Surrender (10 page)

Kira’s breaths were shaky. “I understand.” She avoided Jarek’s gaze. “What will happen to him?”

“The same thing that happens to all gods who pass on, Kira. He will be judged.”

Jarek saw the brief glimpse of pain on Kira’s face before she erased it. Her shoulders tightened, her back grew stiff, and she tossed her hair over her shoulder in a defiant gesture. But it was all for show.

The Kira he knew was hurting. The pain was so deep, she would end Set’s life without a second thought. But Jarek couldn’t help but worry that the aftereffects might be more than she could handle.

The gates behind him creaked open, and Set took his time turning around, though he couldn’t hide his eagerness. When Kira walked into his line of view, he smiled.

“Is Jarek dead?” He practically quivered at the thought. How had she killed the arrogant god, or had she left that task to him? Either way was acceptable to him.

“No.” Kira’s face was frozen, and Set thought he’d never seen her look so cold, so emotionless.

“Then where is he?”

“Chained in the dungeon again. I knew of no way around his immortality. Perhaps you do.”

Set tapped one finger against his chin. Yes, that was definitely a problem, but where there was a problem, there was also a solution. He’d just have to find it. For now, he was more than satisfied that Jarek couldn’t interfere.

“I can only imagine his surprise when you turned on him.” He couldn’t keep the glee from his voice. His plan had worked so perfectly.

“I suppose he looked a lot like I did when I discovered your betrayal.” Kira’s cold voice stabbed through him, but it mattered little that she hated him. She was about to give him everything he’d ever wanted. She could have her useless emotions.

“And you will take your place at my side?” Set held out his hand in anticipation.

Kira stared at him. “As your servant?” She took a step toward him. The wind caught several strands of her hair, whisking them across her face, giving her a wild, dangerous appearance that Set found fascinating.

The smile returned. “Servant. Yes.” If that was what she chose to call it then so be it.

“Before we continue, I need to know that my mother is safe.”

Set’s shoulders relaxed marginally. “Very well.” He waved a hand. “See for yourself.”

The path ahead contorted, and an image of Nephrytys came into view. With a serene look on her face and the sun glowing brightly behind her hair, she appeared the picture of happiness and peace. “As you can see, her soul has been returned. All is well. Now.” Set approached her, still holding out one hand. “Shall we?”

Kira lowered her head. “Yes, we shall.”

Set crowed with delight and surged forward to enfold her in his embrace. “How perfect.”

He gasped when pain sliced through his arm, and he looked down in time to see a drop of blood clinging to the blade of an athame he recognized all too well.

His eyes wide, he had only enough time to say his sister’s name before Kira plunged the knife into the center of his chest.

She shoved him away, and as he collapsed onto the ground, she leaned over him. “You just couldn’t resist one more lie, could you? It must give you some kind of perverse pleasure to add to my pain. That’s why you wanted to show me my mother, isn’t it? You really thought I would believe that fictitious image, didn’t you? Well, you’re wrong. I know what happened to my mother’s soul, you bastard.”

“Wh-what have you done?” Set couldn’t move. Every muscle in his body refused to cooperate, and all he could do was lie on the cold, hard earth and stare up at the woman he’d raised.

“It’s called justice, Set, and you deserve so much more than just a painful death.” Waiting a heartbeat, she added, “Did you really think I would trust you after everything you’ve done to me and my family?”

How could she have betrayed him like this? He’d treated her like a daughter, shown her so much more than her real father ever could have. How?

Set heard footsteps, high-heeled boots on concrete. He tried to raise his head, but he didn’t have any control over his muscles. “Kira?” Was she really walking away from him at his most vulnerable? How could she just leave him?

“Kira! Don’t walk away from me! Kira!”

Silence answered his demands, and for the first time in his life, tears ran down Set’s cheeks. He was well and truly alone.

Jarek opened the gate, and as Kira swept past him, he saw the stiffness in her shoulders and the pain etched on her face. He wanted to reach out to her, to offer comfort, but Isis stayed his movement with a hand to his arm.

“Before you go, there’s something you should know, something you can tell her that just might lessen her pain. I couldn’t ask Kira to do what I couldn’t do myself so many years ago. Set isn’t dead, only paralyzed for now.”

For Kira’s sake, Jarek was relieved, but there was another part, the rational god part that warned him Set’s continued existence could mean future trouble. “So what happens to him now, if not death?”

“I didn’t say he wasn’t going to die. Just not at Kira’s hand. He will be taken to Ma’at, and there, he will face his judgment. Only the most vile among us are left alive to await their punishment.”

