by Aja James
He was a mindless killing machine.
Sophia laid her head back down and curled on her side next to Dalair on the uncomfortable table.
This was her post, and she never left it. Only to relieve bodily functions in the en-suite bathroom, but barely eating and drinking.
If Dalair wasn’t strong enough to eat and drink, then she wouldn’t either.
The Dozen tried to convince her otherwise, but she pointed out dispassionately that this was much better than the alternative:
For her strength to fuel her wrath and turn her into the Destroyer.
She’d been this close to succumbing to the Darkness when they first brought Dalair in. Her gladness and relief upon seeing him with the Elite quickly turned to despair and fury when she comprehended his near-death condition.
Her brown eyes had faded to black almost instantly, glowing blood red at the centers. Every vein appeared black and blue beneath her paper-white skin, and her Pure female fangs had punched through her upper gums like daggers.
She looked like a demon, Aella later described to her. She’d been mindless with rage at seeing Dalair harmed. Everyone around her had crumpled to the floor gasping for breath, clutching their chests at the sudden, brutal pain.
Cloud had been affected less than the others. He’d tried to engage Sophia’s eyes with his own, but her attention couldn’t be diverted from Dalair’s bloodied, broken form.
It was only when eight-year-old Benji threw himself at Sophia’s back, hugging her tight around the waist from behind that she finally, slowly, came back to herself.
Sophia shivered with fear in memory.
She couldn’t control herself. A monster lived inside of her.
While she had the Gift to uplift souls, as she did in her first incarnation as the Pure Queen Ninti during the Akkadian empire, the same power could also crush them, killing tens of thousands during the Persian empire when she’d been Princess Kira.
And the trigger for the Darkness was Dalair.
Her Dalair.
She raised a hand over his face, wanting to smooth back the lock of raven black hair that fell over his brow, long enough to partially cover his right eye. She itched to rub her thumb across the sharpness of his cheekbones and stroke her fingers through the roughness of the thick stubbles on his jaw.
It was rare that Immortals grew body hair, except for their heads. Perhaps it was because Dalair had been born human first, then reborn as a Pure One, that he grew hair in other places, including his jaw. But the rules didn’t always apply. More ancient Immortals, those who were either Pure or Dark by birth, also grew hair, but then, others did not.
Sophia loved that Dalair’s physical characteristics remained mostly human. Though his powers gave him a don’t-fuck-with-me aura, he didn’t seem completely otherworldly.
He looked touchable.
Kissable.
So very fuckable.
Abruptly, Sophia dropped her hand back beside her face without touching him.
It was too dangerous, with the way she felt. The same monster within that seethed to avenge him, to destroy, also clawed her insides to possess him. Body and soul.
Her Pure female fangs punched through her gums at the very thought, dripping with saliva.
She’d always wanted Dalair. Even when she didn’t understand these desires, even when she fought against them, she wanted him.
But this—this was different. This obsessive, ravaging, ferocious, uncontrollable lust frightened her. She wanted to tear into him. She wanted to own him. She thought she’d do anything to have him.
But he was the enemy right now. If he figured out this weakness of hers, he could use it against her, against all of them. And, too, as long as his soul stayed paralyzed somewhere deep inside of him, his body was merely a shell that looked like Dalair.
But he was not Dalair. How could she even think about using him that way?
Sophia flinched as a memory flashed through her mind.
The fact was, she’d already used him that way. What happened between them after he abducted her a year ago and losing him shortly afterwards had instigated her Awakening.
Just as their enemies planned.
Until they found a way to reignite his soul, until Dalair returned to himself, she needed to keep her hands to herself for so many reasons.
Sophia’s entire body shook with nearly uncontrollable desire, all but rattling the table they lay upon. She clawed her hands into fists and maintained the few inches of distance between their bodies as she lay next to Dalair, facing him.
Gods, he was temptation incarnate! All the more irresistible because she loved him.
She loved him more than anything. Everything. More than honor, duty, righteousness, justice. She didn’t care about innocent lives if anything happened to him. Fuck the Universal Balance if he ever disappeared from the world.
He was hers! She’d burn down the world around them to make it so. And if he didn’t exist, then no one else had the right to exist.
Unbidden, she watched as if separate from her own body, as her hand raised again to hover over his face.
“Sophia.”
Rain’s soft warning made Sophia snatch her hand back and hastily sit up on the flat bed. She didn’t even hear the healer come into the Enclosure, so lost in her own thoughts and the irresistible pull of Dalair.
Rain’s Mate, Valerius, one of the most fearsome warriors of the Elite, escorted her. Though Dalair appeared to be in no condition to threaten anyone bodily harm, especially since he was also tightly bound, Valerius never took chances where Rain was concerned. At least the Protector grudgingly acquiesced to Sophia’s request for privacy when she and Dalair were alone.
“Nothing has changed,” Sophia murmured before Rain could ask.
Rain stood by the bed and gently went through the routine checks she did to evaluate the warrior’s condition. With her mental guidance, strands of sentient zhen unwound from the silken shackles to slide around Dalair’s limbs, across his torso, the superfine ends inserting into his pores like acupuncture needles. Meanwhile, the remaining zhen tightened around him to keep him safely bound.
