House of Moons 3: The Slave Read online

  “Zira’s not on your ship.” The blood bond was cold, distant. Zira was still alive, but nowhere close. What was this man trying to pull? And who was he that he knew Zira was alive when the rest of the universe believed her to be dead? “What do you really want?”

  “I need your help. If you want to save Zira’s life, you’ll talk to me.” Trystan flashed pictures across the vid screen, images of Zira in some sort of cell. Alive. Apparently. Beside him Kamara’s breathing stilled and her heart raced. Hope surged into him from her side of the link. Hell.

  Tobiath closed his eyes as the oppressive amount of guilt he’d carried over failing his young charge dropped onto his shoulders. Kamara’s hope killed any possibility of ignoring the man staring back at him through the monitor, his mirror image. Too bad Kamara would be upset with him if he just shot first and asked questions later. He’d place money on the fact that he’d get more truthful answers from Trystan’s ship database and personal belongings than they would from the man himself. He didn’t need this unknown factor to track Zira. He still had the blood bond.

  “Mara.” Her attention swung to Trystan’s face and she froze in shock. Not many outside of the Royals’ inner circle knew her preferred nickname. Hearing the familiarity from Trystan changed the cold fog in his veins to frigid ice. Whatever this man was going to say, he wasn’t going to like. “We need to talk.”

  The surreal twin image staring back through the monitor unnerved him, tempting him to refuse. He had a duty to return Zira to Anthea, safe and whole, and to clear his name. To do that, he needed to get his hands on her. Very well. That meant the evil twin got to live a little while longer.

  “Fine. Docking port alpha, ten minutes.”

  Trystan nodded at him and the screen went blank.

  * * *

  “Look, I’ve knelt at the bastard’s feet my whole life. He’s finally growing weak. His sorceress is dying. We have to strike now.” Trystan looked pointedly from Tobiath to her. “I need your help to destroy him.”

  “Why me?” Kamara studied Trystan, the familiar lines of his face, the haunting gray eyes so like Tobiath’s. Both men held their shoulders rigid, their movements as identical as their faces. She watched them glare at each other, argue and threaten, and doubt crept in. Surely, what Trystan told them couldn’t be true. Surely, such a monster as his master didn’t exist. But what if he did?

  “Not just you, Mara. Both of you.” Trystan trapped her gaze, willed her to tell him the truth with penetrating eyes. “Have you bound Tobiath to you with magic yet, claimed him as your true mate?”

  Her answer was a long time coming. Silence fell in the room like a shroud. “No.” But was she telling the truth? True, they hadn’t spoken the ritual words, but there was no doubt they were linked in some way, their souls already entwined, inseparable.

  “You must, before you can face Bental Slarin and live.”

  “Why?” Tobiath asked the question she didn’t want to.

  “There are legends about our kind, Tobiath. Legends and myth lost to all but the true scholars about the source of an Immune’s power.”

  “And that is?” Kamara’s patience was at an end. Two hours of the men talking around each other, arms crossed or caressing the blasters both wore strapped to their muscular thighs. Trystan had a small scar over his left temple. Both men wore black and had haunted eyes. If she’d seen Trystan on Tantra-9, she would’ve thought it was Tobiath. The resemblance was uncanny. Neither man wanted to give away vital information and so there was no faith, no truth she could trust in the room.

  Trystan rose from his seat in Tobiath’s bedchamber and stalked toward her like an avenging angel. Tobiath left her sitting on the bed they’d just made love in and stepped in Trystan’s path. Both their ships were small. Tobiath refused to board an unknown enemy’s ship. That they were having this discussion in a room where she could still smell his skin, and sex, seemed absurd. Perhaps it was her delicate feminine sensibilities, but the men seemed unfazed by the surroundings and faced off like they were on a battlefield. “Touch her and die.”

  “Calm down.” Trystan held his hands up in surrender.

  “Tell me about the Immunes’ power.” Kamara requested the information, but had a hunch she already knew the answer.

  “Unbound, an Immune destroys spells, funnels all magic through the body and passes it back to the universe. It is a rare and highly coveted skill.”

