by Marie Harte
“Never seen you do that before.”
“I’ve been practicing.” Marcus’ eyes narrowed. “You don’t seem surprised.”
“Aerolus told us yesterday.”
Marcus frowned. “Figures. It’s almost impossible to keep anything secret from him. Funny, but before I knew about our relation to Arim, I always thought Aerolus took after the sorcerer.” He took a large swallow of coffee before his eyes widened on something beyond Darius. “And speak of the devil…”
Darius felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. He turned to look behind him and saw a black void gather, drawing energy to it like a magnet. Arim stepped through the inky blackness and in a flash the doorway closed.
Upon seeing Darius and Marcus, Arim frowned. “Where are the other two? I don’t have much time.”
“Nice to see you, too.” Darius stared at Arim hungrily, needing the connection to Tanselm almost more than breath.
Arim looked as he always did, smouldering, arrogant and dangerous, and wearing a blatant mantle of magic. He no longer wore his battledress, however, making Darius think the battle had calmed.
“Not yet.” Arim held up a hand to forestall Darius’ questions. “Gather the others so I only have to explain this once, and do it quickly.”
Darius stared at Marcus until his ’younger‘ brother rolled his eyes and cursed under his breath. Despite the mere seconds between their births, Darius never failed to remind the others who was the oldest, and thus in charge. Once Marcus vaulted over the couch and sprinted up the stairs, Darius turned to his uncle.
“And how is Mother?”
“Fine.” Arim replied in a short voice, his gaze roaming the room. “At least you finally found a proper living space.” His eyes shone, what passed for amusement lighting his face.
Darius shrugged, striving to contain the fiery impatience gathering within him but unable to curtail his hostility. “The luck of magic. Cadmus thinks a lottery will ruin Tanselm. Personally, I don’t care. I just want to return home.”
His harsh tenor had the sorcerer frowning. “I know you have little patience for this world, Darius, and little patience in general.” Arim stared intently into Darius’ eyes. “But you’ll need more than patience if you’re to return home.”
The others joined them, nixing the opportunity to ask Arim exactly what he hadn’t said.
“Good, you’re all here.” Arim stared at all the brothers, seeming content when they made eye contact with him. “I have good news, and bad.” He paused. “You may be coming home sooner than we thought.”
Darius blinked. “What could be bad about that?”
“You had to ask,” Marcus muttered.
“Much as we need you four to strengthen the four corners of Tanselm, we need you alive and well.”
“We’re fine,” Cadmus interjected.
Arim silenced him with a look. “You’re fine for now. One of our most trusted men infiltrated the Djinn stronghold and informed us this world has been compromised.”
Darius stared. “Compromised? By who, and for how long?”
Arim scowled, the anger radiating from him like a heat wave. “The Djinn. Apparently they’ve been aware of your transport since you arrived.”
Darius let out a bellow of anger and disbelief, conscious that his brothers joined his rage. Even Aerolus, the most even-tempered of the bunch, questioned Arim, wondering at the information.
“How do you know this to be true?” he asked. “If the Djinn were here, we’d surely have been attacked by now. Since our arrival we’ve been on our guard but have detected no magic. How then do the Djinn survive? Especially since they cannot live under the light of day?”
“I’m not sure yet.” Arim didn’t look happy at the admission. “But it may be the light from this world isn’t strong enough to combat their darkness, or perhaps they only venture out at night. At any rate, once I learned of this new threat, I discussed it with your mother.”
When he didn’t say more, Darius swore. “And?”
“And she still thinks you’re safer here than at home.”
Unable to stop himself, Darius lashed out in a rage. His anger found the coffeepot, shattering glass over the counter. With a narrowing of his eyes, Marcus cooled the glass with a sudden mist. “But what do you think?” he asked the sorcerer.
“For once I disagree with her. You’re in a greater danger here. Despite the lack of magic on this plane, enough exists to support the Djinn’s presence, thus enough magic exists here to hurt you.”
“But our affai?”
