Daughter of Gods and Shadows

by Jayde Brooks

  “He tortured you, Kifo,” she volunteered.

  Kifo couldn’t believe the depths to which this liar would go to trick him. “Now is not the time for this, Khale,” he said with his own warning. “Don’t you have a new Redeemer to play with?”

  “He tortured you longer than most, Djinn. I don’t even want to try and imagine the kinds of things that Sakarabru did to you, taking you to within an inch of your life, only to bring you back again, saying that he was saving your life, when all he was doing was manipulating you. I have seen him do this. I know what he is capable of.”

  Gunshots fired in the house behind her, and Khale flinched.

  “You’ve destroyed this world, Kifo. You’ve destroyed this world. There is no going back for these people. Don’t you understand that? He made you do this.”

  Sakarabru had saved Kifo’s life. That’s what he understood. And nothing this bitch said would be enough to make Kifo question his loyalty to the Demon.

  This place had been his home, too. It wasn’t perfect. Humans could sometimes—most times—be their own worst enemies, wallowing in their petty prejudices and selfishness. They were intolerant and ignorant, and war was nothing new to this race. Kifo had started a different kind of war, one that he knew they wouldn’t be prepared for. It was the most devastating and heartbreaking thing he’d ever seen, watching entire societies fall apart over what he’d done.

  “He will call to them?” she asked. Khale was referring to those who had been turned. “He will gather them and claim them as his army?”

  “He’s getting stronger,” Kifo said. “He’ll call them when he’s ready.”

  She visibly swallowed. “She will be ready.”

  “Your new Redeemer?” he asked smugly.

  “Mkombozi reborn,” she corrected him.

  The Shifter put on a great game face, but something told him that she didn’t quite have the same faith in this reborn that she’d had in Mkombozi.

  Khale wasn’t the only one privy to this so-called prophecy. Kifo had heard his share of the rumors. He had never been one to believe in such things. Kifo had been taught that individuals were born with the gift of choice and selection, and as long as they lived, they could choose. As long as choice allowed, then it was impossible to predict an outcome.

  “Didn’t you kill the last Redeemer who was prophesied to save our world?” he asked sarcastically. “If prophecy holds true, won’t you kill this one?”

  She held his gaze with her own. “Perhaps, but not before she destroys your Demon.”

  “Does this reborn Redeemer possess the Ancient’s courage, Khale? Does she have the same conviction?”

  Khale’s stone-faced expression would’ve been convincing to someone else. Kifo saw right through it.

  “The Demon and his Brood won’t stop the bonding, Djinn.”

  “Then I take it that it hasn’t already occurred,” he said flippantly. “The advantage is ours, Khale.”

  She nodded, “For now, but it won’t always be so, Djinn.”

  He watched as the Shifter changed into a small blue bird and flew away. Kifo stood there thinking about the choices he had made, which, consequently, had played well into the Ancient prophecies. He had made them of his own free will.

  Bringing the Demon back certainly came with consequences. Sakarabru’s ego was too big to settle for merely existing in this world. Kifo understood that by bringing him back, he would bring back the Demon’s unquenchable thirst for power and rule.

  Ultimately, it was Kifo’s ego that had been the deciding factor in bringing Sakarabru back from the brink of destruction. It had taken four thousand years to bring Sakarabru into this world. For all those years, Sakarabru had haunted him, stalked him in his dreams, calling on the Djinn to prove his obedience in the most magnificent test of his abilities he’d ever faced in his life. He’d done it. And in the process, he’d all but destroyed an entire civilization.

  LITTLE GIRL BLUE

  He pulled a key out of his pocket and unlocked the front door to the massive isolated house that was surrounded by huge trees, as if he were a normal person. The Guardian swung open the front door, grabbed Eden by her wrist, and then pulled her inside, closing the door behind them. Heavy dark wood beams, floors, and windowframes were offset by light-colored walls and picturesque views in every direction that seemed to go on forever.

