Darkly Forsaken (Darkly Devoted Series, Book 4)

Chapter 2 - Darksome Tidings

Chapter 2

-Sorayi Ouvien -

I WOKE UP to a splitting headache. At first, the sound of lapping water made me think I was in the afterlife.

Maybe, I had been reborn as a tortoise in the Maldives. Then, as the pain in the back of my head seemed to radiate down my neck and into my very eye sockets, I decided it was much worse.

The guards had thrown my body into the demon pits, and now I existed as a severed head. I was going to float in the Dark Waters for all of eternity.

"Angel face, can you open your eyes?"

I wasn't about to comply, but a hand shook my shoulder rather rudely. I cracked my eye open a millimeter—light, burning light, flooded into my visual field. My eyes snapped open, and I sat up.

Not dead. Not only wasn't I dead, but I was sitting stark naked inside a tub of cold water. A pair of hands grabbed me by the shoulders and forced me back into a recumbent position.

"You need to lie down. Don't fight me."

Seeing as I had no choice in the matter, I did as I was told. I laid back and tried not to stare at the sight of my wet, naked body barely concealed by a layer of soap suds. The male voice that had called me back to my miserable existence came into view.

The boy didn't look like a guard or an executioner. His brownish linen pants and vest told me he was one of the servants in Delion. Not a particularly high-ranking one either. He had shy blue eyes, thick curly blackish-brown hair, and soft, gentle hands.

 I didn't usually stare at boyishly good-looking servants, but this one was different somehow. As he dragged the soapy rag across the length of my leg, he smirked at me as though we were sharing a private joke.

"You pack a lot of fight for a little girl," he muttered. "What are you? Eighty pounds soaking wet?"

There was a cocky confidence in the way he was teasing me that I wasn't accustomed to. He was different from the other servants I had met who held their heads down in fear.

The softness of baby fat on his face barely concealed the well-chiseled jawline that spoke of advancing manhood. The vest he wore was open in front; I could see a fetching, robust chest with just the barest amount of hair. I tried not to stare. Instead, I directed my eyes to the outline of his hips, and the V shape of the muscles leading into his flimsy threadbare linen pants.

It was funny that even in the face of certain death, beauty was still beauty.

He noticed my wandering eyes and immediately yanked the front of his vest closed. It only served to pull the fabric away from his muscular, contoured biceps. He seemed to blush a little and cast his eyes down in embarrassment.

"We don't usually dress like this where I'm from."

"You're not from around here?" I asked. It figures. His swaggering movements and his deep melodic speech, it all looked foreign to me.

"I'm here with Orion Balan. I'm one of his slaves. My name is Rafe."

"Oh," I said. So he was one of them, the Sathariel scumbags. As Rafe brought me a creme robe to put on over my clean but very bruised body, I marveled at his gentleness. He didn't seem as terrible as the rest of them. "Any idea why your master spared me?"

"I don't know. What's your name, if I may ask?"

"Sorayi, my friends call me Sora."

Rafe helped me out of the tub and into one of the lounging chairs nearby. By the sight of the faded and chipped paintings of hummingbirds and flowers on the walls, this must be where King Rechair's concubines used to live. It is said that when the Sarastris took over eighteen years ago, they dragged the ailing old king down the palace steps and ripped him from limb to limb. The invading troops were more merciful toward his wives and children — they were simply placed before a firing squad.