Page 13 of Tamed By Air (The Nature Hunters Academy 4)

“I don’t think it’s necessary,” she blurted out. “You answered the question. I wanted to know if such a time had ever occurred, and you said yes. Boom. Done. Case closed. Conversation over. So, how’s the weather here in hell? Are there different seasons, or is it pretty much just wildfire time year-round?”

His lips turned up in a sly smile. Osiris dropped his foot from his knee and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. Though there was a table between them, he suddenly felt too close. He’d invaded her bubble. Bubble invading was a hard no-go.

“It was when I saw you,” he said. The awe in his voice was unmistakable. Osiris closed his eyes and let his head lean back ever so slightly. “You were there, lying in my domain of darkness, looking so full of light.” Osiris’s eyes moved rapidly behind his eyelids, and his brow drew down. He seemed to search for the memories he described. “And then you woke up, and you faced me without fear. You spoke with the confidence of a woman twice your age. You intrigued me, Shelly Smith.”

“ShellyNasir,” she corrected, but Osiris didn’t acknowledge her. The lord of the underworld kept right on with his monologue, his eyes still closed and his voice holding a faraway tone.

“You were magnificent,” he continued. “I had been alone for a very long time. And you made me realize I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to live this purpose I have been given, not without someone to help me, that is.”

Shelly waited until he finally reopened his eyes and lowered his head so that his face was level with hers. “And this person you want at your side, to help you,” she said, her voice tight with multiple types of emotions, some of which she didn’t want to examine at the moment. “You expect her to just stand by and watch you slit an innocent woman’s throat? Is she supposed to be okay with the atrocities you have committed andwillcontinue to commit? Do you expect her to turn a blind eye? You’re telling me that this life partner—this one that will be by your side, this woman that will share her most intimate parts and bear her vulnerabilities to you—is going to forgive what you do?”

“Isn’t that what love does?”

Shelly huffed out a breath of indignation. “How would you know what love does? By your own admission, you are not capable of love.”

“I have been around since the beginning of time, Shelly. I have watched humans for thousands of years. I have witnessed love—true, unconditional love, that remains in the face of another’s faults, imperfections, and transgressions. Love that was based upon a choice, not upon a passing fancy.” Osiris’s voice sounded reverent as he spoke. Shelly saw a yearning, intense and raw, fill his eyes as he looked at her with an unblinking stare. She couldn’t help but wonder if what she saw and heard from Osiris was real, or if he was just that good of a liar.He’s the great deceiver, Shells. You cannot buy into the crap he is trying to sell.

“I don’t think love is what youreallywant, O.” Shelly stood up and stretched the kinks from her back. She ignored the feeling of his eyes on her body and walked around the room. “I think youthinkyou want love.”

“O?” His voice rose a bit.

She shrugged. “It’s shorter. Saves time when I’m talking.”

“All you’ve got is time.”

She ignored him and went back to her thoughts. “What you want, what you’ve always wanted since the eternities past…” She paused and tapped her lip. “And I’m basing this conclusion off various tales, traditions, and legends explaining who you are and why you are in hell, the underworld, or whatever you want to call this place.”

“Naturally,” he said. Shelly could hear the humor in his voice. She refused to look at him. Not because he was grotesque, quite the opposite. She didn’t want to face him because there was a small, small, teeeeny, tiiiiny, part of her that felt compassion for him. And she wasnotokay with that.

“You were saying?” His voice pulled her from her thoughts.

“Right.” She nodded and dropped her hand from her lip. “All you have ever wanted was power. If you had a mate, consort, bride, or whatever, then her purpose would simply be to serve you in fear, just like all your other subjects.”

Shelly continued a slow circle of the room, noticing how colorless it was. She blinked, and a second later, there was a picture of a beautiful field of daffodils hanging on the wall in front of her. She narrowed her eyes on it and then turned to Osiris. Shelly stood behind the couch, so she could only see the back of his head. “You can’t read my mind,” she said. It sounded as if she was trying to convince herself of the truth of the words.

“No, I cannot. But as you have already experienced, my home is attuned to your needs. There’s no way to explain it to you other than to call it magic.”

“Or intuition,” she offered.

He chuckled. “Or that.”

Shelly turned back to look at the picture and gasped when she saw herself in the painting. The Shelly on the canvas walked through the daffodils, letting her fingers trail over the tall grass. From an unseen breeze, the hem of her dress danced playfully. The painting Shelly glanced over her shoulder. Her eyes widened, and she smiled at something that real Shelly couldn’t see. A second later, Osiris’s form appeared in the painting. He strode purposefully toward the painted Shelly. When he reached her, he wrapped his arms around her, lifted her, and swung her in a circle. “What. The. Hell.” The real Shelly’s voice was strained as she watched the two in the frame, laughing and dancing. She didn’t enjoy seeing herself gaze so adoringly at Osiris. It was wrong on so many levels.

“It’s what we could have.” Osiris had risen from the couch at some point and now stood directly behind her. His warm breath brushed against her neck as he leaned closer. “We can be happy, little one. Icanmake you happy.”

Shelly shook her head and turned her back on the picture, hurrying away from the lord of the underworld. Her skin felt stretched too tight across her body, and the air was thick and difficult to breathe. She was certain she would pass out at any moment. Shelly shook her hands as if she could somehow force away the feelings that were trying to take root. It wasn’t affection or attraction or anything like that.It better not be.She hissed at herself. But as she stared at the couple in the painting, watching how carefree that Osiris appeared, Shelly felt like she’d gotten a glimpse, albeit the smallest glimpse in the history of glimpses, of the man he could have been. If only he hadn’t been destined to rule over hell.

“What are you thinking?” Osiris asked.

Thankfully, he hadn’t followed her across the room. Shelly didn’t want him that close again. She wanted him far, far away, preferably in another galaxy. He’d fit right in with that long time ago, far-away galaxy bunch. Just stick a helmet on his head and tell him to wheeze. Boom, Vader.

“What about my soul?” she spit out and whirled around to glare at him. Her hands rested on her hips as she tapped her foot. “I’m sharing a soul with Ra. You have my soul. And being separated from him isnotokay. I’ve been in pain. I get sick. Apart from just missing the hell out of him because I love him, physical pain is occurring.” Shelly took a deep breath. She’d intended to ask these questions from the very beginning, but from the moment she’d returned to hell she’d felt distracted, as if she was battling herself but she didn’t understand why. She could only liken it to when you go to the doctor planning to ask all sorts of questions, and then when you’ve seen the doctor and they ask, “Any questions?” you just shake your head and say, “Nope,” because your brain has all of a sudden decided to go on vacation. Then you get home and slap yourself because you suddenly remember the eight hundred questions you had planned to ask. “What’s going to happen to my soul and Ra’s? Do you even know, or are you just winging it and hoping you don’t end up with a nutjob for a mate because you made an omelet of her mind when you didn’t consider the implications of abducting her away from the soul you bound her to?”

When she turned and met his eyes, she saw the flames in them burning furiously. Osiris’s lips pressed tightly together as he glared at her. “I think you’re tired,” he said after several seconds of staring at her. “I think you would like some rest. What do you say, little one?”

For the first time since arriving, she actually felt like Osiris might just lose his temper, and she found that regardless of all her vibrato, she had no desire to witness it. “Actually,” Shelly said thoughtfully, “I’m thinking I need a nap.” She nodded. “Yep, definitely need a nap.”

Osiris stared at her for what felt like forever and then finally nodded. “Very well then. If my lady wants a nap, then that is what she shall have.”

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