Long seconds passed before Toran answered.
“I can feel her,” he found himself confessing, “long after she feeds.” Opening himself up just the barest amount, he slid his gaze away. “It’s like she’s a part of me.” Now more than ever. Toran closed his eyes and rubbed his chest. “This closeness I feel… her very being calms me.”
She is a balm to my soul.
At his quiet confession, his cousin sat stunned and silent, unsurprisingly shocked that Toran had deigned to share even a hint of his inner anguish.
“I am happy for you, my cousin,” Merus said at last.
“I can’t see how it changes anything.” Eyes still closed, Toran nodded his head, his actions at odds with his words. “The prophecy… I can’t see how I can possibly square what it is I want with fate.” He paused, his eyes now open to the stark truth at hand. “But I also can’t see how I can possibly give her up.”
He met his cousin’s searching gaze.
“Help me, Merus,” he whispered. “I can’t live without her.”
A female’s shout rang out from the great room.
His blood ran cold.
“Oh, shit,” said Merus. “What the fuck is Sarai doing here?”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Springing from his chair, Toran bolted to his office doorway.
Merus followed close behind.
They watched as Toran's longtime housekeeper, arms spread wide, danced backwards trying to hold Sarai at bay as the female charged towards the throne room entrance.
“I apologize, my lord,” she cried over her shoulder. “I tried to stop her at the castle gate.”
“I suggest you get out of my way, old woman,” answered Sarai, “lest you find yourself on the bad side of your queen.”
“It’s okay, Wynda,” Toran said, his voice raised over Sarai’s grumblings. “I’ve got this.” When Wynda hesitated, he prodded gently, “Go on, everything’s fine.”
When the old woman was out of earshot, Toran whipped around.
“What the hell, Sarai?”
“I need to speak with you.” The daemoness tilted her head in Merus’s direction. “Alone. It’s important.”
“Until the public announcement is made this evening, there’s nothing to discuss,” Toran said in answer. He had a good eight hours ahead of him––time he desperately needed to figure a way out this mess… to find a way forward with Liv somehow at his side. “Until then,” he bit out, “you have no claim on me.” Jerking his head towards the door, he ordered, “Merus, get her out of here.”
“What’s going on?” Three sets of daemon eyes snapped over to where Liv stood on the steps of the landing. Her hair was tousled and bed-wild, her lips still pulpy and slightly bruised from his kisses.
A wave of his venna concussed the air.
Fuck.
“What claim will she have on you, Toran?” Liv’s voice dropped to a whisper.
The look on her face almost ended him.
With a helpless growl, Toran pushed Sarai aside and rushed over to the staircase. Standing on the second step up, Liv’s eyes were near level with his own, a storm brewing within them.
“Liv, go back upstairs and wait for me,” Toran said, nearly choking on an onslaught of emotion, emotion he knew his faine could feel in her very soul, her eyes growing wider with every intake of breath––eyes that filled with the bleak recognition of his betrayal.
“Go upstairs,” he whispered. “I will explain everything.”
I promise I will make this right, Toran desperately wanted to add but couldn’t.
Gods help me, there has to be a way…
“Well, there’s not a whole lot to explain,” Sarai raised her voice to say. “I’m here to prepare for my wedding night. Which just happens to be tonight.”
“What the fuck?” Toran whipped around to face his would-be bride. He dropped into a battle stance, his arms held out to protect the female, his female, behind him.
“Surprise.” Sarai laughed a wicked laugh. “My womb will be ready for your seed much earlier than expected.” She pressed a palm against her breast and raised an innocent eyebrow. “Did Anara not tell you?”
Shit.
Toran’s mind raced back to the missed meetings, the unreturned phone calls, the days of brushing the doctor off when it was now so clear she had had something critically important to tell him.
“Her womb?” Behind him, Liv breathed out a low, agonized whisper. “Oh my gods, this is what everyone’s been hiding from me.”
Whipping around, he watched as she tripped a heel on a step. He lunged forward to steady her only to cry out as she jerked her arm away.
“This is why you’ve needed me since the very beginning,” she said, her eyes brimming over with tears.
“Liv, please, listen to me…” he pleaded.
“To serve you and your household.”
“Please…”
“How could I have been so stupid?”
At her whispered words, the crest on the castle floor cracked clean down the center.
Toran went to take the steps in one quick leap, desperate to get Liv alone, to tell her everything.
To plead his case.
But before he could make his move, she evaporated into the thinnest of air.
All that was left of his faine was the glittering remnants of Toran's discarded energy.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
In the span of that heartbeat, Toran lost his mind.
The castle’s foundation shifted, the outer walls trembling under the weight of his distress.
Oblivious to it all, violence shimmering from without and within him, Toran tensed to pulse, no doubt intent on finding his faine. Before Toran could lose himself to the Mythos, Merus lunged forward and grabbed his cousin’s arm.
A beam crashed down from the ceiling, then another, the oppressive chill of the gray winter sky crowding in from above.
“Calm yourself, Tor!” Merus cried as he pushed Toran under the curve of the stairwell, out of the way of danger as chunks of the castle’s framework rained down.
