Soul Awakened

by Jean Murray

  “How did you know?”

  He pressed her palm over his heart. The prickle of energy ignited again now that they were close. He had never in all his days as a god felt something so powerful. It alerted him to her presence in the warrior village, her fear, and all the jumble of emotions that fluctuated in those wide brown eyes.

  He lifted the towel and assessed the damage his brother had inflicted, acutely aware she had not removed her hand, but traced the scars on his chest. Curse his brother for taking his anger out on Kendra. The fault rested on him alone.

  He resisted the urge to ask what she had been doing there. Her timing could not have been more ill, considering what had happened between him and Bomani moments prior. Regardless, his brother should not have reacted the way he did. Bakari was glad he had interceded before any more harm came to her, but not soon enough.

  To distract himself he asked her the first thing that came to his mind. “Do you like flowers?”

  “Flowers?”

  He did not look at her but replaced the icepack on her skin. “Flowers.”

  “Daisies.”

  “Your favorite colour?” When she did not answer he shifted his gaze to her beautiful face. Although small, she smiled. “Silver.”

  His chest lightened in that instant. He smiled. “I was afraid you might say red.”

  “I hate red.”

  “Me too, except yours.” He twisted one of her long auburn curls around his finger and then let it spring into place.

  Things grew quiet between them. He wanted to stay here and never return. She leaned into him and laid her head on his shoulder. “Say the word and I will take us away from all of this,” he said wishfully.

  “It would be nice, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes.” He knew neither of them would actually do it, but it was nice to think she wanted to run away with him. Holding her tight to his chest, he whispered, “I love you with all my soul, Parvana.”

  She crawled onto his bent knee and wrapped her arms around his neck. The rapid beat of her heart pounded against his chest. The soft caress of her warm breath tickled his neck. “I love you too.”

  Her words hit him deep into his heart and filled that long dark place. The final strangle hold Kepi had on his soul shattered into a million pieces and was replaced by Kendra’s loving embrace. His Parvana had saved him. Tears of relief streaked over his cheeks and into her hair. No one could take this moment away from him.

  Ever.

  The whispers of that musical voice from his confinement sounded in his head once again. Ease your pain young god. She will set you free.

  And she had.

  He pulled back after a long moment and reached into his pocket. “I want to give you something back.” He had tried to give it to her during their previous encounter, but Bomani had interrupted.

  She picked up her badly damaged flashlight. With a twist the light flickered. He did not voice to her what this small symbol had meant to him. “I do not need this anymore.” He did not have to be reminded what he had to live for. He had found it.

  “Neither do I.” The gold flecks in her eyes twinkled with some significance.

  Her beauty drew him in and heated his chest. “Kendra,” he said hoarsely. Her large brown eyes lifted to meet his. “May I kiss you?” Gods, he was actually nervous.

  “Yes.” Her cheeks pinked and her breath quickened.

  With her still in his lap he brushed his lips gently against hers. He inhaled when she released a staggered breath. Sweetness rushed into his chest making his entire body shudder. Closing his eyes, he savored her soft full lips. She parted her mouth welcoming his tongue with her own. Shy at first, exploring.

  He groaned at the total sweetness of her. With his arm wrapped around her waist he pulled her tight against his chest. Their declared love broke the barrier between them and now all that remained were the clothes they wore on their bodies. Her hungry kiss reverberated a mutual sense of need and longing that no words could do justice.

  Her shaking hands caressed his back and traced the long lines of his tattoos. He broke from her lips and followed the line of her jaw and down her neck. Her pulse teased the tip of his tongue and lips.

  He expected pain to clench his stomach, but instead the ache settled lower. A new hunger bred within his body. It was not her blood that called to him now.

  He lifted her up and carried her into the bedroom. Her reddish brown curls spread around her like a halo against the silk sheets. She reached up for him beaconing him forward. He pressed his body between the v-curve of her legs, careful to hold his weight on his arms. Gods, he wanted to become one with her, beyond the blood-bond they shared.

