He had fought with her by his side for centuries, had loved her as family for just as long. A rush of emotion hit him and he realized that maybe Kindara wasn’t the only woman he was connected to hit him.
Aureliana was his first cousin; how had he forgotten that? In his anger at the brother who had raised her, had he overlooked her? That had been wrong of him; he would have to make amends somehow.
“Nalik is correct. But so is Ren, but he is also wrong. He will not like hearing that, but it is the truth. The women do not need to fight. But neither should the men have to. No one should be forced to defend their world. But a threat is coming. We can all sense it, and some of us are plagued by it at night. We will all be called on at some point to defend our homes and our families. We cannot deny or hide from that. But seeking the battle now is not what we should do. There is just more that needs to happen in the coming months, to better prepare all of us.”
Why did it suddenly sound like someone else was inside Auri? Like a thousand voices blending in to one? Soothing, yet at the same time frightening?
Was she a Laquazzean? He’d heard rumors that she was, but no one had confirmed it in his hearing. He’d heard of what had happened to her and the big warrior a few months back. But he hadn’t paid much attention.
Now he wished he had.
“You know something we don’t, cousin?”
Aureliana smiled, a mysterious smile that he knew was not the Aureliana he remembered. “Many things, Nal. But this isn’t something I know, but something I feel.”
“Pardon me, but basing the decisions for my people on something you feel is not a strong enough reason for me. Yet my people number but a fraction of yours.” Jushua said. “I need something more tangible to take back to my warriors.”
“How secure are your people?” Rathan asked. “We have many tribes and Kinds relocating to here and Levia for now. To better secure their defenseless.”
“We are tied to Euschao now, but our true home is Evelanedea. We have fought these five thousand years to regain control of it. So many of my Kind are still enslaved there. We rescue so many refugees each year and resettle them in Euschao. I have few men capable of defending too many such settlements. I do not want our new world threatened.”
“But it will be,” Aureliana said. “Every world will be, I am afraid.”
“How do I keep them safe? They depend upon me, yet my strengths have always been battle not defense, nor magic spells to surround my people.” Jushua’s pain was easy for Nalik to hear. To understand.
“How many people do you have? You could bring them all here for the next little while. Until the war has ended.” Rathan offered, surprising Nalik. What kind of demon had ever offered to help others? Rathan’s brother was nodding. “We have room in Thrun. After the death of the Rhacshas demons a few months ago, it left their settlements empty. They are not the best, but they are permanent structures that could be repaired.”
“I have four hundred thousand people, spread over a full continent. I do not know how many would be willing to relocate. For those who do not, I must provide protection.”
“The Rhacshas cities will hold around half of that,” the King of demons said. “There are also several areas of Levia, I believe that would hold the rest. Provided the remainder of your people would be willing to relocate for the time being. Ren, would you and your gamata be willing to travel to Levia this night, to discuss it with the Wolf god and the girl goddess?”
It was Aureliana who spoke. “Certainly. I wish to speak with Jierra about Ethan and Elias, anyway. And inform Rydere that Nalik and Cass have been found safe.”
Kindara’s adopted daughter Jierra lived in the world of the god and goddess, with her Rajni, the oldest grandson of that bastard Taniss. Nalik had deliberately avoided the young male who greatly resembled his grandsire.
He couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t rip the male into a thousand bloody pieces, simply for his resemblance to Taniss.
He pushed that thought away; it wasn’t easy—but the idea of harming his Rajni’s cousin, whom he knew she loved a great deal, made it a bit easier. Not much. But some.
“I will need to confer with my top men, and my mother. She represents all of the women and children of our people.” Jushua was hesitant, skeptical, and Nalik understood it as well.
This was not what the other man had intended when he’d accompanied them to Relaklonos. Relaklonos was the only other realm connected to Euschao that Nalik had known. It was the only choice of portkeys he could have made in Jushua’s world.
Though he was highly uncomfortable in this realm—he’d hunted in it too many times to be fully unaware of what could happen here—he was happy to have gotten his Rajni here safely.
She had plenty of family here to keep her happy. And if she chose to stay in this layer, he could make do, as well.
He hoped she would get used to having a shadow for the rest of her days in the demon world. In any world, for that matter.
It wasn’t someone else’s place to protect her. And it was time that all knew that.
He was not leaving her vulnerable again.
And the best way to protect her from the monsters of these worlds—monsters far worse than him—was to claim her.
He’d have his Rajni, and soon.
Chapter 29
Cass slept for what had to be twelve hours straight, and only woke when someone knocked close to ten the next morning.
She answered the door, still groggy and feeling a little sick.
It shocked her to see Nalik standing there. He was clean and dressed in clothes similar to the kind she’d seen Rathan wearing the day before. What was he doing at her room? She’d thought for sure that now that she was safely delivered to her family he’d start avoiding her completely again. “Uh…hi.”
“Good morning.” The words sounded so strange coming from him. He had been abrupt and almost rude since the moment they had met, after all. What did the man want? He had to want something. She wasn’t that naïve. “I’ve come to fetch you downstairs for breakfast.”
