Darque Wants

by Diana Steele

  She had come so far.

  She was almost there.

  Almost. There.

  As if shocked by a million bolts, the king rose. He shot up from the tomb, ripping away from her grip. It was as if have him there, kept her alert, but as soon as she wasn’t touching him anymore, as soon as she couldn’t feel Samson anymore. Her legs gave and she collapsed onto the stone ground….

  Chapter Six.

  “Oh. Look at this.”

  Adelaide forced her eyes to open, but even that was too much for her to manage. She felt drained just from holding her eyes open. The king had climbed out of his tomb and was staring down at her. She could feel Samson’s hands on her torso. His eyes were bloodshot and his face wet, as if he had been crying. She cocked her head, ever so slightly, to the side. “What happened to you?”

  Samson’s eyes flashed wide. “Are you kidding me? I thought you were dead.” He cried.

  Adelaide’s heart soften at the sound of his worry. She reached up to hold his face in her hands. She had never been with a creature who could cry, let alone cry for her. The king was in their presence; the fabled king, and he had his back to him. He was facing her. He cared about her. “I’m right here.” She breathed. “You were crying.”

  Samson took her hand in his, lifting it to his lips. He planted a kiss on the back of it.

  It gave her tired body instant goosebumps.

  “I thought you were gone.”

  “You.”

  They both looked up to see the king staring down at them. Adelaide’s heart fluttered in her chest. She couldn’t believe that she was actually looking at his magnificent body. He gazed down at her with his pink lips folded into a scowl. His long hair tumbled down his neck and back, his curls even more luscious than hers.

  Samson stood up to face him. “Constantine is here. Alone.”

  Adelaide gasped. “I thought we’d have more time.” she whispered as she tried her best to get on her feet.

  “How is he alone? How do you know?” Samson asked.

  “He came from the south. I can feel his intentions.”

  “But he’s dead.” Adelaide pressed. “How do you even know?”

  “Not entirely.”

  “He fed.” Adelaide breathed as she turned to face the long corridor that led to the opening of the cave.

  It was only a matter of time before….

  “There.” The king pointed to a spot right in front of the tomb.

  Before Adelaide could even register what he was saying, a blur of light, a tall body clad in dark clothing, zoomed through the corridor, coming to an abrupt stop exactly where the king had predicted. His dark red eyes went first for Adelaide, then Samson, then they widened in awe and terror at the sight of the King. “What have you done?” he demanded of Adelaide.

  Samson stretched his arm across her torso, a protective gesture. She looked up at him, completely unfamiliar with being taken care of in situations such as these.

  Constantine’s eyes shifted from Adelaide, to Samson and back again before a deep hiss slithered out of your mouth. “I will make you pay.”

  Both and Adelaide and Samson braced for impact, lowering themselves into a defensive stance, but before Constantine could even take his first high-speed step, the king picked him up, holding him in a chokehold.

  “You were foolish to have thought that you won.” He sneered as he squeezed Constantine’s neck.

  The force of it gave Adelaide chills. She watched as Constantine, realizing that death was upon him, shifted his gaze from the king to her. “It’s a shame….” He croaked right before his skin began to disintegrate and he was reduced to a pile of ash and other dead matter.

  Samson was the first to speak, stepping around the tomb and staring with wonder at what used to be the most powerful creature on the planet. “Incredible.”

  The king simply stepped over the pile of ash, turning to summon the both of them. “Come, we have much work to do.” With that, he turned back around and made his way back through the corridor.

  Adelaide made as if to follow him, but Samson grabbed her wrist, dragging her back towards him. Before she could say anything in protest, her took her in his arms and kissed her. It was the most real thing she had ever felt.

  Without even turning around, the king roared, “Now is not the time.”

  Adelaide and Samson were frightened into action. They scurried behind him. When they reach the mouth of the cave, the king sucked in a deep breath, stretching his arms on either side of him. His wings swung out to full span. Adelaide gasped at the pattern of gold and white feathers that had completely covered the mouth of the cave. Ahead of them, the Shadow quickly approached, but, for once, she felt safe.

  Samson took her hand, and the three of them stood there, side by side, awaiting the future.

  Epilogue

  Adelaide took a good look around her, taking in the garden the King’s men had built around her family’s old grave. It had taken months of relentless effort to track it down until, one day, Samson and Adelaide had discovered it, in the middle of a human burial ground in what the humans would have called the southern United States. They had massive tomb stones, three on total: one for each of her parents and for her sister. The lush greenery that grew on top of where they lay was evidence enough that she had found them. Grass reaching half way up her shins formed a natural bedding, punctuated by wild flowers like honey suckles and sunflowers. There was even the odd blue bonnet.

  She sat down in the grass, its soft surface seeming to embrace her, molding around her skin. “Samson, I never thought I would see this day.” She whispered.