He pinned his cousin against the wall. Toran's entire body shook with tension, every muscle strung taut as wire, his venna a seething wave of fury.
Merus grit his teeth against the electric pulse that roiled off of Toran at a rapid boil. Pressing a forearm against his cousin’s throat, he tried with all his might to force his will upon him, to make Toran succumb somehow to reason. “Listen to me…” he said, trying to smooth out the panic in his voice. “I know you want to go to Liv but you need to get a grip.”
Despite his efforts, the stone floor beneath them continued to crackle like melting ice over an early springtime pond. Like this, Toran could rip open a seam that could never be undone––a catastrophic tear that, unlike the one his father had caused, could never be patched over by paid-for magic.
Toran’s kingdom would forever be exposed to its enemies.
The shaking intensified.
“Fucking calm yourself, Toran!” Merus repeated. “Do not follow her like this! You know it’s not safe.”
Throwing his shoulder into his cousin’s body, Merus took a desperate shot. He wrapped a hand tight around Toran’s neck and opened himself up wide to the fury. Though Toran had, for his entire life, shut Merus out from everything, Merus’s half-faine nature now begged to ease his cousin’s pain.
He, at last, discovered the truth about Toran’s ways.
For all those years, it hadn’t been a deep-rooted aloofness that had kept Merus at an arm’s length away.
It had been mercy.
Crying out, Merus staggered under the weight of Toran’s agony. Gulping down a ragged breath, he beat back a wave of nausea as he was assaulted by centuries of rage––a rage made all the worse by longing, despair, and loneliness, all wrapped tight in a blinding sense of futility.
Intertwined through it all was Toran’s hopeless love for Liv––a longing so acute, so desperate, Merus feared for his cousin’s lif
e.
“I’m so sorry, Tor.” Bending forward, Merus pressed his forehead against Toran’s own. He opened himself as wide as he could bear, trying to syphon off as much as he could of his cousin’s pain. “I’m so sorry for everything you’ve suffered. But you’re not alone. You’ve never been alone. I’m here for you always… we’ll figure out a way through this, I promise.” He cupped the sides of Toran’s head in his hands. “But listen to me,” he whispered, “you have to get a hold of yourself. Now.”
A sound of raw, naked anguish tore from Toran’s chest.
Pulling back, Merus watched as Toran squeezed his eyes shut. Against Merus’s steadying hands, Toran strained his neck as if… searching for something.
Then, as quickly as it had started, Toran's temper subsided. The turbulent air around him downshifted to a hissingly fragmented static as something very tangible… and eerily right with the world… clicked into place.
When Toran opened his eyes, Merus tightened his grip. He blinked in stunned confusion.
“Toran, your venna…”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Upstairs, outside the royal bedchambers, Kellen sat silently in the shadows, praying that Toran’s pique would pass. His back was pressed against the wall, his knees drawn up and casually wide. His eyes, however, were locked on Arman’s lackey who, at that very moment, cowered against the balustrade. Diogo whimpered like a child as the castle disintegrated around them.
Shifting on the floor, Kellen barely suppressed a groan, his tired and aching body protesting against the slightest movement. He’d been injured in the ambush, having taken a sword to the side as he had screamed to the Tenn to save himself.
Given his human half, he was slow, as always, to heal.
And, in this case, he was even slower to forgive himself.
It wasn’t often that Kellen was caught off guard.
But Arman had surprised him.
That was for godsdamned sure.
Kellen had never for a moment suspected that the assassins would be of Vimora blood.
But he should have known.
There was just too much at stake.
Especially now that Kellen knew which path the Tenn had chosen.
He had seen it in the daemon’s eyes.
And now that Toran battled for his future downstairs, Kellen would battle for his own.
After all, he had promised his mother he’d do so––a promise she had extracted from him with her dying breath.
He was heartened to know now that he hadn’t failed.
Even as he knew this, the memory of that awful night played out with vivid precision in his exhausted mind. His mother’s naked, bloodied body, her skin flayed raw to the bone. The bloody rags with which he had tried to clean her. Her pleading, tearful eyes as she uttered the last of her words.
Take the faine’s life, son, to someday reclaim your own. Your past and your future, your just rewards, should he choose heart over throne.
What those cryptic words had meant, he thought he’d never understand.
They had been uttered, after all, decades before his true nightmare had begun.
Before they had been taken from him.
Regardless, he had done what his mother had commanded. Barely just past being a child himself, Kellen had pulsed the young faine out of Venn Dom, and had left her for dead.
An act that had haunted him for centuries.
But, as it turned out, he hadn’t killed her.
Kellen had saved her.
Now, it all made sense.
As soon as he had seen the stone Arman had proffered to Diogo the night before, Kellen had recognized it for what it was: a chance to find his past.
Though his wife had been long dead to this world, with the scrying stone in hand, Kellen now had the means with which to find her in another. While his heart ached knowing he could never bring back the babies they had lost, he could see he now had the opportunity to find a new future with her…
All thanks to the Tenn and his faine.
Toran’s thunder concussed the air just before an eerie silence descended like fog on the castle.
Moments later, shouts rang up from the great room floor below.
