by Dark, Raven
Her response was distant, closed off, focus surrounding her like a cloak.
Good girl. She was doing this exactly right.
“That Priestess woman hasn’t told us everything,” Pretty Boy said now. “We still have no idea where Julian is.”
“We’ll get the rest of it out of her now, and then we’ll get back to the village.” Sheriff paused, seeming to realize what he’d just done. He looked at me, waiting for me to dictate the next move.
He had his sight back, but until I formally handed the gavel back, I was still the General.
“Let’s go.” I led the way back into the room.
Back in the pedestal room, the image of I’Karan still towered above, beams of light creating her huge and alien visage. Questions raged a storm in my head, demanding to be answered, but I shut those down.
Later.
As soon as we approached the, Lanaya paused in her conversation with Ali’san, and her gaze immediately went to Setora. Searching her face. To see if she was ready.
Setora lifted her eyes, taking in alien warrior. Her back tensed before she focused on the High Priestess and stepped forward.
“High Priestess Lanaya, do you know where Julian is?”
Hands clasped in front of her, she walked over to us and put herself in front of Kitten. She nodded. “Finding him in your mind, facing him inside his head will not be enough, Worldmaker.”
So she knew Setora had been trying to find him in her head.
Setora’s body tensed. “Where is he?” she asked firmly.
She sighed. “He’s in the Orial Mountains. Do you know where that is?”
I heard Serota gasp.
The men glanced at each other, the familiarity and surprise on each face echoing my own.
“Of course. I should have figured that out,” Setora muttered. “He has an ice castle.”
I should have figured that out, too. Not only was it the coldest place in the fucking world, near the northern axis, but those flowers she saw in her dreams, the Aurora’s Wings, they’d once grown there and only there. They were extinct now, or I would have realized where he was the moment she’d told me about them.
“He’s at the northern most tip of the region, well beyond the Boundary, where the Light stops.”
“Leave it to him to live in the most uninhabitable land ever,” Doc said shaking his head. “That trip will be extremely dangerous. Not just for everything we might run into on the way there, but because of the cold. You have to know exactly how to survive out there or you won’t last long.”
For the first time since meeting her, sympathy filled Priestess Lanaya’s eyes. “Cold it may be, Dark Legion, you will have to face his army, fight them in combat. You’ll have to gather forces of your own or you will lose. His army is to large.”
“Fuck,” Steel growled.
“Another shit journey,” Pretty Boy added.
“From the information we have collected in the Hive, the majority of the people he has gathered are not Violets,” Lanaya went on. “You will have to find men to help you fight.” Her eyes went to Setora. “Worldmaker, you will have to face Julian directly. Your men can’t fight him. He will use a power they do not have and can’t fight. You have it. You must face him. Alone.”
Her shoulders dropped as if the words acted as a huge weight pressing down on her. Damn. I wanted to hold her, to give her my strength.
“There is no fucking way we’re letting her face that fuck on her own,” Sheriff said. “There is another way, and we’ll find it.”
The others nodded in agreement, and so did I.
Setora licked her lips. “High Priestess, I know nothing of battle. I am not a warrior. “
“And you are not meant to be,” Setora. But you will have to find a way to face him.”
“How?”
“Not every battle is waged with weapons. Theirs will be.” She nodded to us. “Yours will not.”
Her delicate shoulders sank lower, as though the weight pressing down on her threatened to break her. Then she drew a deep breath and lifted her chin. “Then we will just have to find a way.”
* * *
No one said much as we made our way back to the village.
High Priestess Lanaya’s words banged around in my head, but Sheriff was right, there was no way in fucking hell Setora was facing him alone. She was strong, her abilities did her credit, but the Four were her men, and we would protect her with our last breaths. I couldn’t do less, and I knew the others—all the men with us—felt the same.
It was going on three am by the time we left the temple. All of us were lost in our own thoughts, including Setora. Ali’san stayed toward the back of the group, keeping her distance. Waiting until Setora was ready to talk to her and let her explain.
