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From the corner of my eye, I note that he is once again observing me, and his lips promptly curl in a smirk.
“What do you think? I’ve kept it much like how you left it, Cleovarana. There have been some updates but ones that I’m sure you will appreciate considering how many lifetimes you’ve been trapped in the mortal world—trapped in human flesh time and time again.”
An image dances before my eyes that is more shadow and a distant whisper of sound that I can’t quite grasp. I shake my head to clear it and frown over at him. Although it appears that he doesn’t have any interest in attacking me, I still don’t know how much I can trust that.
“My name is Cleo, just Cleo. Not Cleovarana. And I don’t know what you are talking about.”
A disappointed sigh leaves him, but he doesn’t look surprised.
“No, I suppose not. I was warned that you might not remember, but I had hoped...” his voice trails off as his jaw tightens with frustration.
“Remember what?” I whisper. I am dreading the answer. It makes me afraid that there is something that I might have forgotten, and that he knows me better than I know myself. At the same time, I feel a little leap of excitement within me as if there is something I’ve long been missing being offered and it is there just beyond the reach of my fingertips. I can almost grasp it and his every word is bringing it closer.
His eyes meet mine. There are brown eyes that sometimes appear almost reddish with their particular coloring and in certain light, but his eyes are a true red, the red of fire as they burn with their own inner illumination.
“Remember who you are,” he whispers. A smile of grim amusement touches his lips. “You don’t remember me at all, though, do you?”
I peer at him, struck again by how familiar he looks. It is as if every angle of his face was one that I spent years upon years looking upon, and the curve of his horns were a shape that I knew intimately from tracing it with my fingertips. From some corner of my memory those eyes brighten with an incredible warmth and crinkle at the corners with his deep laughter. My breath catches and the memory fades. I blink and refocus on him, and I shake my head.
“I’m sorry, but no.”
There’s something so incredibly sad about watching the light fade from his eyes, but he nods and takes a sip from his goblet. Picking up the other, he offers it to me. I give it a doubtful look for a moment. The corner of his mouth quirks and though he is smiling, there is something just so miserable and non-threatening about it that I somehow convince myself that it won’t harm anyone to indulge him.
I take a step forward and then another until I’m close enough to take the goblet, our fingers just barely grazing. His eyes close as a look of pleasure crosses his face, and he shivers as his tail curls up into the air. I’m surprised that he then takes a step back, a more genuine smile curving his lips.
“I am Iyano, lord of the tombs and keeper of the restless dead. Or rather, that is the task of the demons who serve under me as I organize and run things within our kingdom. You are Cleovarana, my queen and greatest love who I’ve been searching for.”
“By having Blackspell tie up women as an offering to you,” I point out, because as charming as this little fairytale sounds, and despite how surprisingly much I want it to be true, I can’t dismiss the fact that he was taking every woman offered to him for whatever deal he had going on.
I jump a little, however, at his loud grunt of disgust.
“Foolish offerings, and unwanted ones,” he growled, his eyes dropping to the contents of his goblet. “The human promised to find you. For five hundred years he promised to seek out a new woman every year that he felt might hold your spirit, and every year he failed though he got his boon, his life extended on.” A cynical smile tightened his lips. “I do not believe he ever intended to truly find you, not when the exchange prolonged his life as it did. And not when he had trapped you here to begin with in order to gain a token with which to bargain against me. It is why I blessed the females he brought to me in the hope that it might eventually bring you to me.”
His eyes close and he breathes in my scent through his nose. A purr promptly rumbles from him, and he releases a low, crooning moan that makes my skin prickle with awareness and desire. “And it worked,” he whispers as his glowing eyes open to fasten on me. “He unwittingly brought me my love.” Iyano’s head cocks and his eyes take on a gleam of amusement as a chuckle rolls from his chest. “He had been surprised. I think when I recognized you. He was hasty in his surprise, and with his haste he made a tragic error. He thought to demand immortality from me on the threat that if I did not wish to see your soul freed back into the darkness that trapped it.”
I gasp a little and my eyes widen when his lips pull back from his sharp teeth in a fierce grin. It reminds me of the terrible sounds of Blackspell’s death. I had been too out of it with fear to hear what Blackspell said but those terrible sounds have stayed with me. I had felt guilty for the relief I had felt at the time that the man who had chained me like a sacrificial offering was the one getting eaten, but knowing know what exactly he had threatened, and how long he had been risking the lives of other women casting them in front of an angry demon, sends a fierce sense of justice through me.
“And now what?” I whisper. “You just steal me from my home, leaving all of my friends behind to worry about me.”
“Yes and no,” he laughs again, his eyes crinkling this time in a way that makes my heart jump happily in response. “Right now, you are caught between our worlds. I cannot bring you any further without your consent and this particular magic lasts just for this night of the year. I’m allowed to open the way for you at certain points of the year and I fear that we would have to wait until the solstice to attempt it again should the window close before you’ve decided. As for your friends. Damonicus will understand should you not return. He was tasked with safeguarding any female brought to me. He began his employment with the female Winnifred when Mercy was selected and when it became apparent that Blackspell was setting up his hunting grounds in the city.”
I pause, a terrible thought coming to my mind at how quickly Mercy had assured me that this was safe. Granted she was not wrong, but she didn’t exactly attempt to protect me from what could have been a potentially dangerous situation.
“Mercy was in on this, wasn’t she?”
He gives me a thoughtful look and takes another sip, prodding me to do the same. The sweet, rich liquid flows over my tongue without the bite of tisanes. I’m not sure what this is but it’s not wine, but it’s delicious and it sends a fire warming through my blood in a way that’s startling.
“She and I had come to an agreement,” he said at last as he poured more of the liquid into his goblet and proceeded to swirl the contents pensively. “I always share a brief psychic connection with those who are presented to me so that I can see if their fragile human forms carry my wife. I had grown weary of Blackspell’s obvious games and so I suggested that she act as an intermediary.”
I gape at him, horrified that she would agree to such a thing, but he shakes his head wryly.
“Do not look at me that way, Cleovarana. Over the years my desperation was growing more acute, and the females were becoming more hysterical in my presence when time and time again he failed to produce you. Enlisting Mercy’s aid was meant to help. She would help find women that she thought were likely, and I assigned Damonicus to help her by taking care of any of the females and intercede when necessary. They were to work together to help bring an end to Blackspell’s game and find my wife. To find you,” he growls softly.
“And you gifted Mercy with fertility,” I whisper.
He inclines his head, not the least bit modest. “There is on the smallest shift between the tomb and the womb. I was able to aid it in its quickening to receive her husband’s seed that very night when she left me.”
Suddenly my conversation upon meeting Blackspell makes a lot more sense. He had believed that Mercy had set me up there for him and had played the part of the shocked client well. And she had but she had made a controlled selection. She had picked me and according to Iyano, she had succeeded but Damon had been there for damage control in case she had been wrong. He clearly had thought so. The panic on his face was real. No doubt he thought his master had snapped.
