by I. T. Lucas
For a long moment, Annani didn’t answer, and when she finally did, it was with a shrug.
That was unlike her mother, and it was also hurtful. She’d been so excited about Kian finding a mate and then Amanda. She’d even given her blessing to a former Doomer but was ambivalent about someone as perfect as David?
“What’s the matter with him?”
“He looks familiar. He reminds me of someone I once knew. It is not that he looks like him, other than the Nordic coloring that is, but his mannerism and the vibe he emits remind me of that man.”
The sadness in Annani’s voice gave Sari pause.
With a sinking feeling, she opened the doors to her mother’s suite. “Was he a lover of yours?”
Annani nodded.
Sari cast a glance at her sister. Alena’s expression revealed nothing, but Sari had a feeling that she knew what Annani’s reaction to David was all about. Except, if Annani refused to share the story, her sister was not going to betray their mother’s trust by revealing it.
The problem was that David’s reaction to Annani hinted at familiarity as well. Could it be that her mother and David had been lovers?
But even if they were, David shouldn’t remember it. Annani always thralled away the memories of her hookups. She could have stumbled upon an immune, but both Kalugal and Amanda claimed that David was susceptible to both compulsion and thralling, so that wasn’t the case with him.
Annani sat down on the couch and leaned back. “I could use a drink, one of those tasty margaritas that Amanda makes.”
Sari walked over to the bar and opened the doors. “I can mix something for you, but I don’t have the ingredients for a margarita.”
“Whatever you have is fine as long as it is sweet and potent.”
One of her mother’s Odus rushed in from the bedroom. “I shall make it, mistress.” It was either Ogidu or Oshidu, Sari could never tell them apart, but even though the two were identical, Annani managed to somehow distinguish between them.
She sat next to her mother. “Who was the man that David reminds you of?”
“It was a long time ago.”
“Then he must have left an impression.”
Annani grimaced. “Not a good one.”
That would explain her strange reaction to David.
“He’s not the same person,” Alena said.
“I do not know why he reminds me of that other man.” Annani sighed. “From what I have heard, David is delightful.”
“He is.” Sari let out a relieved breath. “I hope that you will be able to put the strange reaction behind you and be friendly to David. I was afraid that you would start gushing all over him. I’ve never expected aversion.”
Annani straightened and looked at Sari down her nose. “I do not know what you are talking about. I welcomed him to my clan and said all the right things.”
“You did, and David probably thinks your welcome was perfectly normal, but I know you better. If not for the aversion you felt toward him, you would have pulled him into your arms and kissed him on both cheeks.”
Annani huffed. “I have not done that with any of the other Dormants. I do not know where you get these strange ideas from.”
On Annani’s other side, Alena shifted and put her hand on their mother’s shoulder. “I think you did that with Syssi, but not with the others.”
“Perhaps. I do not remember. Besides, by the time I met the other Dormants, they had already transitioned and bonded with clan members. David is still a human. I would rather reserve my affection for when he turns immortal. It would be a wasted effort if he does not transition, and you erase his memories.”
47
David
Back in the tower room, David opened his laptop and pulled up the outline for his novel. The best way to chase away the specter of his teenage dreams was to make her into a character in his story.
Obviously, Annani wasn’t Ayesha, but he must have met the goddess in some previous life, and the encounter must have left a shocking impression on him, so much so that he’d superimposed her image on the fictional sorceress.
Ayesha, or she who must be obeyed as she’d been referred to in the story, shared many of Annani’s attributes but not her looks or her personality.
There were several similarities. The fictional sorceress had discovered the secret of immortality, had lived for two thousand years, and possessed supernatural powers, including telepathy and the ability to heal. Also, her white skin glowed like Annani’s, and her eyes shone with inner light like Sari’s had done in moments of passion.
Unlike Annani, though, Ayesha was ruthless, bordering on evil, and she had no qualms about torturing people and ending their lives.
Was it possible that the author had based the character on an immortal female he’d encountered? Or had he met his inspiration in some previous life and then kept dreaming about her throughout his incarnations?
One thing David was certain of. Adding a character who was a blend of Annani and Ayesha to his novel would provide the mystery and spice it was currently lacking. He’d wanted to model the leader of the higher caste on Sari, but the character was not as wholesome as her, so basing the leader on Annani and Ayesha was more apt.
She would be a beautiful and powerful seductress, who would sometimes appear good and sometimes evil, and the readers would be kept guessing as to her true colors until the very end of the book.
Typing away with gusto, David revised the outline and then dove into rewriting the chapters he’d already written. Lost in the creative spree, he didn’t hear the knock or the door opening and was startled when Sari put a hand on his shoulder.
“Am I interrupting?”
He lifted his eyes to her and smiled. “I’m almost done. I decided to base the leader of the higher caste in your mother’s image.”
