by Stacy Reid
“You jest,” Quinn said, surprise stilling his frame.
Acheron had the attention of all the king’s blades. “I do not. As she raged, I felt a connection between them that disturbed me. He endured anguish at the thought she may not recover from the battle she fought. Anguish. He consumed the elixir, cutting himself so that she would bite into him, even knowing the prophecy of Ruxia. He placed his life in her hands.”
“Fuck!” Cadmus shouted.
“Our king has hundreds of women in his harem. Some from the highest level of aristocracy vying for his attention and place on the throne. And he chooses to fall in love with a Darkan?” Solomon queried, genuine distress coating his tone.
“Yes it seems he did,” Acheron murmured, deliberating on the implications of their king being in love with their kingdom’s most important enemy.
***
Ajali slid off the bed, careful not to disturb Tehdra. She slept deeply, and he was amazed after their night of excessive lovemaking that he woke so early. She lay on her stomach, and his eyes caressed her curves, studying the tattooed picture of her beast painted so starkly on most of her body. Powerful wings and scales covered her shoulders and arms, her back in its entirety, most of her hips and buttocks, and slashing down to her calves. He knew that slashes of the painting graced her stomach and her inner thigh. Its ink was black; the only color was the beast’s eyes—pitiless yellow with flicks of red, and they stared at him as if alive. The brutally it reeked of stunned him, its malevolence impossible to miss. What was it?
She was a Darkan. He’d suspected that she lied about being a spy from Aria. His kingdom of alliance would have approached his army’s general or himself with any suspicions. Gavyn had sent word to the people of sand and earth for confirmation of her spy status—a confirmation they no longer required. She was a Darkan and a very powerful one.
Tehdra was the only Darkan that he’d ate, slept, and bantered with as if she were any other citizen of Amagarie. He knew of their brutality, had witnessed it several times, but what he experienced with Tehdra he never would have imagined she was of the shadowed realm. She fucking blushed. She ate with gusto; she was unable to fight with a sword. Now he understood why. Darkans had claws and fangs, mostly rendering weapons unnecessary.
She called him “mate” and he had responded in kind, consumed by the feelings he had for her. And what were those feelings? She had only been in his kingdom for a few days. What kind of sentiments could he have that were genuine? Lust, desire, tenderness, the need to protect? His heart slammed against his chest. He felt all of those and more…for his enemy.
He scrubbed a hand over his face, and then braced his forearms against his thighs.
Every part of him rejected Tehdra as his enemy. He had been intimate with the chakra that lived inside of her, the darkness that Amagarians reviled, and he did not hate her for it. He knew what loss of control of an essence buried inside could do. He was called the Tyrant of Nuria and his mother had been the Mad Queen of the eternal city because they’d briefly lost control of the power buried inside of them. Being connected to Tehdra’s mind, he had a clear understanding of the forsaken darkness with which Darkans struggled. Did it change his deep abhorrence of them? No. Yet his feelings of vengeance did not extend to Tehdra.
She stirred and a soft moan slipped from him. He cursed under his breath when his cock twitched.
His blades waited for him, but all he could think about was rousing her and sliding his cock down her smooth, wet throat. He smiled without humor. His blades must be aghast that after such an attack he’d disappeared to be with Tehdra instead of pacing his war room, strategizing how to obliterate the enemy.
She shifted sinuously on the silken sheets, and desire flared to life inside him. Obsidian eyes opened and captured his and, as easy as that, Ajali felt like he was drowning.
Fuck!
Their gazes locked for long, silent moments. Sensual awareness simmered. Powerful. Vibrant. Her lips were swollen and red and her eyes swirled with satisfaction and possessiveness. The darkness of her hair against the paleness of her skin and delightfully wicked eyes gleamed carnal and dangerous. He gritted his teeth as need rose inside of him.
“Are you repulsed?” the huskiness of her voice wrapped around him.
Tenderness stirred inside. “No.”
