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“Raise five more for me.” A growl formed at the back of my throat, but only until he added, “Do this for me, and I’ll make your woman love you.”
A shift beneath my ribs.
Love me.
Whatever that weasel saw on my face brought a self-satisfied smirk to his. “She’ll adore you, brother.”
My heart quickened.
Adore me.
“She’ll be tormented by such ardor that she would never leave your side,” he said. “Never.”
Never leave.
Always stay.
Everything inside me demanded that I comply, even more fervently when Ada cut my brother a poisonous glare. No matter how deep my power reached into her flesh and bone, answering the desperate call of her neglected body, her rebelling soul sat behind a barrier not even I could breech. How long had it been since I roused her lust?
Longer than she would accept.
Let alone confess to herself…
Should that bother me?
No, but it did with such alarming intensity, I was tempted to agree. To have my mortal reach for me at her own choosing, pledging herself to me like only my enamored woman would.
Or my wife.
“Mark the bodies,” I bit out.
“Suit yourself.” Yarin gazed over the field. “Let me see… mmm, which ones to keep?”
“Are you jesting? You haven’t even bound them yet?”
“Weighty choices shouldn’t be rushed.” Yarin tapped his lips and shrugged, glancing over the stone block walls surrounding Airensty. “One must choose the men and women he surrounds himself with wisely. Ah! This one will make for fine entertainment.”
I let my mare follow him toward a dead soldier, pressing my mouth against Ada’s ear. “Listen to him and he’ll drive you mad. It is his nature.”
Ada nodded. “Is he doing it to you as well?”
Driving me mad, for certain. “None of us have power over the other. We don’t sense each other’s presence, which makes Yarin, in particular, quite a nuisance.”
Ada watched with rapt attention when Yarin reached his hand over the dead body, binding the man’s soul to its flesh. “What happens if he doesn’t chain it?”
“Souls detach from their mortal bodies after a while, slower if death came suddenly, and you cling to it longer. Once it leaves, it becomes part of his realm, a loud place between the gruesome thoughts of mankind.”
When Yarin arched a brow at me, I focused on the corpse, commanding it to rise. Leather armor groaned as the man first twitched, then stood, glancing around disoriented.
The soldier pressed a hand to the gaping wound on his belly, fingers shaky when he pulled a dagger from his guts under whimpers. “Wh-what happened?”
“He feels pain?” Ada asked.
“Or so he believes,” I clarified. “Raised corpses with their souls bound don’t understand what they are… at least, not at first.”
“So, he thinks he’s still alive.”
“Ah, Enosh…” Yarin swatted toward the wound. “Please do fix this. Otherwise, he’ll just bleed on my rugs, not to mention how ghastly it looks.”
