by Aja James
But the Claiming of the Blood Slave, Tal Telal, did not go as Anunit planned.
In front of everyone, the younger princess Ishtar Challenged her sister by right of First Blood.
For a while, as they dueled to the death, it seemed as if Anunit would defeat her sibling, but then Ishtar transformed into the Great White Beast—a giant snow leopard with mythical powers.
When the beast all but tore Anunit’s arm off, the shadow warrior had moved to join the fray, the instinct was to protect his princess, but Queen Ashlu stayed him with her hand.
A Challenge could not be interfered with. No matter the outcome, it had to be fought to the end.
And so, Anunit was defeated. Princess Ishtar Claimed Tal Telal as her Blood Slave instead.
In the aftermath, the shadow warrior buried his own anger and hurt and focused on helping his princess heal in the days and nights ahead.
She’d clung to him then, a pitiful, wounded girl, weak and full of doubt. And his heart had ached for her.
In those first nights while she recovered, he saw a vulnerability and fragility in her that she’d never let anyone see. A fragility that reached deep inside of him, digging into his vitals, ripping into his heart.
One night, a few weeks before her twentieth name day, Princess Anunit stumbled blindly into their shared chamber and would have collapsed had he not rushed forth to hold her steady.
“They will make Ishtar Queen,” she whispered the words with barely a breath, clutching desperately the strong arms that held her.
“The Consuls advised my mother t-to k-kill me,” she stuttered out and gulped for air.
“They said now that the prophesized Dark Queen has been revealed by the Great White Beast, there is no need to keep both princesses. And having me a-alive will only pose a threat to my sister’s rule. They said that the Dark Star is destined to be forever barren, and that is why I must die. That is why I am to lose everything I’ve ever lived for! ”
He held her to him more closely, hunching his broad shoulders and back around her, bending his head over hers to shelter her from the ruthless world in which they lived, from the twisted irony of Fate.
“The-they said snake venom is b-best, to give to me before I sleep, so that I would feel no pain. They said to wait until Ishtar has fully gained the throne and the empire is stable. And m-mother did not refute them!” her voice escalated in desperation and frenzy as she recounted.
“Why did she not refute them! Why was I born if this is my Fate?! I am the elder twin! I am the rightful Queen! And now I am to be disappeared from the world as if I never existed! Why!”
He held her as she convulsed in wrenching sobs, held her as she flailed with fury and pain. He let her scratch him, hit him, bite him, kick him. Bore the brunt of her desperate wrath and unending sorrow.
Until finally, she calmed.
An eerie stillness pervaded her, as if her soul had departed her fleshly being, and only an empty shell remained.
“I thought they loved me,” she said quietly, her eyes dry and unfocused.
“I thought I loved them—mother and Ishtar. Everything I did, everything that I am, have been to prepare me to be Queen. I became strong for them. I became ruthless just like mother so that I can be an even better Queen. But I was a fool. They never loved me at all.”
She blinked, and when her gaze refocused, there was a bleakness, and unending darkness, in her eyes that hadn’t been there before.
“I have no one.”
“You have me,” he told her. “I am here for you, Anunit.”
She shifted those glassy, bottomless black eyes to his face.
“Prove it.”
She’d taken him then. Savagely, ruthlessly, desperately used his body to absorb her pain, anguish and rage. He took it all from her without utterance, until he was bloody and battered, bruised and drained.
But still, it was not enough. He watched her sink ever deeper into an abyss of despair and hopelessness, the fire of life within her transmuting into cold, merciless, unfeeling death.
Until one night, the day before the royal twins’ twentieth name day, he was summoned to the Princess Ishtar’s chambers.
He did not know for what purpose except that Queen Ashlu had arranged it.
He did not know the Princess Ishtar well. For the past twelve months that he’d lived in the Palace, they’d exchanged but few words. She was always friendly and engaging, full of joy and laughter. Whereas Anunit was ambitious and shrewdly intelligent, Ishtar was carefree and passionate. Both princesses were full of life, strong and beautiful. But they used their strength in vastly different ways.
As demonstrated during the fateful Challenge, Anunit used her strength to conquer while Ishtar used hers to protect.
Although Anunit had been badly hurt in the process, the shadow warrior did not feel ill will toward her aggressor. It had been a fair match. And if it had resulted in death, then it would have been an honorable death. He might have wanted to save Anunit, but Queen Ashlu was right to hold him back.
“We are to come to terms before our Mating,” the younger princess said without preamble as soon as he was locked with her in her bedroom.
His head went slightly back from the shock of her words.
“I will Mate Anunit,” he protested. “We are betrothed—”
“But no longer,” Ishtar interrupted. “Not since I Challenged and defeated my sister in combat. Not since the Consuls, along with the Dark Keeper and Oracle, determined that I, not Anunit, should be Queen. And if so, then I must have the strongest Dark warrior as my Mate.”
She speared him with her glowing violet eyes.
“You, Lord Wind.”
He stayed silent while his mind reeled.