  He slid his hand under her white shirt. Her skin so soft against his palm. Without his prompting she raised her arms over her head and stripped off the thin fabric that separated them. Her warm skin hit his bare chest. “You are so beautiful. I do not deserve you,” he said roughly.

  “Let me be the judge of that.” Her sincere eyes came to rest on his. He kissed her again, feeling the weight of their love fill his empty chest. He cupped her breast and pulled away the damning contraption. Replacing his hand with his lips, he enveloped the small petal of her nipple. She arched under his touch and let out a gasp. The torches on the walls flickered brighter with each loving draw of his mouth.

  He leaned his forehead on her flat abdomen, overwhelmed by the power of her response. Her scent of arousal rocketed a hunger that tore at him. Her innocence lay within his reach. Despite his want of it, he could not take that from her this night. This was not about him. He wanted to give her some of what she had given through her blood gift. His fingertips skimmed the waistline of her shorts. He would go no further without her permission.

  She snared his hands with her small delicate one and guided his fingertips over the button. He unlaced the copper from its loop and retracted the zipper. Delicate white lace peeked out behind the denim. With gentle care he pulled the shorts off her slender frame. He stalled a moment to appreciate her completely.

  Perfection.

  Her eyes scanned his body and came to rest on his erection that bulged in the confines of his pants. She hesitated, but grazed the length of his arousal with her palm through the thick animal hide. His whole body jerked. In all his days, he never knew this level of pleasure from the lightest of touches. Kendra owned him.

  His arousal ached to be out of its confines, but he retracted from her reach and focused on the white lace that held paradise. He watched her face as he traced the edging of the lace between her legs. Her hands fisted the loose sheets and her eyes locked on him. Through the material he brushed the back of his finger against her cleft.

  She sucked in a sharp breath. Her legs opened a little more, like a flower opening itself to the morning sun. With each caress, she opened herself to him. The room illuminated with bright sparkles of lights that swirled around them. He would have given it more mind, if he was not so entranced in the moment.

  He brushed his lips against the white lace and inhaled her scent as he went. Heat and wetness awaited him behind the thin slip of cotton. His balls tightened to the point his semen breached the tip of his cock.

  Her small fingers pressed into his shoulder. “Please, Bakari.” She wiggled under him. Her pleading broke his own patience. He snapped at the fabric and discarded her panties among the sheets.

  Like the feverish frenzy of blood lust, he sealed his lips over her core. Greedily, he licked and sucked her soft lips and clitoris. Her sweetness penetrated his tongue and throat, feeding another dark part of him. He groaned and pulled her tighter against his mouth.

  Her lithe body arched and contracted against him. He pulled her to the brink but restrained her pleasure from bursting completely open. He lifted his mouth away and traced his fingertip down between her folds. Her wet arousal greeted him. He caressed outside of her entrance, but dared not penetrate her further.

  She looked down at him with half hooded eyes. Soft whimpers escaped h
er. The scent of honeysuckle bloomed around them. The blood pounded through his veins in pleasurable waves to his groin. No, a virgin she would remain. It was what she was meant to be.

  He replaced his fingers with his tongue and greedily drew her essence into his mouth. His own body shook with the feedback of ecstasy through their blood-bond. She moaned louder. Unable to deny her any longer, he sealed his lips and circled his tongue.

  She laced her slender fingers through his hair. “Bakari!”

  Pleasure exploded through her body and hit him with such force he had not the strength to fight it. His entire body shook with the wave of her orgasm. A blinding flash burst out from their bodies and illuminated the room. The energy retracted and absorbed into his skin and chest. Life and love filled his soul.

  He kissed the soft skin of her quivering inner thigh. This moment would be forever emblazoned in his mind, replacing others he would prefer to forget. He heaved his heavy body beside her and pulled up the silk sheet to cover her bare skin. Kendra’s panted breaths and light kisses fell across his chest. She snuggled deeper into his hold.

