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“Not until you tell me what you’ve done to me,” he demands, furious.

I ache as I stare into those eyes. This feels so much like my dream, where confusion overlays reality.

“What are you talking about?” I say, not even flinching this time when the words come out in that other language.

He gives me a bit of a shake. “You dismantled my army. Destroyed our empire, ripped me from our lands,and thrust me into this twisted future where nothing makessense!” He all but roars this last part.

“Let me go.” My voice rises with my pounding heart, and there’s steel in it. My power coils within me, gathering itself. The fear I felt only moments ago is giving way to anger.

Memnon’s lips curve into a smile. But his eyes are sharp as swords. “But haven’t you missed me, Roxilana?”

“Whothe fuck is Roxilana?” Again, this strange language.

He gives me an odd look now. “What is this game you’re playing?”

“Why would I ever play a game withyou? I don’t even know who you are!”

“You don’t know who I am?” His eyebrows lift in disbelief. Then he laughs, the sound chilling. “I have beeninside youmore times than there are stars to count. I am no more a stranger to you than your own skin is.”

I have beeninside youmore times than there are stars to count.

I stare at him for a long moment, cold terror washing over me. This creature lured me to his tomb and had me spring him from it. And then he followed me across an entire continent, and now he believes we’ve been together—like,together, together.

I am in deep shit.

“There’s been a mistake,” I say slowly.

My mind races furiously, trying to recall my memories from South America, several of which have long since washed away. I need to get to the root of this problem.

“Mistake?” Memnon growls. His eyes begin to glow like hot coals, and the air sizzles with power. I jolt, recognizing what supernatural’s magic presents like that.

Not a demon. Not a vampire or a fae.

A sorcerer.

They’re nearly as bad as demons. A sorcerer’s power eats away at their conscience. The stronger one is, the more heartless they’ll be.

And Memnon feels staggeringly strong.

Unaware of my thoughts, he continues. “After all you have done to me—after all thebetrayal—”

“Listen,” I say, cutting him off, “whoever you think I am, I’m not her.” This Roxilana broad really fucked with the wrong dude. “Please, just let me go.”

Memnon’s eyes flare a bit brighter. “Youdareto play ignorant. To call me a liar and what we are a mistake. You, the woman I gave everything to.”

“ButIdidn’t give you everything,” I insist. “You have me confused with someone else.”

He ignores my point. “You locked me away, denied me even the basic decency of death. I was never given funerary rites, never allowed to pass from this world to the next. You kept me from the afterlife, where I could ride the skies with my ancestors.”

I stare up at the man, who looks like some ancient deity.

“Instead, I lay caged for all this time. But I am caged no longer.” The last part comes out grave, ominous. “The world will know my wrath—youwill know my wrath, my queen.

“I will put you at my mercy,” he vows. “And I will destroy your world bit by bit until all you have left is me.”

CHAPTER14

I stiflea yawn as I sit in Spellcasting 101, my first class of the semester. After my encounter with Memnon, I didn’t sleep much last night, instead using my time to scribble down what I could remember of the incident. Like the fact that he’s a sorcerer and that he happens to want to ruin my life.