Drake of Tanith (Chosen Soul) (6 page)

“For what?” Raven asked.

“For the way my brother has been treating you.”

Raven stared at Zeta. “What do you mean?” Was Zeta referring to the spell? Or, rather, the magic that Astriel had painstakingly cloaked over her to force her to forget her family, her friends – her very life? Or was she referring to this latest transgression, the sleep spell?

Zeta smiled a knowing smile that didn’t quite reach her blue eyes. Those eyes were suddenly sad. “He has been keeping you here against your will. It isn’t like him, actually,” she said. “You must understand. Astriel has never had to try very hard when it came to women. In other realms, when he pays a visit, women travel for hundreds of miles to be in his presence. Yet here… the humans fear him instead of love him. And you?” Her smile broadened and this time, it touched her eyes. A little. “You flat out hate him.”

“I don’t hate him,” Raven retorted immediately. Her eyes widened after she said it and she snapped her mouth shut. It had just slipped out. But she realized she meant it. She was angry with the elf prince and she sure as Abaddon didn’t trust him, but she didn’t hate him. She wasn’t even sure why.

Zeta’s brow lifted. “Really?” she asked, clearly more intrigued than curious. There was a subtle difference between the two.

Raven wisely remained silent.

“Be that as it may,” Zeta slowly continued. She looked down at her hands and began fiddling with one of the rings on her fingers. “I know you wish to leave Eidolon.”

Zeta looked back up. Her expression was ultimately serious, her eyes piercing. “I can get you out of the castle Raven, but in exchange, I would ask a favor.”

“You can do that?”

“Of course,” Zeta replied easily. She now looked a little offended. “The men in this family are certainly not the only ones with power.” At this, she turned and waved a hand at the opposite wall of her vast chamber. The wall began to waver and buckle, obviously opening up into some kind of portal. It was similar to the one that had opened up on the field during the battle with Cruor. The one that had sucked Drake into the Witherlands.

“Where does it go?” Raven asked as the portal began to settle down and a forest appeared on the other side.

“To the Phaen Forest. I know you’re familiar with it. It’s far enough away from Trimontium that it will give you some time to regroup and come up with a plan. In the meantime…”

Raven turned back to Zeta. “You wanted a favor.”

“Yes,” Zeta replied. She seemed almost breathless suddenly, as if she couldn’t ask for this favor fast enough. She glanced at her chamber doors, enormous gold-gilded constructs of stone, metal and wood. They were shut tight and no sound came from beyond.

She turned back to Raven and took a deep breath. “When you become a queen of Abaddon, remember me, Raven. I want you to ally yourself and your world with mine – but only if I am allowed to claim the Fae throne.”

Raven stared at Zeta, digesting the request. The very idea of Raven being queen of
anything
was so ridiculous to her, she was ready to shrug it off and move on, but the clarity of Zeta’s meaning gave her pause. “You want me to threaten the Fae world with war unless you’re made queen.”

Zeta’s smile turned impish. “You’re even smarter than I thought.”

Raven let that one go. “Zeta, if you can open a portal anywhere, then can you send me to the Witherlands?” She held her breath, afraid of the answer.

“I can – but I won’t,” replied Zeta.

Raven’s breath leaked out in disappointment.

“If you grant me this promise and I release you, Raven, then I will have too much invested in you to sacrifice you to the almost certain death you would face in the Witherlands.” She paused, considered Raven a moment, and then said, “I’m sorry. I am guessing you’d planned on going after Tanith.”

Raven was silent for a moment more. And then she straightened and looked Zeta in the eyes. “If you help me escape this castle, I promise to ally myself with the Fae realm so long as you rein. However, I also promise that I will go after Drake of Tanith. Whether you like it or not.” She waited a beat, just as Zeta had done. “Take it or leave it.”

Zeta sat up a little on the edge of the bed and looked down at Raven over the straight line of her nose. She inhaled slowly, and nodded to herself. “Very well.” She stood up and moved to a tall ornate mirror against one of the marbled walls of her vast chamber. She waved her hand before her own gorgeous reflection and the mirror glass shimmered, warped, and then disappeared altogether, revealing behind it a small alcove.