“What time is it here? Does time work the same here?” She’d have to find a way to get used to that, wouldn’t she?
“It’s a bit slower than you are accustomed to. Relaklonos is one of the outer layers. So it takes it a bit longer to pass time than Euschao or Evelanedea, which are both in the inner area of the world.”
She understood. Maybe. The inner layers of an onion were smaller than the outer, after all. “And where is Colorado?”
“Gaia is stuck right smack in the middle of the eighteen layers. Not quite as important as most of the humans think it is. There are supposedly a few layers that are far more advanced than Gaia could ever hope to be. Though I’ve never found them.”
“You’ve been to seven?”
“Eight now.”
She found the idea fascinating—if confusing—and would definitely be asking more questions when she got an opportunity. Right now she was trying ignore the fact that she was standing in front of Nalik wearing only a long t-shirt she’d borrowed from Mallory, and thick socks.
She didn’t even have on underwear, for goodness sake! “I need to get dressed.”
Brush her hair, wash her face, brush her teeth. Put something over her body before he realized that she was practically naked in front of him.
“Not on my account.” A look had entered his eyes, and it had her breath backing up. Too late; he had already noticed.
Nalik had never looked at her quite like that. Not even when they had kissed before. Now there was something else in his expression. Almost possessive. What was he thinking? “Nalik…I…”
He stepped closer, more into her room. He closed her door behind him. “What, girl? Just what do you plan to say?”
She shook her head. She didn’t have a clue. She raised her hands up between them, struck again by how big he seemed. How imposing. He stepped toward her, until his chest was against her hands. He felt so hot and strong beneath her p
alms. Was she actually trembling? Over a man old enough to be her hundredth-great-grandfather? Crazy.
He didn’t look seven hundred years old. And he definitely didn’t feel that old. He was nothing like Tyler; he had been thin and sickly when they’d been together. Ty had already known he was dying when they’d made the decision to have sex. It had been easy and slow and sweet.
She had a feeling sex with Nalik would be anything but those three things.
And that terrified her. How could it not?
But her fingers curled in the material of his shirt. It didn’t feel like cotton or silk, but some type of cross between the two. His chest was hard as granite beneath the black cloth.
He smelled clean and like some type of spice she’d never smelled before. She wanted to breathe him in.
Cass must still be dreaming, or something. That was the best explanation she could come up with. There was no way she was in this strange room ready to kiss a man like Nalik Black. He hated her, hated her entire family; everyone knew that.
And what did he hope to gain from her? She pulled back where she could look at him. “What do you really want?”
He wrapped a hand in her hair and pulled her head back, harder than she’d expected. He hissed, a sound that she’d heard her now-Dardaptoan cousins make on occasion. “You have not figured it out yet? I have finally decided to accept the fate I’ve been handed.”
What did he mean by that?
She didn’t have any more time to wonder—he yanked her against his body and crushed her mouth with his.
It was so much better than last time. Last time there had been that fear of the unknown, the surprise of having never kissed him before.
Surprise and fear were there, but it was different.
This time…this time there was far more purpose in his actions than there had been.
What had he meant? Accepting his fate? What did that have to do with her?
A Dardaptoan spoke of only one fate—she’d learned that many times in the last year. But what would Nalik’s fate have to do with her?
When the answer hit her she pulled back and stared at him. “What do you mean, your fate?”
He grinned, an almost sinister expression that had her taking a few steps back. It was then she realized that he’d somehow pulled her sleep shirt up to her waist. She yanked the cotton back into place, hiding her naked parts from him. “I think you know the answer to that, kitten.”
“I think you’re crazy to even think it!”
“No. I am not the least bit crazy. You’re mine. And it’s time I staked my claim. It is too dangerous in this world now to leave you unprotected. I will not risk you again.”
“That’s all there is to it? You think that I belong to you and you want to claim me? Like Rydere claimed my sister? Whether I want it or not? How is that right?” It wasn’t, and the mere idea of him disregarding anything she might have wanted irritated her. “And if I’m your Rajni, why have you waited so long?”
He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her. “Your sister seems to have come around to being claimed. Those cousins of yours that are everywhere. Why should you be any different? And I waited because I thought you would be safer without me. But the world has changed since then, has it not? And now you will be far safer with me. So that be it; we shall act on what the damned goddess has set into place. And will have it done before your sister and that idiot mate of hers arrives this eve.”
Cass walked right up to him and pushed him. “I refuse. I don’t need someone like you to protect me. Sure, I appreciate you getting me here safely. I’m in your debt for that. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you completely change my life without even considering what I want or need. That’s wrong of you and completely selfish. Did you consider that? I’m an adult, Nalik, I make my own decisions. And I don’t choose you.”
Chapter 30
He picked up a glass bauble off the small end table and ran his fingers over the figure’s face. “In other times I would woo you with pretty lies and shiny baubles. But that is not now, cannot be now. There is no time for such things.”
“But you honestly think that you can just say, ‘Hey baby, you’re my mate. Get naked.’ and I will just fall in line? What about how I feel?”
