Unmade (Unborn #4) - Amber Lynn Natusch Page 0,6
do what I came to do.”
“I am not—”
“You are leaving,” I said, wheeling around on him. “You will leave because Kaine needs me for reasons still unknown and will not harm me because of this. You being here would suggest a bizarre union—an alliance that would surely arouse suspicion in him and the others, which I do not need. So you will leave, and I will consider your demands when I return.”
His anger flared, and I felt that familiar taste of terror on the back of my tongue. Still, I held my ground and tried to absorb his power to use against him. As if he sensed my plan, he withdrew his hostility and his person, taking a step back.
“If you do not return soon, I will come for you.”
“You will not need to. Perhaps you should channel your anger into finding your brother.”
That same anger flashed in his eyes before he disappeared from sight.
Seconds later, Kaine’s voice echoed toward me.
“Khara…”
I turned to see his approach. “Where is he, Kaine?”
“Have you come to fulfill your promise to me? The one you made in exchange for me keeping your father safe from circling enemies?”
I ignored his question entirely. “Where. Is. He?”
“Who?” he asked, cocking his head. He stopped a few feet away and looked at me with a twinge of amusement in his expression. I wanted to burn it off. I may have been alone in the presence of the leader of the Dark Ones, but I was not afraid. He did not know the lengths I would go to to bring Oz back, but he would learn if he did not give him to me freely. They all would.
“Do not be coy with me, Kaine—I am far from in the mood.”
“Ah, you are looking for Ozereus.”
“Yes.”
“He is not here.”
“I do not believe you,” I said, taking a cautious step closer, careful to stay out of reach. “I believe that he came here, either willingly or by force, and has not left since. I believe that you have not killed him, and will not kill him, because he may be a bargaining chip where I am concerned. And I believe that, if you do not hand him over, you will very much live to regret it.”
He inhaled sharply, nostrils flaring with either anger or irritation—perhaps both.
“I see why he desires you, Khara. Your impudence and utter lack of concern for yourself is strangely endearing, if not a little overplayed.”
“I can assure you, he would argue your point to the death. He finds my insolence tiresome and my lack of concern a plague on his existence. Bring him out,” I said, my eyebrow quirking ever so slightly. “I am certain he will agree.”
“Brazen, too,” he mused, reaching for a loose strand of my hair blowing in the stale breeze. I took a step back. “I think I like you even more—”
“You will like me much less if you do not give me what I want—”
“Why did Deimos bring you here?” he asked, interrupting my threat.
“Because I asked nicely.”
He dropped his hand and stared at me with fire in his eyes. “You should not trust him—”
“I should not trust you,” I countered.
Those eyes went wide with surprise, then rage. “You think the Dark Ones are worse than him?”
“No,” I replied, honey in my tone, “not all of them…”
“Let me make this plain, Khara. I will not relinquish Oz to you because I have no intention of letting you leave. Deimos was a fool to bring you here.”
“Deimos is never a fool,” I replied, taking a step around the black-winged being of nightmares to circle him. Oz’s previous warning about not letting Kaine touch me rang clearly through my mind. “He brought me here to get what he wants. If he thought I was in real danger, he never would have complied. He would have found another way.”
Kaine shook his head as I took another step around his side. “There is no leaving now,” he said, voice low and raspy and full of something I could not name.
I slipped behind him, and he kept his back to me—a sign of dominance. A show of power. Arrogance that would soon get me the answers I sought.
My fingers ran through his dark hair as I pressed my hand to his skull. I prayed that me initiating touch with him was different than the Dark One touching me. “Show me where he is,” I said softly, letting the power of Muses’ magic flow through me into him.