He was not a stud to use and manipulate at will! Led from stall to stall to cover mares indiscriminately. He might not be worth much, as his sire reminded him at every possible opportunity, but he had pride.
He was loyal.
“I know you want this outcome as little as I do,” she continued, beginning to pace the spacious room.
“You love my sister, and she loves you—”
He raised his eyes to her at that, startled by the statement said with such ready conviction. He himself could not put a name to his emotions toward Anunit, and yet a bystander so easily stated her perception as fact.
“—I have my own love too. I will never willingly take another male into my body. I will have no other but Tal Telal.”
So, the Dark Princess was in love with her Pure slave. Her Blood Slave.
The shadow warrior almost pitied her. Her love would die painfully before it would ever be allowed to live. Surely she knew that.
“You think I’m stupid or mad, don’t you?” she met his stoic gaze with purple fire. “It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks. I know my heart and I will not forsake it. Which is why when Mother announces the succession tomorrow, I will choose Tal to Mate, not you.”
He finally found his voice at that.
“She will never allow it. At best, you will delay the inevitable. At worst, she will take the slave from you in retribution. Perhaps even kill him.”
“Then I will die with him,” Ishtar growled. “And the Great White Beast they’ve been waiting millennia for will pass into oblivion.”
The shadow warrior recognized unshakable loyalty when he saw it. Princess Ishtar had it in spades. He admired her for it.
Abruptly, her expression softened, and she came to stand before him as she stared intently into his eyes.
“I know I have ruined everything for Anunit,” she whispered with heartfelt sadness. “I didn’t mean to. I never wanted to. I’ve never wanted the throne, never dreamed I would be Chosen. Anunit would make a far better Queen than I, we both know it. I cannot change my mother’s mind, but I can and will protect our hearts. Yours and Anunit’s, mine and Tal’s. I would never hurt my sister by taking that which she loves most.”
Much later, decades, centuries later, the shado
w warrior would wonder just what Anunit loved most. Ishtar had assumed it was him, but he was not nearly so certain.
Nevertheless, after the Princess Ishtar did as she promised on her name day—rejecting their betrothal in favor of her Blood Slave, the shadow warrior decided to prove his loyalty to Anunit once and for all, hoping that he could bring her back to herself, inject her with life once more.
He Mated his life force to her that very night, so that he depended on her Nourishment for his very survival. She had all the power over him; she had his body, his life, his beating heart, in the palm of her hand.
Was it love that drove him to it? Was it loyalty and devotion?
He never really knew.
He thought it didn’t matter, for their lives would end when the Queen decided to administer the poison. He simply wanted Anunit to know that she’d never be alone, not even in death.
Anunit accepted her Fate with no more outward protest, but this did not mean that she accepted it willingly.
She prepared herself for the poison, if and when it came, by consuming venom in small, then increasing dosages. For, the best anti-venom was venom itself.
The Great War and the Purge of the aftermath steered Fate on a different course, for Queen Ashlu perished in battle before Anunit’s death sentence could ever be carried out, and Ishtar never ascended the Dark throne.
But Anunit never stopped ingesting the venom. Like a drug, she’d become dependent on it.
Gradually, the venom transformed her. And through her blood and body, the Nourishment that she gave him, it transformed the shadow warrior also.
Until his own soul became frozen in a black shroud of bleakness, violence and vengeance. Until the green of his irises darkened into lightless black voids.
Until the very spark of life snuffed out within him.
*** *** *** ***
Clara gathered the ripped pieces of her sketch of Eli and set them on her long work table in the studio.
She placed the pieces in the correct formation and gazed down at Eli’s beautiful, broken image, deep in thought.
What on earth was she doing?
She didn’t recognize her life any more.
Over the past two weeks, she’d initiated the adoption of Annie and welcomed a shadow-vampire serial-killer into her home. Her body.
Her heart.
How long did it take to fall in love? Or to know that you loved someone?
How much did you have to know of the person before your heart and soul became irrevocably engaged?
Not much, apparently, where Clara was concerned.
She didn’t even know his last name. Didn’t know what he did for a living. Didn’t know anything about him beyond what she’d witnessed he was capable of in the brief interludes they’d had.
He was capable of extreme violence and remorselessness. He hadn’t hesitated to eliminate the shadow intruders who’d threatened her and Annie that night.
He was protective and territorial, as witnessed by the way he’d dispatched her followers and discouraged her would-be accoster on the way to the orphanage.
He was also infinitely gentle when he held her, when he patiently endured Annie’s petting and braiding of his hair even though it seemed as if he’d much rather be tortured on the rack instead.
And there was so much pain inside of him, so much despair and self-hatred. A total incomprehension of self-worth, as if he believed he was nothing, as if his life meant nothing.
As if he didn’t care whether he lived or died.
But she cared.
She cared very, very much.
Clara questioned her sanity for feeling so strongly for a male she might never see again, given the way he’d abruptly disappeared.
She sighed, coming out of her trance, and got to work.