Isis wrapped her golden cloak around her. “When Kira has expelled her grief, you will tell her the truth, and she will feel the relief. That was all I could give her, though I wish it could be more.”

“It will be enough. Thank you.” Jarek didn’t wait for the goddess to disappear before he went in search of Kira.

He entered through the garden gate and followed the path she had taken to the water’s edge. Sitting beside her on the grass, he fell silent, allowing her the quietness.

When she spoke, her voice shook like a child’s knees when facing a parent’s disapproval. “I trusted him. My entire life, I trusted him.” She gave a little laugh, bitter and sad. “I killed for him.” Silver eyes swept over Jarek’s face. “Does that surprise you?”

He didn’t answer, sensing she needed him to listen more than to respond.

She tucked her hands beneath her thighs. “He told me the ability to kill was the mark of an extraordinary goddess. I took him at his word, and now who’s the fool?”

“You weren’t a fool to trust the man you called father.”

“Oh, but he wasn’t my father, was he? He was the man who took my father from me.” She gave a short, abrupt laugh. “I guess it’s appropriate that, in the end, I killed him.”

Jarek scooted closer to her and wrapped one arm around her shoulders, drawing her to his chest. “But you didn’t kill him.”

Kira looked up, her lashes wet with tears. “I guess you weren’t watching.”

His thumb tracked a tear down her cheek. “No, I was watching, but there’s something Isis wanted me to tell you.” Once he finished the revelation, Kira’s head drooped, and she began to sob.

His arms tightened around her, providing her the solace she needed to embrace the pain, to cry through it. He rested his chin atop her head and just held her while each tear shredded his heart.

The darkness shrouded them in shadows, and the first drops of rain splattered against their heads and shoulders, but Jarek didn’t move. He could have protected them from the elements, but Kira seemed to welcome the cleansing power of the moisture. She tipped her face back to allow the drops to glide over her face and mingle with her tears.

Then he said the only thing he knew to say, the only thing that felt right. “I love you.”

She took hold of his hand. “How can you love what you do not know?”

“I don’t love what you are, my love.” He leaned over and touched two fingers to her breast. “I love what’s in here. Your heart. Your soul.”

“My soul is black.”

He lifted their joined hands and kissed her knuckles. “It might have been once, but not anymore.”

“Redemption always comes at a price, Jarek.”

“So what is this price, then?”

She frowned and Jarek saw her contemplating the question. “I’m not sure, but it’s always high.”

“Then we’ll pay it together.”

Kira snuggled in Jarek’s arms, her head resting against his chest, she knew she’d never felt so secure, so loved, in all of her life.

Jarek leaned down and pressed a kiss against her cheek. “You will always have the memories, Kira, but they need not cloud your mind eternally. We will create new ones and, soon, you will remember the past as but a distant memory. You will even place Set to the back of your mind.”

She shook her head almost vehemently. “I don’t want to think about him at all.”

He slid his hand along her neck, and Kira turned her face toward his. A soft kiss swept her lips. “Then what do you want to think about?”

She pressed him back against the wet grass and rolled into his arms. “I want to think about how I ever allowed myself to fall in love with an arrogant, demanding, overbearing—” she paused and nipped his chin, “—smart-assed, and yet sexy, king.”

Jarek rubbed his hands up and down her spine. “Who is this man you speak of, and should I be worried? I know of only one sexy king in my kingdom, and he does not have the other traits you describe.”

Kira laughed. Then Jarek dragged her head down for another kiss. A much longer, softer, sweeter kiss.

About the Author

Making her home on the East Coast, Rachel is a multi-published author of fantasy and paranormal romances as well as romantic suspense.  She also writes non-fiction articles for various venues, including
The Writer Magazine
,
The Writer’s Journal
, and
Writer’s Weekly
.

For more information, visit Dawn’s website at
www.dawnrachel.com
.

Look for these titles by Rachel Carrington

Now Available:

Burning Reflections

Two hearts are never more than one dimension apart.

High Octane

© 2010 Kathleen Scott

A routine fuel run through one of the planet’s dimensional portals explodes in violence when Major Geneieve Lockhart’s Jumper team is hammered with an unprovoked attack. With her ship disabled and contact to mission control limited, Genie faces her worst nightmare—losing her crew on the blood-soaked floor of a foreign desert.

Help comes from an unlicensed freelance mercenary ship, piloted by a man she never thought she’d see again. Her AWOL ex-lover, Lt. Col. Dante Bowen.

