Forgotten in Darkness

by Zoe Forward

He put a hand on her chin and angled her head. His lips moved to hers, savoring the texture of her mouth.

  She leaned into him with a sigh, as if relieved.

  In his head she pleaded, Please. Do not leave me.

  I will never abandon you, he vowed.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “This should stop the bleeding, but who knows what’s going on inside. Whatever poison they used doesn’t look good.” Khyan waved at the purple bruising around the wound that now engulfed almost her entire side.

  Dakar supervised Khyan who shook a powder into Shay’s wound. Together, they bandaged her midsection.

  Dakar threw out his arm to catch himself when turbulence jolted the plane. “Wonder what concoction they used on the blade.”

  “It was probably designed to hurt us. That means it should’ve killed her by now.” Quietly in ancient Egyptian, Khyan asked, “Is it really her?”

  “Yes.” Dakar drew her shirt back into place to cover the lacy scrap over her breasts. Anyone glimpsing her sacred curves—even his brother—put him in a dangerously enraged place. His eyes drifted from her delicate chin to her collarbone. Complex emotions that he recognized, but didn’t want to deal with right now pinched deep in his chest.

  “Good. Then nothing but you can take her out of this world. She’s fortunate that she won’t die, even if this will make her feel like shit for a while.”

  “She remembers nothing.”

  “Nothing? No mental connection?”

  Dakar shook his head.

  “That sucks and is kind of weird,” Khyan said.

  Dakar cleared his throat and added softly, “She’s got a bochnori.”

  Khyan jumped away from her with hands in the air. “Bloody hell! Now you tell me?”

  “What’s wrong?” Ashor asked sharply and rose to view the unconscious Shay.

  Dakar caught Khyan’s gaze and shook his head. He wasn’t ready to divulge her bochnori situation.

  Khyan replied, “Nothing. I thought she was waking up.”

  Ashor crossed his arms across his chest. His lips flattened. “When you two are ready to level with me, let me know. This secrets shit the two of you have going on is getting old. I’m going to ride up front with Javen. At least he’ll give it to me straight, even if he might be stoned.”

  “Stoned?” Dakar asked as Ashor stalked to the cockpit.

  Khyan chuckled. “He’s high on cannabis. Javen’s close to the Turn, and we voted him off daemon fights a few months ago. As you may well remember, he needs to fight. Drugs, liquor…he’s tried it all in an effort to suppress the need to battle. Now he smokes this high potency weed from Latin America.”

  “Why would you vote him off? I say let him die with dignity, if he’s that close. Besides, he would not do well to go more than a few weeks without fighting.”

  “You’re right. Don’t forget I was memory deficient. We should let Javen fight. He’s been a tetchy ass these past few months. Kira revealed that his senariai is in this time and he just has to hold out a bit longer. Now that I think about it, I bet Javen already met his woman and blew it. The stain clouded his eyes completely well over a year ago, meaning he should’ve gone into the Turn by now when the kem-seki took over.”

  “Interesting. I wonder if the gods finally let him meet her. He’s the only one—”

  “That hasn’t been united with his other half,” Khyan interrupted. “You don’t need to tell me. But even if he met her, it hasn’t improved his attitude. Want me to talk to Shay’s bochnori?”

  Dakar nodded.

  Khyan used two fingers to pull up Shay’s sleeve, using great caution not to touch her skin. He commanded, “Bochnori reveal.” And laid a finger onto her biceps.

  The tattoo appeared on her arm just above where Khyan had contact. Khyan’s eyelids drifted closed as he fell into deep concentration. Less than a minute later, he abruptly let go and mumbled, “Shit.”

  “I knew it couldn’t be good.”

  “That’s our father’s bochnori.”

  “Damn it. I asked that he keep out of my life after the last time he tried to help. What does the bochnori know?”

  “Apparently, he set all this in motion after he played a game of bocce with the god Shai.”

  “As in the god of fate?”

  Khyan nodded.

  “Bocce? Who won?”

  “It doesn’t know.”

  “The gods are like bratty children. So, Shai decided to mess up Shay in retaliation?”

