A Kiss of Ashen Twilight (Ashen Twilight Series #1) (4 page)

Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, Ariya tried to slow her breathing. The air was stuffy and for a moment, she thought about opening the large terrace windows to let the night air in.

Creak
.

Her head shot up toward the cracking sound coming from the hall. The loud pounding of her heart within her chest echoed in her ears and she was sure anyone within close proximity would pick up the drumming beat.

Gently, she slipped her feet into the soft, warm slippers next to her bed before opening the door. A soft warm wind blew across the hall, caressing her face. The velvety sensation flittered across her skin and throughout her body. She welcomed the sweet distraction. Fragments of the nightmare still crossed her mind as she peeked outside her door, hoping a maid or one of the Aziza Amazon guards were just keeping watch.

No one was in the darkened hall.

A shadow brushed across the wall, echoing the tree outside the corner window. The branches and leaves cracked against the glass in reaction to the brush of the wild wind.

Was she still dreaming? No, it felt too real.
She was definitely awake.

The palace spread out around her like a glistening white marble structure complete with matching triptychs depicting her family, wide arched door frames and dome-shaped ceilings. From what she read in her texts, the architecture surpassed that of the great monuments in the mortal world. Stone walls lined the interior hallways with dark crimson velvet curtains to soften the harsh bright color. Family paintings of her lineage lined the walls down the gold-trimmed staircase. Silence covered each space of the area despite the crack of the branches outside. In fact, it was too silent for this time of evening. She gave a relieved sigh. Her mother always said she had a big imagination.

Feeling satisfied with the source of the noise, Ariya closed the door to her room again. A soft caress of cool wind brushed her curly hair over her shoulders.

Ariya turned toward the terrace to see the doors wide open.
The curtains swayed into the room.
She took a step toward the window then stopped, feeling a thousand pricks under her skin. She froze and suddenly the feeling disappeared or had it?

It was here.

At first, she slowly backed up, then turned. She couldn’t feel anything behind her, but she knew it was coming. There was no time to run. Instead she flared her wings out from her back and dove over the stair rails. Her wings flapped against the air to catch her fall, then gently lowered her to the ground

“
Don’t stop, Ariya! Run! Go to the mortal realm immediately
!” Her mother’s voice echoed in her mind.

Questions cornered her mind. She hadn’t been called to the hunt to cross realms. Why did she need to go to the mortal realm now? The hunters she worked with didn’t call upon the Aziza until they needed assistance. Then and only then. She was warned about messing with time parallels outside such matters. Most importantly, she couldn’t risk the creature finding her as it did her sisters. Ever since their deaths, the guards kept watch over Ariya and she was careful where she went. Ariya’s heart fought with her mind whether or not to continue running until she crossed realms.

“
Go, Ariya! Just go
!”

She stopped near the front entrance of the palace. The large, marble double doors flew open. With caution burning her brain and the hint of magical words on her tongue, she saw the air outside ripple around the door heading straight for her. She opened her mouth to speak when she heard another voice intervene.

“No! Here!” Her mother’s voice cried out somewhere outside the palace. The wind rushed away from the door and Ariya faced her opportunity.

It was now or never
.

With all the energy she could muster, she pumped force into her legs and ran out the door into the still night. Seconds later, the bright crystal and marble magnificence of the palace burst into an explosion of crumbled rock and glass within tall, blazing ethereal flames.

Ariya felt the rush of adrenaline race through her body, forcing her toward the edge of the forest. She didn’t look back. She couldn’t. For if she did, her biggest fears would come true.

Her parent’s screams filled the air behind her and her legs slowed to a halt. A rippling form flowed around the flaming palace like a bird in flight. In its grasp, she saw her parent’s dark forms slowly disappear into the entity. Words escaped her as she finally laid eyes on the creature. It was like the wind itself, almost disappearing into the air with only a ripple of a force field revealing it’s movement. It had no form, no identifiable characteristics of anything she had ever seen or heard of, even in this realm. Still she felt it as if it were a person standing right next to her. A male with a familiar connection she knew from somewhere. Whatever it was, it wasn’t the Asiman lore she had known throughout her life. She had to do something to help them before it was too late.

“My lady.” Ariya almost didn’t hear her maiden guard’s calm voice behind her. Cidra’s dark eyes focused on her, forcing her to concentrate. “You must escape before the end is near.”

“My parents—” The last of her family and all she had left to keep her going throughout these distressing days were slowly slipping away from her.

“They are distracting the creature while you escape. It is you it’s after.”

It
is you it’s after
. Even hearing the words with her own ears, she still couldn’t believe it. The elemental-like creature was here to take her life and power just it did her sisters. Ariya knew she couldn’t just leave her parents there to fight the creature.

Cidra’s hand clamped around her chin and lifted her gaze. Her mystical eyes exuded an urgency that rose above her soft voice. “There is no time.”

A gesture she employed whenever Ariya needed extra security. If ever there was a time she needed it, she suspected it was now.

“Go!”

Cidra pushed her toward the edge of the forest with the sounds of destruction spreading across their township. Ariya knew Cidra would lead the Aziza Amazon guards in a battle to divert the creature’s attention and distract it just in time for her escape. The monster’s high pitched screech invaded her ears. She couldn’t resist looking.

