* * *
Something didn't feel right on the way back to Gavril's room. It wasn't just the discomfort I felt after listening to Vice-Director Schaff. This was wrong, somehow. Really wrong. As in, someone was in trouble or something. It only got worse as I walked along until it had my stomach cramping. I'd never felt anything like this before, unless it had been—well—on Mandil. I had to think back; it seemed a lifetime ago, although it hadn't been very long at all. People I cared for had been in danger, and then, "Aurelius!" I was shouting his name as something happened that I never expected to happen. Not without help or instruction.
* * *
Aurelius was backed against the bare cliff face—he realized that the spawn had only been herding him through the trees when he reached that spot. More had been waiting there and he was cut off. Piles of spawn dust littered the rock and shale around the cliff, but there were too many of the creatures remaining for Aurelius to turn his back on them and attempt to climb. More could be waiting at the top, he realized; he was too afraid to use the ability he had to Look and find out.
Six spawn attacked at once, forcing Aurelius to use his speed and vampire claws to behead them. His eyes were red and he was hissing, he knew. While that might frighten any normal humanoid, it had no effect on spawn. If they were instructed to attack, then they would attack, with no fear for their lives. Aurelius knew something was directing these—they never acted in concert like this without something more intelligent behind them. More came walking out of the jungle, stalking him. Aurelius might have been able to take down fifty or so alone, but there were more than that. Many more. Aurelius prepared himself for what was to come.
* * *
"Aurelius!" I was shouting his name and my Thifilatha was running through a rainforest, even as I swept spawn aside with my arms. I was burning them, too, whenever I touched them—they were screeching and dusting if they came in contact with any part of me. There had to be hundreds of them, at the very least. With my height as Thifilatha, I could see Aurelius backed against a rocky cliff, fighting them off as best he could.
If Gavril hadn't described what vampires looked like when they fought, I might have been frightened. Aurelius' fangs were showing, as were his lengthy claws. His eyes were red, too—Gavril explained that it happened whenever a vampire fought or was in danger. Aurelius was dealing with both those things.
"I'm coming, my love!" I was using Aurelius' endearment for me. Stooping low, I flung out my arms and killed another swath of spawn. Some thought to attack me. It was their last thought. Aurelius was still fighting—I think he was regaining hope that he might live over this. I was nearly there, too, when the spawn that had been waiting at the top of the cliff leapt over the edge, dropping down upon Aurelius.
* * *
Aurelius stared in shock as Reah, in full Thifilatha, leapt toward him, her beautiful, translucent gold wings spread out, catching the spawn that now fell from the sky. The ones that hit her wings burned and winked out of existence, like fireworks on a clear, summer night. It might have been lovely to watch, except for the shrieks the spawn made before they dusted. Aurelius stood at the foot of the cliff while Reah stood over him at fifteen feet in height, spawn striking her wings by the dozens, bouncing against her head and body before screaming, burning and dusting.
Spawn dust hit the cliff face like a sandstorm, causing Aurelius to hunch down and cover his head to keep blasting particles from his eyes. He hoped the mass dusting wasn't blinding Reah—she'd come to protect him. There wasn't any way he might have lived through this, otherwise.
* * *
"Reah my love, are you going to change back now?" Aurelius patted one of my huge, gold-scaled arms. I'd sat down wearily against the cliff face after the last of the spawn had been killed. The piles of spawn dust surrounding us were several hands high. I'd learned, too, after changing this time, that I truly could burn what I chose and hold back the burning if someone I trusted wished to touch me while I was Thifilatha. Aurelius was touching me now.
"Four feet," Aurelius read my thoughts and nodded at my estimation of how deep the spawn dust was that lay about us. "And I am grateful you can hold back that talent you seem to have," he added with a tired smile.
"Auri, please teach me your measurements sometime," I sighed. I wanted to hold my head in my hands—it hurt. Karzac was going to have a fit when we got back—he hadn't released me yet, but there wasn't any way I would leave Aurelius to die. I loved him. I knew that for certain, now—my heart had squeezed horribly when I'd seen him fighting off hundreds of spawn, trapped against the cliff face as he was. "Are there any more spawn?" I asked after a moment, when Aurelius hadn't answered me.
