Chapter 36
I stareat Juliana Fortuna with new eyes as she takes in Memnon, whose power is crackling off him. I can practically hear the gears in her head grinding together as she tries to piece together the situation from her end.
“Put your magic away,” she finally commands.
I’m sure she’s expecting him to do as she says. She believes he’s bonded to her after all.
Instead, Memnon continues to stare at her, his expression growing colder and colder as his power gathers.
“You touched my mate.”
“Mate?” I hear the surprise in Juliana’s voice. “You’re her bond?”
She glances down at me, reassessing, before returning her gaze to Memnon. I can’t move with my injuries, but I imagine she’s taking in his glowing eyes and rustling hair.
“Who are you really?” she asks. She must realize she’s been played.
“Your executioner.” He says it without malice, as though it were simply a fact, and that makes the words truly ominous.
The sorceress murmurs under her breath, drawing her magic in her hands, then she throws a spell at my mate, the thick mass of it streaked through with oily black lines.
Dark magic.
Memnon lifts a hand and catches the curse. I’ve never seen that done. I can hear it sizzling against his flesh as he closes his fist around it. With a final hiss, it snuffs out like a blown candle.
“Creature, attack him!”
The clay monstrosity charges toward Memnon, and its clay lips peel back, revealing sharpened gray canines.
Right as it’s nearly on Memnon, my mate reaches out and rubs away a portion of the Hebrew word truth from the creature’s forehead.
All at once, the creature’s form stiffens, losing its animation. It falls to the ground, shattering apart, the sound like a clay pot smashing. I stare at what remains of the thing’s head. On its forehead, I can just make out what remains of the Hebrew word, which is now missing one letter. What remains reads as a different word entirely.
Death.
“Creature, repair yourself!” Juliana commands.
I wait for the bits of dried clay to cobble themselves back together, but they remain where they fell, still and lifeless.
Memnon returns his attention to the sorceress, his magic rapidly folding inward, toward his form.
For the first time, I see a flicker of misgiving in Juliana’s eyes, even as they begin to glow?—
BOOM!
Memnon’s magic explodes out of him, ripping through the room and throwing Juliana and everything else back. The only thing Memnon’s magic doesn’t touch is me. The hair on my head doesn’t so much as stir.
The sorceress coughs as debris falls and dust kicks up. Through the haze, I see a set of glowing eyes as Memnon strides forward.
“There is one thing I hold holy in all this gods-forsaken world,” Memnon says, closing in on Juliana. Goose bumps break out along my skin. His voice still has that unsettling otherness to it. “And you hurt her.”
The sorceress sits up enough to lob a curse at Memnon. He bats it away like it’s a fly, but when it hits the wall behind him, it melts a section of drywall.
She throws another and another. He doesn’t bother knocking them all away, and he doesn’t react at all, even when the curses eat away at his clothes, and bits of his flesh smoke.
“You cannot hurt me,” Juliana insists. “I bonded you to me. I remember.”
He doesn’t respond, but when he bends down and grasps her by the neck, it’s clear he can in fact hurt her. His magic closes in on her, the indigo swathes of it stained with dark, oily streaks.
Juliana begins to writhe and scream.
“Selene,” she gasps out between cries, “kill him.”
I suck in a sharp breath as my broken limbs tense at her command. She had ordered something similar of me earlier?—
Your first true task once I release you tonight will be to sever each of those bonds.
That command hadn’t taken root because she hadn’t released me, but now, now her insidious magic is pressing in on me, forcing my body to move.
I cry out as my broken bones are jostled.
Est amage!
In response, Juliana’s screams intensify, like Memnon worsened the curse he struck her with.
My body is still trying to pick itself up, broken bones and all. Beyond the pain, there is a different sort of anguish. Horror crawls along my skin at the thought of killing Memnon. I have loathed the man and wished for his demise more than once, but…but somewhere along the way, things between us have changed.
No. I fight the compulsion. I will not do this.
Sweat begins to bead on my brow as I battle the magic.