Ignoring the chaos, Kellen tensed forward as Diogo finally made his move. He watched as the daemon tiptoed towards the chamber of the faine.
Biting back a grimace, Kellen rose silently to his feet.
From the chamber’s open doorway, Kellen watched as the Elder made his way quickly around the bed and into the bathroom. Quiet as a cat, Kellen followed. Just as Diogo reached for the female’s hairbrush, he sprang inside.
Grabbing the back of Diogo’s head, Kellen slammed the daemon’s face down against the basin.
Diogo yelped, his venna lashing out like a whip to protect its host. Kellen grit his teeth against the pain, the weak venna in his veins warring with Diogo’s own. As always, it felt as if he’d been doused in boiling water before being plugged into the socket in a wall.
It was a good thing Kellen was both younger, and stronger, than the daemon.
He was also more determined.
“Make another sound, and I’ll slice out your tongue,” Kellen whispered, his knife poised tight against the daemon’s cheek. “Do you understand me?”
Diogo nodded, inadvertently nicking his skin against the blade. A single drop of red plopped wet against white marble.
“Now, control your venna, old man,” Kellen continued. “Do it, or it’ll end badly for you. I’ll gut you where you stand like I’ve gutted the others before you.”
Diogo’s venna subsided to a low-voltage hum.
“What are you doing here, Kellen?” Diogo managed to hiss.
“You have something I want,” Kellen answered. Flattening his body against the daemon’s back, Kellen reached his hand around and patted his palm over the front of the Elder’s trousers.
“No!” Diogo begged, instantly aware of what Kellen was after. “Do not do this!”
Finding what he sought, Kellen dug two fingers inside Diogo’s right front pocket and pulled out his prize.
He raised his hand level with Diogo’s gaze. Opening his palm, he revealed the silvery pink scrying stone. “I thank you for your cooperation,” he murmured as he slipped it into his pocket.
“Please, I beg you!” Diogo cried. “Join with us, and we’ll share the stone!”
“No need to share,” Kellen laughed. “I’ve just taken it from you. Now, what did I say earlier?” He fisted Diogo’s hair at the back of the Elder’s neck, his blade hand itching to plunge his steel into the Elder’s spleen. Remembering his pledge to Toran, he resisted.
Diogo babbled bravely on.
“I’ve seen how you’ve fought for years,” he cried. “I’ve seen how you’ve raged against your father, against the powers that be! This is your chance to remake Venn Dom, to destroy the Tenn. Arman and I can promise you power, the territories you’ve conquered, anything you want…”
“There’s nothing more you can give me,” said Kellen.
“But the faine,” Diogo cried as he began to struggle anew. “I must drain her.”
Wrapping his arm tight around Diogo’s neck, Kellen yanked the daemon’s body up and away from the vanity.
“Unfortunately for you and your master,” Kellen answered, “that’s just not going to happen.” Kellen spun Diogo around. With his knee to the daemon’s groin, Kellen pressed his thumb and forefinger hard against Diogo’s jaw.
“Open your mouth.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Downstairs in the wreckage of the great room, Toran blinked rapidly, trying to process what Merus was trying to tell him.
Something about his venna…
“His venna is eager to claim his bride!” Arman cried as he pulsed into the room. Dressed in dark, flowing robes made electric blue by the tinge of his venna, he was accompanied by a hieratikos, the daemon priest charged with performing the sacred ceremony binding the Tenn to his queen.
In the wake of their entrance, the door to the great room crashed open, and a stream of daemons rushed inside, some carrying tools, others pushing wheelbarrows full of heavy stones. Their progress was stopped near immediately by the pile of destruction barring their path.
“What the fuck is this?” Toran pushed Merus away. Mind clear and venna soothed, his hypersensitive senses could feel Liv’s presence across the ‘els, safe and sound in Vegas. She’d gone to be with her witch. Calmed by this knowledge, Toran stood tall, determined to put this bullshit behind him so he could go deal with his faine.
To bring her back home where she belonged.
“You know what this is!” Sarai screamed from where she stood pressed against the wall out of the way of danger from falling debris. “I refuse to give you what you want until that door is fixed and the faine is locked away!” She jabbed a finger in his direction. “You will make this right before I spread my legs for you!”
Before Toran could open his mouth to point out she was out of her godsdamn mind, Arman laughed. “Let the faine go! We don’t need her anymore!”
Toran whipped around to face his uncle. “What the fuck?”
Marching over with the hieratikos in tow, Arman accused with barely restrained delight, “I can feel your weakness. You’ve drained away your power between the thighs of your faine.”
What the hell is the old fool talking about? thought Toran as he gazed upon the wreckage wrought by the force of his temper. They were lucky the castle still stood.
He felt stronger than ever.
“Though, I have to say, you put up a hell of a fight,” the old daemon said. “I didn’t think you’d prove to be so strong. Which makes my victory so much more delicious.”
Before Toran could offer a word in answer, Arman lunged forward to grab Sarai’s arm. He swung her around until she collided hard against Toran’s body.
“What is this, uncle?” Toran cried as he tried to push Sarai away. Skin crawling at the feel of another female’s flesh against his own, Toran tensed to pulse to his faine.
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