Darius rolled his eyes; Aerolus had to ask.
“They are here. I wanted to give you more time, time to court them properly, to test their mettle before you brought them home. But I fear we no longer have that luxury.” Arim retrieved a necklace bearing a diamond-like crystal from inside his tunic.
Aerolus caught his breath. Marcus stared in amazement. But Darius sneered. How typical of Arim to make things as difficult as possible.
“A Knowing Crystal,” Cadmus murmured.
“A tool that would have helped us when we first landed here a year ago.” Darius glared. “Why the hell would you have kept this from us knowing how much we’re needed at home?”
Arim ignored him and nodded at Cadmus. “Yes, a Knowing Crystal. I’m not sure how well it will work here, but it still contains the energy and memories of all the Storm Lords before you. Simply wear it around your neck and when you have found your affai, you will know.”
“But with only one crystal, three of us will be in the dark concerning potential mates,” Aerolus pointed out.
Darius set nearby curtains on fire, uncaring of Arim’s displeasure. “Why didn’t you give us this before we left, you bastard?”
Arim stilled. Then he frowned—a very bad sign. The temperature around the group grew freezing and the fire immediately faded. “Watch your tone with me, Darius. Kin or not, no one talks to a Valens like that without severe repercussions.”
Beyond care, Darius stepped forward, only to be held back by his brothers.
“This isn’t helping,” Marcus murmured in his ear. “He won’t kill you, but he can make your life miserable.”
“More than it is now?” Darius growled. But he saw the danger in Arim’s stance, understood the need to curb his temper and deal with the situation they now faced. He would brood about Arim’s deception later. Nodding a forced apology to his uncle, he nevertheless felt relief when the room temperature returned to normal.
“Aerolus,” Arim said, “in response to your worry that only one of you may use the crystal at one time, thereby putting the other three of you in jeopardy of bypassing your mates, I have an answer for you. Watch the crystal.” He dangled the crystal and all watched as it began to rotate, spinning faster and faster the longer Arim held it.
Arim began an incantation and his eyes grew impossibly dark. Darius felt the power run from Arim to him, both thrilling and unnerving. He could feel the crystal pulling at him, seeking something within him. But he was helpless to look away from its crystalline beauty. After a timeless pause, his gaze slid to Arim, the sorcerer’s black stare leeching his will until he swayed on his feet. Only when Arim blinked did Darius’ frailty pass.
Uncomfortable with Arim’s power, he turned to see what his brothers thought and saw all eyes on him. “What?” he asked, discomfited to have shown any weakness. In all the myths surrounding the Knowing Crystals, he’d never heard of anyone suffering ill effects from their presence. He turned suspiciously to Arim.
“Darius shall wear it first.” So saying, Arim placed the necklace around Darius’ throat. Before he could protest, Darius watched as the crystal turned a blood red, then burned itself through his shirt and painlessly into his chest in the shape of a red diamond.
“How does it come off?” Darius traced the new tattoo, a strange feeling of urgency filling him as his fingers lingered over the crystal now embedded in his skin.
“It will remove itself after
a true joining has occurred, then pass to the next in need.”
“You mean after Darius bonds with his affai, one of us will be chosen to find our supposed mate,” Marcus said matter-of-factly, staring at his oldest brother. “Hell, we’ll die in this realm.” He groaned.
“Very funny.” Darius looked up to see a flash of satisfaction pass over Arim’s face. Distrust rose swiftly, followed by a certain realisation. “That was more than the Knowing Crystal. What exactly did you do to me?”
“Nothing you haven’t already done to yourself.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Anger festered. But the crystal muddied his mind, turning his anger into a burning need to find…someone. Someone to fill the aching void growing within him.
“It means you’ve already met your mate,” Aerolus answered, worry shadowing his pale grey eyes. “Now you have to find her, join with her, and convince her to give up everything she knows to live with you—in a place she won’t believe exists—forever.”
Silence filled the room and Arim vanished as if he’d never been there. They all stared at one another before Cadmus broke the silence.
