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“No. I belong with him.”
“It will not be. As I told you, I have a promise to keep.”
Her purple eyes blazed with anger. “You have no right.”
“I can send you away whenever I choose. You are not powerful enough to stop me.”
She pinned her gaze on him. What did she see? A cold-hearted one-eyed bastard? A killer? A male loyal only to his fellow assassins? Maybe she saw an immortal who condemned Ohngel to sleep.
Her lids dropped. Her jaw slackened. He shoulders slumped. “I have a puzzle to solve. How long may I stay?”
“An hour.” Dominion did not bother to explain how time passed in Angor. An hour could be a month or year.
She unbraided her hair, crawling onto the bed where she snuggled against his brother, slipping an arm under him to cradle his neck. Her palm rested on his heart. Her head on his chest. Dominion threw a blanket over them. “I will return.”
He left Ohngel’s abode to complete a few jobs.
Re-entering the home later, Dominion watched from the entrance, leaning against the wall. He failed to understand the witch and her effect on Ohngel. Hell. He enjoyed sex, lusting after females, taking them hard, driving his cock into their heat until he sated his needs, but tender strokes and soft words were not part of his games. Completely irrational. How could Ohngel have connected with this Indigo? He was the most dedicated warrior of all the assassins, the most pleased with killing, the most insular of the Feard.
At a signal from any of his brothers, Ohngel came. He was the reliable one. No female kept him from his job. For a brief period, Dominion had worried he might succumb to Gahya, but the attraction faded. His brother saw her for what she was, a vain being who used immortals for her selfish desires. Even while she amused Ohngel, he answered Dominion’s call for help. Though his brother didn’t save his eye, Ohngel saved his soul. And the fire-winged assassin never spoke of the incident to anyone. For that alone, Dom was eternally indebted.
As Angor prepared to surrender to the night, its curtained sun edged behind the mountains, wild animals howled in the distance to signal the passing of another day, and a breeze whispered through the chamber, carrying with it the cries of those about to be tortured. Dominion detested this hour, light yielding to darkness. Even the most hardened inmates of the dimension grew agitated, fearful of the hours of punishment which lay ahead, their whimpers turning to screams when pain became their only companion.
Over the millennia, the Feard learned to fall asleep to the terrifying wails of Angor’s imprisoned as if they were idyllic crickets summoning listeners to dreams.
Tonight, though, he would not rest well. Once he returned the female, his thoughts would tangle with memories. Sleep would bring dreams. Dreams would bring nightmares. Nightmares would bring evil too vile.
Dominion would secure his brother’s home, wishing things could have been different.
He pushed off the wall. “It is time.”
The witch jerked upright, swinging her legs off the bed. “May I return?”
“Why? Only pain is here for you.”
“The OneCreator told me the past is the future.”
“He says enigmatic shit like that. Best to ignore him.”
“I can’t. I’ll figure it out. May I return?”
Everything in Dominion screamed no, but suddenly he realized what connected Ohngel and the puzzling Aeternal. Love. It oozed from her pores. It consumed them both. “Yes. Just call for me. I shall hear.”
****
Indigo asked Dominion to drop her at the River Am. Since spells had failed, she sought her go-to place for answers. With her arms wrapped around bent knees, her grief a gnawing hunger, she sat on a grassy bank.
Never give up.
The OneCreator’s words replayed in her mind. An endless loop. They must be important.
The past is the future.
She angled her head to gaze downstream. There lay history. She was convinced the river contained the answer to the puzzle. Indigo unfolded from the ground, walking toward the past. Though many pebbles and thorny plants bloodied the soles of her bare feet, she refused to stop long enough to conjure shoes.
Where in the past?
The Karmic Schism made sense. When the realms began.
