The Outcast Page 7

  Thank you for making me into something to be pitied, dependent on those around me for care? He was supposed to protect her, to love and cherish her from the moment they met.

  Instead he’d nearly killed her.

  Had she not possessed the soul of a healer she would have died already. Dardaptoan healers were unique. There were a limited number of them, and each had a tiny piece of the original healer’s soul lodged within their hearts. That healer—now immortalized, though unnamed—would never truly die. Which meant that it took far longer for healers to die when injured.

  Whatever the slave keeper had done to her, she had yet to die from it. And she probably wouldn’t. No matter how much she wished it.

  She wasn’t like her foster mother Aureliana. The older woman had cared for her frequently as an infant and child when her brothers Thadd and Theo hadn’t been able to. Aureliana had chosen to deny herself her Rajni for nearly ten months after meeting him. She’d thought she was protecting the big warrior from her inevitable death at the hands of a Beansidhe. But they’d figured things out between them almost three months ago, and now they were happy together. The way Rajnis were supposed to be.

  Auri had chosen not to mate her male. Bronwen had had that choice made for her through his actions. His disdain.

  But now he wanted something from her, and was proving relentless.

  **

  Koios waited. He knew the girl healer would have to come out of her chamber eventually. And he was prepared. He could wait no longer to make things right between them. His time had run out, and he had to return to his own kingdom. Lothicano could ill afford his absence and his brother’s. And Sinrik had a mate and child to think of. Until his twin convinced that mate to return with him, Sinrik’s need to remain in this damned place was far more pressing.

  Sinrik had a family, Koios wasn’t sure what the healer girl was to him. He’d abandoned the idea of making her a slave, a servilla. But he owed her his protection and some sort of restitution for what had happened to her while technically in his keeping. That he had not been present for most of those two weeks mattered little. He had taken her from the ones who protected her and she had been damaged. That made him responsible.

  But the girl was proving extremely stubborn in allowing him to care for her, in allowing him to regain his honor. He had plans to set her up in his castle, provide her with attendants and anything else that she needed. He had a vague plan of allowing her to remain as companion to his twin’s mate, with whom he knew she was particularly close. He would allow her to live a life of completely luxury, doing anything that she pleased. Her new blindness prevented her from doing much else, didn’t it?

  Her door opened and he kept himself as still as his warrior training would allow. She would not realize he was there, not until he was ready to make that fact known. He would grab the girl and flash her to his castle in Lothicano. It was the only option he had left. It would be up to his brother to make Koios’s apologies to the girl’s family and caregivers.

  But Koios had made his decision several days ago, and nothing would deter him.

  She felt her way along the wall and took tiny steps that barely moved her forward at all. He was two inches past seven feet in her world’s measurements. He estimated she was two feet smaller, or thereabouts. Warrior youths hit that size around their tenth birth year. What had he been thinking? A servilla this female would never make. Her hair was brown. Nothing remarkable about it, just dirt brown and worn straight and long down her back. Her eyes were covered by dark glasses, but he remembered the unusual yellow color well. She had strangely feline eyes, typical of her Kind. And she had the delicate beauty of features that could lure an unsuspecting male victim to the bloodsucking Kind’s side.

  It did not work on Koios. The girl was too small, too weak, too not of his Kind for his attention to stray in that direction.

  Perhaps he could keep her as a pampered pet. It was not unheard of in his realm for oddities from other worlds to be kept and coddled. And though the high queen of this world was of her Kind, this little Dardaptoan female was very unusual.

  Koios forced those thoughts away. Similar thoughts to these were what had gotten him into this predicament to begin with. He’d seen her when she’d first stumbled upon him—literally—and had wanted her. He had yet to be able to explain it, even more than a year later. But it was the truth. He’d wanted her in his home, so he’d taken her.

  He’d justified it with the fact that Healers of her Kind were immensely prized for their abilities. They were taken by just about any other Kind in any other realm. He could have sold her for three hundred times her weight in his world’s most precious currency.

  Something his kingdom could have used a year ago.

  She was within his arm’s reach now; she was so vulnerable, wasn’t she? She did not even know he was there.

  That made what he was about to do even more despicable.

  Koios reached out.

  Now Available from Calle J. Brookes and

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  The Wolf God & His Mate

  Kennera and Eiophon’s story

  Chapter One

  Kennera

  Levia Palace, West Tower

  The sound of her people’s prayers, prayers that she could not answer, twisted her heart every moment of every day. She could not help them, could not guide them as a goddess was supposed to. She had failed them for almost three thousand years, and that was unforgivable.

  She no longer blamed the Wolf god. Eiophon had not controlled her actions, she had. She was the one responsible for her people; she did not deserve their continued honor and reverence.

  All she could do was watch them through the sieve that bubbled within the center of her rooms at Levia. It was by the grace of the goddess Nelciana that her people had yet to become extinct. Her beloved Dardaptoans numbered less than two hundred thousand — the Wolf god’s numbered four to five times that.