  Tobiath’s hand now rested on his blaster, an obvious threat. Kamara had to peer around his side to see Trystan’s face as he continued.

  “When an Immune goes through the Binding with their mate, their lover’s ability to summon magic becomes a door to the universe. Their strength determines the size of the doorway and how much magic an Immune can summon and direct.”

  Freed by her connection with Tobiath to summon vast amounts of power without fear of backlash, she decided to let her consciousness loose and sink into Trystan’s mind. Time to take a chance and find out if this stranger spoke the truth. Gathering her focus, Kamara called upon her Shadow Master gift and slipped around Tobiath to touch Trystan’s arm. She felt Trystan’s absolute shock at the mental intrusion.

  Lightning fast he pulled his blaster and lifted the weapon toward her chest. Tobiath was faster, holding his blaster to the center of Trystan’s forehead. “Move before she’s done with you, and you die.”

  Trystan was more difficult to read; the core of his being pulled her magic away from her almost as fast as she could gather it. Just like his brother. There was no doubt they were related. Their souls, their very cells called to and recognized one another across the void. Like Tobiath, she got impressions from him, emotions. Unlike Tobiath, a magical barrier she couldn’t breach surrounded his mind, made a deep probe impossible. When the temptation came to summon more power and challenge the barrier, she resisted and pulled back into herself. Tobiath had pulled her soul back from the brink of destruction. There was no guarantee Trystan could or would do the same.

  Swaying on her feet, she was grateful that Tobiath’s free hand moved to the small of her back, and pulled her firmly to his side with one arm wrapped tightly around her waist. Her knees buckled, but he caught her so smoothly she wasn’t sure Trystan would notice.

  Trystan backed away, a small circular imprint left on his forehead from Tobiath’s blaster. His smile was cynical, self-mocking. “What did you discover, Your Highness?”

  She rested in Tobiath’s arms and knew both men were waiting for her answer. “You are brothers, identical twins, born of the same creation.”

  Neither man acted surprised so she continued, “That’s it.”

  “What do you mean, that’s it?” Tobiath’s question rumbled from his thick chest where he was still pressed to her side.

  “I can’t read him. At all. Your cells cry out your relationship, but his mind is blocked by magic. There is a barrier in his mind that I cannot breach.”

  “How is that possible?” Tobiath’s tone left no doubt he expected a damn good explanation.

  Kamara looked into Trystan’s eyes, studied the weary lines surrounding them, the regret floating like shadows in mist behind them, and she knew the answer. “Zira. He bound Zira to him.” All the fire and anger raging through her blood abandoned her with those simple words, and left a burnt out well of ash in her throat. It was done. Could not be undone. Ever. “Why?”

  Trystan closed his eyes, eyelids sinking as if they were weighed down by a hundred pounds of regret. “It was necessary to keep her hidden. And I’d hoped she’d be strong enough to give me the power to defeat my master without you.”

  Tobiath tensed beside her. They both knew Zira’s strength was phenomenal. Nearly a match for her own. “You have already battled him with Zira’s magic, and lost?” Hard as diamonds behind her, Tobiath’s muscles hummed with the need to protect her. Kamara felt the determination through their link. If Zira wasn’t strong enough, there was no guarantee she would be either.

  “No. I knew
as soon as we’d bonded that her magic was not strong enough. I have suffered his energies many times, endured many punishments. Mother and I kept Zira hidden for many weeks. But if he finds her, he’ll punish them both. Now, we must secure them before we dare risk a confrontation.”

  “How do we do that?” Kamara asked.

  Trystan ignored Tobiath’s shaking head and looked directly at her. “My orders are to bring you before him. So that’s exactly what I’ll do.”

  “No.” Tobiath shoved her behind him and returned his blaster to its position in the center of Trystan’s eyes.

  Kamara slipped around Tobiath’s other side to see that Trystan didn’t even blink. “Kill me and Zira dies with me.”

  “Bastard.” Tobiath’s fury stung Kamara, like a frantic wasp let loose in her mind.

  “Toby, stop.”

  Tobiath shuddered visibly and dropped the weapon. “What’s your genius plan, brother?” The stinging pain in her mind subsided, but Tobiath still spoke through gritted teeth. “Whatever it is, if either Kamara or Zira is hurt, I’ll hunt you down and pull your head from your neck with my bare hands, brother or no.”

