by Stacy Reid
Shilah jumped and shrieked, stumbling back, dropping on her ass in the grass. Mortification crawled through her, and she hurriedly lurched to her feet.
A deep, yet soft chuckle brushed against her skin, she whirled around. Oh! It was inexplicably the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen—Lachlan Ravenswood with a smile on his face. While she still struggled to control the beating mess of her heart, the great brute bounded over to Lachlan only to skid to a halt, its lips curling back in a savage snarl, wicked canines dripping with saliva exposed, its ridgeback hackles raised.
What was it?
Lachlan rocked back on his heels. “Easy, Cronus, it is me. I am a bit different, but it is still me.”
The growls became more savage and its muscles bunched as if it primed for an attack. A ferocious sound burst from Lachlan’s chest and vibrated on the air with domineering menace. The creature paused, the muscles relaxed slowly, and then it bounded over to Lachlan and licked his face. He grabbed it around its neck with surprising affection, sliding his hand through the creature’s thick hair. Ropes of muscle rippled beneath the creature’s sleek fur. She felt his blast of pleasure through their link and sensed he had missed the beast.
Her heart tumbled inside her chest in the most alarming flip. Her entire body was flushed and alive, acutely aware of him. “You have a familiar?” she asked, tentatively moving closer. She’d read about them, at times wishing her world had animals that offered some comfort and ones with whom she could play. Some planets called them familiars and others called them pets, but she’d never seen one before.
“Is it like a dog?” She sent the impression of a large animal she’d seen in the mind of the human priest when he’d described the animal to her and Kala.
“You dare compare Cronus to something so small and feeble,” he said, sounding genuinely affronted.
Shilah laughed, and he glanced at her, desire making his eyes even more golden, the swirls of color more vivid. She looked away briefly, burying the raw lust that burned through her veins. Taking a steady breath, she faced him again, to see him staring at her with that predatory way of his. Fighting not to fidget under his unswerving gaze, she took a few more steps closer.
“Would you like to touch him, mate?”
She snatched the hand she’d been slowly reaching out with and place it behind her back. “No.”
Lachlan’s lips twitched again, and she marveled. “Do you know that you are smiling?”
His face was void of expression when he answered, “My lips are not unused to the action.”
“Are you also jesting?”
With a barely-there smile, he lowered himself to the ground and lay back in the grass and tugged her down. She landed against the hardness of his chest with an oomph. Shilah lifted her face to the sky that shone with muted stars.
“Your kingdom is beautiful.”
He faced her. “You can see it?”
“I can see the aura of all living things. I can see the small winged creature flying above your head. More like its shape and the red aura surrounding it. I can sense the age of the trees, and I can see the silvery green aura which streaks from the trunk and way up as if it would touch the sky.”
Unable to explain the need, she slid her hand against his and entwined their fingers. His hand swallowed hers, and his claws pricked the skin below her knuckles, beading blood. She swallowed when he lifted it to his mouth and licked the small dots of blood in one sensual glide.
Heat blossomed through her heart, traveled down and lodged between her thighs. She squeezed her legs together, fighting the sudden desire arrowing through her body.
This time when he lowered back their hands onto the grass, he was careful to ensure his claws did not pierce her skin.
“I too have a castle in the sky,” she murmured with a smile. “My castle sits on the highest mountain of Dxyriah, and from my bedchamber, I can see every home in my kingdom as it sprawls for miles with majestic grace.” She showed him the image of her city, and the sheer beauty of it when the sun hit the glass buildings, and they winked like yellow diamonds. “I never expected to see such graceful beauty in the Darkage. I pictured your kingdom to be filled with boiling lava pits an unsuspecting visitor could drop in at any time and be devoured, not to mention the bits where it is rumored Darkans feed people to their beasts.”
“We do have those too.”
She jerked her head up and laughed at the dark amusement in his eyes. Resting her head once again on his chest, she thought of why he had brought her here. He had evidently felt her turbulence and wanted to soothe her.
“Who are you Lachlan Ravenswood?” She could feel the monster in him lurking, his darkness twisting along the silver thread that connected them together. What was even of more significant concern was that her silver light seemed to like the darkness and the two essences were merging even more. She reached out to that invisible thread of energy and plucked at the strings. Its resonance vibrated throughout her entire body.
“I’m a Darkan.”
The pale ones. The dark kinds. The demons. She recalled every whispered fear she’d heard in the empire of his people. “Tell me what it means to be a Darkan.” Show me. “Tell me of your kind, please.”
“We Darkans are not born knowing our beasts. The first century of our lives is spent experiencing the joys of childhood freedom, the crushes of teen years’ transitions, and the thrill of young adult discoveries. A great part of this time we spend training to hone our chakra and ability to control the shadows. But all the while we can feel the hovering power of our demon, but we do not understand its breadth and depth until we reach our one-hundredth year when it awakens. We then undergo a brutal battle to fight for control and build up a psychic barrier, so the darkness in us does not rule our action. The rest of our lives is spent either accepting the vile malevolence of our beast and honing it into our weapon or fighting to keep it a bay to retain our sanity. In the past, I would come here and repose on these grasses, watch the forest, and feel a sense of calm that was hard to attain.”