  She had mere months before she and Eiophon would be freed from their imprisonment. He had already vowed through the stone and magic barrier that separated his half of the palace from hers that when they were set free, he would raise his army against hers and erase her and hers from Gaia completely.

  All because she had dared to think she loved him.

  For three thousand years she’d questioned her stupidity.

  A prayer rose from the sieve, louder than the others, and she turned to it… It was Kindara Jareth, a healer Kennera felt particularly guilty about. Kindara had suffered so greatly in the last thirty years, and Kennera had been unable to help her much at all.

  Kennera bowed her head and sent the patient beneath Kindara’s hands a bit of her own strength. It was Aureliana, a woman with a warrior’s spirit, wounded protecting Kindara a few days earlier while in another realm. Relaklonos was even older than Gaia — Kennera had always been frightened of the demon inhabitants there and had discouraged her people from venturing into those strange lands. Kindara had defied that order in search of medicinal help for their people. And she had found it.

  Perhaps she should have encouraged her people to explore other realms rather than avoid them. Kindara had found actual medicines that worked for their people amongst the demons.

  Kennera could not help but fear the discovery came too late.

  Even with Kindara’s medical finds, the Lupoiux could so easily wipe the Dardaptoans from Gaia.

  And Eiophon had vowed to do just that.

  Chapter Two

  Eiophon

  Levia Palace, East Tower

  “You cannot wage war against her people,” Erasomophus warned him. “Have you learned nothing in three thousand years? You cannot upset the balance so greatly.”

  “She must pay for what she has done,” Eiophon stated, but his words lacked heat. Did he still believe as he had three thousand years ago? He had mere months until he could put his plans into action. Yet the desire to do so was strangely missing.

  “What has s
he done that is greater than that which you have done?” Lothonos asked. “Did she curse your people? Yes. Did you curse hers? Horribly so. And why? Because she dared to have a crush on you when she was young and innocent. Were it me, I would not have treated her thusly.”

  No, the intellectual god would not have. He would have adored the Girl goddess who was more silly than practical. Eiophon would be caught in no such idiocy. “You would have put her upon a pedestal higher than those Dardaptoans of hers have. They give her wreaths of flowers and citrine twice a year!”

  “They love their goddess and have faith in her. Can you say the same for your beasts?” Lothonos’ words were more potent for the lack of passion behind them. The God of Logic remained collected in most situations. It was only with the girl goddess that he appeared warm. “Much could be said for that kind of loyalty.”

  “Foolish creatures, just like their goddess.”

  “Foolish no more.” Erasomophus shook his head, a strange sadness in his silver eyes. A grief almost that of a father. “They struggle for their very survival.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Your curses were strong and long reaching. As so much time has passed, more and more of their females are dying. What happens when there are no more? Their Kind will not be able to continue. Not much longer. And neither will she…” Lothonos’ normally stoic countenance showed strong grief of his own. “Her time nears, I am afraid…”

  Eiophon cared not for the other gods’ dramatics. “How so? Is her heart so broken, then?”

  “Do not be flippant. Death of a deity is always terrifying. It can cause a rupture we will never recover from.” Erasomophus was the oldest of the men, at four times Eiophon’s considerable years. “Her death will unbalance us all… unless she shifts her power to someone first.”

  Chapter Three

  Kennera

  “This melancholy bodes ill for your people, Nera.” The goddess closest in years to Kennera sat upon the lavish cushions of Kennera’s favorite settee. Nelciana was dark in ways that Kennera was fair, but the goddess of family held a loving and loyal nature. “Your days here are waning. You must have your strength if you are to grow your people in number again.”

  “That is impossible. I have little energy left.” Should she tell her? Nelciana was her best friend, the one to whom she’d poured out her sorrows almost daily for three thousand years. “I give it all to them.”

  Nelciana’s face paled. “You are transferring? From this distance? Nera… it is little wonder you look so… frail.”

  “What choice do I have? I have so few of my people left and they have such need of me. What else can I give them behind these stone walls?”

  “Yet you have not fed in three millennia! You will die if you continue.”

  “Better I die providing something to my people, than slaughtered at Eiophon’s hands.” Kennera was prepared for what she must do. How could she not be? She had had thousands of years to reconcile herself with what must be done. “When I do go… I chose you. I will give you what I have left, but I have one request…”

  Horror was in the amethyst eyes of her friend. Nelciana knew what she was asking, Kennera recognized her friend’s grief in the way her shoulders had stiffened, her hands had tightened on the satin pillow she held.

  “You are not going to die. We will not let you.”

  “Even if you try, I do not think you can stop it. I would rather be prepared, Nel. He has vowed it so many times over the last three millennia. If I go, I wish you to take the rest of my people. Provide for them as if they were your own. I know you can do it. My people and yours have lived together peacefully for all these years. I ask you…”

  “Consider it done. But you must know the rest of us will not allow him to harm you.”

