Dawn of a Dark Knight (26 page)

Javen glanced uncertainly to her. In response, she came around from behind Ashor. Touching her hand lightly to his arm, she controlled the building pressure in his head. Within half a minute, her energy waned. She staggered and lost her connection to Javen. Ashor’s arm snaked around her, pulling her tight against him.

Javen silently stared into Vance’s eyes. Vance’s face went slack. Hypnotized, he gaped blankly at Javen, unable to look away.

Javen put a hand to his forehead. Kira knew that was her cue.

“I need to help him, Ashor. If you could just help me not to fall?”

The stubborn refusal in his gaze changed to concern.

She whispered, “I’ll be okay.”

He nodded but kept his arm firmly around her.

With a light touch to Javen’s shoulder, she discovered a singular, concentrated pain filled his mind. Sensing his hesitation, she squeezed his arm. And did what she could to alleviate the headache.

After a minute, the tension in the room disappeared. Vance slowly collapsed into a sitting position on the floor. His eyes drifted closed. He snored noisily.

“Bloody hell, I’m decently sure that worked. He should sleep until instructed to wake. I’ll have one of the gate guards transport him to Baltimore.” Javen laughed.

She smiled in reply. Weakly, she looked up at Ashor and mouthed, “Thank you.”

Ashor carried her to his office and laid her on the couch. Within seconds she slept.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Ashor wished he could just lay his head on the desk and give in to the exhaustion pressing on his brain.
Don’t. Too dangerous
. He downed another energy drink, the sixth in ten minutes. Gods, the shit was nasty.

He reclined in his desk chair and watched Kira sleep. A part of him envied her. He couldn’t remember how long it had been since he’d slept. Really slept. Not just passed out.

He closed the ancient, leather-bound text, the
Thutmose Treatise
, and flipped the desk lamp to low light. Now that he’d read and re-read the section on the
akhrian
five times in the past hour, he concluded he was fucked.

His oath to the gods required he persuade her to accept her role as their
akhrian
. And then stay away from her. Far away. For however long he remained in this life.

She shifted restlessly on the sofa. Her subtle fragrance wafted up his nose. Raw need gripped his lower body. His arousal strained painfully against the fly of his jeans. He shifted, unable to get comfortable, and popped open a new energy drink.

Right. Stay away from her. The two of them in the same room was the Titanic headed for the iceberg. He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling.
Just kill me. Please.

Focus on consequences
. If he horizontal mamboed with her, then the gods’ wrath would pour down on them. And the gods didn’t do wrist-slap reprimand. Case in point: Chapter twenty-two in the book. Early after their inception as the Scimitar, a magus took vengeance and killed the man who murdered his sister. Understandable. But definite rule breakage. The human this magus killed turned out to be the great-grandson of the god Thoth—bad luck—and the magus got himself sentenced to watch his
senariai
burn to death.

Nope, they were not going to break this do-not-get-involved rule.

But, holy shit, did he want her. He wanted to throw her up against the nearest wall or drag her to the nearest surface, be it horizontal, vertical, or any angle available. He wanted her so badly that his mind pushed responsibility into a dark corner where it could become best friends with Who-cares. Had he ever been this desperate for one woman?

No. Hell, he’d been trying to get her out of his head for years.

All he wanted to do was peel those horrid ill-fitting clothes from her body and lick his way down to where he wanted most to be.

A vision of her naked with that spineless asshole, Vance, flashed into his mind. The thought of that guy touching her made him killing crazy. Fury blazed hotly in his head.
Mine.

Shit. Read the book again. Think: consequences.

****

Kira glanced around Ashor’s office. He studied an oversized book with yellowed pages. There were nine empty energy drinks, four sodas, and an empty twelve-pack of stay-awake pills strewn across his desk. A pulsating beat came from his headphones.

His dark eyes shot up and connected with hers. He pulled out the ear buds and fingered the screen of his mp3 player.

She moved less than gracefully to the plush chair positioned to face his desk.

