by Meg Xuemei X
I’d learned part of the prince’s origin from the mercenary Dragonian I had killed, and the assassin had learned it from the prince’s half-brother, the third-in-line to the throne.
Something dangerous flashed through his eyes and there was no amusement, playfulness, or smugness in them anymore. They were hard, cold, and dark.
He lurched at me. He was coming to grab my throat and lift me up for a torture-style interrogation, and then kill me for knowing too much.
I’d abandoned caution and guile. I’d gone straight to being overly bold and arrogant because of the influence of the rising heat in the room, and because I didn’t like being challenged. His smoldering hot torso occupied my mind, his pure male scent filled my nostrils, and the electric charge between us diminished my reasoning ability.
As I realized my mistake, the thrill still buzzed in my blood like potent drugs.
I removed my feet from the panel and bolted up to perch on the edge of the bed. When he came to kill me, I would entice him to do so with his bare hands.
“Call it my innate light, or animal instinct, or whatever you want to name it,” I said casually, trying to diffuse the tension. “Isn’t that why the Oracle sent you to me so I can find you the witch?”
My hand pulled off my gloves in a bored fashion, so he wouldn’t suspect a thing.
Spotting fear and dark determination in my eyes, Ares gathered himself and stepped back.
The deadly predator in his eyes was gone. “So your animal instinct smelled my secret genetic receipt,” he said. “I see.”
“I’m not the only freak here,” I said.
He suddenly laughed. “Do you know in my long mortal life, no one has dared to say that to my face? You’re feral.”
I bared my teeth. “And who dares to tame me?”
He shook his head, still laughing.
The moment of danger passed, and I rolled back onto bed.
Ares lay down on his cushion, his hands behind his head.
At least, he kept his undergarment on.
The lamp automatically flickered off.
“I never think of you as a freak, Freyja,” Ares said, sprawling on the floor and basked in the moonlight that shone through the high window. “But who are you really?”
“Don’t you know it already?” I said and had to remind myself not to taunt him. Sometimes I couldn’t help it. His mere presence made me react like no other. “Didn’t the Oracle tell you?”
“The Oracle sent me to you instead of the witch,” he said. “I still can’t figure out why, but I will. Earlier on, the druid spoke to you in a secret tongue that sounded like an ancient, angelic language.”
My heart raced erratically. He was testing me, and I didn’t want him to connect me to the Angels.
“It’s the ancient Earth tongue,” I said.
“Then I should have understood it.”
“Aren’t you a bit too cocky?”
“Then how could you speak it? You’re young.”
“I have an old soul,” I lied. “I understand all things in nature. The ancient Earth tongue is the language of the elementals, so naturally people like you are deaf to it.”
He snorted, ignoring the insult. His frustration was tangible. The prince was used to getting what he wanted. With me, he kept hitting on the walls.
But he didn’t rebut me, which meant he bought it. Anyway, who could understand the goddess’s language? It was out of my depth, too, but my opponent didn’t know it.
His lack of knowledge was my weapon.
“I’ll get to the bottom of this,” he grated.
“Sure you will,” I said.
Why were we still arguing? Why weren’t we sleeping? I was worn-out, and he had battle wounds. The serum he’d been injected with earlier had sped up the healing, but his body still needed to rest for it to work properly. He should have passed out the moment his head hit the pillow.
Maybe he was also too aroused to sleep.
Stupid girl, my logic said.
This was nothing new for the Dragonian prince. He never lacked female companions. But for me, this was the first time I shared a room with anyone—and not just anyone, but a red-blooded male who had an unholy hot body.
At that thought, his male scent drifted toward me, stimulating and calming me at the same time. I inhaled involuntarily.
“You have magic, too, don’t you, Freyja?” Ares broke the silence.
I curled to my side and glanced down at him, only to find he looked at me accusingly. His smooth, hard chest rose and fell in rhythm. I forced myself to tear my gaze away, so I wouldn’t be caught staring at his magnificent bare torso.