“Why not? I am your enemy.” Direct, without a hint of nervousness. No deception lingered in her eyes, and now that she no longer hid from him behind a veil, he acknowledged that she was something more…something unholy.
“Not you.”
“Tell me.”
“I leave to confer with my blades. I must attend to my kingdom. Attend to those who were hurt, send out missives and address the families of our fallen warriors.”
Yet he made no move.
“Why have you not taken my life after witnessing my loss to darkness?”
“I understood your struggle.”
“Because we formed lei?”
He frowned and she murmured, “The link unique to mated Darkans which allows us to connect mentally.”
She seemed to assess his soul as she studied his reaction to being referred to as her mate. He removed all trace of heat from his gaze and observed her with cold ruthlessness. What was he to do about her?
“The connection did allow me to sense your struggle, but I understood it because of experience.”
Tell me.
An intimate caress against his mind, one that asked for more than just a retelling his past, and he was not sure he would be able to resist falling into her, despite the threat to his realm. His chest tightened, and he mercilessly killed all need burgeoning in his heart for her. While she may not be his enemy…she was something his kingdom would never be ready for. But you crave her, take her…claim her as your consort.
Ajali froze. His consort? He shifted through the possibilities and implications. A king’s consort was typically a peer of the realm. Tehdra was…a smile curved his lips. None was Tehdra’s equal.
Her mate burned with a cold white flame. The fact she’d threatened his kingdom with death was still in his eyes. But it did not escape Tehdra that though her nature had been revealed in shocking details, she lived. He’d fought for her when she teetered on the edge of darkness. “Why did you not give up on me?” she asked again, needing to know.
A smile tugged at his lips. “I like you,” he said simply and Tehdra’s throat burned.
I like you, too.
He’d fought her and for her. Had willingly bared his throat to her while she struggled with madness. He’d had several opportunities to take her head, for even while she’d raged, the idea of causing him irreparable harm had been unbearable. It had chained the brutality of her beast like nothing else could.
She also knew he could never claim her before his kingdom. Pushing past the pain stirring inside, she directed her thoughts on discovering more about him. He’d always been so guarded.
She slid against the silken sheets, rising on her knees behind him, pressing her breasts to his back. The feel of his heated, naked skin had her purring in satisfaction. “Stories tell of your feats in the Great War. Of your brutality. The Boreans fear you and hold you in contempt for your actions. It is said that you slaughtered thousands of their warriors to gain access to their mountains and to hold your throne in the war. Are these stories why you understand darkness, Ajali?”
Something dangerous flashed in his eyes. “Their elixir.”
“What?”
He leaned into her. “I needed their elixir.”
Tell me.
They existed in intimate fraught with a special kind of tension. Tehdra’s heart thumped as she waited to see if he would trust her by confessing his inner demons. They stood on the precipice of something new, and hope, vicious in its intensity, unfurled inside of her.
The quiet wrapped around A
jali as he weighed the need to share with Tehdra. It was not a fleeting need, it pressed in on him, and somehow he knew she would not judge. From her eyes, he would not be dubbed a tyrant or anything that denigrated the destructive chakra he housed inside.
“The second Great War of Amagarie reined out of control. The reason for it was lost in the flames of war. My mother, our queen, was on the birthing bed as the enemy laid siege to the castle. Who were the enemy? Everyone. All kingdoms fought each other, mindless in the need to be the victor after the ashes had settled.”
On instinct Tehdra wrapped her arms around his chest. He tensed, but did not withdraw.
“The castle warriors were depleted, having been deployed to the battlefield with the king. Mevia invaded our borders with a force that doubled ours, hence our warriors were needed there. The castle had less than one hundred warriors for her protection, while thousands infiltrated Shelah. My mother was powerful, but her thought was for the babes in her womb. She fled to me on Kezriel’s sire; all who guarded her were felled under the might of the attack. They caught her, and she fought. The enemy was overwhelming as we protected our borders at Taryllion, trying to prevent more soldiers from coming in. I stood with our king, my father, holding the lines. And then I felt her pain. The agony as the enemy opened her womb, spilling blood, forcing her offspring from her body.”
