Page 51 of Storm

Lifeless eyes barely pay me any heed. He may think himself invincible, but I’m a whole head taller than him. We both know who would win this fight.

“Now, now, Melek. It was just a joke, son.”

“I don’t joke,” I growl back.

“Yes. Always such a serious young man. Even when you ‌were a wee lad, running around these training grounds, challenging us all to fights. You’re everything your father trained you to be and more. An asset to the Elysian Empire.”

My response is a noncommittal grunt. Lord Azazel’s jokes are not welcome. They fill my throat with acid.

“And here I was, worried for a time… Taking a wife from a factory. We don’t need another rogue on our hands. Traitor,” he snarls quietly under his breath, old hurts getting the better of him.

“My wife has shown she is an asset. We conceived without any medical intervention.”

“Quite right. A feat, considering what we’ve been through recently.”

We stand in silence for a moment. I’m unwilling to add anything else to this conversation and risk being taken away from Storm any longer.

“I’ll see you at the meeting tomorrow?” After a quick incline of my head, I walk away. “Melek, one more thing⁠—”

My molars crunch under the pressure of the strain. “Yes?”

“A fresh batch of beasts have come in for the ritual. I expect your attendance.” I’ve missed the last three months. Of course, the old cretin has been keeping tabs.

“I’ll be there.” Not waiting for an answer, I walk away.

It was never like this with my first marriage. My fingers never chaffed to touch satin-curved flesh. My eyes never wished for the sight of sparkling cobalt irises. My mind never fantasised about being stung with the sharp barbs of a wicked tongue. My cock never thumped with the need to be buried deep inside my wife.

With a loud bang, the car door behind me closes, and the black sedan circles the rocky drive back towards the iron gates. Before me, my home, a white stone vista, pre-Halo, stands imposing. Compared to the mostly metal structures within the city proper, it’s otherworldly. Only the original seven families are afforded such luxuries, passed down through the generations.

I walk up the grey stone steps towards the intricately cut iron and smoky-tinted glass double doors. Something akin to anxiety sits low in my stomach before I even touch the handle, making me pause as a scream pierces the air.

Not just any scream. Hers.

It travels through my chest like a knife, sharp and vengeful. This is what I get for tricking her. For taking. For being selfish.

Happiness is not for me.

It never has been.

Pushing through the doors, the lock cracking, I charge at the first person I see—Mary, shock radiating off her slight frame. “Where is she?” I roar.

CHAPTER 14

A TRIP

Melek fixed it. Just like he said he would. That day, he worked from home and made sure Sunny and I were fed with leftovers Mary had prepared for us in the freezer.

After having a skin-piercing shower, I managed to pull my mind together enough to distract myself by playing with our son. The coroners came early to take her body away, suspecting a heart attack. By the afternoon, we had a new lady in the kitchen, cooking us dinner.

I was not pleased. Neither was Sunny.

Melek and I had sat him down and told him Mary had passed on. My husband had referenced some crazed story about a god with wings. When he started spouting his indoctrinated nonsense, I tuned out. Mam always said that after we died, we went back home. Which I always thought was a strange thing to say. She said this life was for our souls to play, learn, and grow. When we go home, we get to rest. When you are high on rods in humidity-drenched fields all day, constant thirst on your mind, resting sounds like absolution. And when she was slowly withering before my eyes, she reminded me that this life is never goodbye; it’s see you soon.

So, as my husband explained his convoluted idiocentric god to our son, I said, “See you soon,” quietly to Mary.

Now, as we sit in despair, eating our roast beeken and vegetables, not saying a word, Melek suddenly speaks up. “I have some news.”

Pushing my beeken in some unfortunately delicious tasting gravy, courtesy of our new housekeeper, I look up at him. His hair is slightly too long, so he has to brush it behind his ears. He has a full beard because he hasn’t shaved in a month, though he keeps it trimmed. And devastating steely eyes. Ones that scream brute, yet look at me now with such reverence it scares me.