8. Karmen

8

KARMEN

I drifted in peace, a heavy sleep that I'd been denied for most of my life. Blissful darkness and shade from the merciless sun. Cool, easy darkness on my skin. Nothing tormented me. Nothing burned me. Nothing hurt, except for the ache in my fangs. I knew what they were now. In sleep, my body remembered. My instincts awoke. My blood remembered sparking with magic, though it was dead and cold in my veins now.

I walked a dark landscape that billowed like black velvet clouds and waves of softness around me. No sharp edges. No spark of fire or light. Such bliss. I couldn't remember not hurting. I couldn't remember a soothing night breeze rustling my hair and kissing my skin, wiping away the burns. Cool like water, soft like feathers, sweet like flowers. The gentle gust flowed over me and words flitted like small dark birds.

"The choice is yours, daughter."

I didn't recognize her voice despite the reference to me as her child. The girl who'd climbed the olive tree tipped her head, listening to the words, and didn't recognize her mother's voice. Her words sparked in the darkness with soft pearly light that didn't harm me at all. Slowly, it dawned on me that this might be a goddess. The wolfman had insisted we were descended from Gaia's daughters.

"Who are you?" I asked softly.

The pearly sparks swirled around me like bright moths dancing in the moonlight. "You know me primarily as Sól, but some know me as Mani. I am both sun and moon."

I'd heard those names before as a child, especially Sól. Everything related to the sun was familiar. The sunfires, the gold palaces, the blazing sun...

WasI descended from that burning madness?

"The god of light ruined many of our ancient lines. You are not only the last Sunna, daughter of my line, but the last queen claiming any drop of solar power. Ra destroyed every other solar house in existence."

I shuddered. Ra. Yes. I remembered. No wonder my prison had been a golden pyramid with an open roof so his blazing symbol in the sky could perpetually punish all of the people living in his city.

"The choice is yours," She repeated in the same gentle, soothing voice. "Embrace my sun, or my moon, or neither. You will still have great gifts. You are still my daughter."

"What gifts?" I asked hoarsely. "I don't have any power left. It was burned out of me long ago."

"The magic still lives in you, daughter. The power has always been yours. You only have to take it back."

I closed my eyes and swallowed hard. I didn't deserve power. I didn't deserve gifts from a goddess. Not me.

"Wolves chased me across the sky." Her voice tinkled like musical chimes, floating through the night. "According to legend, they devoured me in the end. This wolf beside you fears that you will chain him like Fenrir. He doesn't understand that his fear is the cage, just as it is yours. Ra gave you great blessings, some that you may despise and reject from your life. You may deny your love. Again, it is your choice. Always. I only ask that you consider that a sword is not evil unless it's wielded by an evil man. Your fires and their swords await you in the burning light of day."

Her words alarmed me so badly that I jerked upright, gasping for air as I forced myself to wake up from the dream.

"What is it?"

The man's clipped, growled voice was actually a relief. I knew him. The wolfman who feared Fenrir's fate. I could understand that dread. I had suffered in captivity far too long to ever force another into such a cage, even to save my own life. I had been forced to agree to Ra's demands to save myself, but this time, I would die before I would ever stand by silently while someone was hurt. Even myself.

"Sunfires," I rasped, swinging my legs off the side of the bed. "She said they waited for me in the daylight."

"She who?"

"My goddess," I replied reluctantly, meeting his gaze. "You were right. My house name is Sunna."

He thought a moment and then shrugged. "Never heard of it, but I suppose with your hair and these sun things that you're afraid of that it's no surprise you're from a solar house."

The room was dark, the same as when I'd gone to sleep, but it didn't feel as safe and comforting any longer. Because the wolf was here too? Or were the sunfires outside? In the darkness, I couldn't tell. They could certainly force their way into a dark room, but it would drain them quickly. It would depend on how many might lurk outside...

Eivind saw me listening and his eyes flashed more golden than brown. For a moment, my heart stopped. Cold sweat broke out on my forehead, my skin clammy. That color was the source of all my nightmares and torture for centuries.

