Soul Awakened (22 page)

Bakari looked at Kamen. He expected to see the fiery glow of anger in his uncle’s eyes, but was met with a non-judgmental gaze. “Father will be here soon, yes?”

“Just you and me, right now.”

So like his uncle to be short and concise. No extras. He did not come storming in demanding he hand over the blade, instead he sat and waited. Bakari sighed and laid his head in his hand. “How do you know if you are in love?”

“What?” Kamen wiped a hand across his jaw, obviously startled by an unexpected topic. He cleared his throat and glanced around the room. “You are asking the wrong god.”

“When do you know?”

Kamen scratched the base of his neck and blew out a heavy breath. “I guess when you are willing to sacrifice for them. Their happiness becomes more important than your own.”

“Mmm.” Bakari tapped the flat side of the blade against his palm. “Even though you can never be with them?”

Kamen leaned on the stone wall. A weighty cloud of sadness covered his features. His uncle lost someone long ago and he paid for that mistake every day thereafter. “Yes.”

“I cannot stay in the palace,” Bakari said, resigned to the fact that he would see many more days of pain and misery.

“Feed and you could be done with this.”

“I have no honor to receive such a gift.”

“Then find it. Make it.” His uncle stood up and held out his hand and gestured to the dagger. “This is not the way.”

“How? What you ask is impossible.”

“You could have chosen the easy way out. Ended it here, but you withhold. In that lies honor.”

“Is it enough?”

“It is a start. Eventually, you will do this for yourself, not just for Kendra I suspect.”

“Unlikely.” He grabbed the craft of wine in his hand and swirled the dark red liquid. Close, but far from what he truly desired. His yearning to have her wrapped in his arms again burned as hot as his thirst. He remembered how her auburn curls clung to his skin and the sweet smell of her. Could he offer her anything?

“They are special,” Kamen said in a low voice.

“Huh?”

“The females.”

“Father said as much, but I still do not understand.” Exhausted, Bakari leaned his head back on the cold stone.

“Demi-gods.”

Bakari lifted his head. “Demi-gods? It is…”

“Forbidden?” Kamen crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Mother Goddess’ descendants.”

“What?” Bakari shot to his feet. Kendra was the daughter of Mut, the Mother of the Gods and leader of the Creation Pantheon. One of the most powerful gods, next to his father. It explained the muted energy that flowed in and around her and the other women. Her power to wake and bond with him so completely. His craving for her.

“The blonde has glyphs.” Bakari gestured to his own on his forearms.

“She is Asar’s mated wife.”

Bakari cursed. His father bonded and married a Creation demi-god. Asar had triggered the release of Lilly’s powers. What the hell had happened while he was sleeping? He grabbed his head to lessen the stabbing pain splitting his reality.

“My father. Married?”

“Happily.”

“Are we talking about the same Underworld god?” His father was a great man, but his temper was renowned to be the worst. His father actually smiling and laughing was incomprehensible to him.

Kamen kicked at one of the books on the floor. “After you were taken, it was a very dark time. Kepi had set a trap to cut your father’s soul out of his chest. She used the gate key to the Underworld and his soul to raise her reven army.”

“Soulless?” Bakari asked, horrified. Gods, the pain his father must have been in. His father’s soul gave him the power to judge the souls of the deceased at the gates of the Underworld. Without it…

“He had lost everything that mattered. Not much different from where you stand now.”

His father contemplated suicide? Impossible. Bakari wiped a hand down his face in disbelief. His father seemed so stable now. Balanced. He could not maintain that without a soul. “The blonde female?”

“Lilly grew Asar a new gods damn soul.”

Bakari swayed on his feet. Not because of the volume of alcohol he drank, but from the deluge of information. If his uncle’s intent was to distract him from his own misery and suicidal ideation, it worked. His brain was spinning. He laid the dagger on the sarcophagus’ lid and leaned his elbows against the intricate carvings. “I think I am going to be sick.” Had he missed that much in five years? One thing did not make sense. “How did Kepi escape her tomb? How did this all start?”

The line of Kamen’s mouth thinned. “Menthu placed a curse upon Kepi’s tomb, awaiting the perfect time to wage war against the pantheons. The Mother Goddess beat him to the punch, sent the eldest daughter to the dig site with her father.”

“Her demi-god blood opened the tomb,” Bakari said, astonished.

“It has been a maelstrom since.” Kamen stiffened slightly and looked over his shoulder. “Our time has come to an end, nephew.”

Bakari slid the Mevt dagger across the surface of the lid to his uncle. Kamen’s enormous hand clamped around the now dwarfed blade. He tucked it into his pants and pulled his black tunic over it.

  Kamen slapped Bakari on the back and squeezed behind his neck. “Find your honor.”

Bakari straightened up off the sarcophagus. He had an enormous mountain to climb. He did not know how he was going to make it, but one thing was certain he could not descend any lower. His mistakes of the past would haunt him, if he did not confess the truth of his deceit.

