Soul Awakened (13 page)

He stalked down the corridor toward her room. He passed it without slowing. She arched her neck to look behind them. She pointed. “You missed my room.”

He furrowed his brow and the muscle in his jaw twitched again. “We are not going to your room.”

Was he taking her to his room? But his room was in the warrior village not the palace. Lilly’s and Asar’s? The newlyweds certainly wouldn’t want a third wheel. She soon got her answer.

Bomani walked through two large ornate gold doors. Similar to her suite, this room had a gold engraved, four poster bed, but instead of feminine touches it had an overly masculine flavor with black silk sheets and heavy iron canopy. One large wall held various weapons, shields, and spears.

Etched into the marble wall an enormous black scorpion with two daggers crossed in the center spanned the entire space. Kendra swallowed a breath. Bomani had brought her to Bakari’s quarters. Her heart kicked up a notch. Lilly’s voice elevated from the far corner of the room.

Inpu pressed his palm against Bakari’s forehead. The priest grimaced, apparently unsettled with the resting god’s fate. Bakari couldn’t be well considering the state she had found him. She was uncertain why Bakari in utter despair reacted to her own pleas, but he saved her life. Any longer in that refrigerated space of his subconscious and she would have been freezer meat.

Bomani lowered her onto the leather chaise next to Bakari’s bed. The Death god rested under black silk sheets, a sharp contrast to his pallor. His ribs showed through his skin.

“I’m staying here?”

 “Yes.” Bomani glared at the sleeping god. The level of hatred in his eyes atoned bad history between the two. Without another word Bomani stalked over and intercepted Asar.

All eyes in the room gravitated to her followed by imperceptible whispers. Kendra resisted the strong magnetism that hummed in her bones and tugged at the center of her chest underneath the scorpion mark. The only thing keeping her in place were the numerous scrutinizing gazes locked on her at the moment.

Lilly traversed the space between them with fluid motion, never once taking her eyes off Bakari nor her hand off her sword. No one would believe they were sisters. Lilly was strong, powerful, and graceful. Kendra was lucky she didn’t get hurt sneezing.

“You don’t have to stay here. Say the word and I’ll take you to your room,” Lilly said still eyeing Bakari.

Kendra’s mouth went dry. Lilly had no desire for her to stay here and would countermand her husband, if Kendra gave her the slightest hint she wanted to leave.

The problem? She didn’t want to go.

How the hell was she going to explain it to Lilly? There were only a few occasions she ever disagreed with her oldest sister and it was never without a fight. A fight she won solely on her wit and intelligence. She had a few black eyes though, especially when she dismissed Lilly’s theory about the curse, which later turned out to be true.

“Lilly, I—”

“No! You don’t.”

“You and I both know I have to do this,” Kendra countered and pointed to Bakari. “He is the only one who can kill Kepi, and cure the souls infected with the curse. The revens need to find peace in their death. Our father included.” 

Bomani stalked over to his Sire with his anger barely tamped. He did not like this arrangement. He was not privy to the information shared in the private meeting, but on Isis’ life he was going to find out.

“You cannot be serious, allowing her to stay with him.” Bomani glanced at Kendra lying vulnerable on the chaise.

“Watch your tone, Commander.”

The temperature around the Underworld god plummeted, reinforcing the
back the hell off
message. True, Bomani pushed the limits of his station, but gods be damn if he would allow this to happen. His tone was downright disrespectful, but the hell with it.

“You saw what he did to Ari, and the others. I saw the blood hunger in his eyes. He will kill her!”

“No, he will not.”

“How can you be so certain?”

Asar clenched his fists, but remained silent.

Lilly’s voice rose up in the room and drew both men’s gazes. Rightly so, she was trying to dissuade Kendra from staying. Good for her. He at least had some reinforcement.

His Sire took a step toward the women. Bomani planted his hand on Asar’s chest. “What happened in that cell? What did he do to her?”

Asar glared at the hand that restrained him and the air around Bomani vibrated. “Remove your hand, warrior or less you lose it.”

Bomani knew he crossed the line. Crossed it by a mile. He might be the Commander of the Legion and sired by the blood of his Underworld god, but that didn’t give him the right to touch Asar or address him as an equal. He removed his hand and forced himself to bow. “Please forgive me. I only want to ensure the small one’s safety.”

Asar’s hard eyes narrowed in on him. “Do not think I take her life lightly. I have vowed with my soul to keep them safe, but I have also vowed to see this war to its end.” The Underworld god’s face softened slightly. He grabbed Bomani’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “I know you and your brother had your differences, but he needs us. He needs Kendra to pull him out of the darkness.”

Bomani raked an agitated hand over his scalp and glanced over at the sleeping god. Brother. Yeah, in a manner of speaking. They had the same blood running through their veins. The same father, but that is where the similarity ended. They could not be more different. Born of the same father, but conceived by different means. One by water, fire and blood, fighting for his life the moment he was born in the warrior camp. The other by egg and sperm, spoiled in this plush palace.

He honestly did not wish any ill will against Bakari. No one should endure the torture he had gone through, despite the sins against his own father. Asar did not know the half of it. As far as their father was concerned Bakari had been the perfect son, innocently seduced by the goddess Kepi.

