Adrienne Steele

Chapter 1

Kolo — Modern-Day Douala, Cameroon

Year of the Choosing 3576

Summer, 4057 B.C.

Inti

The jungle is dark, the stars hidden by the bank of clouds that’s pouring rain, washing the blood from my naked body, chilling me as I wipe my eyes.

Disoriented, I look around, realizing abruptly that I’m dreaming… or remembering.

Lightning illuminates the area for a split-second, the blood on the bodies around me vivid red before fading to black in the moonless night. The club in my hand is heavy, wet with blood and viscera. Movement out of the corner of my eye and I turn, fast as the lightning itself, slashing down with the heavy weapon. My target’s choked scream echoes in the clearing. Jerking my club from his thigh before slashing again, I watch as he falls. The black blood gushing from his neck, draped down his chest in a blanket of glistening wet, flashes crimson with the next bolt of lightning across the sky.

I look around, but I’m alone. The men tracking me have all fallen to my club, eight in total, although only four are here in the clearing with me. The rest fell in the jungle, as I stalked them in silence throughout the night. My chest heaves as I try to catch my breath, raising my head and closing my eyes as the steady rain falls over me.

“What’s this?” A voice, powerful as the thunder chasing the lightning, but soft.

My eyes jerk open and I crouch, searching the clearing for who spoke. The light from the next flash of lightning hasn’t faded, the clearing lit like mid-day. But it was night a moment ago, I know it. I shake my head. Sometimes I can’t trust what my eyes see.

Finally I look up, falling to my knees in shivering fear at the Nasaru hovering in the air before me.

I’d heard they were in the area. Heard they search for humans to Choose, changing them into something more than human, but less than Nasaru — bigger, taller, more powerful than the mightiest warrior. Called the Chosen, their new bodies are graced with enormous wings, larger than any bird’s. Menewa, from the northern tribes, was the last they Chose, centuries before.

Seeing the Nasaru before me, I can’t believe the stories the Shaman tells of Menewa’s Choosing; too horrific, full of terrors and blood and death.

Unholy beautiful, graceful and strong — this Goddess could not deal in death so easily.

She’s silver as the moon’s glow, power sparking off her spread wings, the fall of her hair and the black of her eyes a void that captivates me. Dragging my gaze away, I drop my head to the ground as I hear land. The jungle is still around us, and I realize the rain has stopped, as if the world itself is holding its breath. There’s no place for darkness in her presence.

There’s no place for something as grim as me.

Yet she steps closer, her feet bare, the same as me, as picks her way across the clearing until she stands over me. Unlike mine, though, her feet are clean, no scratches or imperfections marring the shining skin. There’s a sheen to her skin, a glow that mesmerizes me, I follow the line of her ankle to her calf, upward to her knee. It’s visible below the white slip she’s wearing, the fabric glistening as if wet, cinched at her waist with a wide silver belt, the sinuous metal gleaming in the daylight now illuminating the clearing. Her breasts are barely covered by the material, cupped lovingly by two flowing straps that are tie behind her neck, allowing room for her wide silver wings, which ruffle as she looks at me.

I startle when our eyes meet, the full black somehow… open. Accepting.

Shuddering, I duck my head once again.

“What have you done here, Prime?” the Goddess Inanna asks, and I look around, grimacing at the gore surrounding us.

But the Nasaru don’t interfere in human affairs, so I’m only a little anxious as I answer, my eyes trained on the ground, “I’ve killed the last of my enemies, Goddess.”

“I see that.” Shocked at the humor in her words, I glance up. She is smiling as she shifts a body with one perfect toe. The man’s nearly severed arm falls to the ground with a wet sound.

“What’s going on?”

It’s the other Nasaru, Ashur, his gleaming silver wings spread wide as he lands in the clearing behind Inanna. They share the same coloring, shining skin and glowing silver wings, his black eyes taking in the scene. He’s taller though, and where the Goddess brought light, this Nasaru is shrouded in darkness. It clings to him, trailing across his gleaming wings, snaking around his legs. His smile, cold and indifferent, sends a shiver of fear through me as he casually examines a body.