The men comforted Setora. She didn’t engage much but didn’t push them away. Still processing everything that had happened. She went through the motions, the mechanical reactions of one dealing with extreme shellshock. I let her be for now.
We passed the Temple of Umbi, and I shook my head at it. The structure looked so different now. Now that I knew the truth. If Setora was questioning what she was, questioning her place in this world and with us, then to a certain degree, I knew how she felt.
The reality of what I’d learned about the Yantu hit home and my head spun with the implications. I’d never really questioned the origins of the faith we followed, of the customs the Yantu lived by. Now, never having delved into that seemed foolish, I was beyond hungry for more answers. Such questions were best left to scientists like Doc or theologist types. Now, I wondered how many secrets I’d let slip past me, how many falsehoods every Yantu unknowingly surrounded himself with.
Even in though it was the dark of night, the structure of the temple itself, its huge stones, too heavy to have been lifted by human means, looked different to me. They no longer looked like home, but instead seemed foreign and alien to me.
Was its design based on Shana Rayan architecture? Not on any human attempt to pay homage to the gods of nature and the elements whose philosophy the Yantu embraced, but on an alien race’s design? Had the Shana Rayans helped humans build that temple years ago, or offered some way of building it that humans no longer knew?
I shuddered, feeling the sense of certainty in my ideals suddenly rocked to the core. If Garganthore and the World Mother were gods simply created by humans to legitimize an alien faith system and make it look like something that originated here—or worse—if those gods were Shana Rayan, with a few tweaks to make them appear human-based—then exactly what was my faith but a lie? Did the ideals to which I’d clung to for over half my life have any meaning at all?
And there was a deeper moral question at play here. Did I tell them?
Lanaya had said we couldn’t tell the rest of the world what we’d learned tonight, and we wouldn’t yet. But eventually we might have to. If the time came, did I tell them, or did I keep it between us? How could I knowingly take away something that, for so many, represented the very core of a man’s being? How did I rip away the faith of hundreds of men and send it rippling across the world, shattering every Yantu Order the world had? But if I didn’t tell them, how could I knowingly let them live a lie?
I suppressed a sigh and sped up my pace along with the others, headed for the village. The questions brought me around to Setora and what she was dealing with. No, on second thought, I didn’t think I or anyone else in the Legion could really understand what she was going through. Except perhaps Ali’san.
I glanced back at the woman warrior keeping at our rear. She looked deep in thought. Confusion flickered across her face before it masked again. Was she wrestling with the same questions as I was? She didn’t seem to be struggling with what she knew as much as Setora was. She’d said she hadn’t known about the Shana Rayans, but I wondered if she’d suspected it for some time, enough that it wasn’t as much of a shock to her.
Ali’san left us at the temple and I watched her go, hoping
she and Setora would get a chance to talk before the rift between them festered.
As we returned to Ran Tama and made our way toward the huts, Setora’s gaze took in the village. It was almost five now, so the place was just starting to wake up, a few farmers out in their fields, going about early morning chores. Most of the huts lay still and silent in the darkness. She looked intently at them. What was she thinking? Did the town look different to her the way the temple had to me?
Still, I let her be, but now I watched her carefully. I didn’t want her diving too deep into that pit of self-doubt, pulling so far away that she’d never come back to us.
When we drew close to my hut, where all of us would split up and turn in for the night, Steel put his arm around her.
“You all right, Petal?”
I’m fine, Steel.” Her voice came out toneless.
He shook her shoulders gently. “We’ll all feel better after a good night’s sleep.”
She nodded, but nothing more, her eyes a bit…blank.
He pulled her close and pressed his cheek to hers. “Hey. I love you, you know.”
“I know.” That came out just as empty. “Love you too, Steel.”
He glanced back at me with a shrug that said, running out of ideas here, pal.