Ariya turned to look over her shoulder. There under the swirling cloud of air, Cidra lead the band of female Aziza Amazon guards into battle alongside her parents. One by one they were thrown about; their magic blocked and boomeranged back to them. Some had their power and lifeforce drained despite their efforts yet, unlike her sisters, their blood remained. Suddenly it dawned on her. It was as if the creature knew the extent of their powers and was drawn to it, honing in as if to power itself from their lifeforce. Ariya forced herself to look away and she ran, feeling her blood burning. She was a coward for running, but there had to be a reason everyone was so set on her leaving to the mortal realm.

As she ran, Ariya tried with all her might to bore the recent images of death out of her mind’s eye. She hoped Mawu-Lisa would usher her parents into a peaceful passage from this world onto the next.

* * * *

Why had the creature come after so long? Why now?

After finding the emptied corpses of her sisters, Ariya finally saw it with her own eyes and she still couldn’t believe it. It was as if the air was moving into a stream of what appeared like water amidst the sky. Were the Amazon guards able to destroy it?

They couldn’t have. Not after they tried to fend it off so long ago. Nothing seemed to stop it from attacking and absorbing the life out of anything in its path.

Ariya opened her eyes and exhaled. She surveyed her surroundings. Dark, cracked concrete lay under her instead of the green grass she had grown to love back home. Where was this place? The warm dusk of the Aziza lands had faded away as she made the jump into the human lands.

The creature—whatever it was—would surely follow her across all the lands of the Aziza until it eliminated her just like her sisters, Shya and Rhea, and finally her parents. Perhaps it
was
safe after all to come into these lands, if it didn’t sense her here. She would dare not risk finding out.

Where did it come from anyway?
She wondered.
And why was it trying to eliminate her entire family?

With these questions in her mind, Ariya pushed herself off the ground and proceeded to the street. Looking around, she tried to assess the area she landed in. A long dark alleyway aligned a long stretch of concrete. Cars passed back and forth nearby in the distance, otherwise the street remained empty. The moon sat high above the sky, disappearing into the dark atmosphere from an azure hue. Night loomed in the distance.

Looking around, she wasn’t sure where she was. She continued along the near empty street. Small, quaint one-story houses created a suburban residence. Some yards had bright green lawns growing out front, while others had lawns filled with dirt, gravel and—cacti?

This must be somewhere in the Southwest, she gathered. A cold shiver snaked throughout her body and down to her wings. Loneliness crept up inside her just then. Thankful for the soft lavender wrap dress she wore, Ariya couldn’t figure out whether the chill came from the cold or the realization itself. Either way, it was a good thing she decided to wear the dress that evening. She liked to go to bed wearing as little as possible; although she kept a robe nearby whenever she left her room. Most humans had a strange way with covering themselves up all the time. Thank goodness for the Earth dwellers that lived among the forests and out of the big industrial cities. No matter. If she kept moving, she had a chance to evade the elemental creature that tracked her.
She just had to keep moving.

A distant howl froze her steps. Could be coyotes, she surmised. They were typical for these desert land areas, after all. Probably somewhere off in the distance anyway.

She continued walking, repeating this mantra in her head.

Another howl, this one closer, sent more shivers throughout her body.

Ariya quickened her pace as a third howl broke into the air, closer than the last two. Her heart pounded rapidly within her chest. She looked around. She wasn’t sure where she was headed, yet she knew she had to find safety soon.

* * * *

Jace Archane dug his fingernails into the pillow beneath the woman under him. He braced his body to slam violently from the oncoming orgasm rising from his feet and slithering up his legs. The girl moaned with excitement and writhed under his hard body. He reveled in the feel of himself throbbing inside of her as he filled her with all the essence he could muster. At the same time, his teeth dug deeper into her neck, his mouth opening wider to receive the warm liquid trickling into his throat from her neck. She was young, nubile and warm. And on this particular night, he needed to drink until he was knocked out silly. His Uncle Julian called him in earlier, but he couldn’t go in for business just yet. The old man would be all over his case for missing the meeting tonight.

He didn’t care.

No matter what the blood lines said, he wasn’t ready to be patriarch of the house just yet. He was already getting used to settling into his duties as regent despite having the title for centuries. He was still a young, strapping man of 600 years of age and this was the perfect time for their kind to roam freely under mortal eyes. Representations of vampires served as entertainment for the mortals and hot, heaving women with a weakness for bad boys. They weren’t hunted down and tortured like in the old days of the witch hunt. Now they were revered and worshipped in mortal books, television, movies and radio. If it ever got out that there were immortals living amongst them, it’d be chaos right in their very own backyard. It was better to leave these mortals with their imaginations rather than having them face the truth right before their very own eyes.

Jace cleared his mind and focused. Tonight was the perfect setting for a beautifully satisfying meal.

The thought sent him over the edge. His torso lurched. His hips slammed into her with one last thrust. A deep primal groan emitted from the back of his throat into the quiet candlelit bedroom. He closed his eyes allowing the calm waves of pleasure to wash over him.