by Aja James
“Who is he, Sophie? I’ve never met him before,” Benji was whispering again, his tone full of awe and admiration rather than apprehension.
“Well, I saw him on the table in the enclosure, and I know he’s your friend. But he was sleeping and we never got properly introduced.”
It was true. Dalair had gone AWOL from the Shield shortly after the Creature—Ere—under Medusa’s orders launched the first attack against the Pure Ones. And then he was captured and turned. There would have been no opportunity for Dalair and Benji’s paths to have crossed.
“His name is Dalair,” Sophia explained. “He used to be the Paladin within our Elite warrior ranks.”
“You knew him, Sophie? And he’s your friend, right?”
She looked toward the cockpit with undisguised longing and sadness.
“Yes. He’s much more than a friend. He…he’s my everything.”
“What made him change?” the precocious little boy asked. “Why is he taking us away?”
“He was caught by some very bad people,” she answered quietly, quivering with barely suppressed fury. “He’s being made to do bad things. But I promise I won’t let him hurt you. I’ll always protect you, Benji.”
“I know that, silly,” he said easily, with far more confidence than she felt. “Dalair said so, remember? You asked him, and he said he wouldn’t harm us. He always tells the truth. I can tell.”
Technically, Dalair’s answer had been specific to Benji, but Sophia wasn’t going to point that out. The boy seemed to take this entire ordeal in stride. There was no need to make him worry.
“What if you talked to him, Sophie? Convince him not to do more bad things? You’re his friend. That means he likes you. He’ll listen to you.”
If only it were that simple, Sophia thought.
But Benji had a point. She needed to make Dalair remember. More than that, she needed to make him feel again. Somehow, she had to find a way to reach and reignite his soul. However long this flight took, she couldn’t just sit here and do nothing.
She had to try.
“All right,” she said with a wink of bravado to Benji, “wish me luck.”
Good luck, he mouthed obligingly and squeezed her fingers as she got up from her seat and maneuvered to the front of the helo.
*** *** *** ***
“Target acquired,” the warrior intoned in a raspy baritone, his words too quiet to be heard by the other occupants of the helo amidst the churning background noise, but loud enough to be picked up by the listening devices in the cockpit.
There was a brief silence on the airwaves.
And then, “More than one target, it seems.”
“Shall I dispose of her?”
Though he asked the question in that same, emotionless tone, a muscle ticked involuntarily in his jaw. His body tightened with the anticipation of pain, as if “disposing of her” equated to cutting off one of his limbs.
Or perhaps carving out his heart.
But then, whether he needed that muscle or not was debatable. If he should misplace the organ, his Master would undoubtedly insert a bionic machine in its stead. More powerful. Infallible. Just like the rest of him.
The static silence stretched.
“Not my call to make,” the disembodied voice said. “The Master can decide when she sees your tag-along.”
“Copy that.”
“The helo’s flight path is preprogrammed. ETA two and a half hours. You will have just enough fuel. But in case of any unforeseen changes in plan, here are the coordinates to the Master’s new location.”
The warrior memorized the numbers and letters his tech lead rattled off.
“I will check in closer to destination.”
Abruptly, the line of communication switched off.
The warrior focused his gaze out the front window of the helicopter and rested his hand on the throttle beside his seat.
A few moments later, the subtle fragrance of orchids preceded the female’s approach. Lady of the Night. That was the scent’s name.
The warrior didn’t know why this information was pertinent, but somehow, it seemed just as important as the coordinates to his Master’s lair.
“Mind if I keep you company?” the female called Sophia Victoria St. James asked.
She didn’t wait for his reply before squeezing herself into the seat next to him, various parts of her body brushing against the right side of his naked torso, setting his skin to tingling.
“Yes,” he bit out.
“Too bad,” she quipped cheerfully, ignoring his preference.
“How long is this flight? And where are we going?”
He kept his mouth shut and his eyes straight ahead.
Without explicit orders, he didn’t know what he should do with her. As long as she didn’t get in the way of his mission and didn’t pose a threat, it was even more ambiguous how he should treat her.
It served no purpose to converse with her, but at the same time, he felt almost as if she was a part of him. As such, her ignorance and confusion about his actions… bothered him. As if half of him wasn’t calibrated with the other half of him. Logically, this would slow him down.
Wouldn’t it?
He’d used his connection to her to free himself from his bindings. Would she be able to aid his mission further?
And why the fuck did the hairs on his arm and nape practically stand on end when she was near? As if every part of him was magnetized to every part of her? Her nearness…confused him. She was short-circuiting his synapses.
“Two and a half hours,” he uttered reluctantly. “We are going to the Master’s new lair.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that she nodded neutrally.
“What will happen when we get there?”
“I do not know.”
There was a period of silence when they both stared straight ahead at the endless blue skies, white clouds, and stretches of landscape surrounding them.
“Do you remember when we first met?” she began, apropos of nothing. “In my hometown of Zau?”