“Neither of us are allowed to feel anything other than what the goddess has decreed long ago. Certainly you realize that? It is how the damned goddess operates.”
Cass was shocked at the harshness of his words. She knew he and the goddess weren’t exactly close—no one had missed the snub he had given her when she’d arrived in Colorado a few months ago for a visit—but the hatred beneath his words frightened her. “You despise her, don’t you?”
“Haven’t exactly been quiet about that, have I? No, I do not revere the goddess as so many of my idiot brethren do. I see her for what she is.”
“And what is that?”
“A selfish child in the guise of a woman. Through her actions my people were cursed, horribly, and many females and children died because of it—and that continues to this day. We are so damned weak we cannot hope to defend ourselves—must rely on who were once our enemies for even the barest hint of protection. It’s sickening. She has let our people down time and time again, and we’ve bought in to her treachery because she’s the damned goddess who created us. We were as sheep to the slaughter, following her. I will do so never again.”
Cass stepped back when he crashed the glass knickknack down on the table. It shattered, pieces going everywhere over the rug. His hand bled.
She started to him.
“Don’t move.”
At his order she froze. “Nalik, you’re hurt…”
“I’ll live.” He glared at her, as if she was responsible for his injury. “And that’s the goddess-damned rub. Thanks to her ignoring the pleas of the test rats in your grandfather’s lab, I’ll probably live forever. Miserable bastard that I am.”
“You wanted to die?” She ignored his order and grabbed a towel out of the bathroom. She slipped her shoes on and walked through the shards to him. She wrapped his hand in the towel and held it as she looked up at him.
He was hurting so much. And she didn’t think it was from his sliced hand. Why hadn’t she realized that before? She hated seeing someone in so much pain. “Do you still?”
He stared down at her for a long time. “I’ve tried a few times, kitten. It’s damned hard to cut off your own head. And every time I tried to bleed myself out, the wounds healed before I was finished. Your grandfather made sure I wouldn’t ever bleed to death. And he tested his little experiment out several times. Thanks to your grandfather, I truly am a monster. An indestructible one.”
Tears filled her eyes. No wonder he hadn’t told her she was his Rajni before. How could the goddess do that to him, knowing how much he’d suffered at her grandfather’s hands? “Do you think she knew what would happen to you? Do you think it was fated, too?”
“Three hells no. The goddess doesn’t have the power to see the future, or so I am told. Just the present, the past. But she was there in Levia watching as Iavius and Erastine were dying. Watched as Kindara miscarried my nephew into Barlaam’s hands. And she did nothing. No matter how much I begged and pleaded. She forsook my family, in every way possible. And now they seek to task me with protecting hers.”
It wasn’t just the anger in his words that struck her—he did have a right to be angry with the goddess, if what he said was true—but it was the pain.
It was obvious he’d felt abandoned and betrayed by Kennera. Had he been a strong believer in the goddess of his people? Theo was, according to Mickey, and from what Cass had observed of him, he really seemed to have faith that Kennera would lead her people well.
But Nalik felt far more deeply about the goddess. Did anyone else realize that? “I’m so sorry for what my grandfather did. I know you must hate all of us for it.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“But you don’t like me, either, d
o you?” She pulled the towel back to check the bleeding. It was already half healed. So quick. Remarkable, especially for a Dardaptoan. Everyone knew it took them forever to heal from bleeding. “How could you? My family has caused you nothing but pain, and then we show up at your house, expecting you to welcome us with open arms. It really isn’t any wonder some of your people throw rocks.”
“Who threw rocks at you?”
“Nothing for you to be concerned about. It was months ago.”
His expression grew even darker. Something she almost wouldn’t have thought possible if she hadn’t seen it for herself. “Anyone ever does something like that again, you tell me. Immediately. I will deal with them. No one treats my Rajni that way.”
“Nalik…I’m not your Rajni. How could I be? You hate my family, we have nothing in common, I’m human, and the conversion is supposed to hurt like hell, and in case you’ve missed it, I’m a bit too young for you. Not much, but a bit.”
“I may not care for your family—and I doubt I ever can—but I do not hate you. You are mine.”
“No. I am no one’s. Even if I chose to be with you, I will still belong to me.”
“I do not mean it like that. If—when—we seal our bond, I will belong to you as much as you will me. Of course, I am no real bargain. I understand that—you are getting a monster. I will not deny it. But I will guarantee your safety, welfare, and happiness will be put above my own. My honor as a Dardaptoan male alone will ensure that.”
The words were formal and she got the feeling he was making some kind of sacred vow. But it still wasn’t enough. How could it be? She wanted the man she eventually married to love her, not just be picked by some goddess she would never choose to worship. Where was the freedom in that?
She wanted what Emily had said their parents had shared. Her father and mother supposedly loved each other a great deal. Cass had been too young when her mother died to really remember her that well. If she were honest, Mal and Em and Rand had raised her more than anyone. Her father had always been there, but he had been so busy that sometimes she had gotten forgotten. Claudette had loved her, but she was not family. Not really. And she had always clocked out at five o’clock and left. It wasn’t until Claudette’s husband had died before Claudette had gotten close to Cass’s father.
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