  Trystan nodded. “I’d expect no less from you.” His attention shifted back to her. “I take you to his lair, as he expects. Tobiath, you will go underground and set Zira free. I’ll draw a map of the tunnels and entrances. Once you’ve secured Zira, bring her to the main chamber. Together, we should be able to defeat him.”

  Kamara took a deep steadying breath and asked Trystan her final question. “How old is Bental? Please, don’t tell me he’s the original enslaver of the House of Moons.”

  “Then I won’t tell you.”

  Tobiath shook his head. “The House of Moons revolt was over a thousand orbits ago.”

  Kamara worried her bottom lip with her teeth between words. “Yes… yes it was.” A thousand orbits of slavery in the heavens and war between her people and the Daughters of the House of Moons. Bental Slarin was the cruel master the Moon Warriors rebelled against, the reason they’d established independent rule. Tales of his wickedness, his tortures, his callous disregard for life were myth and legend. The history books said he’d been hunted for nearly two hundred orbits, then presumed dead. They’d presumed wrong. As heir to the throne, she couldn’t say no. First and foremost she must protect her people. As Zira’s blood, she wanted to make him pay. “Show us your maps, Trystan.”

  Chapter Eight

  Huge black doors covered in ornate gargoyle carvings opened before her. The wailing creak of their hinges reverberated through her bare feet, up the chains dragging the floor, and into her body through the metal links binding her wrists in front of her. Magic rushed over her in a tidal wave so intense she nearly lost her footing. The last thing she wanted was to crash face first into the cold marble floor.

  “Bring her to me.”

  The voice made every hair on her body rise in alarm. Trystan shoved her forward with a swift poke to her back from the blaster he carried. Kamara winced and wondered, not for the first time, if she’d lost her mind. She walked to face an unknown enemy deep in the bowels of his fortress, and her only ally was a man she’d known less than half a spin, a man so bent on vengeance, so twisted with hatred, he would probably sacrifice them all if it meant Slarin’s death.

  Head held high, Kamara did her best to ignore the gigantic gargoyle statues lining both walls of the long chamber. There was just enough light to cast their stark, ugly faces in unnatural shadow and for the darkness to extend their menacing claws. Bare marble walls rose to form an arched ceiling that drifted above in a seemingly endless void. The room vibrated with power, with more magic than she’d ever felt or thought to control.

  All of Trystan’s promises of truth fled from her mind. This man, Bental Slarin, this being who awaited her, defied her imagination. A deep blue cloak kept his physical form hidden, but the evil emanating from him, the power swirling and pushing at her consciousness made her pulse race and her heart pound in fear. Was she strong enough to survive him?

  She must destroy him. Doubts crowded her mind so rapidly she couldn’t grasp every thought. She just needed to distract him long enough for Tobiath to complete his mission. But she stood within the demon’s den. What chance did she really have here?

  No. Kamara wouldn’t allow her thoughts to tread that path. The odds were of no consequence. What kind of monster would she be if she left him here to torture her people, her family further? She’d rather be dead. Kamara closed her fingers around the key in her hand and waited for her chance to strike.

  Cold sweat beaded between her breasts. A single drop ran down to her waist to be silently absorbed by the material pressed to her by a heavy silver chain. The soft slide of white slave satin kissed her bare skin from shoulders to toes. White. The slave garment slid over her flesh, mocked her, made her want to shriek, cry, and rip out Slarin’s heart. When she left Tantra-9 with Tobiath, she’d sworn never to wear white again. Fate, apparently, had other plans.

  The giant doors swung closed behind her, a death knell. Trystan’s face was colder than the solid marble beneath her bare feet. There was no sign he knew her, no lines of worry around his eyes, or tightness around his mouth. He could’ve been walking into a bar or a temple. His eyes were a cold, hard gray. They gave nothing away, no hint he cared whether she lived or died. She hoped he was simply playing his part and they hadn’t walked straight into a trap.