Innocent?
My ass.
He had kept his mouth shut all these years, never wanting to hurt Asar. And based on the amount of pain he saw in his father’s eyes, he would most likely remain silent.

Bomani bowed with the respect he felt in his heart for the father who had always been good to him. “As you wish.” He never addressed him as
father
. Besides Bakari, Kamen was the only other person who knew that Asar had born him differently than the other warriors.

Asar had disclosed to him the news of his bloodline on the day of his commissioning as Commander of the Legion. Asar had wanted Bomani to rise to the top of his own accord. Gain the respect of the legion on the misery and strength forged during his training.
Respect could not be earned on blood alone
, Asar had said to him. True enough. Bomani had risen among all others to command a force with the power to level a nation.  

Much to his surprise, his sire grasped him in a tight embrace. Never had Asar displayed affection toward Bomani in all these many years. The most was a tight grasp of the shoulder or slap on the back. Current events no doubt had affected the god deeply. “I cannot stand to lose either of you.” Asar broke the contact and walked away without another word.

“May I stay?” Bomani asked, still stunned.

Asar nodded and then proceeded to intercept his wife.

Bomani positioned himself on the opposite side of the bed so that Kendra was in his line of sight. Those wide brown eyes connected and held his stare. He felt his chest warm and his skin tingle, as he examined those deep dreamy pools. It receded the moment she broke her gaze and looked at his brother lying under the sheets.

Uneasiness settled into the bottom of his gut. Bakari lay between him and Kendra. Physically and metaphorically. A barrier between him and what he wanted. A surprising revelation.

Blood-bond or not, he wanted Kendra for his own.     

Bitterness crashed in waves around him. Bakari had a choice to make— remain entranced or wake up to a living hell. Either way, he did at least one good deed. His butterfly was saved. Not enough to save his soul, but it gave him some satisfaction. He wondered if this was some trickery from the goddess. Had she found a new way of preventing him from taking his own life?

Kepi had fed him her black fetid blood in those first minutes of his capture. Funny how in his awakening, he did not taste the sour decay, but instead the haunting sweetness of his butterfly. The small amount of blood Kendra had used to awaken him had overridden Kepi’s. Thank the gods. But, there was that nagging hunger again for sweet nectar, the cure for purging the rest of Kepi’s foul scent from his body.

The haunting desire to purge himself forced him to push the darkness away and open his eyes. He fully expected to be in four point metal restraints against a stone alter. That is how the goddess liked him. Exposed and at her mercy. He had to blink several times to appreciate what he was seeing and feeling for that matter. Softness, instead of the hard biting stone. Freedom to move his limbs. And, a large engraved scorpion.

He had truly gone mad to wake in his former quarters in Aaru.
Home
. He struggled to lift his skeleton up off the mattress. The shadow of the flames danced across the expanse of the room and reflected against the blades that hung on the wall. Everything was how he had left it five years ago. He squeezed his eyes shut.

Five years.

Still disoriented, he surveyed his room. Every weapon hung from their assigned pegs, as if no time passed at all. For a moment he hoped it was a protracted nightmare, but the tarnish to the metal beguiled his wish. The discolor resulted from years of lack of use and proper care. In a fruitless attempt at denial, he searched for some other hopeful sign it was not true.

He turned to find the chaise that was normally pushed against the wall had been moved close to the bed. A large bundle of blankets lay across the center. He squinted, not sure he could believe what he was seeing.

A young girl with auburn hair curled amongst the blankets. Despite the shock of reality, relief swept over him.

He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and strangely found them covered in black linen pants. He had not been clothed since the day he was kidnapped. The fabric irritated his macerated skin. He took several uneven steps toward the woman. He needed to touch her, make sure she was not a figment of his imagination.

 He knelt next to the chaise and reached out to brush his fingertips against the cheek of his sleeping beauty. He fully expected her to evaporate before his eyes. He inhaled sharply when he contacted the soft round protrusion of her cheekbone. He followed the sharp line to the edge of hair, her ear and then jaw. “Parvana.”

Kendra stirred ever so slightly and then leaned into his hand. A soft hum left her lips. Her eyes flicked back and forth under her closed lids. Bakari closed his eyes a moment and then reopened them. She remained, as did his room around them. This was no dream.

His fingertips traced the smooth line of her neck. Her slow regular pulse teased the pads of his fingers. He closed his eyes again and reveled in the warmth and life that beat under his touch. His throat burned with thirst, but not as bad as it had been in the cell. The frenzy to feed had lessened. How that was possible, he could not comprehend. Instead he took a deep breath and inhaled her scent into his body. With it warmth spread through his chest.

He opened his heavy lids. The most delectable brown eyes stared back at him with wariness. She had every reason to fear him, considering how he had acted. He was still stunned to find himself here. “You are real,” he said still disbelieving the permanence of her.

She cleared her throat and smiled. “Yes, very real.”

He continued to stroke her neck with his thumb. Surprisingly, she did not pull away from his touch. A strange moment of intimacy between strangers. He really did not know her but her name. How he had ever gotten home, let alone how a human could have awoken him was still a mystery.