Chapter 9
IT’S TIME TO VENT
LEELA
The ship hovered over the chamber housing the ancestor pillars.
A ramp made of clouds reached for the earth.
Djinn and Asura climbed slowly to the deck, carrying packs of essentials.
The ship had no kitchens, but Jaantor had offered to use his emberflame to light the fires needed to cook a meal, and carts filled with large cooking pots and the tripods to suspend them on were carried on board now along with crates of vegetables and meat.
Zarael assured the people that there was a cold spot on the ship where the meat could be stored.
The cloud ship was fast, and whereas it had taken us a week to reach Shantivan on turtleback, it would take the cloud ship four days if the weather held.
The revenants were gone just as Alliana had promised they would be. I had no idea where, but I hoped to the gods that they were out of the primordial evil’s reach. The possibility that he might be able to control them hadn’t occurred to me until now. All I could do was hope he didn’t find them.
Watching the people board, knowing that they’d be safe for a time lifted a weight off my shoulders. I could focus on the task at hand now. On gathering muscle. Allies so I could fight my way to a portway and get into Aakash Sansaar. Kalani and the stone-faced brothers helped to load up the ship.
“You did it,” C’ael said. “You promised them sanctuary, and you provided it. You came back.”
A flash of irritation lit up my chest. “Why do you keep saying that, as if you can’t quite believe it?”
His brows pinched, and he shook his head. “I…I’m not sure why.”
The soft vulnerability in his tone curbed my annoyance.
I turned to face him and lightly gripped his shoulders, looking up into his handsome face.
“C’ael, if I say I’m going to do something, I do it.
The only thing that would have kept me from coming back here was death or a logistic issue.
In which case, Zarael would have told you where to find me. I won’t leave you behind.”
He sucked in a breath. I’d obviously hit a nerve.
“Do you promise?” he asked.
I smiled up at him. “I promise.”
His shoulders relaxed, and a gentle warmth unfurled in my chest. C’ael might be sassy and snarky, he might be authoritative and protective, but he was also vulnerable in a way I had yet to understand. And he was mine…at least for now.
He exhaled and dropped his gaze. “So we recruit nagrata?”
Ah, back on solid ground. I liked it. “Yep, that’s the plan.”
“I don’t recall Iblees…I mean, the primordial evil mentioning them.”
“Good, then maybe he didn’t know about them. We can only hope.”
Zarael came down the ramp toward us, past the last of the djinn and drohi making their way to the ship.
She paused here and there to speak a few words to the passengers.
Reassuring them, no doubt. Jaantor remained on board, his flame hair rippling in the breeze, arms crossed over his broad chest as he watched the ship fill up.
“Leela!” Dodi came running up to me, wrapped his arms around my waist, and began to sob.
“Hey, you.” I stroked his head, looking up at Falima as she hurried over. “What happened?” I tried to pull away from Dodi so I could look at him, but he clung tighter to me.
“He had a bad dream,” Falima said. “That’s all. See, Dodi, Leela is fine. She’s safe.”
“I saw her falling,” Dodi said. “Falling through the sky.”
I tensed, no doubt in my mind that the boy had the gift of prophetic vision.
First the dream of Iblees with the crown and now this.
I’d only accessed the prophetic ability once when I’d seen my grandmother killed by the pischacha.
My visions since then had been memories of a past life.
But this boy saw the future, and he’d seen me fall.
I gently prised him off me and crouched so we were eye to eye.
“I’m all right. I did fall, but Zarael caught me.” I pointed across at the vayujaari headed our way. “She saved me.”
He sniffed and wiped his eyes. “You’re sure? It…it already happened?”
“I’m sure. We’re good. I promise.”
“What’s going on?” Zarael said.
“Dodi had a vision,” C’ael said. “He saw Leela fall.” He frowned across at me. “You didn’t tell me that you fell.”
“I caught her so quickly, it was hardly much of a fall at all,” Zarael quipped. She smiled at Dodi. “If you have any more visions, you can tell me, and I’ll make sure that Leela is informed.”
He looked up at her, his eyes wide with awe.
“Come, love.” Falima gently steered him away toward the boat, misty gaze settling on me. “Thank you for everything.”
They climbed the ramp. The last to board the ship.
Kalani and the brothers disembarked.
“Is that everyone?” Zarael asked.
“Yes,” Kalani said.
Zarael turned to me. “You have the map to the nagrata?” I nodded.
“Best to wait until daylight to make the trip. The nagrata live in an aerie high up in the mountains. It’s lethally cold at night.
You’ll need the sun hours to survive it.
Dress warm and do not be deceived by mild weather on approach. ”
“We’ll stay here the night, then.”
She nodded curtly. “Be safe until we meet again, Leela. I would very much like to continue our friendship.”
Warmth bloomed in my chest. “Me too.”
“We will keep her alive,” Yudh said.
“We will guard her with our lives,” Dhoona added.
“My life is yours also,” C’ael said. “I vow it.”
Heat gathered behind my eyes, and I forced back the tears, lifting my chin. “Trust me, if I have my way, the only person dying will be the primordial evil.”
