Dark Princess: Shadows (The Children Of The Gods Paranormal Romance #89)

48. Brandon

48

brANDON

B randon watched Morelle with a mix of admiration and amusement. Her feminine beauty was misleading, and so was her physical weakness. Behind the elegant and refined facade that he had helped to create with the clothing he'd gotten for her, there was a fierce Kra-ell princess who spoke of vengeance and killing her mother's murderer as if she were discussing the weather.

"I know that now, Princess. I will not make that mistake again. But I hate to disappoint you. The story of Aliya, the hybrid Kra-ell who beat up three strong immortal warriors, is not bloody or vicious. It's actually nice."

She tilted her head and looked at him from under lowered lashes. "You are not going to paint it in pretty colors for me, right?"

He lifted one hand off the steering wheel. "I promise to tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

That seemed to satisfy her, and she leaned back in the cart's not-so-comfortable seat.

"First, though, let me show you something." He steered the cart toward the village's edge.

As they crested the gentle slope, the ocean came into view—a distant strip of blue meeting the horizon.

Morelle leaned forward. "It looks like the sky has fallen to earth."

"That's the Pacific Ocean." He parked the cart as close as he could to the bench that he intended them to sit on. "It stretches for thousands of miles and connects continents."

"It doesn't look that big, but that's because of Earth's curvature. We had seas on Anumati, but I never saw one. I never got to see even a lake."

He felt a twinge of sorrow for the secluded life she'd been forced to lead. "When you get stronger, I'll take you to see the ocean up close, and if you want, you can dip your toes in the water."

She recoiled. "Oh, no. Big bodies of water are dangerous."

He chuckled. "I've heard of the Kra-ell's aversion to deep water, which is somewhat justified. Their bodies are less buoyant. But you are built like a goddess, so you shouldn't fear the water."

She looked down at her body and then back at him. "I've seen goddesses on vids and in books, and now I have also seen Annani. I'm not nearly as beautiful as they are."

"Yes, you are." He took her hand and kissed the back of it. "Do you want to sit over there on that bench?"

"Yes." She started to turn.

"Stop right there and wait for me to get you. If you fall, it's back to the clinic. I'm sure you don't want that."

"No." She stopped with her feet dangling over the side of the cart. "I don't want to go back to that room."

He was learning how to speak to his fiercely independent and strong-willed princess. If he wanted her to do as he asked, he had to give her a good reason to do so.

Morelle was not a follower. She was a leader.

Still, he couldn't help himself, and instead of offering a hand to help her down, he put his hands on her tiny waist, lifted her out of the seat, and transferred her to the bench.

She gave him a baleful look but quickly followed it with a smile. "If you keep doing that, I will have to ask Gertrude to bring that leg exercising machine to Annani's home. Otherwise, I will not get stronger."

He sat beside her on the bench and took her hand. "That might be a good idea regardless of anything else. How are you feeling? Are you tired?"

"I've been sitting in that cart and talking. Those are not tiring activities."

He laughed. "You'd be surprised, but some people find talking exhausting. Not me, thank the merciful Fates, but for some, it's a problem."

She smiled. "I called you my storyteller when I didn't know your name."

His heart swelled. "You can call me anything you want as long as you add 'my' in front of it. I like the sound of it."

She blushed, which was completely unexpected. The fierce Morelle shouldn't feel embarrassed by some innocent flirting.

"Did I go too far?" he asked.

She looked around the small lookout point. "I don't know. Is this place considered far away for the village people?"

He stifled a laugh. "Never mind. Forget I said that. You wanted to hear Aliya's story, right?"

"Yes, please."

He turned to face her. "When we found her, she was living alone in a cave system in China, a different country that's very far from where we are. Her human mother took her to live with her people, and when the mother died, Aliya was left to fend for herself. If she'd continued looking human, she might have been okay, but after puberty, her features became more and more Kra-ell and her physical strength scared the people she lived with. She ran away and survived on her own, hiding from humans and other Kra-ell who she feared might come after her." When Morelle opened her mouth, he lifted his hand to stop her, knowing that she wanted to ask who the Kra-ell were that Aliya had feared, but if he branched into that story, they would never make it to Annani's, who was no doubt waiting for them to arrive.

