39
The Paks Desert opened like a blooming rose before my eyes as we rode through the final pass between it and the rolling valley that nestled the capital region. Where there had been one piercing mountain after another, there was now a flat, endless sea of earth. Hues of red and gold dusted the expanse, almost glittering as the sun struck them. I halted Blaeze on an overlook and stared in wonder at the landscape.
Deep scarlet rock, striated with colors like silver, purple, and green, guarded the sides of a winding downhill road that led to the first stretch of burnt sand. In the distance, a twister kicked up, billowing about and spreading dirt in all directions. Unlike the ones that leveled homes and tore through fields in the southernmost parts of the Demon Realm, this one lived and died in only a few moments and caused very little destruction.
“Keep moving,”
Rokath barked at me, and I ignored him, keeping my eyes firmly ahead as I searched for Ustlyak, where we’d meet the rest of the Demon army. We still had at least two weeks before we’d reach them, but from this vantage point, I thought I could see the other continents.
Rokath moved on anyway, and the bond seared into my back, making me curse. He knew exactly what he was doing. Despite riding beside each other all day, sleeping mere feet from each other at night, the bond was displeased with our inattentiveness to one another yet again. I kicked Blaeze into a trot to catch up with him, and the pain relented when we were parallel.
The moment we left the mountains, the sun scorched my skin, stronger and hotter than even the deepest days of summer in Stryi. I glanced sidelong to Rokath, who was, as always, dressed in his black metal armor and horned helmet. “Are you not hot?”
I asked him.
“It doesn’t matter if I am hot. Should the Angels ambush us, we need to be protected,”
he stated. Typical.
I scoffed. “That’s ridiculous. You’ll sweat to death before that happens.”
His head whipped to the side, and he stabbed me with a glare. “Do you know how the war with the Angels started?”
The iciness in his tone gave me pause. As I searched my memories, I realized I didn’t actually know. At the time, a missive had arrived in Stryi with orders for increased food production, and so my family had worked diligently to expand our farm. My father had no sons, but my sister and I had plowed, planted, and carried as much as we could from sunup to sun down to help.
“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me regardless,”
I grumbled. He’d done the same when I didn’t care to know why no one knew his name. Yet now I knew, and I reluctantly admitted he had a point.
Rokath grunted and shifted slightly in his saddle. Then with a sigh, he removed his helmet and attached it with a leather strap, easily within reach should he need it. From his bag, he pulled two scarves and handed one to me. “I know you don’t want to cover your face with a veil any longer, but drape this over your head and shoulders so you don’t burn.”
I accepted his offering, confusion sweeping through me.
Is he actually taking care of me?
Rokath wrapped the dark fabric around his head, draping it in such a way it covered every bare inch of skin. I mimicked him, using my hair as an anchor so it wouldn’t fly away in a gust of wind.
The relief was immediate.
“A little over ten years ago, I was ambushed on a patrol at the edges of House Turrokar’s vidék. We were vastly outnumbered, and every single male was slaughtered in the attack, except for me. When I returned to Uzhhorod with my tale, Xannirin decided we could wait no longer to declare war against them. That attack alone was done with enough aggression to warrant it.”
Rokath repeated the story with zero feeling, as if he were studying the sky to relay his weather prediction for the day. Yet beneath his hardened exterior, a whisper of pain drifted down our bond.
“How did you survive?”
I asked quietly.
“I am the Halálhívó. Give me enough dead bodies and I can turn the tide in my favor.”
He adjusted the scarf lower on his face, blocking the shifting angle of the sun.
I sat with that information for a long while, Blaeze’s back swaying beneath me as we traversed the sand. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw that most of the army still wound down from the mountain. The sheer size of us was impossible to miss, and I tried to imagine why the Angels would dare ambush a group of this size.
“Where did you get that?”
Rokath asked, dissipating my thoughts like smoke in the wind.
“Get what?”
I asked, attention settling heavily on him.
He pointed at my hand. “That.”
Then, I realized, the garnet and gold glinted in the sunlight. “Impressive, Halálhívó, how much attention you’ve paid to me in the past two weeks. I’ve had it the entire time we’ve known each other.”
A lie, but with some truth in it at least. I had it in Vagach’s bags at the war camp. It was just temporarily lost to me before Rapp won it back.
“Rapp won it back for you?”
“Stop reading my thoughts!”
