by Stacy Reid
An enraged snarl caught in her throat. She had been deceived. Her sister’s protection and aid to their kingdom had been promised, and she had foolishly believed. Now she would remain a prisoner of the empire. No longer would she delude herself into thinking she was a guest of the realm. She had the freedom to traverse the kingdom but always with several guards. And not just any guards. They were from the grand general’s elite force, the most brutal warriors of Mevia. Now their purpose was evident, they were for her imprisonment, not for her protection.
She waited silently with foolish hope beating inside her for the emperor of Mevia to make his ruling. A ruling from one she perceived as the most dangerous man in the seven realms of Amagarie. Beauty should not sit so well on evil. Nor should an evil rule be viewed as legendary across Amagarie. He’d been the only ruler of the empire of Mevia for three thousand years—no other leader in Serange or Amagarie had ever ruled uncontested for so many years. He’d held his throne against war and sedition. The tales of his rule had been why she’d approached him, not realizing that she dealt with a monster until it was too late.
“What have you to report, General Shenzhen?” The emperor drawled, finally taking his eyes from hers to look at a point beyond her shoulder.
He dismissed her once again and it stung. She reached out with her power, not surprised to see that his barriers remained fortified. The taint of a spell sparkled with a gray aura. She tapped gently, testing its strength and the complexity of its construct. It would take immense energy to break through his psychic barriers. Not that she could launch an attack with so many guards present and no viable plan of escape. But it did not hurt to assess his shields to understand the potential fight that loomed inevitably if he did not fulfill his bargain.
The grand general stepped past her and made his way closer to the throne and lowered himself to one knee and bent his dark head. Surprisingly, his ordinarily impeccable hair held in a queue behind his nape was loose and flowed over his shoulders. His black and red armor had blood specks in several places, and there was a slight discoloration on the lower part of his sharply chiseled left cheekbone.
“It is done, my sovereign ruler. The attack on the capital city of Nuria was successful.”
Shilah cringed from the grand general’s subservient tone. His voice poured forth treachery, yet the beauty of its pitch enticed her.
“You have proven invaluable to me, Princess Shilah.” Sweet venom dripped from the emperor’s tongue. “That is a most coveted position to hold in my court. Value it.”
A hum of satisfaction vibrated on the air, and the import of their words slammed into her stomach like a high beam laser. With every honeyed word from the emperor, the promise of freedom slipped away like ashes in the wind. She held tightly onto her self-restraint, it would never do for a princess to flinch and betray fear.
“She has failed, my sovereign ruler,” Grand General Shenzhen replied with a frown, lifting his head to stare at her. His black eyes holding contempt. “The princess is not fit to be in the service of the sovereign ruler of the house of Zhang.”
His obsequiousness sickened her. He was such a paradox—abjectly servile to the beautiful Emperor, yet deadly and powerful in his own right.
Shilah exhaled slightly, relieved when the emperor responded in a moderate tone. Sounds were weapons for Mevians. Their voices were not naturally beautiful. They merely had the ability to manipulate the variance of sound whenever they chose to turn their voices into a lethal instrument.
“Come now, General Shenzhen, the princess has proved her worth. She was able to pull forth each demon beast from its master into a corporeal form. That is extremely impressive.”
Nothing moved inside of her at the smile that curved his lips. It was self-satisfied, covetous, and downright terrifying.
“But we do not yet have the king of Nuria, my imperial emperor. The attacks failed in its main purpose.”
The emperor tapped his chin lazily. “We do not have the king, but we have something better.”
Shilah tried not to be startled at the presence that simply appeared in the emperor’s room. A Darkan and he had the witch, Amirah, clutched in his grasp. Shilah’s stomach knotted, and she forced her mind to remain calm as the Darkan threw the witch that she’d worked with on the ground. She was a bloody mess.
A hard shaft of fear slammed into Shilah, and she cringed as the Darkan shifted his gaze to her, sensing her rising dread, for his kind fed on negative energy.