  “Sit,” he commanded, leading her to the brown leather sofa in the center of the room. There was nothing in this house that gave her any indication of his personality, no paintings on the walls, sculptures, or even plants.

  She had just flown ten thousand feet above ground in the arms of a man with wings. Shit like that didn’t just happen. Eden wrapped her arms around herself and sat down on the sofa. Any thought she had to run or to cry or get hysterical was fleeting. Eden had no place to go, and even if she did, leaving wasn’t something she necessarily wanted to do right now. She felt safe here with him, protected. Even with Rose, Eden could never remember feeling this secure.

  She watched as he shrugged off his long black coat and let it fall to the floor as he made his way over to a bar across the room, his back facing her. She was living this nightmare that she’d always been told would be her life. It was real, and she was as unprepared as ever for how it was all playing out. One very solid revelation stuck in her mind, though. She had just kicked a ton of ass without even breaking a sweat. All this time, Eden had been pretending to be your average girl. The truth was a whole lot different.

  She watched him pour himself a drink and finish it in one gulp. He turned his head toward his shoulder, until she could at least see his profile.

  “Do you know who I am?” he asked.

  The weight of that question bore down on her so heavily that it took everything in her not to run away screaming. She had seen him once before, the night those two men attacked her in the subway station, and she’d run from him, but even back then, she knew him.

  Eden swallowed. “You’re … the Guardian,” she murmured. “Her Guardian.”

  Slowly he turned to face her and then approached her, carrying an empty glass and a carafe filled with whatever it was he had poured in his. He held out the glass to her, and she took it and held it in both hands and waited for him to fill it. Eden swallowed the contents without coming up for air and then coughed and gagged as she held it out for him to pour her some more.

  He walked back over to the bar and left her sitting there, glass outstretched.

  “Your name is Eden?” he asked, turning to look at her again.

  She nodded. “Eden Reid,” she said so low, she wondered if he had heard her.

  “You can call me Prophet, Eden Reid.”

  Prophet? “I thought your name was Tukufu?”

  God! He was breathtaking! Tall, muscular, and lean, the Guardian’s build reminded her of a swimmer. His shoulders were almost as wide as the room. It was his eyes that she found hypnotizing. Eden had locked onto them without even realizing it.

  “Eden? Are you all right?” he asked, concerned.

  She forced herself to look away. “MyRose told me that the Guardian’s name was Tukufu.…” Her voice trailed off.

  “MyRose?”

  She glanced up just long enough to see him smile. Eden desperately craved another drink. She needed to be drunk. She needed to hurry up and get freaking drunk on her ass.

  “Well, MyRose was right. That is my name, but only the Ancients call me that now. I go by Prophet.”

  Like, whatever. Prophet, Tukufu, God of Thunder—it didn’t matter what he called himself. He was the Guardian, and he’d brought her here, and what would happen next was anybody’s guess.

  “Do you understand what’s happening, Eden?”

  She closed her eyes and concentrated on the sound of him. Her heart raced as she focused on the cadence of his voice, the depth of it, and the tone. It brought memories back to her, but not memories she could see. Memories she could feel. Memories that comforted her, aroused her
, and memories that made her want to curl up in his arms and just stay there.

  “Eden?” he repeated, stirring her from the trance she’d fallen into. “How much do you know?”

  Eden pondered the loaded question before responding. “I know what they told me, Khale and Rose,” she murmured. “And I know what I’ve dreamed. I know that the Demon is the cause of all of this and that everyone’s looking to me to stop him.”

  Basically, she knew more than she wanted to know and way more than any human being should know.

  He paused for a moment, giving her a chance to collect herself for his next question. “How much do you remember from before?”

  She looked at him and shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said softly.

  “You remember me. Do you remember anything about Theia, what your life was like before?”

  Eden frowned. “It’s not like that,’ she snapped, frustrated.