"No, love. You killed them all."
"You got your share."
"I got what I could. Now, change back, please. I can't hold you when you're like this." He looked up at me.
"She doesn't know how." Someone else was there with us, suddenly. Someone I didn't recognize. "I have seen you, young one, but each time you were asleep or unconscious."
I blinked at him; he was beautiful to look upon. I could also see the aura and power surrounding him. Struggling into a kneeling position, I placed my forehead on the ground at his feet. Somehow, I knew what he was, even if I couldn't put a name or words to it.
"Few know to bow to me nowadays," he said, smiling a wondrous smile. "My fault, I'm sure. Young one, rise up. I will teach you to come back to yourself."
"I am Kifirin, Lord of the Dark Realm," the god told me later, after he'd shown me how to regain my normal shape. Aurelius had watched both of us carefully as Kifirin had worked with me. It only took concentration on my part—visualizing what I wanted—and it happened. Kifirin was more than handsome as a man—he was the most beautiful creature I'd ever seen.
"Little one, you were foretold long ago," Kifirin said as I searched for something to cover myself. Turning Thifilatha destroys whatever I am wearing, and coming back to my humanoid form leaves me quite naked. Aurelius and Kifirin appeared to be coolly indifferent to that reality.
"That sounds like a child's tale," I muttered at Kifirin's statement as I attempted to slip behind Aurelius. Aurelius smiled slightly and moved forward so I could hide behind his muscular frame.
"But this foretelling only came to me." Kifirin's smile might stop many a heart, I think, even if he were smiling at my embarrassment. "It is not time, yet, to explain that tale," he went on. "Spawn Hunter, there is no Ra'Ak here. I would know if there were. You may use your folding ability to take this one home." Kifirin disappeared as quickly as he'd arrived.
"What did that mean—about the foretelling?" Aurelius slipped his shirt off and wrapped me in it. It bore rips and tears but it covered most of me—likely because I could wrap it around myself twice.
"Auri, I don't know and my head hurts," I rubbed my forehead.
"I'll fold us back, then, since I know there's no Ra'Ak." Aurelius' breath was warm against my temple as he kissed me gently and lifted me in his arms.
* * *
"Aurelius, I'm sorry—we didn't know how bad it was and there wasn't anybody we could have sent that quickly." Someone named Kiarra paced in front of Aurelius and me. Her hair wasn't as white as mine, but it was close.
"It doesn't matter now—my Reah came to get me," Aurelius was smiling down at me. I sat beside him inside Lissa's office—it was the second time I'd been inside it within a day.
"Young woman, if this had been for any other reason, I would be chewing you out, right now." Karzac flung the door open so hard it bounced against the doorstop and almost hit him in the shoulder. He glared at it and it stopped just short of his body. That look could quell anyone or anything into submission, I think.
"Karzac, I'm sorry and I have a headache. Can we still be friends?" I asked in a small voice.
"You saved one of ours. Even so, I would have been your friend anyway," Karzac placed a warm hand against my forehead. The pounding headache subsided, then disappeared. "Little one, if
I yell at you at any time, it is only because I care about you and you have frightened me. There will be no other reason. Do you understand?" He had my face in both his hands, his green-gold eyes staring into mine.
"Yes," I nodded. He still held my face in his hands, after all.
"Aurelius, did she injure her Thifilatha in any way? Are her wings intact?" Karzac turned to Aurelius.
"She was whole," Aurelius assured my healer. "As am I. I would not have been, however." Aurelius gripped one of my hands in his.
Kiarra left us after a while, leaving Karzac with us. Tory walked in and together he and Karzac explained the events on Tulgalan to Aurelius. They also informed him of what had occurred since then. Aurelius growled when he heard that Nods had shot me, and then growled again over Tory's claiming. Tory flushed, embarrassed to give Aurelius the truth. I know I was embarrassed, too, although Karzac insisted that none of it was my doing. Then we went over what had happened with Norian Keef and Lendill Schaff.
"The ASD has some answers to give me," Aurelius' voice was nearly unintelligible and his eyes were red.
