Legacy of the Demon (Kara Gillian 8)

With delicate movements, he drew spider-silk strands of potency between his shikvihr sigils and mine in an act of unspeakable intimacy. I turned as he turned, watching every movement, feeling them as a caress on my essence. Now I understood why he bore my sigil. Closed off and merged with his essence blade, Mzatal was ruthless and formidable. He commanded unmatchable res

olve and focus that allowed him to stay a thousand moves ahead of his opponents, and see and anticipate distant potentials. He’d been closed off once before—a solitude that lasted two thousand years, with all distractions shut out and full focus on his goals.

But this time one of his goals included me. He’d carved the sigil as a lifeline, to maintain a connection despite the barriers. A hope for a life beyond his self-made prison.

Together we can do anything. Even if we aren’t together.

He finished the intricate weave of our potency. “Remove your shirt,” he said, voice uncompromising. I tore my gaze from the connected sigils. His face was as hard and intense as ever, an unreadable mask of stone. But his eyes . . . I drew a steadying breath. His eyes held the emotions he dared not otherwise reveal.

I stripped off my shirt and tossed it aside. He moved the leaf from where it lay over my heart to rest on my shoulder, then he placed his palm over his sigil scar in the center of my chest. “Damaged.”

“Only the sigil,” I said, mouth dry. Curves and patterns severed when Szerain had thrust his essence blade into my heart in order to save my life.

Without a word, Mzatal began to slowly trace the loops of his sigil on my skin, his touch sensuous, light, and undeniably powerful. Where the lines were broken, he repaired them, and with a final touch ignited the sigil with searing fire that faded to comforting warmth in a heartbeat.

He replaced the leaf atop it and covered both with his hand. “It is of better use whole.”

I spread my hand over the sigil on his chest. “We are better whole.”

Rhyzkahl gave a rude snort.

Without taking his eyes from mine, Mzatal sent a shrieking bolt of lightning from his free hand to strike Rhyzkahl square in the chest. While Rhyzkahl writhed among the zucchini, Mzatal moved behind me and set his hands on my shoulders. As he slid them down my arms, the strands between our sigils flickered with golden light to match the morning sky. He covered the backs of my hands with his, laced his fingers between mine as the strands glowed strong and steady.

Moving as one, hands united and arms sweeping in graceful arcs, we called forth the full union of our shikvihr. When our dance was done, a new construct surrounded us. Not a pair of eleven-ringed shikvihr entwined, but a thrumming single circle of potency that flowed like liquid light in an endless loop. Beautiful, with a purpose and function that shone with dazzling clarity. Two months ago, Mzatal had gifted me the power of a lord via the nexus and Rhyzkahl, but this addition, this super-shikvihr would remain in place and allow me to tap into that power even away from my property.

I leaned back against him, enjoying the contact, the touch I knew we might never share again. Fingers still joined with mine, Mzatal wrapped his arms around me and crossed our wrists over my heart. After a moment, he shuddered then stepped back, breaking away before his will crumbled.

As I turned to face him, he caught my left hand and stripped the stoneless ring from my finger. While I watched, baffled, he placed it in my palm and folded my fingers over it, then clasped my hand between his. Heat flashed within my fist, gone before it could register as pain. Mzatal released me, wheeled away and strode from the nexus. The demahnk Helori appeared in human form beside him, and then they were gone.

I let out a shaky breath and opened my hand. Mzatal had given me this ring last Christmas, and the stone was broken not long after during a terrible argument. I’d kept the ring as a reminder of that schism—one we never wished to repeat. Later, Rowan had destroyed the stone, but after Szerain ripped her away from my Self, I’d stubbornly continued to wear the twisted ring. Now it lay on my palm as a raw lump of gold and silver alloy.

“I can work with this,” I murmured. Mzatal hadn’t destroyed the broken ring. Instead he’d made it ready to be created anew. A fresh start. Drawing potency from the super-shikvihr loop, I reshaped the lump into two slender rings, gleaming and unadorned. The smaller one I slipped onto my finger. The other, I threaded through the cord that held the grove leaf, keeping it safe until the ring’s rightful owner could bear it.

A laugh bubbled up. “My preccccioooouuussss,” I whispered. Grinning, I pulled my shirt on and headed inside, while Rhyzkahl twitched in an inglorious heap.

Chapter 14

Pellini handed me a cup of coffee when I stepped into the kitchen. “I was about to call for security until I realized it was Mzatal out there with you.”

I smiled and took a sip, pleased to find it perfectly over-sugared and mega-creamed. “Guess you saw my topless act.”

His mouth twitched in amusement. “Nothing I haven’t seen before.”

“It has to be getting old by now,” I said. A couple of years back, Pellini had been among the Beaulac PD personnel who saw me appear naked in the station break room after I died in the demon realm and returned to Earth. And, after Angus McDunn stripped my abilities, Pellini had busted into the bathroom to drag me from the tub and my spiral of despair.

“Looking at boobs never gets old,” he said with a grin.

Laughing, I rolled my eyes then moved to the kitchen window. Rhyzkahl had stopped twitching and dragged himself up to a sitting position. “Can you see the changes in the nexus?” I asked Pellini.

He squinted out the window. “I saw the sigils when y’all were laying them, but now there’s only a shimmer, like heat waves. I feel like there’s more, but when I try to see, it slips away.”

“It’s plain as day to me. Mzatal created—” I stopped and shook my head. “No, we created this super-shikvihr loop that extends my range. It’ll be a game changer for me.”

Pellini frowned. “What exactly is he doing on Earth?”

“I don’t know specifics, but I have no doubt it involves countering the Mraztur, and that has to be good.”

“Uh huh.” He made no attempt to hide his dubious tone. “I’ll add him to the DIRT Alpha-level watch list.”