“If you wish.”
I nodded. It didn’t feel right calling him by his true name while he wore his human skin. “They know you are elemental?”
“No. They have muddied us in fantastic-tales, turned us into nightmares and myth. They are blinded by stunted science. Most are not even aware the veil exists, and those who do witness it call it a magnetic field, or the aurora borealis. They are far too self-centered to concern themselves with our world. They believe themselves the pinnacle of evolution.”
I snorted a laugh and almost choked on my garu fruit. “This?” Lifting my spindly arm–now wrapped in leather braces–and gave it a wiggle. “They believe these limbs— and this body—to be superior?”
“Our elements are weak in their world, captured and restrained in the forces at work around them. Earth, ice, fire… all but chaos itself are static. Humans do not require armored skin to survive.”
This was fantasy. I smiled. At least I thought I did. My lips turned up at the corners, but I may have displayed too many teeth. A smile, a sneer, I didn’t understand the difference. “You tease.” Why did humans show their fangs when they were pleased? Like the rest of their expressions, it was flawed and confusing.
His lips appeared to twist a little, as though he pinched back his own smile. “No. It is truth.” Was he trying not to laugh at me?
“How am I half human?” I’d meant to growl the last word, but my obscure vocal range made my growl resonate like a purr. “How does that happen? One of us would have to…” Words failed me, but my imagination didn’t. I scrunched up my face and shivered. An elemental and a human together? It would be like rucking with a lesser… Wrong.
Ahkeel’s eyes sparkled with humor. “Enough questions. Eat. There is more I wish to show you.”
* * *
A hkeel showed me halls the size of canyons and gardens buried deep inside the cliff-face where lesser elementals roamed and lava spewed light and heat. Monstrous flowers bloomed tall, exuding intoxicating scents that did peculiar things to my human body. As Ahkeel told me of the human world, a seed of doubt settled in my gut. His words were sweet and his tales marvelous, but they changed nothing. I knew this routine: seduce me with niceties, and then rip my hopes apart. Da’mean was a master of such games. I could only expect a prince would be all the more terrifying when he finally turned on me. And he would, of that I was certain.
Ahkeel returned me to my chamber where I stripped the leathers from my skin. Why cover the flesh? It made no sense to me. I wanted to feel air kiss my skin and the warm stone beneath my feet. I already felt numb while buried inside my human skin, and didn’t need clothing to seal me further from the elements.
“Summon your true self,” Ahkeel casually ordered.
I obliged with relief and welcomed the blast of heat, the hardened armor, and the cool clarity of my focused mind. Yes, this is me. I am elemental. A shiver tracked through me, rippling my muscles and raining embers at my feet.
Ahkeel leaned against the wall beside the fireplace. With a quick gesture, his clothes dissolved, leaving him naked and all the more glorious for it. Glorious? My inferior human thoughts had leeched through. I snarled. It would not happen again.
The torches bracketed to the wall flared to life at his command. He settled his gaze on me. “How much control of your element do you possess?”
I tipped my head and narrowed my eyes. “Control?” Control was pointless. Chaos abhorred control, and chaos fire was my lifeblood.
“Can you summon your fire on impulse?”
“When I am distressed…it comes.”
He nodded, “Your element controls you. I will teach you how to call the fire, tether it, and control it.” Control my fire? “Samien has prepared the hearth. You will ignite a fire to warm this room.”
I slid my gaze to the cold, gaping mouth of the fireplace. Ignite a fire? Seasoned logs and kindling were piled high in the grate. It wouldn’t take much of a flame to set the fuel ablaze. A few sparks would probably be enough. If I could touch it, my skin alone would probably do it.
“No touching.”
Did he read my thoughts? Did he have that power too? No, my face probably betrayed my thoughts. I’d forgotten my mask of indifference. The time I’d spent as a human had already eroded my armor. Brow furrowed, I asked, “How?”
“Speak of Da’mean. Tell me, half-blood, what he does to you.”
“You know,” I grunted, clawed-fingers flexing at my sides.
“I do. Half-bloods are curiosities, playthings, to be used as their owners deem. Is that what you are?”
