The Dark God's Bride Trilogy, #3 (29 page)

His blue eyes narrowed and glittered in deep suspicion.

“It’s a shame you don’t remember what happened, but I supposed that is for the best. We don’t want you running around destroying cities.”

“What are you talking about?
” he spat out wrathfully.

“I don’t believe that you don’t feel any remembrance of it even if you
have lost your memory. Losing the one you love isn’t something you can forget. The feeling lingers and it would only sear deeper and deeper. Don’t you feel that you’ve lost something important? Something that was close to your heart?”

The woman was painting the picture of how he was feeling inside. He had been searching for something…
someone…

“You loved her deeply. You really
did.”

“
Who?
”

“I pity you for not being able to remember the woman you once loved so dearly.”

He was going to explode if the woman would not tell him exactly what he wanted to know. “The grey-eyed mortal,” he ground out.

“She wanted you all to herself. She was jealous of your affection so she plotted to murder the woman you loved.”

Shadowed images were overlapping inside his mind again. They were being jammed into his brain like small slivers of broken glass.

He remembered the existen
ce of a woman whose face was shadowed by his incomplete memory. He was completely awed by her strength, her courage, and her insurmountable spirit. He venerated her sense of pride and loyalty. He was in love with a woman whose heart was even bigger than the body it was nestling in.

He remembered the existen
ce of a lover who had beauty in essence and sensuality. She was a lover who seduced him in way that never failed to bring him to his knees. He made love to her again and again, but he could never have enough of her. He could never take enough from her and he could never give enough to her. He felt so at peace in her warmth until she was wrenched from his grasp. 

He remembered mourning her loss.  He remembered the fury. He remembered the anguish. He even remembered wanting to seek vengeance for her. Who was this lover and who
took her from him?

His eyes slid to the woman currently standing in front of him. “Why are you telling me this? What do you gain from revealing this to me?”

“Let’s just say we have a common enemy.”

“Are you willing to guarantee this with your life?” he asked gravely.

“My life?” The woman laughed. “Sure. I’m willing to guarantee it with my life.”

“Give me your name,” he demanded.

Her golden eyes were smiling at him. “I am Daniela of the Lycan clan. Remember to thank me after you’ve slain your enemy.”

That woman was confident in her every word that he couldn’t simply dismiss what she told him. He must find the grey-eyed mortal. If there was even an ounce of truth in all of this, she would die a most horrible death.

Amara awoke
. She pushed her elbows against the mattress to lift her head when she heard the Necromancer calling her name. He was digging through the closet to find a black briefcase. He laid the briefcase on the unused side of the bed and then checked the contents inside meticulously.

“It’s time to wake up, Amara!” he snapped at her.

“What time is that?” Amara asked sleepily.

“It’s almost time! The solar eclipse is approaching.”

“Um… good luck?”

“Come along,
apprentice
,” he said, emphasizing the word ‘apprentice’ to remind her of her role. “I need you to carry this case to the site.” He left the room and came back with a medium-size cooler. He also checked the contents of the cooler with the same meticulousness.

“What are those?” Amara asked curiously.

“It’s ritualistic, remember?”

“Do you have the sacrificial chicken in there?” she teased him.

“Ha,” he imitated a laugh. “Hurry up. This is an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I don’t want to miss it. You might learn a valuable lesson today.”

“Hey, Shiran. Are you a hundred percent sure about this?” She rubbed the back of her neck, doubtful. “I mean… is there a chance that something could go wrong?”

“We’ll be fine as long as we don’t get caught.”

“I mean is there a chance something could happen to you? After all, you are attempting something that
hasn’t been successful in millennia – and there is possibility that it never was successful.”

He was contemplating it and gave her an answer that was not at all convincing. “Nope. No chance of anything going wrong. I got it all under control.”

“Lizzie needs a husband and Gemma needs a father,” she reminded him on a serious note.

“Have some faith in me, Amara,” he said soberly. “I don’t have Elizabeth’s support so I want to have yours.”

“I do! I just don’t want anything bad to happen to you. I can’t stop you from fulfilling your dream, but you must promise me that you’ll take every precaution. If something does go wrong, I want you to try your best to walk away with your life even if it means starting over from scratch. Okay?”

He inhaled a deep breath and then sighed. “Hurry up, apprentice!”

Amara washed up as quickly as she possibly could. She carried the heavy black briefcase with both hands to the hotel’s car garage like the Necromancer instructed. He arrived five minutes later with the cooler. Amara was staring at the ways he employed to avoid exposure to the sun. He was wearing a large sunhat, a large pair of sunglasses and a tailored black suit complete with leather gloves.

She got into the back seat and let him drive. Since she was still sleepy, she took a quick nap during the ride.

The Necromancer woke her up some time later. He parked the car on the side of the street and fed the parking meters. Amara got out of the car, a little bit dazed from her nap, and looked around to see where they were. She was standing in front of a large white building that was built with Roman and perhaps even Egyptian influence. She squinted and read the sign at the top of the very tall door.

“The Museum of Natural History?” She turned to the Necromancer who was busy unloading the briefcase and the cooler. “What are we doing here?”

“The power veins are located beneath this building,” the Necromancer explained.

“Oh, okay.”

She grabbed the briefcase and carried it inside. Aside from the life-sized mammoths and the reconstructed set of bones of a tyrannosaurus rex being displayed in the front lobby, the place appeared completely empty.