  “Something like that. Old Daddy-o did try to fix it by protecting her from death.”

  Dakar pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes for a few seconds. “How long is the bochnori supposed to stay on Shay?”

  “Forever, apparently.”

  “Great. Now she’s got a whole new level of protection to get through before I can kill her.”

  Khyan cocked a skeptical eyebrow.

  Yeah, he knew his chances of killing her, of being able to do it, were pretty damn low.

  Khyan asked, “How long have you two got this time?”

  “Two weeks at the most. But I really have no idea. We ran into each other the first time well over a month ago. Yet, we’re both still alive. I tried to wake up her past-life memory since then without success. Guess that can work in my favor to win this time.”

  “Right,” Khyan said skeptically. “And just how many times in the past have you been the last one standing?”

  Dakar shook his head. Never.

  “It’s not in your DNA to kill her,” Khyan said.

  “What’s DNA? Forget it. Do not wage a bet against me, not this time. I have become rather attached to this body over the past few centuries. That Asian shaman I visited the winter before I took my Middle Realm vacation advised doing this might rescind the curse.”

  “I just got you back and now the bitch is going to take you away again.”

  Dakar scowled. “Don’t go there. If it is her, then so be it. I thought you made peace with this as the way of things long ago.”

  “I never made peace with it. But you’re right. She’s not a bitch.”

  ****

  Milan, 1392

  “You will not go near him, not until the akhrian arrives.” Khyan blocked Shaiani’s entry into the room.

  “Please, let me by. Let me help him. You know I can.”

  Dakar squinted toward the argument, his head exploding in a lightning storm of pain. His right thigh throbbed where the daemon had rammed a metal spike into his bone and then set it on fire. While he howled, the daemon sliced down his leg to the bone. Shaiani could help. Bonding sex with her would heal him, if he could manage to focus beyond his pain to get it up. Just touching her might help…at least soothe him. Sure, this healing would never be as fast as the akhrian, but far more pleasurable.

  There really was no other option. The akhrian was at least two days away.

  Let her pass, brother, he pleaded silently. He wanted to yell, to command. To demand his brother allow her access, but when he attempted to sit, his mind whirled. He swallowed against nausea and fell against the pillows, disgusted by such weakness.

  Shaiani pushed at Khyan. He caught her arm and pulled her tight to whisper, but not low enough that Dakar didn’t overhear, “I trust you not. You plan his death and will take him from me again.”

  “’Tis too early. And it is never planned.”

  “You cannot vow you will not injure him, though. You know not when thy murderous state will come upon you. You will not go to him.”

  “He trusts me. Look, he leaves his knife on the bedside.”

  “That is not trust. That is giving you an easy way. That is a plea not to drown him again.”

  Shay massaged her forehead and sighed. “Oh, Khyan.” She shook her head. “I understand you blame me for separating him from you, for taking him from you every time.”

  “Should I not? Your presence here means I have but a few weeks, maybe less, before I lose him again to one of your malicious slay
ings. Then only the gods know when he will be sent back.”

  Shaiani rested her palm against Khyan’s cheek. A rush of cold jealousy flooded Dakar’s mind. He pushed up, disregarding the swirling in his brain. Shaiani belonged to him and brother or no, he would kill Khyan, should he touch her, be it in harm or….he couldn’t comprehend otherwise.

  Her soft words stayed the hand which had strayed to the knife on the nightstand. “If only your brother would lift that knife and thrust it into my chest. I wish it. I begged him for it just yesterday. But he refused me yet again. He who would give me anything will not do this. I wish no longer to bear our killing duty. I understand, as his twin soul, you can never be whole as long as he is forever taken from you too early. You are caught in this entangled darkness as sorely as we. Hate me, if it helps your anger. Hurt me, if it heals your pain. But I will not feel ill toward you, brother of my Dakarai.”

  “If I hurt you, he will never forgive me.”

  She pulled him tight to her. “He understands.” Don’t you, Dakar.

  Dakar met her eyes when she glanced around Khyan. His brother dropped into her embrace. Khyan’s shoulders silently shook. Dakar’s jaw slackened. His twin cried? He could not recall ever seeing such. Odd that he had not considered the toll the curse would take upon his twin.

