Aimee stills beside me, her fingers trembling imperceptibly against my skin, just as two orbs of emerald green blink open in the blackness beyond us.
“Umbra, what’s wrong?”
“K’haram, he’s—umm, he’s talking to me. I can understand him.”
Her soft whisper is like a blade in the deadly silence of the cave.
That’s impossible.
We didn’t drink the Akaoridamn concoction yet.
What the fuck is going on here?
Chapter 13
Aimee
TheTempleoftheDesert God is a blackened cave, devoid of any adornments or light. Its suffocating emptiness engulfs me as I cross the gates and step into the vast space, still holding Killian’s wrist.
Kahlya and Celine are in front of us, bowing deeply to nothing in particular. I wonder for a fleeting second if we should pay our respects in the same way, before an ancient, gravelly voice wraps around my mind like thickened honey.
“Omri…”the husky voice whispers in my head,“it really is you.”
My pulse quickens as my body freezes in shock. I already know whose voice I’m hearing. Somehow, a part of my soul knows him, just like it knew Killian.
“K’haram.”
The thought floats from my consciousness to his as he blinks his eyes open, and I get lost in the most predatory viridescent gaze I’ve ever encountered.
“I spread my life and my worth under your feet, always, Omri.”
My fingers twitch on Killian’s wrist. I realize with a start that I know what that word means, even if I’ve never heard it before.
Omri.
The mystic way a dragon calls his soul-bonded.
“Umbra, what’s wrong?” Killian asks, panic rising in his voice. But he has nothing to fear; I know it in my bones.
“K’haram, he’s—umm, he’s talking to me. I can understand him.”
Dead silence weighs between us for a heartbeat before several things happen at once.
Kahlya and Celine whirl on the spot, eyes bulging as they take me in.
“That’s impossible,” Kahlya says in a hushed voice, awe bleeding through her words.
Killian tugs me into him, wrapping an arm around me possessively, while glaring daggers at the humans.
“What the fuck is going on here? You said we can’t hear him without your blasted drugs.”
K’haram unfurls from the shadows like a cat awoken from an afternoon nap.
“Your vampire seems as belligerent as ever,”he purrs amusedly in my mind.
“He’s not my vampire,” I respond out loud, drawing everyone’s attention back to me.
“Umbra, what is he saying?” Killian asks in my ear.
