Page 189 of Stars in Umbra
Ignoring his growls of protest, she slid away from him.
He chased her into the bathroom, where they took a cold shower together; the icy water was a shocking balm against their heated skin.
Then they collapsed onto the divan, lying on top of the covers. Touching as little as they could and as much as they dared, their bodies cooling in the humid air.
They fell asleep to the sound of the storm and the steady rhythm of each other’s breathing.
MOLAN
A jagged fork of lightning split the sky, illuminating the desert mare beyond the cliffside.
The crack of thunder that followed was deafening, and Mo’s eyes snapped open.
A luminescence drew his gaze toward the window, where a brilliant orb of light floated impossibly in the stormy atmosphere a few klicks from the house.
‘Fokk.’
He knifed up in bed and swung his legs to the floor, moving to the ethereal vision.
He sensed the pull, a magnetic force that tugged at his entire being.
In an instant, he found himself glimmering past the glazing, his form passing through the plexiglass as if it were nothing more than mist.
He should have been gasping for oxygen, the thin ether of the cliffside home an inhospitable vacuum, yet he breathed with unnerving ease.
A sudden tear lanced through his soul, and he turned to glance back at the house, at the woman sleeping in the divan.
He narrowed on the gentle rise and fall of her chest with some relief.
It was then that a voice, venerable and resonant, sounded in his ear.
‘No need to be afraid, son.’
Son?
The word hit him with the force of a physical blow.
The hell?
He whirled back to face the figure, his body flying through the air toward it.
He came to a hover before the circular vortex, which coalesced into a glowing male silhouette.
His name rose, unbidden, coiling into Mo’s brain like a serpent:Sulfiqar.
The majestic storm god, the sovereign ruler of the Divine Immortal.
The celestial being who commanded the heavens above Sacra and dictated the tides of war and peace across the vast planet.
Constellations, some fading and some fresh, traced his skin like scars, all of them ancient and eternal.
A crown of thinning comet-fire hair clung with stubbornness to his skull, and behind his gaunt, sagging cheeks, his eyes burned with the light of collapsing stars.
He peered at Mo, his eyes blazing with a fierce, possessive pride.
‘Molaniades Arkinolnd Mithandri Iqal, my boy,’ he intoned. ‘Tis good to set eyes on you.’
His lips, dry and cracked, scarcely parted when he spoke, yet each word was like gravity made audible.