“I’ve found another Chosen,” the Goddess tells him, and I freeze.

What?! Glancing around in confusion, I realize I am the only one she could be talking about.

Everyone else is dead.

“Inanna,” the man’s voice throws power like a child’s toy, and I hunch down as it rolls past me, shivering at his long-suffering sigh.

“He’s the one, Ashur,” Inanna tells the other Nasaru, ignoring his tone as she toes another dead body, lifting it from the puddle of blood before letting it drop with a wet splat.

“Fine,” Ashur laughs, glancing around, “He’s certainly violent enough for it.” He lifts off in a concussion of power, and Inanna turns to me once again.

“What’s your name?” she asks, and I grimace.

It’s a travesty, is what it is. My family had no gold, but my father named me for it.

His dead body was the first with my name on it. I’d thought I’d freed my mother of him; I’ve been alone since then, rejected by her in a clearing similar to this. My last memory of her is crouched over my father dead as I walked away, his blood washing down my skin in the rain.

“Inti,” I whisper.

“Inti,” she repeats, holding out a hand to help me to my feet.

A bolt shoots through me as my skin touches hers, and I stagger, but she just laughs, pulling me to my feet before letting go and stepping back.

“Well, that gives me an idea,” she smiles, and the world is lost.

Blinding power consumes me, changing me into a Chosen. But when the light fades, I jolt at the scene before me. This is not what happened all those years ago.

The weight of wings at my back, so strange and consuming at the time, is familiar now, an afterthought as I look around the dream. Inanna is not here as she was back then, and I’m arrested by the sight that greets me instead.

A white room, the sky open above us, and another Chosen walks toward me. Her movements are graceful as flowing water, her face covered in a shroud of glistening blood. It drapes her from head to toe, the source indeterminable as it falls across her skin like wet silk, tracing every dip and curve of her naked body lovingly, fading to black as it reaches her wings. She’s shadowed by the glistening feathers, the spatter of dripping blood leaving mesmerizing patterns on the floor. Her hands lift as she steps closer and I still. She cups my face in warm, wet hands, filling my vision until she’s all I can see.

Her face is blurred under the fall of blood, and I shudder as heat flashes through me as she traces my lower lip with a wet thumb.

Inti.

Her voice wakes me, and I jerk out of the dream, my pounding heart echoed in my throbbing cock.

“Inti.”

It’s Menewa, his hand on my cheek, and I turn to him, my hand finding his and twining our fingers together, still blind from my dream.

“It was her, Menewa,” I gasp, “Our bloody queen.”

***

Niaux — Modern-Day Andorra

Year of the Choosing 3634

Summer, 3999 B.C.

I let out a groan with my release, Menewa’s breath hot on my neck as he shudders above me, lost in his own climax. Sweating, still panting from the exertion, I brace my elbows on the mahogany shadow of his wings wrapped around me. Resting my head against the soft feathers and heavy muscle, I hum in contentment as he kisses a path up my neck before pulling away. Settling beside me with a groan, his wide wings sprawl on either side of him. Shifting, I flex my own, widening them to their fullest extent with a shudder before pulling them in and rolling to my back.

Menewa takes this as opportunity to tuck his wings away and we lay side by side, the star-filled night sky above us, the glow from the camp lighting the sky in the distance. The night air is warm around us, the shush of wind through the trees lulling me as I stare at the moon above us. Relaxed, I shut my eyes, fully prepared to fall asleep right here. There’s no reason not to. As Chosen, we’re impervious to any danger Earth might present; there’s not an animal alive that could hurt me, not a snowstorm that could freeze me. Only the Nasaru themselves — the very ones that make Chosen — have the kind of power it would take to hurt us.

But, outside a Judgment, they wouldn’t.

