The Immortal Queen Tsubame: Ascension (15 page)

It took a couple of more touches to realize that it wasn’t her fingers, but her lips.

“Stop,” he said, voice gentle but firm.

“Why?”

“You don’t get to do that,” Devdan muttered. She didn’t know the history behind those scars. He didn’t
want
her to know the history behind those scars. So he certainly didn’t want her to kiss away the pain that came with them.

“Who does?”

Devdan didn’t answer and instead stood up and faced Adina, about to bluntly tell her that she should leave. Then his eyes locked with hers and the words stopped in his throat, the compulsion to kiss her, to ravish her returning.

He backed away.

She stepped forward.

Their lips collided in a desperate frenzy—Adina’s body naturally folding into him, his arms wrapping around her to keep her close. Her lips were as soft as Devdan imagined they would be and despite her innocent persona, she certainly knew what she was doing when she kissed him; pulling away just barely, putting his bottom lip between hers and kissing it in a slight sucking motion while he did the same with her top lip. Devdan grabbed her by her by her thighs, just under her ass and hoisted her up, pulling his lips away from her and kissing her neck, causing a short gasp to escape her lips. She grabbed his head on either side of his face, forcing him to face her again before descending her lips on his again.

Eventually they fell backwards on the bed, separating in the process. They stared at each other for a moment, eyes locked on each other’s as they panted for breath.

Adina leaned down to kiss him again.

Devdan broke eye contact and used his arm to keep her away.

“What’s wrong?”

Devdan didn’t reply; only pushed her off him and sat up, heart racing in anticipation, his dick already hard and ready; part of him screaming that Adina was forbidden fruit, that fucking the daughter of Mekonnen behind his back was not a good way to earn his trust; the other part of him screaming to him that her being forbidden fruit was exactly why he should fuck her. Damn, it had been so long since he’d gotten laid.

“Fuck,” Devdan said.

“Devdan.”

“Get out of here Adina.”

“Devdan--.”

“Get out!” Devdan snapped, harsher, louder.

“What’s wrong?”

Devdan stood and then suddenly turned around and forced Adina forward on her stomach, arms pinned behind her back. He leaned over her to be just close enough for her to hear him speaking in a low tone, but far enough away so he wasn’t overwhelmed by her scent.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” he said.

“Contrary to how I look, I’m not a little girl. I know exactly what I’m doing.”

“No. You don’t,” Devdan said deciding not to bother telling the girl everything that was going through his mind. Instead he let go of her wrists and lifted off her. “Get out of here, Adina.”

Adina slowly got off the bed, a stunned look on her face. She took a step toward him, looking like she was about to say or do something else but seemed to think better of it and left the room.

15

Devdan purposely avoided Adina over the next few days, the power of traveling through the shadows assisting him with the endeavor. He almost told Anya that they were leaving, that they were better off taking their chances with the Algerian family, but then Ezra informed him that Mekonnen was returning and that he was eager to speak with Devdan as soon as he returned.

Three days later at dinner, the only place Devdan couldn’t outright avoid or ignore Adina, Ezra notified him that Mekonnen was in his office and wished to speak with him making sure Anya knew that his father only wanted to speak with Devdan.

“I’ll tell you what happened later,” Devdan said so that the woman wouldn’t pester and insist that she go with him.

Ezra didn’t escort him to the room like the first day they arrived almost two weeks ago, so Devdan found his way there himself, following Mekonnen’s ancient presence to the man’s office.

Mekonnen was standing in front of his seat waiting for Devdan to arrive, surely having sensed his approach. He immediately gestured for Devdan to have a seat, skipping the long traditional greeting. Devdan focused on not narrowing his eyes at that, but made sure to plant his feet on the ground so he could get up quickly if he needed to. Still, just because Mekonnen was forgoing niceties didn’t mean Devdan could.

“How was your trip?”

“It was good,” Mekonnen replied.

“Who did you go see?” Devdan asked.

“My niece. She lives in Sudan with her husband.”

“Are they well?”

“Anxiously anticipating a third grandchild,” Mekonnen said. “How about you? How have you enjoyed our home?”

“It’s interesting,” Devdan replied carefully, feeling like he was being set into a trap. Adina had been suspiciously absent early. He hadn’t had to avoid her earlier today since she wasn’t around to avoid.

“I thought for sure you would fail,” Mekonnen said suddenly.

“Fail?”

“You’re one of very few men who can resist Adina’s charms and the only one I’ve met so far that can do so. It says a lot about your character and honor,” Mekonnen said.

Devdan stared at the man for a moment, the meaning of his words taking a while to register until finally he said, “Adina’s not your daughter is she?”

