Calling the Wild Page 29

  “No, Moira. I am not evil.”

  “Get out of my head.”

  “I cannot, you call to me. You are meant to be my queen.”

  “I am not! I don’t want you, don’t want any of this.”

  Silence fell, and the Emperor rose, pushing to his feet. He turned from her, and when Moira snuck a glance at him, the bowed set of his shoulders pulled at her heart.

  “You…hurt me.”

  She would not apologize to him. She owed him nothing.

  “Come, you must be thirsty at the least.” He waved his hand and a door opened in the solid rock wall. Moira pushed herself off the chaise and went to his side, holding the cloak closed in front of her. She would have liked to shed it, but it was cold, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to face him in a gold cocktail dress.

  The Emperor led her into a long corridor. The door in the rock closed behind them and the corridor was nothing but darkness. This time Moira bit down, suppressing the cry of fear at being locked in the oppressive darkness. His icy fingers brushed her arm, sliding to her hand.

  With her hand in his, she could feel the rock as he did. Suddenly the cold, frightening stones around them beat with the rhythm of the earth. They groaned and whispered to one another about the weight of the earth above them.

  Moira relaxed, losing herself in the sounds and feelings of the deep earth.

  “The rock is…alive to you. This is how you sent the gargoyles.”

  “The earth knows me, as I know her.”

  Their path through the dark took them to a place where the rocks cooed to one another, a contented song. “The rocks are singing.” She gasped in wonder, amazement letting her forget the gnawing fear for a moment.

  “I am glad you hear their beauty. I have waited a long time to share their song with my queen.”

  Moira’s smile faded. A second door of rock opened in front of them.

  “I told you this is my temporary home, and this throne room is temporary too. The castle will not find its home until the double thrones are filled.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Then let me show you.”

  They stepped through the door, and Moira looked out over a place of incredible beauty. There were underground, standing at the head of a room, but it was a place of such warmth and light, such soaring delicate beauty, that Moira felt as though she were in the finest palaces of Europe.

  Great pillars supported the ceiling, their tops decorated with elaborate stone beasts, which came to life at will, flapping gossamer-thin wings of finely veined marble to flit from column to column. The floor, columns, and walls were all a rich tan color, not the black she’d been expecting. Between the columns, a variety of creatures engaged in activities that varied from card games to basket weaving. It looked like the hall of a medieval lord, the beating heart of a small society.

  “This is beautiful.”

  The Emperor led her to the center of the room. The creatures knelt in reverence as they passed. Beings that would have terrified her had she seen them in the shadows were merely different rather than frightening in the cheerful gold light thrown off by chunks of crystal suspended from the columns.

  “They kneel for you, Moira. We have waited for you a long time.”

  A strange beast, dog-like with tight pointed ears, approached her, its head low. There were markings around the creature’s neck and its coat rippled—a combination of gold and orange fur. Moira held out her hand to the beast, completely unafraid, and it pressed its head to her hand.

  “A jackal,” she said.

  “When they heard who my queen was to be, many of the creatures of Egypt sought refuge in my kingdom.”

  They kept walking, and as the dark and evil she feared was revealed to be nothing as sinister as that, Moira’s confidence in herself and her ideas crumbled.

  They reached the opposite end of the room, where a tall throne sat.

  “The dual thrones are in the castle, which awaits your touch.”

  “What castle?”

  “The Dark has long been without a home, without a seat of power. For millennia I’ve been carving a black casting into the rock, forming each room with muscle, chisel and hammer, but for all my care the castle lies dead in the rock. The Dark Queen is the unifying heart of my people, and at her touch, your touch, the castle will come to life.”

  “You have waited…a long time, for the queen.”

  “A very long time.”

  He looked at her, and Moira could see the aching sadness in him. He urged her to sit in the throne, while he knelt in front of her. “I know I have not done this well, I did not understand that your having been raised among the humans meant that you would have their fears. I thought you hid the truth of your power to hide from me, not that you feared the power itself.”

  “I…killed things,” she admitted in a tiny whisper.

  He laughed, but it was gentle, his eyes tender. “It is the nature of who you are.”

  Moira closed her eyes. How foolish she’d been to fight this for so long. He was not evil, and his monsters were nothing more than creatures she’s been taught to fear.

  “I told you I have waited, told you that my kingdom needs you, but now let me beg you, here on bended knee, for you to take your place at my side. I will promise you love and pleasure as you have never known. I will protect you and care for you. Do not think that because I am The Dark I cannot love as richly and deeply as any other.”

  He cupped her cheek, and Moira looked into his gold eyes, losing herself in their amber depths.

  “Stay with me, be my Queen, let me love you, for all time.”

  Moira’s belly was tight with longing for what he offered. She would not have to hide her magic with him. He offered her more than a kingdom. He offered her a kingdom ruled by his side, ruled beside a man who loved her.

  His gold eyes swirled, calling her to him. She touched his cheek. It was cold as stone.

  She could love him…if her heart did not already belong to another.

  Kiron.