In fact, sleeping in the forest is preferable. The camp is in an uproar since Inanna announced that it’s time for the comitatus — the Nasaru’s entourage — to move on, before this part of the world is stripped of resources. The search for humans — what they call Primes — to Choose seemingly never-ending.

The Choosing has been ongoing for more than three millennia, and there are only fifteen of us, but the search continues. Inanna and Ashur haven’t found another candidate since Tarni, who was the same age as me when Inanna Chose me — just seventeen years. Her Choosing was far from the bloody surprise mine was, though, and we’d stayed in her territory for nearly a century as the Goddess mentored her. She’s quieter than many of the newly Chosen, an offering from one of the local Chieftains that Inanna shocked everyone by accepting. She stayed in her territory instead of joining the comitatus, though, against Inanna’s urging.

I’m pretty sure there won’t be another Chosen anytime soon; they’re usually two or three hundred years apart.

As if we share a mind — we don’t; the only connection I have is with Inanna — Menewa interrupts my musing, “I heard Inanna telling Ashur the Choosing needs to end soon.”

“What?” Startled, I sit up and look at him.

Meeting my eyes soberly, he goes on, “Something about how they need to look for somewhere to place the Well for Ashur’s Becoming.”

I ignore the mention of Ashur’s Becoming. Menewa already knows what I think about that — it should be Inanna who Becomes, not Ashur. The Goddess has continued to insist that it will be Ashur, but I don’t like it. There’s a reason Inanna is the Goddess, for fuck’s sake; for all his power, no one’s ever named Ashur a God.

That’s not what’s bothering me right now, though—or anyway, it’s not the most important thing. I’m trying to hold back my burgeoning panic that the Choosing might be ending.

“She can’t end it! We haven’t found her yet!”

Our bloody queen.

My dream haunts me more each day. Menewa watches with growing concern as I’ve become more and more consumed by the hunt to find her.

Flopping down, I reach up to run a hand through my hair, only to meet Menewa’s halfway. Twining our fingers together, he pulls my hand against his chest with a sigh, “There will be more Chosen, Inti. Inanna has said before that she’ll find them during the Becoming.”

“There won’t be if she’s gone to Become, though!“ Fear has joined the panic and I struggle to calm my breathing as Menewa covers our entwined hands with the heavy weight of his other hand.

“Ashur can make Chosen, too, Inti. He Chose Neith.”

“One Chosen, in three thousand years! We’ll never—“

“He’ll have to Choose more,” Menewa reminds me calmly. His voice is always calm — sometimes too calm, and I lean up slightly to make sure he’s here with me, instead of lost in his head like sometimes happens. His brown eyes are clear as they meet mine, though, so I guess he’s just okay with waiting.

I flop back to the ground at the thought.

I’m not okay with it. I’m so done waiting for our queen.

My mind is spinning as I settle on the ground, but the steady rhythm of Menewa’s hand rubbing mine eventually relaxes me.

Chapter 2

Vrcin — Modern-Day Pula, Croatia

Year of the Choosing 3636

Fall, 3997 B.C.

Inti

She’s close; I can feel it!

Turning to glance back at Menewa, I can see from his face he doesn’t want to talk. He’s ‘tired of hearing about it,’ but I can’t help myself.

Usually I don’t even try.

“Thirty-six, thirty-six, Menewa,” I call out, hovering as he catches up to me over the trees. Night has fallen, the stars hidden by low clouds that leave my skin damp and my hair and wings dripping. Each downward stroke sends a shower of glinting droplets into the air around me, dazzling as they catch the light of the full moon above us.

The hunter’s moon.

Catching movement in my periphery, I turn. There’s a group of Prime below us, and I observe their stealthy trek through the forest with minor interest. There’s about ten of them, ranging out on either side of their leader, who appears to be… a woman?

Oh, that’s different.

As tall as her companions, only her narrower shoulders and the rope of a braid falling down her back gives it away. I confirm it when she looks up, gaging the light of the moon before moving quickly along the forest path. Definitely a woman, the pale oval of her face delicate, her lips plush and red.

