Pure Destiny

by Aja James

  “It’s like a rollercoaster ride!” Benji breathed, his excitement no less dampened by the danger he seemed oblivious to, though he stretched his jaws in a giant yawn at the end of his exclamation.

  Sophia helped him lie down across both of the seats before securing a belt cross-wise over his body. She dug around the pockets and containers nearby and found a couple packets of nuts and bottles of water.

  “Here, have these. And try to rest, OK?”

  “When are we going to get to where we’re going, Sophie?” Benji asked sleepily.

  “In a couple hours,” she answered.

  Even though, if she could help it, they would never get to where they were headed.

  “What’s going to happen when we get there?”

  “Let’s not think about that yet,” she said. “Let’s focus on the journey instead. It’s an adventure, right? Try to take a nap now. You need to be strong to make the most of this expedition.”

  She smoothed the soft golden curls from Benji’s brow and channeled a sleepy tranquility into the boy. At least, that’s what she hoped she was doing. Today was the first time she tried to purposely wield the Gift she used to have as Ninti.

  It seemed to work, because after Benji ate a packet of nuts and drank half a bottle of water, his big blue eyes fluttered closed and his mouth went soft, relaxed in a little boy pout.

  Sophia kissed his forehead and straightened. Took a deep breath as if bracing herself to do battle. And so it was—

  The war to regain Dalair’s soul.

  She went back to the front of the helo and squeezed by Dalair again to get into her seat. This time, she purposely exaggerated her movements, squeezing her breasts against his shoulder and upper arm, bracing her hand on his rock-hard muscles as if for balance, while her fingers and palm unnecessarily smoothed (groped) down his right side, before she finally sat down.

  By the time she was in her seat, Dalair’s breathing came and went in short, agitated bursts, his thick pecs rising and falling in a riveting rhythm. His small, male nipples beaded into pebbles. The smooth muscles of his chest twitching as if he was being shocked by electrical currents.

  Sophia couldn’t help staring. Feeling. This physical connection between them was…incredible.

  She’d desired him madly as Kira. And since she hit puberty in this incarnation, she’d been helplessly obsessed with him.

  No. That wasn’t true. She’d been enthralled by him even before she knew what obsession was.

  But since her Awakening—now—her need for him defied description. She felt as if she’d die if she didn’t have him inside her soon.

  Inside, above, beneath, and all around. Surrounding her with his heat, his musk, his silk-over-steel maleness. If she couldn’t breathe him like air, drink him like water, devour him like food, then there was no point in living. Existence was a barren wasteland of tasteless, colorless, meaningless dust.

  Her own breathing grew just as agitated as his, her pulse thrumming with arousal and awareness of his closeness.

  He was her Mate. She yearned for him.

  Each person was composed of the soul and the body. Each soul was made of many parts—the heart, the vital essence, the personality, the shadow, the life force, the name, and the mind.

  Unbidden, the lessons she learned at the Temple of Neith came back to her.

  She’d healed his body with hers, strengthened his life force. She’d invoked his name—Dalair. Her Prince. She’d taken his vital essence inside of her, just as she’d given him Sustenance in return. Their minds were connected now, though she couldn’t hear his thoughts the way he seemed to hear hers. The burst of rage he indulged in minutes ago showed that his emotions were rekindling.

  She never had trouble making him well and truly frustrated, Sophia thought wryly. At least, not in this incarnation. As a teenager, she often picked fights with him just to push his boundaries. He was usually unflappable, but sometimes…she might be an awful person for rejoicing in the ways she could always push his buttons.

  And his shadow, the darkness within each person, that was always present. The only thing missing was his heart.

  His beautiful, tortured, broken heart.

  It was time she picked up the pieces and cherished it the way she always wanted to. The way she was born to do.

  Even Destiny couldn’t stop her now.

  Sophia settled back in her seat and casually walked her fingers across the narrow divider that separated them, wrapping the sensitive digits around his thick wrist while funneling a feeling of calm sluggishness into his being, forcing him to relax by slow degrees when his body automatically tensed at her touch.