  Moira lowered her eyes, hiding her thoughts. Kiron was a dash of cold water to her mind, clearing away the spell the Emperor was weaving over her. Moira pushed up from the throne, stepping around the kneeling Emperor. If she concentrated she could feel the faint ache in her belly where the spell that tied her to Kiron was flooding her with pain. The pain was dulled, and Moira suspected the Emperor was doing it.

  She touched the spell, and a trickle of The Wild seeped into her. He was here, far, but not too far.

  She circled around the throne. There was an arched black doorway in the wall behind it, hidden by the bulk of the throne. Oily red light pulsed from the opening.

  Moira stepped up to the arch, and then stepped through it. She found herself on the edge of another large chamber, this one very different then the first.

  “I would not have shown you this,” the Emperor said.

  Moira turned to confront the Emperor, and came face to face with a great, black-scaled dragon.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The dragon’s jaws parted, its lips peeling back to reveal thin, sharp teeth, like those of a shark.

  “You should not have come back here, Moira.”

  The Emperor was the dragon.

  “Moira, look out!”

  From somewhere behind her, Kiron called out a warning, his shout followed by a cry of pain. Moira avoided the swipe from the dragon/Emperor’s tail that Kiron was warning her about, and turned to run deeper into chamber.

  Here were the rough black walls and bonfires she’d expected. Here the beasts savaged each other, an accidental brush enough to incite a fight to the death. Somewhere there was another cave, a roofless one where men and women, trapped in cages, burned to death.

  She ran for Kiron, a sob catching in her throat as she saw what they’d done to him.

  He was held in place by a multitude of chains. They stretched from a collar around his neck and manacles around his wrists and hoofs to rings in
the stone floor. More chains draped over his back and looped his chest, rubbing against the bruises and cuts that marked him.

  A hulking brown-skinned monster reached for her, but the Emperor ordered it not to touch her, and Moira ran to Kiron unimpeded.

  “Wha-what did they do to you?” Moira panted out in a sob.

  “You have to run, Moira, get out.”

  “I cannot let you do that.” The dragon’s tail curled around her, making several coils until he wrapped her from ankles to waist. Moira tried to jerk away, pounding on him with her fists and throwing spell after spell at him. Nothing worked. Her spells bounced off his scales and ricocheted into walls where they exploded in green mist.

  “You will be my queen.”

  The Emperor curled his long body around and lowered his head to look at her. Each of his great gold eyes was large as her spread hand. He flicked out his forked tongue and tasted her cheek.

  “You cannot have her,” Kiron proclaimed.

  Moira looked at Kiron, his beloved face fierce with determination. He gave her a lopsided smile, his swollen lip preventing anything more. “There is always a way.”

  He turned his attention to the dragon, whose great head shifted to look at Kiron.

  “The prophecy says the Dark Queen cannot be loved by a human. I love her. I have loved her and will love her till the end of my days. I will give up my power, return it to the forest of The Wild and make myself mortal. That breaks the prophecy. Even if you kill me once I’m human, I will still love her.”

  “You would give up your power for her?” the dragon hissed.

  Kiron did not hesitate. “Yes.”

  Moira’s heart swelled. Kiron loved her, for all the distrust that had passed between them, for all they had suffered together, he loved her. And that love changed everything.

  Something swelling in Moira, the confidence of a woman who knows she is truly, deeply, passionately loved by a man her equal.

  “No.” Her firm, confident voice startled them both. Black and gold eyes turned on her.

  Moira reached inside herself, into her bones, and drew forth the spell she used to hide herself from the world.

  With hooks of magic, she drew it up through her chest, and into the emerald that hung around her neck. She pulled the necklace off and over her head, holding it in her palm. The gold flecks in the emerald were swirling, faster and faster then went, until they were an endless ring of gold trapped.

  Moira tipped her hand, dropping the emerald to the floor, shattering it.

  Magic swelled within her, bright and hot as the sun. The Emperor backed away, pulling his singed tail away from her blindingly hot flesh. The cloak and her dress burned off her body, her skin glowing with the destructive power of the sun.

  She was the destroyer, the Mistress of Dread, the bringer of desert wind. No longer a frightened girl, unsure of herself and overwhelmed by a power she couldn’t control, Moira embraced who she was, and the core of her power.

  Green, the color the ancient Egyptians used to paint the dead, blazed from her eyes. Her heritage shown through in the glossy straight rain of her hair and the lash-lined tilted eyes. Like a goddess come free of a tomb painting she stood tall and proud, without fear or doubt of her place in the world.

  Her memory filled with the prayers of thousands of years. They’d prayed for lenience in the hard times and for protection in the good. Prayers had been said in the name of the Goddess, her name, asking for assistance as their hearts were weighted in the scales of the Egyptian afterlife.

  I am the Goddess Sekhmet, and I take my seat upon the throne of the sky, my place by the side of Amt-ur the great wind of heaven. My arrows pierce my enemies with fire, my breath is that of the desert wind, and my body is the midday sun.

  Around her, the dark creatures screamed in agony as she burned them. Arrows of fire shot from her outstretched hands, her power charring through flesh, boiling the marrow in their bones. Off to her right there was a blaze of white light amid the yellow of the sun. The crystal around Kiron’s neck flared to life, protecting him as the yowls of the dying echoed around them.