“Not again, Inti.” Menewa’s voice is gruff as he looks down at the forest with me.

“What?”

Sighing, he repeats himself, “I said ‘not again, Inti.’ There’s nothing special about this year; the numbers don’t mean you’re going to magically—“

“We’re,“ I correct him absently, glancing up to see a tempering to the harsh cast of his face, his dark eyes softening as they meet mine, and he nods before continuing.

“Fine. The numbers don’t mean we’re going to magically find someone…”

I ignore the rest of whatever he’s saying — I’ve heard it all before anyway; Menewa likes to lecture — my attention fixed on the Prime below us. The small group appears to be sneaking up on another, much larger, group of Prime, who have established a camp in a clearing. The camp wasn’t here last night, and it’s odd for Prime to set up camp so close to the comitatus. The Nasaru’s entourage is large enough to dominate an area’s resources for the short time we’re in the area, and generally the Prime in the region avoid it, except for specially chosen emissaries. Or the occasional warrior who thinks they’ll convince the Nasaru to Choose them.

Those can be fun.

I watch the woman below us in silence, unaware of our presence so high above the forest, jerking when she suddenly attacks one of the camp’s guards patrolling the forest. The flash of her long knife is bright in the full moon before she drives it into the man’s chest once, twice, three times, and then through his eye for good measure. A rush of excitement shudders through me as she glances around, her face speckled with blood as she cleans her knife on the dead man’s clothes.

I glance at Menewa, but he’s looking into the distance, barely aware of where we are. He’s still going on about how the so-called ‘prophecy’ some camp follower tried to tell me — in exchange for my favor, of course — is a fantasy. And I agree, it’s a load of bullshit, which I did not appreciate being the recipient of. To the so-called ‘prophet’s’ detriment.

That charlatan isn’t the reason I’m so sure we’re finally going to find our queen this year, though.

You make your own luck, and I’ve decided this will be the Year of the Bloody Queen—and this little warrior… she’s ours.

All I can still see is her delicate features, hardened into a fierce mask of determination, and I turn to Menewa, bringing him back to the present with a hand to his shoulder before cutting him off.

“Shut up, Menewa. She’s the one.”

In a split second, Menewa has a hand around my neck, dragging me forward. Bone and muscle collide as the heavy weight of our wings crash together. I stiffen, my own arching with aggression before I force them to relax. I stare into his eyes, still holding his shoulder with one hand while the other wraps over the hand he’s got around my neck.

“Tell me to shut up again, Inti,” he growls, and heat shoots through me. Still, I can’t stop myself from peeking down once more, groaning when the lithe Prime steps away from another body, not even glancing back as one of her men drags it into the underbrush.

Damn, I missed it.

Sliding the hand resting on his shoulder back, I crush the sensitive crest of his wing before slipping it behind his neck and into his long, dark hair, wet like mine. Clenching tight, I jerk his head down, “Look! She’s already killed two of them!”

***

Menewa

Growling at the hand on my neck, I nevertheless watch as the woman moves closer to the camp, ignoring the dead body being dragged to the side of the path behind her. I’m under no illusions about Inti’s interest in her. That must have been her kill; add in her fierce look and the blood coating her face…

My grip around his neck is probably the only thing stopping him from flying down there and fucking the Prime right on the forest floor, in front of her entire company. A shiver of heat chases up my spine at the thought.

She is tall for a Prime; it’s not… impossible.

I imagine her between us, her dark clothing hiding too much of her body for me to tell if she’s as lush as she is fierce. She’s tall, though, and strong enough to kill a grown man — possibly strong enough to survive fucking two Chosen.

There are few things worse than a Prime who can’t keep up.

The sensation of Inti’s hand trailing from my shoulder to my chest jerks me back to the present and heat curls through me as we watch her silently stalk a third guard. Inti is tense as he tracks her progress, rapt. Sex and violence flow between us, his golden eyes glinting when he glances at me. I tighten my grip on his neck as he returns his attention to the Prime, my cock thickening at the feel of his throat working against my palm.