Damn it. She hadn’t called any of us master since she’d left the Temple of Shana Ra. Since Lanaya had told her where her power came from and what she was. I didn’t give a shit about the protocol right now. What bothered me was why she was using our names. She probably didn’t even realize she was doing it. The lack to protocol spoke volumes about where her head was, and it worried me.
Pretty Boy took his turn, stroking her hair and steeling a kiss from her lips. “You’re a miracle, Princess. See you tomorrow. Night, guys,” He squeezed her hand, waved goodbye to me and Sheriff, and bounced off with Steel toward their hut.
I took Kitten’s hand, warmly squeezing her fingers as I pulled her gently into a hug, my eyes catching Sheriff’s. When I pulled back, she barely looked at me. A smile curved her lips when I searched her face, but it was barely there, a mask that hid something she refused to let anyone see.
Her expression wasn’t just distant. It was completely shut off, making her features barely recognizable. Shit.
“Get her to bed, Sheriff. I’ll send Oran over with her things—” I started.
“Nah, man. I missed her, yeah, but have her stay with you tonight. It’s fine. She doesn’t look to good. Get her to bed.”
I nodded, agreeing with him. But still, he’d been gone for over…
“Go get some sleep, General.” Sheriff gave me a grin and walked to his hut.
I shook my head, and pulled Setora inside and shut the door. “Are you hungry?”
She wouldn’t look at me as she went toward the cupboard with the foodstuffs, her voice serviceable and falsely pleasant. “We haven’t eaten since we left the temple. I’ll make you some soup or something.”
“Kitten.”
“What do you want to eat?” she chirped, kneeling in front of the cupboard with her hands on the doors. The shake in her voice was almost imperceptible. Almost.
Shit. She wasn’t processing anymore, wasn’t putting off the problem at hand to deal with a bigger one. She was shutting down. Behaving as if everything was normal, only it wasn’t.
“Setora.” I used her name deliberately. She straightened a little too slowly. I went in behind her and set my hands on her shoulders. Letting her know I was there. Bringing her back to the here and now, where she had to be in order to deal.
Her shoulders tensed, every muscle cording under my hands with her efforts to keep her walls—her garden—around her.
Setora’s hand flew to her mouth. A single sob broke from her.
My heart broke for her. “Come here,” I said gently.
She shattered.
Setora spun and her arms flung around me. She choked on a few sobs, and when I crushed her to me, her legs buckled. I let us drop, going to my knees and folding her in my arms. She shook with panic and fear, something close to terror. There was so much pain in those sobs, I wanted to die.
“Shhh.” I put my chin on her head and rocked her slowly. “I’m right here.”
She wailed, and I held her tighter.
“I know, Kitten. Let it out.”
The odds were even that she was as scared of what she’d discovered about herself as at the idea of facing Julian.
“Who am I, Hawk?”
I closed my eyes, the implications in that question hitting home and breaking my heart. In a less catastrophic way, I was right there with her. My faith, a fundamental part of my being was suddenly in question, but for her, everything she was must have felt completely unknown.
“Who am I?” she repeated softly. “What am I?”
“Hey.” I drew back and tipped her chin up. “Don’t talk like that. Nothing has changed, all right?”
“But it has—”
“No, it hasn’t. You are the same woman you were when Pretty Boy and Steel took you from Damien. You are the same woman who saved Emmy and the Rebels, and just healed Sheriff of blindness.”
She sighed and shook her head, peeling herself out of my arms. She stood and so did I. “I’ve always wondered where these abilities come from. Ever since I saw my blood turn blue, I’ve wondered how I am the way I am. But this.”
“Whoa, what do you mean what you are? Stop saying that.” I took her arm, turning her to face me. “You aren’t any different than the rest of us.”
“Yes, I am.” Her eyes welled. “Hawk, did you not see her? See those…planets, hear what the Priestess said?” she squeaked.
“Yes. I saw and heard everything. Kitten, it doesn’t matter. It changes nothing.”