  His dream had come true.

  “Thank you, Parvana.”

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Bakari stared out at the horizon while Kendra lay sleeping next to him. They could not stay away for long without causing significant concern. He was surprised no one had arrived at the guest house looking for them. Her sisters would worry about her disappearance and rightly so, she had left with him. Enough said.

  After the confrontation with his brother, Kendra had run. He left Bomani on his back and tore after her. Knowing his brother, Bomani would regret his actions, but the damage had been done. He tracked the dark purple marks on her shoulder, the perfect outline of a hand. The closer Bakari got to his honor, the farther his brother seemed to step away from his. Bomani had always been the gleaming example of an honorable warrior. Him— the other side of the spectrum.

  He had to admit that he had always been jealous of Bomani. Strange as it sounded, since he had the easier life in the palace. He had realized at a very young age, he could never compete with Asar’s admiration of his other son. Introspective now, he wondered if all he did was to get his father’s attention in whatever form he could, regardless of how wrong it was.

  Irony struck him, as he caressed the soft curve of Kendra’s waist. The lush palace with all its riches and pleasures could never measure up to the sense of brotherhood and belonging the warriors provided him. It is where he belonged now for as long as his father and Bomani would allow him. He rubbed his head in disbelief that it took years of torture for him to appreciate his brother and his life.

  The linens that draped off the ceiling shifted with the currents of air coming off the river. He slipped his arm out from under Kendra and walked to the balcony. The serpentine river flowed from the gate he had guarded. Remembering a different time he reached to his chest expecting to find his daggers sheathed in his chest strap. He was greeted only by his bare skin.

  He had lost his identity or possibly never had it. He was the God of Death, commissioned to protect the gates of the Underworld and kill those gods who threatened it. “I am the God of Death,” he corrected himself. “I am the God of Death and warrior of the Underworld,” he said with more conviction.

  “I have a mission,” he told himself. He turned to look at Kendra, lying in the soft sheets. “I must protect her, protect the world.” Bakari realized he was not just speaking the words, but actually proclaiming it with every cell of his being.

  Before that could happen, he had to confront his fears. Confront and kill the goddess who had destroyed him. Kendra’s question haunted him. What did happen on the day of his kidnapping? He closed his eyes and searched his mind for those illusive memories that taunted him. The razors of pain struck again, but he dared push through them. Similar to walking in dreamscape, he navigated through old suppressed memories until the tethers of pain snapped and the black curtain that obscured the view fell.

  Bakari opened his eyes and blinked back the fog. Kendra’s body faded from the sheets. Fear clenched his heart, but he recognized the change belonging to a time long ago. The guest room was set up differently then. Bright flowers had adorned the walls and tables. Who was he meeting?

  A dark shape shifted among the curtains. He stalked forward trying to capture the allusive vision, but the god remained out of his reach and disappeared. He felt warmth to his back and whipped around.

  “Nebt,” he said startled. She smiled, as she always did when she saw him.

  “How are you?” She walked around him with her arms tucked in the sleeves of her robe. A robe she wore when Asar left her in charge of the Underworld in his absence.

  “I am well,” he answered. He grasped onto the feelings of nervousness and trepidation. He did not want her there, he was expecting a guest. Guests. Females. Wine and fragrant leaves sat on the tray next to the bed.

  “Are you not supposed to be guarding the gate?” Her dark brown eyes flicked to his chest. He looked down and was surprised to find his daggers sheathed in their holsters.

  He swallowed against the constriction in his throat, knowing he had been caught in his dereliction of duty.

  “I have watched you.” An unsettling glint of pleasure flickered through her eyes. “Pleasuring yourself and others.” Her face suddenly morphed into one of the girls he had bedded.

  Sickened, he staggered. This could not be the memory. No. He could never believe it as such. Nebt was never inappropriate with him. She loved Inpu.

  Nebt smiled, “I understand you, Bakari. More than you know. We have shared much you and I.”

