Unleashed (Guardians of Anubis - Book 1)

4 Chapter 2

No, he scares me, Zaya whispered to herself. She had to get out of here. She paced shaking her hands to release the tension that was building in her arms.

Mondune didn’t understand her need to be out there. If she sat down and did nothing he will eventually claim her mind. And when he found her, he’ll need to claim her whole body. Zaya didn’t know how she knew what he’ll want and need. She innately knew. Once he found her there will be no turning back. Her body will be his. And that was something she could never surrender. The anxiety she had felt earlier rocketed up another notch.

She had to get out of here, Zaya thought panicking. She turned to Nila.

“You have to let me out of here,” Zaya said desperately.

“What did I just say? We’re doing this for your own good.” Nila sat up to stare at her. Zaya felt her stare to her very core. She moved to her vanity mirror. Small figurines of fairies, Anubis miniature statues from the human world, and some ancient Egyptians artefacts were placed decoratively on its surface. The knick-knacks on its surface were once valuable to her. Now she just felt they were talking up space for no apparent reason. Even her desires and habits were slowly changing. Zaya noted with apprehension.

Zaya stared at herself in the mirror. The soft glow of the lights gave her brown skin a radiant glow as though she was burnished in bronze. The customary silk robes the guardians wore moulded perfectly to her slim and lithe figure, dipping and clinging to her luscious curves. Her curly black hair cascaded with an enticing kink to her shoulders.

There was no outward change to her appearance. But her brown eyes stared back at her with a glinting spark that was alive. For years there had been nothing there.    

 “He calls to me,” Zaya blurted out. A shiver ran through her as though saying it out loud was her way of accepting it. No, she’ll not accept it.

“What?” Nila almost shot up from the bed. Zaya could feel her barely contained excitement. “You found your mate…rather you found each other.”

“I wouldn’t call him that.” Zaya didn’t want to call him that. She turned away from Nila. She couldn’t bear to see her excitement. Or the hope that was clearly visible on her face. The mirror wasn’t the best bet either, because she could see her eyes. The dullness that kept the world at bay was gone. They were alive now. And he had done that to her, by the simple sound of his voice.

“You don’t look very happy.”

“I’m not.” Nila didn’t say anything after that. And for once she wasn’t obliviously nose deep in her iPad, her fingers moving rapidly as she updated the guardians’ history records on her self-created data base, rather than keeping it all in her brain.  

 “He can’t find you if you don’t answer. Well I think.” Nila softly said after a long while. She scrunched her face. Trying to remember all the documented files on guardian mating, Zaya thought. She shook her head. She knew the history. They had talked about it when they were children, back when Nila talked about everything that was in her head.

All the files never documented similar occurrences, except one – the female was the one who agreed to the mating and was given a word that was uniquely hers and his - a word that when said by the female the male recognized her as his.      

Zaya heard Nila’s words, but they didn’t elicit the comfort she sought. Zaya knew she needed something more. She didn’t need a history lesson, but advice that stemmed from experience. Only Sai could give her such insight. He wasn’t here.

That reality tore her in two.

 Zaya looked around her room.  She’d watched the room transform from the colourful décor of a little girl’s to that of a woman, and he hadn’t been there to see it. The walls were painted a rich cream colour that created space and calmed the senses. Through the large windows a calm breeze blew in, ruffling the red organza curtains. The double poster bed was literally made for comfort. Big colourful pillows were thrown on its surface, waiting for her to snuggle. Nila did just that, pulling one large pillow behind her head. She sighed as she lay down. She scrunched her nose as though she was in pain.

The headaches, they always plagued Nila whenever she accessed the files in her mind. Her guardian gift was both a curse and a blessing. Zaya watched her still feeling out of sorts.

 Nila was here, she might as well talk to her.