A wave of inspiration subsumed her as she took a large cardboard panel from her supplies and laid it flat on the table. She placed the ripped pieces of Eli’s image on the cardboard, but left the seams of the edges visible. Then she worked on the background around the image until she produced the effect she’d been aiming for, finally, spraying a glaze over the charcoal so that it wouldn’t smear.
Before she put the collage away, she lightly kissed Eli’s sketched lips.
Her wish that night before she fell asleep was for him to come back to her.
And if he did, she’d do everything in her power to keep him.
Reignite the spark of life within him.
Because she’d seen what her students saw, from the first—well, second—moment she’d beheld him:
His physical shell was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen, but his soul was even brighter.
If only it could be set free.
*** *** *** ***
Dalair had thoroughly scoped out Novodevichy Cemetery the day before the meeting between Sergei Antonov and his Chinese contact was to take place. He was now familiar with every nook and cranny of the three acres that included the area, several important cross streets and the nearby Moskovskiy Stadium.
The cemetery took up a large, grassy, wooded area in the south-west part of St. Petersburg near the Moscow Triumphal Gate. It was a popular tourist attraction, especially during the summer when the trees provided ample shade for a nice long stroll if one didn’t mind the tombstones and the buried dead underfoot.
Presently, there was the typical spattering of tourists and local residents filtering through the cemetery at a leisurely pace. Dalair walked casually among them in a well-worn T shirt and jeans, with dark, brand-less aviators shielding his eyes.
Over one shoulder he carried a backpack, which contained a tour guide of St. Petersburg, an English-Russian pocket dictionary, bottles of water and a few Snickers bars, as well as two large crescent blades tucked away in a hidden, padded compartment. His weapon of choice.
He glanced at his wrist.
A few minutes before twelve noon.
No signs of Antonov or the Chinese contingent yet.
Dalair had conducted a thorough sweep of the entire area since his arrival hours earlier. The Gift of his enhanced senses allowed him to easily isolate new people entering and leaving the premises, pick up on conversations yards away, detect any sound or movement that was out of place.
Where were they?
Just when the thought registered, Dalair turned his head slightly to the left, his ears picking up on noises that didn’t match the rest of his surroundings.
There were several sets of feet walking briskly in the same direction, together in a group. What was unusual was that when people walked in groups, they tended to chit chat, yet there was no conversation in this group. Moreover, the feet soon crunched grass beneath them rather than the cobbled paths that everyone else walked on.
They were heading into a fenced off area in the southwest corridor of the cemetery that Dalair had mapped out in his mind earlier. There was a large crypt there. The group had opened a heavy door and filed through it, going down steps that took them underground.
Casually, Dalair took a couple of pictures of nearby statues with his smart phone like all the other tourists were doing and back tracked toward the crypt.
As he drew near, he listened for sounds of another group approaching, but there was none. Perhaps they were already waiting at the designated meeting place.
There were four sets of feet in the group that had gone down into the crypt. Two were either Pure or Dark warriors, given the power Dalair could sense in their movements; one was a large human male, presumably Antonov, and one was very light-footed, almost soundless in their movements.
Except for the soft tinkling of bells.
Dalair frowned in concentration. Where had he heard those bells before?
He didn’t have time to dwell on it as he stealthily pursued Antonov’s group through the heavy stone door and into the bowels of the crypt.
They were several yards ahead of him, going through a narrow tunnel that allowed only one person to pass at a time.
Da
lair knew that if he followed them, he’d be risking ambush in the tight passage. On the other hand, by the same token, he’d be fighting at most two warriors at the same time. He’d faced a lot uglier odds before.
He decided to follow, soundlessly unsheathing his crescent blades.
But when he advanced a few yards into the tunnel, he realized his mistake:
The tunnel allowed for only two bodies, one in front and one behind him, but if his foe took the form of shadows, there was no limit at all.
*** *** *** ***
Despite the bright summer day, Eli did not sleep.
Instead, he spent hours and hours wandering aimlessly about the City, trying to make sense of his current existence, until the sun had sunk below the flaming horizon.
And to avoid the dreams that haunted him while he slumbered, but which he couldn’t recall when he awoke.
He thrust a hand into his hair in frustration, only to encounter the tiny braids Annie had woven into the long thick mane.
Annie.
Clara.
They were the only people he knew.
His memories with them over the past couple of weeks, especially the last twenty-four hours, were the only ones he had that were worth remembering. He wanted more memories with them. He’d quickly become dependent on being around them, as if he belonged there rather than the reality—that he was a mere stranger living on their charity.
Or perhaps more fitting, a rabid stray dog they’d mistakenly taken in, given the way he’d left Clara’s apartment.
“Dr. Weisman, is that you?”
Eli turned to look behind him, toward the source of the unfamiliar voice.
A pale, slim woman with a messy brown bun and strikingly thick eyebrows walked a bit faster to catch up to him.
“I knew it must be you,” the woman said in a monotone voice, betraying no signs whether she was happy or not to see him.
“Even though you’re dressed differently than usual, I haven’t met any other male who walks like you and has such long hair.”