  “Welcome, Princess.” Unfolding like a half dead skeleton, her enemy rose to his feet at the far end of the chamber. Covered completely in a blue cloak, his face teased her from the shadows. The only thing she could see clearly were his eyes, cobalt blue and filled with an unholy flame shining out from two dark, deep sockets. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  Cold moisture collected on her temples. She licked her lips and tried to remember what she was supposed to say to this monster. The pulse of magic in the room, the evil flow of power, whirled through her mind until her brain lost all contact with her mouth. She was, literally, speechless.

  The thing laughed at her. The dry crackling sound made her wonder why he wasn’t dead already. Then he moved, flew several feet off the ground at her like a ghost, or a demon. His blue cloak whipped around him, the snapping sound eerie in the stone room. There was no wind.

  One heartbeat. Two. Three. Then he landed in front of her and the hood fell back from his face revealing familiar creases. Wisps of shockingly white hair flowed around his head as if he faced into a strong wind.

  A hot tidal wave of rage filled her gut and burst through the chains of horror holding her. Kamara knew his face, too well. This beast, Bental Slarin, was her father’s most trusted advisor! He was believed to be Immune, not some sorcerer with godlike powers. The night of Zira’s death he’d sat at her right hand at dinner, complimented her, pretended to be her friend, slept in her home… implanted false memories. “You bastard.”

  His smile deepened the lines in his face until she thought the gray-toned flesh must surely crack and slide from his skeleton into a pool of old, dead mush on the cold marble floor. Slarin’s skin was nearly as dark as his army of statues. “Ironic, isn’t it?”

  “What do you want?” Anger still swirled in her belly; it rose up through her throat and rushed over her head like a burst of hot water in a shower. Magic flowed with it, writhed beneath her skin with a life of its own, like a sentient being waiting for revenge. Control. Time. Kamara bottled her rage and played her part.

  The flames in Bental’s eyes dimmed until he almost looked like her old friend, her trusted surrogate uncle. “What do you think I want, Mara? You were always too damn smart for your own good. You tell me.”

  His gaze raked over her, lingered on her nipples through the sheer white material of the slave dress, swept lower and held as the soft caress of his magic wrapped around her, brushed the underside of her breasts and the inside of her naked thighs like a soft, tingling mint breeze.

  “Stop.” She wanted to scrub her body
until it was raw, to remove any lingering trace of his magic, of his betrayal. Trystan had tried to warn her, to tell her who he was. Logic believed him, but she realized her heart had not.

  “I’ve always wanted to see you in white.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Once again, laughter split his mouth into an unholy replica of a horrific theater mask. “Unfortunately, my dear, now is not the time. I must feed, but I’m afraid even I would be unable to hide all traces of your energy from your father if we indulged ourselves that way.” An unseen wind whipped the hem of his cloak around him again. The light flared brighter in his eyes, turned the blood in her veins to half-melted snow. “Then again, it won’t matter. He’ll be dead soon. Then I’ll truly feed.”

  “Feed.” The simple word whispered across her dry lips of its own accord and suddenly too many things clicked into place. Legends. Horrors. Myths dark and long forgotten by most. Goosebumps jumped out on her flesh, the hair on the back of her neck rose in alarm, and her already frantic heartbeat raced even faster. Cold seeped up through her bare feet, spread through her body until she had to clench her teeth to keep them from chattering. When the monster spoke, she realized she was shaking her head.

  “Yes. Yes. Yes. Every thought is true. Every story you’ve ever heard. I am the Immortal One, the dark one who feeds on souls and magic.” Bental raised his hand. An old gnarled finger stroked her cheek, and her fear. “And you will be my next bride.”

  “Your next sacrifice.”

  His twisted finger now played with the curls of her long, black hair. “Perhaps. But you are strong, Mara. The most powerful I’ve felt in nearly a thousand orbits. You will feed me for a century, my dear. Perhaps longer,” Bental traced her lower lip with his index finger, “… if I pace myself.”

  Kamara held still as a statue, refused to react, to reveal her fear. But how much longer would she be able to tolerate his touch, the stale half-dead smell of his body so close to her own? Where the hell was Tobiath? He should’ve rescued Zira by now. Severed the monster’s link with his power source. Any moment now the fiend before her would grow weak enough for her to attack.