  His right hand jerked once, twice, as his body and mind fought her inducement. His nostrils flared with the strain. But ultimately, he didn’t remove her hand from his wrist. He didn’t tell her to stop.

  Chemicals, poisons and vampire venom didn’t work on him. No foreign substance did. But her Gift affected him. If she’d known about this ability, she’d have done it sooner. But better late than never.

  And so she began:

  No matter how much I tell you about my desperate love for you, you never believe me, isn’t that right, Dalair?

  Why do you doubt me so? Because I deceived you in the guise of a man when we first met? But you deceived me too. It didn’t matter though.

  No matter who we pretended we were, we couldn’t fabricate the spark between us. This unbreakable affinity across time and space.

  I will show you the truth. You shall see for yourself. Feel what I felt when I first Fell…

  6th Century B.C., Zau, Capital of Egypt.

  Kira didn’t believe in love at first sight. She was far too learned and practical for such dreamy-eyed rubbish.

  And yet, it was all she could do to keep a cool head as she surreptitiously observed the Crown Prince of Persia from beneath her lashes as they sat beside one another at her engagement supper.

  He didn’t know it was her, of course.

  She’d convinced the King and Queen to play along as well. She argued, rightly so, that it was better for her safety to allow her doppelganger to take her place while she assumed the role of the Princess’s close companion and protector, a fictional man by the name of Amon. It was a common ploy used by noblemen and royalty to thwart and deceive their enemies.

  Coincidentally and ironically, it also gave her the opportunity to continue interacting with the inexplicably magnetic Persian Prince as herself, not merely her position and title.

  He’d bathed and groomed after their arrival at the Palace. He donned the ostentatious robes and adornments befitting of a royal prince. The unruly wavy locks coated with dust from travel that she first glimpsed of him were now tamed with oil. The days’ growth of beard on his face was shaven clean, emphasizing the hard, angular lines of his jaw and the contrasting softness of his wide mouth. His eyes were outlined with kohl, making their naturally wolf-like shape even more exotic, the silver threaded in the light gray orbs more compelling.

  Though he seemed stiff and uncomfortable in this attire, the sight of him took her breath away.

  Goddess above! This man would be her husband. She could scarcely believe her good fortune.

  He was undeniably beautiful, far more so than any portrait of him could have captured. But she’d seen many handsome men across her kingdom. It was more than his looks that captivated her. So much more that she looked forward to discovering.

  In truth, he was still growing into manhood, his lanky body leanly muscular from an active life, but not quite filled out as she imagined he would be one day. She’d gathered from his companions that he was some years younger than her. Yet, somehow, he seemed older, more mature. He was indisputably the leader of his small retainer, and not just because he was their prince. It was clear as day that his men were fiercely loyal to him because of him.

  Kira didn’t believe in love at first sight, but mercy! she certainly believed in lust after making Prince Cambyses’ acquaintanc
e.

  Not that she hadn’t found other men’s forms pleasing before, because she had. Since she was a much younger girl, she’d noticed the beauty of a finely wrought male body. How it contrasted with her own. Hard where she was soft. Angles to her curves, even though hers were subtler than most.

  Watching the Crown Prince ride upon his gorgeous black stallion as if they were one, moving entirely in concert…now that was a sight that made the inside of Kira’s mouth as dry as the desert dunes that surrounded the oasis of Zau.

  She couldn’t wait to see him truly let go. Race across the desert on his sleekly powerful steed. If just the leisurely ride from the outer city gates to the Palace made Kira break out in goosebumps from stolen glances at the Prince’s muscular thighs, wide shoulders and narrow hips, she couldn’t wait to see him truly ride.

  Perhaps she could even coax him into a friendly race.

  The Prince was unconsciously graceful in his movements, the way only a man who was supremely confident in his own skin could be. There was a barely suppressed wildness and freedom in his silver-gray eyes. And there was strength, honor and a brave steadfastness as well.

