5. Karmen
5
KARMEN
T oo bad this man isn't as trustworthy as the beast he carries inside him. I could have used a loyal man like him.
The thought startled me, as if someone had woken up inside me to speak in my head. I wasn't entirely sure where the thought had come from. It didn't seem like mine. I didn't know anything about wolves to decide if they were trustworthy or loyal. Let alone men.
My stomach churned as if I'd swallowed a vat of acid. If what the doctor had said was true... Then I knew one man very well indeed. Or at least well enough to carry his child.
I turned away, uncaring of his rage. He was all bluster. He might believe that he was a big, bad wolf, but I'd seen the real monster before, and this man wasn't anywhere close. Though that didn't mean I trusted him. At all. "Thank you for at least helping me leave the hospital grounds. Just take me somewhere I can shelter once dawn comes. Then I'll be gone."
My words threw him. He sucked in a hard breath but didn't immediately reply or move to start the vehicle again. I could still hear his heart thundering loudly inside my head. He smelled so different from the humans at the hospital. What had he called us? Aima. I mulled the world around in my head. It felt right. The same way my name felt right.
He'd called me a queen, descended from a goddess. I searched inside myself for any hint of power from beyond. A drop of godly blood. Anything that supported the idea.
Inside me, all I found was an empty wasteland. My soul was empty, blasted by endless heat into a desert so barren and devastated that not even sand would swirl across the baked, cracked earth.
"You... Why...?" He growled, shaking his head. "I have so many questions that I don't know where to begin."
I tipped my head to look up at the dark sky, searching for any hint of light on the horizon. But there were too many buildings and lights to see much of anything. "How long do I have before it's daylight?"
"Why does that matter?"
"They'll come with the sun. I need to be hidden before dawn."
"They who? Where do they come from? You're not making any sense."
I didn't have time for his nonsense. If dawn was close... I wasn't going to be trapped in this car with him. I felt the door, searching for some kind of handle.
His hand dropped down on my thigh. "Look?—"
I flinched away, slamming my body against the car door. "Don't touch me!" Panicked, I pounded my bare hand on the glass. Harder. I'd shatter the window if I had to in order to get away.
He pulled back. "Hey, Karmen, easy. Sorry. I won't touch you again. I swear it. Please, you're going to hurt yourself. I'll take you somewhere safe."
Gasping for breath, I leaned my forehead against the cold glass. Waves of pain flowed over my body. Fire in human form. Crackling flames and energy like the first sign of danger I'd seen in the hallway.
Sweat broke out on my forehead. An image blazed in my mind. A golden hand. Fingers of molten fire. Stroking me. Burning me.
I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood, but the small pain made the horror recede.
"Don't you dare," the wolfman snapped, all teeth and fury again.
I sucked on the small puncture in my lip, making sure none of my blood escaped. I didn't know much—but that was important. It'd been drilled into my head at an early age. "Dare what?" I retorted, refusing to look at him. I wrapped my arms around my midsection, holding myself together. I felt like I might fall apart. Unravel. Explode into a thousand pieces. Tension strained inside me, vibrating with urgency. If I didn't find a way to ease that strain... I wouldn't make it another night in this strange new world.
"You know damned well what I'm talking about." He at least started the vehicle again and pulled back out onto the road.
"Do I? Really? Why don't you explain it to me?"
He drove in silence a few moments. He must have decided that he agreed with me, because he let out another grunt beneath his breath. "You don't know anything about queens or houses? The Triune? Your goddess? Anything?"
"I already told you that I remember my name and very little else." Sadness welled inside me. Grief for someone I'd loved, a very long time ago. I closed my eyes, searching for the memory, but it dissolved into nothingness. "I've been... somewhere else. Not here. None of this looks familiar."
Grudgingly, he nodded. "My sister was held somewhere not too long ago. Goddess only knows what she suffered in the years she was gone."
I carried an ocean of tears inside me. Without even knowing this woman's name or anything else of her history, my body knew instinctively that she had suffered, too. Maybe not exactly the same, but there was a kinship there. A constant, nagging fear and rage that made me both vulnerable and ferocious.
Never again , I resolved silently. I will never be held captive again.
"Do you know how long you were held?"
"Not really." I was pleased that my voice sounded normal and even despite the sandpaper roughening my throat. "An eternity. I suspect that I was a child when I was taken. I remember climbing a tree to pick olives."
He glanced at me, his eyes narrowed with consideration and curiosity. "Aima queens are hard to set an age to unless you know your lineage. But there aren't too many places that olive trees will grow. Does the name Marne Ceresa mean anything to you?"
I shook my head as I repeated the name slowly. "No."
"Describe the place you were held. At least what you remember."
I loosened the fierce hug around my midsection because I was starting to find it difficult to breathe. I settled for threading my fingers together and gripping my hands together tightly. "It was very bright all the time. The sun never stopped shining. It was merciless. Punishingly bright. Sear your eyeballs, fry your skin, scramble your brain bright."
"And that's why you want to know when the sun comes up? Because I can assure you that the sun isn't like that here."