“She’s an Ethiopian sorceress. Of course she’s my daughter.”

“But not your blood daughter,” Devdan said and then growled. “She’s your fucking spy.”

He could practically hear Bastet hissing his name in his head.

“Admittedly Adina is not a very powerful sorceress. She can’t cause sandstorms or seal other sorcerers away or travel through the shadows or see the future. But she’s a very powerful empath, able to create powerful artificial emotional bonds between people and use those bonds to make them do what she wants,” Mekonnen explained.

“You told her to seduce me,” Devdan said.

“I did. And you resisted even with all the power of her empathetic persuasion behind her cause. That says a lot about your character.”

“How does me resisting her power to persuade people to fuck her say anything about my character?” Devdan asked while rolling his eyes, all pretense of respect leaving him.

“Because Adina’s power kindles the most powerful driving force there is in the magical world. Desire. And in a person with no honor or character, desire can corrupt you, make you greedy, the need to have something no matter what they have to do to get it. Like the Magic Council you come to me representing. Adina’s ability allows me to weed out those characters. It’s one of the reasons our family has been so enduring when many of the other families have been compromised,” Mekonnen said. “Yet your sense of honor kept your desire at bay.”

“So you’re deciding you can trust me based on the fact that my dick isn’t controlling my actions?” Devdan asked. He could practically hear Bastet’s voice screaming at him now.

“When a man can trust another man not to defile his daughter, even when that man isn’t around to notice and said daughter would have been willing that says a lot about his character,” Mekonnen said with a shrug.

Devdan snorted.

Mekonnen laughed and said, “You’ll understand when you have a daughter one day.”

Devdan doubted it, but rather than arguing with the man on that matter he said, “So you’re going trust me because I had enough self-control not to fuck who I thought was your daughter when you weren’t there to make sure?”

“No. I’m going to give you a chance to explain yourself to some of the other families and I.”

“What about Anya?” Devdan asked carefully.

“Anya has already proven herself untrustworthy by the fact that she’s on the Magic Council and will certainly cater to their agenda. I have a feeling your agenda is not hers.”

Mekonnen politely dismissed him from the room after that. After stopping by Anya’s room and letting her know that Mekonnen was going to get them an audience with some of the other magic families in Africa, Devdan went to his room and was unsurprised to find Adina there. There were a lot of things he could say to her, a lot of things he could do, especially now that he knew she wasn’t Mekonnen’s daughter, that she was his spy who seduced their guests to test their honor and trustworthiness.

He had decided to say nothing except tell her to get out when she said, “Who is it?”

As always with her, Devdan felt the compulsion to answer her. And as always, he gave into the compulsion simply because he was curious, even now that he knew what the compulsions was.

“Who is who?”

“The one who gets to kiss your scars,” Adina asked bluntly. “You said I don’t get to do it. Not no one. That’s pretty specific. So who is the person that does?”

Of all the things he had expected her to ask him, this wasn’t it. He decided to try to redirect her and asked, “Jealous?”

“No.”

She was. Devdan could tell in the way her aura withdrew defensively as she answered, lips tight with a stubborn determination not to give herself away. She may have been the one tasked with seducing him, but he had seduced her along the way and Devdan wondered if he had fucked her, if he had gone ahead and slept with her, would she still have told Mekonnen that he resisted her.

“You’re lying. It’s the only way you could have resisted me.”

He had been prepared to eventually admit that he had seen through her game. He had already concocted a lie that it hadn’t gone unnoticed by him that Mekonnen had left his home with guests that had to be supervised, leaving his daughter exposed to a strange man; that it also hadn’t escaped him how while Ezra certainly alluded that he was aware of his and Adina’s attraction to each other, he did nothing to discourage them from going out after dinner, to spending excessive amounts of time together. But it all would have been a lie.

In all honesty, while he had noticed all that, what clued him into the fact that she was probably a spy was the fact that the draw to her he felt was similar to the draw he’d always felt to MaLeila. But only similar. His draw to MaLeila while needy had never been compulsive, while binding and sometimes dangerously codependent had never felt so artificial and shallow. For every time he had been drawn to MaLeila he could think of at least one reason or thing that had drawn him in. With Adina, he’d noticed that things she’d done to lure him in were things that normally turned him off from a woman before. And it was those differences that clued him in to the fact that she was actively manipulating him in some way. Devdan had to admit that Adina was skilled at what she did though. Even knowing the girl was up to something, Devdan almost gave into her. The only thing he hadn’t known was that she was acting under Mekonnen’s command. In the end, while Devdan decided he wasn’t going to give Adina the truth, he wouldn’t lie to her either.

