Dark Possession - Aja James Page 0,21
manipulate.
“I am not here to invade,” she said softly, though her voice carried easily on the wind. “I am here to reach an understanding with your people. Am I speaking to the leaders?”
“What kind of understanding can we possibly reach?” the female snarled, not answering her question, while the male stayed silent.
She was obviously the mouthpiece for this straggling band of refugees.
“You’ve made your position clear when you assassinated our Elders.”
“That was my mother, Queen Gaia,” Ashlu clarified. “And she was ‘assassinated’ right back. I, by contrast, do not seek to conquer the world by eradicating everyone powerful within it. I only wish to expand and rule my empire with fairness. I desire peace among the Kinds.”
“You rule by trying to control the environment around you, and the living beings within it, disrupting Nature as it was meant to be. We will never trust Dark Ones,” the female hissed.
“You prey on the blood and souls of others. A hungry tiger will not lie beside a fat rabbit and not eat it.”
“Depends on the tiger,” Ashlu returned. “How hungry it is. How tempting the rabbit. And really, I take issue with being compared to Beasts. We Dark Ones have our needs, but we are not animals, after all.”
She smiled cajolingly and took a step closer to the two young Elementals.
“But come, where are my manners? I am Ashlu Da-ni-gal. With whom do I have the honor of speaking?”
The female wanted to reject this politeness, Ashlu could tell, but then the male slanted a meaningful look at his partner. He wanted a way out. They both looked weary, starved. They didn’t really want to keep fighting the war their Elders started.
Luckily, neither did Ashlu.
But she wanted something out of this encounter. She wasn’t just going to exchange civilities and trudge back down the mountain empty handed.
That was when she heard the baby’s cry above the din of the ongoing thunder and rumbling rocks.
Within a split moment, Ashlu communicated telepathically to her Commander, who leapt past the two Elementals blocking the entrance to the cave in a series of bounds and somersaults, taking them entirely by surprise.
Before anyone could move, the Dark Commander had three young Elementals in the cave held back at sword point, and with his other arm, tucked a newborn babe against his armor breastplate.
The two Elementals who guarded the entrance turned as one toward him, their powers burgeoning to be set free. But the tight grip the Dark warrior had on the infant made them freeze with indecision.
Ashlu slowly and carefully walked past them, entering the cave herself, as her guards formed an armed barrier around the cave, enclosing everyone within.
With a quick glance, she saw the handful of young Elementals huddled together inside. Mere children. Some of whom hadn’t even reached physical adulthood. Apparently, the male and female who greeted Ashlu were the eldest of the bunch.
The Consul had been right. All the storming, thundering, and earth-shaking had been a false front. Even with just her small contingent of personal guards, she could crush them easily this day.
While Ashlu calculated her options, her eyes were drawn magnetically to the bundle held tightly against the Commander’s chest.
The darkest, shiniest obsidian orbs glittered back at her. The baby was no longer crying.
She rather doubted he’d cried before. More likely, he’d been shouting for her attention in baby speak earlier.
There was something regal and awe-inspiring about the babe, though he couldn’t be more than a few months old. A solemn face looked directly at her, holding her gaze with large, fathomless black eyes.
“Ah,” Ashlu murmured with understanding. “You are their leader, little one. What are your powers, I wonder?”
The mountain trembled with enough force to make loose rocks fall from the cavern’s ceiling, and the stone ground beneath them split with zigzagging hairline fractures.
She held the infant’s gaze while the mountain’s shaking intensified.
The Commander’s cinch on the babe tightened reflexively in a bid to squelch the Elemental’s powers, but Ashlu made him loosen his arm by holding up her hand.
“We are going to reach an understanding, you and I,” she said softly, not looking away from the tiny, dark-haired male.
“We both know I have the upper hand. Either we leave here all in one piece with an ironclad agreement, or I leave your Kind behind in bloody ruins.”
The mountain shook so fiercely at that threat that Ashlu almost lost her footing, but she merely smiled internally. Amused.
The tiny Elemental had a temper.
“I have no doubt you could bury all of us