“He would be a damn fool. It was only a few days ago the empire tried to capture Ajali. Why would they attempt another abduction so soon? It would also profit Avindar greater if they had a Tenzu in their kingdom.”
“I…I do not know that I can marry him. I do not think when the three months is up…I can allow him into my body when you hold my heart.”
A monstrous fury pounded through him with such ferocity, a shard of pain splintered through his head.
“Gavyn?”
“Give me a moment,” he muttered, breathing through the pure fury.
Smoke wafted from beneath him, and he struggled to contain the unexpected burn of violence through his body. And he knew with certainty if the prince touched Xian the man had forfeited his life.
"Do not allow him to consummate the alliance." His voice sounded hollow and rough
as if it was the beast in him which spoke. Gavyn dug his head into the pillow, trying to be logical and rational. He rolled her beneath him, keeping his weight on his elbows, and peered down into her eyes. “Your king is asking you to sacrifice much for our people.”
She cupped his cheek tenderly. “Us. He is asking us. And I almost hate my kalija for it, because I know he would not relinquish Tehdra for the world.”
“It is hard,” Gavyn said, dropping his forehead to hers. “The most difficult thing we will ever have to do. It is normal to feel the press of doubt, but I know your honor, and you will not waver."
And for the hundredth time, he wished there was another way.
With a growl of frustration, she shimmied from beneath him, and he let her go. She flashed off the bed and started to pace. Standing almost a foot shorter than he was, she seemed so fragile, yet waves of energy simmered in the air around her, testifying to the relentless fire buried at the heart of the woman. One she did not control and struggled to understand how it fed her rage and emotions.
“Calm your thoughts,” he urged sitting up. “We will do what we must, and I swear we will find each other again.”
She whirled to face him. “Do you swear it, Gavyn?”
“I swear it. Even if it takes one hundred years.”
Even if he had to slit Prince Baku’s throat. The dark, brutal thought made him flinch, and he glanced down at his hand to ensure the inks were not becoming more.
She flashed onto the bed, and he tugged her atop his chest, and he settled back against the mound of cushions. They held each other for a long time, with no words spoken between them. She was a pleasant weight against his chest, her head on his shoulder, her locks spreading out across his torso. Her sigh of contentment filled him with pleasure.
“Tell me about you,” she murmured. “I need to know before I depart tomorrow.”
“What do you wish to know?”
“How…when did you know you were half Darkan?”
He rubbed his hand down the smooth curve of her side and buttocks, and up again, aware the soothing motions were more for himself than her. "It was on my one-hundredth birthday. I woke with a fever that the palace healers could not heal. My father was summoned…" His throat closed as the memories gripped him in a brutal vise.
Gavyn exhaled. “I did not understand why but my father waited in my chamber with a sword and valnetium chains.”
“Oh Gavyn,” Xian gasped.
"For days I burned with fever as the darkness inside me struggled to manifest. I did not imagine I was a half-blood. No one had ever told me anything about my mother other than that she died birthing me."
To recall the attack of his father as the sword had swung toward his head, and fire had belched in the room, all with the intent to end his life hurt somewhere deep down inside. A place that had never healed, where betrayal had longed lingered in a mire of darkness. “My father tried to kill me.”
She stiffened, rage pouring through her veins and leaking through her chakra.
"Little is known about Darkans, but it seems they come into some of their powers on the cusp of their one-hundredth year. My father…my father who taught me honor, who taught me to fight, to control my flames, the man who taught me about duty and loyalty to our nation knew this. He waited and watched, and when it was evident the blood and powers of the dark ones would manifest in me, he tried to kill me. As he had killed my mother."
A choked gasp ripped from his lover, and she scrambled to sit in the center of the bed, staring at him with shocked eyes. "He…your father killed your mother?"
“Along with every servant that had been present in the birthing chamber.”
They stared at each other, and the compassion in her eyes soothed the stirring darkness. "When he tried to kill me, though I was still fevered, we fought, and I conquered. I held my sword with the blade coated with fire to his throat and demanded the truth. You see he loved my mother, but he had not known of her origins. While she birthed me, her nature was revealed. The exile laws had recently been passed. And my father claimed he did what was necessary to protect the house of Westk’arr.”