Unleash the Storm (16 page)

Natania’s eyes narrowed, then she threw her head back and loosed a chiming peal of laughter. “You think you can defeat me with
aphrodesia
?”

Lyre’s eyes darkened to black. “I already have.”

Natania took a quick step back, her hand clenching around the Sahar as power leaped into her. Lyre’s hand snapped down the front of his shirt where he kept his chain of spelled gems. He yanked it out, blood-coated fingers already clenched around a gem. Gold light flashed.

The world went black. The mountains, the cliff, the path all vanished. Natania staggered backward, clutching the Sahar as power built within her, straining to be unleashed—but it had no target. The darkness, lit with swirls of tiny white stars, curled and coiled in a sparkling, eddying mist. The shapeless ebony swirled, all that was solid gone, even the ground beneath her feet.

Strange shapes rose and fell in the darkness. Natania whirled around, searching for a solid shape to attack, the Sahar tight in her grip.

“This is no incubus power!” she shrieked. The strange darkness absorbed her words, muffling it. “This kind of illusion isn’t possible! I know the rules of magic!”

She spun again—and Lyre was there, right in front of her, almost touching her.

His glamour was gone. His eyes were ebony magnets, utterly alluring. The glittering stars swirled in his eyes. In the black nothingness, he almost glowed, a heavenly halo of undeniable beauty. The pull of his aura was irresistible, attraction as powerful as gravity.

Natania stared into those eyes, still holding the Sahar in the air, the power accumulated in her raging beneath her skin.

“
Your
magic may have rules,” he said, the sounds layered together like the most melodic instrument ever heard, too beautiful for mortal ears, “but I can weave anything I can imagine.”

His voice spun around her like soft, warm chains. His eyes held her prisoner. Tingling heat flowed off him, drifting over her skin like the feathery touch of gentle fingers. Then his actual hand brushed softly over her cheek as his eyes pulled her in deeper.

His head tipped down and his mouth closed over hers.

His magic poured into her through his lips and fingers as heat and pleasure surged through her, impossible and overwhelming. The Sahar’s power slid away, dissipating as burning heat and need consumed her mind. Her will vanished as his control spread through every fiber of her being, his essence filling her, her world and awareness narrowing to the feel of his mouth on hers, his fingers on her cheek, his heat rushing into her, obliterating all else.

“Sleep,” he whispered, his lips brushing against hers.

Her eyes closed, his will to be obeyed. She slid quietly into slumber, conquered by the pleasure of his touch and the excruciating longing for more.

Lost somewhere in the emptiness of her own mind, Piper slipped away too, vanishing into the nothingness.

P
iper sleepily rolled over
, nuzzling her face into her pillow. So comfy. She hadn’t been this comfortable in … weeks? Months? It seemed like forever. The pillow under her cheek was silky soft and warm blankets were a comforting weight on top of her. She inhaled deeply as she gradually shook off her drowsiness. The air smelled of incense and stone. Familiar, but not the smell of her bedroom.

She cracked her eyes open. A few feet away, faint blue light lit a stone wall. Detailed waves had been carved into it, the smooth lines flowing along the natural curves of the stone.

This wasn’t her bedroom. Her thoughts scattered, confusion bubbling inside her, before it all came together in her head. Right. Her home was a pile of rubble, destroyed weeks ago. Her father and uncle were hiding in Brinford, her mother was dead, and Ash was lost to the great dragon, who knew where.

She pressed her face back into the pillow, sucking in a shuddering breath. This room was familiar, at least. She’d spent five days in the ryujin city the last time she’d been in the Overworld, sleeping in this room each night. She didn’t have to open her eyes to know that the carving of waves ran around the entire circular room, that fist-sized crystals were embedded in the ceiling and had been spelled to glow softly, and that heavy fabric curtains would be drawn across the doorway a few feet beyond her toes.

Pain vibrated through her, a cutting grief she couldn’t contain. Waking up thinking she was at home … only to remember that her home was long gone. Only to remember her mother’s death, their relationship ended when it had only just begun to heal. Weeks in the Underworld, feeling out of place and lost, and then Ash …

She bit down on a mouthful of the pillow to stifle the howl of anguish rising in her throat. Ash, gone. His empty, glowing blue stare. His lifeless face, devoid of emotion—devoid of soul. The dragon had stolen it from him, and then the beast had taken him away from her, where she couldn’t save him. It was her fault. She never should have led him to that damn abandoned city.

In the privacy of the room, she wept into the pillow, her shoulders shaking and her chest heaving. She cried until she had no more tears, then pushed herself into a cross-legged sitting position. Sniffing back the last few tears, she pressed a hand to her aching stomach. She was so hungry. Her stomach was cramping like she hadn’t eaten in days. How long had she been asleep? She tried to remember arriving in the city, but it was a total blank. She remembered walking down the trail along the canyon, talking to Lyre. Then … nothing. But she must have led Lyre to the city, right? He couldn’t have gotten in without her.