  He heard his brother’s strangled whisper. “Damn you, Shaiani. I shall always blame you.”

  Tears dripped from her eyes, but her green gaze never left Dakar’s. “Keep him from Turning, Khyan, when I cannot be here. Please help him search for an end to this. For all of us, so that we may all be released, even if it means my permanent death.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Terek paced the lower floor of his renovated two-story farmhouse. He tracked his path along the expensive exotic hardwood floor on which he’d spent countless insomniac hours marching. He didn’t need sleep. The human body he borrowed, however, wanted shut-eye once in a while. So, he would crash into a dreamless state during which he was alert for the five or six hours he allowed the body its rest.

  Most of the time when in residence, he banned everyone, but today he’d asked Zimeri to send one of the harem women. That had been hours ago when he’d been aroused beyond belief.

  A tentative knock at the front door signaled her arrival. He yelled, “Enter.”

  As he removed his bisht robe and threw it on the sofa, a classy colorful hijab registered in his peripheral view. When he turned he smiled. Nasha. She was indeed elegant and striking with her lustrous black hair and dark eyes enhanced by precise makeup.

  “Come to me.” He held out his hand.

  She glided leisurely in his direction with an exaggerated hip swagger. When she placed her palm against his, he pulled her to him. Her black pupils were dilated, softened…good, she’d doped up before coming here. That would alleviate anxiety and perhaps make her bold.

  Her face moved in slowly toward his, but he turned from the path of her lips and murmured, “No kissing.”

  “That is fine,” she purred. Her mouth traveled along his body slowly removing his undergarments as she moved south.

  He knew her lips touched his skin only by the fact her head sunk lower and he heard the suck of kisses. But he felt absolutely nothing. Nothing!

  Damn it.

  His previous state of arousal, which had dissipated well before Nasha arrived, did not even threaten to return. Sensation must only be possible with Shay. Gods, he hated that. Hated her.

  Nasha’s dark hair formed a shower over her face. He sniffed…smelled none of its freshness. He ran a finger through the strands and experienced no sensation of what he suspected would be a soft, feathery fullness. Anger slow burned in his gut. The only two sensations he’d been granted as a daemon in the human realm was sight and hearing.

  “Disrobe,” he ordered. Now, this would be another private command performance, necessary every few months so that the others thought him a normal human male needing his release.

  She stood and unlatched a few mysterious fastenings. The silk clothes drifted to the floor. Her olive skin glowed. Her large breasts heaved. She rubbed herself between her legs and moaned, apparently involved in some private fantasy. That pissed him off. If he couldn’t feel, at least the bitch should know who she took within her.

  He rose and twirled her away from him. He bent her over the sofa’s end.

  She glanced backward, her eyes dilated. He just needed to prove he could do this, and dominate. The girl’s ass was spectacular. Her core glistened, dripping ready for him. He reached a hand to the front of her pelvis and pulled her hard toward him, impaling her simultaneously. She groaned both from surprise and pleasure. And pumped.

  He grabbed her hair and yanked her head back. The ensuing moan confirmed she liked it rough. Just his style. Then the hammering began. She came quickly. He didn’t relent. He fingered her, building her again, and just as the arch of her spine and scream indicated her second orgasm, he impaled deeply, held steady. He wouldn’t come. Had never, not as a daemon possessing a human. And then he withdrew, beyond ready for this to be over.

  “That was spectacular,” she laughed. She rolled over and smiled up at him. He couldn’t tell if she spewed truth or lied. And had not the patience for sycophantic language from her.

  She ran her hands low on his body. “But you are not finished.”

  Now he didn’t want her here. Hurt her. Kill her. The murder instinct inherent to his daemonic nature pushed. That would be far more pleasurable than this. The suppression he’d shot himself with a few hours ago waned.

  “You may leave now,” he gritted out. He yanked up his underclothes and watched her robe in a few seconds flat, her eyes now wide with terror. He closed his eyes and absorbed waves of fear. Energy jolted his muscles. Ah, so much more rewarding.