“Can’t we do anything for him to speed up the healing process?” Sophia asked for the umpteenth time, watching the zhen pulse and glow with a life of their own, sliding around Dalair’s chest and throat.
“I’m afraid not,” Rain replied gently, even more gently than her usual manner, as if she was speaking to a dangerous, wild creature, and she didn’t want to startle it.
That feral thing was Sophia, everyone implicitly understood.
“His body rejects blood and other infusion of nutrients. It will take significant time to discover how to unravel the effects of the turning, to push through the barricades our enemies have integrated into his very DNA.”
If there was a solution at all, remained unsaid.
“As it is, we can only wait for him to heal himself. But never fear. He is very strong. He will heal. It is only a matter of time,” Rain assured Sophia in that same gentle tone.
Sophia got off the table and began to pace, stretching out her sore, tired limbs and spine as she did so.
“Have the additional security measures been implemented?” she asked of the Protector.
While the Pure Ones got Dalair, their nemesis got Erebu.
Erebu, who knew the ins and outs of the Shield, who knew their location hidden in the heart of New York City, who had assessed most of the inhabitants who lived here and knew their strengths and weaknesses.
During the coordinated attack on Medusa’s stronghold, where their fiercest warriors had been deployed, Sophia took the remaining Dozen and Chevaliers to seek temporary refuge with the Dark King Ramses in case of a counter-assault on the Shield. Now that all of the warriors were present, scathed by the battle but healing fast, almost completely back to one hundred percent, they decided to return to the Shield. Knowing that even if their enemies attacked, their defense would be as strong as it ever was.
<
br /> That said, it never hurt to take extra precautions.
“Aye,” Valerius answered with his usual brusqueness, in that low, quiet rumble.
“Inanna and Gabriel, how are they holding up?” Sophia asked.
They were the most severely wounded from the last battle, but they’d come back on their own two feet, whereas Dalair had been carried into the Shield like a corpse.
“Almost back to full strength,” Rain answered. “It is to be expected. After all, they are Mates and can draw strength from each other…intimately.”
Sophia’s eyes immediately went back to Dalair.
Would that work for him too? The strength of a Mate?
Could Sophia provide that for him?
But…were they Destined Mates in truth? The strength of their connection was undeniable, but was it the Bond between Mates or something else?
Sophia loved him desperately. Always had. Since the first time she encountered him as Kira in her previous incarnation. But Dalair had always pushed her away. Even when he came to her, it was reluctantly.
In this present life, they’d been close in the beginning when she was a girl and he was her security blanket, but ever since she hit puberty and tried to explore the attraction she felt towards him, he’d shut her down in no uncertain terms. And even when they finally came together, it wasn’t of his own free will. He’d already been turned by then.
She thought…she felt that he cared for her deeply as well. He’d sacrificed himself over and over to protect her.
But that had always been his role, hadn’t it? Had he simply been doing his job?
In that moment of doubt, Sophia recalled what he said a few years ago:
Choose me, not him. Choose me this time.
What did he mean? Sophia didn’t understand. For her, there was never a choice. Her answer would always be Dalair, no matter the question.
“Do you think…” Sophia pushed the question toward Rain before her voice tapered off.
She didn’t know how to ask. She didn’t know how to express the confusing, churning emotions and thoughts within her.
Thankfully, the healer understood.
“I think you may try, Sophia,” Rain answered her unuttered question.
“But be on guard,” the healer warned gently yet firmly. “Be very careful. He is not himself. If his body heals before his mind does, before his soul fully awakens, there’s no telling what he’s capable of. He is still the enemy.”
“How can we heal both at the same time?” Sophia asked desperately, an oft repeated question, at least in her own mind if not out loud.
Rain’s expression softened even further, perhaps in reaction to the stark torment on Sophia’s face.
The healer turned to Valerius, placed her palm on her Mate’s bicep and kissed his chest fleetingly before murmuring, “Give us a moment, my love.”
The warrior did not move, but it seemed to Sophia that his big, muscular body expanded even more like a protective shield around the tiny female that was his Mate.
They did not say anything more to each other, simply communicating through their locked gazes, or perhaps telepathically through their Bond.
Sophia watched on with something like envy before turning her eyes away. The palpable connection between Mates seemed too intimate to witness.
After a few seconds, Valerius quietly departed the healing chamber, leaving Sophia and Rain alone with the patient. And the enemy.
“I am always amazed by how silently he moves for someone so…intimidatingly tall and big. And, well, just plain intimidating,” Sophia mused out loud, trying to lighten the tension that permeated this room since Dalair had been brought in.
Rain smiled a secret feminine smile, the sort that only a female who knew and owned every inch of her male would be able to wear on her lips.
“He is all warrior and all grace,” she said simply.
“And all unfiltered male,” Sophia added with the semblance of a teasing grin.
“Indeed,” the healer readily agreed.
“As is your male, Sophia,” she added after a brief pause, redirecting them both to the issue at hand.
