The Dark God's Bride Trilogy, #3 (25 page)

A muscle in his jaw ticked irritably. His expression turned to a vicious sneer. “You will rue the day you challenged me, woman.”

“I haven’t yet.”

“You will.”

“We’ll see,” she mumbled to herself. Her hands flew to her throbbing temples. “But first, I think I need some air and maybe a really strong drink.” She left the cellar and did exactly just that. She opened all of the doors and windows to let the air in and then poured herself a glass of one of Chevalier’s brandy bottles she found in the cabinets. The year on the label was 1885. It was a waste of aged brandy since she didn’t know how to drink, much less enjoy it. She chugged the entire glass in one gulp and winced at the burn in her throat.

Chevalier was right. There were only two options for her. She chose to stay by his side and that was exactly what she was going to do. If this was ever going to work, she needed to be willing to work at it. If she was going to fight this battle with him – for him – she couldn’t be fighting herself too. No more ‘I can’t believe this happened’ and no more ‘I’m going to faint’ bits. Somehow, some way, she would have him back to the man he once was.

Amara straightened her back and heaved a determined sigh. She rolled up her sleeves and went to the bathroom to fetch a basin of water, face towel, and a pair of scissors. She returned to the cellar with those items.

“Release me, you insolent girl!”

“Oh hush up. You’re just wasting your breath. I cried and begged you to release me before, and little good it did me. Think of it as karma.” She picked up the pair of scissors and approached him. He had a questioning look on his face as to what she intended to do with the weapon and then sneered at her. She rolled her eyes and then began to cut off the long sleeves off his shirt. 

“What torture is this?” He demanded.

“My kind of torture,” she replied. She ripped off the severed sleeves and tossed them aside along with the scissors. Next, she unfastened the buttons of his shirt. She dipped the face towel in the water, gave it a good squeeze, and then used it to clean his face starting with his forehead. He was glaring at her and she knew he was thinking of the worst way to kill her after he broke free. She gave him a wry smile and then rinsed the towel before she start
ed on his neck. “I’m not intimidated.”

“You should be,” he said, his eyes glinting dangerously.

“That’s the thing about fear. After you stare at it in the face long enough, you start to question why you fear it in the first place. The worst thing you can do to me is kill me and I’ve already been to the Realm of The Dead. It wasn’t really all that bad.”

“But there are things I can do to you that are worse than a death sentence.”

“I guess so, but you are not in any position to carry out those things now so it’s pointless of me to fear you.” She opened his shirt and worked her way down his lean chest to the tightly corded muscles that were his abs.

“Just wait until I am in that position.”

“Again with the threats.” She wrapped her arms around his bare torso and ran the wet towel across his broad shoulders and down his spine. “When you are in that position, you won’t want to hurt me.”

“And why not?”
he asked with a hint of curiosity.

“When you remember, you’ll know why.” After she finished with his back, she rinsed the towel in the basin again. She rubbed the wet towel down the length of his arms and then cleaned his hands and individual fingers. He was observing her now in silent fascination. When she looked up at him, his briefly dropped his gaze on purpose and tugged a wicked grin across his face.

“Go on,” he encouraged.

She was forced to admit that she was a bit daunted by his challenge. They may have been lovers, but she was nowhere near brave enough to help him clean the lower parts of his body. She found herself blushing fiercely so she lowered her head to hide the tell-tale flush on her face. The candlelight was dim so he couldn’t possibly have seen it.

“Well?” he taunted her.

She lifted her chin, grey eyes framed by dark lashes popped up at him. The sneer on his face quickly diminished and in its place was a ghostly pale expression. For that one brief moment, she could have sworn he was the man she loved. He grunted and then recoiled. His eyes had gone bloodshot. He violently yanked on the chain and screamed out like a wounded animal. He was trapped, she painfully realized, not bound in chains or contained within the walls of the cellar, but inside the dark prison of his mind.

“
You!
” he snarled at her accusingly. “Make it stop!”

“I’m not doing it, I swear!”

“Lying wench! There is a piercing pain ripping through my brain! Make it stop!”

“Believe me,” she gasped out. She pressed the side of her face against the wall of his chest. “If I could take your pain unto myself, I would!
I would!
”

She knew he didn’t believe her and she didn’t need him to. The important thing was that she meant it. She hated to see him like this. She hated to see him in pain. If only she could put him to sleep.

There was a thought.
The tranquilizers!

She pushed away from him and sprinted neck or nothing upstairs. She searched the kitchen drawers for the things Chevalier
gave her before he left. She found a small case of tranquilizers next to the cellphone and the stack of hundred dollar bills, grabbed a syringe, and then raced back down to the cellar. He was cursing at her as she approached him with the syringe. She calmed her nerves with a deep breath and then injected the tranquiller at the base of his neck. He was glaring at her with a passion to kill. His glare began to dull as the drug streamed through his veins. At last, he closed his eyes and slept.

Amara dropped the syringe and shoved her hands at her mouth. She had never seen such intense hatred in his eyes before, as though he wanted to choke the life out of her where she stood. Those same eyes that once held her with warmth were now filled with cold loathing. She felt the muscles in her throat tense, becoming thick and heavy. Her head
spun with nausea.

I love you, Amara.

