“How ancient is it?” She remembered stories Aureliana had told her of centuries past. How the original Dardanos city had been a wooden town when Auri had first arrived.
“There is plumbing of sorts but not the kind you are probably used to. I had my men set about finding someone with skills enough to fix it. There will be running water, and I have ordered my men to retrieve several heat stones from the heart of Lothicanos. There is a stone box that they can be housed in. It will heat the water for your daily usage. There are bed platforms that have been hewn from rock. I have asked for bedding for you.”
“And you? Where will you be sleeping?”
“Next to my mate.”
Why did she know he was going to say that?
“And what about my thoughts on that?”
“I do not care. I will be at your side until I am assured of your safety.”
“But there are other rooms in this suite.”
“I am the king. My place is beside the queen.”
“Listen, Koios...” Bronwen took her time feeling around the suite, learning where everything was. One thing about it, it felt very open. She felt a slight breeze and turned toward it. “I don’t know what you think is going to happen here, but we’re not going to live happily-ever-after in the castle together.” She found the window and felt along it.
“Careful. There is no glass yet. I do not wish you to fall out.” He wrapped his hands around her waist and pulled her back against his chest. “I am having tapestries brought in from another room. That will give us proper ventilation. And we will live this happily-ever-after you speak of. But now we must focus on this place and on learning what it is about each other that we need to know.”
Why did she feel that to argue with him on anything would be worse than useless? “Why are you so insistent on keeping me when I’ve told you that I don’t want you?”
“Because it is the decision I have made, and once the words of gamata were spoken by me, it was done.”
“Even though I didn’t agree? That’s rather one-sided, isn’t it?” Had he spoken those words fifteen months ago, she wouldn’t have fought him. She’d have been beyond thrilled.
But what a difference those months had made. “Listen...you don’t want me. You don’t love me. I’m not even sure what you think you’re doing. Making restitution for what happened to me?”
His hands tightened on her and then he turned her so quickly she yelped again. Her face was smashed against his chest and the medallion that he always wore. “Ramorakin has been arrested. He will face justice for what he did to you that day. Those weeks. You will never know how remorseful I feel for leaving you with him that day. It was never my intention that he harm you. My last words to him were that you be prized and treated well. Never would I have left you with him had I known he would touch you that way. That he would strike and poison you.”
She shivered. “I did not know that you knew what happened.”
“I did not. Until the day last week when Black retrieved you from my keeping. He sent me to Phaenna and she showed me what it was you suffered.”
He shocked her by going to his knees in front of her. “Bronwen Sebastos Lothicanos, you will always have my debt to you for my failing. And now you shall have my bond of gamata. I know you do not fully understand what that means, but know that you have my caring, my duty, my honor, and my loyalty. You have my soul in your keeping, and my body next to your own. Always.”
Why did she get the odd feeling that what he was saying was a formal ritual? “What are you doing...get up. I don’t want you to do this.”
“This is the way of my people, when they formalize their vow.”
“I’m not saying it back to you.”
“Not yet, you are not. But while we are in this new world, with none of that history we share between or before us, we can build on our gamata bond until you know that for me, this is for always.”
What was she supposed to say now?
Koios knew he was pushing her, but he did not want any illusions between them anymore. He wanted her, he would work toward that goal. She would get accustomed to it.
And the words he spoke were a lifelong vow, and had been uttered by the first gamata pair ever to walk on the demon lands he called home. He had never given much thought to that tradition between a male and his female, but never had words felt more right coming from his lips. “Bronwen, give me—this—a chance. How can you do anything other?”
He wrapped his hands around her waist and stood. He pulled her into his arms and just held her there.
He couldn’t put it into words what he felt in that moment. He was warrior, and he knew so little—even after twelve hundred years of life—about the softer emotions that females felt.
He did not know the female he held, not what guided or drove her. What she liked or didn’t. All he knew was that claiming her as gamata felt right.
And that was what he had to do.
Was this what his brother had felt when he’d tried to claim the Relaklonosian princess? Was this why his brother fought so fervently to bring the princess and their daughter home to Lothicano? Even though it was perfectly normal and customary for demon spawn to be born of non-gamata bonded parents?
Or had Sinrik been just as confused by the princess as Koios now was with this little healer?
“Please, Bronwen, give me the chance to be the mate you need me to be.”
Chapter 26
SHE didn’t know why she did it, but she didn’t pull away.
Maybe she just needed the connection for a little while? She rested her head on his chest and listened to the steady beating of his heart.
He was demon, and there were just small differences between her Kind and his. Location of his heart was one of those differences. Whereas a Dardaptoan’s heart was in the center of their chest, his was on the right. She brushed a finger against it. He felt so warm and strong beneath her hand. “What is going to happen?”
“I do not know. I suppose all we can do is take everything one moment at a time.”