“Yes.”
The delight died in his eyes and hardened to contempt. “Is that what you truly believe?”
“Yes.” Was he trying to trick me? “I am half. Not worthy.”
“Lies.”
“No.” I shook my head.
“Lies are a fool’s armor.”
What did he want from me? I was a half-blood. No more, no less. “I am a half thing, lesser in every way.”
“No.”
I narrowed my eyes, reducing my gaze to a glare, and pinched my lips together. What was I supposed to say?
Ahkeel shoved off the wall and stalked toward me. Chin dipped, gaze fierce, he circled me. His glare trailed across my flesh, leaving blooms of heat in its wake. “He beats you, splits your flesh. Does he use his claws? They appear exceedingly sharp.”
I watched him circle, felt his element surge and swell around us. “Yes.”
“What else?” His brows arched. “He does not like to hear you speak, so you are caged in silence.” How did he know that? From my abrasive voice, perhaps. “Does he imprison you? Yes, I see it on your face. What else? Tell me.”
“I read metal.”
He dipped his chin, raising his gaze. “With blood. I saw. A gift from your father, no doubt.”
“You were there. At the feast.” Dizziness flowed over me, muddling my mind and banishing reason. I meant to ask what he knew of my father, but around and around he walked, and all the time my memory swamped me with Da’mean’s abuse. “You saw what he did?”
“He fixed you to the table and beat you unconscious when you refused to answer him. I saw. I witnessed how you defied him.” Mammon’s lips rippled in a snarl. “Defiance is powerful. As is hope. Both will get you killed. But both inspire. What did he inspire in you, half-blood? Hatred? Disgust? Lust, perhaps?”
The room tilted. The walls bowed. I staggered, and still he hunted me. “I hated him.” I hissed, then desperately tried to suck the words back in, but it was too late. I’d spoken, and the truth was out. He would tell Da’mean. I had to hide my mistake. “I am his muse. I inspire hatred in him. I am his, made for amusement. Crafted by his claws. Shaped by his rage.”
“Poetic, but not what I want to hear. Speak, half-blood, Da’mean’s muse, speak from your soul. What did you feel when you defied him?” Ahkeel’s tone sharpened, his words cutting.
“Fire.”
“Yes.” He grinned, displaying rows of sharpening teeth behind human lips.
“Inside. I felt the fire.” Curling a hand over my chest, I felt it again: a glimmer, a burn, a spark from which an inferno could blaze.
Ahkeel stopped. His human hands clasped around my forearms. His face, chiseled with determination, filled my vision. “He uses you, Da’mean–and all your other owners–have buried you so deep beneath self-disgust that you do not recognize yourself. Feel the fire, use it, breathe passion into it, feed it with hatred, let it gorge on the pain. Do not deny it. Allow it the freedom you so eagerly seek. And let it go.”
His words hooked into my soul and tugged the fire free. My one little spark of defiance exploded over me. Crying out, I arched back, lost. My fire-clad body strummed with power. The fire came alive. And so did I. Laughter bubbled up my throat. I had fire at my fingertips, tethered to my control. I could do anything. Send it anywhere. It was mine, and no beast could take it from me.
Mammon stepped aside, revealing th
e fireplace. I blinked—a thought sparked—and a fire burst to life in the grate. It roared, newly born, hungry and demanding. Elemental heat surged through my veins, glowing on my skin. I laughed again and spun around, draped in flame. Spreading my wings, I felt the fire gallop across the membranes. It surged and danced and breathed. It was free.
A curl of a smile teased across Mammon’s lips. He chuckled and said softly, “There is true beauty in fire.”
* * *
The sundeath scarred the sky blood-red outside my chamber windows. Distant caterwauls signaled the arrival of darkness and the time of the hunt. Lesser beasts ruled the dark.