“You dressed as a male and played cards with him?”
I slammed up that mental barrier.
“Try all you want, little imposter, but you can’t permanently keep me out when I want in.”
“Rapp cares about my happiness more than you.”
“Clearly I care more about your safety than he does.”
“Again, you only want to protect me to save your own skin.”
Something that felt a lot like hurt trickled down our bond before it shut off like a water tap. Then, silence stretched between us.
My thoughts tumbled like the thick, dry brush around us when the wind whipped up. After an hour or so, I was grateful for the scarf Rokath had given me. Sweat dripped down my back, and I was so miserable, alone in my thoughts, that I finally said something.
“If I’m here, I could be helpful, you know.”
While I doubted that he would agree to anything, I had to try to carve out some meaning for myself other than being a fucking decoration on the horse beside him.
Without bothering to look at me, Rokath grumbled something under his breath.
“I’m serious,”
I protested, tearing my head to the side and narrowing my eyes on him.
Finally, he faced me. “And what do you think you could do?”
I glanced behind us at the tens of thousands of males preparing to march into a battle. “Well, I did train on the road to Uzhhorod.”
The scoff that slipped out of him was downright offensive. “Absolutely not.”
“Okay well I can cook,”
I huffed, releasing my reins and letting Blaeze hang his head. He seemed to be just as lethargic as I was as the heat continued to beat into my bones.
“And have you interacted with the army as a whole? I don’t think so,”
Rokath replied.
I threw my hands in the air. “Then what can I do? I don’t know anything about armies or war but surely there’s something.”
Rokath’s burgundy eyes were shadowed as the sun dipped behind his head. “That’s right, you don’t know anything. You are here because there is nowhere safer for you than by my side.”
I clenched my teeth around the words that wanted to break free. Instead, I muttered, “So if I have to be here, at least let me help. Females can be just as useful as males, you know. Like Kiira. You trust her to do important things. Let me feel like my life has some meaning, some purpose. I went so long without it.”
Some of the edge to Rokath’s hard expression softened. It was so slight, most people wouldn’t have noticed. But with our amplified connection, it was as if I could feel his thorns dulling. “With Vagach.”
“Yes.”
My throat thickened, and I looked away. His pity was unwelcome.
A long moment passed, and his eyes burned into the side of my face. “I will think about it.”
Neither of us bothered to say anything else as we rode through the afternoon, pausing once everyone was on the sand for a water break and to pray.
“You’ll kneel beside me at the front today,”
he said, holding Blaeze’s reins and allowing me to dismount.
“Like a good little fallen,”
I quipped, adjusting the scarf so it hid more of my face.
“Exactly like that,”
he growled, and a brush of lust caressed my chest.
As I followed him to the head of the army, I stomped the sand extra hard, because my anger had to go somewhere. Grem and Zeec trotted along beside me. When Rokath halted, they automatically sank onto their haunches. A muscle ticked in my jaw before I knelt and dropped my head, staring at my folded hands like they would save me. Thousands and thousands of eyes seared into me, and I wanted nothing more than to be hidden away in one of the supply wagons like I had been during the previous days’ prayer time.
Rokath’s blade cast a spot of bright light at his feet as the sun bounced off of it. I flicked my attention up at him but remained bowed. He brought the blade to his palm and sliced without so much as a flinch.
“Weaver, who spins the threads of our fates, lay down the path for us to tread, unyielding and unbroken. We walk at your command, our feet bound by the threads you have woven. Guide us to glory as we march beneath the banner of war. For the Kral, for me, these soldiers bleed. Bind their fates to ours, so that we may rise victorious.”
His voice was like an earthquake—deep, powerful, and carrying for miles. A chill crept up my spine. This was the voice of the Halálhívó, the one that supposedly sent terror into the hearts of the Angels.
Anyone who didn’t tremble beneath its might was an idiot.
With predatory slowness, he knelt, pressing his palm flat against the earth. “Giver, bless us with abundant wells of magic so we wield in your name during battle. Let the blood we spill slake your thirst, and let us slaughter those who defy your design. Gift us with the power we need to bring majesty to your name. By our blood, we honor you.”
“By our blood, we honor you,”
the males echoed, bleeding into the sand as they pressed themselves into it.
Rokath turned to me and I offered him my hand without thinking. My core clenched as the memory of him slicing into my wrists and branding me with his mark rose. He must have recalled it too by the way his pupils dilated. With surprisingly gentle ease, he slid the blade across my palm, and I turned my hand over, letting my life drip away.