  Another figure shimmered behind the curtain. Nebt stepped behind and dropped her robe. Her full body came into view along with another naked female, shadowed only by the curtain. The women’s hands clasped each other in a sexual embrace. The soft moans drew him forward with a mix of disgust, dark lust, and the drug he had been smoking.

  The women moved over to the bed. The red headed female pushed Nebt onto the mattress, clearly establishing dominance over her. He joined the sexual display without hesitation, entering the unknown woman from behind. Nebt reached up and removed his daggers from his chest and discarded them on the other side of the bed. The metal clattered to the floor. With the twisting of bodies, the women coaxed him onto his back. He cared not that he never saw the redhead’s face. He was getting what he wanted from her.

  Bakari froze the memory. The answer lay seconds away, but he already knew. Kepi. He remembered the shock and surprise when Kepi revealed herself to him five years ago. The goddess was supposed to be confined to her tomb. She was the last person he had expected to see.

  His memories filled up the missing answers on Kendra’s profile board. No one in the Underworld knew the eldest Carrigan sister had released Kepi at this time. Nebt, how unbelievable it seemed, was the mole in the Underworld that Menthu alluded to. It was staggering to believe that Kepi’s darkness had corrupted the goodness of Nebt’s heart. But what he knew of souls, maybe a small part of her allowed it to happen. They all carried the same ancestral curse, even the females of their kind.

  The Mother Goddess had sent her daughters, although unknowingly at the time, to release Kepi early before Menthu amassed an army large enough to overthrow the Pantheons. His memories lacked one final detail—the ring leader of it all.

  Pained, he clasped his head. The memory shot forward.

  “Join us and live like this every day. A king among mortals,” Nebt whispered words of grandeur in his mind.

  He refused. A part of him realized he could not sell his soul to Kepi. Nebt turned his death blade on him and immobilized him. Nebt and Kepi argued. A black book with gold letters came into his view and then darkness.

  “Bakari!” Kendra’s urgent pleas pulled him back to the present. He awoke on the floor, his body trembling and dampened with sweat.

  She knelt next to him with his face clasped in her palms. “It’s okay. Everything
is going to be okay.”

  A sense of dread descended down around him. Even being confined to his sarcophagus could not manifest this level of terror.

  “No, Parvana. It is not okay.”

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Kendra stumbled into her clothes. Bakari recited his memories in vivid detail. She knew he was leaving a huge chunk out and she was grateful. She didn’t want to know. “Nebt?” she asked, stunned. Granted, the Underworld goddess had brown hair of the weight and texture to match the one she found on the sarcophagus, but she and Inpu had welcomed her and her sisters with open arms. She had been so focused on proving Bakari’s innocence, maybe she missed some glaring fact. “Why would she do this?”

  Bakari paced the small space at the foot of the bed. “I do not know. I need to inform my father. Isis, it will kill him to know. He trusts her unconditionally. How am I ever going to convince him otherwise?”

  She agreed with him. Asar had no reason to believe Bakari, not over his trusted advisor of five thousand years. Lilly would stand by Asar. The same as she would for Bakari. “We need to find Kit and Kamen,” she conceded.

  Bakari raised his hand to his bare chest and patted it. He needed his daggers she realized. “Asar has them.”

  He jerked his gaze up to meet hers. She shrugged and smiled. The blood-bond was a convenient source of information. He walked over and wrapped his arms around her. The same warm richness bloomed through her body. He must have sensed it, as he let out a low appreciative growl. Her whole body had been pulsing since their moments together, strangely different in some way. His strength and power bleeding over the blood-bond, she wondered.

  She clung to him and him to her in that fraction of time. The strong pull on her chest and the wave of dizziness, signaled their departure. They materialized in his room. He let go of her and grabbed one of his chest straps that hung on the wall. He looped his arms through and fastened it in the front. Although he didn’t have his Mevt daggers, he sheathed two replicas.