  Samson, who had been silently watching her, determined to give her the space she needed, sat down next to her, holding her hand. “I told you we would find your family, and we did.”

  Adelaide could feel her eyes stinging with the promise of tears. That morning, she had woken up, the sky above her lacking the Shadow, thinking she had done all the crying she would ever do for a lifetime.

  But life is long and she nearly wasted hers fighting.

  She nodded. “I just didn’t realize it would be this painful.” She muttered.

  “Your family is gone.” Samson replied, putting an arm around her. “How easy were you expecting this to be?”

  Adelaide tried to swallow the lump in her throat. “I should have never left home. I should have stayed with them.” She replied, wondering what was so bad about being overprotected in the first place.

  “You can’t tell yourself that anymore. You can’t keep beating yourself up about this.” Samson argued.

  Adelaide shook her head. “Well, what the hell am I supposed to do?” she demanded. “Here they are, dead. And here I am, a war later, two lovers later, a million fights later…. Feeling just as empty as I did when I was alive.” Her voice broke in the end as she broke down into tears.

  Samson rubbed his hand along her back, and rested his head on her shoulder. He was trying everything possible to calm her down. “You can’t think like that now. You were instrumental in the end of the war. Cut it however you like, but if you had never left, you wouldn’t have met Daman, or Constantine and there wouldn’t have been a truce… which means you never would have been driven to find the King.”

  Adelaide’s tears poured much harder now as she was seriously reconsidering whether any of this really mattered. “But couldn’t we have won this some other way? Couldn’t we have just figured it out?” she demanded.

  “Angels are pacifists. You know this better than any of them. They wouldn’t have fought without the king.”

  Adelaide gritted her teeth. The whole thing was just so frustrating. “I just wish there was a way that I could just have one more day with them you know? One more real day, without all of those frustrations and all of that anger….” Adelaide was drowning in her own regret. “I was just so angry!” she cried. “And it wasn’t even that important, you know? It didn’t even matter.”

  Samson wrapped his hands around her
, planting a kiss on her temple. As they sat there in front of her parent’s grave, Adelaide breaking down like she hadn’t in years and Samson simply being there for her, the morning turned into afternoon. Mosquitos and bees began to swarm around their heads, drinking the nectar of the flowers. A blue Jay perched on the grave stone, almost as if it were watching them. Samson’s wings extended, then lay softly on Adelaide, wrapping her in their soft warmth.

  “It was life or death.” Samson murmured. “Adelaide, you saved the world. Now, for the first time in centuries this is a safe place for angels… and for humans. There is no Shadow, no Hell fire. You couldn’t have achieved this without a sacrifice. That is just how things work.”

  Somewhere, far in the back of her head, Adelaide knew that he was right. She knew she could not deny this truth. She knew she truly had to let go of her past. So, she looked up to Samson and said, “You’re right.”

  Samson nodded, drawing his wings back and standing up. “Now, I hate to rush this, but the Execution is in less than an hour. The king will be waiting.”

  Adelaide nodded. “You’re right,” she replied, “let’s go watch the last of them burn.”

  With that the two of them left the graveyard, and their past, behind.

  Relic of the Pharaoh

  Book 1

  Sight at the Museum

  Copyright © 2016

  All Rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this book. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known, hereinafter invented, without express written permission of Billionaire Romance Books. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  DISCLAIMER

  Please don’t be stupid and kill yourself. This book is a work of FICTION. Do not try any new sexual practice that you find in this book. It is fiction and not to be confused with reality. Neither the author nor the publisher or its associates assume any responsibility for any loss, injury, death or legal consequences resulting from acting on the contents in this book. Every character in this book is over 18 years of age. The author’s opinions are not to be construed as the opinions of the publisher. The material in this book is for entertainment purposes ONLY. Enjoy.

  *****

  The tap tapping of her computer keys seemed to keep time with the humdrum click of the clock on the museum wall behind her as Athene Keene put the finishing touches to e-mail she intended to dispatch that afternoon. It wasn’t that she was unhappy with her position at the Dorchester Museum. She just couldn’t imagine spending the rest of her life there. She had ambition, high hopes. She wanted to move on and up in the world, not get stuck doing the same old thing forever.

  “That doesn’t look like work…” came a disapproving voice from just behind her left shoulder.

  She froze for a moment, then hurriedly clicked off the screen and brought up the museum homepage in another tab, spinning her chair round with an innocent smile on her face ready to give an explanation to her boss.

  “John!” The smile instantly dropped. She raised her arm and gave her now giggling co-worker a playful slap across the forearm. “That wasn’t funny!”

  “It was a pretty good impression though, right?” He grinned. “Right? You have to admit it. It was pretty good.”

  “It was alright,” she conceded, still pouting as she looked up at John’s fluffy blonde hair that always flopped down over his eyes.