The coldness of his father’s dark energy pushed into the small cell. Bakari turned to face his judgment. He knelt on one knee and bowed his head. “Father, forgive me for I have betrayed you.”

Kendra leaned heavily against the stone wall and closed her eyes. The room was still spinning from teleportation.

“Kendra!” Lilly grabbed her by the shoulders.

“What?”

“Are you okay?” Lilly asked and pushed Kendra’s hair from her face.

Kendra recoiled at her sister’s sudden concern over her health. “I’m fine. A little motion sickness from having my molecules scrambled.”

“What’s going on? Kamen got his internal phone call and zapped me right out of the middle of slicing a reven’s head off,” Kit complained.

“Bakari took the Mevt dagger,” Lilly answered.

“I spent the night with him. He was fine. Then…” Kendra paused and looked up at Lilly’s intense glare.

“You spent the night with him?”

“He never touched me.” Which was true in a way. “He kind of freaked out in the morning. Yelling at me to get out. He looked all wild eyed.”

“Kendra, he is unstable and could really hurt you.”

Kendra shook her head. “He would never.”

Running her hand through her hair, Lilly began to pace.

Kit turned to Kendra. “Does this have something to do with the mark?” Kendra frowned and Kit’s eyes widened. “Oh, shit.”

“What mark?” Lilly asked, stopping mid-step.

Kendra stared at her sister’s now glowing green eyes. Her skin tingled with the white energy that exuded from Lilly’s body. The same energy that brought life and healing was powerful enough to kill. Not that she was worried for her own life, but that wouldn’t stop Lilly from hurting Bakari.

“You had sex with him?”

“No.” Although, Kendra wouldn’t be averse to it.

“You knew about this and didn’t tell me?” Lilly asked Kit.

Kendra stepped in between her sisters. She wasn’t about to let Kit take the blame this time. “It was my place to tell you, not hers. I didn’t tell you because of how you would react and I can see that I was right,” Kendra snapped. Her anger seemed to be surfacing quicker as of late.

“I only want to protect you and I can’t do that if you keep secrets.”

“Secrets?” Kendra laughed at the irony of it all. Lilly had kept Asar’s mark hidden from them until she fell ill. They had feared she succumbed to the curse, but she was transforming into her demi-god form.

“Where is this attitude coming from? I only want to help you.”

“If I want your help Lilly, I’ll ask for it and I don’t remember asking you.”

Kit’s mouth dropped open and she laughed. “God, damn. I think Kendra found her voice.”

Kendra jogged down the hallway, not waiting for her sisters. Kit fell in step behind her. Lilly jogged up and grabbed Kendra’s arm. “Where do you think you are going?”

Kendra glared at her sister’s hand on her bicep. She was through asking for permission or waiting around to be told what to do. “I’m going to find Bakari.” She pulled her arm free and continued toward the dungeon.

Kit shrugged and followed her.

“We need to stay together,” Lilly said, jogging forward.

Kendra glanced over her shoulder as she reached the top of the dungeon steps. “Well then you better keep up.” Not hesitating she turned and took the first step. With her attention focused on Bakari, she didn’t notice the darkness that enveloped her.   

Bakari waited for his soul to be ripped from his chest, as he spoke his last confession to the judge, jury, and executioner of the Underworld. Certainly, his father would punish him severely for betraying him so. He even admitted that he manipulated his father into giving him his death god powers. Once uttering the first words of his sins, he could not stop himself. There was no indiscretion left hidden.

Bomani had joined the confessional and stood stock still in the corner. His brother had always known, indirectly. Now, there was no denying his intuition. His uncle’s expression remained flat and unaffected. The only one he could not face was his father. He did not need to see it. All his other senses were lit up by the reverberation of his father’s displeasure. The temperature of the room dropped ten degrees, and the stone vibrated, but there was something different about it that Bakari had a hard time comprehending.

The dark hatred was not directed at him.

“Leave us,” Asar growled to Kamen and Bomani. Neither hesitated. Bakari had a flickering regret that he did not plunge the dagger through his chest. It would have been quick and irreversible.

His father took a step forward and loomed over Bakari’s prostrated position. Bakari hung his head lower feeling all the shame that hung like a yolk against his neck.

“Is there anything
else
you want to reveal this night?”

“No, Lord.” Bakari could not bring himself to use Sire, a title strictly reserved for family and right now he was the farthest thing from family. He was a traitor and outcast, caused by his own misguided ambition and gluttony.

“Now that you have purged yourself, what shall I do with this information?”

“It is your will, Lord.”

“Gods, damn it. Stop calling me that. I am your father, first and foremost.
Isis
, son. I can no more condemn you for your sins than I can my own.”

Bakari stiffened. His father never in his entire life admitted he made mistakes. Hell, he could not think of one. He knew better than to interpret that as a weakness. His father was every bit as powerful, as the day he left five years ago. Bakari dared to assess his father’s expression.