Dark Possession - Aja James Page 0,76
his own Kind. The Elementals. And others as well, like the Animal Spirits. Once he’d seen the world without the blindness of his obsessive, destructive love for Ashlu, he realized that he’d betrayed his origins, his people.
At the same time, he felt a deep-rooted resentment for the Pure Ones and the Elementals’ weakness. Why couldn’t they rise up and fight back? Why did they allow the Dark Ones to spread and consolidate their rule?
True, not long after Ramses left the Dark Queen, the oppressed Pure Ones did rebel. And they’d succeeded all too well. Though it was contradictory and confounding to Ramses himself, he resented that as well.
He recognized now that his resentment was for his own failure. For he had failed them all. Pure Ones, Elementals, Animal Spirits, and Dark Ones too, in the end. For that failure, he deserved retribution. It was poetic justice that vengeance should come to him in the form of the noble king he had once defeated.
If it had been Ramses who had died that night, if the Eagle King had Mated Ashlu…would all the other immortal Kinds have suffered as slaves, exiles and hunted prey for the three millennia that followed?
She hoped to save your life, apparently, Rhys’ answer to the question he’d already forgotten he asked broke him out of his own reverie.
She appears to care for you deeply, Ramses.
More fool, she, Ramses thought to himself.
With all the mistakes he’d made, he didn’t deserve anyone’s care. Least of all the care and consideration of an enchanting, tiny, red-headed sprite. There was an innocence and naivete about Eveline that Ramses felt both protective and wary of.
Females like Jade Cicada, his predecessor, he could handle. Overtly sexual, confident in their charms, knowledgeable about carnal pleasures and how best to wield them to get what they wanted. With females like these, Ramses could form a connection, perhaps, and over time a deeper sense of loyalty. But he’d have no trouble keeping his heart detached.
With women like Eveline…
No, not women like Eveline. With Eveline, the more time he spent with her, the more out of control he became. Nothing was business. Everything was personal. Every word, every sound, every touch mattered.
Because she deemed it so. Because her clear blue-gray eyes reflected her feelings openly as she felt them. And he could not pretend to unsee them.
She’ll live to regret her erroneous care, Ramses said shortly in his thoughts.
I’ll make sure of it.
With that, he abruptly shut off all other communication with his winged escort, preferring, as always, to carry his burdens alone.
“Upon her choice, the future rests. To welcome the Darkness or create a New Light, only her heart can show the rest…”
—From the Zodiac Prophesies
Chapter Fourteen
Eveline really couldn’t complain. As far as abductions by eagle-men were concerned, it could have been a lot worse.
There. She came to a compromise. She’s going to call him “eagle-man.” Which seemed much more respectful (and frankly considerably more attractive too) than bird-man.
Presently, her kidnapper left her to her own devices in a small nook carved into a mountainside.
What was it about mountains lately?
It had been just a few days ago that she was trekking through the Zagaros Mountains with Aella and Cloud. Now this. She didn’t know which mountain cave she was currently installed in, and she’d lost track of how far they’d flown after falling asleep in the eagle-man’s arms.
Rather incredibly.
It must be said—Eveline handled extreme situations and unexpected circumstances fairly well. This might not be a “Gift” per se, but she thought her calmness under duress was an exemplary quality.
Her abductor had been gone for just a little while. She didn’t know when he’d be back.
On the negative side, there was nowhere to go, unless Eveline decided to step off the edge and hurl herself down the steep ravine. The cliffside consisted of a relatively smooth rock facing that even the most skilled mountain climbers would have difficulty scaling with professional implements, never mind a librarian who mostly shunned outdoor and other physically strenuous activities.
There was no escape, except through a painful, plummeting death, in other words.
On the bright side, she was able to relieve herself in relative privacy earlier, and the eagle-man left her food—three fat rabbits. Before he left, he even started a small fire for her to roast the meat upon. She still had her backpack, in which, she was happy to note, there were various survival kits, including two full water canteens, first-aid, snack bars and freeze-dried meals-in-a-pouch.
She much preferred the rabbits.
The eagle-man