It felt like the hand of a god, tearing her from the skies.
She reached out, trying to stop her fall, but only contacted with rushing air that bathed her body in a strange pelting storm. The savage winds whipped at her hair, her wings, and howled in her ears like vicious hellhounds, ripping the souls of the damned from her side.
What was happening?
None of this made sense. Every part of her ached and pulsed in waves of crashing sensation. She was a Nasaru—an elite Arel who was born into her position. A resolute warrior whose calling was to stay far from the mortal realm, where their licentiousness could tempt her, except for those brief moments when she was commanded to find dead warriors to return to life so that they could fight in earthly battles that were denied to her species.
Her job was to protect the order of the universe. To defend the primal forces. She was not to know pain.
That was for mortals to bear.
Yet pain ripped down her spine, and took the breath from a body that needed no breath, made a chest heave that should not heave, a stomach churn that had never churned before.
Blackness surrounded her in a swirling funnel. Deprived of her sight and hearing, Ariel reached out with her other senses, trying to find some kind of answer for this. A mixture of odors assailed her—the charred stench of fear, the sulfur of hell, and worse, the bittersweet smell of human flesh.
Before, all these had been muted to her. Now they assaulted her in a pungent bouquet that almost overwhelmed her with a primitive vitality that didn’t belong to her world, or understanding.
For good reason. To expose a Nasaru to such could taint them, and should they turn…
There was no power to stop them. They were the fiercest of warriors, who were virtually invincible.
It made them a prize for the dark powers and it was why they were never to venture to this realm.
Suddenly, she slammed against a cold, hard ground, her body throbbing in a way she couldn’t fathom.
What had happened to her?
Fury tore through her as she looked about, trying to make sense of it.
The buzzing in her ears gave way to the gentle call of birds frolicking in the forest. But the sound soon dulled until all she could hear was an occasional bird’s cry, and the rustle of a breeze through bright late-autumn leaves. Even her heartbeat faded until she could no longer hear it.
Ariel pushed herself up, but quickly fell again, her limbs shaking with unfamiliar heaviness. Her pale hair tumbled around her shoulders, hanging in her face. She tried to breathe through the heavy weight, but her breath caught in the strands suffocating her.
What the hell was this?
Suddenly, a hand snatched back the mass of hair.
Ariel looked up into the face of hatred and she knew the source of her fate. She’d seen this sorceress before. “What have you done to me?” Her throat stung from the use of vocal cords that hadn’t existed ten minutes ago.
The old, withered woman glared at her with dark, hate-filled eyes. “You stole from me my most precious possession. I begged you for mercy and still you took my son. ’Tis time you learned what it means to have your heart torn from your breast!”
That unfamiliar rage coursed through her, even more ferociously this time. Never had she known the like. Ariel was a creature of the highest source and they weren’t supposed to lose their temper.
To hate.
Yet her body responded to the woman’s presence with a burning fury that made her yearn for retaliation. She wanted to hurt her.
More than that, she wanted…
What?
She didn’t understand the bitter, awful feeling. Nor did she like it.
“Return me to my place!”
The old woman’s laugh echoed around her, into the trees of the forest surrounding them. “I cannot undo my spell. Onlyyoucan.”
“What do you mean?” Ariel stared at her in utter disbelief. “I can’t stay here.” She knew nothing of survival intheirworld.
