BOOM!
The door to the room blows clear off its hinges, flying across the space and crashing into the pile of boxes.
Filling up the open doorway is my mate.
Memnon’s eyes are glowing like hot coals, and his hair has lifted from his shoulders, rippling like he’s swimming underwater.
I want to sob at the sight of him. As it is, my heart leaps, and Goddess, the things I’ll forgive this man for simply because he showed up.
His eyes immediately find mine, and even distant as they get when his power takes over, I swear they burn brighter.
“Selene.” He growls my name possessively.
His gaze scans my broken body, and that rage that whispered down our bond now consumes him. Memnon’s power burgeons around him, sparks of it lighting up the indigo plumes like it’s all a miniature storm cloud.
A split second later, his power is there, slipping down my throat and into me, reaching for my injuries and attempting to heal them from a distance. But because healing usually requires pressing hands to flesh, his magic doesn’t do much besides setting my broken bones. The action causes me to scream through my teeth.
I’m sorry, love. His voice has an otherworldly edge to it as his magic rides him. Memnon begins striding toward me, likely to finish healing me.
“Don’t come any closer,” Lia warns.
Memnon pauses, his gaze flicking to the woman.
As soon as he sees her, he stills. “Juliana.”
Juliana?
I glance up at who I thought was Lia. Seven hells.
It all comes together fast. Lia must be a nickname. As in Ju-lia-na.
This isn’t just some random witch gone rogue. This is a sorceress and one of the heirs of Ensanguine Enterprises.
Juliana Fortuna.
CHAPTER 36
I stare at Juliana Fortuna with new eyes as she takes in Memnon, whose power is crackling off him. I can practically hear the gears in her head grinding together as she tries to piece together the situation from her end.
“Put your magic away,” she finally commands.
I’m sure she’s expecting him to do as she says. She believes he’s bonded to her after all.
Instead, Memnon continues to stare at her, his expression growing colder and colder as his power gathers.
“You touched my mate.”
“Mate?” I hear the surprise in Juliana’s voice. “You’re her bond?”
She glances down at me, reassessing, before returning her gaze to Memnon. I can’t move with my injuries, but I imagine she’s taking in his glowing eyes and rustling hair.
“Who are you really?” she asks. She must realize she’s been played.
“Your executioner.” He says it without malice, as though it were simply a fact, and that makes the words truly ominous.
The sorceress murmurs under her breath, drawing her magic in her hands, then she throws a spell at my mate, the thick mass of it streaked through with oily black lines.
Dark magic.
Memnon lifts a hand and catches the curse. I’ve never seen that done. I can hear it sizzling against his flesh as he closes his fist around it. With a final hiss, it snuffs out like a blown candle.
“Creature, attack him!”
The clay monstrosity charges toward Memnon, and its clay lips peel back, revealing sharpened gray canines.
Right as it’s nearly on Memnon, my mate reaches out and rubs away a portion of the Hebrew word truth from the creature’s forehead.
All at once, the creature’s form stiffens, losing its animation. It falls to the ground, shattering apart, the sound like a clay pot smashing. I stare at what remains of the thing’s head. On its forehead, I can just make out what remains of the Hebrew word, which is now missing one letter. What remains reads as a different word entirely.
Death.
“Creature, repair yourself!” Juliana commands.
I wait for the bits of dried clay to cobble themselves back together, but they remain where they fell, still and lifeless.
Memnon returns his attention to the sorceress, his magic rapidly folding inward, toward his form.
For the first time, I see a flicker of misgiving in Juliana’s eyes, even as they begin to glow—
BOOM!
Memnon’s magic explodes out of him, ripping through the room and throwing Juliana and everything else back. The only thing Memnon’s magic doesn’t touch is me. The hair on my head doesn’t so much as stir.
The sorceress coughs as debris falls and dust kicks up. Through the haze, I see a set of glowing eyes as Memnon strides forward.
“There is one thing I hold holy in all this gods-forsaken world,” Memnon says, closing in on Juliana. Goose bumps break out along my skin. His voice still has that unsettling otherness to it. “And you hurt her.”
The sorceress sits up enough to lob a curse at Memnon. He bats it away like it’s a fly, but when it hits the wall behind him, it melts a section of drywall.
She throws another and another. He doesn’t bother knocking them all away, and he doesn’t react at all, even when the curses eat away at his clothes, and bits of his flesh smoke.
“You cannot hurt me,” Juliana insists. “I bonded you to me. I remember.”
He doesn’t respond, but when he bends down and grasps her by the neck, it’s clear he can in fact hurt her. His magic closes in on her, the indigo swathes of it stained with dark, oily streaks.
Juliana begins to writhe and scream.
“Selene,” she gasps out between cries, “kill him.”
I suck in a sharp breath as my broken limbs tense at her command. She had ordered something similar of me earlier—
Your first true task once I release you tonight will be to sever each of those bonds.
That command hadn’t taken root because she hadn’t released me, but now, now her insidious magic is pressing in on me, forcing my body to move.
I cry out as my broken bones are jostled.
Est amage!
In response, Juliana’s screams intensify, like Memnon worsened the curse he struck her with.
My body is still trying to pick itself up, broken bones and all. Beyond the pain, there is a different sort of anguish. Horror crawls along my skin at the thought of killing Memnon. I have loathed the man and wished for his demise more than once, but…but somewhere along the way, things between us have changed.
No. I fight the compulsion. I will not do this.
Sweat begins to bead on my brow as I battle the magic.
I will not harm my soul mate.
Just when I’m sure I’ll be forced to comply anyway, the command’s power over me dissipates, washing away like blood in the rain.
I breathe hard as I lie there on the ground, sweat dripping down my face. Or maybe they’re tears.
Some bonds are stronger than others. Not even a forced bond can overpower a fated one.
I stare up at the ceiling. “That foolish woman doesn’t know who we are,” I say in Sarmatian, my voice shaky. King, queen. Husband, wife. Ancient lovers, recent enemies. Soul mates.