She’s completing another kill when I glance down. Each motion is clean, flowing like water over stone. Stepping behind the guard, her left hand wraps around his forehead before she drags him backward, the tip of her knife sliding effortlessly into the base of his skull. Inti’s groan follows the motion, and a vision of my cock sliding into her with the same effortlessness has me missing a beat as we hover above the forest.

The dead body crumples to the ground, and she motions to it impatiently. A man steps forward — the same man as before — to dispose of it, the rest of the group following her to the edge of the forest. She pauses there until the man rejoins them, and they huddle around her, no doubt waiting for the next part of her plan.

Because it’s obvious this is her company, her plan.

Inti’s hand drifts further down my chest, and I groan as he cups the hardening length of my shaft through my loincloth. Tightening my hand on his neck, I drag him closer until our bodies brush, his golden wings lax behind him. It’s just my grip on his neck holding him up beside me in the air. Reaching down with my free hand, I wrap it around the thick length of his cock through the fabric of his trousers. I’m unsurprised to find him already hard, tightening my fist until a thready moan meets my ears.

It’s only then that I meet his hot gaze as I order, “Watch her, Chosen.”

His eyes flicker down as an abbreviated shout goes up below us, a lone guard coming across their huddle. Inti mutters a curse as our little leader spins before lunging forward, her long braid starting to come undone as she leaps onto the man. One arm slung behind his neck as she climbs him, her legs clamp high around his waist as she drives a small dagger into his throat before riding his body to the ground.

The image of her riding me to the ground blazes heat across my wings.

Inti lets out a tortured groan as the Prime pulls her knife from the man’s neck and a spray of blood erupts into the air. It’s nearly loud enough for them to hear, and a flush runs up the backs of my legs as his hand tightens reflexively on my cock. One long stroke later, and I’m growling nearly as loud, wrenching him against me as I take his mouth, swallowing his moan as I rub my tongue against his, his sharp flavor invading me as we wrestle in the kiss. His cock throbs in my hand and I tighten my grip further, laughing roughly when Inti moans.

He takes over our kiss in the next instant, jerking my head to the side with a hard hand in my hair, golden eyes gleaming in the moonlight. I suck his tongue before biting it as his gaze burns into mine, the copper tang of his blood pushing his mania higher as we grapple for supremacy. Suddenly, the hard clash of teeth and tongues stops when he pulls out of my grip, wings flared behind him as he regains his equilibrium, hovering in place. Licking his lips wildly, his hot eyes track down my body before he searches the ground for our little leader.

Growling at his fixation, I give in; we won’t be leaving without at least talking to the little Prime.

Likely, a lot more.

***

Sabine

There are more guards than I’d expected.

Which was silly of me—they’ve taken my brother hostage; of course they’re going to post extra guards. Just because they don’t know I’m the one coming, doesn’t mean they don’t think someone is coming.

Vec pulls the dead body of the guard I’d killed to the side as I outline the plan to the rest of my men. They’re huddled in a circle around me, their gazes darting around, keeping an ear out for more guards. The last man’s shout was short, and I don’t think anyone is coming to investigate as I listen to the night sounds around us.

“Okay, we’re going in. Try not to raise any alarms. You’ll have to kill quickly and quietly,” I give Vec a hard look as I repeat it, “Quietly.”

He shrugs and I sigh, turning to the others again, “Jebek should be in the second tent from the center,” I hope, “So we need to drive straight in — quietly — grab him, and get out. Meet here unless an alarm is raised; otherwise, move in pairs back to Vec’s lodge.”

My men nod, and I grimace at the sight of them. Every one of them bears the mark of the fight earlier today. This is my guard, though, and I know they’d die before failing to recover my baby brother for me.

