by Reid, Stacy
A ragged moan of pain and denial slipped from her. She struggled to her feet, and Lachlan wanted to howl at the damage. Those with power should never abuse those weaker than themselves. And they had toyed with her. Cutting into her skin with their blades. She bled from a multitude of cuts. If she had been fated to die, a clean death would have done the job.
She dipped into a clumsy bow and then departed. He followed her, cloaking himself in absolute darkness. Three guards also followed at a discreet distance. She made her way several floors down, before turning left along a long lonely corridor. The witch stopped at an iron door and waited. One of the guards inserted a key, the door swung open, and she entered.
It was a small airless room, the lone window high almost to the ceiling. Stark, cold, grey concrete constructed her prison. A lone narrow cot was pushed against a corner, and the room was void of a fireplace. She hobbled over to a small table, took up a pouch, opened it and collected a pungent smelling herb. She slowly mixed the herb into some liquid she had in a chalice, muttered under her breath, and drank it in a long swallow. Before his eyes, a few of the smaller cuts stopped bleeding, but she still appeared pained. A chill blanketed the room, and she grabbed the thin quilt and wrapped it around her shaking shoulders, lowering herself onto the edge of the cot.
Harsh, broken sobs spilled from her. She did not tarry in her sorrow, squaring her shoulders and resting hands on her stomach. “I’ll not fail you,” she promised softly. “How stupid of me to run from your father when I sensed his might. He is a power to be reckoned with my darling, and he can help protect us from the coven, and the emperor. I am so petrified to reach out to him. His kind are monsters.”
The small mound of her stomach rippled, and a choked laugh escaped her. “But not you, my sweet, you are no monster,” she murmured. “Half of me is within you too.”
A dark curiosity bloomed, taking root too rapidly for him to crush. Lachlan stepped from the shadows.
She paled alarmingly, came to her feet slowly, facing him, breathing roughly. Her power rode the air, and the walls of the room contracted and settled. “Who are you?”
“I am an Archduke of the Darkage.”
Raw fear chased her features. Her eyes flared wide before she inhaled deeply. “Lies. I sense no demon within you. But you stepped from the shadows. How is this possible?”
He ignored that demand. “What work do you perform for the emperor?”
Her eyes flashed. “I am here under duress. I do not willingly do anything for him.”
A truth. “How did you pull the chakra from within the Darkan?”
The pulse at her throat fluttered madly, and she whispered too low for him to decipher. Her power swarmed over his skin like insects. Lachlan remained still, drawing the shadows in the room to coalesce around her. They twisted at her feet like snakes and her breathing fractured.
“If you try to cast a spell, I will not hesitate to rip your tongue from your head. And if you lie to me, I shall peel the flesh from your body,” he said without any give or mercy in his heart. “Speak.”
She lifted her chin defiantly, but he caught a glimpse of fear quickly masked. “I do not have the power alone to pull the beast from its master. The Serangite used her telepathy along with my most powerful spells to summon it. He was young and unbonded, and we called out his beast from him at the emperor’s order.” Her voice cracked before she firmed her lips.
Disbelief scythed through him. “The Serangite used her telepathy, and the beast simply came forth?”
The witch watched him warily. “Along with my spell. The demon beast wanted to be free and did not put up much resistance to stay within its host.”
His voice was a low growl when he responded, “Take me to the Darkan.”
Her eyes were a striking blue, almost black and she held his gaze unflinching. Brave. No other would face death with such composure.
“He is dead.”
Violence tore through him, and vengeance bled into his veins.
“Not by my hands,” she said hoarsely. “We summoned his beast and then used our powers—”
“Who is the Serangite?” His gut told him it was her, but he still needed confirmation.
“Princess Shilah.”
Regret slammed into his chest. A pity. She would not live to see the dawn for the crimes committed against his people. Only the oldest and most powerful Darkans could summon their Cerja—the distinct image of their beast covering their body—to a corporeal form, but this Serangite was able to do so in fledging Darkans. Even if he was of a mind to forgive it, she and the witch were weapons of Mevia. They could not be allowed a place on the war board. The empire was already too powerful.