  “The rest of you are not as powerful, even combined, as Eiophon. He is the strongest of us all. And the most beastly. He cares not for my people, only his and his vengeance.” Kennera walked to the sieve and looked down at her favorite tribe of Dardaptoans. The Dardanos tribe was her largest at fifteen thousand, but that was not why she loved them so. Rydere was so fierce, so determined to rule his tribe and protect them with all he had.

  Were it someone like he she had fallen in love with so long ago, the fate of all Dardaptoans would not be so grim.

  Rydere held his Rajni, the once human Emily, against him as she slept. He had much on his mind, as he usually did. His thoughts often echoed in Kennera's heart.

  Tonight it was the fact that his tribal home was overrun with Lupoiux wolves who claimed a relationship with his woman.

  What would happen to those Dardaptoans who had mated with Lupoiux? There were not many, but some of her matches had gone awry.

  She had fated all of her people on the day they were born. Their names were listed on a scroll, magically put there at the moment of birth. She would close her eyes and whisper the name that came to her. Sometimes those names were witch, most were Dardaptoan. Some were Lupoiux. Lupoiux — who, despite their allegiance to Eiophon — deserved love.

  She did not control the pairing, she just channeled the ties to bind them together.

  But what would happen to the half-Dardaptoan/half-Lupoiux children when Eiophon came for her? What would happen to those lovers who were of different Kinds? Would Eiophon kill them, too?

  Chapter Four

  Eiophon

  It was early in the morning, and the girl goddess would be sleeping still. Eiophon knew her routine as well as his own, though an impenetrable barrier separated his part of the palace from hers.

  She stayed up late each evening, staring at the stars. He could just make out her soft form stretched across her bed through the ether of his sieve. He spent much of his day watching the girl responsible for his captivity. He spent much of his day plotting how he would make her pay for her actions so long ago.

  But now that the day was fast approaching when he could act upon those plans, he found himself reluctant.

  Her people were almost completely gone from the face of Gaia. And from what he had heard out of the other deities, and what he could see through his own sieve, they would not last much longer.

  What more of a revenge could there be for a goddess who felt her people’s pain as deeply as Kennera did?

  He fought a smile of satisfaction.

  He had not suspected so many years ago that his words would wreak such pain upon his feminine enemy, or that the curses he flung at her around the barrier Erasomophus, Lothonos, and Acastia had created years ago would hit her so deeply.

  She had yet to retaliate against him. And that continued to puzzle him. Why would she not? He tried daily to get her to react to him. She had yet to do so.

  His torment of her began the moment she would awaken and continued until one of the other deities visited her. Most often it was Nelciana. Sometimes it was Lothonos, who came to worship her without her knowing.

  The god of knowledge and science was a fool where Kennera was concerned. Eiophon could often hear him lusting over the girl. He may not have been able to see the girl clearly in his sieve, but he could sometimes hear her conversations with the other deities.

  Acastia, Domustri, and Levakoran visited her occasionally, though she spoke little to those three. Mostly, the older gods and goddess just lectured the girl goddess on her foolishness. She never contradicted them. Just ignored them until they left. Their visits had waned in frequency over the last fifteen hundred years or so.

  All but Nelciana visited him on a regular basis. They would play games, drink, and eat fine meals. No such gatherings occurred in the girl goddess’s part of the palace.

  She spent most of her time at her sieve, watching her people. He rarely watched his. How could they learn to be independent if he monitored their every move?

  “Girl.” He never called her by name; names contained power. He always called her girl. She had never answered. That, more than anything, angered him the most. He was the most powerful deity of Gaia, yet she ref
used to acknowledge him.

  Once his confinement ended, he would see to it that she did just that before she died. The last sounds on her lips would be his name and the words necessary to transfer her powers to him. By rights, it was what she owed to him for taking the last three millennia of his life from him.

  Chapter Five

  Kennera

  It was him again. Calling her. Wanting to goad her to fight with him. The first few years of her confinement, she had done just that. She always lost. She was not as mean hearted or as ruthless as the male deity. She could not think of the vile curses as fast as he. Would not. Though he had done much to her people, she could not wish the same upon his. They were innocent of the war between their deities.

  She had once believed that all the Kinds could freely be with one another. That love — like the humans said — had no true boundaries.

  She had been stupid where he was concerned, her attraction to his physical perfection and strength overshadowing the truth of his character. How could any god condemn a people to the suffering that hers had endured?

  The females and babes lost were heartbreaking. She had a list of their names, those lost since his vicious curses first rang down. She looked at it sometimes, a reminder of how she had failed as a goddess.

  She would make it up to them, somehow.

  With her death, Nelciana would assume leadership of the few Dardaptoans that remained. As goddess of families and relationships, the other deity would strengthen the bonds between Dardaptoan and Witch. And Nelciana’s sense of loyalty would have her protecting the Dardaptoans fiercely. They would survive. Thrive.