Sophia’s smile immediately collapsed, her doubt and worry returning full force.
“Is he?” she murmured.
“My male?”
“It is clear you believe so,” Rain pointed out. “We do not need ceremony for your Claim on him to be broadcasted to all who witness you together.”
Sophia was quiet for a while, sorting through her thoughts.
“Yes, I want to Claim him,” she finally said. “But the most important question is whether he wants to Claim me back. A Bond cannot be formed without mutual desire. There can only be one for each of us. And the consequence of making the wrong choice is…”
Death.
To be precise, the consequence of a Pure One carnally loving another without the other returning their love was an excruciating, torturous death within thirty days.
None of them knew why this Cardinal Rule existed, but some of them had suffered the Decline firsthand, so there was no denying that it was real. Their self-destruct button, so to speak, was programmed into their DNA.
Every situation was different. Valerius had experienced an accelerated Decline with Rain before she returned his love unconditionally. Seth had essentially died before Jade Cicada, the previous vampire queen of New England, pulled him back from crossing the divide into the afterlife.
If there was an afterlife.
For Pure Ones, their souls could be reincarnated, but how many times was left to the Goddess. Sometimes, they came back as vampires, if given the choice over death. Sometimes, they were reborn into another body, another time. And other times, the Fallen chose death, and their souls might never return, their bodies turned to stardust to be absorbed back into the Universal Balance.
If Sophia looked at the Pure Ones’ existence, their raison d'être, especially with her “human” side, she might feel powerless in the face of Destiny. That there should be only one out there in the vast, unfathomable universe that was meant for each person. That loving the wrong person was punishable by death.
Where was free will in all of this? Where was choice?
But Sophia knew better.
She had had many incarnations, more than she remembered, she was certain. But she knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that no matter when, no matter where, given a choice, she would always choose Dalair. Destiny bedamned. If he was not hers, she would move heaven and earth to make it so.
But she’d never take the choice away from him. He needed to choose her too.
“Try it,” Rain’s soft words pulled Sophia out of her reverie.
“What?” she started.
“You want to see if your connection to him can help him heal and bring him back to himself, yes?”
“Well…”
Sophia couldn’t meet the healer’s eyes.
In truth, she simply wanted to be with Dalair, any way she could. She craved him in the core of her being, with everything that she was. Selfishly, the fact that he might heal from the Bond they formed was secondary in Sophia’s thoughts right now.
“And you simply want him,” Rain supplied, accurately gaging Sophia’s intentions.
Sophia nodded, not trusting herself to say the words.
She wanted him so very badly.
“I think it could work,” Rain mused, thinking out loud. “At least to heal his physical wounds. You told me before, during the abduction, that he seemed to heal faster from physical connection with you, correct?”
“Yes,” Sophia recalled.
Dalair had been severely wounded after they made their “escape” from their enemy’s cave. Better, though, than he was now. For he still had the strength to move and speak, to show her what he needed—the physical closeness with Sophia that accelerated his healing.
Kisses. Touches. Skin on skin.
And, ultimately…
But their lovemaking had not brough
t his soul back. He’d left her while she was still sleeping. And when he returned, it was as one of the enemy.
As if knowing exactly where Sophia’s thoughts had wandered, Rain said, “Perhaps you can touch his mind as well. Talk to him. Tell him how you feel. Touch all of him with all of you. Body, heart, and soul.”
“But he can’t hear me,” Sophia worried, then looked with cautious hope into Rain’s eyes.
“Can he?”
“There’s no harm in trying,” the healer answered. “I will confer with Ava to see what else we can do medically, but it will take time.”
Rain referred to Ava Monroe Takamura, human Mate to one of their Dark allies at the Cove, a member of the Chosen warriors that served King Ramses. Ava was a brilliant geneticist, and for a brief time, an unwitting contributor to Medusa and Wan’er’s experiments. If anyone could figure out how to reverse the turning, it was Ava.
“But…” Sophia trailed off, uncertain how to ask what was on the tip of her tongue.
Rain tilted her head in that patient way of hers, simply waiting for Sophia to continue.
“How do I do this? How do I begin?”
“What did you do when he was wounded before, Sophia?” Rain asked gently.
Heat involuntarily bubbled through her blood to suffuse Sophia’s cheeks with color.
The healer smiled a quintessentially feminine smile at the young queen’s silent response.
“Then start there. Give him your love. Make your Claim. True love requires no reciprocation. True love is unconditional. Just be yourself, Sophia. Give him all of you.”
Sophia was slightly startled when Rain enfolded her in a loose hug. The healer was not one for effusive demonstrations of affection, but the gentle embrace nevertheless soothed Sophia’s nerves.
“I will convince Valerius to give you privacy,” she said softly beside Sophia’s ear.
And then, she pulled away to hover her hand an inch from Dalair’s form, moving it slowly from the top of his head to the soles of his feet.
“There,” she said, though Sophia had no idea what it was she just did.
“I’m giving you command of the zhen that binds him, Sophia,” Rain explained. “They obey you now. They will keep him secure to protect you both, but should you wish it…”