Something inside Lachlan violently resisted the idea of hurting her. He frowned, not understanding that anomaly. He had lived centuries in a stark, lonely existence, but with honor, never breaking his code or betraying his oath. He had never been the kind of man to shy away from his duty and removing any weapon that could ultimately enslave his people was a duty to his king and realm. He was also not the kind to kill without reason and had even been taunted by his fellow enforcers that he had the morals and scruples of a human. They’d even dubbed him the peacekeeper of the Darkage, for he understood mercy and compassion. A thing most of his people did not do well with, but he did not mind, for he preferred to be merciful when necessary than live with the unchecked brutality of his demon.
“Who killed him?”
“We directed the Darkan and his beast to attack Nuria and capture King Ajali. He failed. There was a woman there, another Darkan, whispers refer to her as Tehdra El Kyn.”
With clipped tones, the witch told him of the fight witnessed, and Lachlan realized with a sense of shock that Tehdra El Kyn, sister to his good friend Drac had bonded with her demon beast. For her to have revealed herself in Nuria, someone precious to her would have been threatened. Her mission had been one of pivotal secrecy to uncover who in the Kingdom of Eternal fire plotted to murder their shadow king—Gidon Al Shra, and to prevent any assassination attempts on the Nurian King by Darkans.
It was imperative Lachlan returned to the Darkage. A meeting needed to be convened with the war council. The Emperor’s action could not be allowed to stand. “Are there more Darkans being experimented on?”
She swallowed. “There are three captives in the dungeon.”
“Do you know how to access the dungeon?”
“I do not. It is enchanted.”
He considered her unable to detect if she spoke the truth. “In what manner?”
“I do not know. It is rumored a coven of witches designed the spell for the emperor. After they bestowed on him the words and the talisman, he had them slaughtered.”
Such a ruthless move sounded like the emperor. Lachlan withdrew his dagger.
The witch’s eyes widened with shock. “You are going to kill me.”
“You are a weapon of Mevia, one used to kidnap and torture my people for the power housed inside them. As an enforcer for my king, I judge you guilty. You are a weapon that cannot be allowed existence.”
She jerked, paling even further. “If you kill me, Emperor Khan will replace me by dawn. What will you do then, eliminate all witches from Amagarie?”
“I felt your power witch as you tried to read my chakra. Only a few have your strength. I believe you will not be so readily replaced.”
“I am a white witch, and there are more powerful witches than I am. The Emperor has a few red witches in his army,” she said, desperation throbbing in her voice.
At his lack of response, her eyes glistened with enraged tears, and she demanded, “Will you kill the princess too? Or is it only witches who are expendable?”
“She will die.” The words were cold and implacable.
The witch backed away, going as far as to hop onto her bed, the thin mattress sinking below her weight. She shrugged the quilt from her shoulders, tensing to defend her life. She waited, her breath sawing from her throat, and Lachl
an considered imprisonment for the sake of the babe she carried.
“By the laws of the Darkage, you cannot bring me harm. I am with child and...and....” She took a deep, steady breath. “My child belongs to the realm of demons and shadows.”
For a timeless moment, Lachlan could not breathe. “Who is your mate?”
She flushed. “I have no mate,” she said firmly. “But the father of my child is a Darkan.”
“And who is this Darkan?”
Fear and doubt clouded her gaze before she lowered her lids. It amused him to see a blush climbing her cheeks. “I met him at the Inn. I do not know his name. It was only…it was only the one night.”
No Darkan would bed his mate and then allow her from his sight.
“You know nothing of him?”
“No.” And her blush became redder.
He arched a brow. “Then I can only surmise you lie, witch.”
Her eyes flashed. “They called him Hunter, and he wore an amulet with the king’s sigil.”
Lachlan’s muscles locked. She carried the child of Ramiel Hunter, the leader of the small band of warlords of the Darkage. A man who was solitary and wished for no ties as he executed one of the most hated tasks of being the judge and executioner for the Senjis—those who had lost their sanity to their demons and fall under its bloodthirsty control.
