night.”
First, she saw the king to his door, but rather than immediately return to the barracks where she’d chosen to bunk with the others, she found her momentum leading her elsewhere.
The guest quarters were on the opposite side of the palace, and while the door to the Ifrit’s room was guarded, the secret passages for spying and entry weren’t.
She waited for the lord, a silent presence with enough patience to ensure the door closed before she pressed the point of her sword against the hollow of his throat.
She had but one question. “Why?” Was this some cruel way of mocking the half-breed? Did he look to start an altercation that might reignite the war?
Most men would have been angry at the confrontation and threat. This one smiled. “Because I find you fascinating.”
Of all the things she’d expected to hear, that took her by surprise. Caused a flutter within her chest. More of that heat pooled in her sex.
And she knew what he expected, could see it in the cocky curve of his lips, the smoldering gaze of his eyes.
He thinks I’ll bed him.
He had much to learn.
Pressing the tip of her sword hard enough to nick the skin and draw blood, she hissed, “Don’t come near me again, Ifrit, or next time, I’ll slice you from neck to groin.”
“Oh, arammu,” a word she later discovered meant love, “did no one ever tell you to never challenge an Ifrit?”
“Leave me alone, or you will regret it.”
She meant the threat. She didn’t like how he made her feel. The heat he ignited.
She meant to stay away from him. She truly did. And then her king sent them out together for a hunt.
A hunt that ended in a kiss that—
Back in the present, she realized suddenly that he’d taken her moment of recollection to get close. Too close.
“You remember?”
“No.” She shook her head wildly. “I’m not that foolish girl anymore.” She walked away from him.
“Where are you going, arammu?” My love.
“Home.”
Except Titus’s house wasn’t home. She had no home.
Because someone took it from me.
Chapter Four
Desmond fisted his hands by his sides lest he chase after Erela. It wouldn’t be seemly for a Dark Lord to lower himself in such a fashion. Yet, with Erela, he ever played the besotted fool.
So smitten, when she disappeared and the tie between them was severed, he’d believed the worst. Thought she’d died.
Never even looked.
And then when the rumors surfaced…lies filled his ears about her making a mockery of their love. In time, as his heart hardened, he’d found it easier to believe that she’d used him. Chose the nasty gossip of those who didn’t know Erela to sway his emotions.
I didn’t have faith in our love.
She was right to hate him and push him away. He didn’t deserve her, not yet.
Worthiness was required, and for that, he needed to hand her the heads of her enemies on a platter. Maybe with the mouths stuffed with a juicy pomum, the bodies slow-roasted so the skin crackled and the flesh remained tender.
> Hmm. On second thought, she might not realize the honor he bestowed. The Babylonians had strange ideas when it came to the flesh of their enemies. They burned them.
Such a waste of meat.
He took hope in the fact that Erela had actually spoken to him for the first time since he discovered that she lived. Even shared some of her inner anguish. Which turned out to be more of a wish. There was one thing she desired more than revenge.
The truth.
“Who am I?” she’d asked.
At the time of their courtship, it was a mystery he’d never deeply pondered. Erela was simply Erela. A fascinating woman with strength, beauty, and character. A female undaunted by the rules keeping them apart.
The sight of her had the ability to make his jaded heart stutter. She drew him like no other. Remained with him even when she was gone.
He still clearly remembered their first time together. He who’d slept with hundreds, easily pictured the flush of Erela’s cheeks. The swollen temptation of her kissed lips. The heat of her when he finally sank into her, her nails clawing at his back as he broke her maidenhead. Her cries of pleasure when their bodies climaxed in a single unifying moment.
A moment of pure perfection. The first of many.
He’d not slept with a woman since.
Couldn’t.
She didn’t grasp it yet. There would never be another for Desmond. She was his one and only.
And he would win her back.
Just not tonight.
As she left him, her gait angry, magic spilling from her every pore, he shadowed her. Quite literally. He drew what magic he could find in this place, tucked behind his ghostly wings, and trailed her far enough behind to intervene in the case of trouble.
She didn’t go far before a car slid to a stop beside her, and she got inside.
The vampire must have been tracking her somehow.
Interfering abomination. Vampires were the result of half-breeds mating. Too many opposing genetics created a creature that fed on blood and couldn’t handle daylight. But Desmond did find it interesting that despite their part demonic heritage, they could handle being on Earth without harm.