  Khale had been notorious for asking her those same questions. Eden was Jonah swallowed up by the whale. Her life lived her, she’d never lived it. And after today, that fact was as clear as day.

  “I don’t remember things or places,” she eventually admitted. “I don’t remember people.”

  “Then tell me how it is,” he gently coaxed her.

  She stared back at him and saw patience, curiosity, and concern in his expression. He didn’t even know her, but she felt like he cared about her as if he did know her.

  “I feel things,” she started to explain. Feelings are intangible things, so explaining this to him seemed impossible, but he waited.

  “The memories I have are of things like the scent of a purple flower growing on the side of a hill where only that flower grows.”

  He nodded.

  “Certain flavors—I crave foods that I try to find but can’t.”

  An image came to mind of bread, but not just any bread. She’d been to every bakery shop in New York City trying to find it, but she never could.

  She closed her eyes and inhaled. “That scent,” she moaned.

  It was intoxicating and perfect, and when she opened her eyes, she realized that it was coming from him.

  He smiled.

  “Do you know that I am the Guardian because Rose told you that I was?” He approached her carefully and sat down next to her on the sofa.

  Eden drew her knees to her chest and tried to disappear into a ball.

  “Or do you know that I am the Guardian because you remember me?”

  Eden paused before admitting the obvious. “I remember.”

  No particular image of anything he’d done or said to her came to mind, but in her heart she knew things about him. “Your strength. Your devotion. You protected her.”

  “Her? Or you?”

  Her. He had been Mkombozi’s Guardian. Not Eden’s.

  “Eden,” he said tenderly.

  Her stomach fluttered when he said her name, and she knew that she was weak to him. She stared into those silver orbs of his.

  Tukufu had always taken Mkombozi’s breath away, and now he was trying to take hers too. He had told Mkombozi that he’d loved her from the moment he first saw her in Khale’s arms, but the Redeemer had loved him long before that.

  “I remember…” she murmured, “you.”

  Prophet raised his arm and extended his hand to her.

  She stood up and slowly walked toward him. He was her Guardian, had always been, and would always be.

  Eden took hold of his hand and let him gently pull her closer to him.

  The minutes passed between them before he finally spoke again. “Do you understand what’s happening to this world?” He looked at her.

  She nodded. “Doctors are calling it some kind of plague.” A plague was easier to digest than the darker thoughts lurking in the back of her mind. If that’s all it was, then it could be identified and eventually cured. Humankind was resilient enough to survive a damn outbreak.

  He paused again, seeming to search for the right words. Eden studied him, his powerful profile, the long ropes of locks hanging down his back.

  He turned to her. “Sakarabru, the Demon, is back, and he’s building his army. He’s using humans to do it,” he explained carefully.

  A wave of nausea washed over her.

  “He wants to do to Earth what he did to Theia,” Prophet explained.

  Those people who had attacked the bus weren’t humans anymore. Scientists and doctors couldn’t explain what they were, but in this moment, she knew.

  “Can those people ever be normal again?” she asked, hoping he could tell her what she needed to hear. “Is there a way to stop this? To reverse it?”

  Eden was crying, but for probably the first time in her life, it wasn’t for herself.

  He shook his head. “I honestly don’t know.”

  Eden took her glass and held it in front of him.

  Tukufu, Prophet, filled it, she drank, and then he filled it again.

  “This is crazy!” And she was finally feeling the effects of the alcohol.

  “It is,” he said. “It’s insane, and I know how hard this is for you.”

  She resisted the temptation to fall onto his chest and bury herself in him.

  “No. You don’t.” Eden felt helpless. “This is my home. It’s my world. Not yours or Khale’s or even MyRose’s.”

  “Believe me,” he said. “I do. It feels like only yesterday that I lost mine.”