  She’d sensed this about him early on, and her assessment was confirmed over their frank conversation on the way to the Palace.

  Man to man.

  Kira smirked at her own ruse but grew serious once more as she catalogued her burgeoning feelings.

  She’d disguised her own dismay at falling in lust with him when they first met by being brusque, waspish even, turning her nose up at his somewhat coarse manners. Even though she was secretly thrilled he wasn’t the polished poppycock she’d been led to believe.

  Pushing the boundaries of civility, she’d goaded him, interrogated him, tried to make him make a mistake that would lower him somehow in her eyes. But with each answer, every action, he quietly established his position, held his ground with her, while he listened intently when she spoke. There was no arrogance in his demeanor. No presumption and expectation.

  Which was why, soon after she discovered her shocking lust for him, she was bowled over by another even more startling realization:

  She liked him.

  Perhaps even more than she lusted for him. Oh, very well, as much as she lusted for him. Which was to say—she liked him A. Lot.

  Kira didn’t often feel at a disadvantage, but she felt it keenly with Prince Cambyses.

  What did he think of her? Even if it was just her looks? He didn’t seem repulsed by the seeds she planted earlier—that the Princess was rather a hellion with her “unnatural” manly pursuits and inclinations.

  She decided to simply ask him. If there was one thing she learned about the Prince by now, it was that he didn’t shy away from the truth.

  “What do you think?” she leaned in close to whisper in his ear, her lips almost brushing the sensitive shell, her hand on his forearm, their skin separated by the cloth of his sleeve.

  He started visibly, whether at her closeness or her words, she couldn’t tell. She just knew that she loved having the ability to surprise him.

  “Do you find her beautiful?” she asked and gestured with a tilt of her head toward her doppelganger, who sat at the King’s left side on the raised dais.

  While Kira, in her manly disguise, the Prince’s small contingent and other noblemen and guests were to sit at a gigantic long table that ran the entire length of the Great Hall.

  “I…”

  He seemed at a loss for words, his obscenely thick and feathery eyelashes fluttering when he quickly slid a gaze at the dais and back down at his feet. The sharpness of his cheekbones tinted with a faint flush.

  Kira found this fascinating. Was the preternaturally self-possessed Prince actually shy?

  “Yes,” he finally answered.

  Kira frowned as she scrutinized him closely.

  Should she be glad or jealous? Her doppelganger obviously looked like her, but not exactly the same. The girl resembled a more feminine, reserved, polite version of her. And if Kira was absolutely honest, which she always tried to be with herself, her companion was the far prettier one. With lusher curves. Rounder eyes. Fuller lips. Creamier skin.

  Hmm. Jealousy it was then. The first time Kira ever felt the emotion.

  She didn’t like it.

  She decided to focus on the nonexistent speck of lint on her tunic sleeve instead of dwelling on the unpleasant rash of heat burning her skin and the churning ball of disgruntlement that weighed down like an anvil in her belly. The most unpleasant of indigestions.

  The Prince surprised her by expounding further, “She is not what I expected, based on what you told me of her pursuits.”

  “Why?” Kira muttered rather sharply. “Did you think she’d be wearing trousers and act like a man because of her mannish interests?”

  “No,” came his slow, considering answer. “I thought she might be bolder and meet my eyes like an equal. She seems bashful.”

  Said the man who fluttered his own lashes like a love-sick moon-calf at the sight of the Princess. Or rather, her look-alike.

  Kira was starting to confuse even herself.

  Finally, they took their seats at the long table.

  She couldn’t resist leaning in again to whisper, “Even the boldest women are bashful around the men they admire. Perhaps the princess is very taken with you. Perhaps it is love at first sight.”

  Her heart stuttered at the way her thoughtless mouth revealed so much of what she felt so carelessly. With bated breath she awaited his response.