“You need to make sure that no one suspects she exists.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m blending her character with a fictional one I read about a long time ago, and the result is electrifying. Now I’m sure that the book will be a success. Everyone loves a terrifying femme fatale. It’s one of the archetypes, and it ignites young men’s imaginations.” He smiled sheepishly. “It certainly ignited mine.”
“I hope that you are talking about your fictional character and not my mother.” Sari sat in the other armchair and crossed her arms over her chest. “You were intimidated by Annani, even a little scared. That’s not an unusual reaction for those meeting her for the first time. But you were more anxious than most. Was it because she reminded you of the story femme fatale? Or were you afraid of Annani herself?”
“A little bit of both,” he admitted. “But mostly, I was elated to finally have proof of reincarnation.”
Sari lifted a brow. “How so?”
He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs at the ankles. “The character who inspired many of my teenage sexual fantasies and also featured prominently in my nightmares was a powerful sorceress. Except, the sorceress was a tall brunette, but in my boyhood dreams, she was a tiny, stunningly beautiful redhead who looked exactly like your mother. That can’t be a coincidence. I must have met her in one of my previous lives and projected her image on the fictional character who had caught my imagination.”
Sari grimaced. “What kind of sexual fantasies did you have about my mother?”
Damn. That was awkward. He shouldn’t have admitted that.
“Nothing ever happened in my dreams. They were more about the attraction and the longing. She toyed with me, tempting me, seducing me, but also keeping me at a distance. In my dreams, Ayesha made it clear that I would pay with my life for the privilege of bedding her. In some of them, she was a succubus who would suck the life energy out of me if I succumbed to her temptation. In others, she was a powerful sorceress who was actually ancient and ugly under the glamour she projected, and if I touched her, the illusion would break. Sometimes she was a vampiress who would suck the blood out of me in exchange for one sex
ual encounter, and so on.”
“That doesn’t sound like fun.”
“It was, and it wasn’t. There was pleasure and excitement in the fear and the longing, the craving of the forbidden. But it was also painfully frustrating. I always thought that the dreams represented my fear of girls. I was shy as a boy, but I was also attracted to strong women. It wasn’t a good combination.”
She smiled. “I can’t imagine you being shy. At what age did you become confident?”
“I was a very small and skinny teenager. As a good student, I also had the privilege of being regarded as a geek. In eleventh grade, I got my growth spurt, filled out, and started playing sports. Suddenly, girls noticed me, and the rest is history.”
“So, it’s the girls’ fault?”
He laughed. “Isn’t it always? Men live or die by what women think of them. You have incredible power over us.”
“Is that your professional opinion as a psychologist?” Sari teased.
He was glad that she seemed to have gotten over his unfortunate disclosure regarding his teenage sexual fantasies and her mother.
“It is, but I would never dare write it. Men like to cling to the illusion that they are in charge.”
“What about women? Do we live or die by what men think of us?”
He shook his head. “You are also at the mercy of other women and their opinion of you, but most females are more resilient and self-reliant than males.”
Hopefully, the compliments he was paying to her gender would soften the impact of his earlier mistake. No woman wanted to hear that her lover had lusted after her mother, not even if it happened in his dreams or his previous life.
48
Sari
Sari had never cared much about what men thought of her, but she valued her mother and sisters’ opinions. Still, most women wanted to feel desirable, and if they were heterosexual, that meant attracting male attention, so David’s statement wasn’t entirely true.
His compliments to the female gender had been meant to soften the impact of admitting that he had been her mother’s lover in another lifetime.
Sari wondered whether what David had told her about the nature of his dreams was true. He was emitting a strong scent of excitement, but that was because of the new plot twists he’d come up with for his novel. The problem was that the excited scent was making it difficult to detect the more subtle ones, and since he might have been twisting the truth only a little for her sake, she couldn’t detect the scent of guilt that usually accompanied lies.
As someone who’d never given the idea of reincarnation much credence, she also didn’t know what to think about his possible past encounter with Annani.
Had he seen her and lusted after her from afar?
Sari wished that was the case, but her mother’s reaction to David meant that his previous self had been her lover. Not only that, but he’d also left enough of an impression for Annani to remember him.
Her mother had had numerous hookups over her long life, and there was no way she remembered all of them. Her interlude with David must have been either spectacular or traumatic to stick in her memory, and given what she’d said, it was the latter.
The only hints Annani had let slip were that it had happened a long time ago, that her lover had been of Nordic origin, and that the encounter hadn’t been a good one.
It might have happened during the time Annani had hidden in the far north. The Nordic tribes she’d found shelter among had been savage, but with her immense power, she could have controlled them with ease.
Come to think of it, the goddess had told her children many stories about her original home in Sumer, but very little about her stay in the far north.
Sari had always assumed that it had been a dark period in Annani’s life and that there hadn’t been much to tell. After fleeing to the north, her mother had spent a long time mourning the loss of her husband and her entire people, and she hadn’t interacted much with the locals. Furthermore, since the nomadic northern people had been primitive and savage, stories about them would have probably been all about brutal tribal wars.