It was strange being in camp when everyone was gone.
We didn’t want to be too far from the moona and the chaysavar just in case there was an attack, so we dragged pallets and blankets into the pillar room and slept beneath the stars.
Yudh made a small fire to keep us warm, and Dhoona doled out dried meat and fruit.
The many hours of flying and lack of sleep hit me as I finally allowed my body to relax.
I slipped into slumber easily, into dreams of blood-soaked battlefields and dark stormy skies laced with blue lightning, to the training ground in Prashikshan where the clang of metal on metal created a nostalgic symphony, to my shared quarters with Araz, to the night we finally became one in body. Yes, I wanted to stay in this dream.
I slipped deeper, surrendering to it.
Araz claimed my lips in deep open-mouthed kisses that dragged my breath from my lungs, leaving me lightheaded.
He kneaded and grasped at my thighs, opening me wide so he could fill me, stretch me, drawing strange guttural sounds up my throat.
His hips kissed mine as he buried himself inside me, each thrust deeper, harder, as if he was making love to my soul.
“Mine.” His growl reverberated through me, settling at the nub of desire between my thighs. Oh gods. Oh, I didn’t want him to stop. Low, keening sounds climbed up my throat. Breathless. Tight. More.
“Yes, Leela. You want this.”
Needles danced across my scalp as he fisted my hair, yanking my head back to look down at me with eyes like flame.
I gasped, and he pushed his thumb into my mouth, forcing it open. “You love this, don’t you?”
My head spun, the world tipped, and I was on my front, his hand on the back of my head, holding me down as he spread me.
There was something off. Something.
He entered me, the angle deeper, hitting the spot that made my eyes roll.
“Yes…Please.”
His hips slapped against my ass, picking up tempo.
“Touch yourself, Leela. Do it.”
I reached between my thighs, fingers finding my swollen clit and rubbing in the rhythm I craved. Oh, so close. So fucking close.
“You want this. You knew it was different. Rougher. But you wanted it.”
Oh gods, I was going to come.
“You wanted me not him.” He fucked me harder, deeper.
No. No, this was wrong. This wasn’t Araz, this was—
I came, walls clenching around him, body pushing back on instinct to milk this feeling even as tears leaked from my eyes and guilt twisted my insides.
Hot breath kissed my ears. “You wanted me to fuck you, Leela. Not Araz. Me.”
“NO!”
“Leela, it’s all right.”
I batted at the hands trying to hold me. “No, I didn’t. I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay. You’re okay.” C’ael’s soft baritone soothed the ache in my chest. “You had a nightmare.”
A nightmare. I blinked myself awake, locking on to his concerned face, a bitter taste in my mouth, the weight of guilt crushing my heart. I sensed the others around me, awake and alert now, and my lungs shrank.
Kalani got up slowly and left the room, and the stone-faced brothers followed, leaving me alone with C’ael.
He tucked a tendril of my hair behind my ear with infinite gentleness. “Talk to me, Leela. Tell me what’s weighing on you.”
I couldn’t. I didn’t want to say it. Because saying it would make it real, and then…then it would hurt more. It would claw at my waking mind, not just at my sleeping soul.
“Leela…you need to air it. Let it out, whatever it is, and we can burn it clean. Together.”
Clean…I hadn’t felt clean since that night. The bastard had put a stain inside my soul. I needed it gone. I bit back a sob. “I let it have me, C’ael. In the steam baths, I let it have my body.”
“You didn’t know.”
“But I should have. I should have known. I should have fucking known it wasn’t Araz. I should have questioned the difference and—”
“No. Stop this right now. This is what it wants. You weakened. You riddled with guilt and doubt. You cannot let him have that, otherwise he will win. You made love to Araz. You made love to his soul because that is who you believed him to be. Evil cannot touch that, and—”
“He told me that Araz saw it.” My vision blurred, and I blinked to clear it, releasing hot tears down my cheeks.
“He saw that thing have me, and he couldn’t do anything about it.
” I squeezed my eyes shut. “Do you know that Araz tried to surface? He asked me so many times to stop him, but I thought…I thought he was being a gentleman, that because he was now Iblees he was trying to give me the choice of waiting, and I…I should have waited.”
“I am sure that Araz knows the truth of it. That he understands. Leela, this is not your fault. None of it. He needed your body. Your consent. He needed to access your bond with Araz, with Iblees your twin flame in order to force a connection strong enough to get into the royal domain. He knew enough to sway you, to make you believe. He wounded you, and we will make him pay. I swear it.”
His eyes gleamed like emeralds in the firelight, his jaw tight with determined rage on my behalf, allowing me to let go, to be soft. The tears that I’d been holding ever since Araz was taken from me for the second time crashed into me in a suffocating wave.
I fell against him, clutching his shirt, my body shaking, venting the emotion that it had been housing for too long. I wasn’t sure how long I sobbed, or how long he held me and rocked me, whispering phrases that made no sense and yet served to soothe me.
When the tide of grief retreated, it left a burning coal in my chest.
I was done doubting.
Done grieving.
It was time for retribution. For retaliation. And I was ready.