  But alas, his attention was shifted to King Apries, who engaged the Prince in polite conversation.

  To distract herself from the almost irresistible desire to worship him with her eyes throughout the entire meal, Kira turned to converse with one the Prince’s retainers on her other side. All the while listening with one ear to the discussion between her father and the Prince.

  Once in a while the King involved Kira in the dialogue as well, and she answered as truthfully and as obliquely as she could, given her current pretense as Amon. She ensured that her father received the message loud and clear, however—she was pleased with the match.

  She was pleased with Prince Cambyses.

  Finally, the King and Queen turned to other guests, and Kira sensed the Prince’s subtle release of tension beside her.

  Was he anxious that the Egyptian royalty would find him somehow lacking?

  True, Egyptians considered Persians a barbaric people. She herself used to believe that all Persian men smelled worse than camels, had fleas in their unruly beards and ate innocent children for breakfast.

  True, the Prince’s mannerisms weren’t the most polished or smooth upon first interaction, but he was intelligent, kind, and always respectful, direct, and steady.

  He was, in short, everything Kira could ever have hoped for. And even more.

  Her Prince. He was hers.

  She decided to test the claim out loud.

  “Drink and eat your fill, my prince,” she murmured, meeting his eyes as he glanced her way.

  Again, she seemed to have startled him with her chosen address, if the slight widening of his eyes was any indication.

  It was an intimate address, “my prince.”

  She would never use it with anyone but him from this day forward.

  *** *** *** ***

  My Prince…

  It hurt to remember.

  The warrior stared fixedly on the darkening horizon as the sun began its gradual decline to the west.

  While his conscious mind navigated the helicopter as if on autopilot, a deeply submerged part of him stirred within, rattling the cages of its prison.

  That part of him had always believed that when she spoke the words “my prince,” she’d been speaking of someone else. But now that he felt what she’d felt, as if he lived the past with her, inside of her, he finally understood the truth.

  She’d always been speaking of him. No matter the pretense, no matter their circumstance, he had been
her prince. He had simply and utterly been hers.

  Uncontrollably, memories flooded his subconscious mind.

  Their journey from Zau to Persepolis. Their carefree race. When he almost kissed her, even though she’d been disguised as a man. When he purchased his favorite scent for her—Lady of the Night—pretending it was for the “Princess” to whom he hadn’t spoken a single word.

  All he saw and heard and noticed was Amon. Amon’s sparkling dark eyes. Amon’s glances beneath sooty lashes. Amon’s heartfelt chuckles and white-teethed grins.

  He hadn’t cared that Amon was a man. He’d wanted this being, no matter what.

  Their caravan had been attacked on the outskirts of Persepolis. He and his soldiers had dispatched their enemies, sustaining few wounds themselves. When Amon engaged the assassins to protect the princess, the warrior had half lost his mind, overwhelmed by a surge of primal protectiveness and rage, that his person was threatened, that Amon could be hurt or killed…

  Presently, the warrior grasped the hand holding his wrist in a relentless grip, enveloping the much smaller hand from above, entwining their fingers and folding both their hands into one tight fist.

  The memories flooded him mercilessly, making him grit his teeth at the onslaught.

  What came next had ripped the beating heart out of his body—when he discovered the morning after they arrived in Persepolis that Amon was not who he thought. That he was the Princess in disguise. The Princess promised to Cambyses, his half-brother…

  The involuntary ripple of his throat as he swallowed and the madly ticking muscle in his jaw were the warrior’s only outward signs of distress.

  Deep inside his subconsciousness, the ghostly demon howled and shook its cage with increased fervor, demanding to be let out.

  The warrior’s self-protective instincts kicked in. His conscious mind tried to escape the painful memories, the way his past self had run away from Persepolis so that he didn’t have to witness the Princess—Kira—marry Cambyses.

  But the hand that held his in the present, Sophia’s hand, wouldn’t let go. She turned her hand until her palm met his and clawed her fingers between his, holding him tight from below.