Page 24

Chapter 23

CAN’T WE JUST BE FRIENDS?

S leep refused to come because my mind was on high alert in nervous anticipation of Araz’s return to our shared quarters. The moments we’d shared in the baths scrolled through my mind as I analyzed them over and over—the way he’d made me feel until he’d ruined it with his anger and his taunts, the way I’d been certain he’d been feeling it too. I must have nodded off at some point because I woke suddenly, alert and aware that I was no longer alone in the room.

Araz was a shadowy figure by the wardrobe, undressing or, wait…was he pulling on his armour?

I sat up. “What are you doing?”

“Go back to sleep,” he snapped.

But I was wide awake now, my attention on the sword he’d pulled from the armoire. Where had that been hidden? “Araz, what’s going on? ”

He made a sound of exasperation. “Nothing that you need to concern yourself with.”

Someone hammered on the door.

“Laanat hai,” Araz muttered. He yanked open the door. “I said give me a moment.”

“Pavan Savaar are here,” a male voice said.

Jasha? I pulled the covers closer to my body.

Araz looked my way, his attention dropping to my hands gripping the sheets. “Stay here,” he said before stepping out of the room and closing the door behind him.

The rumble of the drohis’ voices drifted away, leaving me with a pounding heart and an awful sense of dread.

Stay here, he’d ordered. Yeah, not happening. I needed to know what was going on. I dressed quickly and gathered my thick hair into a knot. I’d fallen asleep with it wet, and it had dried all wonky and awful the way wavy hair tended to do. Would ascending give me manageable hair?

Boots on, I slipped out of my room and hurried down the steps, no particular plan in mind but to find out what the heck was going on. It had to be past midnight, maybe even later. No way to tell for sure without checking the timepiece hanging in the kitchen—one of the only clocks that I’d come across here. Created specifically for us off-worlders. It hung next to a Svargana clock, one which measured time in eight eras of day, awakening sun, rising sun, dipping sun, sleeping sun. The night-time was similarly worded but substituted sun with the word moon. They still used dawn, dusk, midnight, and midday, so at least we had that in common.

It was going to take some getting used to the new terminology. Right now, it was probably dipping moon time.

Bootfalls echoed behind me, coming down fast from the floor above, and I flattened myself to the wall with a yelp to avoid getting knocked over.

Pashim, dressed in his black armour outfit, blade strapped across his shoulders, ran by me then stopped suddenly and glanced back “Leela, what are you doing out of bed?”

“What’s going on?”

His jaw flexed. “Nothing for you to concern yourself with.”

I expected the brush-off from Araz, but not from Pashim. “Pashim, please…”

He exhaled heavily. “An attack to the west on a human settlement. We had a battalion stationed there for weeks, but it was moved a few days ago, and now the devouring force is attacking. You’re safe here in Aakaash, worry not.” He hurried down the stairs, leaving me with even more questions.

Dammit! I hurried after him, but he was already gone by the time I reached the foyer.

More bootfalls sounded behind me, and Remi joined me with Crag, her drohi, close behind .

“Come on,” Remi urged, pushing open the door. “Hurry or we’ll miss it.”

“Miss what?”

But she was already outside, Crag close on her heels.

I followed them into the night, where a chilly breeze wrapped itself around me in an unwanted hug. Remi and Crag stood looking up at the moon. It hung a little shy of being full, its silver gleam competing with the twinkle of its starry companions.

I joined them. “What are you—" Shadows cut a path across the silver disc.

“Omg!” Remi jumped up and down. “Do you see them?”

The shadows were in the shape of four huge birds.

They flew in a line, each with a rider perched on its back. The thunderbirds?

“Pavan Savar,” Crag said in his sluggish, sonorous voice.

Jasha had mentioned that phrase too. “They’re thunderbirds, right?”

“Yes.”

“Yes. They are mounts for war,” Crag said. “Bred for battle.”

And the figures riding them had to be drohi. Araz and Pashim among them.

The procession vanished into the night, on to battle, to danger.

There was no way I was sleeping tonight.

The next morning was a wet, dreary one with the heavens weeping and thunder shaking the sky. I’d been determined to stay awake and wait for Araz and Pashim to return, but sleep had other ideas and dragged me under, sometime before dawn.

My eyes were gritty as I dragged myself down to the kitchens, hoping for news on the battle. The room was filled with potentials and their drohi. Everyone was already mid-breakfast and talking excitedly.