  Moira stalked towards the dragon, a wave of her hand forcing him into his human form.

  “You thought to control me. Knowing the truth of what, and who, I am, you believed you could kidnap and seduce me.”

  He looked on her with eyes lit by reverence and desire. “What I told you was truth. I would love you beyond all measure. You are the fire to my cold.”

  “Foolish, arrogant, creature. The Dark Queen is not a prize to be won, and not yours to hunt like game. When she comes to you, and she will come, all you know will change, and the control won’t be yours.”

  Moira spoke with a certainty she would never understand.

  “You… are not the queen?” It was a question, asked with an aching sadness. He’d hunted and frightened her. He’d destroyed the life she’d had. He commanded the Dark creatures and sought to bring about a return of The Darkness.

  But she’d touched him and knew that he was an Emperor in truth, his first wish the happiness and safety of his subjects. He believed the creatures of The Dark, including himself, had been in hiding long enough, and they deserved a kingdom of their own. He took humans who called his demons, abusing them for gain, and dragged them down, destroying them to protect his subjects.

  An hour ago Moira had been able to call him evil and believed it. But now the spell did not hold her. She was a creature of death and knew the value of The Dark. She was a Goddess and knew that a good ruler would sacrifice anything for his people.

  The Emperor was no more evil than she was, and the dark of night was needed to cool the Earth after the heat of the sun.

  “I could be The Dark Queen. I could rule beside you, raise your castle, bring it life and learn to love these dark creatures like you do. But I chose not to, and it is my choice to make.”

  “Fate—”

  “Fate bows to me!” she snarled the words. “My magic is rooted in a time long before pale destiny thought to control us all.” Her words rung with veracity, echoing against the walls.

  The Emperor bowed his head, then dropped to one knee. “My Lady, forgive me.”

  Moira cupped his face, and this time he whimpered as her hand scorched him. She kept her voice low, her words a secret between the two of them. “I will pray that that she finds you soon, for I have known the loneliness that you face, and lived with it far less time than you have.”

  “I would have loved you.”

  “I know.” Moira smiled at him, her skin glowing with the sun’s power.

  She dropped her hand from his face, and the Emperor rose. He looked to Kiron and waved his hand, the chains falling away.

  “I envy you.”

  With that parting comment to Kiron, he left them, Moira and Kiron the only living things left in the hellish chamber.

  She approached him, her newfound Goddess confidence wavering under the nerves of a woman who was about to confess her love to the object of her adoration.

  Kiron bowed his head, calling the white magic of the surface of the Earth to this deep place, healing himself, so that when he looked up no bruises or cuts marred the beauty of his face.

  “You would have turned human to save me,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Why? You believed that I was the one the prophecy meant, I could feel it.”

  “But you did not want it, you were afraid, and I would move the stars in the sky to keep you safe.”

  “You, who so believe in the order of things, and fate, were willing to challenge the prophecy?”

  “There is always another way to look at a prophecy. It just took me a while to come up with it.”

  “I love you.” She blurted it out, with none of the finesse or sense of occasion she’d hoped for, but he looked at her, sweet happiness filling his face, and she knew that it didn’t matter how she said the words. “I love you, and I will love you forever.”

  He took a step forw
ard and then hastily stepped back. “Any chance you could turn off the heat?”

  “I don’t know how,” she confessed pathetically. Looking at herself Moira sighed. She’d ended up fighting the climatic battle butt naked.

  “Pull your magic back inside you. Nothing is different. Magic is magic, no matter what its nature or strength. Call your magic home.” He instructed her patiently, as if they had all the time in the world.

  Moira concentrated, and found she could bottle the heat, tucking it into her body, caging it inside her ribs, the power settling next to her heart.

  Kiron snatched her up, and Moira clung to him desperately, her arms and legs going around him. They kissed recklessly, neither shielding their heart from the other. She didn’t know how long the kiss lasted, but when they finally broke apart she was content to merely hold him and be held.

  In his arms she still felt like Moira. Opening her power hadn’t really changed her. She was still Moira, just badass, stand-up-for-what-she-wanted, take-that-scary-Dark-Emperor Moira.

  “I’m not sure how you entered, and I was unconscious for my own arrival. I am hoping you have an idea how we get out of here.” He whispered into her hair, but didn’t seem particularly concerned with the answer.

  “Where will we go once we get out?”

  Kiron leaned her away from his chest so he could look at her. “Come with me, to my island.”

  A little trickle of unhappiness filled her. “I can’t, my touch kills things.”

  “There must be a way to control it. You are touching me and I’m not dead. And if you kill things I will grow them again. We will find a way.”

  Moira wanted to protest, afraid to believe, afraid of believing it could be.

  “All right, but first we have to stop in Arizona so you can meet my parents. They think I’m in Europe, so this is perfect.”

  “Meet your parents?”

  “Don’t sounds so freaked out. We just faced down the Black Emperor; I think you can handle my parents.”

  Kiron dropped to his front knees and Moira climbed on, grimacing at her lack of pants.

  “Ready for the rest of our lives, my love?”

  “Um, how long do centaurs live anyway?”