by I. T. Lucas
Dark Enemy Taken
Children Of The Gods Book 4
I. T. Lucas
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Contents
The Children Of The Gods
Copyright
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1: AMANDA
CHAPTER 2: DALHU
CHAPTER 3: AMANDA
CHAPTER 4: DALHU
CHAPTER 5: AMANDA
CHAPTER 6: DALHU
CHAPTER 7: SHARIM
CHAPTER 8: AMANDA
CHAPTER 9: DALHU
CHAPTER 10: SHARIM
CHAPTER 11: AMANDA
CHAPTER 12: DALHU
CHAPTER 13: AMANDA
CHAPTER 14: KRI
CHAPTER 15: DALHU
CHAPTER 16: AMANDA
CHAPTER 17: DALHU
CHAPTER 18: SYSSI
CHAPTER 19: ANDREW
CHAPTER 20: KIAN
CHAPTER 21: AMANDA
CHAPTER 22: SYSSI
CHAPTER 23: KIAN
CHAPTER 24: SHARIM
CHAPTER 25: DALHU
CHAPTER 26: KIAN
CHAPTER 27: AMANDA
CHAPTER 28: ANDREW
CHAPTER 29: KIAN
CHAPTER 30: AMANDA
CHAPTER 31: DALHU
CHAPTER 32: KIAN
CHAPTER 33: AMANDA
CHAPTER 34: ANDREW
DARK ENEMY CAPTIVE
CHAPTER 1: ANDREW
CHAPTER 2: AMANDA
CHAPTER 3: DALHU
The Children Of The Gods
Kian & Syssi’s story
Book 1: Dark Stranger The Dream
Book 2: Dark Stranger Revealed
Book 3: Dark Stranger Immortal
•••
Amanda’s story
Book 4: Dark enemy taken
Book 5: Dark Enemy Captive
BOOK 6: Dark Enemy Redeemed
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All rights reserved
This book and parts thereof may not be reproduced
in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any from by any means—electronic, photocopying, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the author, except as provided by the United States of America copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used factiously.
Any similarity to actual persons, organizations
and/or events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by I.T. Lucas
PROLOGUE
There was a time when gods lived among mortals.
They bestowed their benevolence by providing knowledge and culture, thus helping humanity to establish an advanced, moral, and just society.
In gratitude, the people worshiped the gods—their adoration expressed with offerings of their best goods and their freely donated labor.
The gods had unimaginable powers. They could cast illusions so powerful that they fooled the minds of thousands. Their power over the human mind was so strong that their illusions not only looked and smelled real but even felt real to the touch. They could project thoughts and images into the unsuspecting, inferior minds of mortals, influencing everything from moods, to moral conduct, to a call to battle, all the way to divine revelation and inspiration.
Physically, they were perfect. Stunningly beautiful. Their bodies never aged or contracted diseases, and healed injuries in mere moments.
But they could still die.
Even the gods couldn't survive decapitation or withstand a nuclear blast. For which, unfortunately, they had the means.
They were few.
The limited gene pool combined with an extremely low conception rate prompted the gods to seek compatible mates among the mortals. Those unions proved to be more fruitful, and many near-immortal children were born. But when those children took human mates, their progeny turned out to be mortal.
Upon closer examination, their scientists found a simple way to activate the dormant, godly genes. All that was needed was for the Dormant to be bitten by a male immortal and injected with his venom, which was produced during sex or when aggressing on other immortal males. But it worked only for the children of the female immortals. The children of the males were sadly doomed to mortality.
Annani, one of the few pureblood children born to the gods, and the daughter of the leading couple, became the most coveted young goddess.
The one fortunate to mate her would become their next ruler.
The chain of events following her coming-of-age wasn't surprising. A fierce competition ensued between two suitors. Mortdh, the son of her father's brother and, therefore, the first in line for her hand, was her intended. And Khiann, the son of a less prominent though wealthy family, who on the face of things didn't stand a chance.
But Annani was very young and impetuous, and she chose the one she loved and who loved her back. Not the one she was promised to, who never really cared for her and had already numerous concubines and children of his own.
Mortdh was infuriated and demanded she mate him, as was his right. But his right was superseded by her choice. The gods' code of conduct clearly stated that any mating, even one with a lowly mortal, had to be consensual.
Madly in love, Khiann and Annani were joined in a grand ceremony.
Both gods and mortals were so infatuated with the great love story that they wrote hymns and created myths to commemorate it.
Khiann and Annani's love was the story everyone loved to tell.
The tale of love's triumph.
It drove Mortdh insane. In his mind, he lost not only his one chance for sovereignty, but also the respect of all.
And it was All. Her. Fault.