“We’re doomed.”
* * * *
Samantha mewed softly, terror shaking her sweating body in the icy hotel room. Turning her head from side to side, she tried to shake free from the nightmare gripping her. Instead, hellish images bombarded her, and with eyes wide open and unseeing, she stared into the maw of an uncertain actuality…
Like a blurred image that has yet to be sharpened into reality, the cloaked figure shimmered as it moved over once blazing fields of tall, white grass. Whatever the figure touched, it destroyed. Grasses withered into decayed mounds of putrid pulp over reddish grey soil—no longer black and rich with nutrients. Now the soil nourished nothing but decay.
Leaving a blatant trail of decomposition in its wake, the hazy figure floated into the flames of a dimensional gateway into a heretofore-unseen realm.
But like an omniscient navigator, Samantha watched everything unfold with burning eyes, unable to look away from the evil abundant in her dream.
The indistinct features of the cloaked creature sharpened into a grotesque mask as it lowered its hood. No longer obscured in a world not its own, the creature thrived in its homeworld, in the dark shadows between the light.
Her eyes followed the sickly yellow claws protruding from frayed sleeves that still clung to its hood. Bony hands made it look like a living skeleton, appropriate for the dark coffin of a room it had entered. She followed the hands, soon unable to look away from the horrible sight of the creature’s face.
A misshapen head devoid of hair sat like a lump of melted wax on a papery thin neck. The creature had two ears, each pointed at the tips and overly long, sitting high on either side of its head. And its head…she shivered. Its head was a mottled accumulation of black and sallow bruises, with two huge, round white eyes sitting over a gaping mouth filled with rows of sharp, black teeth.
It had no nose to smell the lingering stench of death that pervaded the room in which it stood, and Samantha had to wonder if the odour came from the creature or the dark place itself.
The creature finally let go of its hood and shuffled forward, clumsily stepping towards a figure bent over a marble table.
With those blank, white eyes it looked at a man so beautiful he could have been an angel. Shaggy white blond hair caged a perfectly proportioned face, all planes and angles and masculine lines. Full, blood red lips stood out from alabaster skin, skin that appeared silky smooth and fine as a baby’s.
The man glanced up at the creature and sadness lurked in the startlingly indigo-blue depths of his gaze. “Ah, Mirego, you brought a visitor. I had so hoped you would be more careful.” Shaking his head, he stared unblinkingly at Mirego while twin beams of blue fire streaked from his eyes, lighting his minion into flames.
Mirego shrieked, an awful sound that made Samantha’s head feel as if it might split in two. Then the creature burst into ash, its form smouldering near the man’s feet.
The man looked up, it seemed, straight at Samantha. Despite her not really being there, despite the fact that she dreamed, the man saw her, knew her.
“His fire won’t save you, affai,” he whispered, his lips curled in an inviting grin, his eyes flat and cold. “The prince’s affection will only bring you pain the likes of which you’ve never experienced.”
A slashing burn whipped her throat, making it suddenly impossible to speak or swallow. Coldness consumed her, until she thought death preferable to the absence of warmth in her body.
“Join him and you bring death to your entire world,” he warned.
Samantha opened her mouth to scream out for help. But the man moved closer and reached out, his lips gathering for a kiss she knew would be worse than deadly.
“For luck, perhaps?” He smiled, exposing pointed white teeth.
Fighting the urge to draw closer to him for all she was worth, she gradually became aware of a forceful pounding. The noise grew, drowning out the man’s features and the evil place where he dwelled… Then suddenly she was staring at the ceiling in her hotel room while someone banged violently upon her door.
“Dammit, Samantha, open the door.”
Her heart still racing from the worst nightmare she’d ever experienced, Samantha tried to catch her breath as she sat up in bed.
“Hold on,” she said as loudly as she was able, her voice a pained whisper. She clutched her sore neck, slowly putting the frightening dream behind her. Clearing her throat, she said in a louder voice, “I’m coming. Hold on a minute.”
