Lord of the Abyss & Desert Warrior Read Free

move to follow her around the room.
    “Come on, slugapuss,” she said, pulling him into her lap. “Oomph, you’re heavy. No more lettuce for you.”
    Under her hands, his heart beat in a fast rhythm, his body warm and snuggly. She struggled to her feet under the burden. “Let’s go in the garden. If you’re really good, I’ll steal some strawberries for you.”
    That was when the door opened.
    And the dream changed.
    The man in the doorway with his black hair brushed back from a severe widow’s peak, chill slate-gray eyes and cadaverous frame, was her father. For a frozenmoment, she thought he’d heard what she’d been planning for the strawberries, but then he smiled and her fear lessened a fraction. Just a fraction. Because even at five years of age, she knew nothing good ever came of her father seeking her out. “Father?”
    He strolled into the room, his eyes on Bitty. “You’ve looked after him well.”
    She nodded. “I take care of him really good.” Bitty was the only kind thing her father had ever done for her.
    “I can see that.” He smiled again, but those eyes, they were wrong in a way that made her stomach hurt. “Come with me, Liliana. No,” he said when she would have bent to place Bitty on the floor, “bring your pet. I have a use for him.”
    The words scared her, but she was only five. Cuddling Bitty close to her chest, she toddled along after her father, and then up…and up…and up.
    “How thoughtless of me,” he said when they were halfway. “It must be difficult for you, all these stairs. Let me take the creature.”
    Certain she felt the rabbit flinch, Liliana tightened her hold on Bitty. “No, I’m okay,” she said, trying not to huff.
    Eyes of dirty ice stared at her for a long moment before her father turned, continued to climb the twisting, winding staircase to the tower room. The magic room. Where she was never, ever supposed to go.
    However, today he opened the door and said, “It’s time you learned about your heritage.”
    There was nowhere else to go, nowhere he wouldn’t find her. So she walked into that room full of strange scents and books. It wasn’t as gloomy as she’d expected, and there was no blood. Relief had her smiling in tremulous hope. Everyone always said her father was a bloodsorcerer, but there was no blood here, so they had to be wrong.
    Looking up, she met his gaze as he loomed over to take Bitty from her protesting arms. Her smile died, fear a metallic taste on her tongue.
    “Such a healthy creature,” he murmured, carrying the rabbit over to something that looked like a stone birdbath set in the middle of the circular room. Switching his hold, he suspended Bitty by his silky ears.
    “No!” Liliana said, able to hear Bitty squeaking in distress. “That hurts him.”
    “It won’t be for long.” And then her father pulled a long, sharp knife from his cloak.
    Bitty’s blood turned the silver of the blade a dark, dark crimson before it flowed down to fill the shallow bowl of the horrible thing that wasn’t a birdbath.
    “Come here, Liliana.”
    Shaking her head, sobbing, she backed away.
    “Come here,” he said again in that same calm voice.
    Her feet began to move forward in spite of her terror, in spite of her will, until she was close enough for her father to pick her up by the ruff of her neck and push her face close to the fading warmth of Bitty’s blood, her blinding fear reflected in red. “See,” he said. “See who you are.”

CHAPTER TWO
    L ILIANA JERKED AWAKE ON A soundless scream, her mouth stuffed with cotton wool and her head full of the cold finality of death. It took her long moments to realize that the door to her cell stood open; Bard watched her with those large eyes of liquid black.
    “Hello,” she said, voice strained with the echoes of nightmare.
    He waved her forward.
    She got to her feet, ready to fight dizziness, but her body held her up. Relieved, she stepped out, following Bard’s ponderous steps