Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Aela barely masked her shock at seeing the un-charred husk of Kaitos standing very much alive in front of her. He appeared in perfect health, despite a few divots across his porcelain face, still embedded with the obsidian she threw at him in what felt like a lifetime ago.
“Do I know you?” Aela asked.
Kaitos’ expression morphed from polite, if bland, to something dangerous. When he still said nothing other than his crude greeting, Aela couldn’t help but ask the question she had mulled over since her discovery on the desert planet.
“You know, I meant to ask before—how did you find me?”
Kaitos stepped closer so as not to be overheard by the other celestials gathered around them for the next wave of dancing.
“I’ll likely enjoy the punishment later for this, but I have a knack for sniffing out useful information and using it to my advantage. Elnath likes to think I’m a mindless mutt. Though, truth be told, when it comes to her cunt, I am.”
Bile crept up Aela’s throat.
“I am like a hound. Restless once I catch a scent. Driven to the point of insanity.”
Aela snorted.
Kaitos flicked her upper arm. “I wasn’t finished,” he hissed. Aela rubbed the sting away and shot him a glare.
“While you were off playing in the desert, the rest of us had to fend for ourselves to survive.”
Aela internally rolled her eyes. As if Prente were easy.
“With the raw crystal supply depleted from the War Before, the Zodiac Houses survived with whatever they made off with, as most of the planets had been plundered and were destroyed. We were at a crossroads, cursed in our orbit and without a steady energy supply. I’ve always been a bit of a historian, you see.
There are many lessons to be gleaned from the past. I even kept personal notes that the archives failed to record.
Cursed as they’ve made us, the Gods were looking out for us when I came back to my research about the Houses that were wiped out in the War Before.
Why hadn’t anyone plundered their remains, I wondered?
At any rate, Elnath was delighted by my research, and we began charting a course through the realm to pick what we could from the bones of fallen Houses. ”
Aela had scoured what she could of the archives that Tarek had attendants bring to her rooms in Avarice, searching for records of her House under the guise of wanting to learn more of Taureon history. Still, there were tomes she hadn’t had time to open yet.
What does he know?
Kaitos closed the distance she created and whispered into her ear, stroking the arm he hadn’t flicked.
“What was it, some fifty-odd years ago? Elnath detected a weak energy signal on the sad, desolate planet of Prente. It didn’t take much convincing from her for Tarek to jump the city into the Leo system.
She then sent me to Prente to retrieve whatever power source the signal had come from. ”
Aela’s eyes went vacant. She pulled herself out of the watery depths of her mind before she could go down the what-ifs of her fall.
“Imagine my luck to find a remaining priesthood that maintained the ways of the Gods and was more than willing to aid in my search for crystals. It turned out many Prentans had abandoned the mines—considered the work too dangerous. From there it was a simple process of elimination and watching for abnormalities that I found you at the market.”
“So you’re telling me it was luck?” Aela asked, keeping her turmoil from surfacing.
Anger simmered behind his eyes.
“And here I thought you were a genius.” Aela dragged her eyes down Kaitos’ towering frame, where they narrowed at the space between his legs.
“Not all that impressive, are you?”
Kaitos’ already pale skin went white as his face tightened. A slow smile spread over her lips, and she tilted her chin up to meet his murderous gaze. Her power thrummed inside her, biting at the crystal bands caging it, seeking his flesh.
“Am I interrupting something?” Arche asked, coming to stand beside her.
“Not at all, just catching up with an old friend,” Aela said as she patted Kaitos’ cheek with more force than necessary.
Aela stepped out of Arche’s protection and immersed herself in the crowd, needing to distance herself and not think.
Before long, she was swept up in foreign arms. She lost track of who risked the wrath of Tarek by pulling her into dance after dance, but Aela let them.
She danced until her thoughts were muted by the movement and the liquor buzzing in her body.
After taking another turn about the dance floor, Aela staggered away from her partner and leaned up against a column to catch her breath.
The cool, gray, and blue marbled stone bit into the exposed skin of her back.
Without the distraction of dancing, her conversation with Kaitos came to the front of her mind, then shifted to memories of Prente and its fiery death, which soured Aela’s rapidly depressing mood.
