Treasure - Sneak Peek
She was so cold. It was so dark. Her body trembled. Were her eyes open? She couldn’t tell. Fingers tripped over smooth stone. The air was hollow and stale.
Inhaling, her lungs burned, triggering an eruption of coughing. Dust flew around her, coating her tongue. She tried to sit up but was stopped by a low roof. Her heart strained, beating quickly as anxiety gripped her. What was going on? Where was she?
Desperately she reached out, breathing a little easier as she found one side open. Swinging bare feet out, she rose; stumbling slightly as her knees tried to buckle. It was still pitch black but she was beginning to make out shapes of things around her.
An altar here. A pedestal there.
She… She knew this place. It was familiar. But she couldn’t stay.
She needed… She needed to go. She had a mate. A pup. She needed to find them.
Carefully, she walked through the shadowed halls, one hand on the marble walls of the mausoleum. The hems of her golden burial shroud trailed in the dust. Her feet pulled her west, toward the door. It was locked but she found it opened with a touch of her hand.
The gaze of the full moon greeted her.
The sound of steel unsheathing made her turn. Two guards stood, pale-faced and trembling, swords pointed at her.
“St-stop! Demon!”
“Am I?” She asked, softly. “I don’t think so.” Her thoughts were confused, hazy. But surely she would know if she were evil. She stepped passed them, uncaring as they attempted to block her way.
She needed to find her pup and her alpha.
Her feet carried her to the manor house beyond. One more guard attempted to bar her path but no others dared. After she passed the fifth, they bowed low. A name whispered on their lips. Vari. A title. Her title. It called to buried memories but she pushed them out of her mind.
They were insignificant now. Not pertinent to her present purpose.
As she approached the steps, the doors opened and a man stepped out, his green robes faded in the light of the moon. A saif raised protectively. The Demon’s Head. Ra’s Al Ghul, her memory whispered.
“You will go no further, shade. What is your business?”
Business? Her business was her -
“Mate. Where is my mate? Where is my child?” She asked, her voice echoing around them. There. Behind the man. She pushed passed him, making him stumble, through the doors and into the hall.
A woman stood there, raven hair falling down her shoulders. Green eyes glowing in the light of the lamps; luminous in her unusually pale face. She, too, held a sword at her side. Her hands trembled around the hilt of the blade.
Her heart skipped a beat. Her. This was her alpha. A name came to her lips.
Talia.
This was her Talia.
Tears welled in her eyes and trailed down her cheeks, washing away dust. Hers. She stepped closer, her brumous mind unable to read the emotion in her alpha’s eye. Unable to see the threat in the sword.
She knelt and offered her throat to her mate, “Talia.”
Tremulously, her alpha asked, “Jabra?” Her free hand slowly reached towards the omega at her feet.
Jabra. Was that her name? She inhaled sharply as memories broke through and flooded her mind. It was. Jay. She was Jay.
Darkness swiftly fell over her again.