Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (76 page)

“I do,” part of her
heard him say as she saw the energy which bound them together as husband and
wife spiral out into the universe.  Still riding the wave of goddess-vision,
she saw, rather than heard, the words as he made his commitment to be her mate
for life.

“You're supposed to
say -
I do-
” Mikhail leaned in and whispered in her ear.

“Huh?”  Her mind came
back into the physical realm.

“You're supposed to
say that you'll have me,” he said.  “You went to that other place...”

“Oh … I do!” she said
loud enough so everybody could hear.

“Then as Chief of this
village, I now pronounce you husband and wife,” Chief Kiyan said.  “Mikhail …
you may kiss your bride.”

Ninsianna's heart
skipped a beat as he bent in to kiss her, pulling her close in a display of
public affection that would have scandalized the more conservative members of
the tribe had he not immediately encircled them in his wings.  Outside, the
tribe clapped, then began to chuckle and laugh as their kiss lingered, and
lingered, and then lingered some more.  Finally, the more uninhibited in the group
cat-called and cracked jokes about finding the nearest bed.  Two of the
cat-callers sounded suspiciously like Yalda and Zhila.

His lips slid from the
edge of her mouth, along her cheek, to whisper in her ear.  “How long are we
obligated to stick around before we can leave?”

“Mmmmmm....” she
mumbled in a pleasantly fuzzy haze.  “Do we need to stick around at all?”

“No.”

Grabbing her waist, he
flared his wings and catapulted them into the sky, away from the crowd, towards
his ship where they would spend the next two weeks attending to the business of
doing what married couples did.  The wedding guests clapped until they flew out
of range.

* * * * *

Immanu
and Needa

“In a hurry, aren't
they?” Needa squeezed her husband's hand in an affectionate grip.

“At least they
waited.”  Immanu pulled her in for a hug.  “We didn't…”

“They don't know
that,” Needa chuckled.  Her cheeks became pink at the memory of their first
encounters together in the woods behind her home village of Gasur.

“Nor does Ninsianna
know she was already well on the way when we finally got around to performing
the nuptials.”  Immanu gave his wife a pinch on the backside when no one was
looking.  “It was the only way we could get your parents to agree to the
union.”

“Do you think their
children will have wings?” Needa asked. 

“Only the goddess
knows.”  Immanu wrapped one arm around her shoulders.  “I just hope She-who-is
blesses their union quickly.  It's been a long time since we've had little ones
running around.”

~ * ~ * ~
* ~ * ~

August 1
^st
  – 3,390 BC

Earth:  Village of Assur

Jamin

In the back of the
crowd, Jamin watched.  Game.  It was all a game.  To lull his people into a
false sense of security and earn their trust. 
His
wife.  Ninsianna
should have been
his
wife.  Now … even
that
was gone.

Shahla looked back, no
doubt searching for
him
.  She'd pouted when he'd said he had better
things to do than attend his former fiancés wedding.  With Shahla, it was all
about the dress.  The flowers.  The wheat-stalks woven through the bride's
hair.  How elaborate the wedding feast and how important the guests were who
had been invited from other tribes.  Already she was chattering about the dress
she
would wear when he
married
her.

How had he gotten
himself into this mess?  Not only had he lost Ninsianna and gotten eleven
people killed, but now he was saddled with a woman he didn't love, forced to
pretend he was in love with her so she wouldn't tell everyone what he'd done. 

He faded into the
shadows so Shahla wouldn't see him.  She was the
last
person he wanted
to see right now.  He felt sick.  Angry.  Hatred.  Grief.  He wanted to cry. 
He wanted to scream.  He wanted to stab the winged demon in the heart who had
taken his woman.  Tears welled in his eyes as the winged demon carried
Ninsianna up into the sky.

His cheek twitched,
the tic getting worse the longer he was forced to endure.  He felt like a spear
pulled back in chamber about to be thrown.  A weapon with too much energy
stored behind it, ready to spring into action and no place to aim it.  They
were watching him, his guilt screaming from his every pore.  Guilty.  Guilty. 
Guilty.  In his effort to save his people, he'd killed some of them.  Was even
now killing some of them.  Forced to crawl back to the Halifian leader, tail
between his legs, and beg for information about the Amorites they were selling
his people to once they left Halifian hands.

He'd looked the winged
demon in the eye and what had stared back at him had not been human…

He knew…

He was just toying with
him.  That was it.  The winged demon
knew
what he had done and he was
toying with him because it served some purpose he hadn’t figured out yet.  But
what?

He realized he was
being watched…

“Stop following me
around,” he hissed. 

Black eyes stared out from
the shadow of a building.  He twitched as she gave him that creepy black
stare.  He realized she'd been crying.

“What’s with you?” he
sneered.  “Upset your big winged stud never even noticed you existed?”

