I’ve run my hands over the silken planes of that back, fingers digging into the rippling muscles beneath. I’ve tasted that skin, breathed in its scent, and now it was owned by a soul that didn’t belong inside it.
I steeled my emotions, pushing down my grief and anger because they wouldn’t serve any purpose right now.
I needed truth.
I needed answers.
I needed to understand thehowand thewhyof this place. Of him…this primordial evil who I was now beginning to suspect might not be what I’d been led to believe because why wouldAsura be a part of his devouring force? Why would djinn? And children…There was life here. New life. I needed to understand all of this, and only then would I unleash on this monster who’d taken the drohi I loved.
“Go to him,” C’ael said softly, stepping into the shadows that clung to the periphery of the chamber. “Go…”
I approached the primordial evil, and he turned to face me, topaz eyes catching the moonlight and gleaming as if in welcome. My heart lifted for a beat before I wrangled it into submission. This wasnotAraz. This wasnotthe man I loved.
“Thank you so much for joining me,” he said.
A pang of longing lanced through my heart at the sound of the smooth, gravelly tone that I’d grown to love, and my eyes burned with the threat of tears.
His expression softened. “Oh, Leela…”
My name on his lips spoken in Araz’s voice was almost too much. I took a shuddering breath to quell a rising wave of emotion.
“I have questions.” My words came out steady and strong, hiding the turmoil inside me.
His gaze roved over my face like a caress. “And I am happy to answer them, but first, will you allow me to tell you my story?”
“I don’t have much choice, do I? You kidnapped me and brought me here.”
“I suppose I did.” He lifted his chin. “Then come. Let’s sit.” He led me to a stone bench that I hadn’t noticed earlier, sat, and waited for me to join him.
I perched farther down the bench, angling my body so I could look at him fully. If I was going to read him, then I needed to study his face, no matter how painful it was to look at him now. He’d taken Araz’s body, and I knew how to read my drohi well.
“I have had many names,” he said. “Many incarnations. The last incarnation was named Ilyarien. But my origin, my soul form, is called Iblees.”
I stilled. “Iblees? As in the djinn god?”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Yes, Leela. The one and same. As Iblees, I vowed to be manifest in times of need. To lend my power to my people if their existence and will was ever threatened. And I kept my vow. The last manifestation was to aid my people to survive a war with the Asura.”
“A war? We weren’t told of any war between djinn and Asura.”
“Of course you weren’t told. History is written by those that have the power. And although the djinn won that war, our victory was stolen from us.”
“I don’t understand. Why were the djinn and Asura at war? And what about the deva?”
“The war happened because the deva left the throne to the djinn. To me. Iblees.” He looked out at the water, his gaze softening as if he was looking into the past. “I was awoken by the deva and asked to take the throne. In that life, I became Ilyarien. But once the deva had gone, the Asura broke their oath of fealty to me and waged war to attempt to claim the seat of power.”
“Wait…youhad the throne?”
“Yes. I did. For a time. The war waged for decades, and my people were winning when the Asura king asked to parlay, and a peace treaty was drawn. But on my wedding night, when I was defenseless, my guard down, Asura warriors were let into my private sanctum, and I was captured.” His words stirred something at the back of my mind, but he continued before I could examine the thought further. “The woman I loved…my twin flame, was murdered before my eyes,” he said flatly, once again continuing before I could react to the horror of his disclosure. “You see, I cannot be killed. I am Iblees. I am eternal,but the Asura discovered a way to subdue me. Striking on the night where I had lain down my weapons and dimmed my divine power to join with my twin flame.
“They swarmed my sanctuary and attacked me with an enchanted blade, but my wife stepped forward and took the blow. She died in my arms, my true name on her lips, along with a vow to find me once again.” He turned his head and looked right at me.
A weight settled on my chest. An echo of his grief. His loss. But there was a knife-edge to the feeling too, the blade sliding beneath, cutting shallow. The wound stinging with the knowledge that he’d loved before. Deeply. Wholly. A twin flame…How could I compete with that? No. What was I thinking? The fact Ibless had a twin flame shouldn’t matter.
But it did.
It fucking did.
He watched me, his molten gaze searching and my skin prickled. Unease, that’s what it was. And the lick of heat in my chest…that was anger, because it was suddenly obvious what he was trying to do. And I wouldn’t be manipulated.