Tehdra remained silent, the rasp of his voice carrying her to the time of the war, the image of the battle clear in her mind. Her darkness felt the caress of his rage against her mind; its taste was cold.
“Against orders I departed my king to reach my mother. The kingdom’s needs must come before personal desires. Yet I left, racing to save her. She had been ravaged, torn and dying, but she held onto her rage as she protected her twins, Xian and Uriah, in her hands. We waged no war with Boreas, and as the closest nation to our kingdom with the elixir, I fled with her and the babies, hoping for a miracle. The decision I made cost Nuria our king and thousands of lives. I felt as death claimed my father. I saw the fires that spewed in the air, felt the repercussion of sounds travelling through the earth. I tasted the stench of lightning striking through the air and heard the thunder that shook the kingdoms. Yet I did not falter with my mother, Uriah and Xian. Thousands followed us; the enemy wanted to end our reign by wiping out our bloodline. Our kingdom would have been embroiled in war for years, even after the ending of the Great War as Nurians battled for the right to rule their kingdom, And Mevia or Avindar would have fought them for our throne.”
Tehdra’s fury flared as his voice sank into her; it reached out to meld with his, creating a harmony of rage between them. The need to bloodlet pulsed in her veins. Yet his next words had her heart running cold and a soft sound of despair seeping from her.
“Darkans intercepted us. They had stayed away from the war of Amagarie. Not participating or taking sides, their presence hidden since the first Great War. They came with the shadows and were unlike anything I had ever battled—the fight was gruesome and bloody. I fought three Darkans as my mother lay dying. They were powerful and some of the most unique fighters I had ever encountered. Their mission was to end the line of Haddin. Paid assassins.”
Tension invaded his muscles, knotting them into hardened slabs beneath her fingertips. “One summoned a black and gold tyger. My queen tried to fight; her only goal to protect the lives of her children. Weakened from childbirth and blood loss, she did not stand a chance. The summoned beast split her chest to her womb. My rage took me and all turned to ash. I saw her pass her Phoenyx to Xian before death claimed her; she forced such power into my sister’s tiny body—a body already weakened from blood loss. Just babies, and they bore vicious gouges, their blood spilling into the earth, dying. The tempest consumed me. I was moved beyond my will with only one directive driving me. Get to the elixir and save my family. I burned, and only the power my mother had pushed through Xian saved them, creating a barrier of protective flames. I decimated hundreds to save Xian and Uriah. My king and queen were lost, and the reclamation of our kingdom rested solely on me and the houses that were pledged to us. I was pure flames as I travelled through Boreas, my fury and speed so strong it was as if I flew. I killed hundreds…thousands. I saw them falling, turning to ash under the onslaught of my power and I was unable to stop. The rage that dominated me burned away all control of my emotions, all logical thinking. As I soared towards the mystical mountains that housed the elixir, my heat dried out lakes, trees turned to ash and blew away with the wind. The mystical mountains with its trees, flowers, and waters remained untouched. Only the warriors who protected the elixir died under my power.”
Tehdra pressed closer to him as his violent emotions wafted through their lei. She felt the deep flare of regret as he talked about the hundreds, possibly thousands, he had killed. She understood. Such loss of control was horrifying with the power housed inside.
How did you reclaim your kingdom?
I burned.
She clasped him tighter, inhaling his masculine scent.
His voice was an icy flame. “I feared I would absorb the elixir as it did the lakes, but it did not. I landed and dropped the babies into the spring of elixir, healing them instantly. I called for Kezriel to protect them as I exited the mountains. Then I directed my power to the battle field where thousands advanced towards Nuria and our army died under the onslaught. I burned, Tehdra. I burned for days after the war ended. My skin melted, bones turned to liquid fire, yet my consciousness remained. My Kingblades, only recently pledged, struggled for days to create a barrier around the kingdom, preventing my flames from reaching out. The most powerful witch in our kingdom, Eowenna, worked with her coven to summon me to the depth of the oceans of Amagarie, burying me millions of feet under water—into the deepest, darkest recesses they could find.”