Remi waved me over when she spotted me. “How did it go? Have you heard? Is Araz back yet?” She fired the questions at me like bullets.

I shook my head, wincing when it throbbed.

“Drink this.” Chaya handed me a cup of herbal tea. “It will help energize you. I doubt that you slept much last night. But I am certain that Araz will return safely to you.”

She smiled kindly, and my stupid eyes burned because I wasn’t even sure why I cared if Araz was safe. He’d been nothing but awful to me. It had to be because of the stupid bond. Honestly, I was more worried about Pashim.

I took a seat at the end of the main table next to Remi and opposite Chaya and Dharma. The rest of the potentials and their drohi had taken up all other available seats .

I sipped my tea, ignoring the bitter tang. “What I don’t understand is how they can send Araz. I mean…doesn’t being bound to me exempt him? At least until I’m trained up?”

“There are exceptions to that rule,” Keyton said. “Araz, Pashim, and Jasha form part of an elite squad. They will always be on call.”

“I don’t understand any of this,” Eve said from across the table.

Her drohi frowned down at her. “I have explained to you,” he said his tone weary. He wasn’t as bulky as the other drohi, and there was a look of sharp intellect to his features.

Eve rolled her eyes. “Yes, you said the devouring force keeps attacking the same locations. What I don’t understand is why the gods don’t move the mortals living there.”

“She makes a good point,” Dharma said.

Eve looked across at her in surprise, and Dharma shrugged.

“The Asura will not submit to the devouring force,” Chaya said. “They will hold their ground and protect the mortals.”

“And how do the mortals feel about that?” Priti asked.

“Priti.” Keyton put a hand on her shoulder. “You are new to this world, but it is not wise for you to question the will of the gods.”

“I think we have a right to ask questions,” Joe said from somewhere down the table. “Especially when these gods expect us to join them in this war.”

A sense of unease filled the room, and my gut told me that we were skating close to a ledge that none of us understood, not even the drohi.

“What I would like to know is what the devouring force is. Guru Chandra said the gods unwittingly released it and that it was able to infect the gods. But what is it, exactly?”

“No one knows for certain,” Eve’s drohi said. “But it is now the name that we give to an army made up of all the stolen gods.”

Eve twisted in her seat to look at him. “You didn’t tell me that, Ima.”

He sighed. “Yes, yes, I did. All the stolen gods, now monstrous revenants, and the creations that these mutations have spawned form an army that answers to the devouring force. They are now, essentially, the devouring force answering to the primordial evil.”

But they were still controlled by someone. The creature or entity that had given them its name.

And Pashim and Araz were out there right now fighting this force. The tea curdled in my belly. “You said the stolen gods have become revenants, and drohi can obviously kill them, right? So how come they can’t kill a pishacha, a creature spawned by the revenants?”

“We cannot kill a revenant,” Chaya said with a frown.

“No, that can’t be right.” The other potentials all murmured in agreement. “We saw Araz and his elite team kill revenants with our own eyes.”

“They were not killing them,” Ima said. “They were sending them back to the devouring force. The attack on your party was small. The revenants were scouting far from their main army, which is why they were not able to return in time to attack you again. But on the battlefield, a drohi is essential in culling the mass to allow their demigod or god the space to kill as many as possible.”

“How many are there?” Remi asked. “How large is the devouring force?”

“A horde,” Crag said solemnly. “And it continues to grow.”

Panic starburst in my chest. What if Araz was hurt? Would I know if he was dead? Would I feel something? “Where would they take a hurt drohi?”

“To the medical wing in the complex,” Chaya said with a frown. “But Leela, there is no cause to worry. Araz is one of the most powerful?—"

But I was already out of my chair and headed to the door, where I ran smack bang into an armored chest.

I rebounded and was saved from falling on my ass by a firm grip on my shoulders. My head whipped up, and relief rocked through me at the sight of Araz’s dirt-smudged face. That and the tendrils of hair that had come loose from his braid were the only evidence of his exertion .

The knot that had formed in my chest without my registering it unraveled. “You’re okay.”

Araz’s mouth tightened in annoyance. “Of course, I am.”

“The revenants, however, are not,” Jasha said, slipping into the room with a swagger that made me want to punch him in his smug mouth. “Something smells good.” He wandered over to Chaya and stood looming over her while she did her best to keep her focus on her plate of food. “You want to fix me up a plate?”

Chaya’s jaw hardened, and it was Dharma that answered. “Do you want my fist in your face?”