Her inventory had missed a can of something called Nuclear Cheetah. She’d never heard of it, but it sounded supercharged. “If I dared drink that many cans of prepackaged adrenaline, I wouldn’t be able to sleep for a week. And the bathroom would be my best friend. Are you immune to caffeine?”

He swiped all the empty cans into a waste bin without comment.

She asked, “Ethan doing okay?”

He nodded.

His bared upper arms flexed as they crossed in front of his chest. The gold band around his right arm was sexy as hell peeking just beyond the sleeve of the black T-shirt. The poor guy had red-rimmed eyes and fatigue lines, despite the obvious caffeine bender.

“How long has it been since you’ve slept?”

He shrugged. “Who needs sleep?” Uncrossing his arms, he reached for the only energy drink left on the desk. His facial expression changed to determination as he took a sip.

She frowned. “Are you breaking up with me already?”

“What?”

“You’ve got that look as if you’re about to say,
it’s not you, it’s me.
”

He shook his head.

She smiled. “Thanks for coming to get me from the Hashishins.” She inclined her head and said dramatically, “Again.”

Anger pulsed from him in waves.

“Are you upset with me? It really wasn’t my fault Marelena poisoned me. And then Ethan needed help. I just couldn’t leave him that way.”

Ashor’s eyes roamed her body. He mumbled low to himself, but loud enough she could hear, “Not happening.”

“What? You’ve got that grim look again. The one that I know means you’re about to say something I don’t want to hear.”

“Tell me about your mother’s death.”

Kira’s body cramped in dread. Talk about conversation detour. “What? Did Kane say something to you?”

“Terek killed your mother while searching for me. Right?”

“How about we not rehash that episode of our lives? It’s history. You’re not responsible for the outcome. Blame Terek. Isn’t that enough for right now?”

“No.” He sighed deeply before he asked, “Then, why did you enter that hellhole to help me?”

Memories of Ashor’s agony flooded Kira’s mind. The suffering inflicted on him while imprisoned by Hashishins had been reflected in vivid exactness within her body. She had successfully kept those memories on off-limits lockdown for years. They were things she never wanted to remember. Things she absolutely never wanted him to know she knew.

Involuntarily her gazed darted to her hand. That had been the most unforgettable torment. It had seemed as if her flesh had swollen with each serpent strike. Her eyes met his. He opened and clenched the fist. She shuddered.

The memory of Ashor’s pleading cries to the gods for mercy reverberated anew in Kira’s mind, sending chills down her back. Worst of all was Ashor never vocalized those tormented screams. She understood his determination to remain silent and not give his tormentors any pleasure in their persecution. Thwarting them in this small way had been the only thing he controlled during that time.

But she had heard every single silent cry for two weeks. She had cried with him and then for him. Ashor’s last scream was the one she remembered the most. It was the one that finalized her decision to find him and do whatever she could for the tormented guy. It was the soulful cry of an irreparably damaged man accusing his gods of abandoning him.

After several moments, Kira replied, “I just…I had to find you. Honestly, I couldn’t manage hearing any more of your suffering by the time I decided to search for you. You were in my head for a long time. My friends at school thought I was nuts. I’d scream at random and run from the classroom crying.” She was not about to admit to him she’d felt it as well. For days she’d lain in bed curled into a fetal position sobbing.

She watched Ashor’s pupils go pinpoint as he glowered. Somehow, she knew his anger wasn’t directed at her.

“I asked my mother to make sense of the experiences you inadvertently projected onto me. I thought I was losing it. At the point I went to find you, I would’ve done anything to make everything stop.” She shook her head and smiled sadly. “Mom had nothing helpful to offer other than to drink tea. The woman was a tea fanatic. Tea solved everything, in her book. She gave me some herbal stuff made of some Nigerian plant.”

“Did it help?” Ashor’s face lightened.

“No. And it tasted like burnt toast. But it was the last time we shared tea.”

“How much of my experiences did we share? Did you feel it?”

Don’t tell him.
But he’d detect her lie. She averted her eyes and nodded.

“Impossible,” he said. “We had to have met at some point before then in order to form a bond that strong.”