"Master vampire, you need to hold that back—they still have a tight grip on our young one, here." Karzac jerked his head in my direction. "I do not wish to cause her more grief than she has experienced already."
"If they allow their argument with me to interfere with their fair treatment of Reah, then they aren't much in the way of men." Aurelius rose from his seat, dropping my hand. He was angry—dangerously so. Karzac had insinuated that the Director and the Vice-Director might treat me worse if Aurelius voiced his concerns. Was that what would happen? It made me want to cry.
"Baby, hush." Tory gathered me tightly against his side. "They haven't treated Ry or me badly."
"You are sons of a queen, and the sons of Director Keef's mate," Karzac grumbled. "Of course you will not be treated as any conscript might be treated. Reah is a rare treasure and they intend to use her any way they can."
"Is that what you think?" Norian Keef slammed the door so hard against the wall it crushed the doorstop and split the fine wood of the door.
"Yes, that's exactly what I think, Director," Karzac spat. "Tell me what you did when you forced that child to walk through the entire palace and then down two flights of steps to the dungeon, when she shouldn't have been on her feet at all. Tell me what that second of yours was thinking when he dug his fingers into a ranos pistol wound. Tell me what you were both thinking when you stood there for minutes, watching our little one go into convulsions and nearly die. Were you hoping that your prisoner would confess something right then? As I hear it, he was shouting at you to help her!"
Norian's face held guilt. There wasn't any other way to describe it. I was wiping tears away—only now was I hearing the incident described. I hadn't been lucid enough at the time to say exactly what had happened. And Karzac had been warning Aurelius about voicing his opinions to Norian Keef. Well, Karzac's temper had just gotten the better of him.
"We will not be treating agent Nilvas worse, now." Norian ran fingers through his brown hair. He was slightly shorter than Karzac, and there was still something dangerous about Director Keef. I wouldn't want to be on the opposite side of Karzac's anger, however. Who knew what the physician might be capable of doing?
"You've already done that. How can the worst become more so?" Aurelius' eyes were so dark a red they were nearly black.
"Vampire, it was not my intention to cause that much harm. Neither Lendill nor I knew how bad off she was. We thought the healer, here, and the Larentii had taken care of things. We were wrong."
"And you did not ask." Karzac was still furious. Nothing Norian Keef had to say would make up for what Karzac might consider gross negligence and outright endangerment. I'm not sure how I knew that, but the information filtered into my mind somehow. Director Keef—he was angry as well. Angry with Karzac, angry with Aurelius, angry with Lendill and angry with himself. Surprisingly, I didn't detect anger with me and that caused me to wonder. I was still pressed tightly against Tory's side. I shivered in his embrace.
"Norian, are you destroying my study?" Queen Lissa walked through the door.
"I am surrounded by people who wish to destroy me," Norian grumbled.
"And I might be convinced to help them if you are frightening Reah," Lissa pointed a finger at her mate. It made me wonder how they'd become mated to begin with. Director Keef's actions so far hadn't spelled out an ideal mate for the Queen of Le-Ath Veronis. Not in my eyes, anyway.
"He's a lion snake shapeshifter, and he wasn't always this awful." Lissa turned her gaze to me.
"Lissa, the fact that you gave away that secret would see you imprisoned, if you were one of my conscripts," Norian snapped. "And thank you for calling me awful in front of my employees."
"She already thought that, don't you think? Norian, this isn't your normal conscript. You know that." Lissa flung a hand in my direction. "She's nineteen, for fuck's sake. She didn't tell anyone while she was growing up that her brother, who is actually her father, was doing his best to beat the life out of her. I think she can keep your secret, Norian Keef, as well as keeping her own." Lissa's eyes were now just as deep a red as Aurelius' were. And what had she said about Edan?
"Oh, no," my vision went dark.
"Reah, don't pass out, baby," Tory was patting my cheek while Karzac rushed over, placing fingers against my forehead.
* * *
Vice-Director Schaff was standing next to the sofa when I woke. I blinked up at him, wanting to cry. Was he going to hurt me again? That's what Edan had done. If I passed out after he hit me, he'd hit me again when I woke, just for fainting in the first place.
