The Dark God's Bride (Book 3)

  The thought made her feel sick to her stomach.

  Frightened grey eyes looked up at him. She swallowed as she pushed the tears upward with her palms. She inhaled a deep breath for balance, but she failed and broke into sobs. What happened was too traumatizing for her to shake off. She clung to him once again and wept.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The girl was visibly distraught. She was clinging so tightly to him that she was stretching the stitches she sewed on his shirt. Her entire body was trembling from fright. The proximity made him feel uncomfortable. He pushed against her shoulders and tore her from him. The tip of her nose and the apple of her cheeks were rosy pink. She reticently lifted her eyes. Though she looked resigned, all of her unvoiced thoughts were displayed behind a screen of tears.

  Suddenly a number of images flashed inside his head, all of which were of her. They were followed by a piercing pain ripping through the frontal lobe of his brain. He violently recoiled from her. His back slammed against the drawer behind him and accidentally knocked over the flower vase. The sharp pain brought him to his knees.

  The girl outstretched both of her arms toward him and pressed his head against her bosoms. “It’s okay. Everything is okay…” she pacified him in a soft, soothing voice. “I’m here.”

  “How dare you treat me as though I were a mere child?” He lashed out and shoved her away from him. She lost her balance and fell on the floor. Her forearm landed on strayed pieces of broken vase. She only spared her injury a quick glance as though the pain was nonexistent and then looked back at him. Her bewitching grey eyes were watchful and worried.

  “It’s okay…” she whispered.

  That brought on another series of images.

  He heard his own labored breathing echo back from the corners of the room. After he let it run its course, the pain in his head began to recede. He released the tension from his muscles and saw the tension melt away from her face as well. She let out a sigh of relief. She twisted her elbow to get a better view of her wound. She bit her lower lip to stiffen her cry as she pulled out a broken piece that was embedded in her flesh.

  “Get out,” he rasped. She had done something to him. She was the one causing all of this.

  “But…”

  “Now.”

  She didn’t contest him. She rose to her feet fled out of the door.

  Earlier, he heard her voice as clearly as he was hearing her now. She summoned him in a name he didn’t recognize as his own, but he was obliged to answer to her. The seal that he thought would have taken him another week to lift had shattered. He didn’t even realize what he was doing until he broke her attacker’s neck. This woman had him under some sort of spell and yet she refused to admit it.

  He closed his eyes in order to appeal to the painful throbbing inside his head.

  Amara bumped into Chevalier on her way out of the cabin. He came to check up on her because he sensed his seal had been lifted. When he saw that her arm was bleeding, he brought her back to his apartment to tend to her injury.

  “What happened?” Chevalier demanded an answer from her when he came back from the bathroom with the first-aid kit. He had his suspicions. “Did he—?”

  “It was an accident,” she cut in. “He broke a vase and I… fell.”

  “Do you really think that I would believe that you ‘fell’?”

  She winced when he applied the disinfectant. “It was an accident. He didn’t mean it.”

  “Mean it or not, you’re hurt because of him. If this escalates…” He paused. “Just let him be, Amara.”

  “Are you suggesting that I leave him the way he is now?”

  “As you should have done in the first place.”

  “He needs me, Chevy.”

  “I have to disagree,” he said grimly as he dressed the wound in gauze and surgical tape. “I think it’s better if he works this out on his own. You’re too mortal to even be near him.”

  She gave him a stubborn look.

  “Are you that afraid of him? I promise you he will not be able to find you this time.”

  “No, I’m not afraid of him.”

  “At least promise me that you’ll think about it.”

  “I’ll think about it…”

  “God, you look terrible and I’ve only left you for a few weeks.”

  “Something happened earlier. I was… attacked.”

  “By him?”

  “Oh no, Chevy! Don’t jump to such a conclusion. He has too much integrity in him to do something like that! He would never force any woman. It was someone I met in town and fortunately, Noctis was able to break the seal and save me from a terrible fate. I’m just a bit upset, that’s all.”

  “Poor child.” Chevalier put an arm around her shoulders. “Where is the bastard?”

  “Dead.”

  “Ah,” he said, not the least surprised. “If he wasn’t, he would be dead within the hour.”

  “There is a dead man in the living room and Noctis is upset… I didn’t know what to do so I ran outside to get some air. That was when I ran into you. Oh, Chevy, everything has gone wrong!”

  “I’ll take care of it, Amara. Stay here tonight. You’ll be able to have a good rest here.”

  “I-I can’t leave him there alone,” she stammered in broken words.

  “He’ll be fine just for one night, I think.”

  “Now that the seal has been lifted…”

  “I’ll figure this out. Either way, you both cannot stay in that cabin any longer. People will be looking for the dead man and things will get messy. I want you to have a good rest. I’ll go fetch him and dispose of the body.”

  Chevalier was right. It would be unwise to stick around.

  “It’s okay, Chevy, he’ll come to find me.” She looked down at the blood seal on her ankle. “On the surface, it’s a vow, but underneath, it’s a goddamn tracker. He’ll be able to find me without fail.”