“Trust me, we didn’t. If we’d met, I don’t think I would’ve forgotten. In retrospect, getting you out was completely insane. But something in me knew you were going to die unless I did something.” Her voice filled with disgust. “I overheard a group of them laughing at the things they’d done to you. They discussed Terek’s plans to kill you in some sort of ritual sacrifice the next morning.”

Silence rested thickly between them.

“I’m impressed you made it into the place undetected,” Ashor commented.

“Once I decided to find you, I figured if I couldn’t get you out, then at least I could meet you. Okay, really I just wanted to prove to myself that I wasn’t crazy. That you existed. You know the rest after that.”

“What did Terek do to you?”

She shrugged. He’d blame himself, if she told him. “Same old stuff he likes to do.”

“Tell me,” he persisted.

“You must promise not to let it make you crazy.”

“Can’t do that.” He closed his eyes and his throat convulsed before he said quietly, “Kira, just tell me.”

She looked out the office window as she continued in a quiet voice. “Okay, I respect your need to know. When I returned home, which, mind you, was as much a miracle as getting in undetected, my mother knew way more about what had happened between us than I told her. She also knew that Terek was coming. I swear to you, she didn’t have any ability see into the future. She had some healing ability, but that’s all. So, to this day, I have no idea how she knew.”

“Why didn’t the two of you leave? Run?”

“She was so sad. Maybe devastated is a better word. She informed me my father had been killed. I couldn’t get her to leave. It was like she’d lost the will to live.”

“What happened when Terek found you?”

“He had a bunch of his guys with him.
Fedavis.
They were looking for you. Before they broke open the door, my mother demanded I not speak. Actually, she made me swear I wouldn’t mention you to them.” Kira stopped, lost in the memory of her mother who had hugged her and apologized for not running. Told her she loved her more than anything in the world before she had protected her as best she could. “I remember Terek’s maniacal laugh. It didn’t sound like something a creature of this world could possibly make. His pleasure when he burned my mother was revolting. Her skin boiled and bled while he repeatedly asked about you. Then, he burned her hair. The smell…I tried to help her, but Terek threw me into a wall and then he made sure I couldn’t move by fracturing my right leg. He never touched me. Did it all with spells. Just took a flick of his wrist. Then he had his snake guard me. The thing reared up like a cobra ready to strike and threatened me any time I twitched.”

Ashor remained still as stone, yet the sludge in his irises swirled violently.

“Terek chanted some things that made my mother scream for a while. I think he caused internal damage. It seemed to go on for a long time. Then he grabbed me and burned me with dark energy. He asked if I knew anything. I was in shock at that point and couldn’t speak. I think this worked in my favor. He threw me away from him and probably assumed I was too pitiful to have been able to help you. I don’t know why he didn’t kill me.

“At the end, Terek pulled out a dagger. He cut his wrist and then slit my mother’s throat. After mixing his blood and hers, he summoned a daemon. The thing was disgusting. Smelled like sewage. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. How you can face those revolting creatures on a regular basis is beyond me.”

“Did the daemon do anything to you?”

“It touched me with its hand and prepared to kill me, but Terek said something to stop it. That’s it. They left.”

Kira caught the troubled expression on Ashor’s face before he hid it. He probably blamed himself. “I would do it all again, even if I knew what was to come. For what you do to protect us, you’ve more than earned the right to die with dignity and not from torture by some black-magik psycho.”

Ashor inwardly cursed himself. He’d failed to protect her when he should have forced her to go with him.

He pushed out of his chair and turned his back to her, fighting to contain his fury.

Ashor kept his arms crossed in front of his chest. He clenched his fists so hard his nails cut into his palms. The pain helped him push the
kem-seki
back into its corner.

Kira leaned over the desk to rest her hand on his arm. “Stop this. Nothing was your fault.”

Ashor stiffened at her touch. And so did his cock. Fury was forgotten
.
Kem-seki
gone. Even so, the soothing energy she sent into his body was anything but. Her energy was a bloody aphrodisiac to him.

She pulled her hand away, obviously startled by the very real electrical shocks pulsating from their point of contact. She massaged the hand that had just been on him.