“What’s my magic then?” I asked.
“You could pass the druid’s ward while no one else could.”
“I didn’t need magic to do it.”
“How so?” he asked.
He was more ignorant than me when it came to magic. But who wasn’t? The only magical beings had built walls around their territory, not giving the mortals any opportunity to learn about them or their earth power.
I’d found Ares’ weak spot, and I had no problem exploiting it.
“I’m the opposite of magic. I’m immune,” I said. Another lie. Now I was worried that I might be a pathological liar.
“Opposite of magic?” he retorted. “Is that even a correct term? There’s no such thing as immune. Either you’re magical or you’re not. There’s no grey ground.”
What he said didn’t make sense either. It was like a blind man and a blind woman standing atop a cliff and arguing about what the ocean looked like.
“If you’re such an expert on magic,” I said, “why don’t you enlighten me instead of asking me questions?”
“You might have another type of magic that you aren’t aware of,” he said.
My heart skipped a beat. “What type?”
“For starters, you can communicate with animals.”
“As I said before, that doesn’t require magic,” I said, letting impatience sink into my tone. “Animals don’t have magic, but they’re intuitive. If you truly listen to them, you’ll hear them.”
“I think you’re making this up,” he said, but I knew he wasn’t sure about that. While he tried to fish out information, he also baited me in order to filter whatever I said.
“If you don’t believe me,” I said exasperatedly, “why do you keep throwing questions at me?”
“To catch your lies.”
“Spare me,” I said. “I’m going to sleep.”
I squinted my eyes tight, but sleep didn’t come. My mind was still too busy despite my fatigue. I tossed and turned for a while, then turned back to eyeing the massive form on the floor.
How would it feel if I traced my fingers from his chest to the hard planes of his stomach, and then went further down ….
He’ll scream in agony instead of pleasure, my reason spelled it out for me, and then he’ll die.
The room sank into sudden darkness as the moon sank into the clouds.
When did I become an unrealistic fool? I shook my head. Picturing touching him?
Ares chuckled in the dark. “Need some help with your asleep?”
“I can sleep well on my own,” I said. After a moment of silence, I asked, “What is a druid?”
“The great Freyja admits there’s something she doesn’t know?”
“I think you don’t know much about Merlin either. You just pretend you know him well.”
“If I tell you,” he said, “you’ll share a secret with me.”
“Certainly.”
“I mean it, a secret.”
“Fine. Why don’t you start?”
“The druid is all things: a wizard, sorcerer, prophet, priest of nature, keeper of arcane knowledge. He’s the first of his kind. It’s said that many of his rank will come after him.”
“Did he tell you all this?”
“No, my father told me. My father used to seek the druid’s council. He still does. It was the dr
uid who took my father to see the Oracle. The Oracle then told my father to find the Sky Power. The Fey Empress was still a princess when her emperor father sold her to be the Angel King’s bride. But then, the Angel King’s brother, the High Prince of All Angels, had his eyes on the Fey Princess and claimed her for his mate. It turned out he was the Sky Power. Anyway, it’s a long, bloody history.”
My heart pumped hard and ached.
Unbeknownst to all except those who hunted me, the Angel King was my biological father. My mother was one of the courtiers sent to spy on King Agro and to distract him, so he wouldn’t fix his eyes on the Fey Princess. Because of those hundreds of courtiers, the Fey Princess was spared from the worst fate of mating with the Angel King, so she owed all of her courtiers a life debt.
In the final battle, the Empress burned King Agro’s wings; and her consort—my uncle—cut off my father’s head. But King Agro still left something of himself behind—me. Though I was never the product of love, my mother loved me and gave up her life to protect me.
“The druid stood by my father when he was leading the rebels against the Angels,” Ares continued. “Without my father’s force, the Twilight Realm of Mysth would have fallen and most Fey would have been slaughtered. Yet the earthlings only remembered that the Fey Empress and her Angel consort used their combined powers to defeat the Angel Reapers, but forgot the blood we shed to bring peace to Earth.” He sent me a bitter look, and I recalled our earlier debate about the war.
