Return to me, Empress. We have been parted for too long…
There’s something sensual in those words and that voice, something that reminds me of the Memnon from my dreams. It breaks my resistance altogether.
I take a halting step forward. Then another. It’s hard to fight that voice when my deepest, most innate senses are coaxing me toward it.
I think I’m being bespelled. That has to be what this is. I wish I hated it more than I do.
I make it to the tree line, my eagerness mounting. The longer Memnon’s magic grips me, the more intoxicating it becomes.
About fifty feet into the woods, the smoky magic dissipates.
I tense, glancing around. My flesh prickles with awareness.
Memnon steps out from the darkness like some nightmarish vision. Only, fuck, this man is real. And he’s even more devastatingly beautiful than in my memories.
My gaze moves over his tall frame, and it sweeps over his broad shoulders. I can see the tattoos running down his sculpted arms. Even in a T-shirt and jeans, this man looks all warrior.
My eyes move to his face, and if I weren’t still ensnared by his magic, I would’ve staggered back.
In my dream, Memnon’s intense beauty was heightened by desire and flame. Now, however, in the darkness where the shadows are deep and unforgiving, Memnon simply looks brutal—his cheekbones sharp, the curve of his lips cruel, and those luminous eyes wrathful. It’s a small mercy that I can’t see his scar. I don’t think I could take seeing that violence on display right now.
He steps forward, moving with a menacing sort of grace. “Did you really think I was done with you?” he says softly in that old language, his voice rolling and guttural. I understand him with alarming clarity. “That I would leave you in that tomb to rot as you left me?” He shakes his head slowly. “No, no, no.”
My pulse quickens. “Why did you follow me here?” I demand in English.
“Speak to me in our tongue, Roxilana!” he snarls.
“I don’t know ‘our tongue’!” I shout back in another language. The words welled from somewhere deep within me just as they did back in Memnon’s tomb.
A small sound escapes me, and I clutch my throat.
See, the thing is, that was technically not a lie. While I have always been able to understand Latin and Ancient Greek—and even read a bit of Ancient Egyptian—I’ve never spoken this language. At least, not that I remember.
Memnon stalks forward before grasping my upper arms. “I don’t know what game you are playing, but it will end.”
This close to Memnon’s staggering form, I feel particularly small and helpless.
“Let me go,” I say in that ancient language. Again, I don’t mean to speak it; it just flows from me. I’d marvel at it, but my fear is pushing out every other emotion.
“Not until you tell me what you’ve done to me,” he demands, furious.
I ache as I stare into those eyes. This feels so much like my dream, where confusion overlays reality.
“What are you talking about?” I say, not even flinching this time when the words come out in that other language.
He gives me a bit of a shake. “You dismantled my army. Destroyed our empire, ripped me from our lands, and thrust me into this twisted future where nothing makes sense!” He all but roars this last part.
“Let me go.” My voice rises with my pounding heart, and there’s steel in it. My power coils within me, gathering itself. The fear I felt only moments ago is giving way to anger.
Memnon’s lips curve into a smile. But his eyes are sharp as swords. “But haven’t you missed me, Roxilana?”
“Who the fuck is Roxilana?” Again, this strange language.
He gives me an odd look now. “What is this game you’re playing?”
“Why would I ever play a game with you? I don’t even know who you are!”
“You don’t know who I am?” His eyebrows lift in disbelief. Then he laughs, the sound chilling. “I have been inside you more times than there are stars to count. I am no more a stranger to you than your own skin is.”
I have been inside you more times than there are stars to count.
I stare at him for a long moment, cold terror washing over me. This creature lured me to his tomb and had me spring him from it. And then he followed me across an entire continent, and now he believes we’ve been together—like, together, together.
I am in deep shit.
“There’s been a mistake,” I say slowly.
My mind races furiously, trying to recall my memories from South America, several of which have long since washed away. I need to get to the root of this problem.
“Mistake?” Memnon growls. His eyes begin to glow like hot coals, and the air sizzles with power. I jolt, recognizing what supernatural’s magic presents like that.
Not a demon. Not a vampire or a fae.
A sorcerer.
They’re nearly as bad as demons. A sorcerer’s power eats away at their conscience. The stronger one is, the more heartless they’ll be.
And Memnon feels staggeringly strong.
Unaware of my thoughts, he continues. “After all you have done to me—after all the betrayal—”
“Listen,” I say, cutting him off, “whoever you think I am, I’m not her.” This Roxilana broad really fucked with the wrong dude. “Please, just let me go.”
Memnon’s eyes flare a bit brighter. “You dare to play ignorant. To call me a liar and what we are a mistake. You, the woman I gave everything to.”
“But I didn’t give you everything,” I insist. “You have me confused with someone else.”
He ignores my point. “You locked me away, denied me even the basic decency of death. I was never given funerary rites, never allowed to pass from this world to the next. You kept me from the afterlife, where I could ride the skies with my ancestors.”
I stare up at the man, who looks like some ancient deity.
“Instead, I lay caged for all this time. But I am caged no longer.” The last part comes out grave, ominous. “The world will know my wrath—you will know my wrath, my queen.
“I will put you at my mercy,” he vows. “And I will destroy your world bit by bit until all you have left is me.”
CHAPTER 14
I stifle a yawn as I sit in Spellcasting 101, my first class of the semester. After my encounter with Memnon, I didn’t sleep much last night, instead using my time to scribble down what I could remember of the incident. Like the fact that he’s a sorcerer and that he happens to want to ruin my life.
I will put you at my mercy. I will destroy your world bit by bit until all you have left is me.
At least he let me go. I hadn’t been sure he would after all he had said, but Memnon did release me shortly after his threat, and he retreated into the darkened forest. Somehow, that was even more terrifying than him standing right in front of me. Knowing this vengeful sorcerer was lurking unseen in the Everwoods was partly what kept me up last night.
I rub my eyes, and my tired mind slips. For an instant I am back in my room, sprawled across my bed, my black tail…
Tail?