The grand general slowly rose from his kneeled position. “What is better than the Nurian king, my emperor?”
Fierce satisfaction emanated from the emperor. “A Dracan beast.”
General Shenzhen faltered into complete stillness, an arrested expression on his cold face. “An impossibility, none has been recorded for more than a millennium, my emperor.”
The emperor slashed his beautiful eyes to look at the witch who huddled on the ground.
“Report, my sweet Amirah.”
The witch’s aura wavered and flickered a deep violet, indicating the depth of her pain. The witch held her ribs and swiped at the blood that bubbled from her lips. “I incanted my emperor, for the Darkans and their beasts to attack the Nurian King at the Games of Fyre. I controlled the Darkan’s demon beast with all my abilities and fulfilled my end of the bargain. I ordered it to capture the king, and the beasts tried but failed. The king of Nuria is a fierce and powerful warrior, and he drew forth the spirit of the Phoenyx buried inside him to defend against the demon beast. I tried using spells on him, but the king had a witch, High Duke Acheron, who incanted to counter-attack my spells.”
She paused as she labored for breath, and then continued, “The Darkan and his summoned beast were defeated before the king was incapacitated for his retrieval.”
“By a female warrior who has the tattoo of a Dracan?”
The witch trembled, yet she maintained eye contact with the emperor. “She killed one of the beasts and its master. The king of Nuria killed the other.”
Amirah flinched as General Shenzhen withdrew his sword from its sheath.
“The Princess and the witch have failed in the carrying out of their task, my imperial emperor. I ask your leave to take their heads.”
The room spun quickly about Shilah, and abysmal fear wafted through her. She gathered her power and scanned the general’s aura pattern, seeking a weakness and found none. She could not die here. The liberation of her people rested on her shoulders alone.
The emperor stood, his flowing silver robe studded with gems swirling around his ankles “Hold your sword, General Shenzhen. They have executed their tasks beautifully. They have proven that a Darkan can be controlled. They have proven that the chakras buried in the dark ones can be pulled onto this plane and controlled completely by us. We have found a most brilliant weapon in the war to come. And these weapons are the Princess Shilah and the witch Amirah.”
The general hesitated, distaste flashing across his face. “My emperor?”
“The task I set before them was to breach the wall that separated man from beast, bringing the beast to the forefront. The princess executed that task exceptionally, and with the help of the witch’s incantations, they were able to steer the demon into attacking the Games of Fyre, and the kingdom of Nuria.”
“Their task was to capture the Nurian king, my emperor, and they failed.”
The Emperor smiled, and it was so beautiful Shilah it forced her to look away.
“The task was to show they could command a Darkan to draw forth his beast power and to direct that Darkan. Think of the possibilities, general, for our army. To have such a power in our control will be glorious indeed. And they discovered something that will position us beautifully. The woman who fought to protect the king of Nuria houses a most fearsome and legendary beast—A Dracan. I want her in my dungeon before the next moon night.”
“And the king?” the General asked, canting his head to the side.
“We will use the Drac
an to take the king.” The laughter that pulsed from him wavered with his might.
Shilah’s chest tightened as power lashed at her, biting at her skin. She breathed through it. “Sovereign Emperor of Mevia, I have fulfilled my bargain. I respectfully demand we complete our oaths.” Her heart thumped in her chest, and she took some comfort from the fact that only the Darkan who looked on silently felt her dread.
Cold eyes settled on her. “The agreement my, sweet princess, was your aid in interpreting the book of Oracle to decipher a way to make the Phoenyx’s power mine. Have you discovered the way?”
She hesitated. Had they not been over this? “Its power cannot be harnessed, emperor. It is pure rage. For the Phoenyx to be pulled forth from King Ajali, all would be incinerated. Its heat rivals the suns of the Omniverse,” she rasped hoarsely.
Some indecipherable emotion flared in his eyes, and her stomach tightened.
“Then you have not fulfilled your bargain.”