Had Annani’s lover been one of the chieftains?
Thinking about how stinky those must have been made Sari shiver. Her mother had come from a civilized and cultured people who’d bathed regularly. Even the humans living in the Sumerian city-states had been clean, either because they had followed the gods’ example or because the hot climate had demanded frequent bathing.
Annani couldn’t have possibly had sex with those northern savages, at least not without having them scrubbed clean first. Sari was old enough to remember how dirty and unwashed Europeans had been until quite recently. Most hadn’t had access to bathing facilities, and even those who had hadn’t made frequent enough use of them.
“Are you cold?” David asked.
“No, why?”
“A moment ago you shivered.” He pushed to his feet and walked over to her. “I can warm you up.” He picked her up and sat with her in his lap.
“That’s nice.” Sari put her head on his chest. “But I wasn’t cold.”
“So why did you shiver?”
“I was thinking about how dirty people were thousands of years ago and wondered how my mother could have had sex with them.”
He chuckled. “She’s a powerful goddess. I’m sure she demanded that they bathe first.”
“I’m sure that she did. But years of grime were not easy to scrub away. I wonder if they had loofas back then.”
Missing the joke, David didn’t laugh. “She could’ve compelled them to do whatever she wanted, right?”
Sari nodded. “Annani doesn’t like to use her compulsion power. Thralling would have been enough.”
“What’s the difference?”
“When thralled, the person believes that it is his own wish to bathe. Compulsion forces him to do that, whether he wants to or not. He’s aware that he’s being forced.”
“I don’t know which one is worse.”
“Compulsion. Most definitely.”
“Did she ever do it to you?”
“Only once, and it was for a good cause. Kalugal and his men came to the village to celebrate Kalugal and Jacki’s wedding. Annani wanted to ensure that everyone played nice with each other, so she gave a welcoming speech and used compulsion to put everyone in a friendly and relaxed mood.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad. It’s not like they came with war on their minds, and she forced them to change their minds, right? She just reinforced the good intentions that were already there.”
Sari shrugged. “It still felt weird even though I’ve never harbored ill intent toward my cousin or his people.”
“Did she ever use compulsion to manipulate world politics?”
“Not as far as I know. Annani strives to help humanity govern itself democratically by providing them with the tools to do that and not by taking over.” Sari smiled. “I guess her attitude toward humans is similar to her attitude toward her own children. Instead of telling us what to do, she provided us with the tools to think for ourselves, plenty of information, and a good personal example.”
“My admiration for her just keeps growing.”
Sari lifted her head. “Tell me the truth, David. Are you attracted to my mother?”
He laughed nervously. “I’m not. But despite all the good things you’ve told me about her, I’m still intimidated by her.”
Intimidated was a soft word for what he really felt. Sitting in his lap, Sari couldn’t miss the spike in his anxiety, but she could feel his desire.
Hopefully, it was for her and not for her mother.
“You have nothing to fear from Annani. In fact, I wonder why your previous self was so frightened of her. She must have used a terrifying shroud to scare him away.”
David’s smile vanished. “I have a feeling that it was more than that. I think she killed him. Otherwise, why would I dream that my attraction to her would lead to my death?”
“Anna
ni is powerful enough to eliminate a threat without resorting to taking a life. She could’ve thralled your other self to believe that she would kill him if he didn’t back off, or that lusting after her was dangerous, but she would have never killed him. She doesn’t even allow us to kill our enemies if it can be prevented. Those we capture, we put in stasis to be resurrected in the future.”
Letting out a breath, David gathered her closer to his chest. “I hope that you are right. But even if you are not, it’s not a big deal. Whatever transpired between my previous incarnation and your mother happened a long time ago to a different person. My relationship is with you, not with your mother, and since she doesn’t live here, I don’t even have to spend time with her.”
Sari couldn’t remember whether she’d told David about stasis, but given his lack of response to her mentioning it, she had either told him about it last night, or he was too troubled by his encounter with Annani to think about anything else.
Great, the man the Fates had chosen for her had lusted after her mother in a previous life, something had gone wrong, and now this incarnation of him feared her.
Things were far from ideal, but David’s attitude was right. It would have been better if he and Annani got along splendidly without any baggage between them, but if not, it wasn’t a deal-breaker.
However, if David still had lustful thoughts about Annani or her about him, that was a different story.
49
David
During dinner, David kept sneaking glances at the goddess, occasionally catching her looking at him.
Did she feel his eyes on her? Or did she remember him from before? Did he look like his prior incarnation?
From the research he had done on the subject, that wasn’t usually the case. Reincarnates sometimes had birthmarks corresponding to the killing wound their other bodies had sustained, but there was no other physical resemblance. Those who remembered their other lives were often of a different gender or nationality than their prior incarnation, and for most, the memories were not a good thing.