  “You’re still you, Prophet,” she said, helplessly. “A week ago I was a fuckin’ bartender who hated my job, but hell, it was a job. The next thing I know, I’m sitting on a bus, people are getting killed and eaten by other people, and then I end up here.” How could he possibly know what this all meant, especially the monumental role she was supposed to play in this mess? “What happens next?”

  As far as Eden was concerned, she had come to the end of one life and stepped right into the beginning of another one, even worse.

  “Have you eaten?” he asked, after she’d calmed down a bit.

  Really? After everything she’d just said, that’s all he had to say? She shook her head. Eden had left home three days ago, and she couldn’t recall the last time she’d eaten or slept.

  “I can’t eat,” she said dismally.

  “Then you need to rest,” he said, taking hold of her hand and leading her to the staircase.

  He took her to one of the bedrooms and, literally, all it had was a bed. He walked over to the closet and pulled out a towel for her and then opened the door that led to a bathroom.

  “You can shower in here. The bed’s pretty comfortable. There are extra blankets in the closet if you need them.”

  He closed the door behind him when he left. She pinched herself several times for good measure just to be sure that she was awake. Her hands ached from hitting all those people. At least, that’s how she thought of them now, as people, but while Eden was fighting for her life they had been the enemy. Eden had fought those creatures on that bus out of desperation just like she’d fought the men who’d tried to rape her the other night and in both cases, just for a few moments, she had felt liberated. Eden had no idea how long she stood there after he was gone. She barely remembered showering. She seemed to come back to herself as she curled up in that bed, pulled the blankets up to her chin, and eventually drifted off into a restless sleep.

  CLEAR A SPACE

  She was young, but she was the one he’d sworn his heart and soul to all those years ago in another world, and yet she wasn’t. Eden Reid was a confused and frightened woman. She was filled with the essence of Mkombozi, but that didn’t mean that she was a carbon copy of the Ancient Redeemer. Bringing her here, watching her as she sat in his home, it became very clear to him that he had to tread lightly with this human woman and resist the natural urges he had to sweep her up in his arms, toss her on the bed, and make love to her until the sun rose. She wasn’t ready—and perhaps he wasn’t so ready, either.

  To anyone else, it was just a blue bird flying towa
rd him as the sun began to set. But he knew better.

  “Khale.” He muttered her name as she landed on the railing of his balcony overlooking the lake and then transformed into her human form, the young woman with the oversize glasses and stringy brown hair, leggings, and a black T-shirt with oversize, red puckered lips on the front.

  “She’s here,” she said anxiously, jumping down from the railing and starting to rush past him to get inside.

  He grabbed her by the arm and stopped her. “She’s sleeping.”

  Of course the Great Shifter was offended that the Guardian would bring it upon himself to actually put his hands on her. But he was offended that she would burst into his home without being invited.

  She jerked away from him. “I need to talk to her.”

  “You can talk to her in the morning,” he insisted. “Tonight she rests.”

  His tone and his demeanor sent a powerful message. The Shifter had been successful at keeping her from him, but Eden was with him now, and his duties as her Guardian took precedence over any authority Khale may have thought she had.

  “How is she?” Khale reluctantly asked.

  She had warned him that Eden was not ready for him, and she had been right. But the situation had escalated quickly, and Eden needed him now more than ever.

  “Scared,” he admitted. “Overwhelmed.”

  Khale looked disappointed. “Because she chooses to be. Eden is stubborn and refuses to accept the truth about her destiny.”

  “Can you blame her? She’s not a Theian, Khale. She knows nothing of our ways, our history.”

  “Eden has been told the history of Theia from the moment she was old enough to listen, Guardian. She has chosen not to accept the truth. She’d rather be some bitter girl who runs away from her destiny, her responsibilities, rather than stands and faces them.”

  “You tell her that her world will end if she doesn’t step up and become some legendary creature who can save it! You tell her that she’s the reincarnation of a being who lived four thousand years before her and who not only destroyed a Demon but her own world in the process, and you expect for her to just accept something like that?”