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He’d fought her and for her. Had willingly bared his throat to her while she struggled with madness. He’d had several opportunities to take her head, for even while she’d raged, the idea of causing him irreparable harm had been unbearable. It had chained the brutality of her beast like nothing else could.
She also knew he could never claim her before his kingdom. Pushing past the pain stirring inside, she directed her thoughts on discovering more about him. He’d always been so guarded.
She slid against the silken sheets, rising on her knees behind him, pressing her breasts to his back. The feel of his heated, naked skin had her purring in satisfaction. “Stories tell of your feats in the Great War. Of your brutality. The Boreans fear you and hold you in contempt for your actions. It is said that you slaughtered thousands of their warriors to gain access to their mountains and to hold your throne in the war. Are these stories why you understand darkness, Ajali?”
Something dangerous flashed in his eyes. “Their elixir.”
“What?”
He leaned into her. “I needed their elixir.”
Tell me.
They existed in intimate fraught with a special kind of tension. Tehdra’s heart thumped as she waited to see if he would trust her by confessing his inner demons. They stood on the precipice of something new, and hope, vicious in its intensity, unfurled inside of her.
The quiet wrapped around A
jali as he weighed the need to share with Tehdra. It was not a fleeting need, it pressed in on him, and somehow he knew she would not judge. From her eyes, he would not be dubbed a tyrant or anything that denigrated the destructive chakra he housed inside.
“The second Great War of Amagarie reined out of control. The reason for it was lost in the flames of war. My mother, our queen, was on the birthing bed as the enemy laid siege to the castle. Who were the enemy? Everyone. All kingdoms fought each other, mindless in the need to be the victor after the ashes had settled.”
On instinct Tehdra wrapped her arms around his chest. He tensed, but did not withdraw.
“The castle warriors were depleted, having been deployed to the battlefield with the king. Mevia invaded our borders with a force that doubled ours, hence our warriors were needed there. The castle had less than one hundred warriors for her protection, while thousands infiltrated Shelah. My mother was powerful, but her thought was for the babes in her womb. She fled to me on Kezriel’s sire; all who guarded her were felled under the might of the attack. They caught her, and she fought. The enemy was overwhelming as we protected our borders at Taryllion, trying to prevent more soldiers from coming in. I stood with our king, my father, holding the lines. And then I felt her pain. The agony as the enemy opened her womb, spilling blood, forcing her offspring from her body.”
Tehdra remained silent, the rasp of his voice carrying her to the time of the war, the image of the battle clear in her mind. Her darkness felt the caress of his rage against her mind; its taste was cold.
“Against orders I departed my king to reach my mother. The kingdom’s needs must come before personal desires. Yet I left, racing to save her. She had been ravaged, torn and dying, but she held onto her rage as she protected her twins, Xian and Uriah, in her hands. We waged no war with Boreas, and as the closest nation to our kingdom with the elixir, I fled with her and the babies, hoping for a miracle. The decision I made cost Nuria our king and thousands of lives. I felt as death claimed my father. I saw the fires that spewed in the air, felt the repercussion of sounds travelling through the earth. I tasted the stench of lightning striking through the air and heard the thunder that shook the kingdoms. Yet I did not falter with my mother, Uriah and Xian. Thousands followed us; the enemy wanted to end our reign by wiping out our bloodline. Our kingdom would have been embroiled in war for years, even after the ending of the Great War as Nurians battled for the right to rule their kingdom, And Mevia or Avindar would have fought them for our throne.”
Tehdra’s fury flared as his voice sank into her; it reached out to meld with his, creating a harmony of rage between them. The need to bloodlet pulsed in her veins. Yet his next words had her heart running cold and a soft sound of despair seeping from her.
“Darkans intercepted us. They had stayed away from the war of Amagarie. Not participating or taking sides, their presence hidden since the first Great War. They came with the shadows and were unlike anything I had ever battled—the fight was gruesome and bloody. I fought three Darkans as my mother lay dying. They were powerful and some of the most unique fighters I had ever encountered. Their mission was to end the line of Haddin. Paid assassins.”
Tension invaded his muscles, knotting them into hardened slabs beneath her fingertips. “One summoned a black and gold tyger. My queen tried to fight; her only goal to protect the lives of her children. Weakened from childbirth and blood loss, she did not stand a chance. The summoned beast split her chest to her womb. My rage took me and all turned to ash. I saw her pass her Phoenyx to Xian before death claimed her; she forced such power into my sister’s tiny body—a body already weakened from blood loss. Just babies, and they bore vicious gouges, their blood spilling into the earth, dying. The tempest consumed me. I was moved beyond my will with only one directive driving me. Get to the elixir and save my family. I burned, and only the power my mother had pushed through Xian saved them, creating a barrier of protective flames. I decimated hundreds to save Xian and Uriah. My king and queen were lost, and the reclamation of our kingdom rested solely on me and the houses that were pledged to us. I was pure flames as I travelled through Boreas, my fury and speed so strong it was as if I flew. I killed hundreds…thousands. I saw them falling, turning to ash under the onslaught of my power and I was unable to stop. The rage that dominated me burned away all control of my emotions, all logical thinking. As I soared towards the mystical mountains that housed the elixir, my heat dried out lakes, trees turned to ash and blew away with the wind. The mystical mountains with its trees, flowers, and waters remained untouched. Only the warriors who protected the elixir died under my power.”
Tehdra pressed closer to him as his violent emotions wafted through their lei. She felt the deep flare of regret as he talked about the hundreds, possibly thousands, he had killed. She understood. Such loss of control was horrifying with the power housed inside.
How did you reclaim your kingdom?
I burned.
She clasped him tighter, inhaling his masculine scent.
His voice was an icy flame. “I feared I would absorb the elixir as it did the lakes, but it did not. I landed and dropped the babies into the spring of elixir, healing them instantly. I called for Kezriel to protect them as I exited the mountains. Then I directed my power to the battle field where thousands advanced towards Nuria and our army died under the onslaught. I burned, Tehdra. I burned for days after the war ended. My skin melted, bones turned to liquid fire, yet my consciousness remained. My Kingblades, only recently pledged, struggled for days to create a barrier around the kingdom, preventing my flames from reaching out. The most powerful witch in our kingdom, Eowenna, worked with her coven to summon me to the depth of the oceans of Amagarie, burying me millions of feet under water—into the deepest, darkest recesses they could find.”
Tehdra nuzzled his neck inhaling deeply.
And you became the tyrant who razed Boreas.
A sardonic smile creased his lips. I became the tyrant.
“My king had no knowledge of Darkans taking your queen’s life. A move against a royal of another kingdom was never ordered by him, and he has too much honor to act with such cowardice.”
He turned his head slightly, and the greenest of eyes stared at her. His Phoenyx stirred, and her darkness slid against the cold beauty of its power and growled. His fire was sentient, and she ate the rage that flavored his chakra.
“My Ricarkri sent me here to remove any Darkans found in Nuria. A few weeks ago, my brother tortured a Mevian that hunted the princess of Boreas in our kingdom. The Mevian revealed that a plot to unseat my king from his throne is underway with the aid of the kingmaker.”
The fire in Ajali stilled, no longer caressing against her darkness. “The kingmaker?”