Jasha snorted softly, a mocking derisive sound that had my hackles up. “Why don’t you come over here and try?”

He made to round the table toward Dharma, but Chaya was on her feet in one fluid movement, placing herself between the two. “Do not speak to her.”

Chaya was a tall woman, at least six foot five, but Jasha was a head taller than her, larger, intimidating. He crowded her with his frame, but she held her ground, looking him in the eye with a fire that spoke of an untold history.

No one moved to intervene, not even Dharma as the two drohi faced off.

Jasha’s eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. “Have you fucked your little demigod yet?”

Dharma’s face went red, but Chaya smiled thinly. “Yes, and she was ten times better then you’ll ever be. ”

Jasha’s hand came up whether to strike her or what, I wasn’t sure, but the motion had the benches scraping back as every drohi rose to his or her feet.

“Jasha…” Araz didn’t raise his voice, but his tone held warning.

Jasha froze, lip curling as he slowly lowered his hand. “You’re not worth my time.”

Keyton said something harsh and rapid in a different language, and Jasha spat back some equally nasty-sounding words.

“Enough!” Araz barked. “Jasha, go back to your barracks. Now.”

Jasha shook his head, mouth turned down. “You’re welcome to my leftovers,” he said to Dharma.

He stormed out of the room, taking his toxic energy with him. Chaya dropped back into her chair and picked up her tea.

Dharma dropped her head to the drohi’s shoulder.

“The show is over,” Araz said. “Eat, then get to class. Weapons training begins today.”

He gave the room a nod, then left without giving me a second glance.

Seriously?

Hell no.

I stormed after him. catching him on the stairs. “Wait.”

“No.”

“Araz, we need to talk.”

He took the steps three at a time, leaving me in the dust. By the time I got to our room, he was already inside. I took a deep breath and entered just as he stripped off the armor. I sucked in a breath at the angry bruises that decorated his skin. Purple and green, as if in the healing stages, but dappled over almost every inch of his torso.

“Oh my god.” I took a step toward him.

He sidestepped my touch. “Dammit, Leela, what is wrong with you?” he demanded. “What will it take to keep you at a distance?”

I stared at him, stunned. “You’re hurt. I mean that”—I indicated the bruises—“must hurt.”

“No, Leela, this pain is nothing compared to the soul-wrenching agony of being bound to you. Stuck here with you. Having to see you, smell you, watch over you. You, always fucking you. I was glad to get away, glad to be on the battlefield facing revenants. I’d rather face the devouring force in all its glory than spend another second breathing the same air as you.”

His eyes blazed with passion, and his words struck like mini arrows.

I backed up, blinking against a burn that signaled tears. “You don’t want this binding. Fine. Neither do I. But we have it. It’s happened, and there is no way out of it until one of us is dead, and I do not plan on dying before I kill the creature that has my nani’s soul. So, you’re stuck with me. Bitching about it won’t change anything. You can either help me or get the fuck out of my way. ”

His jaw ticked, nostrils flaring. “You won’t survive without my help.”

“You’re an arrogant ass, and if you got off your high horse, you’d see that I have friends here to help me. Pashim and Ravi, Chaya and Keyton. They’re my friends. You and I could be friends too, and if you don’t want that, then we can at least foster a little mutual respect.”

“Friends?” His mouth turned down in a mixture of disgust and disbelief. “Why would I want to be friends with a sniveling, pathetic creature like you? A woman willing to give her body to a male who openly despises her. You have no self-respect, and you expect me to respect you?”

His words were a slap that stiffened my spine. Because he was right. I’d allowed my body to rule my mind, allowed the bond to take control because I’d believed our jodi could work. That once he got over his disappointment he’d come around, but why should he? Why should he give up his dream so quickly?

I hated that I could see his point of view. Hated that I was an obstacle. Hated that I could see through his pain so clearly it made it impossible for me to hate him, because hating him would make this so much easier.

“I’ll leave you to get changed.” I turned away.

“That’s it? You have nothing else to say?”

“Not today.”

I walked out, closing the door softly behind me because I wasn’t angry. I was just…sad. For him. For me. For all the demigods and drohi trapped in a dynamic chosen for them.

If there was a way out. A way to take control. A way to choose, then it wasn’t offered to them. But that didn’t mean it didn’t exist. Any pairing when made mandatory could become stifling. There had to be a way to end this binding.

It was time I paid the Vidya Tower a visit and spoke to sage Bhoomika.

If there was a way to free Araz, then I’d find it.