Awakened

CHAPTER TWO

“Speak to me. Tell me everything slowly and clearly. I want to savor each word.” Neferet went to Kalona, kneeling before him, stroking the soft, dark wings that unfurled loosely around the immortal as he sat on the bench, face raised to the night sky, bronzed body bathed in the golden glow of the moon. She tried to keep herself from trembling in anticipation of his touch—of the return of his cold passion, his frozen heat.

“What would you have me say?” He didn’t meet her eyes. Instead he opened his face to the sky, as if he could drink in the heavens above them.

His question took her aback. Her lust abated and her hand ceased stroking his wing.

“I would have you give me the details of our victory so that I might savor the retelling of it with you.” She spoke slowly, thinking that perhaps his brain might still be slightly addled from the recent displacement of his soul.

“Our victory?” he said.

Neferet’s green eyes narrowed. “Indeed. You are my Consort. Your victory is mine, as mine is yours.”

“Your kindness is almost divine. Have you become a goddess during my absence?”

Neferet studied him closely. He still wasn’t looking at her; his voice was almost expressionless. Was he being impudent? She shrugged off his question, though she continued to watch him closely. “What happened in the Otherworld? How did Zoey die?”

She knew what he would say the instant his amber eyes finally found hers, though childishly she covered her ears and began to shake her head back and forth, back and forth as he spoke the words that were like a sword stroke to her soul.

“Zoey Redbird is not dead.”

Neferet stood and forced her hands from her ears. She stalked several paces from Kalona, staring unseeingly out at the liquid sapphire of the night sea. She breathed slowly, carefully, attempting to control her seething emotions. When finally she knew she could do so without shrieking in anger to the sky, she spoke.

“Why? Why did you not complete your quest?”

“It was your quest, Neferet. Never mine. You forced me to return to a realm from which I’d been banished. What happened was predictable: Zoey’s friends rallied about her. With their aid she healed her shattered soul and found herself again.”

“Why did you not stop it from happening?” Her voice was frigid. She didn’t so much as glance at him.

“Nyx.”

Neferet heard the name leave his lips as if he’d spoken a prayer—soft, low, reverent. Jealousy speared her.

“What of the goddess?” She almost spat the question.

“She intervened.”

“She did what?” Neferet whirled around. Disbelief tinged with fear made her words breathless, incredulous. “Do you expect me to believe that Nyx actually interfered with mortal choice?”

“No,” Kalona said, sounding weary again. “She didn’t interfere; she intervened, and only after Zoey had already healed herself. Nyx blessed her for it. That blessing was part of her and her Warrior’s salvation.”

“Zoey lives.” Neferet’s voice was flat, cold, lifeless.

“She does.”

“Then you owe me the subservience of your immortal soul.” She started to walk away from him, toward the rooftop exit.

“Where are you going? What will happen next?”

Disgusted by what she perceived as weakness in his voice, Neferet turned to him. She drew herself up tall and proud, and held out her arms so that the sticky threads that pulsed around her could brush her skin freely, caressingly.

“What will happen next? It is quite simple. I will ensure Zoey is drawn back to Oklahoma. There, on my own terms, I will complete the task you failed.”

To her retreating back the immortal asked, “And what of me?”

Neferet paused and glanced over her shoulder. “You will return to Tulsa, too, only separately. I have need of you, but you cannot be with me publically. Do you not remember, my love, that you are a killer now? Heath Luck’s death was your doing.”

“Our doing,” he said.

She smiled silkily. “Not according to the High Council.” She met his eyes. “This is what is going to happen. I need you to regain your strength quickly. By dusk tomorrow I will have to report to the High Council that your soul has returned to your body, and that you confessed to me you killed the human boy because you thought his hatred for me a threat. I will tell them because you believed you were protecting me, I was merciful in your punishment. I only had you flogged one hundred strokes and then banished you from my side for one century.”

Kalona struggled to sit. Neferet was pleased to see anger flash in his amber eyes.

“You expect to be bereft of my touch for a century?”

“Of course not. I will graciously allow you to return to my side after your wounds have healed. Until then I will still have your touch; it will simply be away from the prying eyes of the public.”

His brow lifted. She thought how arrogant he looked, even weakened and defeated.

“How long do you expect me to skulk in the shadows, pretending to heal from nonexistent wounds?”

“I expect you to be absent from my side until your wounds do heal.” With a quick, precise movement, Neferet brought her wrist to her lips and bit deeply, instantly drawing a circle of blood. Then she began to make a swirling motion with her uplifted arm, sifting through the air while sticky threads of Darkness slithered greedily around her wrist, attaching to the blood like leeches. She ground her teeth together, forcing herself to remain unflinching, even when the sharpness of the tentacles stabbed her over and over. When they seemed bloated enough, Neferet spoke softly, lovingly to them. “You’ve taken your payment. Now you must do my bidding.” She looked from the throbbing strands of Darkness to her immortal lover. “Lash him deeply. One hundred times.” Neferet hurled Darkness at Kalona.

The weakened immortal only had time to unfurl his wings and begin to vault for the edge of the castle’s roof. The razor threads caught him midstride. They wrapped around his wings at the sensitive base where they met his spine. Instead of leaping from the rooftop he was trapped, pinned against the ancient stone of the balustrade while Darkness began to slowly, methodically, slice furrows into his naked back.

Neferet watched only until his proud, handsome head sagged in defeat and his body jerked convulsively with every cutting stroke.

“Do not mar him permanently. I plan to enjoy the beauty of his skin again,” she said before turning her back on Kalona and walking purposefully from the blood-soaked rooftop.

“It seems I must do everything myself, and there is so much to do … so much to do…,” she whispered to the Darkness that flitted about her ankles.

From the shadows within shadows Neferet thought she caught the outline of a massive bull watching her with approval and pleasure.

Neferet smiled.