This time, an animal looked back at me, not the crazed eyes of an insatiable god. The wolf blinked, nose and ears working harder than mine could possibly fathom."I don't sense anything."

I shook my head slightly. "They're here. I wish I had some clothing to protect my skin."

He jumped up like the chair had suddenly bitten his ass. "Of course, that's what's different. Your skin. You're healed. The scars are gone."

"What?" I looked down at my hands and arms, expecting to see the discolored, thickened marks and pocked hollows. But I ran my palm over my left forearm and gasped softly. Smooth, unmarred skin. I reached around my waist to my lower back, trying not to remember why that spot had been scarred.

The sunfires dripped boiling, fiery acid that had naturally pooled in the small of my back. The deep finger marks had been Ra's, but the burns and acid marks... Those were the demons. When Ra had been feeling particularly displeased, which was oftentimes, he would allow his sunfires to punish his wives.

Until only I remained.

Had the goddess healed me in the dream? Or was it this world? This realm? I had no idea.

"You've remembered something," Eivind said.

I tried not to look as queasy as I felt. "Yes. How long did I sleep? Is it almost dusk?"

"Not even close. You only slept a few hours. It's almost noon."

I swallowed hard. "High noon. When they're most powerful."

For once, he seemed to believe me, or at least he reacted to my fear by reaching behind his back and pulling out a small gun.

I laughed grimly, shaking my head. "You think a gun is going to help against a sunfire? Then we're dead already."

Eyes narrowed, he let out a soft grunt. "We'll see. Most things will at least respect a gun, especially when it's loaded with silver bullets."

A boom had me on my feet, grabbing a mirror shard in each hand. The flimsy walls reverberated. Sirens shrilled.

"Fuck," he growled. "That was an explosion. I bet those meth heads blew up their room."

I had no idea what that meant, but a possible fire made me tremble. "They used the same tactic to get me out of the nest as a child. If the place burns down around us, we'll be exposed."

"Would you rather be trapped by smoke and burned alive? Come on. We have to get out of the building."

He headed for the door, but I stood there, frozen. Terrified. I couldn't go outside. In broad daylight. It was suicide.

Turning, he eyed me, as if trying to decide whether or not he should grab my arm and hustle me to the door despite the vicious shards of glass in my hands. "Karmen, come on. We have to get out. I smelled chemicals earlier. This whole place is going to go up in flames in a matter of minutes."

"I can't," I whispered faintly. "They'll be on me as soon as we step outside into the sun."

His jaw clenched. I braced for him to roll his eyes and snort with derision. "How fast do they run or fly or whatever the fuck they do?"

"Huh?" His question threw my mind into neutral. Did he actually believe me? Or was he merely humoring the crazy person? "Pretty fast, I guess. Like a horse."

He nodded, bending down to grab the largest piece of mirror I'd stashed by the door. "Then let's get to the car. I can drive faster than anything human or non-human can run. We'll be to my sister's in a few hours and even sun demons won't be able to cross into her nest."

Part of me was still sure he only wanted to be rid of me, but he did have a point. I couldn't stay here waiting to be trapped by fire or suffocated by smoke. Making a run for the car was probably our best bet.

I slipped on the coat he'd given me earlier. It'd have to be enough for now. There wasn't much I could do about clothing until we were away. Re-arming myself with mirror shards, I crowded close to Eivind as he prepared to open the door.

"We're going to go straight across the hall and down another hall, alright? There's a back entrance we can use. I parked just a few feet outside that door. Get into the car as quickly as you can, and we'll be on the road in a matter of minutes. They'll never catch us."

He pulled open the door and the piercing shriek of the fire alarm worsened. I didn't need his wolf senses to smell the smoke now. There was definitely a fire somewhere toward the front desk or the other side of the building. He shot across the hall and I followed him, though I wasn't as fast.