“Surviving slavery was a game of manipulation. You think you’re the first pretty little thing that batted her eyelashes at me to try to get me in trouble latter?” Devdan asked. “Magic or none, I’ve got a lot more self-control than that.”

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“I was trying to be nice, but since you’re so insistent, I’ll put it like this. If there is someone else, it’s none of your fucking business.”

Adina continued to look at him from where she was sitting on his bed. She still had something else to say. And if it was again to convince him to tell her who helped him resist her charms, he was going to lift her up and throw her out no matter whose daughter she still might be.

Finally she stood and looking him in the eye said, “Perhaps it’s not. For what it’s worth though, I am sorry. And I am fond of you. In regards to you, I’ve completed Mekonnen’s task.” She rested a hand on his arm. “We could…”

“And how do I know that you won’t be going right back to your father to tell him what happened as soon as the deed is done?”

“He’s not my father,” Adina said promptly. “In the Ethiopian Magic family, all sorcerers born in the country are his children, but that does not make him my father. A father doesn’t encourage his daughter to have sex with potential allies to test their sense of honor.”

“Doesn’t matter if you’re his daughter or not, no woman should be subjected to that by anyone against her will,” Devdan replied. “Still. You didn’t answer my question.”

Adina looked him directly in the eyes, hand still on his arm as though trying to convey all her feelings to him and thought limitedly he could sense what she felt through her flaring magical aura, he couldn’t feel them like she could probably feel his being an empath. She may have the power to read his emotions and therefore know his intentions, but she couldn’t give him the power to read her own.

“Pray with me.”

Devdan blinked in surprise.

“What?”

“Pray with me and I’ll show you that you can trust me.”

It was only a request. Devdan felt none of the manipulative compulsion and temptation that he’d felt over the last few weeks around her. And so he replied, “Okay.”

Adina left the room and came back with a long wide scarf that she draped over her head, arms, and the top her chest and collarbone that was partially exposed by the cut of her tunic.

“Normally, we would do an ablution or bath. The cleaner the body, the more open the pathways that connect us to powerful magical sources. Spiritual energy, religious mortals call it. But since I’m only using the pathways as a conduit to temporarily link you to my emotions, we can forgo that step,” Adina said. “I will lead and say the words. And you simply follow my motions. At the end, our magical energies will temporarily align and you will be able to decide for yourself if I am sincere.”

Devdan agreed, but if he were perfectly honest he felt silly initially going through the motions even though he had witnessed the concentrations of magical energy around those who made the prayer. It wasn’t until toward the middle that he began to feel the change in the magic energy between them, their auras beginning to align. And as Adina had promised, at the end, when they were both knelt down next to each other Devdan felt Adina’s emotions and intentions as though they were his own. He couldn’t read them as well as she probably could, but he could sense the basic things, the fondness that she had admitted to, desire for him, an odd keenness to see him succeed, and trust. It put Devdan at ease and discomforted him at the same time. At ease because it was apparent that Adina had no ill will or intention to go to Mekonnen afterwards. In fact, Devdan sensed she resented the man. But discomforted because as far as Devdan knew, he had done nothing to warrant Adina’s trust so easily.

“Why?” he asked softly eyes still closed as they knelt down next to each other, not willing to disrupt their alignment yet. “Why do you trust me? Why do you want to help me?”

“It’s not just your emotions I can feel,” Adina said easily, their temporary connection not even wavering like it did when he spoke. “I can feel your emotions and the emotions that have been directed toward you and all together they give a picture of your potential, your destiny, the person they have made you into and will continue to make you into. I would like to be part of it.”

As she spoke, she sounded like the shy flustered girl she pretended to be when they first met except more sincere.

“That doesn’t mean things won’t change later,” Devdan pointed out.

Adina laughed and Devdan felt her shift next to him to look at him. He opened his eyes to look at her also.

“Do you always make so many objections when a woman offers herself to you?”

“No,” Devdan replied. “But considering you tried to get me to sleep with you earlier for Mekonnen’s purposes, can you blame me for being a little cautious?”

Despite his words, Devdan closed the distance between them and kissed her. It was slow, gentle, without the desperate frenzy of their first kiss making Devdan’s entire body—already hot from the exertion of keeping their aura’s aligned—burn with heat and want for Adina. He pried her lips open with his tongue, explored her mouth, feeling her entire body begin to melt against his. When he pulled away from her, a soft sigh escaped her, a sound that was a mixture of relief and need. It was then that he noticed her hands were on his right wrist, having clasped around it one of the gold arm bands that she usually wore around her upper arms.