Pure Destiny (PureDark Ones #12) - Aja James Page 0,53

hello. And keep the vampire hussy’s hands to herself.”

“Noted,” Aella said.

“I’ll come too,” Inanna volunteered. “Maybe I can convince the Chosen to help us make our case and sway the King.”

“As long as he doesn’t know we executed his daughter, our chances are probably fifty-fifty,” Aella muttered beneath her breath.

“Meanwhile,” Eveline addressed the remaining group as the two women walked out, “gather round folks. I need all the help I can get deciphering these texts.”

“The answer is in here somewhere. We just have to find it.”

*** *** *** ***

The sun had set.

By Sophia’s calculation, if she understood their ETA correctly, they had about an hour’s flight left.

For the past hour, she’d focused on their joined hands, coalesced all of her feelings and memories, and funneled them relentlessly into Dalair.

She was exhausted, hungry, thirsty. She didn’t dare let up for fear that if she broke their connection, whatever progress she was making would be forfeited. And she was making progress. She knew it.

Despite Dalair’s stoic exterior, despite that he never once looked in her direction, keeping his eyes on the horizon, she saw hairline fractures in his impenetrable mask.

It was the way the muscle in his jaw ticked. The way the vein in his temple pulsed. The way his breathing grew more labored. The way his hand involuntarily tightened around hers, squeezing her so hard she thought he’d crush her bones.

As it was, her left hand was mostly numb, her fingers white and bloodless. But she squeezed him back just as hard. This was the closest she’d been to him since her past incarnation as Kira. Closeness in terms of understanding between a man and a woman.

Before her Awakening as Sophia, she’d been his charge; he’d been her protector. She was still growing into herself. And after her Awakening, they’d not had time. Even though she’d taken him inside her repeatedly over the past few days, it was only his body she touched. Nothing else.

Now, though she hadn’t spoken a single word, she’d shown him so much. Thoughts and actions he never knew, because he’d been biased by his own perspective and made assumptions about hers. And he couldn’t deny them, because he lived her memories with her through their Bond. He experienced everything from her point of view.

He felt.

Her emotions. Her doubts. Her dreams. Her desperate, helpless, endless love for him.

Come back to me, Dalair, she beseeched him silently.

Keep holding onto my hand. Don’t ever let me go again…

6th Century B.C., Persepolis, Capital City of the Persian Empire.

“Kira, my love, I have news from the front!”

Kira was sitting on top of the northern hill not far beyond the Palace gates that overlooked the bustling metropolis of her husband’s homeland.

After ten years of marriage, perhaps she should have begun thinking about Persepolis as her home too. But…things hadn’t gone the way she’d hoped when she first met “her prince.” Starting with the fact that he was not, in fact, her prince.

He was a doppelganger, the real Crown Prince’s protector, just like Kira had pretended to be Amon, except in reverse. His name was Dalair, titled Al-Amir, Protector of the Prince. And since he also saved her life while escorting her from Zau to Persepolis, Cambyses often joked that he should be called Dalair Al-Amirah instead.

Dalair.

It meant “brave” or “valiant.” So very fitting for the warrior she first met ten years ago. Even more fitting now that he was the hazarapatish, the Chief Commander, of King Cyrus’ fearsome armies—the Immortals.

Although, it depended on how one looked at things. To the people of the Persian Empire, he was indisputably a hero. Not by coincidence, they also looked upon the Crown Prince as the hero, given that Dalair looked enough like Cambyses that they could be twins.

King Cyrus often misled the Persian citizens and military that it was actually Cambyses who led the campaigns, so that the Crown Prince’s reputation could grow among the people, preparing for the day that he would inherit the throne. Only very few palace insiders knew the truth.

Kira certainly hadn’t known ten years ago. Not until it had been too late.

To the people of the conquered lands, however, the Chief Commander was feared as a demon warrior. Kira was thankful that at least the Immortals were not known to pillage and rape. She knew without a doubt that it was because of the unassailable honor in their leader.

She looked up now as Cambyses came into view, his dark curls cresting the top of the hill. He was walking swiftly,