“That’s what everyone keeps saying. Sometimes I’m not sure that’s answer enough.” She felt his lips brush against her hair. Felt his fingers tangle in it. “I cannot be what you want me to be.”
“What exactly is it that you think I want from you?”
She thought for a moment. “You know. Your mate, or gamata. I know you don’t really want me that way. You never have before.”
He let out a choked sound. “Do not want you? How so? I saw you in the High King’s hallway that day when you fell over me and I wanted you then. So I took you.”
“But you didn’t think of me that way. You just took me because I was a healer.”
“No. I took you because I could not leave you behind. My soul would not let me.”
“Yet you left me with him.”
“I left you with someone I thought would care for you appropriately, and then I left to attend to my duty. It was my mistake in trusting Ramorakin. And I will be always grieved that you were the one that suffered for it. And I do ask that you will forgive me someday. When we return to Lothicanos, Ramorakin will stand trial for his sins.”
“I don’t want to ever go near him again.” Panic hit her just thinking about it. She tangled her fingers in his shirt. “Promise me that you will never leave me with him again. I don’t care what I have to do. I’ll even jump out a window if I have to.”
“Do not say that! You will never be unguarded again. You are queen of my people now. Simply because I have stated it so. My men—each and every one of them—would willingly die to protect you. And never shall you doubt that again.”
“But I don’t want to be queen. I don’t want to lead any of the people here. I want to...I want to...I don’t know what I want. I want to be able to see again. I want to be able to trust people again and not feel pitied all the time. I want to heal people again, do what I was called to do. I don’t want to be a Laquazzeana, which I’m not. Could you let me go,
let me do what it is I need to?”
“No. I am afraid I could not. The ties of gamata would prevent it. Once the claims have been made the ropes tying us together would prevent either of us from being separated. What would it be like for a pair of Rajnis from your world to be separated thusly?”
“It would hurt so badly.”
“So you do understand. You are my gamata. My mate, the one I chose for myself. I will never undo that. Nor would I want to. So tell me, is there some poor male out there that will be suffering the loss of you.”
Her answer was a long time in coming. “No. I do not have another Rajni out there waiting for me. This I am certain of.”
“Then there is nothing you can object to in the bound with me. Because I would be as Rajni to you. And not because some goddess I do not believe in decreed it so. But because I chose it so.”
“I cannot be what you want me to be. I’m not sure I can be what anyone wants me to be right now.”
“You are the hope of these people; healers and warriors alike. Do you know of my people’s curse, little one?”
“I don’t think I do. Danae mentioned something about females, but...” But she hadn’t wanted to know anything about Lothicano demons. She had wanted to erase all of it from her mind. But that certainly hadn’t happened.
“Until Zephra was birthed by your hands, no female Lothicano had been birthed in hundreds of years. Some say it was because of a perversion in our genes more than a thousand years ago.”
“So why was she? She’s not a genetic anomaly.”
“No. What she is…is half Relaklonos demon succubus and Lothicanos Beskre warrior. Mating outside our own sub-Kind has been frowned upon in the Beskre culture for centuries. But a month before I found you, took you, a Druid came to us. She asked for shelter and food and we granted it. She left with us a prognostication.”
“And what was that?”
“That we would best be saved by those not of our Kind. But by witches, and Druids, and a little Healer female that I want with every part of my soul.”
Chapter 27
She avoided him for nearly three days, especially in the suite at night.
She had lied to him, and they both knew she had. Bronwen hadn’t missed the hurt when she’d denied him as her mate. Why did that stay with her these three days?
Because though she had changed to Laquazzeana, she was still at heart Dardaptoan. And a Dardaptoan was not made to deny the one their goddess chose for them.
How long could she continue to push him away in this place? When he was right there in the suite with her. When those eager to serve the king and queen of this new city brought them their meal at night, expecting the two of them to share it? When the night breeze blew the scent of him to her no matter where she was?
Bronwen wanted her mate, and her body was telling her so. As she worked by day to build up the Healer’s Hall, she was starting to feel the life returning to her heart.
And that life included a longing for her Rajni.
For him.
Damn him.
Maybe she had been wrong to deny him? Maybe when he returned from wherever he was they would talk. Discuss what should happen between them, with open honesty and vulnerability.
She was certainly used to being vulnerable, why should this be any different?
“Where is Koios this day?” Her brother asked. She and Thadd were in the front office of the Healer’s Hall, the area that was to be hers. His was to be across the entrance. She would run the Hall by day, her brother by night, as her closest representative.
That he was here with her gave her more courage to do what she needed to do. “He is out searching for fields, I think. Something about starting crops as soon as we are able. He is worried this air will not support the vegetables and fruits that we are all used to.”
