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She needed to touch the obelisk. There was nothing more important in the entire world than feeling this sculpture and stroking her hands over its surface. A niggling alert sounded at the back of her mind, but she frowned and ignored it. She reached forward and placed her palm flat against its surface.
Before she had a moment to register how warm the stone felt under her hand, it cracked in half and a blast of hot air slammed into her chest. She flew backwards and crashed into the ground, inches from the cliff’s edge. Sitting up, she rubbed her hip. “What the hell?”
A small piece of obsidian stone shot into the air and thinned until it resembled a short piece of rope. With another spurt, it came for her. Devon screamed and flinched, throwing her arms out to block it, but it didn’t hit her. Instead, a pulsing warmth spread through her left thumb. She lowered her arms and stared at her hand. The rock had turned into a ring and circled her thumb. In a brilliant flash, a word appeared in red along its surface, “Apophis.” It glittered once, then faded.
The obelisk groaned, and the ground shook as the crack deepened. It split in two, each half crumbling to the ground, revealing a large figure standing in its center. With one lithe motion, he cleared the rubble to step onto the path a few paces in front of her.
The figure was definitely masculine, with a broad chest and shoulders partially bare under his intricate gold breastplate, but he wasn’t a man. Instead of a man’s head, there was a canine one with glittering, amethyst eyes. He had to be at least eight feet tall, although he appeared taller with an elaborate goldheaddress topped with a golden statue of a snake poised to strike between his long ears. His smooth skin matched the obsidian of the obelisk, and, despite his canine features, he wasn’t hairy. Corded muscle flexed underneath his golden armor.
The same prickle of awareness that always whispered over her skin in the presence of an immortal rippled over her. All the hairs on her arms stood up. It was never a good thing when an immortal showed up.
“Who are you?” Her voice came out like a squeak.
He cocked his head like a predator about to pounce. “You broke the seal. Don’t you know who I am?” His voice was a low rumble, dark and smoky, with an accented lilt to his vowels.
Good thing she was already sitting, because her legs turned to jelly. A seal? She hadn’t seen a seal, because if she had, she’d have known what the obelisk was, and she’d have run fast in the opposite direction. When the most dangerous of the immortals were cursed to remain in Peklo forever, there were a handful so powerful, and so evil, they weren’t deemed safe to roam free even in the wilds of the underworld, so they were sealed away.
And she’d just released one.
She swallowed. “Your obelisk said you’re the Harvester.”
His gaze narrowed in on her thumb with the ring, and he bared his teeth. She winced. They were exceedingly white and lethally sharp. “That’s my occupation, pet.” His lips spread into a grin, and she wobbled to her feet. A nearby boulder sat near the cliff’s edge, and she scrambled behind it. At least she’d put something between them. That smile was terrifying, and more deadly than one of the two-headed serpents lurking in the deep desert.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“You don’t recognize Rerek, the god of chaos? Who are you?”
He was a god? “Devon.”
His smile faded, and his eyes widened. “You give me your true name without a thought.”
What? What did he mean, her true name?
He waved his hand, and his form wavered. The gold armor didn’t change, but his skin turned bronze, and the canine head shifted into a man’s. His eyes remained the same glittering purple, and black tattoos stood out along his bare arms, the marks shining like the black stone of the obelisk. The hue matched his dark hair, a few inches long, and brushed back.
He frowned, and the high angles of his cheekbones sharpened. Devon stared at his mouth. He had nice lips for a being who was probably about to kill her. “What is a true—”
“Good. I expected a willing thrall to release me centuries ago. And now I have one who relinquishes their true name easily. Exactly as it should be.” He stepped forward and raised his hands.
Chapter 2
Rerek inhaled deeply and let his power flow through him. Fire flickered over his skin, and he blasted a lick of flame high into the air. His power needed fuel after not feeding it for millennia, and a willing source stood right here in front of him. One foolish enough to tell him hertrue name. Except why did she seem confused about who he was? Hadn’t she come to offer herself as his thrall? “What kind of illusion would you like?” He snapped his fingers, and an image appeared before them of this mortal—Devon—sitting on a throne with a few incubi petting her.
The mortal stepped around the boulder. “What is this?” She waved her hand through his illusion, and it dissolved.
He growled. If she’d banished his illusion so easily, he was weaker than he thought because she shouldn’t be able to do that. The ring around her thumb caught his attention again. As he stared at it, a thread of power—one ancient and not part of his own—thrummed through his chest and tugged towards her to wrap around the two of them. What was this? He batted at it with a flicker of flame, but it strengthened and pulled him towards Devon again. Either he was truly weak, or threads of magic bound him to this mortal.
Why? He glanced over his shoulder at the obelisk and a golden symbol rose from the rubble and floated in the air. Three thick lines intersected, making the overall symbol look like a Z with an extra arm.A rune.
He cursed mentally. Runes were rare and their magic mysterious, but he knew a little something about them and he recognized this symbol. It was the rune of exchange. SinceDevon had done him a service and freed him, he now owed her a boon in return.
Anger slashed through him, hot and thick. He’d finally gotten free, and here he was, tethered once again. Unless—he smiled a wicked smile—she became his thrall first. Then she’d be underhispower. He stepped to the left to block her view of the rune shimmering in the air. She was a mortal. She didn’t know about runes, and she wouldn’t know he owed her anything.
He called forth an illusion of a glistening palace, servants holding food and drink. “Wouldn’t you like to live like a queen with adoring men and women ready to worship you?”
“What are you talking about? No. Stop what you’re doing.”
He stilled. A mortal ordering him around? “One flick of my finger and you burst into flames. You understand?”