No! “The witch and I have scoured the book of the Oracle, the tombs, and scrolls. We presented our findings. The Phoenyx cannot be pulled from the King of Nuria.”
“But it can be harnessed, hmmm?”
After a deep pause, she continued, “I doubt that I have the strength or control to call forth such a power, even with the witch’s incantations. And doing so would be suicidal, for all present would be incinerated and the entire planet would be at risk of destruction.”
He purred in pleasure as if planetary destruction would suit him well. “Are you confirming that you are useless to the execution of my plans, princess?”
Asked so blandly without a hint of power thrilling his voice, Shilah knew she faced death. “No.” She could squeeze no more out of the tight clasp on her throat.
“You will soon be able to practice on the Darkan who houses the Dracan. If it takes you years, you will control this beast as you did the others.”
Years. A petrifying knowledge slammed through her. The emperor had no intention of ever releasing her, a lifetime’s imprisonment. She was a new prize for his army. How foolish she had been to place herself and her sister in his power. Shilah had been at once arrogant and naive.
He threw a thick book, and it landed at her feet. She picked up the massive tome. She skipped the first page and balked from the depiction drawn there. Even though a picture, it reeked of vicious evilness. She swallowed as she realized she held a tome that cataloged the Darkans’ beasts, their strengths…and weaknesses? How had this come to be in the emperor’s clutches?
“Learn about all that a Dracan offers, for I will have control of it.”
She executed a shallow curtsy and then walked away from his throne. She ignored the garbled whimper from the witch, hating that she was unable to offer aid. Shilah had not been abused for her supposed failure because she was the only Imperial Serangite in the kingdom of Mevia. Witches peppered Amagarie after ripping portals into the Omniverse to abandon their realm eons ago. The Emperor could kill Amirah and have another witch in his service in a few hours. To acquire another Serangite? That might take him another hundred years. Still, she reached out to her, brushing against her mental shields. The witch allowed her in, and before Shilah could speak, the witch said, “I thank you for thinking of me Princess Shilah. But it does not make sense for both of us to die. If you try to render me any aid, the Emperor will make you suffer for it.”
Shilah faltered, her throat tightening at Amirah’s pain and despair. “I will bargain for your release—”
“No! I appreciate your kindness but I have a plan and you interfering will only make my life more difficult. The Emperor will believe you care about me, and I will simply become another tool to control you!”
Swallowing back the denial, Shilah ensured she did not glance in the witch’s direction as she rapidly walked from the chamber, quickly planning how to proceed. What to do? She had explained to the emperor the dangers of harnessing the power of the Phoenyx and binding it inside of himself. He was willing to risk war with Nuria to attain his obsession. There were many whispers in the castle of his plans to capture the Nurian King, but she had been disbelieving until they had been whisked to the outer walls of his palace to direct the beasts she and the witch had pulled from the Darkans to attack Adara, the Capital city of the Nurian Kingdom.
To capture the king of such a nation was undoubtedly an immense folly, but the confidence of the emperor shook her. He was either incredibly powerful, more so than she comprehended, or absolutely mad. The rustic beauty of the empire did nothing to soothe Shilah’s frazzled nerves as she lightly ran up the thickly carpeted stairs that led to her guest quarters, passing several armored warriors who stood with rigid awareness along the large hallway.
Every passageway of the castle, the courtyards and baileys were manned by armored warriors leaving little room to escape the empire without a fight. The weapons she’d traveled with would hardly aid her, for Amagarie and the Empire of Mevia was nothing like her world with towering castles built from glass and topaz and refined steel. How she wished she had fled with Arrow, her PSI-2.1 friend who knew all the languages of the Omniverse and was possibly stronger than all the warriors she hurried pass. Arrow was skilled in many fighting styles and programmed to understand warfare and clever stratagems. How she missed him.
With a heavy sigh, she pushed open the door to her chamber and entered, closing the door gently when she wanted to slam it. Her current adobe was quite large, regal in its elegance, with several rooms and antechambers allocated for her sole use, including her own bath chamber, yet she knew her apartment for what it was. Her prison.