His voice was a pulse of petrifying powers, the rumble of a violent storm that could destroy everything it touched, yet no fear surged in her heart. She felt safe with him. She turned her head on the grass, inhaling the oddly sweet scent. “I could feel the deep apprehension of your friends when they looked at you.” She glanced over the rolling hills, the aura of each unique being, whether it be a plant, birds, or insects, creating the most beautiful effect as she saw the landscape through vivid colors of purple, green, white, and black. I can also see you are different from them. You feel darker Lachlan Ravenswood.”
He tugged her closer to him, and with a sigh of contentment, she rested her head on his chest, listening to the soothing lull of his heartbeat.
“The beast inside all Darkans is made of pure chakra. That essence if very powerful and malevolent. We learn at an early age to manage the psychic barrier that we are born naturally with, to keep that chakra from corrupting us wholeheartedly.”
Shilah’s heart pounded. “You speak of the shield I shattered within you,” she breathed, struggling to push from him, but he held her to him until she settled back.
“We feed our beasts which has its own cunning intelligence on the darkest of energies—rage, fear, and pain. The more it feeds, the stronger it becomes, and if we are not vigilant and strong enough, the beast can become dominant, and when it does….it kills and slaughters, then feeds and feeds. Some of us chose not to ever lower our psychic barriers so not to tempt ourselves with the power the monster inside us offer.”
“You had done that. When I just met you, I could feel your barrier, and I was impressed by its intricate construct.”
Lachlan was silent for several minutes, and Shilah remained still in the cage of his arms, listening to the roar of his heart.
“For years I lived in fear of the other entity rising inside me, that it might try to steal the control I’d honed over the years, and slaughter what’s left of my family
. Or worse, force me to betray my king. I am five hundred and thirty-nine years of age. I lowered my barrier once and used the powers of my beast to kill my father, and then I shut it away for over four hundred years.”
Images bloomed in his mind and flowed to her more like memories. She could feel all he had endured the moment he saw his father ripping his mother’s heart from her chest. The agony of her torture and the scent of her horrifying death had driven a young Lachlan to his knees, and he’d screamed his denial until he’d been hoarse. The pain had gone so deep in his heart there was no adequate way to express it, except through fury.
His father had appeared terrifying, eyes flame red with bloodlust, his skin covered with the blackest of chakra and red scales, with vicious fangs protruding from his mouth.
“He’d turned into a Senji. Darkans who are no longer in control of the chakra inside, and it is the demon’s essence who rules.”
The memories continued of Lachlan fighting his father, and almost being killed himself. Her heart was a beating aching mess, and Shilah distantly realized she wept as she sensed the hopeless despair he had felt as he fought his father—a man he loved, a man whom he’d believed to be honorable, a man he’d believe to worship his mother despite the fact they hadn’t been mates. Lachlan’s limbs had been broken, deep gouges in his side, blood pouring from his multitude of wounds as the demon toyed with him, savoring his pain, and still, he’d struggled to his feet, determined to fight, resolved to protect whoever was enclosed by the large oak door behind him. It seemed impossible that he could win such a battle with the powers so unequal. But he did not give up, even when he lay dying, his hand still scrabbled to hold onto the ankle of his father. It was at that point chakra exploded from him, and she saw the awful memory of the first time his beast took control from him. How hideous it had all been. His wounds had healed, and with terrible wrath he’d went for his father, and they battled.
Unable to bear the rage that had pelted from them, the assault against her senses too much, she pulled from his mind, gasping raggedly.
“Somehow I won,” he murmured. “I defeated my father by taking his head from his body and his heart from his chest.”
She read his thought that he believed it had been sheer luck and the fierce quickness of his retaliation which had not allowed his father the presence of mind to summon his beast to a solid form. If that had happened, everyone in their home would have perished. She could feel the echoes of his torment that he’d lived with ever since.
“The demon in me ruled, and my sister whom I’d fought so hard to protect, I turned on her.”
Shilah trembled, praying he did not reveal he had taken her life. The connection between them leaped once more to life, against her will, and she struggled to separate herself from the mental link. Her mouth dried, and when she sat up this time he allowed her. Shilah pressed a hand to her chest, gasping as the memories powered through her.
With a slam of his fist, the door had splintered open, and a young girl, a child of no more than about ten years of age, sat in the center of the bed trembling and sobbing. The demon went for her, grabbing the child up in his clawed hands, inhaling her terror.
Her breath caught as unfathomable anguish gripped her by the throat.
But this agony was not her own, she absorbed the emotions Lachlan had felt being trapped in the demon and unable to stop himself. Another Darkan had swirled into the chamber in a burst of shadows, grabbed hold of Lachlan and took him atop a mountain of black ice. And there he’d roared and fought for days, battling the unceasing hunger of the demon’s will to devour and kill. His friend, who was revealed to be Gidon, fought with him, doing everything in his power to keep Lachlan atop the mountain. They battled for days, weeks, until Lachlan who’s been so buried under the ravaging lust for blood, started to fight, to regain control, to rebuild his barriers and honed it into an impenetrable shield born from pain and loss.