My nape prickled and I hunched my shoulders. I could feel something watching us. Watching me. Though I didn't see anyone. Wasn't that odd? No guests stuck their heads out of their rooms, wondering what was going on. The man at the desk had said this end of the building was quiet, but my gut insisted we were headed into a trap.

I glanced back over my shoulder and thick tendrils of smoke billowed down the hallway. The fire would drive us to the rear exit—exactly as they'd planned. The glass door loomed just a few feet away with blazing sunlight outside. Wide open spaces. No place to hide. No darkness. No shade.

Exactlyas they preferred. "Eivind! Wait!"

He slowed, looking back at me. "The car?—"

A shape moved outside the door. Too bright, shining silver. For a moment, my eyes couldn't focus, blurring with tears. But I was all too familiar with that painful glare.

Highly polished silver armor gleamed in the sunlight. White bones glinted like fresh snow despite the heat of the noonday sun. I didn't see the flicker and spark of molten sunlight yet, but where the soldier went in daylight, so did his sunfire.

Eivind saw the dread on my face and turned back to the door. "What the fuck is that?"

I couldn't answer as the walking skeleton pushed the glass open and stepped into the hallway. The distinctive helmet and short sword marked him as one of the Roman Legion. If his commander was here...

Eivind raised the gun, firing off a shot. Another. One pinged off the metal shield. The other struck bone and ricocheted to the side, chipping a rib. But the skeleton didn't pause. There weren't any organs to damage. No blood to shed.

As I'd told him earlier, a gun wasn't going to stop them. I lifted my left arm, tipping the mirror to reflect as much brightness back at the creature as possible.

The skeleton let out a deafening bellow that drowned out the alarms. Calling for more reinforcements. His entire legion was probably between us and the car, smoldering with eager sunfires bursting with all the power of the noonday sun.

Whirling, I ran back into the smoke, holding the other shard aloft in my right hand as I charged forward.

"You can't get out that way!" Eivind called after me. "Not if the fire has reached the front of the building."

I didn't heed his warning. They didn't want us to go this way—so it was our only hope. Trying to breathe shallowly, I slipped down the darkened hall. Black acrid smoke burned my lungs. I had a feeling the fire had escalated, spreading quickly beyond their control. They wouldn't like this much darkness and smoke either. If I could get to the front desk, I could make the creepy human get us a car. Or maybe he'd have another room to hide us in? A safe place down the road? Something.

A hard, bony hand slithered around my wrist and wrenched my arm up high between my shoulders. Dropping the shard, I cried out and tried to pull away, but his iron grip didn't budge. He dragged me through the smoke, ignoring my pitiful attempts to escape. I knew I was no match for him, but I couldn't stop trying. Fighting. I wouldn't go back. Goddess, please. I can't.

"Eivind!" I screamed.

I heard his snarled response down the hall, his choking cough and wheeze. The chemical smell worsened. I wasn't even sure if his wolf could endure the burning odor in the air.

A door slammed shut, blocking most of the smoke outside in the hallway. This room had a window. Enough to illuminate the horrible skeletal features of his face.

I swallowed down the bile threatening to burn its way up my throat. I recognized him. I knew his face. His voice.

"You can stop this," Aurelian Sol Invictus, the commander of the Roman Legion, said. "All you have to do is call your power."

He was one of the most famous warriors ever to walk this earth, which was exactly why Ra had made him a Soldier of Light, one of the elite skeleton guardians of his realm. Aurelian was Ra's favorite. His most trusted enforcer.

Naturally, that meant he'd been the one to torture me the most.

The scars on my back had been his.

For a moment, I was back in hell. I stared into the molten gold shining in his eye sockets and knew my own gaze had gone blank. Dead. Cold. His mouth moved into a grimace that probably would have been a smug smile if he actually had lips. He leaned closer, watching the battle in my eyes as I fought not to flinch or cower away from him. "Good. You remember me. That makes this easier, my queen."

I closed my eyes a moment, hiding my thoughts. He'd never called me a queen before. Let alone his .