His hatred of Annani, and by extension of all women, burned with rabid intensity. He detested the females' right to choose a mate, he abhorred the matrilineal tradition of the gods. He vowed to seize power and change all of that. Under his rule, women would have no rights. They would become property, to be purchased and sold like cattle. Heredity would cease to be matrilineal. The chains of power would become patriarchal.
In his hatred and madness, Mortdh did the unthinkable; an atrocity so great that it shook the ancient world.
He murdered Khiann.
He murdered a god.
Savagely took the life of Annani's one great love.
Annani's father called for the big assembly to decide Mortdh’s fate. His crime was the gravest of all. To kill a god was so unthinkable—their law did not even contain a punishment severe enough for what he had done. As executing a god was not allowed, the most terrible sentencing in their code was entombment. And the full assembly of all gods was needed to sentence one of their own to that horrific fate.
A god would not perish in the tomb, slowly, his body would cease to function, going into a kind of suspended state. But it took a long time, a very long time, until consciousness faded.
A decision of that severity required a unanimous vote.
Mortdh fled to his stronghold in the north. Together with his near-immortal son Navuh, he assembled an army of mortal soldiers and his other near-immortal progeny. In his deranged mind, he concluded that if he was not to rule the gods, he would eliminate them.
Lording supreme over mortals and near-immortals would suffice.
The assembly of gods listened to all the undisputed evidence and voted unanimously to pass the sentence of entombment. Mortdh’s parents planned to
plead for their son. However, upon hearing the damning testimony, the cold cruelty of the premeditated murder, they realized they had no choice but to vote with the rest. Their son had become insanely dangerous and had to be stopped.
Annani sat on the council's deliberations, frozen in her grief. The only thing keeping her from collapsing into a despondent stupor was her need for vengeance. She had to hold on until the voting was done. She listened to the proceedings with her tears flowing down her cheeks and onto her lap, wetting her dress. But when at last the voting was done and the sentence was passed, she felt no satisfaction.
She felt nothing but pain.
Annani wished she could die. Without her love, she had no reason to go on. There was nothing that could have filled the horrific void in her heart, and the agony of grief was more than she could endure.
Death would have been a mercy.
But as snippets of the debate pierced through the haze of her desperation, she forced herself to focus on what was being discussed, and was alarmed by what she heard. Apparently, the council had no clue how to detain Mortdh in order to execute the verdict.
Rumors of forces gathering under his banner suggested a war was brewing, and there was talk of assembling a force of their own. They were deliberating whether to go on the offensive and try to capture Mortdh, or remain in their stronghold and defend it against his attack.
From experience, Annani knew that the talk would go on endlessly, producing no definite action. What was the point of the sentencing if it could not be executed? How would her justice be served? Who would capture Mortdh? What if he attacked first and won?
If he ever captured her, her fate would be worse than death. Of that, she had no doubt.
True to her nature, Annani did not hesitate long before deciding on a course of action.
She was going to run away.
She would take her flying machine and her love's precious gift of seven wonderful servants, the marvelous Odus, and fly to a distant land the gods had never graced.
Mortdh would never find her.
Untouched by the gods, it would most likely be a primitive place, one without culture or an established society.
Not to worry. She would start a new civilization.
Though, to be able to do that, she would need a set of instructions and a trove of knowledge. But then again, Annani knew exactly where to get it. She would steal her uncle's library, which contained much of her people's science and culture and was stored on a tablet she had seen him read often. He had even let her borrow it on occasion.
That decision and its prompt execution saved her life and the future fate of humanity.
That same night, while the gods still deliberated, Mortdh flew his aircraft over the council's fortress and dropped a nuclear bomb.
The only weapon guaranteed to kill the gods.
The devastation was so widespread that over half of the region's population died along with their gods. The nuclear wind carried the fingers of death far and wide, decimating everything alive on its way.
Including Mortdh.
Out of the ashes and ruins, humans and near-immortals rose and tried to survive on what was left. Nothing grew, and those the nuclear wind spared, hunger took.
The human population kept dying.
The near-immortals, as children of the gods, had bodies that could survive longer and heal faster and should have fared better. Some of them must have made it to distant lands and built new lives.
Annani sincerely hoped that indeed this was the case. Though over the next five millennia, she encountered none.
The only part of the region unaffected by the nuclear devastation was its northern tip, Mortdh’s stronghold. With Mortdh's death, his eldest son Navuh took over leadership of his people—several hundred mortal and near-immortal warriors, and their female broodmares.
Most of the unfortunate women were mortal, but a few must have been Dormant or near-immortal, because Navuh's immortal army kept growing, and with it, his power and his sphere of influence.
Navuh swore to uphold his father's vision of the new world order. And with his tight grip on the region's leaders, succeeded in plunging that part of the world into darkness and oppression the likes of which had never been known before.
It was worse for the women.