"She thinks you will harm her. State your business and leave." Karzac was still there and handing out orders. Tory was there, too, as was Aurelius. My head was in Auri's lap while Tory paced and blew clouds of smoke from his nostrils.
"Reah, we wanted to tell you soon," Lendill began. "About Edan Desh. Addah had the DNA tests run shortly after your birth. He suspected even then. We figure it was the reason he sent you to Edan. His mistake was never telling either of you what he'd found—that Edan was your father. We suspect foul play, not only in that but also in your mother's death. We are currently investigating Edan, Marzi Desh and the physician who attended your mother. We are very close to bringing charges against them—for rape, murder and child abuse. You no longer have to level abuse charges—if other, more serious crimes are committed, the abuse victim doesn't have to be involved. The state will prosecute." Lendill nodded curtly to Karzac and strode swiftly from the room.
"I was born of rape." That fact settled into my brain—it was so much like Edan to do something like that and so much like his mother Marzi to convince him it was a good idea in order to get rid of another, whom she saw as a rival.
"Reah, you can't let that upset you," Aurelius now held me on his lap. "None of this was your doing, love."
I saw the wisdom and reason in his words—it did nothing to keep my heart beating at a more steady rhythm or my mind from going in circles. They'd killed my mother. She hadn't wanted to leave me, perhaps. Her death was something that had plagued me over the years and Marzi's whispered "You should never have been born," when I was six now made more sense.
"Marzi probably wanted to tell Addah that my mother had gone to bed with Edan," I mumbled, while Aurelius kissed my temple and held me tightly against him. "But when my mother became pregnant, I guess other things prevented it."
"Reah, stop thinking about it, baby." Tory went to his knees in front of Aurelius and me. "We're trying to get you back from the other things. This shouldn't have been dumped in your lap just now."
"No time would have been a good time, my love." Aurelius stroked hair away from my face. I suppose my hair was finally growing out a little.
"Reah, I don't want to place you in a healing sleep but I will if this overwhelms you," Karzac sighed.
"I just feel cold," I muttered. I did feel cold.
&n
bsp; "It would help if you'd drink some hot tea with Tory and me." Aurelius rose easily, even with me still in his arms. He was vampire—he was strong.
"I want to come." Gavril poked his head in the door. "Master Morwin wouldn't let me leave my lessons early. I got here as fast as I could." His dark eyes held a silent apology for me.
"Chash, don't worry about it." Aurelius set me down and Gavril and I were hugging each other tightly.
"I heard all that stuff; my hearing's really good," Gavril said. "Reah, it doesn't matter how you got here. Where would Aurelius and I be if you hadn't been born? I'd have taken that shot instead of you—you shoved me out of the way. Believe me, anybody brave enough to pound on a High Demon in his smaller Thifilathi to keep him from killing a witness gets the highest marks in my book."
"She was pounding on me? I don't remember that," Tory grumped.
"And yelling at you. I think if she hadn't been your mate, you might have killed her, too." Ry walked in. I hadn't seen him for a while—he'd stayed out of the picture while Tory had been courting me.
That's how I ended up being escorted to the kitchens by a High Demon, a vampire, the child of vampires, a Karathian warlock and a healer. The palace cook was the same one, I saw—he still hadn't gotten his job on the light half of the planet.
"You're the one who made the fish," he said when I walked in, supported by Gavril on one side and Aurelius on the other. Tory had allowed his younger brother to help me down the long warren of hallways into the kitchen. "I am Chef Harding," he held out his hand. "I can never get the fish to come out right," he said.
"You're cooking it a little too long," I said. "Make the sauce first, then do the fish. It always turns out better that way."
"I don't suppose I could get your sauce recipe?"
"Not that one," I said. Gavril and Aurelius let me go so I could work at the counter with Lissa's cook. "I can show you one that won't get you involved in a lawsuit with Desh's, though." That's how Chef Harding and I collaborated to make fish with a new sauce and serve it to our audience. Karzac had held Aurelius back while I worked. "We will allow this—it is a distraction," he whispered. I heard but pretended I hadn't.
Demon Revealed (High Demon Series #2) Page 3