He'd called me God's Wife, my title in Ra's realm that I'd been given as a child when I'd accepted his dominion over me. Sometimes Aurelian and his soldiers had called me princess, but always with a sneer in their voices. They'd hated me. They'd hated all the women in Ra's domain, especially the ones who managed to survive any length of time. Aurelian had taken it upon himself to break me. Ruin me. And ultimately, kill me.

Evidently a task he'd relished—even as he failed. Because I was still fucking here. Still alive. Still fighting.

Though, yeah, I wasscared, too. So scared that my heart jumped around frantically like a terrified bird battering its wings against my ribcage.

He jerked my arm so hard that he nearly dislocated my shoulder. Nerves zinged all the way down to my hand, and my numb fingers dropped the other mirror shard. "Call your power. Then the sunfires will submit to your will. They're here for you."

His words made no sense. The sun demons would never submit to my will. They only submitted to Ra, and even he had been forced to bargain with them on occasion. Thousands of years ago, he'd needed them to conquer and absorb the other solar gods, but their power had grown, while his had waned as the old gods slipped into oblivion. On the rare occasion when he'd wanted a compassionate ear, he'd confided to me that it took all his power to hold them. That someday, his hold might loosen. They would escape his realm and his control.

Not that he'd actually cared. He'd already planned to open the gates and allow them to ravage and plunder the other realms once he had what he sought above all. The only reason he hadn't already let them escape was his own gigantic ego. The Supreme and Almighty God of Light couldn't be seen as weak. Let alone failing to hold onto what was his and his alone.

"Ra's dead," Aurelian said. "They escaped Heliopolis and most of them abandoned their carriers. We have to get them back."

My brain latched onto Heliopolis, relieved to finally remember the name of the place I'd been. The rest of his words were too extraordinary to even comprehend. Ra was dead? How could one kill a god? Let alone him .

Aurelian squeezed my shoulders, shaking me so hard my teeth slammed together. "Do you hear me? Light, what's wrong with you?"

"Karmen!" Eivind bellowed somewhere, unable to find me in the smoke. "What the fuck is going on? Where are you?"

A broken sound escaped my lips, though it was mostly a giggle. This was all too much to take in. He still didn't quite believe me. He thought a bullet would stop the greatest warriors of the ages. Meanwhile, Aurelian Sol Invictus actually thought I would go with him. Help him. One of my greatest tormentors.

Help him tame and command the sunfires that even Ra had struggled to contain.

The demons that had dripped acid on me and tormented me as much as him during all those years of captivity.

Not all of the sunfires had been involved in my pain. Only the ones carried by Aurelian's soldiers, theSol Invictus Legion, had ever hurt me. Even then, probably only a handful had ever actively tortured me. Ra had become too jealous of me in the later years. Not because he cared about me. At all. He merely couldn't get a new wife to replace me if something happened to me.

Now he was dead. I was alive. And his surviving enforcer wanted my help.

My whole body felt cold and numb with shock. I'd expected a great many horrible things to happen to me once Ra's minions caught up to me. But I'd never expected this.

"Stupid bitch. No wonder..." His breath caught on a low curse and he jerked me closer to him. I pulled back, leery of his blazing sunfire that usually hovered over his shoulders like a glowing red mantle he'd worn to battle. Only the burn didn't come. No sunfire hovered around his shoulders. "God above, he did it. You carry his child. A solar queen carrying an heir to His Imperial Majesty. Ra's glory lives on in you."

"No," I rasped. "Never."

Ignoring me, he whispered low, vicious words, each one wounding me. "They will devour that child you carry. You do realize that, right? They'll rip it from your belly before it can be born. Then they'll eat what's left of you. No wonder they rushed to this realm as soon as the gate failed. I thought they came for you, but they scented the very thing they've feared all along. Why else would Ra want a queen of his own line so badly? Only solar blood can command the sunfires. He needed a female heir to carry his gift. The Eye of Ra, blessed by the Great Goddess, Wadjet. His Eye lives on in you."