The Prince of Greed sat on the edge of the bed, facing the windows, his back to me. I lay on my side, basking in his warmth. The fading light warmed his human skin, lending him the honeyed glow my humanity so admired. He seemed content to sit in silence. I watched him, soaking up the play of his element. Human sensations danced freely through my thoughts. For such a tiny, fleshy, body, my human-half had countless means of sensing the world around it. The room was warm, but should it cool suddenly, tiny little pimples peppered my flesh, raising minuscule hairs. I couldn’t fathom why. The downy hairs certainly weren’t going to keep me warm. While I admired the caress of light upon Ahkeel’s skin, a scatter of sharp little flutters danced low in my abdomen. That too seemed to get my skin all in a fluster, so it flushed with sensitivity. Whenever he turned his gaze on me, my breath snatched, creating a snippet of a gasp. Why? Did the sharp intake of air ready my body for something. Was it to flee? I’d often felt my muscles tense during the day when fear stalked me. I’d never spent so long as my human half before. I found it…intriguing. Just as I did the Prince of Greed.
“You are not as I thought a prince would be,” My voice had softened the more I’d vocalized my thoughts and adopted Ahkeel’s speech patterns.
His shoulders tensed. The miniscule play of his muscles had my body all muddled again. “And what is that?” he asked, tone neutral.
I’d heard many a tale. All elementals feared the princes, and with good reason. Their power was legendary, matched only by their passion for cruelty. Seven princes, each named for his purpose and famed for his tenacity. But the princes rarely socialized outside of their own kind. An elemental could live a long life and never see a prince.
“You are cruel, vicious, brutal. You manipulate with each breath. You are hunters. Predators. You give no mercy. You are extreme.” And everything an elemental sought to be.
Ahkeel absorbed my words, took a moment to let them settle in the air, and then turned his head, and replied with a wicked slant to his lips. “Do not let this vessel beguile you. I am all of those things. Tell me, half-blood, knowing all of this, what possible use could I have for you?”
I had wondered the same since the moment he’d demanded my company. I’d assumed he’d use me, but he’d offered me respect and patience. Where others spat in my face, he’d smiled and called me beautiful. It was a trick. I might have been a half-blood abomination, but I had a sharp mind of my own. He wanted something.
“Is it this body you want?”
His hooded gaze rode over the naked length of me from head to toe, lingering in places, pooling his heat in the valleys and curves of my misshapen form. “No, as a human, you are barely mature.”
“Then as elemental—” His eyes blazed suddenly, cutting me off. He could ruck with my elemental form. I’d had much worse. I might even find his human vessel appealing. But should he attempt it in his true form, his body would dwarf mine–not that physical differences ever deterred Da’mean.
“I would not use you as he does.” He sneered.
I bowed my head and averted my eyes. I’d offended him. “Then how do you wish to exploit me, my liege?” My words were meant to be sincere, but something like humor laced my tone, and with horror, I realized I’d mocked him.
He saw my eyes widen, my lips part in a silent ‘Oh’, and he laughed. “You have the spirit of humanity within you and a dry wit buried beneath a lifetime of submission. I see potential in you. Da’mean is blind to it. You would be mine, but I cannot take you from him. The laws forbid it.”
“The princes made the laws.”
“All the more reason I cannot flaunt them. The netherworld—this world—hangs perilously close to imbalance.” He moved from the bed, drawing his heat away from me. “Half-bloods must be owned. That is the way of things. Had I known what you would be, had I been informed earlier... T’was not to be.”
What I would be? Surely no more than what I already was. “Trade for me.” It seemed like a perfectly reasonable solution. Half-bloods were traded like goods. My immortal brother, the elemental who traded all half-bloods, had practically given me away as a pink and writhing babe, such was his desire to be free of me. I’d had countless owners since then. All wanted the same and were swift to sell me on when they tired of me.
Ahkeel offered a smile that shied from his amber-fringed eyes. “Da’mean will never give you up. He would rather kill you than allow me possession of you. Should he challenge me, I would make quick work of his demise, but he is not so foolish. When our three nights are passed, you will return to him, and there is nothing I can do to prevent it.” On the surface, his words could have sounded regretful, but the hungry fire in his eyes belied any regret. I considered how the princes were masters of manipulation and wondered if Ahkeel knew exactly how this would end and if I’d survive his game.