“But I want you to have this,” she said to Raven over her shoulder. “Just in case.” She reached in and pulled out what looked like a bundle of clothing tied with shimmering silken rope. On top of the bundle rested a silver circlet.

As Zeta brought the bundle and circlet around and Raven got a closer look, she could see that the silver band was too clear to be silver. It must have been gold or platinum. Its intricate winding knots were unlike any Raven had ever seen.

“The cloak will disguise you when you need it most,” Zeta told Raven as she handed the bundle and circlet to her. “The circlet will protect your mind from the Witherlands’ influence.”

Raven was under no misconception that this was a gift. She had learned a lot in the last few months of her life and now knew enough to accept that when someone powerful gave her something to help her survive, she should take it without question.

She reached out and accepted the items without a word. Then she stood and Zeta stepped back, allowing her access to the still-swirling portal. However, before she could move toward it, Zeta rested a gentle hand on her upper arm.

“Whatever you do,” she warned solemnly, “when in the Witherlands, don’t take the circlet off. In fact, it would be best to don both items right now.”

Raven looked from Zeta to the shining, delicately woven circlet and back again. Then she shifted the bundle into one arm, took the metal band, and placed it on her head.

It fit perfectly. Almost at once, Raven felt better for wearing it. She felt more
free
. The cloak came next, soft as silk and cool as satin. It settled upon her shoulders like a mantle and closed securely at the diamond-studded clasp.

“I have your promise then, Princess Winter Raven of Caina?” Zeta asked, her tone serious, her eyes beseeching.

One of the things Raven’s father had told her while she’d spent time in Caina a month ago was that it was not within a devil’s capacity to lie. That is, once an Abaddonian made a promise – locking him or herself into a verbal contract – that promise had to be kept. It wasn’t a simple obligation. It was a compulsion that would ride the devil at all times, ensuring that the promise not be broken.

It was what Zeta was counting on.

Raven waited half a second. “I promise.”

Chapter Six

Drake stumbled through the forest, resting against one tree after another, desperately trying to remain conscious long enough to put some real distance between himself and the portal that had brought him here.

He felt it all around him now, his father’s presence. His influence. For thousands of years, he’d been running from his lineage. But Asmodeus was right. There was nowhere in the realms that Drake could go to escape his past or his blood. Where did he think he was running to? It was pointless.

Laughter followed him to the next tree, wrapping around him like silk cords, strangling the strength from his normally strong body. Drake gritted his teeth. He shook his head, trying to clear it.

His thoughts were not his own; he knew that. He was not a man prone to feelings of helplessness. Asmodeus’s iniquitous influence was rushing through Drake’s blood, clouding up his mind, and turning the air around him to thick sludge through which it was nearly impossible to move.

He moved anyway, forcing one leg in front of the other.

He knew that eventually Asmodeus would let him go. After all, if he didn’t, Drake would never be able to make his decision of his own free will. The Hell Lord was simply testing him. Trying him. Proving a point.

Again
.

Drake closed his eyes as a sudden wave of immense pleasure rushed through him. It was the kind of pleasure one experienced when wielding enormous power. It was a…
tall
kind of sensation. The feeling one might get when looking down upon the entire world and knowing it all belonged to you.

It was overwhelming. Drake was at once lost in it, caught up in its shimmering tide of supremacy, dominance and command. He felt magic surge through his body, pulsing hot and ready and willing. He wanted to destroy and create and take. He wanted everything… and he knew that he could have it.

This can be yours son,
a voice whispered through his mind.
Accept it.

It was the power that came with taking the throne of Nisse, the kind of power that things either bent – or broke – before. Nothing could withstand it. The only problem with Nisse’s power, with Drake’s
father’s
power, was that it was tainted.