Gita stepped from the
shadows, a pale, gaunt wraith that looked as though she hadn't had enough to
eat since the day she'd been born.  A year older than Ninsianna, she appeared
no older than that bitch, Pareesa.  Her raggedy brown woolen cloak, a cast-off
of Shahla’s, was drawn tightly around her as though she were cold even though
the temperature was oppressive.  She reminded him of … death.

Her cheek was
bruised.  The one outfit she owned had been torn.  Another row, no doubt, with
her drunken father.  She would wait until the wedding guests cleared, then take
the morsels they dropped home to feed herself until mold made it no longer
edible.  Hunger.  Gita was living proof of what happened once you became an
outcast.

The urge to beat the
crap out of the father who had beaten her … again … welled to the surface. 
Immanu’s brother.  Living proof that the family of the so-called ‘Chosen One’
was not so altruistic.  Why had
he
been saddled with watching out for
the peculiar, black-eyed girl when she had
real
family who should have
intervened? 

Once upon a time, he'd
have done just that.  Waited until Merariy was good and drunk and then rolled
him in a back alley, claiming he'd been someplace else when his father tried to
call him on it.  But no more!  He was
done
watching out for the rejects
of this village when they were too stupid to watch out for themselves!

His cheek twitched. 
He was wound so tight he wanted to scream.

“You've got to let it
go,” Gita whispered, her black eyes staring through him as though he wasn’t
even there.  “Can’t you see what this is doing to you?  Let it go.”

She?  Was telling. 
Him?  To let things?  Go?  Why?  So he could end up like …
her?

“What do you want,
Gita?” Jamin hissed.

She gave him that
black stare that reminded him of hunger.  The hunger he'd
felt in his
heart ever since the day Ninsianna had told him she wasn’t in love with him
anymore and had broken off their engagement.

“I want you to leave
Shahla alone,” Gita said.  “She doesn't deserve what you're doing to her.”

Her words were so
quiet, he could barely hear them above the crowd as they dug into the lavish
feast his father had lay out for -
his-
betrothed's wedding!  And the
enemy who had stolen her from him!  Jamin turned to watch, hatred welling in
his heart as he plotted revenge against those who had done this to him. 
Betrayed!  By his own father!

His cheek twitched,
causing a cruel sneer to appear upon his face.  He turned to cut Gita down
the
way
he
was feeling all cut down inside right now.

His words met with
empty air.  The peculiar black-eyed girl had disappeared…

~ * ~ * ~
* ~ * ~

August – 3,390 BC

Earth:  Village of Assur

Colonel Mikhail Mannuki’ili

Mikhail

Mikhail surveyed his
ship as he circled in for a landing.  Ever since they'd left, he'd made weekly
trips up here to check its status.  Although knowledge of the ships systems was
aided by paper technical manuals that didn't require power to read, he still
had no idea how to repair the fractured hull on a planet with no technological
resources.  Or how to get the engines back online, which he suspected had been
damaged beyond repair.  The ruined ship did, however, make a superb honeymoon
getaway.

“My wife … your bower
for the next two weeks,” he said the moment their feet hit the ground.

“My husband,” she
said, “do we ever have to leave?”  She grabbed the lapels of his dress uniform
and pulled him down for a kiss.

“If you keep kissing
me like that, wife,” he growled.  “We are not going to
make
it into the
ship.”  He scooped her up in his arms and ordered “watch your head!” as he carried
her over the threshold.

Ninsianna gasped when
she saw the inside.  It was her first time back and he'd been diligently making
repairs.  If not for the crack in the hull or fact he couldn't get the engines
to fire, the interior was restored to the condition it had been in before he'd
been shot down.  The ship would have appeared ready for duty if not for the
flowers he'd gathered to decorate the sterile, otherwise Spartan interior of
his ship, a suggestion given to him by Yalda and Zhila in one of their tipsy
‘advice sessions’ before the wedding.

“Well?” he asked,
waiting to see her reaction.

“Oh, Mikhail,”
Ninsianna cried, reaching up to give him a hug.  “It's beautiful.  Is this what
your ship looked like before you crashed?”

“I can assure you,
ma’am, that there were absolutely
no
flowers on my ship before it
crashed,” he said with a deadpan expression that he might have pulled off had a
smirk not snuck past his poker face.

“I mean, all this
work,” she said, trailing off.  “You did this for me?”

“Of course,” he said. 
“I couldn't bring my new wife back to an un-shipshape ship now, could I?”

Ninsianna wrapped her
arms around his neck, pulling him down for a hungry kiss.  Her fingers trailed
through his hair as she pressed up against him.  Every instinct screamed to
take her right there on the floor and make her his, but he wanted to do this
right.  He couldn't remember whether or not he'd ever lain down with a woman
before, but knew down to the core of his being this would be the first time
he'd ever
made love
to one.