Dark Fates (A Paranormal Anthology)(26)

But when this man ordered her to work, she had to obey. He knew things. He knew her.

She had no idea how much time had passed when she felt dry lips kiss her forehead. “Come, halimah, give it to me.”

She felt beyond exhausted, yet something within her refused him. She paused in indecision.

“The vial. Hand it to me.” He called her by her true name again, something that normally insisted she do as commanded. His allure seemed to grow, his handsome features overwhelming the deadness in his eyes and the sharpness of his teeth.

“No.” She didn’t know where she found the strength to deny him. A deep knowledge that she’d done something wrong, that she’d crossed a line she’d never been meant to cross, swelled from deep within her. She blinked and stared down through suffocating shadows at the purity she’d created. A stopped container of life itself lay in the palm of her hand.

Impossible, yet she sensed the truth of it, could smell the vitality that had no real scent of anything but power…and a piece of something more.

She trembled and closed her fist around the vial.

“This is unacceptable.” His voice cut like shards of glass, slicing into her brain as he grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her.

He pried open her fingers, but the vial had disappeared. He swore and backhanded her. She tumbled to the hard wooden floor, smacked her temple, and slid into unconsciousness.

When Eden woke, she saw nothing but darkness. Disoriented, confused, and scared, she struggled to her feet and made her way to the bathroom. There, she turned on the light and stared at her reflection. No bruising, not even a lingering ache in her head to tell her the awful experience had been anything but a dream.

Chalk up the nightmare to weird occurrence number three hundred and five in my screwed-up month. October is really sucking this year.

With a relieved sigh, she headed toward the kitchen, where she noticed the time.

“Three in the morning? What in the world?” How the heck had she lost nine hours? She’d arrived home at a little after six yesterday.

Suddenly famished, she foraged in the fridge and, standing over the center island, ate all the leftovers she could find. Cold chicken, a macaroni salad, pudding, beets, a few tomatoes, then topped off her meal with an entire pint of mint ice cream. Finally sated, she leaned back against the counter and stared at the many containers around her. An unquenchable thirst followed her hunger. After drinking three glasses of water in rapid succession, she left the kitchen and barely reached the bathroom in time to throw up her haphazard meal.

She heard a buzzing in her mind, a command to bring something somewhere. Yet everything in her resisted the idea. She felt wrong obeying that inner voice.

Then a strong flash of masculine satisfaction, a warmth that she’d been missing for so long, whispered his approval. So different from the commanding voice, this one seduced with loving acceptance.

After she brushed her teeth then fell into bed, she wondered if she’d finally tipped over the edge of strange into full-on crazy.

What the hell? What is wrong with me?



Set glared in distaste at the pathetic female before flicking his fingers at the scrying mirror to erase her image. Something had gone wrong. A minor complication, but he didn’t tolerate surprises. How had the mortal denied him? For centuries she’d obeyed his dictates without a whimper of protest. Yet today, when he would finally have had the Elixir of Life in his grasp, she denied him.

Denied him—the Lord of Chaos! Unthinkable, and completely undesirable. If the other gods found out he’d been disobeyed by a mere mortal, he’d lose what little credibility he’d regained over the years.

His precious son had only recently begun speaking with him again. Anubis lived in a continual snit. The boy believed in justice and still wanted to think that Osiris, that ass, had fathered him. Set’s brother Osiris was a stick in the mud, a god not worthy of ruling over the dead. Set could do so much more with the power of so many souls.

To Set, nothing was as beautiful as the discordant notes of conflict and strife. He had a purpose in the many worlds, just like the others. Unfortunately, the sanctimonious gods kept a close eye on him, as though better than him because they followed the rules.

But who knew better than Set that rules were meant to be broken? He cared naught for the worship of the righteous, not when being bad was so much more fun. Had he not been so much better than those in the other pantheons, he might have given the mischievous Loki and Raven some company. Alas, the Norse and Native American deities thought of little more than mundane conquest. Ludos Deorum meant nothing in the grand scheme of things, but try telling that to competitive gods with nothing better to do than wreak havoc on mortals.

Set planned to rule the worlds. All of them. But he needed to put the proper pawns in place first, to fulfill the prophecy. That stupid, sanctimonious Tariq refused to comply. It was bad enough when Tariq rebuked him, though torturing the deluded guardian throughout the years had been a delight, and it staved Set’s boredom with the current Games. But now this? A mortal telling him no?

“Ziyad, to me.”

In the blink of an eye, his trusted manservant, Ziyad, knelt before him. “Yes, my lord?”

Ziyad knew his place. Once a member of Anubis’ Elite, Ziyad had seen the future, and it didn’t belong to the just. It belonged to those who would take what they rightfully deserved. As Set planned to take his due place as Lord of All, in accordance with foretold scripture.