“You swore an oath to me as well and to destroy Lusheenn, I thought those mattered too.”
“I’ll never leave her side,” Quist hissed in response. “She’s delicate and new and has no way of protecting herself.”
Sundamar stepped closer despite the deadly aura Quist was giving off and inspected the female closely. She looked exactly as she had in his vision, pale and distraught, except this time, she looked relaxed, safe. He desperately wanted to pull her into his own arms and keep her that way himself but he also didn’t want to wake her.
“She trusts you,” he murmured. His brother nodded. “She’ll learn to trust me too. We’ll protect her together.”
“And Galan?” Quist relaxed his whip and spread his wings so Sundamar could move within their circle. Sundamar, at that moment, didn’t even mind that he didn’t have his own; he was happy enough that Quist had them to shield her away from the dangers of Sonhadra.
“Galan too. We both saw her a full sun cycle ago, through your eyes. She made our members swell with seed and made us both find release after these many quiet eons.” He reached out to take a cluster of her hair and once again craved to see it amongst his golden own; whether it was weaved together or spread out on his bedding, he wanted them to mix. Sundamar spread out the strands he held over his palm and brought his cheek down to nuzzle it. He huffed softly and moaned with pleasure.Exquisite.“Where did you find such a treasure? She’s not a valos of Light. Lusheenn would never create a female... a body that was so unlike his own. Is she perhaps from the shadows?”
Sundamar hoped she wasn’t but would keep her all the same.
“I found her miles from here, on the outskirts of the swamps, injured. I was tracking our Creator when he miraculously returned and brought me to my knees, but my senses didn’t lead me to him, they led me to her... and this.” He untucked a thin strand of rope from her chest, hidden behind her arms and Quist’s bicep, and pulled forth the source of light that had illuminated them in the dark.
Sundamar released the female’s hair and trailed his finger over the heartstone, shocked that he was touching it, that it even existed.
The Creator’s power flowed through him, igniting every nerve in his body until his eyes glowed with copper fire, strengthening his form. He had never felt more powerful. He tore his eyes away from the stone with a grunt and sat back, clenching and unclenching his fists.
“Lusheenn.” It was the only word he could utter.
“I felt it too.” Quist’s tone was harsh with hatred. So unlike his own feelings toward their Creator. “I still feel him.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know,” his brother gritted out, drawing the female further into his arms. “But he’s here in Yahiro and that damned stone. I can feel his eyes on the back of my neck and his power in the pit of my stomach. She’s all I found when I followed his presence.”
“Is she?”
“No. Yahiro is clean, the stone is not.”
Sundamar unstrapped his sword and placed it on the ground by his side. It shifted slightly in the grass but pointed away from them, away from Yahiro and Quist and off into the distance. He shared a look with his brother but neither one of them made a move to get up. A pondering silence fell between them in the darkness. It had been a long time since he last saw Quist and although he never missed his third—he never felt anything at all—it was nice to be back within the shell of Quist’s wings.
His gaze fell on him and the female and he knew he could never take her away from him. The possession in which Quist held her was argument enough. His queen would have three kings to obey. His throbbing member didn’t go unnoticed.
“Her name is Yahiro?” he asked, at last, turning briefly toward the horizon to wait out the rising sun.
“Yes.”
“It’s a strange name. Do you know what race she is?”
Quist shook his head, the long locks of straight hair slipped like silk over his shoulders. “No. She says she is human. I’ve never heard of them and in all my travels I haven’t seen a valos that looks like her. She says she fell from the sky.”
“Then she lies,” Sundamar gritted out, spearing the innocent sleep-ridden face with a glance.
“She didn’t speak our language. Sonhadra taught her over the course of our first night.”
Quist’s words brought him back to attention. He didn’t like that Quist hada first nightwith her, one in which he wasn’t privy. “That’s not possible.”
Quist laughed softly. “Oh. It is. I watched her learn our words... It was strange. No valos was ever born without language and even after she spoke my words, the way she said them was quick. Harsh. But not ugly. The way her mouth shaped them was intriguing. Too much so. I wanted to breathe in her breaths.”
Sundamar liked none of it. The implications that she was so new, so barely of his world, that her Creator never finished forming her broke him. He gazed down at the sleeping, unusual female, his arms straining to take her from Quist and possess her as he had.
It fired a new anger through him. The need to protect her quickly became his main focus, even to the point of hiding her behind gilded diamond walls in the center of the City of Noon wouldn’t be enough.
What kind of Creator would throw such a creation away? What kind of divinity does that? I’ll find out. I’ll find him. I’ll join Quist in his search.Sundamar barely stopped himself before making oaths he wasn’t sure he could keep.
“Maybe she’s a miscreation.”