 “I don’t know. It feels different, not like my bother described,” Zaya said moving to her walk in closet. There she took off her purple silk robes, and reached for her human clothes. The jeans fitted her perfectly and the cashmere sweater felt so soft on her skin, she wished she could wear them always. But Mondune would have a hissy fit if he caught her wearing the clothes. He loathed any human influence of their world. They protected the humans, they didn’t have to become like them, Mondune believed, even though they originated from the very humans. And Nila argued with him all the time. She loved her gadgets and movies.  As their only researcher and living record keeper, human technology made her life easier. And it lessened the headaches since she could use her many gadgets to record and retrieve any guardian history file from her data base instead of doing it the olden way. 

“Different. How?” Nila sat up. Her mind already sifting through the files she retrieved on guardian mates.

“He’s … he not just calling to me like some disembodied voice on the breeze. I can almost feel him. Feel his dark presence, his anguish and need. He’s coming for me.”

“Finding a mate is unique for every guardian,” Nila quoted.

“I know that.” Zaya swallowed nervously, “it scares me.”

“Because of the lure?”

No, yes, partially - Zaya nodded instead. Nila moved to her, her arms going around Zaya in comfort.

Her lure was her guardian gift from Anubis. With a prick on her finger and drop of her blood Zaya was able to summon and enthral any demon from Duat without their consent. And for it to work she had to remain pure, but if her mate found her that would prove hard to do. Instinct will take over, and he would want to claim her. The need to claim her will be unbearable, and all consuming.  The jackal will call to his mate, hunting her down. It will drive him crazy that she wasn’t there to answer his call, as it already was.  He won’t understand why he couldn’t claim her, because everything in him said she was his.

“Usually the female jackal speaks the mating word once she’s accepted him, then the male realizes she is his true mate and then the claiming begins. If you don’t say it he’ll never know, and he won’t have the urge to claim you,” Nila said sympathetically. “It could take a hundred years for him to find you. You’re getting nervous for nothing, Zaya.” 

Zaya could feel he was close. He hadn’t called her in her dreams for a while now, but in those nights that he did he’d established a connection with her. She could feel him every time he let his jackal rise, as though with its rising it reached out to her. He’ll find her; it was just a matter of time. Zaya didn’t think she could resist him when he did find her. 

“No,” Zaya was getting agitated, “I have to release the lure one last time.”

She hadn’t thought about releasing it, since she could hunt down harmless demons like the Luwako. But now, she was running out of time. She won’t be able to locate the harem again. Not before he found her. She was left with only one option. The lure was the only chance she had of finding her brother.

“No,” Nila said taking a firm hold on Zaya’s shoulders. She was mere seconds from shaking some sense into her. “Don’t you remember the first time you did that? And that was by accident. What will happen when it’s intentional?”

The memory of her brother’s anguished face filtered through Zaya’s mind. Of course she remembered. How could she forget? She had been playing in the now barren fields. Back then, a hundred years ago to be exact, the fields had burst with a profusion of smells and life. The first harvest was near, and Zaya had wanted to play in the wheat fields one last time. Tired of being cloistered and padded in layers of robes so she wouldn’t hurt herself and release her blood by mistake, Zaya had wanted a break. Wanted a moment where she could be an eleven year old without the yoke of doom and Armageddon hanging on her shoulders.

At eleven years old she hadn’t understood how potent her lure was.

She was a guardian, she could handle any threat that came her way, Zaya had believed disregarding Sai’s warnings – that sometimes even Anubis’ gifts were like a double edged sword.  She had waited until the courtyard was deserted, sneaked through the marble columns and shrubbery to the small gate. “Run in the fields for only a little while,” she’d chanted to herself as her excitement mounted. With a squeal, she ran. Her hands outstretched touching the kernels of the wheat, bending them in her wake like the wind. The feel of freedom washed over her that she didn’t see Saphrina, Sai’s mate standing guard, having followed her unaware. Zaya ran around the field, falling and scraping her knee with no care in the world. She was having fun, oblivious to what was happening around her. Saphrina must have seen the demon, the Rutete, as it appeared, and ran to put herself in the creature’s way.