The connection severed, and she slumped against his chest, gasping harshly.
“You contained it,” she said wiping at the tears tracking down her cheeks. “You held that monstrous force behind a shield for centuries.” A piercing ache filled her heart. “A barrier I callously took from you. Will you ever forgive me?”
“There is nothing to forgive. You freed me from the shackles of my limitations. The kingmaker has risen, and he has promised a new king for the Darkage. The Empire has declared war, and if the kingdoms respond the third Great war of Amagarie will unfold. I am better able to protect Gidon when the enemy comes for him. And they will come, with a force unlike any we’ve ever seen. For the enemies know his might, and they will have to be greater than Gidon to take him.”
He touched her lips lightly. “I am better able to protect you.”
“I do not understand, why aren’t you fighting with the beast in you?”
“You obliterated the threads that held the barrier. There can never be a division again. This goes beyond a bonding.”
For a moment she struggled to understand who the primal throb of satisfaction came from, the man or the monster. She searched the threads of his memories, moving through with light agility. “That has never happened before in your history,” she breathed in shock. “Normally when the beast takes control, the thread of the barrier still exists even though the demon is in control. And when your people bond with their beasts, there is an alliance between man and demon, reliance on each other, a barrier away from the darkness when the host wishes it. But you are not that….”
Acting on instincts, she rolled on top of him, her knees pressing down on each side of his waist and peered down at him. His eyes now held a swirl of gold, blue, purple, green and black, still held the cast of the serpent, and his face while impossibly beautiful and sensual, held a cruel edge. “Your beast has manifested in you in a manner never seen before. That is why your friends were so apprehensive.”
Her fingers stroked his hair and began to make small circles over his temples. “Let me try and help you build back that thread. I am an imperial telepath. Maybe there is a way to reverse what I did.”
“I am what I am.”
A calm, brutal acceptance Shilah would never comprehend. She couldn’t find air to drag into her lungs for precious seconds. “If what I am reading from your memories Lachlan Ravenswood is correct, in Darkans who are bonded, they have absolute control over their psychic wall and let the demon out and cage it at their will. You do not have that. I took that from you,” she said fiercely, tears pricking from behind her eyes. “What peace will you ever have but to be eternally damned?”
“I have you, my mate.” My soul. My sanity. My everything.
Her breath hitched in her throat as her mind caught the center of his thoughts. Another rough sound escaped. “Your soul, Lachlan Ravenswood?”
“My soul has been branded as unredeemable at my birth, but you are my light, my mate.”
And at that moment Shilah knew, once he touched her, claimed her, made her part of him, she would be irrevocably lost. She startled to tremble. “I must return to my realm, I cannot stay in the land of shadows and darkness.” But how he made her crave to abandon the solitary life she would confine herself to once she returned to her world. But I’ll save thousands of lives, she fiercely reminded herself.
“I agree.”
“I did not expect you to so readily agree to me leaving the Darkage.”
“The empire will not take lightly to losing you. Even without your Imperial powers, Serangites are coveted. There are traitors within our walls, working with the kingmaker who has aligned himself with Emperor Khan. They can strike at you anytime. It is best you return to Serange as soon as possible. I will come with you, my mate. And you will have your army to take back your crown.”
“And what of King Gidon and the ones who wish to take his head?”
“I will return to the Darkage when he has need of me.”
She smiled, relief lifting her heart. With him by her side, Prince Quan would have no choice
but to abdicate. “And I would like you by my side Lachlan Ravenswood, thank you.”
She desperately wanted to lean in and take his mouth with her but held back out of uncertainty. The deep attraction confused her. Her reason for being in Amagarie had nothing to do with taking a lover, only the freedom of her people. Yet there was an undeniable hunger in her body for this man, and she would deny it no longer. “Kiss me, Lachlan Ravenswood.”
The ground beneath them roiled, and something unknown trembled on the air.
“No!” The force of her sister’s scream roared through her mind and had Shilah scrambling from off him, lurching to her feet.
“A decision has been made.”
Fear seized her throat as her sister’s voice hissed with terrifying promise as she foresaw the future.
“Queen of darkness you shall become. I see upon your head a crown of snakes and thorns. Your mercy and love will be our kingdom’s downfall.”
Shilah gasped. “Mercy and love for Lachlan?” she demanded.
Kala continued without pause, “At Lachlan Ravenswood’s feet, blood will flow, and bodies will drop from the castle in the sky as he slaughters. If you pledge your love to him, our people will know true suffering, and it will be endless.”
There was a choked cry and then she said, “Please Shilah, run!”
15
Shilah ran away from him, sprinting down the hilly slope, uncaring of where she dashed, the flowing length of the sari twisting around her legs. Her side ached, and she did not stop until she stumbled. A lake stood in front of her, the hovering darkness overwhelming, the aura of the creatures in the depth of the water creating a bright shimmering surface atop the lake. Trees hung over the swollen banks of the lake, the purple aura of their gnarled roots covering the ground in snake-like patterns. The great torches in the distance were a small beacon, but she pulsed forth her kinetic energy, creating a silver-white glow around her. She tasted such awful fear in her mouth. “Kala, what does it mean?”
