AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He felt as if time was being fast forwarded anyway. He couldn’t hit the pause button if he tried.
Destiny was dragging him along whether he wanted it to or not. He was helpless to fight it. He didn’t even know if he wanted to. And he didn’t know the destination.
He watched, Zai and Sin standing sentry on either side of him, as Sol methodically defeated one Dark One after another. There was no competition. And soon, the weaker, more cowardly, or more intelligent Dark contestants simply avoided the Eagle King.
Why add their ashes unnecessarily to the thick layer already littering the ground? Sol was clearly unbeatable.
He didn’t even transform into giant eagle. He remained in human form as he fought with human weapons. Even then, he was a cold, determined, calculated machine. His strikes deadly efficient; every hit delivering maximum impact.
It wasn’t until there were only two men left standing—Sol and a tawny-haired male whose back was turned toward Ben from where he stood—that Ben’s vision broadened to include more of the area, and the wool in his ears miraculously cleared.
As his eyes homed in on the two remaining contestants, an uncontrollable tremor racked his body like a fissure splitting through the earth.
That honey-colored hair, those broad shoulders and muscular build…
There was something eerily familiar about Sol’s opponent.
Not knowing what he did, his body moving of its own volition, he navigated the gathered crowds to move closer to the fighters for a better view. He barely noticed that Sin and Zai stayed glued to his side as he did so.
The two last contestants stood upon the tournament grounds looking up at the Dark Queen on her platform. Something was said between them, Ben didn’t hear the words.
What he heard instead was the tawny-haired fighter’s voice.
It, too, was so familiar. But off, somehow. The way that one’s own voice sounded different in a recording than the way one perceived hearing it coming from within.
…from within…
Something shifted inside of Ben.
He narrowed his eyes at Sol’s opponent as they faced off.
He was close enough by now to see very clearly, and the fighter turned in profile, affording him an even better view.
The world seemed to stop on its axis even while the arena spun dizzily around Ben. He didn’t know what was up or down any more.
Because he was looking athimself.
Not the way he was now, as Benjamin Larkin D’Angelo. But the way he’d been in a past life.
It washisface that man wore,hisbody,hisvoice. He recalled seeing it in metal mirrors and clear ponds.
And yet, the soul within the body was not his.
He knew with crystal clarity that he wouldn’t inhabit that body for millennia still. During the Third Cycle of Queen Ashlu’s reign. Before the birth of her twin daughters…
Her twin daughters.
Ishtar Anshar and Anunit Salamu.
Otherwise known as Ben’s biological grandmother, an immortal Dark Princess, and Medusa, the she-demon who had wreaked untold havoc upon his loved ones across thousands of years.
He recognized the soul that inhabited his past life’s shell now. He could see the male’s true form as he always did.
It was Ramses, the first Dark King to ever rule the race. And it was his Mate, Eveline, the Dark and Pure Ones’ scribe and seer who had shared so much of the Immortal Kinds’ history with Ben.
Prince Hulaal.
That was his name in this time and place. He was the Dark Queen’s Blood Slave. A Dark One made, not born, with a Pure soul.