“Of course it does!” She sounded panicked, desperate. “Hawk, I’m not even human!”
For some reason, that pissed me off. She just sounded so…horrified with herself, as if she was some kind of monster.
I took her arms, looking right into her eyes. “Kitten, listen to me. Yes, you are.”
“No, I’m not, I’m alien,” she snapped.
“No, you aren’t. Listen to me, all right? You have alien DNA in you, yes, but that’s all. What about your mother? Serena? Adeline and her babies? Do you think less of them now?”
“Of course not…But you saw what’s inside me.”
I shook my head. “Here.” I pushed over to a mirror on the wall and turned her to face it. “What do you see?”
“A Violet,” she said miserably.
I shook my head and took both of her arms. “Look deeper. How many arms? How many legs?”
She let out a broken laugh. “Two.”
“How many eyes?”
“Two.” Her eyes welled with understanding.
“Do you see a tail? Scales? Claws? Ugly slime?”
She chuckled and wiped her eyes, shaking her head.
I turned her around and put her hand over my heart, and the other over hers. “Feel that. Feel the beats. We each have one heart. One human heart.”
Her eyes closed and a shaky smile pulled at her lips.
I cradled her face and her beautiful eyes opened. “I’ll tell you something right now, Kitten. Even if you were an alien, I wouldn’t give a shit. It’s just blood, Setora. I wouldn’t care if you were lime green with purple polka dot ears and a furry tail.”
She threw her arms around me. “I love you, Master.”
That word filled my heart with joy, not because of the protocol, but because it reminded me that we belonged together. That she was mine.
I rubbed her arms and waited until she pulled back.
“You asked me who you were before, but you know who you are. You are Setora. You are a road rat. You are Dark Legion. You are ours, and we love you. Nothing will ever change that, no matter what.” I wiped away her tears. “We are your men, your masters, and we’re not going anywhere.”
She buried her face in my neck and held me as if she cou
ldn’t get close enough. I breathed her in.
“I’m just so scared. This whole Julian thing. Lanaya has to be wrong. There’s no way I’m strong enough. Maker, I don’t even know how I’m supposed to fight him.”
“We’ll figure it out. Like Sheriff said, you’re not doing it alone.”
She lifted her head. “But you heard her. I have to.”
“I don’t give a shit what that woman said. It’s bad enough you have to face him at all. We’re not letting you face him without us.”
Her lips curved on a shaky smile before she nodded. She dropped a kiss into my palm. I tipped her face up and captured her lips with mine. Her arms went around me, and I deepened the kiss.
Her tongue brushed mine, and my cock jumped in response. A groan escaped, and I answered with one of my own. Before the kiss could get out of control, I broke it and cradled her nape. “All right, that’s enough of that.”
“Are you sure, Master” Her eyes teased.
“Behave yourself.” I tapped her ass lightly in warning. “We need to leave early tomorrow, and it’s going to be a long trip. You need sleep, and if I don’t stop kissing you, I’ll end up fucking you all night.”
Her eyes shone with joy. “It’s really true, isn’t it?” she said.
“What?”
“What you said about us. Nothing has changed”
Nope,” I said, stealing another kiss. “Nothing at all.”
Chapter 30
Playing the Part
We were up four hours after we’d gone to bed.
According to what Bear had just stopped by my hut to tell me, Hawk had everyone packed and ready to hit the road, and it wasn’t even noon. Just as well, because there was a shit ton left to do.
Another fucking long-ass trip. I yanked on my boots, cursing up a storm.
It was only earlier this year that I’d set off with Setora and crew for our yearly trip to Delta. Such a simple, straightforward trip, but it had turned into one shitstorm after another, a chain reaction that just kept on coming. A trip that had nearly gotten us all killed more than once and nearly cost us the best thing that had ever happened to us. A trip that killed three of my men, and nearly cost me my sight. Over the past few months, things had kept spiraling, until we found ourselves in the shitstorm we in now. How the hell had a single journey turned into this?