  Amara ambled to the guestroom that had once been hers. She forced herself to nap to ease her nervous mind, but the busy thoughts inside her mind would not let her rest. The earlier event kept recurring in her head over and over again until it made her feel sick. She was raised among demons for goodness’s sake, and nothing of the like had ever happened to her. If she had been an ordinary girl, how was she supposed to fend for herself against a 200-pound man?

  Amara got out of bed, put her jacket back on, and then headed out of the door. She didn’t want to stay in an enclosed room with her annoying thoughts. She needed to do something with her time.

  Her heart led her back to what remained of her home. The taxi dropped her off in front of the gate. Beyond the gate lay a long driveway leading up to the mansion – what was left of it after the fire razed it to the ground. Only parts of the stone and brick exterior endured.

  She had hope that there would be things to salvage, but everything had been destroyed. For three years, she tried her best to keep the mansion in shape. She cleaned every window and she scrubbed every inch of the floor. And now her home, her labor, everything that she owned on this earth had turned to ashes.

  She made so many friends while she lived here. People came and went, but she told herself that at least she had the memories. She could look into any room and recall exactly what happened there. She loved the dining room most of all. It was a place where they gathered and shared a meal. It was a place where they fought and laughed and…

  She squatted down in what used to be the front lobby and lowered her head to her injured forearm. I wish things were back to way they were. I wish I had a home again. I wish…

  “Amara?” Amara looked up when she heard the Necromancer’s voice calling her name. The Necromancer was walking up the paved driveway toward her. “What the devil happened here? You look terrible!”

  The Necromancer took her to the hotel suite he had been staying at for the last two days and handed her a cup of orange juice. It took quite a while for Amara to tell him everything that happened in his absence. He was rel
ieved to hear that Lizzie went to her parents with his daughter.

  “…That is quite a lot,” the Necromancer said after he heard her story. He came to sit beside her on the bed and put an arm around her. “Look on the bright side, Amara, you’re still alive, and the situation is not unsalvageable.”

  “That is true…” she agreed. “What about you? What have you been up to?”

  “I’ve had better luck than you, I can say that for sure. I’ve collected the required 10,000 souls. All that I needed to do now is to wait until the solar eclipse.”

  “When is that going to be?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow? Really?” She forced a smile to appear on her face. She was genuinely happy for him, but the smile didn’t come as natural to her as usual. “All your hard work will pay off.”

  “Let’s hope so, shall we?”

  She nodded.

  “For now, I think you should rest, Amara.”

  She was feeling very tired so she took his advice. She got up, walked around the corner of the mattress, placed the cup of orange juice on the bedside table, and climbed into bed. The Necromancer came to the bedside and pulled the blanket all the way up to her neck.

  “Everything will be just fine,” he assured her. His hand gently stroked her head as she had seen him do with his daughter. “You’ll see.”

  She truly wished that everything would be just fine like he said.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Noctis downed a shot of whiskey that was served by a woman who looked at him with conflicting emotions. She was captivated by his appearance, but at the same time, she was fearful of his reputation. The two daring vixens on either side of him were stroking his shoulders and running fingers through his hair like two sex-starved lionesses. The nightclub had a quiet atmosphere whenever he was around. The immortals were pretending not to notice his presence, but they were all secretly watching him. Apparently, he was quite well known among them. That must have been why his memory led him here.

  His memories returned to him while he was inside that wooden cabin with a dead man lying next to him. Unfortunately, it was quite broken. There were some things he could remember and there were some things he just couldn’t recollect no matter how hard he tried to focus. His life seemed like a badly edited film that didn’t make any sense from beginning to end. There were too many blanks in between.

  He specifically remembered that he witnessed an event that sent him over the edge of his already floating sanity. He remembered the anger, the grief, and the feeling of complete hopelessness that consumed him completely and drove him deeper into the dark abyss of his mind. To the place he kept all of the horrible events he had ever seen and experienced. He saw the absence of beauty. He felt the loss of warmth. Life lost its purpose.

  In the darkness, he had no awareness of where he was. He aimlessly wandered among the ravages of every war he had ever fought in. He was desperately searching for something precious that had once been his. When he could not find what he was looking for, he felt rage. The rawness and intensity of his rage scorched him internally. His head was filled with nothing but the thought of destruction. He wanted to destroy everything in his path. But then he had heard a desperate cry for help from a voice that shook him with the intensity of an earthquake. He felt compelled to answer to it.

  He tried to remember exactly what he witnessed or what he had been searching for, but his headaches worsened with each attempt. He felt irritated beyond belief, which was why he needed the comfort of alcohol. The need led him to this place.

  Noctis emptied another glass of whisky to wash down his simmering rage. “Is it true that you don’t remember what happened?” the woman next to him asked.

  He lifted his eyes from his thoughts and asked, “Remember what?”

  “You really don’t remember destroying a city?” The two women laughed. “I would totally remember something as cool as that. Lysander was trying to cover it up, but only the mortals would believe that much destruction was caused by a gas leak.”