  “Mmm, give us a kiss,” he chuckled, leaning down to smooch against her lips, wrapping his arms around her waist and practically sitting down on top of her.

  “John!” She chastised him again, pushing him off gently. “We’re at work, for goodness sake. Can’t you at least wait till our date?”

  “Oh, but you always make me wait,” he sulked, folding his arms across his chest moodily. “You’re such a tease.”

  “I’m trying to work,” she sighed, spinning her chair back round to face her computer again.

  He slid his arms over the top of her shoulders and hugged her from behind. It was pretty annoying, and very difficult to continue typing. “John…” she mumbled.

  “Alright,” he tutted, getting the picture. He let go and stood up properly, shoving his hands into his pockets as if he didn’t know what to do with them. “Except you’re not even doing work, you’re sending off those stupid e-mails.”

  “They’re not stupid. And don’t you have work to be getting on with too? Actual work?”

  “I’m just taking a break. Thought I’d come see you. Anything wrong in that?”

  She hit send on the e-mail then clicked off the screen, turning instead to some cataloguing she’d been working on beforehand, and not particularly answering John’s question. It wasn’t that she was ignoring him on purpose; she simply hadn’t heard him.

  “You did remember our date then, Thena?” He perched on the edge of her desk, looking sideways across at her and trying to get her attention away from the massive catalogue she was now poring over, pen poised in hand.

  “Mmhmm…”

  “I should give you a medal or something,” he muttered sarcastically. “I remember last time we organised an actual date, you completely forgot.”

  Thena was vaguely aware that he was saying words and that they were incredibly annoying and distracting, but she wasn’t actually processing what they meant into any logical sense in her brain. She also knew from experience that the only way to actually get rid of John would be to appease him, to satisfy him, so for a moment or two, she stopped what she was doing and turned her attention entirely to him, a forced smile on her lips. He couldn’t tell the difference anyway.

  “I’m quite looking forward to it,” she said, of their date.

  “Yeah, so am I,” he smiled, softening. “Be nice to catch up properly. Feel like we’ve both been working non stop this past week.”

  It was true. They had. The museum had just accepted a brand new Tutankhamen Exhibition and it was all hands on deck to assist with the set up and admin. They’d hardly had time to talk, let alone go on a date. It was a couple of weeks since they’d last been for dinner together, and if Thena was being honest, she hadn’t particularly missed it. It wasn’t that she didn’t see herself as the romantic type, rather that she didn’t see herself as the romantic type with John. Sometimes she wondered how she’d ever ended up in a relationship with him at all. It had just sort of happened. He’d asked her out and she hadn’t said no, and it had pretty much been that way ever since.

  “We’ll go somewhere nice,” she promised, taking hold of his hand and giving it an encouraging squeeze. He was a decent enough guy. She felt bad sometimes.

  He smiled broadly, her romantic gesture seemed to have done the trick. He relaxed after that, wittering on to himself about the date and the type of food he was going to choose. Boring things that were uninteresting and unimportant to Thena. She went back to her work, once again not really listening.

  “Mmhmm…” She responded once or twice. “Yes….oh really…yes, I agree….”

  That was when he lost his patience.

  “You don’t agree at all!” He snapped.

  She stopped what she was doing and looked up, putting her pen down. “I…I don’t?”

 
“What did I just say to you?”

  Thena bit her lip guiltily, admitting through her silence that she hadn’t the foggiest.

  “Exactly!” he huffed, throwing his arms up into the air dramatically. “You know what, Thena, you don’t take our relationship seriously enough.”

  Here we go again, she thought to herself. It certainly wasn’t the first time he’d said that. Her eyes inadvertently gave a roll. She could barely control them, even though she knew it wasn’t exactly going to help matters.

  “Do you even know when our anniversary is?”

  She hesitated, her lips parted as if ready to speak, but no words came. Again, the silence said it all.

  He jumped up from his perch on the edge of the desk and began to stalk off, obviously in a bad mood.

  Thena quickly spun round and grabbed his arm, tugging him back. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, standing up. And she was. “You deserve much better than me.”

  “Don’t be daft.”

  “I know it’s coming up soon.”

  “Three weeks.”

  “Great. We should do something special. I’ll take you out. My treat.”

  He smiled. “You sure?”

  “I’m positive. I want to be a better girlfriend.”

  “You’re a great girlfriend anyway. Well….most of the time.” He poked her playfully in the stomach.

  She laughed and gave him a little kiss on the cheek. “Now, I really have to get back to work. And you should too. Off you go…” She placed her hands on his shoulders, slowly turned him round, and gently pushed him away.

  “Alright, alright,” he grumbled, disappearing off back to his section of the museum.

  Athene sighed and sat back down in her swivel chair. John was satisfied, for now, but she knew she couldn’t keep playing this game for long. Sooner or later, something was going to have to give.