Pure Destiny (PureDark Ones #12) - Aja James Page 0,49
the match.
She was pleased with Prince Cambyses.
Finally, the King and Queen turned to other guests, and Kira sensed the Prince’s subtle release of tension beside her.
Was he anxious that the Egyptian royalty would find him somehow lacking?
True, Egyptians considered Persians a barbaric people. She herself used to believe that all Persian men smelled worse than camels, had fleas in their unruly beards and ate innocent children for breakfast.
True, the Prince’s mannerisms weren’t the most polished or smooth upon first interaction, but he was intelligent, kind, and always respectful, direct, and steady.
He was, in short, everything Kira could ever have hoped for. And even more.
Her Prince. He was hers.
She decided to test the claim out loud.
“Drink and eat your fill, my prince,” she murmured, meeting his eyes as he glanced her way.
Again, she seemed to have startled him with her chosen address, if the slight widening of his eyes was any indication.
It was an intimate address, “my prince.”
She would never use it with anyone but him from this day forward.
*** *** *** ***
My Prince…
It hurt to remember.
The warrior stared fixedly on the darkening horizon as the sun began its gradual decline to the west.
While his conscious mind navigated the helicopter as if on autopilot, a deeply submerged part of him stirred within, rattling the cages of its prison.
That part of him had always believed that when she spoke the words “my prince,” she’d been speaking of someone else. But now that he felt what she’d felt, as if he lived the past with her, inside of her, he finally understood the truth.
She’d always been speaking of him. No matter the pretense, no matter their circumstance, he had been her prince. He had simply and utterly been hers.
Uncontrollably, memories flooded his subconscious mind.
Their journey from Zau to Persepolis. Their carefree race. When he almost kissed her, even though she’d been disguised as a man. When he purchased his favorite scent for her—Lady of the Night—pretending it was for the “Princess” to whom he hadn’t spoken a single word.
All he saw and heard and noticed was Amon. Amon’s sparkling dark eyes. Amon’s glances beneath sooty lashes. Amon’s heartfelt chuckles and white-teethed grins.
He hadn’t cared that Amon was a man. He’d wanted this being, no matter what.
Their caravan had been attacked on the outskirts of Persepolis. He and his soldiers had dispatched their enemies, sustaining few wounds themselves. When Amon engaged the assassins to protect the princess, the warrior had half lost his mind, overwhelmed by a surge of primal protectiveness and rage, that his person was threatened, that Amon could be hurt or killed…
Presently, the warrior grasped the hand holding his wrist in a relentless grip, enveloping the much smaller hand from above, entwining their fingers and folding both their hands into one tight fist.
The memories flooded him mercilessly, making him grit his teeth at the onslaught.
What came next had ripped the beating heart out of his body—when he discovered the morning after they arrived in Persepolis that Amon was not who he thought. That he was the Princess in disguise. The Princess promised to Cambyses, his half-brother…
The involuntary ripple of his throat as he swallowed and the madly ticking muscle in his jaw were the warrior’s only outward signs of distress.
Deep inside his subconsciousness, the ghostly demon howled and shook its cage with increased fervor, demanding to be let out.
The warrior’s self-protective instincts kicked in. His conscious mind tried to escape the painful memories, the way his past self had run away from Persepolis so that he didn’t have to witness the Princess—Kira—marry Cambyses.
But the hand that held his in the present, Sophia’s hand, wouldn’t let go. She turned her hand until her palm met his and clawed her fingers between his, holding him tight from below.
Through their linked minds, their joined flesh, she kept funneling her memories into him. There was nowhere to run. No escape. Despite the Master’s program to compartmentalize his memories and neutralize his emotions, the warrior felt overwhelmed.
Most of all, he finally felt.
Chapter Nine
“She’s gone dark. Coms cut off. We have no way of tracking them.”
Inanna bit off the words with barely contained frustration and fear. Right now, she couldn’t afford to be the terrified, disconsolate mother. She had to find her warrior strength. She had to focus.
“They were headed northeast. Most likely up the coast or close to it. Tristan is working with Devlin and Grace at the Cove to see if they can help narrow down the flight paths,” Gabriel added beside her.