They became cattle: to be owned and sold by their fathers or brothers, to be bought by their husbands and discarded at their whim. They were stripped of all personal rights. For all intents and purposes, women ceased to be considered people. They became things. Patriarchy was born and was there to stay.
Annani fled to the far, desolate and frozen north. She never stayed in one place long, always fearing she would be found. Slowly, though, rumors of the disaster that befell Mesopotamia found their way up to her icy hideout, and she learned she was the last of her kind.
The only remaining goddess alive.
By now, all traces of the carefree, young woman she used to be were gone. With her heart frozen just like her new home, she was numb and emotionless and lacked the motivation to do aught but get by.
And yet, she had to survive, for she was the custodian of a treasure: the knowledge, culture, and ideology of her kin.
The future of humanity was in her hands.
Without her, Navuh's darkness would spread until it consumed everything decent in the world.
She could not, would not, allow that to happen.
For five years, Annani ran and hid and survived with the help of her servants who made sure she at least had food and shelter.
Eventually, though, her grief and pain subsided sufficiently to allow her to move on. Not to forget, and not to stop hurting—that was never going to happen—but to start on her monumental task.
During her self-imposed stasis, she had spent a lot of time thinking and realized she couldn't do it alone. She needed to create more of herself.
Annani knew of only one way to achieve that.
She had to procreate.
Except, she vowed never to love again. Her heart would forever belong to her one true love. Her soul would remain faithful to Khiann's memory.
In order to produce offspring, she would share her body with her mortal lovers, but nothing more.
She took many, using them and discarding them in short order. After the deed, she would fuddle her partners' minds, leaving behind a dream-like memory of a heavenly encounter.
For the males it was no hardship to be used like that; after all, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. And to her surprise, Annani discovered it was not a great hardship for her either.
Her heart might have been frozen, but her body roared to life with insatiable heat.
Over the next five millennia, Annani was blessed with five children. Her first child was born after three thousand years, during which she almost despaired of ever conceiving.
Alena, her eldest, proved to be a blessing beyond measure. For an immortal she was a miracle of fertility, delivering thirteen wonderful children in the span of five hundred years.
Kian was next, born only a few decades after Alena. Annani named her firstborn son in memory of her lost love. Except, she changed it a little as to not bait the fates. As he reached maturity, Kian became instrumental in her quest to enlighten humanity.
A millennium later, sweet Lilen arrived. He grew to become a kind and brave man, well liked by everyone. His tragic loss in battle plunged his mother back into the depths of despair, where she lingered till the birth of her daughter Sari pulled her out of that dark vortex.
With the human population growing and spreading to new and distant lands, Annani's clan needed two geographically strategic centers of operation. Kian moved with some of the clan from Scotland to America, and Sari took over the European center, becoming his counterpart in the old country.
Last but not least of the children was Amanda. The very young, and until recently, wild party-girl. The princess, as everyone called her.
Annani's influence in the Western He
misphere grew. The gods' knowledge and wisdom were slowly trickled to the mortals, helping them to evolve into the advanced society they would one day become. But the progress was slow, thwarted time and again by Navuh's destructive power.
The "Devout Order Of Mortdh", as Navuh called his army of ruthless killers, was a formidable foe.
Lacking Annani's stolen intellectual resources must have chafed terribly, as the Doomers made a religion out of destroying and halting any progress she helped mortal society achieve, scientific or social, their dark sphere of influence encompassing at times the majority of the civilized world. And each time, it took Annani and her clan centuries to recoup and push back the evils of ignorance and hate.
Annani's clan was small, numbering in the low hundreds; its slow growth limited by its single matrilineal line.
The Doomers, on the other hand, were legion. With Navuh inheriting a number of near-immortal or Dormant females from his father, they had an advantage from the start.
They must've guarded these females fiercely, as none ever made it out of the Doomers' clutches. Annani's people had searched near and far for centuries, following rumors and fantastic tales of witches, nymphs, succubus, and other mythical creatures in the hopes of finding an immortal female at the source of the stories. But with the clues leading time and again to nothing, they eventually stopped looking—reluctantly accepting their fate.
Outnumbered and outmuscled, the clan's best strategy was to hide.
They lived quietly and unassumingly, avoiding any undue attention. Of course, the ability to create illusions and erase memories was instrumental to that effect.
Taking advantage of their sophisticated knowledge base, slowly but surely, they developed a shrouded economic empire.
Owned and operated under myriad identities and fake entities, the clan's holdings included land, coal and ore mines, banks, manufacturing facilities, adding in modern times a trove of patents and technology-based enterprises.
Annani adopted Alaska as her new home, living in a shrouded fortress that was extremely well hidden under a manufactured dome of ice—undetectable even with the help of satellites. The only way in and out was on a specially designed aircraft, piloted by one of her trusted Odu servants. Even her beloved children couldn't find the place on their own.