Aurelianwent down on one knee before me. My brain skittered away in terror, laughing like a mad woman.

"I'll help you subdue the sunfires before they can devour you or the precious child you carry." He took my hand in dead, bony fingers, ignoring my automatic attempt to pull free of his iron grip. "Karmen Sunna, accept me at your side. Use my sword to defend Her Imperial Majesty, heir to Heliopolis."

My ears roared with the sound of rushing wind. No, that was my thoughts, swirling frantically. I now had confirmation, however unwanted, that the human doctor was right. I was pregnant. Not just with any heir, but Ra's heir.

The very reason he'd kept so many queens captive in Heliopolis over the centuries. That I also descended from a solar house only made this unborn child all the more dangerous.

All of Ra's blistering solar power, mixed with whatever gifts I had inherited through House Sunna before my power had been burned out. Would this child inherit her father's insatiable thirst for power? His dark lust for the pain and suffering of others? Could any child formed through an eternity of torture ever be normal or safe to bring into existence? Was she doomed to be as vicious? Insane? Violent?

Did I dare risk bringing such an unknown force to life?

Ra had always wanted a Helios queen, and now, I had the ultimate power to deny him. He was dead. Gone. Nothing could stop me from ridding myself of this burden before it was too late. In fact, the world may very well be glad if this future queen winked out of existence before she could carry out Ra's ultimate destruction.

Eye of Ra indeed.

A lifetime of keeping my feelings and thoughts hidden came to my aid automatically. "What are you offering?"

"I will smash anyone who stands against you beneath the legion's boots. Sol Invictus will swear an oath to protect you."

I didn't need a goddess's power to hear the words he left unsaid. "Until Ra's heir is delivered. Then I'm useless to you."

He pressed the sword blade to his mouth and held it over his heart. "I'll swear any oath you wish, my queen. Bring the sunfires back under control, and the Soldiers of Light will swear allegiance to you and your daughter."

I closed my eyes a moment, letting the peace of darkness fill my mind. His words reverberated through me.

Bring the sunfires back under control.

Most of them have abandoned their carriers.

That was why his sunfire hadn't burned me when he pulled me close.

He'd lost his demon.

He still had power and formidable strength, so I wasn't safe by any means. The molten gold of Ra's power burned in his empty eye sockets. But how long would that power sustain him with Ra dead and gone? How long before the shining armor dulled? Until the brutally white bones withered into dust and blew away on the sands of time?

No wonder he wanted to serve me.

Not because he wanted to protect me or make amends for all the pain and suffering he'd caused. Not even to protect this child I carried.But to preserve his own goddess-cursed existence.

I opened my eyes and weighed the power blazing in his eyes. "How long do you have before Ra's power fades and you turn into a pile of rotted, broken bones?"

He hissed, squeezing my hand brutally. "You forget yourself. You need protection. You need help. Have you forgotten the agony of a sunfire's embrace?"

Ignoring the pain in my hand, I leaned forward, holding his gaze. For the first time in my life, I allowed my hatred and rage to burst forth from inside me. My eyes burned with emotion. "Have you forgotten how many times you tortured me?"

He jerked slightly, as if my words actually caused him pain. Not from guilt—but from the power behind each word.

My power. Denied to me my entire life.

"Did you honestly think that I would go back to Heliopolis?" I lashed him with my rage, relishing the way he twitched and quivered with each word. "With you ? You were as bad as Ra. Worse, actually. He at least gave me a rare moment of conversation. You only ever treated me like trash. Is that why you threw me out of Heliopolis?"

"I didn't," he rasped, struggling to speak. "Not me."

I pulled harder on the fiery rage boiling inside me. Only then did I realize where that power was coming from, as I watched the golden glow in his eyes dim.

I was drawing power from him . Using the last bit of Ra's gift that sustained him. "Who?" I retorted, lashing him with my rage. "Who got me out of Heliopolis?"