  “A city, you say?” His gaze went out to the city beyond the balcony.

  “Not this one,” he heard one of the woman say. “A city eighty miles west of here. But don’t beat yourself up about it. None of us could withstand the prince’s mind control either. Once, there was an immortal who challenged him. The prince made the man rip his own head off just by simply looking at him. Even an immortal couldn’t survive decapitation. No one dared to mess with him since.”

  “I also heard the prince volunteered to foot the bill for reconstruction.”

  “Oh, he’s insanely wealthy! Where does he get all of his wealth from? I mean, I understand Lysander is the head of a business empire but I haven’t heard anything on Trent.”

  Noctis quietly listened to the two women gossiping.

  “Did they ever find Nala?”

  Noctis suddenly associated the name with a face.

  “No, they haven’t! The demons are looking everywhere for her. That’s why you haven’t seen them around the club lately. They’re too busy looking for their missing princess.”

  “I wish they never find her. She steals all of the attention.”

  “I know right! Men are crazy about her for some reason. I hate it when she’s around. If she weren’t senselessly in love with Trent, we would all be in big trouble. We wouldn’t even get the slightest glance then.”

  “That’s a good thing for us. She has been in love with him for centuries now. Perhaps even longer. Most men gave up hope of ever taking her to bed, but they would still wait on her hand and foot. Apparently she’s too good for any man. The thing is Trent didn’t want her either so she must be some freaking virgin or something.”

  “That is just sad,” the other woman inserted.

  “What about you?” One of the two women asked Noctis. “Do you find her attractive?”

  “She is very beautiful,” he admitted. Without a doubt the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on if his memory was accurate. He remembered that Nala had a face that even a goddess would envy. Her appearance was just as surreal as her counterpart. “But no. I do not find her attractive.”

  “No?”

  “No,” he confirmed.

  “Of course not. He only has eyes for his little mortal,” the woman to his left said to the woman to his right. The conversation was drifting back to him.

  “The mortal?” he inquired apathetically. Everyone in the nightclub seemed to be fascinated by his response.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten about her, too,” they teased him.

  “The mortal…” he murmured, recalling her haunting beautiful grey eyes. She kept him bound in chains for weeks in a dark and moldy place. He hadn’t had the opportunity to follow through on his promise of breaking her pretty little neck. Curiously he asked, “Who is she really?”

  The two females exchanged glances. “You really don’t remember her? The rumor goes, you took her as your—”

  “Scram!” a tall and lean blonde woman said to the two women by his sides. The two women seemed threatened by the blonde and quickly scampered off.

  Noctis downed another shot of whisky and then asked for another.

  “Follow me,” the blonde said to him.

  “Not in the mood,” he quickly dismissed her.

  “I don’t want to sleep with you,” she said coldly. “If you want to know more about the mortal then follow me. I will tell you everything you want to know.”

  He put down the full shot of whisky in his hand and turned to her. The woman shied away from him as though the sight of him stung her eyes. She folded her arms in front of her chest and walked out of the nightclub. He decided it was worth his time to follow her. He walked out of the nightclub without taking care of the tab and the bartender didn’t make any attempt to stop him.

  The woman led him to a dark alley not too far away from the nightclub. She spared him a quick glance. “You really don’t remember the mortal?” she asked cautious
ly.

  “Why does everybody keep asking me that? No. I do not. Who is she?”

  “People keep asking because it’s surprising that you forgot about…” The woman suddenly smiled at him. “…About the mortal who was responsible for the death of the woman you loved.”

  His blue eyes narrowed and glittered in deep suspicion.

  “It’s a shame you don’t remember what happened, but I supposed that is for the best. We don’t want you running around destroying cities.”

  “What are you talking about?” he spat out wrathfully.

  “I don’t believe that you don’t feel any remembrance of it even if you have lost your memory. Losing the one you love isn’t something you can forget. The feeling lingers and it would only sear deeper and deeper. Don’t you feel that you’ve lost something important? Something that was close to your heart?”

  The woman was painting the picture of how he was feeling inside. He had been searching for something… someone…

  “You loved her deeply. You really did.”

  “Who?”

  “I pity you for not being able to remember the woman you once loved so dearly.”

  He was going to explode if the woman would not tell him exactly what he wanted to know. “The grey-eyed mortal,” he ground out.

  “She wanted you all to herself. She was jealous of your affection so she plotted to murder the woman you loved.”

  Shadowed images were overlapping inside his mind again. They were being jammed into his brain like small slivers of broken glass.

  He remembered the existence of a woman whose face was shadowed by his incomplete memory. He was completely awed by her strength, her courage, and her insurmountable spirit. He venerated her sense of pride and loyalty. He was in love with a woman whose heart was even bigger than the body it was nestling in.

  He remembered the existence of a lover who had beauty in essence and sensuality. She was a lover who seduced him in way that never failed to bring him to his knees. He made love to her again and again, but he could never have enough of her. He could never take enough from her and he could never give enough to her. He felt so at peace in her warmth until she was wrenched from his grasp.