Despite his accusing look, I was surprised that Prince Darken would tell me all this, as if he almost trusted me.
“No one even mentioned the druid,” I said. “And fewer knew about him. Do you know his origin?”
“My father speculated that he was born of an alien god and a mortal woman.”
“I’ll ask him tomorrow,” I said.
“Don’t be stupid,” he said. “You can’t ask the formidable druid this kind of thing. Even my father wouldn’t breach the topic.”
“I don’t fear him, and he doesn’t seem that formidable to me.”
“You need to learn to control your tongue for your own good, Freyja,” he said. “But do not worry. Since I’ve taken you under my wing, I’ll teach you about honor and discipline. Perhaps some fighting skills. One day, you’ll make a fine warrior.”
He really thought he employed me, and now he wanted to tame me so I could serve him better. I sneered at his single-minded determination.
“Now it’s your turn,” the Dragonian prince said.
“My turn for what?”
“You turn to share a secret for the knowledge I offered.”
“But the knowledge isn’t worth much. I could get it from anyone.”
“Not from anyone. I told you the insider story. Now fulfill your promise to me.”
“Fine.” I sighed. If I didn’t give up something, he wouldn’t let me sleep. “I killed an Angel sentinel when I was twelve.”
I wouldn’t tell him that I’d also accumulated angelic data when I’d killed that Angel.
“I don’t think so,” he said after a moment of silence. “Even I have a hard time to take down a warrior Angel alone, and I’m one of the best Dragonian warriors.”
The best Dragonian warrior or not, I can take you down with a single touch, I thought. That was what I did to that Angel. The hunters hadn’t known my lethal touch back then.
“Do I look like a bragging type to you?” I said.
“You do,” he said.
I described the Angel’s physique, especially his massive, black wings. No one could do that until she was up close to the Angel. And none of the Angels would allow any other races to get that close to them. Earthlings didn’t get to perform an autopsy on an Angel either. When an Angel died, he turned to ashes within a couple of hours. “You have his weapon. One of the angelic daggers you took from me belonged to him. You can find an expert to check its authenticity. By the way, when are you going to return my daggers to me?”
“When I can trust you,” he said. “When you promise you won’t try to run away. How did you kill him? Did you set a vicious trap first?”
I could see he thought I was only good at ensnaring people.
“I’m not trading two secrets for common knowledge about the druid,” I said.
“Then ask me another question.”
“Perhaps another time,” I said. “There’s nothing more I want to know at the moment. And now I want my sleep.”
I could hear him grinding his teeth, but I wasn’t worried. My wolves had sharper fangs.
The silence stretched.
Ares was relatively amiable at the moment, but I held no illusions that he had forgiven my sin. I’d seen how he’d cut down his enemies mercilessly. I’d witnessed his fit of rage toward his own man.
He’d promised my actions would have consequences. Ventus had warned me that no one dared to offend the Dragonian prince in the slightest degree, but I’d flipped him off in front of his team.
According to him, he had something in mind already. He was just too spent to punish me tonight. Would he make me kneel half-naked and whip me tomorrow? That was the most common punishment in the military and he thought I was his soldier.
I wasn’t going to find out. However, I needed to see the druid before I tried to escape again, for I might never have another chance.
The night grew deeper as the moon moved further away.
Slowly, I let my breathing sound even and deep and listened to Ares breathing. He seemed dead to the world. He’d waited until he was sure that I’d fallen asleep.
I kept the same rhythm for a while, then sighed and turned to sleep on my side. I murmured a string of intelligible words to test him. Ares started snoring.
I quietly sat up, smiling to myself, and slid out of the bed. I bent to pick up my boots. My socks were inside, but I wouldn’t bother to put them on right now.
The rest of the men might be patrolling nearby, but I would get past them.