It was possible Ramiel had known the witch was with child and walked away. It was rumored a Darkan could sense the moment of conception. And Ramiel was one of the most merciless of their kind, called an abomination by those with little tolerance because he housed two demon beasts. It was possible he had walked away because she would become his weakness, and the enemy would know it and move to secure her at all cost. And the damn hunter had more enemies than a sea with sand. And if the witch were his mate, and she was taken, killed, then he could become the very thing that he hunted. An outcome his enemies would rejoice in. If the emperor knew the powerful bargaining chip he held, he would try to bend the hunter to his will.
They stared at each other, and the fear in her eyes left a vile taste in Lachlan’s mouth. He lowered his eyes to her stomach, for the first time wishing he had access to his beast. Then he would be able to touch her stomach and feel if the child had a demon beast. Power would have bowed to power and darkness to darkness.
“I will take you from here, and no harm will come by my hands.” Lachlan could not allow the emperor to have her, even if it meant abandoning his mission to rescue the Princess’s Queen’s blades.
Hope burned brightly in her eyes. “Will you swear on your king’s life you will take me to safety?”
“I do.” He did not add that he would be taking her to the Darkage and to Ramiel, that would likely start a fight, and she would end up hurt.
She closed her eyes briefly, relief evident in every line of her body. “When do we leave?”
“After.”
She frowned. “After what?” Then she sucked in another sharp breath. “You go to kill her, the Serangite.” Disapproval throbbed in her tone.
Lachlan stared at the witch. “Can the emperor procure another Serangite for his army?”
“No,” the witch whispered shakily, cleverly sensing the direction of his arguments.
“Then she is integral to him?”
Another slight hesitation, then a reluctant, “Yes.”
“If the Serangite disappears from the palace will the emperor command his army to scour Amagarie for her? Leaving death and destruction in his path?”
The witch closed her eyes and then snapped them open. Such sorrow for a woman she perhaps hardly knew. “Princess Shilah is powerful. I…I believe her to be an imperial.”
An imperial, the most potent level there could be to a Serangite’s power. “Then tell me, witch, if I cannot allow the emperor to control her, and if I take her from here, he will send his army after her...what is left?”
“She needs to be removed from the board,” the witch whispered, her blue eyes dark with sorrow. “I do not believe she willingly serves him. The princess is but a pawn in the emperor’s game and must not suffer for it.”
“She’ll not see death coming.”
There it was again, that peculiar feeling of loss, a sense of wrongness at the mere idea of taking the princess’s life. He deliberately filled his mind with a lifeless image of her. Even without the chakra of his beast, he was capable of immeasurable cruelties, especially when it came to protecting the vision of his king to lift their people from the political and economic slump they resided in as a kingdom.
Gidon had created the seven orders of law for the Darkage and had a bold plan to lift their realm from the blackened stain over them. Their society had been a less barbaric one because of him, and trade within their walls had flourished, and their kingdom had grown. Yet there were those of their kind who preferred the anarchy and plotted to overthrow him. And Lachlan along with Drac and Talon, two of his closest friends, had vowed their friend and King would not fall while they lived.
The princess threatened that, so he would remove her.
However, something unrecognizable to Lachlan, somewhere unfamiliar inside burned with denial at the thought of her death. He brushed it aside. Personal feelings must never come before duty to his realm and king, and he hardly understood what he felt for the Serangite. He did not know her. Perhaps it was merely lust, and that was no reason to hesitate.
The witch held out her hands tentatively. “I am Amirah Ky’San.”
He did not take her hand, not liking her sudden ease. She was too trusting. Clearly, she thought he would not harm her now since she carried a Darkan child. And she was right. He lowered his gaze once more to her gently rounded stomach, an odd arrow of yearning piercing him. For years he had been endlessly alone. A choice he had never felt regret for until now. Strange. He did not hunger for love or for a mate so why did he feel this odd twisting through his heart?
She took a deep breath for control, then let it escape slowly. “When do we leave, tonight?”
“It depends.”