“It is a possibility. Does the Laqueazzeana Phaenna have any suggestions? It was her idea to come to this world, after all. She should have thought of ways to feed and provide for all who came with us. Or will come to us soon.”
“You believe, then?”
“Yes. War comes. And more with it. I do not have Theo’s gift with sight, little sister. But I see—and feel—enough to know that this war is not a mere nightmare. It is reality. And many of us will feel it’s blade.”
“Oh, Thadd. How many?”
“How many will we lose? I cannot say. Warrior. Dardaptoan. Lupoiux, Kinds we don’t yet know. I don’t even know why it comes for us. But it will. I wish more than anything that you were safe and protected in Relaklonos. Or Levia.”
“But that isn’t to be. It isn’t my path, as Theo would say.”
“No, it isn’t. Your path is here. As is your Rajni’s.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“You cannot deny him any longer, Bron. It is wearing on you both. In a time when you and he need be at your strongest.” He hugged her. “As our older brother is so fond of putting it, trust the goddess. She has only our best in her heart. And she picked him for you. To deny him dishonors her. And I doubt that is something you want. Since you are the little sister of her soul. She would not want you this unhappy. Do not let the past, and your fear, keep you from the one who would love you. Our days on this world are far too short to spend them alone. Take it from one who has been alone for four hundred and fifty years. Go ask your Eaudne that, if you need more reassurance.”
She knew in her heart that Thadd was right. How could she not?
Bronwen had her mate before her.
It was foolish and cowardly to keep denying that.
Chapter 28
The hill they’d avoided was a grown over bunch of rocks, riddled with trenches and even sink holes. Koios found that out when his leg went two feet down in a hole, taking the rest of him with it.
He cursed as he pulled himself up. “We need tread carefully here. I do not think we will find what it is we seek here.”
Dell, Conmor, and Phan agreed. They were all three seasoned warriors who had been in far rougher conditions than Dekimos City before.
Conmor was the son of two farmers, who’d turned warrior five hundred years ago. “This ground would not support even a sageplant, hardy damned vines though they be. Odd, isn’t it, that the rest of this area be so lush with vegetation, but this one be barren and desolate?”
“In every land there are deserts and jungles. I do not see why this should be so different,” Dell said as he studied the land around them. “We have seen such before.”
It wasn’t so much the lack of growing things that had Koios apprehensive. There was something else about the place that had his instincts humming. “I think this is a place we shall leave be.”
He had not made it twelve hundred years without stumbling upon evil within the ground. And this felt as the same.
“Leave this place, and see that others avoid it as well. I will speak with Phaenna about it on the morrow.”
Conmor nodded. “The soil here has been damaged, leached by only that which can be evil and dark. It is best we leave this place as we found it.”
“Too late.”
Conmor was thrown to the ground, and began writhing upon the soil.
Something that Koios at first thought was a snake or reptile of some sort slithered out of the ground and formed into a man. He stood between Koios and the fallen warrior.
Koios brought up the Midreno sword in front of him. “Explain yourself!”
“Do I need explain? This is my place, the land within which my soul rests. And yet you walk upon me with little caution and little respect.”
“What is it that you demand?” Koios studied his foe. The male was as large as he was, but there was something reptilian about his movements. He was neither demon nor anything else that Koios could identify. Was he native to this world? Why had Phaenna not warned him?
“It is simple. I demand souls. Souls to nourish my own. You and your men, you will just wet my appetite, I think. I know who you are, King Koios of Relaklonos.
And I know of your queen. And of the souls that you now guide. You should know this, if the Dark Sorcerer comes for you, you cannot escape.”
“Are you saying you are he?” Would it be that easy for him to have found the one they sought? Koios did not believe in the easy, not anymore. Not since his foolish youth. “Identify yourself.”
“None have known my identity in thousands of years. I am not to share that power with you.” The creature’s grin was pure evil. “But I will have your female calling out my name when I am in her bed this eve. Are you prepared for that, King Koios of nowhere?”
With a wave of his staff, a gnarled wooden piece of black, the creature had a something knocking Koios to the ground, had Dell and Phan on their knees gasping for air.
Koios pulled his Midreno sword up and met the eyes of the sorcerer. “You think we would just run like cowards? We are warriors, and we fight!”
Chapter 29
“You are foolish, led by some sort of honor that only those such as you can know. What gets you from it? Riches, loyalty? But I can get those with just a simple shift of power. I could have you begging at my feet.”
“Then prove it. Or is your only defense pitiful words?” Koios knew he challenged the male, and knew it was only a matter of time before he would feel the first strike against his skin.
Was this what the Four Destinies his Bronwen spoke about had in mind for him? Was he to fall so soon before the dark sorcerer who still remained unnamed? “Come then. Bring your weapon. Bring it against the King of Lothicanos, and now King of the Great City of Dekimos! I fight in the name of Dekimos, always!”
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