Drake could become king so easily. Asmodeus was right. Drake had left a part of himself in Hell’s circles when he’d decided to leave Abaddon all those years ago. The choice had split him in two, and there wasn’t a day that went by that Drake took his freedom for granted.

But if he did become king, he would cease to be Drake of Tanith, and all vestiges of whatever kind of goodness yet remained within him would shrivel up and blow away on the next hot, ash-laden wind.

He wasn’t willing to lose that. Not after everything he’d done for
millennia
to hold on tooth and nail to what tiny part of his soul he still had left. Especially not now…. Not with Raven.

She made him stronger.

“No.” Drake’s eyes opened and his jaw set. He felt his gaze heat, molten metal in a face so determined, so dead-set on not giving in, no man in his right mind would have taken him on in that instant.

There was a sigh, a feeling more than a sound, and Asmodeus’s magic slipped away. With the ebbing of power receded the weakness as well. The Dark Lord’s presence diminished quickly, releasing Drake from its tenacious and tenebrous hold.

Drake slid down along the trunk of the tree he’d been leaning against and closed his eyes. He was trembling and his breath shook. His jet black hair was damp with sweat. He’d never felt so weary.

It was more than the Witherlands. It was more than his father. Either one alone would have been enough to destroy the mind, body and spirit of a mortal. Drake took them in stride and though they had scraped the edges of his soul with poison-tipped claws, he’d somehow kept them from killing who he was. He’d managed to hold their evil at bay.

It was this final thing he had to do that was destroying him. It was knowing what he now had to do that was eating him alive and draining his will. More surely than venom did it pollute his system, for it took away the one thing he’d always had no matter what: Hope.

Drake ran a shaky hand over his face and rested his head against the trunk of the tree behind him. His father had given him a week. One week to decide – one week to say goodbye. And then he would either claim is rightful place as heir to the Abaddonian throne of Nisse – or Asmodeus would take Raven Winter as his bride.

The moment his father had looked into his eyes and whispered her name, Drake had known he was lost. His father could see clear into the core of his soul. Asmodeus knew that Drake loved her, and that he’d never loved another.

And now he would lose her forever.

That was the choice he was afforded. Did he lose her to the world as he took over as Hell’s king, or did he watch her be taken by his own father?

With a sinking heart, Drake saw the throne of Nisse before his mind’s eye. He saw himself upon it – a fragment of the man he once was and yet so much more. A monster, a Dark Lord, the ruler of the Nine Circles. The king of Hell.

And Raven?

Winter
. For the briefest of moments, he saw her seated beside him on a throne of her own, her gorgeous black wings unfurled gracefully behind her, and her tri-colored eyes glowing in the frame of her beautiful face. She sat regally, her gown hewn of silk and diamonds – the only things good enough for her.

She would be the perfect queen. It would be so easy. As Nisse’s ruler, Drake would have the power of nine limitless kingdoms at his fingertips. If he wanted Raven as his own queen, he could take her. He could even make her want it. Or at least he could make her
think
she wanted it.

They’d barely met and, on the surface she barely knew him. But her soul recognized his just as his did hers. The moment he’d seen her face in the elf prince’s scrying pool, he’d known. And his world had been turned on its ear.

She’d even taken his blood.

Drake groaned low as he recalled the memory and awakened to the familiar, driving hunger she brought to life within him. They were bound – they always had been. There was no turning away from that kind of desire.

He might have to take his father’s place. He might have to become the infamous ruler his father now was. But maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t have to lose Raven at the same time.

Yes….
The voice slid through his head.
That’s it….
The words were not his own. His father’s last whispers caressed and soothed his pain, congratulating him for seeing the possibilities.

No. What the hell am I thinking?

Drake’s eyes flew open once more, now glowing as bright as full moons. The Lord of Nisse was indomitable. Drake should have known better.

The bounty hunter of Tanith ran his hand through his damp hair and realized it was badly shaking. His soul and spirit weighed him down, and though his strength had for the most part been returned to him, he was still weak enough that it was clear he needed to feed. It had been too long and he’d been through too much.