"That's another story. Let's stay on this one, okay?"

Reluctantly, Morelle nodded. "A group of immortals from our community were touring the area when one of them had a vision of a child lost in those caves, so naturally they went to investigate. Turned out that the vision was from the past and that the child had grown up into the woman who'd turned the caves into a fortress, complete with traps that might have resulted in a catastrophe. Especially since one of these immortals was Alena, Annani's daughter, and another one, the seer who had the vision, was pregnant. "

That got Morelle's attention. "Did they evade the traps?"

"Not all of them, but most. At some point, they got trapped and couldn't get out, but then they spotted Aliya across an underground lake, and three of them swam after her, realizing that she could lead them to another exit."

"The three she fought off?"

"Yes. They chased her across the lake and some secret passages and barely caught up to her when she got topside. She fought like a tigress, inflicting injuries on all three males, and since they didn't want to hurt her, they were at a disadvantage. Finally, one of them bashed her with a rock."

Morelle winced. "Ouch."

"Yeah. Ouch is right. Anyway, the funny part is that one of them was a compeller, but in the heat of the battle, he forgot that he could force her to stop fighting by commanding it. He used that skill later to get her to help them free the others who were trapped and couldn't swim across the freezing water of the lake, especially the pregnant female. They also explained who they were and that they weren't there to harm her. After spending some time with them, she chose to come live in the village, met Vrog, another hybrid Kra-ell, and they lived happily ever after."

Morelle frowned. "Why are you talking about them in past tense? Did they die?"

"Fates forbid. Many fictional stories end with that line, so people started saying it when telling a real story with a happy ending."

"That's nice." She glanced at the ocean. "Kra-ell stories don't have happy endings. The best ending is for the heroes to sacrifice their lives in a brutal battle and end up in the Fields of the Brave."

"Yes, I've heard that. Your Mother of All Life is not a kind deity. She is vicious and bloodthirsty."

"I'm not a believer," Morelle said. "If I invoke the Mother, it is due to imitation and habit, not out of reverence. But life does not have many happy endings, if any. It is better to die in battle than from old age."

"I disagree, but then immortals don't age, and neither will you since you are half goddess."

"True." She let out a breath. "Do you know any stories with bad endings?"

"Regrettably, I know too many of them," he admitted. "But we should head to Annani's." He rose to his feet and offered Morelle a hand up.

She took it and let him pull her up. "Are the bad stories about the clan?"

"The clan has always been a force for good, and I'm not just saying that out of loyalty or bias. Some truths are universal." He helped her climb into the cart with just a little help. "But we have enemies, powerful ones, bent on eradicating Annani and her people over an ancient feud and twisted ideology." He started the cart and backed out of the lookout point and back onto the main path. "We have been forced to defend ourselves against them many times, and sometimes we had to go with preemptive strikes, but most of the time, we prefer to hide from them." He smiled at her. "If they can't find us, they can't kill us."

"Why don't you just fight to win and be done with them?"

"Several reasons, the main one being that they have superior numbers." He navigated around a curve in the path. "The other consideration is that the Clan Mother, your sister, has a soft heart, and she doesn't want to annihilate all those immortals. There aren't many of us on Earth."

Morelle looked like she didn't accept that argument, and Brandon had a feeling that she would discuss it with Annani later. His princess was not softhearted, and she wasn't merciful, and for some reason, it made him want her even more.

"What are they called?" Morelle's voice held that sharp edge again, which proved to him that he'd been right about her. "Your enemies. What are they called?"

"The Brotherhood of the Devout Order of Mortdh, or the Doomers for short. And before you ask, that's also one of the stories your sister will want to tell you herself."