  Make her leave. If he gave in to his need to inflict pain and garner more fear-energy, he’d kill her. That wouldn’t go over well with the Fedavis. Nasha was a favorite, apparently very skilled.

  The front door clicked closed.

  He threw the priceless Victorian glass vase on the nightstand into a gratifying shatter. Damn Shaiani for the effect she had on this human body. He needed to hurt…to kill.

  Instead he stumbled into the kitchen. He wrenched open the top counter drawer so hard it broke its mooring and splintered on the floor. But the pentobarb bottle didn’t break. He fumbled on his knees to grab the syringe that had rolled across the floor, jabbing the needle into the bottle’s hub. The dark pink liquid filled the syringe with the speed of molasses despite the large-bore needle. By the time he’d drawn up the requisite twenty cc’s, his hand shook. He jabbed it into his thigh and pushed the sludge out of the syringe.

  He fell to the floor as the floating sensation took over.

  Chapter Seventeen

  When Shay awoke, she expected pain, but felt none. Nothing? I got knifed!

  She pawed at her side, still finding nothing painful. Someone must’ve given her some phenomenal pain medications. Or she was dead.

  She glanced around the bedroom. The two Rembrant-ish still-life oil paintings fit right in with the burnt sienna theme. She dated the bureau and rolltop desk to circa late 1800s. The house, itself, was Colonial with ancient molding and genuine plaster walls. Given the irregularity of the glass in the windowpanes, they were original, not the fake overlays that were commonly used these days.

  This definitely wasn’t what she imagined the afterlife to be. At least not her afterlife. A Colonial junkie she was not. Restrictive clothes, lice-infested wigs, chamber pots…talk about a time period that made her cringe.

  The gray of daylight filtered through the windows, but the faint splatter of rain against glass was unmistakable. A multitude of massive ancient trees swayed in the storm’s wind just beyond the window. She couldn’t be dead. It didn’t rain in the afterlife. If this was real, then nothing in her surroundings helped to identify locale.

  A petite woman with a long black braid dressed in light green scru
bs leaned into her visual field. The woman’s unusual pale eyes met hers as she pulled the sheet into a modest position. Each iris had a pale center of green ringed by blue.

  “I’m Dr. Kira Hardy. How are you feeling?”

  “Where am I?”

  “You’re somewhere safe. I’ve taken care of your injuries. So you should be feeling pretty okay.” Kira positioned her stethoscope tips into her ears and leaned in for a listen of Shay’s chest. After a few seconds, she pronounced, “Sounds great. Do you have any pain?”

  “No. Why don’t I feel pain?”

  “Great. You seem to be a magnet for trouble.” Kira smiled.

  “Been a rough couple of weeks.” She accepted a glass of water and sipped at it through the straw while eyeing Kira suspiciously for a few seconds. Curiosity over her wounds won, though. She pulled down the sheet and lifted an unfamiliar T-shirt to expose the knife wound area. There was no evidence of any injury. Only a small, circular blue tattoo of some beautifully stylized lettering marked on her skin in the area that had been gushing blood. Upon closer inspection the lettering was minuscule…hieroglyphics? “What did you do to me? How did you tattoo me and why?”

  “I told you, I took care of your injuries.”

  “What are you? Some kind of witch healer?”

  Kira’s cheeks flamed red. “I am not a witch. I am a medical doctor, complete with an M.D., and an almost-finished residency in internal medicine.”

  “But you…” Shay waved at the area where there had been a knife wound.

  “Yeah, it’s gone. Get over it. I have some special abilities. It probably isn’t the weirdest thing you’ve seen in the past couple of weeks. Besides, I didn’t think suturing it was an option when Dakar dragged me in here to fix you up. These boys can be a bit terrorizing where their women are concerned.”

  “I’m not his woman.”

  “Well, that is certainly the question of the month. Are you or aren’t you?” Kira shrugged as if it was interesting, but not on her agenda of super-important things to stress about. “What I need to know is who gave you that necklace?”

  Shay fingered the gold pendant around her neck. “Who are you?”