“I booked the entire place for a ‘private function’,” the Necromancer explained when she stopped to scan around. “It would be too troublesome to do this with other people around. Cost me a king’s ransom, but it was worth it.”

“I’d bet.”

“Enough dawdling around. We need to set up an altar before the eclipse.”

“How much time do we have?”

“Approximately two hours.”

“And you are rushing me… why?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

What the Necromancer meant was, Amara eventually realized, that they needed to draw the altar by hand. He chose a sight beneath a domed glass ceiling and cleared out everything in the way. Amara was quite impressed with his choice. There was a lot of space to work with and she especially like the massive glass waterfall that curved along the shape of the wall. The Necromancer then placed a platform in the center of the room directly underneath the dome. Amara opened the cooler and realized that it was full of packages of blood like the ones used for blood transfusion at the hospital. She was a bit disturbed by the content, but she would rather have this than the alternative.

He took out a large folded up poster the size of a roadmap and instructed her to transfer the intricate symbols onto the circular platform. He gave her a paint brush and said, “Get right on it, apprentice.”

“If we can’t wash the blood off afterward, they might make you pay extra for damages.”

“I don’t really care about that, Amara.”

“If you say so.”

She spent a good hour and a half copying the symbols onto the platform. It was tedious work, but she eventually had it done. The Necromancer was looking over the books that he had brought in the briefcase.

“I’m all done. I’m going to take five to go to the bathroom.”

“Did you double check to see if all the symbols are there?”

“Yep.”

The Necromancer was looking up at the darkening sky. Amara glanced up very briefly to have an idea of what was happening, but she didn’t want to look direct
ly at it. She heard that looking directly at a solar eclipse could cause permanent blindness. She didn’t want to risk her sight. From just a brief glimpse, she could see that the dark silhouette of the moon blocked out most of the sun.

“Hurry back,” the Necromancer said. “We have less than twenty minutes left to prepare. Totality only lasts about two to seven minutes, so we have no room for mistake. I’ll triple check your work just to make sure.”

Amara nodded and then left for the bathroom. She didn’t realize she wasn’t walking straight until her body swayed toward the wall. She felt exhausted and mentally drained from everything. It was even more exhausting trying to make it seem like everything was dandy. The truth was she felt incredibly ill. She hadn’t been eating right for the past three weeks and she hadn’t been sleeping through the night.

Amara went into the women’s bathroom down the hall from the domed room, between the planetarium and the ocean life exhibit. She turned on the faucets and stared at her image reflecting back from the mirror. Under florescent lighting, her complexion looked even more sickly and pathetic. She cupped her hands under the running water and splashed water at her face to wake herself up. The Necromancer was counting on her to help him realize his dream. She needed to be ready and able to do what he asked of her for the next half an hour or so. She needed to be prepared to pull him out, alive, in case something went wrong. Amara wouldn’t be able to face Lizzie if something were to happen to him under her watch.

Noctiam
gently
patted
Raya’s back with one hand as she vomited blood into the kitchen sink. His other hand held her golden core. Raya turned on faucets to wash the blood down the drain. She reached for a sheet of paper towel and pressed it against her bloodied lips.

“Are you even listening to what I’m saying, Nala?” He grabbed her by her arms and turned her to face him. “This is your only chance! This body of yours can’t sustain you much longer. You must take advantage of the power of the eclipse to fuse back with your core. I can’t stand to see you in so much pain.”

“I just need a little more time,” Nala said to him. “Please.”

“You won’t live to see another eclipse, Nala.”

She shoved him back, turned around, and puked out another large quantity of blood into the sink.

“You are at your limit, Nala. Without your core, you will die.”

Nala shook her head as she wiped away the blood on her lips and chin. “I can’t. If I take it back then I have to say goodbye to all of this. I can hold on just a little while longer. I know I can.”

“You don’t have much time left. Take back your core!”

Nala shoved him back when he took a step toward her. “Don’t show up at my house again! If Trent comes home now, everything will be ruined!”

“Another month or two will not be worth it!”
he shouted at her. “If your cells degenerate beyond the point of repair, the core will reject you and your only option will be death!”

“I don’t care!” Nala stubbornly retorted. “We are happy. For the first time in our lives, we are happy! If you force me to leave him, I would rather die!”

“Stop being so damn stubborn, Nala!” Noctiam shook her by her shoulders as though it would wake her up from her delusion. “He will find out. There is no hiding it any longer.”

Of course he would
, Nala sadly thought. She was hoping that he would admit his love for her before then. If he knew how he felt then he would stop running, and she would stop chasing. How could she explain to Noctiam so that he could comprehend how much that would mean to her?

She was well
aware of the degenerative condition of her body. She could feel it breaking down and falling apart. The potions alone couldn’t sustain her body anymore. Her only chance of surviving was to take back her core, but if she chose to do that, she would lose him. She didn’t want to go back to the way they were before she became a girl named Raya. Raya could be with the man she loved, but Nala would always be broken and miserable. She didn’t want to go back to being Nala. Her other half was disgusted and reviled by a woman named Nala. She didn’t want to go back to being what he despised.

Noctiam was telling her to live to plot another day, but she already lived through so many lifetimes. She was very tired of her own existen
ce. Her only wish was to live through one lifetime with the one she loved. She could only have that wish through Raya.