Chapter 56
Fifty-Six
Adham simply took the blow. Though Mirceo’s fist had felt like a cannon shot, he deserved that hit and more.
Then he realized what could have happened to Kosmina. “I could’ve killed her! You two were here the whole time and you let her confront me by herself? Why weren’t you with her?”
Mirceo shook out his hand, seeming surprised that Adham still stood after that powerhouse punch. “Fuck if I know how she convinced us not to be.”
“Hey, hey, everyone,” Kosmina said. “We won the day. No one got hurt. . . .” She trailed off with a frown at Enti. “Wait a second. You could have forbidden violence in your lair.”
Enti’s dazzling smile threatened to emerge. “I usually do. Wrath is good, but not nearly as good as all the other vices put together.”
Kosmina gasped with realization. “You knew Adham would be a threat—and you knew I would make some concession to avoid hurting you. You plotted all this to get his stronghold!”
She examined her nails. “Had enough time to.”
“Another ruse?”
“There’s no such thing as too many.” Broad wink.
When Adham tensed beside her, Kosmina said, “What’s done is done. Tempers are flaring. We should go.”
Go. Break the chain. Yet he stood with his palms glowing. Could a Sorceri who’d lived for payback let his adversary go unpunished? Adham peered down at his mate’s clear eyes, her gaze so full of concern. Everything I want is before me.
He turned to Enti. “I’m going to follow my mate’s lead and let this vendetta go.” He added icily, “Once.”
Enti adjusted her mask. “Until we meet again, sorcerer.”
With a last look around, he said, “I hope this place does to you everything that it did to me.”
“Come, love,” Kosmina said, hastily tracing him to the front entrance.
Sand blew over the structure, a storm approaching the valley. With a wave of his hand, he quieted it, revealing the full moon.
“Oh, Adham.” She smiled up at him with a proud look, and his shoulders straightened. “You gave up revenge for our future.”
“I’d do anything for you.” Despite what had happened or what would happen, he’d somehow earned her love. And his ever-stalwart princess, unbending in her loyalty, had saved him from his curse. She was as magnificent as the greatest desert; like a desert, she’d claimed his heart whole.
Nothing else mattered. Which meant he had work to do toward their future. When Mirceo and Caspion found them outside, Adham told them, “I apologize for hurting you both.”
With an expression of surprise, Caspion said, “An apology to the ones who got you sent to Nightside? Holy shit, the player really is in love.”
“Yes. I am.” He took Kosmina’s hand in his, earning a scowl from her brother. “And if you hadn’t dispatched me there, I never would have met her.” Adham gazed back at the stronghold warily. I would still be back there within those walls. He faced them again. “So I can only thank you for delivering me to hell.” Words he never would’ve believed he’d say. But the true hell would be not having her.
Mirceo appeared nonplussed before his scowl returned. “You cut off my head! Nearly!”
“I had no control. I tried to warn you, but my actions weren’t my own.”
“Now what? We’ll have to do this every time you get high or sloppy and lose your power.”
“I’ll never get high again, and I’ll never lose it again. I only did the first time because I’d just killed tens of thousands of ghouls and warded off a primordial. Plus, no one’s ever made a move for my secondary ability. I’ll lock it down like I’ve done with my root sorcery, and that hasn’t been stolen from me in eons.”
“But it was once stolen?” Caspion asked. His friendship with Bettina meant he was familiar with the Sorceri. “You were an Inferi?”
Kosmina’s grip on Adham’s hand tightened in support, yet the word had no sting. Everything was relative.
From inside, Enti yelled, “Guess who won at poker tonight, people? This sorceress! Drinks all around!”
Kosmina nibbled her bottom lip. “You’re not angry that she has your holding?”
“I never want to see this place again. I’ll build you a new castle in this realm. A fresh start.” He pressed his forehead to hers and could almost hear Mirceo’s deepening glower.
“You still might get red eyes, sister. You only drank him once. You can quit.”
She laughed. “I’m going to drink him this very night!”
Adham went ramrod straight. After her bite, his body had prepared for future ones, creating more blood for her. His veins felt thick with it. “I concur.” Wonder rippled through him at the turn of his fortunes.
Mirceo’s jaw muscles bulged as he obviously bit back choice words. At length, he said, “I’m trying hard not to strike right now. Just . . . Cas, help me out here.”
Sounding resigned, the demon said, “She’s not a child. There’s nothing we can or should do. Except for one point. The sorcerer just said he’d build her a castle in this realm , which is?—”
“—not fucking happening,” Mirceo finished for him.
These two hadn’t yet been a couple when they’d captured him. Now they appeared bonded for eternity. “The Gaolers won’t give up,” Adham said. “They’ll find another jail and come for me again. And possibly Kosmina as well, now that she’s escaped.”
“She no longer has the plague,” Caspion said. “She’ll be fine. And we can protect her in Dacia.”
“Adham and I will live here in Poly,” she said. “We’d already planned to.”
“Sister, no. This place is unequaled desolation.”