Pushing off the blankets, she rose to her feet, surprised by the weakness in her legs. Oh man, she was hungry. Absolutely famished. And thirsty too. She must have slept an entire day while recovering from her exhaustion. Was Lyre still sleeping too? He hadn’t been as tired as her.

Wobbling to the curtain, she pushed it aside and stepped out into a wide hall lined with doorways—other guest rooms. She hobbled down the hall, brushing her hands over her clothes. Her dark draconian garments had been replaced with a new silvery halter top, armguards, and fitted pants of the same material. Crisscrossing leather ties ran up the side of each leg, and the ends, decorated with stone beads, swung at her hips, clicking softly. The stone floor was cold under her bare feet but she hadn’t seen her boots in her room.

She stepped out of the corridor and into the main cavern. A slow-moving branch of the river flowed through the center of the expanse of flat stone. High above, stalagmites hung from the uneven ceiling, veined with clear and colored stone. Sunlight from the unseen sky refracted through the veins, spilling rainbows of light across the space. Doorways, pathways, bridges, and corridors wove and curved all along the cavern walls, leading to other parts of the underground city.

Across the flat plateau, a cluster of ryujin was gathered. They knelt on the stone, unconcerned by the hard rock under their scaled knees. Their waist-length hair in various shades of green swayed as their heads moved. Scattered nearby, a half dozen water dragons lounged by the water’s edge, their silvery scales shimmering like mother of pearl. In the center of the little circle of ryujin, a pale blond head stood out in stark contrast.

As Piper started across the plateau, Lyre lifted his hands, something unseen cupped in them. Golden light sparked in his palms, then burst outward like a tiny explosion of fireworks. Sparkles of amber light swirled up above their heads in random patterns, then coalesced into golden sparrows made up of a thousand tiny lights. The sparrows swooped and darted among the ryujin as delighted laughter erupted from his audience—very feminine laughter. Of course.

Lyre glanced up at her, grinning as she stopped just beyond the circle. His fluttering golden sparrows faded away.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” he said cheerfully.

The ryujin rose gracefully to their feet in eerie unison. Each young lady offered Piper a gentle hug and soft greeting before slipping away. With each embrace, Piper could feel the warmth and welcome emanating from them. She knew almost nothing about the ryujins’ telepathy, but it amazed her how she could sense their emotions like that.

She watched them leave, their steps flowing like water. Sunlight shimmered over their blue and green scales and pale skin, and their
dairokkan
drifted behind them, along with long tails that ended in horizontal fins.

Lyre rose to his feet and brushed off his pants. He was wearing the male version of her outfit—and he looked good. Her eyes drifted down him, taking in the fitted sleeveless shirt, elbow-high armguards, and similar pants. He, she saw, had kept his footwear, a sturdy pair of leather boots.

She pulled her eyes back to his face and noticed a pink line of healing skin that ran from the bridge of his nose across one cheekbone. She frowned. “What happened to your face?”

He tapped his cheek just below the cut. “Just a scratch, but Atsumi is healing it in stages to be safe. She said it would be a shame to scar a face as pretty as mine.”

Piper snorted in amusement but couldn’t shift her frown. “What happened though? I don’t remember …”

His smile faded. “I wondered how much you would remember.”

Nervousness made her empty stomach churn. “Lyre, just tell me. You’re freaking me out.”

“You should be freaked out,” he murmured.

He stepped over to the edge of the water and sat on the stone, gesturing for her to sit beside him. She sank down, clenching her hands in her lap. Her sense of dread increased. Why couldn’t she remember the journey to the city?

“You remember coming through the ley line, right?” he began. When she nodded, he asked, “Do you remember telling me about Natania? And me telling you to give me the Sahar because it was too dangerous?”

Her brow wrinkled. “Um. A little? You were really worried about Natania being able to mess with my head.”

“Yes,” he said grimly. “Do you remember anything after that?”

After struggling to pull up any kind of memory, she shook her head.

“Well, to make a long story short, at that point I found myself talking to Natania and not you.”

Her stomach churned twice as hard. “W-what?”

“She took over your body.” His golden eyes bored into hers. “You were completely gone. She as good as told me that she’d been plotting to do it. As she put it, she had a perfectly good mind of her own, but no body.”

Piper stared at him, her mouth hanging open. It was stupid to feel betrayed—it wasn’t like she’d ever trusted Natania—but she’d still come to feel a sort of kinship with the woman and even empathized with her suffering.

“What happened?” she whispered.

“Well, Natania and I had an interesting conversation. She also tried to kill me.” He gestured at his cheek. “But she likes to talk too much and gave me a chance to use aphrodesia on her.”

“I know she likes to talk, but why aphrodesia?” A horrifying thought popped into her head. “Wait, you didn’t—not with—”

He snorted, waving one hand as though casting aside the suggestion. “Not
that
way.”

Right, of course. Out of glamour, Lyre was so magnificent and alluring that he could overwhelm a woman’s willpower and make her a slave to his desires. It was a dangerous power that she’d only briefly glimpsed before.