I will not harm my soul mate.
Just when I’m sure I’ll be forced to comply anyway, the command’s power over me dissipates, washing away like blood in the rain.
I breathe hard as I lie there on the ground, sweat dripping down my face. Or maybe they’re tears.
Some bonds are stronger than others. Not even a forced bond can overpower a fated one.
I stare up at the ceiling. “That foolish woman doesn’t know who we are,” I say in Sarmatian, my voice shaky. King, queen. Husband, wife. Ancient lovers, recent enemies. Soul mates.
Beneath his rage, I feel Memnon’s violent pleasure at this acknowledgment.
He reels the writhing sorceress in close. “You made enemies of the wrong people, sorceress.” I see his grip visibly tighten.
Juliana’s screams have turned into choked sobs. “Please, please,” she says hoarsely. She doesn’t say what she’s begging for. Mercy of some sort. I think she knows she’s not going to get it. Not given the circumstances of the evening.
With his free hand, Memnon withdraws his dagger. “I made a promise to my mate,” he says softly, “that the moment I found who had hurt her, I would make their deaths slow.”
He releases Juliana’s throat, and the sorceress falls to her knees. No sooner is she kneeling than Memnon grabs her hair, tilts her head back, and drags his blade across the sorceress’s throat.
A line of blood blooms like a crimson necklace, and I startle at the sudden violence.
Juliana cries out, her power flaring, but Memnon’s own power snaps out in response, forcing hers back into her body.
She’s not dying, I realize. The cut, though it looked wicked, was simply a flesh wound.
Memnon releases her hair and brings the tip of the dagger to his other hand. Swiftly he draws it down his palm. My stomach bottoms out when I begin to suspect what he intends.
He wraps his bloody hand around the sorceress’s wounded neck.
“With blood I bind?—”
“No!” she screams. “No, no! Selene Bowers, I command you to stop him.”
I clench my teeth as another compulsion takes root and I have to fight it off all over again.
“With bone I break.” Memnon begins to smile now, unholy menace in his glowing eyes. “Only through death shall I at last forsake.”
What Memnon is doing shouldn’t be possible. The amount of magic needed for a forced bond is so massive it requires a spell circle. That’s why Lia called in those supernaturals earlier when she bonded me, and it’s why she hosted spell circles beneath Henbane Coven. But I can sense the sorcerer’s magic relentlessly building anyway.
“What I command, you shall obey. Your will is mine till your dying day.”
She screams again, only this time, it’s more out of anguish than physical pain.
Holy Goddess. Memnon did it. He bound Juliana’s will to his own.
“You will not give Selene Bowers another order, ever,” he says. “You will not hurt Selene ever again. You will not hurt me ever. You will not use magic ever. You will stay here on your knees, and you won’t speak, and you won’t move. You will wait patiently for me.” Roughly, he releases the sorceress.
Memnon crosses the room to me, his hair stirring and his eyes burning. His power billows about him as he crunches over the remains of the sorceress’s creature. If I were anyone else, I would be terrified.
When he gets to me, he kneels. So much of him is consumed by his power at the moment. I can’t see any softness to him. But then his hand presses to my cheek.
Beneath Memnon’s touch, his power floods my body, reaching for my broken bones. The healing spell warms me as it moves through my system and mends my injuries.
His thumb strokes my cheek as he gazes down at me.
I’m sorry, he says. For your pain. For not healing you sooner. For coming so late.
I don’t know how I have any more tears in me, but a few more squeeze out.
I lean into his hand. You came. That’s all I can seem to say.
I will always come, he vows.
Gradually, my pain ebbs away. I sense it the moment I’m fully healed.
With a sob, I lunge for Memnon, wrapping my arms around him and burying my face in his shoulder. My whole body is shaking violently. Even though my body is healed, it still has some memory of all that’s been done to it.
I still sense Memnon’s otherness—he’s more magic than man at the moment—but his arms close around me, and he holds me tight to him.
Fierce queen, enduring mate, I’ve got you. I am yours, forever.