I stared down at the splendid body that occupied most of the floor. The formidable prince looked younger and tender in his sleep.
Sweet dreams, dark prince, I purred silently and stepped across his torso, but found I couldn’t move my other foot.
A hand grabbed my ankle.
A bare hand on my bare ankle! My breath stuck in my throat and my blood turned ice. I only wanted to get away from him. I hadn’t wanted to kill him. His pretense at sleep had brought his own death.
My heart ached as I waited for the inevitable—Ares would scream in pain before blowing out his last ragged breath. His skin would turn gray and crack like a clay pot.
I closed my eyes, trying to tell myself it wasn’t by my hand but by fate that he fell. Still, my heart felt as if it had been seared by a hot blade, and I hadn’t expected such intense emotion.
Maybe it was for the best. I swallowed. Short-term pain for long-term gain. It wouldn’t end well between Ares and me anyway. I wouldn’t find the witch for him. I would only lead him to the Twilight Realm and let the Fey Empress and her powerful Angel consort get rid of him. In the meantime, if he found out I was a Nephilim, he would dispose of me without a blink. Even as I stood here, he’d already done some damage to me. He’d exposed me by kidnapping me, and the Angel hunters would be on my tail soon, it they weren’t already.
In the end, it was either him or me, and fate had chosen for me to live. So be it. As a warlord, he wasn’t that innocent either. How many people had died by his hand?
While I told myself all these things, my heart kept bleeding, as if a part of me was torn from my inside. Why did I feel this way? Maybe he was indeed my destined mate, as the Oracle had announced. No, I wouldn’t go down that path. That wasn’t how I dealt with loss and pain.
A few seconds passed like eternity, but Ares didn’t cry out in excruciating pain. He gave my ankle a tug, and I stumbled and fell on top of him.
“Where do you think you’re going, Freyja?” he asked.
My heart bounce
d in joy. I didn’t kill him!
“How?” I stared down at him, our faces were inches apart, and his eyes were bright like the stars that held wonders.
“Are you amazed that I caught you?” he asked, his hot gaze roving over my face. I suddenly realized that he was always hungry for me, but only in the deep of the night when we were alone, was he unguarded, and his raw emotion surfaced.
He reached for my face, his thumb moving across my cheek.
He could touch me.
My heart drummed in rhythm with his pounding one.
Prince Ares Darken, the Dragonian heir, was the first living being immune to my death touch.
“I was only going to bathroom,” I said. “I was trying not to wake you up.”
“How considerate,” he said. “Fully dressed and holding your boots?”
As he cupped my cheeks, another wave of electric current slithered up my spine. I arched my back and parted my lips at the mesmerizing pleasure.
The prince’s eyes turned molten gold.
My curled fingers flattened and I touched his face. His skin was hot against my cool hand; his stubble pricked against the heel of my palm. My fingers trembled. I hadn’t known a touch could be like this. I felt the pulse of the living instead of bleak death.
When I had laid my hand on my assaulters, I’d felt only their shivers, their fear, and their darkness. As their life forces slipped through my fingers, their knowledge and truth also passed onto me. Their knowledge could be useful, but I had never enjoyed learning their truth.
It was never pleasant to kill, even in self-defense.
I dropped my boots and ran my fingers through his hair.
“What are you doing, Freyja?” he asked softly.
“I’ve never … Uh, I’m testing the strength of your hair.” I grabbed a handful of his hair, twisted it, and pulled it back with a mild force.
He breathed hard. He wanted my touch. He was hungry for it. The thick, heated emotion in his hooded eyes revealed how he felt.
I traced his eyebrow, then the other, then the shape of his straight, strong nose, his firm cheeks, and then the line of his soft, sensual lips, like a blind person who wanted to remember everything she touched.
When my hand was about to move away from his mouth, he grabbed it, pressing it on his mouth. His warm lips brushed across my palm, the tip of his tongue sending an electric fire into my core, and then another kind of fire burst between my thighs.
