Chapter 20: The End

The only way it could have ended...

Bane stood in the middle of the blue mat, spear in one hand, knees slightly bent and poised for the moment of attack. His personal aide, Torriq, mirrored him from across the long room. Torriq had been with him for countless centuries. A member of an elite tribal people from the world of Nevina, he was a trained warrior, a Na’raj, and unwaveringly loyal. Bane had saved his life once, and Torriq then vowed to serve Bane in return. He had taught Bane how to fight like a primitive warrior, like someone who was used to fighting those who didn’t fight fair. Guerrilla warfare.

They trained every day, so it was no surprise that Bane had brought his valet with him on his journey to reclaim Devlyn. Torriq was tall, dark, and lean, chiseled features, and intense brown eyes that could see completely through an individual, see through them and map out the landscape behind them for ten miles in either direction.

Torriq was about to strike when his master began screaming. He watched in horror as Nykosas howled in pain and dropped down to his knees.

 

Devlyn did her fastest sifting, but she could not locate Bane. He wasn’t at Temptations, wasn’t at her penthouse, wasn’t in her mansion in the Garden district where she had thought he’d been staying. She forced herself to stop, calm down, and rationally think, a task that wasn’t as common to her as it should be.

That first night together, where had he taken her? It had seemed quite familiar, but it didn’t occur to her at the time to wonder about that familiarity. Her mind had been on other things that night, like trying to kill him, and the next morning she had been too distraught and pissed off to focus on her surroundings; she’d just wanted to get the hell out of there.

She’d gotten out of that large Queen Anne bed, stumbled her way to the shower through the back left door, pulled a towel out of that armoire she had bought off that old confederate wife the day Sherman marched through Atlanta, and the matron wanted to leave New Orleans before things got any worse, so she’d sold Devlyn everything she could, Devlyn had paid her in gold, and the matron had got the hell out of dodge.

Devlyn’s eyes flared. That damn son of a b***h! He had been camping out in her plantation on the bayou! The b*****d was living in her beautiful mansion while she stayed cooped up in her apartment in the Quarter. If he had harmed or moved any of her antiques during his sojourn, she’d hang him from the rafters! If he wasn’t already dead. The thought went through her like a stab.

He could be dead, and she was worrying over human antiques. He was right. She was too self-centered to be an earth goddess. She flashed to the foyer of the massive homestead. She could feel him here, in every room, where he had walked around, trying to get an understanding of her. She cherished this house more than any of the others she owned, and he had used that love to learn about her. He wasn’t stupid, wasn’t selfish; he’d wanted to be close to her somehow when she wouldn’t give him the time of day.

She sifted again to what had once been a second-floor ballroom but was now a world-class training studio: mats, weights, a broad assortment of weapons, mirror the length of one wall. The entire room had been redesigned as a place to practice the art of fighting. What else could she expect from War? she thought with a smirk.

He was laying in the middle of the floor, on all fours, and struggling to maintain that position. A grip of terror like she had never felt before squeezed Devlyn’s heart. Surely she had not set out to free him of the marks, only to kill him with them instead. Surely the even the Fates weren’t that cruel. And if so, why had her father provoked her into doing so?

A choked sob escaped her lips. The dark-skinned man sitting next to him looked up at her in what could only be described as hate. Devlyn didn’t care about his opinion. Her only worry was Bane. She rushed over to him, fearful of touching him lest she cause him any more pain. “I’m so sorry, my love,” she whispered as tears climbed down her cheeks unchecked.

His dark blue eyes looked up at her as she stroked his hair out of his face. His back was molten, the scars looking more like small rivers of lava than damaged skin. He glared up at her.

“What did you do, Devlyn?”