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No…
My body tenses as I can feel something of magnitude happening, the Devotion statue near the novus site activating with a force I haven't felt in decades. The image of the warm candlelight, the fruit at my feet, and someone offering a tangerine overcomes me.
The human female has pale, long hair, her hand hovering over the fruit as if it’s not placed correctly.
When she lifts her head to peer up at me, I stop breathing.
The stone body is suffocating, limiting my ability to move effectively through this unbidden channel. Turquoise eyes stare at me, and I snarl at witnessing the plainness of her outfit as if she were a soul not worthy of proper rebirth.
She is the opposite of that.
And she looks so scared, so human.
"Mandarin…" I manage through the statue's throat.
"Yes," she says, her voice exactly as I recall.
"Come here," I say, overcome with a feverish need to secure her. "Come to me."
Instead, she backs away, her expression terrified and rife with human insecurity. I try to move, but the channel is too heavy and sudden. My claws dig into the walls, marring them, as I slowly follow. The creatures of these halls, the warrens, all scurry to life. “Do not harm her!” I hiss.
They chase after her all the same, connected to me and my desires. I don’t have to explain the desperation of needing her contained until I can reach her.
Has she been reincarnated as a human into Nethram?
As I peer up through the archway to watch her ascend, I growl when I sense an unmistakable energy surrounding her. Something ancient and powerful. Someone is helping her. Someone who knows her soul’s signature almost as well as I do.
Does she even realize that the mandarin is her fruit?
She came to me.
The vision severs, and I’m back in this forest staring at an ocean that means nothing to me now. The sky is already bruising. The trees start to sway from the wind, the waves crashing harder than before.
I can feel the succubus behind me, who must have appeared as soon as I entered the trance. “Dominus, I only wish to help and serve. What has happened?”
How long was I in that channel for? I turn around and slowly rise to my feet, trying to consider everything. Many creatures in the distance watch with apprehension, including the dirtied humans who worship the Gralloch. All watching me, all sensing the shift in the air.
I stare down at her, her hair whipping in the wind. “She has returned. And someone has every intention to hide her.”
The Succubus stares up at me. She’s one of the few who remember, who even know; she seems to have a proclivity for always knowing more than she should. Ayla takes a step back but continues to stand there.
“Where? How?”
“As a human novus at the Devotion site,” I hiss, still unsure as to the circumstances that brought her here. All that’s relevant is it’s the most dangerous place she could be, given how many creatures and beasts stalk the area for a novus who wanders too far away from where they’re supposed to be.
Their blood is the closest to Earthen blood they will ever taste in these Realms.
I whistle for Ransom, the sound cutting through the wind. It’s not long before the horse approaches like a void among the bark, others moving away from him. Gargoyles fly in the air to land near me, their heavy bodies thudding against the soil. “Ayla,” I say, looking down at her. “Anything related to the Krim is postponed. You are to assist in finding her and alerting any beasts to avoid any human female with pale, blonde hair and turquoise eyes. If they mar her in any capacity, I will eviscerate their soul—” her shoulders tense at the aberration, something not even I typically threaten, for how it warps even the abuser, “—Nara is not safe this way, and I doubt she understands.”
I’m so far away from the novus Devotion, while she’s so vulnerable. So open to influence—a few creatures nearly fall over with a gust of wind, my rancor rising at the thought of another tempting her. When a demon mates, the act of it is almost a necessary piece of maintaining the connection of the bind.
Nara severely damaged ours when she left.
It needs to start from the beginning. If she beds another before me, it will break our bind completely. The thought has me livid with a passion that nearly demands my entire army begin searching.
“If she is seen,” I say, watching as Ransom is almost near. “She is to be taken to a Reaper for evaluation. And if she is a novus, I am to be informed immediately. Directly.” My eyes flare as I mount my steed, my hands gripping the leather reins tightly. “And no one shall do more than guide her to one of my creatures.”
“Absolutely, my liege.”
