Act of a Demon: The Dark Bloods - Book II ✓

Chapter 25 - The Ambition of a Queen

He let out a staccato laugh. "Yeah. Of course not."

"I do not lie. I wish to speak to you."

Gahn turned around and saw she had crossed her arms, right hip thrust out. He scowled and scratched the back of his neck. Radi was the only woman that made him frustrated and excited at the same time. How was she still able to do this even though this was the first time he'd seen her in over dozens of decades?

"What do ya want, woman?" he asked. "Ya attack me and almost kill me only to say ya want to talk to me now?"

She let out a haughty awh. "I almost killed you? I recall it was your blade that was about to decapitate me."

Again he rubbed the back of his neck. "I wasn't supposed to," he mumbled.

"Yet you were quite true with your intentions."

He thought he saw sadness flicker through her face, but it was gone when he blinked.

"You were not supposed to have abandoned me that day," she said.

Gahn knew exactly what she was talking about. "Ya weren't supposed to have betrayed Master Auronmar."

Radi threw her arm out as if swatting something out of midair. "Auronmar is not the true Dark Blood. It was my lady that was blessed with it upon her birth. He received it after wedding her."

"It was that crazy bitch that threw our world into disorder. Do ya see what it fell into? Black skies? Everything looks the same now. Thanks for the boring world I now live in."

"You were supposed to stay with me! We were to rule together. We were to be the next Dark Bloods even if it meant I had to slay my lady herself!"

Gahn stared at Radi. This was new. He remembered the day when Radi came to him, distraught over something Blethinette had done, but it had been a ruse. It had led a massacre. His hands closed into fists. It had led to him doing something he never thought he would. 

"Damn it, Radi!" he spat. "Was that what it was all about? Ya weren't happy with what we had?"

"What my lady did would have come to pass all the same. Why allow others to claim what I could have? What we could have had? Gahn," Radi said and took a step towards him, "you did not wish to be with me?"

Gahn sighed. This woman!

She raised her eyebrow at his silence, and he knew she was waiting for an answer.

"All this weird plotting. Ya just as crazy as Mundus. Reyna told me enough of him to know," he said.

"Mundus," she said slowly. Her eyes darted down, and that was all Gahn needed to know.

"Ya slept with him, didn't ya?" he exclaimed.

She scowled. "I have needs!"

"Damn it, woman. Out of all the guys to sleep with? Why couldn't you have gone for Cerus? He's buff and cute. Even Erian'd be better than Mundus!"

He recognized the question in her silence. Gahn sighed.

"No, I didn't sleep with Reyna. I should have. Ya really killing me here, Radi, but don't think I didn't satisfy my needs either."

She smiled and Gahn almost kissed her. It was the two faint power levels he felt phasing through Radi's illusion that stopped him. He sensed them first since Radi didn't acknowledge them until her eyes flickered to the space behind him.

He let out a grunt of pain. Gahn's arms felt like they were being boiled and his nostrils were filled with the scent of burnt flesh and hair. He was somehow laying on the ground now. The grass underneath him felt like tiny swords prodding his burns, but Gahn managed to sit up.