Bowen knows answering Genie’s distress call puts his undercover mission to expose a governmental conspiracy at risk. But after faking his death six years ago, he owes her something. Ending up chained in her cargo hold for transport to his own court martial wasn’t the thanks-for-the-rescue he expected.

The bridges between them may be in ashes, but their desire burns as hot as ever. Even as Genie wonders what happened to Bowen’s code of honor, her body betrays her heart at every turn. The hostile race that attacked her ship, though, is coming back to finish them off. The only way to ensure freedom—on both sides of the dimensional divide—is to put her trust in the one man who betrayed it…

Warning: This book
contains action-packed dimensional travel, hot military wartime sex, betrayed lovers and evil, power-hungry bastards.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
High Octane:

“It’s all right, baby. You’re safe.”

Her forehead and back were damp. Her body trembled. She hadn’t woken up yet.

He rocked her back and forth, singing what had been their song. Slowly, her body stopped shaking and her breathing evened out. He ran his lips over her cheeks and eyes. Gently, he rubbed his lips against hers.

Genie’s lips parted and she kissed him back.

“Bowen,” she breathed against his mouth. “You never could carry a tune.”

A deep rumble started in the depths of his soul. No, she was right there. His singing voice sounded like the last strains of a bullfrog dying under immense torture. It had been a source of constant amusement between them.

Bowen lifted a hand and ran it down the side of her face, cupping her cheek. “Are you all right now? You were having a bad dream.”

She frowned and looked away from him. “Bad is an understatement.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” He brushed the hair from her forehead.

She shook her head and ran her hand up his arm to rest on his shoulder. “I talked to Cash this afternoon. He said they know of a traitor on this side of the divide.” Worry darkened her eyes, put a wrinkle between her brows.

He let a small smile curve the side of his mouth. Gathering her closer to his chest, he said, “Are you trying to warn me about your boss?”

“This isn’t a joke.”

“No, it’s not. It wasn’t a joke when you locked me in the cargo bay either.” When she looked as if she might apologize or argue, Bowen stopped her words with a deep kiss. Genie stole her arms around his neck and held tightly to him.

The kiss changed. It became desperate, hard.

If he could crawl inside her soul and never leave her, he would. The drumbeat of a heart pounded against his chest. Bowen wasn’t sure if it came from him or Genie. He didn’t care much. All he wanted was to sink into her and wash away six years of loneliness.

He rolled them so he was on top of her.

Genie opened her warm thighs and wrapped her legs around his hips. She nudged against his erection, sending pleasure shooting down his shaft and into his balls.

He broke the kiss to pull back and look at her. “Are you sure?”

“I’ve missed you.”

He’d missed her, too. But he didn’t say it. Didn’t let her know that every day of his assignment had been torture. Not knowing if she’d moved on and married. If she’d quit the Jumpers to raise a family. Or if she’d lost her life on some blood-soaked plain on this side of the divide.

In one quick tug, he had his shirt off.

Genie leaned up and ran her hands over his pecs, spreading her fingers out in his chest hair. Bowen took her hands and brought them up to his mouth, kissing each one in turn.

The sheet had dropped down to her waist. The glow from the lamp bathed her in golden light. She looked like a damned goddess staring up at him. Everything about her was perfection.

His gaze slid down her body, stopping at the red marks that still marred her breasts. “I’m sorry. I tried to get to you sooner.”

She glanced down. “They’ll fade.”

But the memory would follow Bowen for the rest of his life. Even now, in the moments before lovemaking, he couldn’t stop the constant loop of that horrible video footage from replaying through his head.

“Do they hurt?” He dropped one of her hands, reaching out to trace a bent knuckle over the injury.

Her slightly puckered nipple grew diamond hard as the side of his finger grazed against it. Her back arched in response. Genie’s nipples had always been ultra-sensitive. He moved the pad of his thumb over her, stroking her, watching in fascination as her eyes closed and lips parted.

She hadn’t answered his question, but from the look of it, she wasn’t in any pain.

“I’ll give you at least an hour and a half to stop that.” A sweet smile curled her lips up at the corner.

The teasing words brought a lump to his throat. Tears burned behind his eyes. She’d said that the very first time they’d made love.

Her gorgeous eyes opened, the smile faded. “Bowen?”

He could barely squeeze out the words. But she looked so beautiful and trusting, staring up at him like he was her only salvation. God above knew she had no reason to trust him after he’d abandoned her. She still didn’t know why he’d left. And Christ, he was under orders not to tell her either.

He leaned down and moved his lips over hers, still cupping her breast. “Shhh. Just let me make love to you.”