Soul Awakened (36 page)

Bakari froze the memory. The answer lay seconds away, but he already knew. Kepi. He remembered the shock and surprise when Kepi revealed herself to him five years ago. The goddess was supposed to be confined to her tomb. She was the last person he had expected to see.

His memories filled up the missing answers on Kendra’s profile board. No one in the Underworld knew the eldest Carrigan sister had released Kepi at this time. Nebt, how unbelievable it seemed, was the mole in the Underworld that Menthu alluded to. It was staggering to believe that Kepi’s darkness had corrupted the goodness of Nebt’s heart. But what he knew of souls, maybe a small part of her allowed it to happen. They all carried the same ancestral curse, even the females of their kind.

The Mother Goddess had sent her daughters, although unknowingly at the time, to release Kepi early before Menthu amassed an army large enough to overthrow the Pantheons. His memories lacked one final detail—the ring leader of it all. 

Pained, he clasped his head. The memory shot forward.

“
Join us and live like this every day. A king among mortals,” Nebt whispered words of grandeur in his mind.

He refused. A part of him realized he could not sell his soul to Kepi. Nebt turned his death blade on him and immobilized him. Nebt and Kepi argued. A black book with gold letters came into his view and then darkness.

“Bakari!” Kendra’s urgent pleas pulled him back to the present. He awoke on the floor, his body trembling and dampened with sweat.

She knelt next to him with his face clasped in her palms. “It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay.”

A sense of dread descended down around him. Even being confined to his sarcophagus could not manifest this level of terror.

“No, Parvana. It is not okay.”

Kendra stumbled into her clothes. Bakari recited his memories in vivid detail. She knew he was leaving a huge chunk out and she was grateful. She didn’t want to know. “Nebt?” she asked, stunned. Granted, the Underworld goddess had brown hair of the weight and texture to match the one she found on the sarcophagus, but she and Inpu had welcomed her and her sisters with open arms. She had been so focused on proving Bakari’s innocence, maybe she missed some glaring fact. “Why would she do this?”

Bakari paced the small space at the foot of the bed. “I do not know. I need to inform my father.
Isis
, it will kill him to know. He trusts her unconditionally. How am I ever going to convince him otherwise?”

She agreed with him. Asar had no reason to believe Bakari, not over his trusted advisor of five thousand years. Lilly would stand by Asar. The same as she would for Bakari. “We need to find Kit and Kamen,” she conceded.

Bakari raised his hand to his bare chest and patted it. He needed his daggers she realized. “Asar has them.”

He jerked his gaze up to meet hers. She shrugged and smiled. The blood-bond was a convenient source of information. He walked over and wrapped his arms around her. The same warm richness bloomed through her body. He must have sensed it, as he let out a low appreciative growl. Her whole body had been pulsing since their moments together, strangely different in some way. His strength and power bleeding over the blood-bond, she wondered.

She clung to him and him to her in that fraction of time. The strong pull on her chest and the wave of dizziness, signaled their departure. They materialized in his room. He let go of her and grabbed one of his chest straps that hung on the wall. He looped his arms through and fastened it in the front. Although he didn’t have his Mevt daggers, he sheathed two replicas.

Kendra stood in awe at the amount of power he exuded before her. The same god who had lain withered in mind and spirit weeks before, now a strong virile male. Her male. The possessive claim surprised her. 

Bakari froze and looked at her with that steel gaze. He marched over and grabbed her. A look of satisfaction crossed his face before he kissed her hard and long.

“I love you,” he whispered against her lips. “Come, let us find your sister. Kamen cannot be far.”

Bomani stalked from one side of his quarters to another. A caged animal. Why would the others not see? He was just trying to talk sense into Kendra.

He remembered the look in his father’s eyes. A mix of suspicion and disappointment, of all things. Asar should be slapping him on the back in thanks for exposing Bakari’s continued betrayal. But, Asar had been blind to it before.

Bomani stopped at the mirror. He did not recognize the face staring back at him. His eyes were completely black, no white remained. His teeth jagged. He slammed his fist into his reflection. Diamond shards showered across the floor.

Asar had refused his demands to join the hunt to find Kendra and Bakari.
Stay here until we sort this thing out
, his father had said. Bomani knew his brother’s habits. The others were wasting their time looking in the human realm.

Now for someone to let him out of his confinement. On cue the door glided open. Nebt stood in her black robe. “I came to check on you.”

Bomani ran his hand over his scalp. His brain throbbed on the inside of his skull, threatening to split it wide open. “Now is not the time for counseling, goddess. I am not in the mood.”

“If it is any consolation, I believe you.” Nebt’s brown eyes came to meet his and then looked away with worry stricken on her face. Shocked, he stared at her. A fragment of hope sparked in his chest. He had an ally. She stepped clear of the door. The sentries Asar posted had been removed. He had a clear shot out of here, but the Underworld goddess would put him on his ass.