Nodding back firmly, I tuck away the thought that some of them won’t make it. Focusing on the plan as I wrap my hair back up, I pull the cloth around my neck over my face as they gear up beside me. I watch as they swap weapons, pulling armor from the dead guards.

It’s near midnight, the night still around us, and the camp is retiring. There’s no celebration tonight; we’d been fighting for hours before they took my brother, and theirs was a bitter victory. The smoke will still be rising from where we’ve burned their fallen back at my clan’s holdings, although you can’t see it from here.

“You’ll finally be staying at my lodge tonight, Sabine?” Vec whispers suggestively. He straightens as I look him over, the sly look dropping from his face.

“‘Sabine’?” I ask softly, wondering where this sudden daring is coming from, calling me by my name? Vec’s attentions have started to wear on me. “You think you’ve done well tonight, Vec?”

He flushes before shaking his head slowly. “No, Wnaktih.”

“No,” I agree, watching as he shrinks back from my mild tone. “But am I not merciful that you yet live?”

Head down, he nods. Vec was with my brother when he was taken; by rights he should be burning with our enemies.

“Yes, I am merciful,” I tell him quietly, aware of my men watching us as I test the edge of my knife. I ought to stab him for the disrespect — calling me by my name after today’s fuck up, as if I’m some camp woman he’s propositioning. He kneels before me as if waiting for punishment, but I don’t need him more injured for this attack. With a sigh, I gesture for him to rise. “Get up.”

I step closer as he stands, smiling when he tenses, not bothering to lower my voice or even look up into his eyes as I watch the forest around us, “If my brother isn’t back in my camp before dawn… Vec, you’ll wish you died in this fight. I won’t be merciful any longer.”

Nodding again, he sighs as I sheath my knife, several satisfied grunts from the company surrounding me accompanying the action.

After that we’re off, and I’m surprised to find the way through the camp clear.

Relatively clear, I think to myself as I pull my knife free from the throat of a man sitting before a fire outside his tent.

Vec is beside me, his face grim as he pulls the body into the fire behind us, the flames nearly snuffed before they grow, licking over the dead man’s hair and clothes. It’s a risk, burning Yeveck’s men in their own camp, but I don’t care. We’ll only be here long enough to get my brother and I want these bastards horrified at the sight of their brothers in arms burning in their own camp. I grit my teeth, the memory of my clan’s razed holdings fresh in my mind — our herd decimated, our grain-house ablaze.

I’d post and skin them if we had time.

We start forward once again, but I pause a moment later. I hear him; Jebek is in the tent before me.

I’d recognize that cursing anywhere.

Stopping Vec before he can rush forward, I pull us to the side, listening in the shadows.

“You’ve been making trouble for too long.” The man’s words inside the tent are nearly drowned out by Jebek’s grinding curses, and I move forward cautiously. Vec hovers at my back as I pause again, waiting for the right moment even as tension crawls through me at my brother’s growl of pain.

The punch of my knife through the cloth is lost in the man’s next words, “You just don’t know when to stop, do you? Crawling animals with your mud huts…”

We’re the animals!? A bunch of murdering rapists, riding into my territory, burning crops, killing livestock.

I slice down the side of the tent in a sharp motion, and Vec immediately pushes through the opening with a growl. I can’t see around him, but I hear Jebek’s breathless laugh as the talking man gurgles. Pushing Vec to the side, I gasp at the sight of my brother.

His face is a mess, and I feel my rage grow at the sight of two of his fingers in a puddle of blood on the ground beside the chair.

Well. There’s no fixing that.

Pulling the cloth off my head, I wrap his mangled hand tightly, ignoring his whispered curses as Vec cuts the rest of his bonds, “You’re worse than torture, Sabine!”

Rolling my eyes, I cup his bruised face in my hands tightly, pushing him back down into the chair when he moves to stand, “Do you have other injuries, Jebek?”

He stills, leaning into my hands, “No, Sabine. I’m ready to go.”

Nodding, I drop my hands and step back.