"No. There was something else there. We called them sunfires."
"We who?"
My bottom lip trembled before I could control it. "There were others. Like me."
"Other queens?" He sounded skeptical, as if he hadn't just told me his sister had been trapped and held against her will, too.
"Yes. Not many, but over the years, or however long I was there, other women came. I didn't know they were queens, or Aima, as you call them. But there were other women. Well, mostly girls."
"Sorry, babe, but I don't believe you. There haven't been Aima queens young enough to be called girls in centuries."
Evidently this was going to be a pattern with him. I didn't have time for anyone who doubted my word or argued with my own memories, no matter how scarce they were. I might not remember much, but the things I did remember, I'd rather forget. They were engraved in my brain. Forever.
"Whatever." I turned my head enough to stare out the window, trying to memorize the passing landmarks. The buildings went by in a blur, a bewildering sprawl of city. Very much like where I'd been, I realized. There had been buildings, walls, houses, palaces, and... pyramids. I was sure of it. But there was something very strange about them. I couldn't put my finger on the difference exactly. "Believe me or not. I won't go back. Where are you taking me?"
"I'm going to drive out of the city while I try to think of the best place to take you. Do you know what a nest is?"
I shook my head, not willing to give my voice to a man who didn't believe.
"Given your background, I think you might want to talk to my sister. She might be able to help you heal from the trauma you endured."
There was no healing from something like this. I would carry the scars on my soul. Like a delicate crystal glass, the cracks and splinters and chips that would never be healed inside me. All I could do was hope nothing else broke me completely.
"The only catch is we can't get there before dawn."
I searched the night sky, trying to tell which direction we were headed. In the darkness, we could be going up and down for all I knew. Everything seemed to be turned upside down. Nothing made sense.
"I know a good quiet place where we can spend the day. If you're adamant that you can't be out in the sun."
"I am," I replied without elaborating.
He huffed out a laugh. "It's like one of those old-time vampire movies. I don't suppose you need a coffin too?"
"I don't know what that is, but I want a room without any windows. Preferably only one door."
"A coffin," he muttered. "Need some salt and holy water? Maybe some garlic?"
He was laughing at me, but I didn't care. He had no idea what the sunfires were capable of. "I'm familiar with salt, but that won't help us against the things coming after me. I don't suppose you have a mirror, do you?"
I felt the heat of his glance again and read the surprise in the intensity of his gaze. He was a man who wasn't taken by surprise often. "Why a mirror? Are you going to give them the Medusa treatment?" I must have looked as confused as I felt, because he shook his head and focused on the road again. "Guess it's safe to say you're not descended from a Skolos court, or you'd certainly know Her name."
"I don't know Skolos or Medusa, but I do know how to use mirrors to protect myself."
"I'd rather have a pack of wolves any day. Or at least a couple of weapons. What does a mirror do?"
"The best defense against light is darkness, but when you lose the cover of night, you use the next best thing."
"Their reflection?"
I shifted around slightly so I could lay my head against the seat but still see him if he tried to touch me again. "Not the reflection of an image, but a reflection—and magnification—of their greatest strength, their brightness. Sunfires love the sun, but even they can't stand against their own blinding brightness."
"Tell me more." His voice lowered, a deep, soothing rumble. I still didn't trust him, but I was starting to understand him more. He would definitely bite the hand that tried to loop a rope around his neck. Luckily for him, I had no such plans. What would I do with a rabid wolf on a rope? "Close your eyes, Karmen. Breathe deeply. Allow the past to flow over you, rather than chasing and forcing the memories to come."
I closed my eyes slightly, but I couldn't stop checking on his location every few seconds through barely cracked eyelids. "That's the problem, wolfman. I don't want to remember."
"You can call me by name, you know."
I huffed out one of his grumpy grunts. "Can I? When you haven't told me what your name is?"
"You've got me there." He laughed softly. "Eivind Ironheart, king of the wolves."
"King, like you said I'm a queen?"
"Not exactly. You have power from your goddess, whoever She is. I was given the ability to shift into a wolf when I was born. Our kind usually have to swear to a queen to get that kind of power."
There was a heaviness in his words that implied secrets and regrets, things that he didn't want to talk about. Naturally, I wanted to prod those areas and drag the truth out of him. "That's why you're scared of me? You think I'll somehow force you to swear to me?"
In the darkness, I couldn't see much of his features, but I could hear the growl rolling from his chest and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. A tuft of hair bristling up along his skull. A warning, like a cobra's hood.He didn't like that I'd said he was afraid out loud. It wounded his ego, even if it was true.
"It happens all the time. You queens are so fucking powerful that you forget we're living beings with wills of our own. I won't be taken, Karmen."
"Good." I yawned, trying to keep my eyelids partially cracked despite their increasing heaviness. "I don't want to take you in any way, shape, or form."
"So you say now. But when you remember what you are..."
I knew who I was, at least at my core. I was a survivor. I knew that much. I'd endured things I couldn't make myself remember. But I was still alive, and that's all that mattered. Now that I had my freedom, I'd do anything.
Anything.
To stay free.