* * *
I hadn’t survived so long by the fickle desires of luck. I healed quickly, had a stubborn determination to live, and slept lightly. So when I heard the door to my chamber creak open, I instantly woke, alert but motionless. A gossamer veil of new-morn light spilled through the windows and infused the subsiding gloom. Beneath that intangible light, an earth-rich element reached for me, seeking, tasting, like a serpent’s tongue. Samien. I clamped my eyes closed, but could tell that he stood at the foot of the bed. Considering his stealthy entry, I assumed his intentions were devious. When he drew in a breath—the prelude to an attack—I sprang from the bed.
Hindered by human flesh, I tripped and tumbled. Pain speared my knees as I hit the hard stone floor, stealing a sharp cry from my lips. That agony was soon replaced by another when Samien punched a blade deep into my back between my ribs. I arched back, my cries silenced by shock. He grunted, thrust the blade in deeper, and exhaled his hot breath against my cheek.
“He parades you in front of us,” Samien hissed and spat, his words like lashes against my skin, “permits you to walk these halls and feast at our tables, as though you are like us. No more, half-blood. Now it is our turn to sample that which the prince is infatuated with. We want too see why the stench of human drives him wild.”
My darker, harder half barreled forward. Wings burst from my back as fire spilled through my veins. I bucked, but he tore the blade from my back and hooked it into the skin of my throat, instantly stilling me. “Fight, I cut you open. Come.”
Blood rattled in my lungs. A punctured lung would heal, but until then, the wound would slow me down. Samien marched me from my chamber, down the hall, through doorways, and down into a gently sloping tunnel. We left the warmth of the fortress behind. The mild temperature ebbed, and my breath misted. We had to be descending deep into the cliff-face or below the fortress’ foundations.
Mammon would be furious. “The Prince will punish you.”
Samien laughed and propelled me forward into a natural cavern hewn from black rock. Beneath countless torches, the entire population of the fortress had gathered. I recognized several elementals. They leered, licking their lips. Wounded, wheezing, I kept my head down as they jostled me forward until I stumbled into a shallow pit. Elements churned the air. My heart galloped in my chest, and a languid hiss filtered through my teeth. Shouts and snarls clamored until I could no longer identify single voices, just the all-encompassing roar of the crowd.
The heaving mass of elementals wanted me dead, a point they hammer
ed home when a lesser hunter dropped from a cage suspended above me. The hunter staggered to its feet and shook its elongated head. Needle-teeth bristled a beak the length of my arm. Clipped wings flapped uselessly, so it hobbled on its forelimbs, shredded wing membranes trailing between its arms and body. It eyed me one way, then cawed, swung its head, and eyed me the other way. We were equal in size, but it had more teeth, sharper claws, and it wasn’t bleeding from a stab wound in the back.
I should have expected this. Elementals adored violence and the splash of blood, especially if the blood was tinged with human. I spat into the sand at my feet and straightened. The burn of pain in my back faded beneath the blaze of fire in my veins. Stand proud. I lifted my head, rolled my shoulders, and flicked my wings. They wanted a show. I’d give them one.
Sucking in a great breath, filling my one working lung, I lunged at the hunter, ducked a snap of its beak, and slammed into its chest. We tumbled into the crowd, a mass of sharp teeth and flailing limbs. Spectators scurried away, but not far. The thrill of unbridled violence chased the fire in my veins. I plunged my claws into the hunter’s eye, curled my fingers, and tore out its gristly orb. The thing screeched and bucked beneath my thighs. I would kill it, and then I’d start on the crowd. They liked their sport. I’d show them sport. Lesser talons raked across my chest and tore at my face. I flinched back. It jerked its beak to the side, cracking it across my head, sending me sprawling sideways, dazed. The hunter was up, stumbling, its vision decidedly one sided. It lunged and snapped its jaw closed with a mighty clap inches from my face, close enough for me to taste its briny breath.
The hunter chittered a call and wobbled on its levered limbs, not so eager to attack now that it had gotten a taste of my wrath. I bared my fangs and circled it, counting those in the crowd leaning in at the front. I could kill three of them in a heartbeat. Their exposed throats made fine targets for my claws.
Wings of Hope Page 3
