Redemption Read Free

harder. That totally wasn’t helping! She moved her jaw around. It didn’t feel broken, but she didn’t know how much more hitting she could endure. Fuckin’ bastards. If she’d had her hands free she’d have clawed their eyes out to make them wish they’d never taken her.
    She wasn’t expecting the sucker punch to her stomach. She doubled over and then he threw an uppercut that Ive could see coming from her hunched over position. As much as she wanted to back away, there was no way it was happening. It clipped her chin and she flew back, hitting the ground—then nothing. The blackness seeped in.
     
    Djimon snapped out of his self-imposed trance when he saw Ive go down. He roared and tugged at his captors, charging the man who’d dared touch what was his. He started to shift when a wall of magic cut him off.
    “Genoeg.”
    The word echoed through his whole body and he stopped in his tracks. They were speaking Afrikaans, his native tongue, but who were these people and why was the old one telling him ‘enough’? They should know better than to harm someone’s mate.
    “ Dmitri, wat is fout met jou? Hoekom is jy optree op hierdie manier, ons prober om jou te help.”
    “What’s wrong with me?” Dji was trying to figure out why this man was calling him Dmitri and how he was trying to help him by beating on Ive.
    He may have been out of it—that’s right—Dmitri, the soul who’d possessed his body for so long. They thought—this wasn’t good. Could he pretend? He might be able to, he’d lived with Dmitri inside him for so long, but he hated that spirit and thought he was through with him. That’s what this trip was all about—get rid of the damn Vessel and start a new life.
    “English, old man. What is the meaning of this?” Dji stood taller and shrugged off the hands holding him, letting the arrogance he remembered from Dmitri take over, and Dmitri didn’t like to speak in Afrikaans, which was why he’d taught this tribe of renegades English.
    “Dmitri, we saved you. This woman,” the old man spat on the ground towards Ive. “She held you captive and has the sacred instrument we need and won’t tell us where it is. The one you told us we would have back one day. That is why you are here, yes? It is time.”
    Dji closed his eyes but, when he did that, flashes of the past hit him hard and he fell to his knees. Blood and bodies, so many dead and it was all his fault. He couldn’t do this. He was Djimon the protector of his tribe and he’d let them down.
    “She doesn’t speak our language and who are you to touch my woman that way?” Dji opened his eyes and demanded.
    “I am the tribe shaman and I am to help you create more soldiers to take over the world. Why are you being this way, Dmitri? What has she done to you? She did not say she was yours.” The old man pointed at Ive.
    “Don’t touch her again, or I will rip you apart.”
    “You are not yourself, sire.”
    “No, I’m not and stop calling me Dmitri or sire.”
    “What is the meaning of this?” the shaman demanded.
    Power surrounded Dji and it wasn’t of his own making. If he’d had better control of himself, this puny magic user would have never been able to get the drop on him. Here he was wallowing and it was happening again. People would die and it would be his fault.
    “I am the protector Djimon and you will release us now.”
    “Dmitri warned us of this. You have taken back over? We will fix that. Where is the Vessel?”
    It was Dji’s turn to spit, right into the shaman’s face, and he was slapped for his efforts. He growled. Dmitri would never take over again. Dji would kill them both first.
    “You will never have the Vessel. It will be destroyed and you will be nothing. I will see to that, old man.”
    “Brave words for a man who is so weak. I should have known right off you were not Dmitri. Bring them both.”
    One of the old man’s henchmen picked Ive up and threw her over his shoulder. Dji growled. They