As the fog gradually cleared from her mind, she recognised Darius’ bellow. Clutching her flannel nightshirt at the collar to still her trembling hands, she dragged herself unsteadily to the door. Taking a deep breath, she strove for calm. After last night she’d need all her wits dealing with the king of all temptation.
He yelled her name again and her nervousness vanished under a wave of irritation. At the rate he was going, he’d have her entire floor complaining about her to the management. And it was only, she squinted at the clock, her eyes widening in dismay, eight in the morning. Whipping the door open, she grabbed him by the arm and yanked him inside, then slammed the door behind him.
“Why didn’t you answer me sooner?” he asked impatiently, his eyes travelling over her mussed hair and thin flannel nightshirt with interest.
“It’s eight o’clock in the morning. I was still sleeping.” Her dry tone didn’t have the effect she’d been striving for uttered in a hoarse whisper. “I have a sore throat. I must be coming down with something.” Yeah, a neurotic night terror about an alternate world filled with monsters and evil demons.
He must have heard something in her voice for he frowned, his eyes narrowing in what looked like concern. He closed the distance between them and parted her hair from her neck, stroking her throat softly.
Then his touch froze. “What is this?” He pressed gently against the heart of pain spearing her throat and she gasped. It seemed as if an icicle had rammed into her neck, cold blasting her from the point where his thumb touched her skin deep into her oesophagus.
“Cut it out,” she croaked. “That hurts!”
“By the Light of Tanselm,” he said in a thick voice full of worry and anger. “You’ve been marked.”
Before she could ask what he meant, he grabbed her shoulders hard and yanked her close to him, pulling her almost off her feet so that her face nearly touched his.
His eyes blazed, a strange red burning through the black of his irises. “You’re playing with danger, Samantha. Do you have any idea how lucky you are to be alive?” As if realising the harsh grip he had on her arms, he swore and lightened his hold.
“Back off, He-Man,” she rasped, trying to break free from his grasp. “I’ve had it with being manhandled. As if blondie wasn’t enough,” she grumbled and rubbed her throat, her eyes daring him to get rough with her again.
His gaze grew c
uriously shuttered. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.” His apology sounded strangled. She could tell he didn’t give them often. “How did this happen? This should not have been possible.”
He finally let her go and she made a beeline for the bed and sank down. “I’m really confused.” She wrapped her hand around her throat and felt the spot that had alerted Darius. The size of a quarter, an icy patch of skin throbbed where she touched it. She turned to look in the dresser mirror across from the bed.
Nothing marred her skin, no sign of bruising or scratching. Yet the area was ice-cold to the touch. “This is getting weirder by the second.” She looked back at Darius, noting the stiffness of his posture. “One minute I’m having a nightmare, the next you’re pounding on my door, and suddenly I’ve got an ice block around my vocal cords. And what are you talking about, I’ve been marked?”
He carefully wiped all expression from his face, making her more nervous than if he’d yelled at her again. “Before I explain, describe to me this blond man you mentioned. What exactly did he do to you?”
Tension rose in the room like a blazing bonfire. “It’s a little, ah, complicated.” She hedged, not wanting to delve into her odd penchant for dreaming about the future. Though in this case, the psycho blond had mauled her in the present. So somehow her dreams were now reality?
“You won’t believe me.”
“Try me,” he said in quiet voice.
His dark eyes blazed with truth, and she felt a sudden compulsion to tell him everything.
I’ll believe you.
She blinked. He couldn’t have just said that. His mouth remained closed yet she’d heard his voice. She shook her head, trying to make sense of it all. Glancing up at him, she studied his towering frame. She should have felt apprehensive around the menace he exuded. Instead she felt safe.
Hell. Maybe she was finally going crazy. Normal people didn’t visualise the future, didn’t hear voices, and sure as hell didn’t see demonic figures that marked them in real life. She rubbed at her eyes. Maybe the stress of dealing with last night’s unbelievably spectacular sex had shattered her sanity.