He decided not to answer. The question seemed mostly rhetorical. She appeared intent on strolling down memory lane whether he wanted to join her or not. Perhaps if he stayed silent, she would tire of speaking faster.
“Or when we saw each other again when I was reborn in my current life?” she persisted. “I was just a baby, but I knew you. I’d know you anywhere, in any form, Dalair.”
He continued to ignore her. Which did not deter her from having this one-sided conversation.
“Remember that talk we had in your room? When you told me about your one true love? Goddess above, I was so jealous! I cursed that princess that you gave your heart to. How stupid of her not to love you back like you deserved. How could she ever choose anyone over you. I swore I would never make the same mistake when I grew up…”
She huffed a strange-sounding laugh.
He couldn’t discern the exact shade of her emotion. Bitterness? Irony? Self-loathing? Or maybe all of the above.
“Only to realize after my Awakening that it was me who broke your heart. It was my earlier incarnation that screwed everything up. I wish I could go back in time and kick my own ass.”
He shifted subtly in his seat, growing increasingly uncomfortable, his entire body strung tight like a wire.
Though her words shouldn’t matter—they were just meaningless words that went in one ear and out the other—they nevertheless stuck on their way through the processor of his brain. Like an errant wrench thrown into a well-oiled machine, the gears in his head turned and ground until they screeched out of sync, as memories deeply buried in his archives suddenly rose to the surface of his consciousness.
He needed her to stop speaking.
As if she sensed his impending request, more words rushed out all at once.
“Can I just say something while I have you mostly to myself for a while? No telling when I’ll have another golden opportunity, given we’re headed towar
ds the seat of all evil—”
“I’d prefer you didn’t speak.”
“—I love you, Dalair—”
“Irrelevant,” he grunted.
“—I’m totally, desperately, irrevocably and eternally in love with you. I just thought you should know. Even if you’re not really you. I’m not a big believer of holding this type of stuff inside. Well, maybe my past incarnations were more circumspect. But this incarnation is a sexually-liberated, equal-opportunity, Gen Z self-centered brat.”
“You make no sense.”
“I mean, you have Dalair’s body—and may I say—I’m extremely in lust with your body—”
“I know.”
“—but it’s your soul I love. It’s you I can’t live without. I don’t know if you remember everything from our past lives. It’s always weighed on me like an anvil that you never seemed to know how I felt. How I feel. I promised myself that when I saw you again, I wouldn’t keep these words unsaid between us.”
He gritted his teeth as a migraine of mythical proportions besieged his head, as if someone was jabbing giant needles into his temple.
He wouldn’t be surprised if his Master had done so during her experiments to strengthen his body, wipe clean and reprogram his mind. He didn’t recall most of it. For some reason, he only remembered his time with the Creature who guarded his bedside, tortured and tended him in equal measure.
“You loved me too, Dalair,” she went on relentlessly. “I know you did. When I was Kira and you were the Chief Commander of the Persian armies, the Immortals. I fell in love with you at first sight. Well, in fascination and lust at the very least. It was your keen mind and noble spirit that made me love you. It was the beautiful purity of your soul that drew me like a moth to a flame.”
“Why are you telling me this?” he couldn’t help growling.
The more she talked, the more his head hurt. He needed her to stop. It was torture to listen to her.
She continued to ignore his interjections, as if he hadn’t spoken at all. She was determined to have her say, and unless he gagged her or knocked her out, he suspected she wouldn’t shut up.
“I know I hurt you,” she murmured low, her voice that of a wounded animal. “Badly. We hurt you, Cambyses and I. I should never have gone along with it. I knew it was wrong.”
He could feel her wide brown eyes searing like hot coals into his profile as he kept facing resolutely forward, not meeting her gaze.
“I wanted you so badly,” she breathed, impassioned. “I was so, so selfish. I tried to tell you that first night. Tell you as explicitly as I dared how much I loved you. How much our joining meant to me. Even though a part of me knew you’d misunderstand. The cowardly part that knew it was adultery I was committing. I’m so very sorry. I regret—”
“Shut. Up.”
He wanted to punch something. He wanted to make her stop talking. His fist tightened on the throttle as if it was her neck he was squeezing.
But he couldn’t do it. He simply couldn’t hurt her. This inexplicable connection between them was becoming a risk and a liability. He needed to find a way to sever their bond.
“Dalair…” she murmured, her voice thick with an indefinable emotion.
“My Prince.”
His ears ringed shrilly with the last two words.
My Prince.
He wasn’t her prince or anyone else’s. He’d impersonated his brother to act as protector for both Cambyses and the Princess he was supposed to marry. He was never supposed to fall in love with someone else’s wife.
His brother’s wife.
She was never meant to be his…
All my existence, I have loved one woman.
But she was never meant to be mine.
The words repeated in his mind over and over and over, inundating him with the hopelessness of it all. The helplessness.
The inevitability of Fate.
The Goddess warned me at the moment of my death and rebirth not to want her again. For our paths would cross in the future, though I wouldn’t know the time and place. Nor would I recognize her physical incarnation.