“And I love you,” she responded to the fragment of memory.

I would never allow myself to fail you again…

“I won’t allow myself to fail you either.” She pressed a light kiss on his lips. “I will fight this battle alongside you. We’ll get through this… somehow.”

“Good morning!”

Amara greeted Noctis first thing in the morning. He was awake and he was probably awake for some time now. Tranquilizers could not keep immortals immobile for very long. Once they develop tolerance toward it, tranquilizers become no more effective than tap water. She needed to be careful on how and when to use the next doses.

“I hope you are feeling better today.” She smiled at him. “Of course, you are. All you really needed was a good night’s sleep.” She needed one too. She didn’t sleep a wink last night. This morning when she looked at herself in the mirror, her eyes were noticeably swollen.

His hostile glare followed her across the cellar. She put the clean water basin down next to him perhaps a bit too close. When she bent down to soak the cloth, he kicked the basin and plashed water at her face. It was one of the many little ways he
rebelled against her.

“I was going to shower anyway,” she said, completely indifferen
t to his treatment of her. She lived through worst. She squeezed water out of the cloth in her hand and began to help him cleanse his face. He turned his head to the side to resist her attempt. “I’m going to head to town for a bit to do some grocery shopping and pick up some supplies. It’s actually quite a long drive there and back so I probably won’t be home before sunset. I’m telling you just in case you wonder where I am.”

“Be gone, witch!”
he spat at her.

That gutted her deep. “You still think it was me that
—”

“Who else could it have been? You bombarded my head with those images in some kind of brainwashing attempt! What plans have you laid for me now that you have me chained to this despicable place? You might as well reveal your big agenda now. What
is it
that you wish to accomplish from all of this?”

There lays the irony,
Amara said to herself. She became the one with the ulterior motives. She became the one with the hidden agenda. If he established such a solid image of her inside his head, she could talk until she turned blue and it wouldn’t change a thing. She could bare her heart to him with every last ounce of conviction in her little body and he wouldn’t believe a single word. There was no point in trying.

“What fun would it be if I give my agenda away?”

“Now you are showing your true face.”

“People have many faces, Noctis. The face you see may not be all to a person.”

“Are you trying to teach me a lesson about human nature, woman?”

“We can all learn a thing or two about human nature. You can call me Amara, by the way.”

“I would rather not. I’m afraid that I will see you as a person instead of the evil bitch that you are.”

“Ha,” she laughed dryly. “That’s novel. Really.”

“
Release me!
”

“In good time, I promise.”

“
Now!
” he demanded as he gripped on the chains.

She shook her head in refusal. “Not now.”

“
When?
”

“When you remember why you are here in the first place!”

“My mind is blank!” he thundered. “
Blank!
”

“Which is a damn good thing, I dare
say.”

“Do you think it is amusing to see a man struggling to remember his own name?”

“It’s Summit and at one time, you called yourself Noctis.”

“Among other things,” he added.

“I would gladly answer any questions you have. Learn to ask.”

“Starting with
who are you?
”

The question felt like bucket of ice water poured over her body. She was hesitant to tell him because the pride that dwelled inside of her wanted him to remember her himself. If she told him that she was his lover, he would simply dismiss her as one of many. All that was special about her lie
d in his feelings for her, and if he couldn’t remember that…

She wished her eyes could tell him what millions of words
couldn’t express. She wished he could gaze directly into her soul and see for himself that she was not as evil and calculating as he painted her.

Her prayer was answered when she found him staring back at her in the same trance he had been in when he first saw her through the door crack. She seized the moment and kissed him. She lured him like she always
did and he responded, or at least his muscle memory did, with the same hunger and lust shared in their previous kisses. And they had shared so many of those kisses that it had become second nature. The chemistry between them was as thick as glue and it bonded them together so seamlessly that one couldn’t be removed from the other without causing damage to either of them.

Their kiss was the perfect blending of love and lust and everything in between. It ended with one of them being stunned and the other, breathless.

“
Who are you?
” He repeated the question, though this time it was less vindictive and more inquisitive.

“I’m a feeling,” she whispered to him the closest thing to truth. “If you remember that feeling, you’ll remember me.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It’s getting late. I should go to town now if I want to get back before dark.”

“Get back here and explain!”

“That is all the explanation I can give you. Now, do you want me to get you anything from town?” She asked him before she headed up the stairs.

He was trying to stretch an inch out of the metal chains to get closer to her. “
Get back here!
”

“I’ll be back later this evening.”

Amara showered and then changed. She took Chevalier’s jeep and drove down a dirt path that conformed to the shape of the terrain. She had trouble navigating to town the first time with only Chevalier’s terse instructions, but she had an easier trip the second time around.

The small town of Waydale was nestled between the mountains with a population of under four hundred. The buildings were spare and the shops were simple. They only s
old the essentials and that was pretty much it. The charming town was at least a hundred years behind the times. She would bet everyone knew each other because stares followed her wherever she went.

She made a few quick stops to buy enough clothes, can
ned food, and other miscellaneous items to last months. That earned even more stares. 

“You’ve bought a lot of things there,” a rugged man in a beige cowboy hat said to her when she
loaded the things she bought on the back of the jeep. “Here, let me lend you hand.” He voluntarily helped her load the supplies.