He surged upward, stumbling to his feet and tossing my hand aside, as if freeing himself of my touch could save him. Cradling my crushed hand against my chest, I watched him flail. He couldn't stand correctly. His joints crumbled and slipped. He dropped the sword. The once-brilliant silver chest plate dulled as if it'd been buried in a sand dune for a million years to rust.

Falling against me, he tried to hold on to me again, but his fingers broke apart as he slid down toward my feet. "Please." I could barely understand his words. "They will burn you."

"I would rather burn for all eternity than save you. Let alone go back to that fucking city of gold."

Something slammed against the wall behind me. Wood splintered and cracked. I didn't turn around. I didn't need to as Eivind forced his way into the room. Instead, I kept my attention locked on Aurelian until he was nothing more than a pile of dust on the stained rug.

"Are you alright?" Eivind asked, eying the pile warily.

My hand ached. My fangs throbbed. I hadn't thought about anything but saving myself. Until this living, breathing man stepped closer.

Now all I could smell was his scent. Fur and pine dusted with snow. A shaggy black wolf howling mournfully on a rocky outcropping. Alone. Even when surrounded by the howls of his pack.

I could sink my fangs into his warm throat. His blood would be hot and good, washing away the horrors of Heliopolis. In a matter of moments, his blood would heal my shattered fingers. He would be mine. He would protect me with his life.

Hating me for all time. As I'd hated Ra. As I'd hated Aurelian.

"I'm fine." With Ra's spark inside me, I could feel the rest of the legion closing in outside the hotel. Not nearly as many as their numbers had been in Heliopolis. Maybe some had defected already. Or their sunfires had killed them. Or they'd been trapped in Heliopolis. I didn't really know, nor did I care. "We need to go."

"We can't go back down the hallway. The flames are in the floor above. The whole thing's going to come crashing down any moment." He watched as I stepped over the soldier's remains toward the window. "Was that one of the skeletons?"

"Yes." I looked out the window, watching the skeletons close in. They knew exactly where I was. Like Aurelian, they went down on one knee, only they bowed their heads and bent low, bracing their left fists on the ground. None of them carried the telltale signs of flame around their bones.

Their sunfires were gone.

"What happened to him?" Eivind moved to the window and blew out a curse. "Fuck."

"Open the window and I'll show you."

I had to admit that once he actually believed me, he was a man of action. He smashed the glass with a careless slam of his elbow and then helped me climb outside. He didn't ask questions. He didn't grunt with disgust or hesitate. Maybe I was making progress with him. Not that it mattered in the end.

He'd made his feelings perfectly clear in that regard. He would never drop down to a knee and offer his protection as Aurelian had done.

"Princess," the nearest skeleton said as I neared.

Without pausing my step, I drew on the golden power I felt inside him. Inside each of them. It was like taking a drink of honeyed mead from a crystal chalice. It made me shudder, though I didn't hesitate to drain every last bit of their power. I needed it, even though they tasted like Ra.

Liquid sun tasted like sickening sweet honey. Cloying. Overpowering.

I would much rather have the taste of a wolf's hot blood on my tongue.

Eivind's step faltered a moment as the skeletons began to crumble, but he didn't say anything until he opened the car door for me. "That's what you were so afraid of?"

"No." I looked up at the sun, tipping my head back so its rays warmed my skin. Solar energy danced inside me, relishing its heat. Wishing it was summer. Longing for a long hot afternoon basking in the full blaze of the sun. My fingers knit back together under that power, though I still longed for his blood. "Those were some of Ra's Soldiers of Light. The sunfires are still out here somewhere, and they won't be as easy to kill."

I didn't tell him what Aurelian had said. Mainly because I didn't—couldn't—believe him. Not yet.

A man who'd relished torturing a woman couldn't be trusted. His word was highly suspect and his honor nonexistent despite his fame as a Roman soldier. Perhaps the sunfires would obey my command—or they very well might devour me as I suspected. He'd threatened both options. Until I knew for sure...

I would protect myself the best I knew how.