For she was never meant to be mine.
Will never be mine…
But he had recognized her.
He remembered.
The night in his room after he confessed his ill-fated love for Kira to Sophia, never knowing that he was speaking to the same soul. Until their lips brushed by accident. And his soul finally recognized hers.
Just as he did now.
As if Destiny was doomed to repeat itself, Sophia reached out and touched him. Her hand upon his forearm sent a shock of electricity throughout his body, paralyzing and blinding him.
He had to stop this. He was malfunctioning.
Some…thing…was trying to override his program.
Desperate to end the pain seizing up his entire being, his fists crashed down in a burst of uncontrollable strength—
Breaking right through the control panel of the cockpit and sending the helicopter into a tailspin.
Chapter Eight
Sophia’s instinctive reaction was to pull up with all her might on the yoke in front of her, as if she could somehow pull the helicopter out of its death spiral with her insignificant upper body strength.
Didn’t hurt to try. She had no better ideas at the moment!
Dalair was doing the same with his left arm, pulling up on his navigator with so much power his bicep bulged and quivered like boulders shaking in an earthquake, his veins standing out in stark relief, distending from his skin.
With his right hand, he did a number of things so rapidly Sophia could barely keep track with her eyes. She felt a jolt from the tail of the helicopter, and realized that the rotor started churning in the opposite direction, working against the main rotor blades, counteracting the rotational force.
The aircraft shook and bobbed, making Sophia’s stomach lurch and her head feel light.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” she shouted to be heard over the blaring alarms set off by Dalair’s…outburst, or whatever that caveman fist-drive was.
He clenched his jaw and did more things with his nimble fingers, completely ignoring her.
Whatever he was doing, it was working, because after a few more heart-stopping moments, they regained altitude and control, the flight path smoothing out once more.
“Fuck,” he grunted beneath his breath, his eyes focused on the various dashboards in front of him, all lit up and blinking like a Christmas tree.
“What?” Sophia barked, her pulse speeding up again.
Goddess above, she wasn’t sure how much more of this long-ass, unpredictable, awful day she could handle.
“What now?”
“Auto navigation malfunction. Transponders and communication fried. I will have to fly this blind.”
“Blind?” she squeaked despite her best attempt to sound cool and collected.
“I know the coordinates, I know which direction. But I’m blind to traffic.”
“You mean you don’t know what other aircrafts are on our flight path? Is this a busy route?”
Instead of answering directly, he said, “I’ll need to lower our elevation and avoid urban areas.”
He pushed gradually down on the yoke to do just that, giving Sophia that disorienting weightless feeling again.
“Or you could just land this thing, forget the mission and come home with us,” she tried.
“Negative.”
“Dalair—”
“Stop. Talking.”
Sophia wanted to pull her hair out in frustration.
Arrggghhh! Even as a soul-less zombie you’re the most infuriating, obstinate, confounding man!
“I heard that.”
She turned to regard his stoic profile alertly.
Abruptly, he pressed his full lips into a flat line, as if he hadn’t meant to alert her to their telepathic link.
He seemed to be in full control of the aircraft once more, his expression wiped
clean of emotion. Determination etched in the hard line of his jaw.
You can hear my thoughts? Sophia tested in her mind.
No reaction from the warrior next to her.
You know what this means, don’t you? We’re Mated! Well and truly! Eternally! You can’t ever get rid of me now.
His eyes didn’t so much as flicker in acknowledgement of her unspoken words.
Let’s see, where was I? Since we still have, what, two hours of flying left to do?
Sophia tapped her chin, her gaze shrewd and considering as she stared unblinkingly at the half-naked male beside her.
He bore some faint marks on his torso. Those must be from recent wounds, likely when he engaged members of the Elite. He was powerfully fast at healing now that he was operating at almost full capacity.
Sophia heard through the communicator that Tristan, Aella, Adam and Jade were all injured when they got in the way of the turned Paladin, along with two other human Chevaliers. The Immortals sustained more severe wounds that would take at least a day or two to recover from, while the humans merely had headaches from their concussions. It’s as if Dalair purposely held back when he dispatched his foes.
Sophia took this as a positive sign. She clung to any she could find.
She got up to check on Benji when Dalair’s hand suddenly shot out to grasp her forearm.
I’m coming back. Just need to make sure our…package is okay.
She didn’t know why she felt the need to reassure him, just that she instinctively knew that his reaction just now was due to his need to keep her close, not because he was trying to subdue an enemy threat. Besides, in what world would she be a threat to him? Amped up super-soldier that he was.
He released her arm without looking at her, and she scooted past him, brushing the front of her torso against his right side as she went.
In reaction, he stiffened all over. His dark brows slammed down, and his jaw clenched hard.
Interesting.
Sophia filed that telling piece of information away as she made her way to the back of the helicopter.
“Are you all right, Benji?” she asked, kneeling in front of the boy, smoothing her hands over his face.
