Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) by Anna Erishkigal Read Free Book Online

way a chief's son should. He surveyed their preparations with a practiced eye. In just a few minutes the sky would be so black that no one would see beyond the bonfire to the three sky canoes waiting in ambush ... or the near-fourscore mercenaries the lizard-people had recruited from his father's enemies. From the air, it would appear as though a small raiding party had grabbed Ninsianna. He pointed to where Shahla whirled happily around the bonfire, dancing so the red cape flared out like a dervish.
    "She won't be hurt?" Jamin asked.
    "She is my wife, " Lucifer crooned into Jamin's ear, so close the breathiness gave him chills. "Just one nick, to prove I can trust her when I fall asleep with her in my bed. Do you think I would otherwise put her at risk?"
    "It is rumored you have many wives," Jamin said. He glanced over at Lieutenant Kasib, who’d been reticent ever since he’d decided not to stab the enemy Príomh-Aire with the knife the lizard had deliberately overlooked. "What use to you is one who is mind-broken?"
    Lucifer's eerie silver eyes reflected the flames and made it appear as though he was filled with fire.
    "It is not her mind which interests me,” Lucifer smirked. “All I care is that I can fill their wombs with sons and daughters. The emptier the mind, the better."
    "And what of Ninsianna’s child?"
    Lucifer gave Jamin the hungry look a man might give who was about to sit down for a decadent feast.
    “Why,” Lucifer’s mouth curved up in a smile which showed off his perfect, white teeth, “I shall treat it as though it was my own child.”
    Jamin shivered. Much as he had fantasized about teaching his unfaithful former fiancé a lesson, now that he had Ninsianna where he wanted her, he didn't like the way Lucifer savored her as though she was the evening meal.
    "Ninsianna will hate me forever," Jamin said.
    "There are ways to make a woman forget any man but you ," Lucifer whispered conspiratorially. "I will teach you, young chieftain." Lucifer brushed Jamin's cheek with the back of his fingertips, just a little too familiar. " After you have given me a demonstration of your loyalty."
    Lucifer's scent wafted around him, sweetness paired with brimstone and a muskiness so male it screamed of power. More power, even, than the entire tent full of Ubaid chiefs he'd just betrayed to get back at his father for banishing him. Oh, gods! His whole life he had dreamed of power, and now Lucifer kept hinting he would give it to him … as soon as he completed this little mission.
    Images of Ninsianna danced into Jamin's mind. Eyes shut, she cried out his name again and again as he brought her up to ecstasy. The strange, foreign 'pants' grew uncomfortably tight around his crotch. A small groan escaped his lips. He could almost feel Ninsianna's wet feminine mysteries sliding against his manhood. Oh! Gods! Power? No … this was what he'd sold his soul to get!
    "Ninsianna," Jamin whispered as though he uttered a prayer.
    Lucifer pulled away his hand. A sickening revulsion, silent taunts of why would he want to take to bride a woman so well used when Lucifer could give him any woman he wanted, echoed through Jamin's mind and settled into his belly like rancid meat. Laughter, unspoken, burned in Lucifer’s eyes, mocking him for his constancy to a woman who had done nothing but betray him.
    "Get out of my head," Jamin said.
    'She carries the abomination of your enemy,' Lucifer taunted inside his head.
    'I don't care,' Jamin thought to himself. 'If Ninsianna would love me, I would give it all away just to have her look at me the way she looks at Mikhail.'
    Lucifer frowned. It felt like … loss. Loss of empathy. Loss of trust. He, like Shahla, had yet to prove he was worthy of Lucifer's beneficence. New images danced into his mind. Anger. His anger. He could almost taste how good it would feel to finally watch his adversary die. That ever-present rage ignited in Jamin's gut, grew hotter, more ferocious, as though Lucifer