He let out a long breath. “It was close. If she’d used the full power of the Sahar from the start, I wouldn’t have had a chance to—well, anyway, I managed to subdue her, so it worked out.”

She squinted at him, pretty sure he was glossing over something. She just didn’t know what. Knowing him, he was probably hiding how close he’d come to getting killed.

She swallowed hard and touched his arm. “I’m sorry. I should have listened to you. I should have given the Sahar back right away.”

“No,” he said, smiling wanly. “It’s best it happened the way it did. It needed to happen here.”

“What do you mean?”

He looked at the blue water swirling past them, his face suddenly haggard. “I took the Sahar away and tried to wake you up, but … you were still gone. I don’t know what she did to you, but it was like I was holding an empty shell, not you. Hinote couldn’t even explain it. It took them two weeks to put you back together again.”

“Two
weeks
?”

“Natania was planning this—planning it for a long time. After Ash and I got the Sahar away from you at the Gaian facility, she must have realized she needed a more permanent way to control you.”

“A permanent way to—
She
controlled me?”

His warm hand closed around hers.

“I don’t know where her interference or control started, but you aren’t solely responsible for what happened at that facility,” he told her, his voice gentle with compassion. “I do know that you didn’t attack me and Ash. That was entirely Natania. She told me herself.”

“I—I didn’t …” A weight seemed to lift from her shoulders. She rubbed her free hand over her mouth. “It’s all my fault. I should have realized—”

“How were you supposed to guess she could do such a thing?” He squeezed her hand. “We fought you—her—and didn’t realize it ourselves. Don’t shoulder the blame for her crimes, Piper.”

She concentrated on breathing for a minute. “So Hinote was able to put me back together again?”

“With the help of about a dozen other ryujin healers. If they didn’t have telepathic abilities … I don’t think anyone could have saved you.”

Shivering, she thought of everything Natania had said or implied in their conversations. She huffed a bitter laugh. “She’s been playing me all along, hasn’t she? She must have started making plans after our first conversation. She originally talked about keeping me with her forever for company, but then changed her mind with no explanation. I noticed after that that it was much easier to use the Sahar. I bet she was making it easy for me so I would keep using the Stone while she figured out how to take my body for herself. She wants a second shot at life.”

“As soon as I gave the Sahar back to you, she decided she wouldn’t allow you to let it go again, not after losing her chance at the Gaian facility.”

“She’s been setting me up since—” Her eyes went out of focus as she remembered something else: Natania commenting on how Piper couldn’t control her daemon blood. She’d wondered why shading was different since she’d gone to the Underworld—less crazed and bloodthirsty—but only one thing had changed: she’d no longer had the Sahar.

“I think she was messing with me when I shaded too,” she whispered. “All that violence and bloodlust … it was coming from her. Why didn’t I realize it? She wanted to keep me as weak and dependent on the Sahar as possible. Every time I almost killed someone I didn’t mean to while shaded—
she
was doing that to me.”

The bloodlust had felt like another person inside her, driving her to violence, and she’d attributed the feeling to the alienness of her daemon blood. But it had been Natania all along; it was the only explanation that fit her newfound control over shading.

Disgust rose like bile in her throat and she swallowed it down, lifting her eyes to Lyre again. “I can never touch the Sahar again, can I?”

“I don’t think you should be anywhere near it.”

Slipping her fingers from his hold, she pressed her hands against her face.

“This just keeps getting better and better,” she said bitterly. “We have the only weapon that can possibly save Ash from the dragon, and the only person who can use it—me—can’t ever touch it again.”

Tears burned her eyes and she dug in the heels of her hands. “We’ll never be able to save Ash, will we? Even if we could find him, we don’t stand a chance against the dragon.”

Lyre sighed and she suspected he was regretting his failure to kill Ash before the dragon took him away—a failure her interference had caused.

She dropped her hands into her lap, staring at them. “The Sahar is an evil creation. What were Nyrtaroth and Maahes thinking? Binding a living soul into a piece of rock so they could have unlimited power … It’s revolting. I don’t think Natania was a malicious person before, but being stuck in that stone for five centuries has twisted her into a monster.”

“I looked at it while they were healing you.” He traced a small ridge of rock with one finger, watching the spot without seeing it. “I mean, I looked at it before to see what Maahes and Nyrtaroth had woven, but this time I wanted to see what it would take to break the weavings.”

She looked over at him. “And?”

“I don’t think it’s possible.” He lifted his somber golden eyes to hers. “They were genius weavers. The Sahar is full of rage and hatred, right? All that emotion comes from Natania’s soul, and emotion is fuel for magic. All the weavings are tied into that source, making it a self-perpetuating cycle of emotion fueling magic fueling the spells. And because their source is unlimited, the weavings themselves are indestructible. Even the physical stone is tied in, so it’s just as unbreakable.”

Piper swallowed back her revulsion. “So they made it so there would never be an end to Natania’s imprisonment?”