“Reaper, whose curse falls upon those who stray from the path, let us not taste your wrath. We offer this blood as a pledge of our loyalty. Let your eye wander elsewhere and damn those who question your mighty power. Should we sin, may your curse be swift and unrelenting.”
“We pledge our devotion to the Reaper,”
the army echoed, an almost haunting sound with how many tones blended for those seven words.
Rapp straightened from his prostrated form on Rokath’s other side. “Let the Halálhívó’s victory be swift and the Kral’s reign eternal. Our lives, our magic, our essence, are theirs to command.”
“We are theirs to command.”
The conviction in the males’ tones was nearly awe-inspiring.
Rokath rose, towering over everyone kneeling in the shifting earth. “The Fates gave me the power to call death to our cause for a reason. To end the Angels and their relentless, fanatic pursuit of the extermination of the Demon race. Never forget what they will do in the name of that cause.”
With that, he dismissed everyone for their break. I went to the closest wagon, hopping in it with Grem and Zeec. The hounds panted, hot with their long black fur. The three of us settled in the shade, tucked behind a barrel so every male coming for a drink wouldn’t stare at me. A week into our journey and they hadn’t stopped. At least my wrists were healed now, though the faint white H scarred into them would never leave. I couldn’t decide how I felt about them, if I was being honest with myself.
A primal part of me liked the claim Rokath had laid on me. The logical part of me knew I should never speak to him again because of it. My feelings were confusing, and these long rides weren’t doing anything to help me sort them out. Especially because my mind kept drifting back to the world shattering moment he entered me.
Zeec groaned and rolled over on his back, exposing his belly. Unable to resist his charm, I rubbed both hands along it. “You’re such a good boy,”
I cooed, and his tail thumped against the wood in a staccato rhythm.
At least I had the dogs and Rapp to keep me company and distract me from my thoughts some of the time. As if I had summoned the male, he peeked his head around the barrel. “Do you want to ride in here the rest of the day today?”
“Is that an option?”
I asked. I was still trying to show Rokath that he could trust me enough to let me out of his sight for more than an hour or so at a time. He had to let his guard down in order for me to run. Though with the landscape around us, surviving after would be difficult.
Especially as I scanned the northern horizon and found two skeletal remains of what appeared to have been cattle. Maybe now was the best time, while I still had a chance to retreat into the mountains where I could find water and shelter.
Rapp shrugged. “Do you want permission or forgiveness?”
I smothered a smile. Kiira had shared the same sentiment with me when I defied Rokath and went to that party with her. Rapp and Kiira, I had learned from both of them, were close friends, and I understood why with the similarities they shared.
“I’d rather not have him scream at me in front of the entire army,”
I sighed, feigning defeat.
Rapp laughed. “Fair enough. Halálhívó,”
he shouted over his shoulder. I felt my mate approach, and my heart pounded erratically against my ribcage.
“What?”
he growled.
“Why don’t you let Assyria ride with Grem and Zeec for the rest of the day out of the sun. I’ll ride beside the cart with Blaeze,”
Rapp offered.
Ugh, there goes my chance of slipping away unnoticed.
A grumble echoed into the wagon. “Fine,”
Rokath acquiesced. “Her weight offsets the amount of water we drank anyway.”
I crawled around the barrel and hissed, “I’m so glad you pay attention to my weight.”
Rokath raised one dark eyebrow, scrunching the fang that stretched onto his temple. “Your figure has crossed my mind once or twice.”
Rapp barked a laugh, startling the dogs and sending them scrambling to their feet. Then, he clapped Rokath on the shoulder and gave him a playful shove. “Alright, Halálhívó, better get the troops moving again before this devolves into you two fucking in the wagon.”
“I would never–”
I started.
At the same time Rokath groused, “She wishes I would–”
A scoff slipped out before I could stop it. “You should be grateful I said that we should couple and relax the bond.”
Not like it helped now with the way it tried to shove us together again.
“I knew it,”
Rapp laughed again, this time dragging an infuriated Rokath away. But Rapp’s intervention didn’t stop him from entering my mind to have the last word.
“If I hear you planning to escape one more time, I will shove my cock so far up your ass you won’t be able to walk or ride for a month. And I will thoroughly enjoy every second of it.”