Tehdra nuzzled his neck inhaling deeply.
And you became the tyrant who razed Boreas.
A sardonic smile creased his lips. I became the tyrant.
“My king had no knowledge of Darkans taking your queen’s life. A move against a royal of another kingdom was never ordered by him, and he has too much honor to act with such cowardice.”
He turned his head slightly, and the greenest of eyes stared at her. His Phoenyx stirred, and her darkness slid against the cold beauty of its power and growled. His fire was sentient, and she ate the rage that flavored his chakra.
“My Ricarkri sent me here to remove any Darkans found in Nuria. A few weeks ago, my brother tortured a Mevian that hunted the princess of Boreas in our kingdom. The Mevian revealed that a plot to unseat my king from his throne is underway with the aid of the kingmaker.”
The fire in Ajali stilled, no longer caressing against her darkness. “The kingmaker?”
“Yes. Someone in the Darkage, powerful enough to execute my king, his cadre, and his loyal subjects, plots against him. We were told Darkans working with Mevians were being strategically placed in your kingdom. As they were not there under the orders of my liege, they were branded as traitors and the order of death placed on them. My task is to execute them. The Darkage wants no war with Nuria,” she ended hoarsely.
“Darkans are warmongers.”
“There are those who do not wish for a realm of peace and prosperity, but not our King Gidon Al Shar. He is cunning and ruthless, but he is honorable.”
“Did you confirm their presence to your king, Tehdra of the Darkage?” The question was asked so coldly she did not need her beast essence to ferret the danger. Ajali’s anger was like a sharp sword slicing her skin.
“Yes.”
He surged to his feet, and she remained on her knees in the bed staring at him as he prowled around the room. His locks flowed to his waist, and his muscles twisted with grace and power.
The sun rose, heating the chamber with its brilliance, and she felt the loss of her beast.
“The attack in Kabul. The blades that found you wer
e from your kind?”
“Yes.”
Piercing eyes settled on her face. “Have you alerted your kingdom?”
“Yes.”
“The enemy grows dauntless. Twice now they have sought to capture me. Who is the enemy? Mevia, the Darkage, Avindar? By your testimony, the king of the shadows gives no order against my kingdom. To what end do they work together? Does the Darkage need Mevia? Or is it that Mevia needs the Darkage?”
Ajali stilled, and Tehdra sensed the danger that leaked from him. He was a dark wave of heat, and need twisted inside her. “It is Mevia who needs the might of the Darkans,” He growled softly.
She glided from the bed, drawing a silken robe over her frame, her mind churning, analyzing and dismissing possibilities. “The emperor was willing to murder the Princess of Boreas to prevent your marriage to her. The emperor has a plan that can only be brought to fruition with Darkans by his side, which is why they plot to unseat my king. He wants peace…and they want war. Darkans and Mevians are helping each other to attain a common goal. The removal of my king from his throne and your death.”
“The goal may not be common,” he rasped as he dressed. “The air whispered that it is not my death they desire. My presence in the dungeon of Mevia, however, is much anticipated.”
She jerked to a stop, her heart clamoring.
Chapter Twenty Three
In Tehdra’s eyes Ajali saw cruelty and pain. He wondered at the pain. Her rage was violent and cold, and he found it odd that his Phoenyx stirred…in pleasure. “I get the feeling you would ravage Mevia if they dared to undertake such a feat,” he said softly. The import of truly being the mate of a Darkan settled in his gut like a heavy boulder. He ached with the need to possess everything about her.
He brushed against her mind, startled to feel only Tehdra. No darkness mingled with her essence. How have you suppressed your darkness so completely?
The sun buries it. Only with its lowering will I have my beast.
Uncommon knowledge.