Zaya closed her eyes. Sai’s devastated face loomed in her mind as he’d watched his very life shatter before his eyes. Zaya had realized too late that he wasn’t looking at her, but his mate Saphrina, the spines of the Rutete jutting from her chest at random angles. She’d silently screamed imploring him to help. Its red rimmed black eyes narrowing in realization, the Rutete had snatched her in its arms as though she weighed nothing. Her body limp, lifeless vanished right before their eyes.

“No!” his harrowing scream had echoed on filling her eleven year old heart.

Zaya shook her head, guilt choking the life out of her. And that wasn’t the worst thing to happen that fateful day. Following her scent a number of demons burrowed up from Duat and annihilated a number of villages before the guardians could deal with them. Human lives were lost.

It was always the guilt.  For years it had eaten her life away, turning her eyes dull and cold. She couldn’t bear it anymore.

“I have to fix this. Kemet can’t die because of me.”

“You can’t carry this burden forever, Zaya. You were young.” Nila shook her slightly, trying to get some sense into her. “Do you want the same thing to happen again?”

“I’m grown. I can control it now,” Zaya said. Her voice quivered. She wasn’t so sure she could control it. No one has taught her how to use her lure. Her brother left before she was grown enough. And the other kingdoms wanted nothing to do with her. But she had to try.

“Your strong will is truly your weakness, Zaya. You know you can’t control it,” Nila said her fingers smoothing over the skin on her right shoulder where her Anubis’ eye was supposed to be. “You know you can’t.”

Nila’s voice was sympathetic, but Zaya caught the censure in it all the same. Self-pity rose within almost overwhelming her. She was not going there. Anger replaced her self-pity and Zaya stared Nila straight in the eyes.                          

“My brother is out there. And his kingdom is falling apart because of me. I should be doing everything in my power to find him.” Zaya moved away from Nila. She’ll do it; full blooded guardian or not. She swung her backpack over her shoulder. “I’m already running out of time. Will you open the door?” She said her anger mounting.

And then she heard it. His voice came rich and strong in her mind. Her agitation and inactivity was weakening the barrier between them. She couldn’t do this now.  

“No guardian can survive Duat. And you know it,” Nila said her eyes saddening. Nila didn’t normally mince words and Zaya could tell she wasn’t going to start now. She was going to tell her the truth, no matter how blunt. “For all we know your brother…”

“Don’t say it,” Zaya interrupted. She put up her mental walls blocking him out. “I have to go.”

“Don’t do this, Zaya,” Nila threw her hands up in helplessness, “Mondune has already found a way to buy Sai time.”

“How?”

“He’s gone to Otome.” Nila waited a beat to let her words sink in, “to ask for the Unborn, they’ll perform the duties of the guardians until Sai comes back.”

“So it has come to that, huh?” Zaya felt like crying. She had done this to her kingdom. If Sai didn’t come back Kemet will be degraded to nothing – just a piece of land run by slaves. How will the other kingdoms look at them now? “We are to entrust our livelihood to slaves now. Why didn’t he tell me of this?”

“Maybe he knew how you will react.”

“I’m still the princess of Kemet,” Zaya said softly. She walked to the door. Although she felt like the princess of nothing at the moment, she was still the princess of Kemet. Damn it!

“Then act like it!” Nila’s voice stopped her at the door. Zaya turned to her, barely holding the tears that choked her.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Answer the call of your mate, say the mating word and give Kemet another king.”

Zaya gasped in shock at the emotions Nila’s words elicited. Outrage, heart wrenching fear and excitement warred with each other within her. Zaya ruthlessly squashed the excitement, giving way to her fear. It blazed within her. No, she’ll never give herself to him.

“I’ll forget you said that. Open the door.”

Nila woodenly moved to the door, and rapped twice. A key rattled unlocking it on the other side. Mal, one of Kemet’s Ushabtiu came into view when the door opened. Mal bowed and moved aside.

Zaya rushed out wasting no time.