It took all his force not to charge out the door. Inpu had put a spell on the room preventing him from dematerializing, but that was in the confines of this room. If he could convince Nebt to let him go, he would be in much less trouble. It wouldn’t matter anyways once he had proof of Bakari’s scheme.

“I did not hurt her,” he said, more to convince himself than Nebt. He could not hurt Kendra. Naive and gullible, she demanded to be protected, even if that meant... He let the solution trail off. “I wanted to show her the truth.”

“I believe you,” she said with earnest. “And I told Asar, as much. Bakari is unstable.”

“Thank you, someone who can see reason.”

Nebt came up to him and laid a hand on his arm. He felt the contact tingle. If she had any doubts of Bomani’s allegiance, she would know when she read his soul.

She released her touch and moved around him, glass crunching under her feet. “Kendra is naive to think Bakari will not try and undermine your authority. It is what he does best.”

“I have tried to tell her not to trust him. Is everyone blind but us?”

She sighed and pulled on the strings of her robe. “I love Asar to death, but…” She left it hang unanswered.

“But,” he encouraged.

Nebt turned to face him. “It is not my place to question his judgments. But,” she paused, “I think it was a mistake to place Bakari with the warriors. He needs tighter guidance and scrutiny at least until this war is over.”

“What are you suggesting?”

A startled look developed on her face. “Oh, do not misconstrue my statement, Commander. It is only a suggestion for Asar when he returns.”

“Confinement.” It was the only way to keep Kendra truly safe from his brother’s prying hands.

“I hate to even suggest it. Maybe this is not such a good idea. He would never go willing.” Nebt turned to leave.

“Wait. I will do it. If it will keep Kendra safe, I will do it.”

Nebt glanced over her shoulder. “You would confine your own brother?”

He would do anything it took to put the traitor behind bars, as far from Kendra as possible. He would find a way to break the blood-bond and she would be his. “He is not my brother.”

“Follow me, Commander.”

 Bomani crossed the threshold of his quarters and out into the street. The dirt road was empty, absent of its usual daily bustle of training and chores. Not even the sound of clanging swords from the fighting arena pierced the air.

“Asar took Toben and his legions to the human realm,” she explained.

He nodded, accepting the fact they needed resources for the hunt.

“You will need these.” She held out the two daggers with scorpions in the hilt.

Bomani’s neck prickled seeing Bakari’s death blades. How did Nebt come by those? The question was pushed out of the way for his need for…
revenge
skipped through his mind.

No, he was doing this to save Kendra. Revenge had nothing to do with it. He grabbed the handles.

“Where do we start?” he asked.

“The guest house.” A small smile flickered on her face before she dematerialized. He shifted his energy to follow the goddess.

He landed on the balcony in case Kendra and Bakari were still here. He moved silently into the interior room. Kendra’s scent floated in the air like a bouquet of fresh flowers. The heaviest concentration was in the bedroom. Nebt stood by the bed, running her hands over the black silk. Bomani froze seeing something white mixed in with the twisted sheets.

“I’m sorry. You should not have to endure this.” Nebt turned to face him. “He did not deserve such a gift of innocence.”

“Come,” she tugged on his arm. “They left only minutes ago. We need to stop them before they escape to the human world.”

Bomani’s grip on the daggers tightened to the point his arms shook. His vision bled red. Confinement would be too kind. He had something else in mind for Bakari.

Kendra stood with mouth gapping. The metal hooks inside the chest were absent of their cargo—the Mevt daggers. “Asar placed them there. Inpu sealed it with a spell. Only the three of us were present when the spell was recited.”

Bakari shook his head. “Could Inpu be compromised as well?”

“No way.” It was hard enough to believe Nebt had been turned let alone Inpu, considering the male’s character.

“Nebt can read souls with the touch of her hand. She could have extracted the spell without him knowing. He had no reason to be suspicious of her.” Bakari slammed the lid shut.

“This is not good.” She cringed to think how many times Nebt had touched her and her sisters since arriving to Aaru. It seemed so innocent at the time. The Underworld goddess had to of known Kendra was getting closer to finding the mole. The information gleaned from the slight touch of her hand.

The perfect mole.

She could monitor everyone. Worse, she was Asar’s counselor and could influence his decisions.

Bakari looked around the room. “My father’s sword is gone.”

“We looked through the entire palace. Where is everyone?”

“
Isis,
they had to have gone to the human realm, thinking I had taken you there.”

“How could they possible think that?”

“They do not trust me.”

“But that would be like hunting for a needle in a haystack.”

Both of his dark eyebrows arched at her choice of analogy, but he nodded. “He would take a legion with him.”

She squeezed his hand. “Bakari, if that’s truly the case, Nebt is in charge of the Underworld. Aaru is vulnerable.”

“Kepi’s tomb protected only by the spell Inpu placed on the door. She’s going to release Kepi. Here.”

“The book.” She turned on her heels and ran out of the room. How careless of her to leave it. Bakari reached the door to her room first. He tucked her behind him and pushed through the opening. She broke off to the right and opened her bureau. She ripped the clothes off the shelf and threw them to the floor.