“On what?”
“The Emperor.” And with that cryptic statement, he allowed the shadows to swallow him. Before he stepped into the abyss, he spoke, “If there is anything you need to take with you, have it on your person at all times. When I come for you, I will come with the shadows, and we will disappear from the empire.”
She pressed a hand to her chest. “There are other Darkans in the shadows,” she warned. “And they work for the emperor.”
“Be ready.”
Then he shiktred—using the shadows to travel—through the palace, covering hundreds of rooms within seconds, searching if any of his kind lingered within the palace walls. He sensed no other, and he relaxed slightly. His cold and calculating mind worked, as he assessed how he would find what he sought. It was rumored the emperor only took his most treasured prisoners to the dungeon. Those he did not deem valuable were sent to work in the crystal mines of Mevia or executed in the arenas in close quarter hand to hand gladiator taijui battles.
Lachlan would leave this place with the witch, but he must first complete the task to which he had committed. Princess Saieke, the mate of Drac El Kyn, waited with hope that her loyal Queen’s blades would be found alive and rescued. Time was currently against Lachlan, for the place he needed to be most now was by his king’s side.
All evidence pointed of an imminent attack against his king to remove him from his throne. When that attack arrived, it would be brutal and all-consuming, for the betrayers would need to succeed on the first wave. In that wave, they would need to kill him and all the enforcers and captains that were loyal to the dark king for their coup to be successful. And he now had a good idea how they planned to succeed.
It was imperative Lachlan left this kingdom by the next day and returned to the Darkage. The very idea of Gidon being assassinated while Lachlan was not there knotted his gut into bands of rage. The Darkage could not lose another king so soon after the assassination of
King Rajleigh, Gidon’s father.
The only way in which to find the dungeons was to become a captive. The Princess Shilah would be required to deceive the emperor. Her death was not imminent. How curious more relief filled him at that thought. He assured himself he needed the Serangite to testify before the emperor, and he would have to lower his barrier enough for her to read the thoughts he would project.
The emperor must be enticed to imprison him with the rest of his treasures. Lachlan faltered at the thought of even allowing his beast any freedom. It had been a little over four hundred years since he had used any of its vile chakra. His people fed their beasts from the dark negative energy others gave off, and he had suppressed the savagery of his beast by erecting a shield inside, separating their chakras, and never allowing it any freedom.
The notion of parting the veil once more to peek at the beast that lived within him, when a demon beast had slaughtered his family, had rage burning through his veins. It hardly mattered that the slaughter happened at the hands of a Darkan driven mad with power of his beast. Because that Darkan had been his father, and Lachlan had inherited that same beast and the shame of his father turning into a Senjis, becoming a ravaging monster who had killed indiscriminately. That same malevolence lived within him, and he had drawn upon its powers until he had seen the corruption caused from using its chakra. He’d seen it first-hand in the broken bodies of his mother and her lover.
Brushing aside the haunting memory, Lachlan moved in the shadows, plotting. He would lower his barrier enough so the Serangite could read the intentions he wanted to communicate to the emperor and afterward, he would kill her.
No. The denial snapped through him, and he stopped in the shadow space. Why? There was something about her he couldn’t quite grasp, something important, elusive, something that brushed against the sharp edges of his mind but refused to be caught. He shadow-stepped into her palatial chambers. She methodically packed a bag with clothes, daggers, and rolls of papers.
Why do I hesitate at the thought of ending your life?
Unexpectedly she whirled around, a hand pressing over her heart. She lifted her chin, displaying the soft skin of her neck, the pulse beating heavily at her throat. Lustrous silver-white hair rippled to her mid-back, and the beauty of her delicate face arrested his attention. Her eyes stared where he stood, and he smiled, wondering at her power. Somehow, she sensed a ripple in the shadows. Her eyes which had the brilliant diamond cast of a fractured star seemed to glow, and he felt the brush of her powers. He glided closer, drawn to the rare beauty of her eyes. He stared into them, and Lachlan felt like he was falling forward into an endless abyss somewhere beautiful and unfathomable.