“Which is what I would suffer without him. Would you rather live with your new mate in Poly or live without him?”
“That sorcerer is not your mate. How can I convince you?”
“You can’t. But I can convince you, quelling this topic forever . . .” Kosmina grew hazy, forming a mist—and she enveloped Adham in it as well. Their skin grew indistinct, their outlines glittering like sun-struck quartz. She told Adham, “I can share it with you because we’re connected by fate.”
He marveled from within her bank of vapor. “We’re truly like air. I scarcely believed it earlier. You’re a vampire of many talents. And suddenly I understand how those two breached my stronghold.”
“Weakhold.” Kosmina grinned up at him, her oasis gaze merry. “Our new castle had better be an improvement.”
“Oh, it will be. Can they hear or see us?”
“Not unless they enter our mist.”
He drew her close. “How long I’ve searched for you—even when I didn’t know what I was looking for.” He pressed his lips to hers in promise. The kiss intensified, the fuse about to light . . .
When he reluctantly pulled back—her brother stood feet away and was still fuming—her expression was soft. She understood the pledge in his kiss.
Solidifying them once more, Kosmina told Mirceo, “You know I couldn’t include a non-Dacian in my mist unless I was connected to him by fate. He’s mine.”
Caspion shrugged. “You can’t argue with mist. Welcome to the family, sorcerer.” He elbowed Mirceo.
“Not so fast!” The vampire paced in tight circuits. “Even if I can somehow accept this sorcerer with my sister, I can’t accept Poly’s time differential. If we trace from Dacia here twice a day, she’d still go decades without seeing us.” He told Kosmina, “Should you two—I can’t believe I’m about to say this—have children, Cas and I won’t know them until they’re grown. Our family would be torn apart.”
Kosmina softly admitted, “Mirceo’s right. It wouldn’t be fair to them.”
Adham told her, “I’ll live in Dacia. For myself, I’d do this without a second thought.” But for her . . . she’d once confided that she’d been slowly dying down there.
“I don’t want to live in Dacia, but I can’t go without seeing my family either.” She was now faced with two unacceptable options: reside in a place she’d yearned to leave or miss her loved ones. Then her eyes widened. “There is another place. Would you take me to Sorselan?”
Mirceo: “Source what?”
Caspion muttered, “It’s the Sorceri origin realm. Abandoned now. You should know it’s a desert realm.”
Mirceo halted his pacing. “A desert? We are vampires . Nothing is more horrifying than a blank canvas beneath a blazing sun.” He shuddered. “We like dark. And cold. And underground. For a reason!”
The corners of her lips curved as she gazed at Adham. “I’ve heard the moon over the dunes is wondrous. And I do have my mist for the daytime.”
Adham’s heart pounded. Could he be hearing her right? “I’ll take you anywhere, but are you sure?” Excitement hummed inside him at the thought of starting a life with her there. He could already imagine the castle he would build her—and the site.
“I’m positive. But would the memories be too much?” She frowned. “You might not want to return?—”
He waved his hand and shaved flat a nearby dune, smoothed as if with a razor. “We’ll wipe that slate clean and make new memories.”
Her expression grew elated. “Then it’s settled.”
“Tell us about security,” Caspion said with typical hunter pragmatism. “Assume the Gaolers keep coming.”
“My sorcery is fully restored”—as boundless as his feelings for Kosmina—“which means that each grain of sand would be a sentry. I could detect anyone who arrived in the realm.”
Mirceo wasn’t sold. “What if the Gaolers just appear in your home and use time manipulation?”
Kosmina said, “I sensed their presence before they arrived, and my breaths condensed. Now that we know what to look for, we can trace to Poly at the first sign of them.”
Adham added, “The sand scyllas are rumored to repel time manipulation. It’s why I lured them to this holding. They were my backup in case the Gaolers ever breached Poly. With your help, we could transport the creatures to Sorselan.”
Kosmina grinned. “I promised Enti zero scyllas with the transfer of this property.” As if to punctuate her words, one of them belched loudly from the base of the pyramid and sand puffed up into the air.
“Rumored to repel? Rumored?” Mirceo’s patience frayed at the edges. “There’s still too much risk.”
“I’m willing to take some risk in order to live ,” Kosmina pointed out. “Besides, since I’ve met Adham, I’ve dreamed of the desert. I think for a reason.” Squeezing his hand, she said, “We’ve decided we’re going to reside there. Wish us well.”
At that, Caspion said, “We do, Mina, and we’ll help you two in any way we can.” He addressed his mate: “Come on, leechling, give them your blessing, and let’s get to it. We’ve got drunken scyllas to wrangle.”
Tense moments passed, and Adham felt as if his future hung suspended over a sand trap.
Then Kosmina said, “Brother, while I would prefer to have your blessing, I do not need it.”
Adham checked a smile. His princess, shy no more, would live only on her own terms.
“Well. You really are different.” Mirceo threw his hands up in surrender. “Fine. No hard feelings, Silt.”
She firmly said, “His name is Adham.”