Her eyes wandered over the mingling celestials, indifferent to the countless lives sacrificed to neighbor their starcities.
Aela knew they weren’t all to blame. But she couldn’t help looking at them all with disdain. They let this happen by keeping Tarek in power. He needed to pay.
Aela’s eyes snagged on Eros’ imposing figure as he made his way to her through the crowded dance floor. She had half expected him to ask her to dance as she was fairly certain she had danced with Heze, Pollux, and Castor…
Aela banished her heavy thoughts in favor of the dark male gliding toward her. This might be the last moment she had before things irrevocably changed again.
She would enjoy it.
The Primary of Aries gave no preamble and simply extended his hand for hers.
When their skin touched, her lightning surged, hovering just under the surface, threatening to burn her alive from the inside where it lay trapped beneath the crystal bands.
Words felt useless as he swept her across the natural stone courtyard that gleamed under the astral night and burning balls of flame floating in the air.
In his arms, she almost forgot the role she was meant to play.
She had adopted the guise of making herself small to survive—but that time was done.
By racking up her many infractions, she couldn’t continue the facade with Tarek.
Though her motivations were vengeful and self-serving, a genuine lightness crept up from her belly and bloomed along her chest. Here was a male who didn’t pretend to be anything other than what he was.
He didn’t need to compensate for his inadequacies by domineering over others.
“This color suits you,” Eros said.
“Thank you,” she murmured, glancing down at her shimmering lavender dress.
“Normally he has you in white. You look better in black.”
Aela could have sworn she saw the shadows cast behind the columns surrounding the courtyard thickened at his words.
“Thank you?”
“When are you going to stop playing by his rules, Aela? You don’t seem to have problems breaking them.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You aren’t going to bond with him.”
“Has it been decided then? Did the Primaries gather without me?”
“No,” he said.
“Then how do you—”
A hush fell across the courtyard stealing her breath. Celestials who had kept to the sides where more intimate encounters were taking place paused their debauchery to view the impending spectacle.
“Excuse me, but that isn’t yours,” came Tarek’s cold, snapping remark.
“I am not a that; I’m a living, breathing—” Aela began but was cut off by Eros’ smooth voice.
“She is free to do as she wishes, is she not? No bond was blessed. She is a free celestial—a beautiful one at that—who was notably lonely, as you yourself partook in the riches Sagittarius has to offer.”
This was a mistake.
Doubt chased away the momentary high of being in Eros’ arms. The boldness she felt at getting back at Tarek by entertaining the attention of another male vanished.
She had been a fool to think she could pull a stunt like this to get back at him for treating her like nothing but a prized object.
He wouldn’t let her go even if the Primaries withheld their blessing to bond.
She would pay for the indiscretion—the disrespect—later where no one could see.
It was evident in how Tarek clenched his fists—so tight that his dark skin lightened across his knuckles.
She took a shuddering breath and positioned herself in a way that she hoped would ease her punishment.
“I’m sorry, Tarek. It was just dancing.”
“You are mine,” Tarek snarled as he gripped her forearm and pulled her away from Eros. The force toppled her feet over each other, and she braced herself against Tarek’s broad chest. When she tried to push away to regain her footing, Tarek wound his arm tightly around her.
The surrounding party had all but gone silent, and for a few terrifying breaths, Aela wished to be anywhere but there.
Would he do it here? Punish me in front of everyone? He may have my body, but he’ll never have me.
Aela braced herself for the shame and pain.
Tarek inclined his chin, waiting for Eros to refute his claim on her. When the Aries Primary said nothing, Tarek smirked and turned abruptly. Aela scrambled to manage on her own, but Tarek’s grip was unyielding.
“No, she isn’t.” Eros’ deep voice carried on the air, void of celebration.
“What did you just say?” Tarek said.
Aela looked over her shoulder with pleading eyes at Eros as she tried and failed to spear the thoughts into his mind: I can handle him.
“She’s. Not. Yours.” Eros punctuated in a tone so lethal that gasps and whimpers bled from the crowd.