As I passed by a mirrored column, I stared wide-eyed at the stranger looking back at me.
“Not bad.” I fingered my new short cap of red hair framing a heart-shaped face. Tanned and green-eyed, I looked nothing like myself or my fake identity. “You could have made me taller, though.”
And taken a little off my hips. Damn those sweet rolls.
“Then you would have needed a different set of silk.” He eyed my underwear sets with a connoisseur’s appraisal and winked at me. “Though I wouldn’t mind watching you try them on, we’re a bit pressed for time.”
“Lech.”
“Witch.”
I sighed and paid for my clothes at the counter. “Arim’s not going to be happy about your involvement in this.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not too pleased with the way either of you have conducted yourselves over the years. I’ve decided to finally put my foot down.”
Once the clerk handed me my bag, Sava grabbed me by the elbow and dragged me out of the shop.
I kept staring at him in disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding me. How is my relationship with Arim your problem?”
“Since my niece, whom you know I just dote on, married one of Arim’s nephews, and since many of my people moved with her into Tanselm, I find it my business to keep abreast of things. Not that I haven’t before now, but I feel justified in fixing some problems that Alandra finds… disturbing.”
I vowed to have a talk with the sly little princess about overstepping her bounds. “Oh?”
Sava grinned, and two women walked into each other, busy staring at him. Not that I could blame them. Had I not been immune to his charm, I might have done the same. Even for an Aellei, a race of inhumanly beautiful people, Sava stood out.
His dark brown eyes twinkled with humor and carnal promise, his full lips rosy with seduction. And that was to say nothing of the perfection of his form, masculinity at its rock hard finest. I couldn’t help being impressed but refused to give in to the vanity reflected by his knowing grin.
“Your tone has just the right amount of frost. No matter what Sin Garu and those demons did to you, you’re still a prickly little thing.” He chucked my chin as if humoring a child. “I like that. The reports I’ve been getting from the Storm Lords aren’t good, Lexa.”
I wished I didn’t care so much about Sava’s opinion. Dark Lords cared about nothing but themselves. Hadn’t I learned the hard way what love and affection could do? Visions of my dead foster family swam in my memories, and I hastily countered the pathetic welling of grief with angry remembrances of Arim and his hated Light Bringer sorcery.
“Who cares what the Light Bringers say?”
“Who cares?” Sava’s smile faded, and he drew me into a narrow hallway leading to the restrooms. “I’m trying to keep my temper, but around you and Arim lately, it isn’t so easy.”
In seconds, I felt myself teleported into the house I used when living in Seattle. The old days, I thought with a sigh, wishing my friend, Ellie, were here and not worlds away in Tanselm, married to a Storm Lord. Yet one more tie Arim and I shared. My friend had married one of Arim’s nephews — the one who most resembled Arim in temperament.
Sava tugged back his power, restoring me to my natural form. He tossed me onto my couch before setting my bag on the coffee table. “Now I want the truth. What the hell happened to you? The last I heard, you and Arim had put away your hostility long enough to conspire to kill Sin Garu. You two had some foolish plan to defeat the most powerful Dark Lord in existence while saving Cadmus from sure death. Next thing I know, my people in Tanselm are battling the Netharat. Cadmus has been saved. And you’re near death.
“From what Alandra told me, the others involved in the battle suffered minor harm. But you were unconscious for nearly three months.” Sava’s white-blond brows drew close. “Even for a Dark Lord, that’s not a normal sleep. You should have healed much faster than that.” His gaze was critical. “There’s something more that’s wrong with you. Your aura is much Darker than it should be. Then you ever were.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, uncomfortable at being so easily read. After being kicked out of Tanselm, I’d spent most of my life trying to be something I was not, hiding behind one façade or another. The few people I’d allowed myself to care for had been on my terms.
I’d befriended Ellie and Jonas out of necessity, and had found, to my surprise, that I liked them. So I kept them at a comfortable distance. They noticed about me what I wanted them to see.
But Sava had a disquieting tendency to see through bullshit. Maybe because he was so familiar with dishing it out.
As much as I longed to confide in him and stop being so fucking alone, I couldn’t do it. “I’m fine.” I glared at him and wasn’t surprised when he dropped the hard-ass attitude and flopped next to me on the couch.
He never had won an argument with me.
“Say what you want; your aura doesn’t lie. Your Djinn protector isn’t fooled either. Yes, Jonas and I talk on occasion. You know, he’s very amusing. I’ve noticed he irritates Arim nearly as much as you do.”
I smiled at that, and Sava chuckled.
So when he latched onto my arm and muttered a spell under his breath, I was unprepared to relive the memory of my hellish imprisonment.
Hundreds of eyes stared at me through green, unearthly flame. Thousands of mouths fed on my spirit, gnawing at the energy of my soul. Pinpricks of pain shot through my brain, icy daggers that demanded relief. If only I could move my hand to rub away the pressure. Trapped apart from my body, caught in the limbo between life and the Next, the constant torture stirred a loss so profound it caused me physical, mental, and spiritual devastation.