She made her way through the sitting room, eased open the door to her bedchamber and walked with grim purpose to her desk with its many parchments and inkwell. At least it was a comfortable prison with many luxuries provided. She came to a stunned halt seeing the man stooped rifling through the contents of the secret compartment in her desk. The one she’d believed she had cleverly installed.
Wariness rolled down her spine in a chilly wave.
“Who are you and what are you doing in my chambers?” she demanded.
He rose with animalistic grace and faced her. Her breath caught, he was power, strength, and so incredibly male, and too handsome. He was gorgeous, his face almost savage in its planes and angles. His frame was lithe yet muscled. Midnight hair was held back from his face at his nape, and his eyes were the most beautiful shade of amber, the color of rich, dark honey with bright flecks of gold.
Scanning his lean, lithe length, and striking features, she registered his unfamiliarity. She fought back her rising temper. “I will not ask again, Sir,” she snapped.
Her body hummed in shocking awareness and something wicked pulsed through her at his slow perusal. That look was almost physical. A caress. “I have told the grand general time, and time again I do not require a consort.”
At his silence, she grew uncomfortable. “Speak,” she commanded.
“I am not here for your pleasure.”
She realized that seconds after she made her rash statement. He was not dressed like a consort in revealing silken clothing like the others that had been presented to her. He seemed…predatory? He stirred, a slight ripple of muscle warning of his strength. The power in him was so apparent it clung like a second skin. Shilah assessed him but sensed no aura.
Impossible. She was an imperial—the most powerful in her geneses of telepathy.
That absence of aura, the lack of sense of his true power, gave her the first inkling of fear. She gently flared out her telepathy, fluttering softly against his mind, and the shield that she encountered stunned her. She studied it with her psychic eye, reading its intricate pattern. It was a shield constructed from sheer willpower, and her mind was unable to see beyond its walls. Her heart thumped. “Are you here to kill me?”
“First a consort and now a killer,” he said with such lazy amusement Shilah was almost disarmed. Almost. She slipped her hand inside the folds of her sari and grip
ped the hilt of her dagger. Her fighting skills were below par for most Amagarians, but she would not be taken without a fight.
The smile that curved his lips indicated that he’d seen her subtle move. If he attacked, even with the force of his shield, she would try and penetrate his barriers, seeking any weakness. She could attempt to trap him into a false memory or implant the suggestion to leave her unharmed or order him to stop breathing.
“Your injury is not my desire, Princess Shilah Symonrah of Dxyriah.”
How deliberate he was with his knowledge. “I am sure that you do not expect me to be assured by such words coming from a stranger in my personal rooms. The emperor did not send you. Who are you?”
“I seek something that you have,” he said with a deceptive shrug.
It occurred to her he desired to seem harmless, the notion ridiculous. Her instincts screamed he was a killer.
“You deliberately let me find you here. What is it I possess that you seek?”
His golden gaze moved over her predatorily curious. “Information.”
“Why would I aid a man who has forced his way into my chambers and intrudes on my privacy?”
The soft hiss of a blade clearing its sheath sounded like a drum in the chamber. He looked distinctly—menacing. Shilah flared out her psychic eye, preparing for an attack even as she trembled. She gasped in raw shock when he gently clasped her from behind, his soft touch belying the cold press of steel against her throat. She swallowed. She had not seen him move at all. Not even the slightest indication of it. How was it possible for him to be so much faster than her eyes had been able to track?
“You will aid me, princess. I do not desire to hurt you, but if I must? I most assuredly will.”
Fear slashed through her. “The emperor will have your head if you bring me harm,” she said with false calm. She punched hard against his mind, trying to break past his mental barriers and met an impenetrable shield wall of will. She had never encountered such resistance. Who was he?
The soft laughter at her ear rasped against her skin like the sweetest caress. Undeniable awareness filled her, and she resented it, the feeling was unwelcomed from someone who threatened her life.
