Surrender Read Online Free Page B

voice stunned him, and Set took a step back, his hands clenching into fists. What madness was this?
    “Kira?”
    “Has it been so long since we’ve spoken that you would forget the voice of your own wife?”
    Set spun around, relief flowing through his veins. “You should not be walking about. Your body will only deteriorate more rapidly.”
    Nephrytys smiled. A lithe, pale version of her daughter, she walked forward on unsteady legs, holding the wall as she moved. “Set, you and I both know that my time here grows short.” Her head drooped a little. “Ma’at has already spoken to me of my destiny.”
    His face hardening, he approached her, grasping shoulders so thin he could snap them in two easily. “Ma’at doesn’t know everything. Now, return to your chamber at once.” For a brief moment while looking down into her face, he softened. Over the years, he’d grown to care for this woman, and yet, he didn’t even try to convince himself she felt the same. She’d watched him kill her husband. And for that, Set supposed, Nephrytys would always hate him.
    But it didn’t matter anyway. It was too late for sentiment. The battle would soon begin, and he could not afford to be swayed by foolish emotion.
    “Set—” Nephrytys cleared her throat and looked up into his eyes. “Must you do things this way? Is there not another way that would not mean the destruction of more lives?”
    In an instant, he forgot all about his feelings for the woman he held and released her so abruptly, her spine snapped back against the wall behind her. “You know nothing. Now do as you are told.”
    She hesitated. “You’re risking my daughter’s life.”
    He spun around, presenting his back to her. “Sometimes sacrifices must be made.”
    “Set, please—”
    “I said, go!” he shouted without looking back. He didn’t need to turn around to know she’d left him, and his shoulders sagged with relief. She didn’t understand, could never possibly understand.
    He and his fellow gods had tried to take Timara once and had come up against Lamar’s fierce power. Their only recourse had been to slink away to regroup and lick their wounds, but Set had brought home a consolation prize.
    Nephrytys and her daughter, Kira. The little girl known to possess extraordinary power. He smiled at the memory.
    The battle had been a massive undertaking, and Set had planned it for years before actually striking. Many lives had been lost that day. Lamar called them the innocents, those citizens of Timara who did not possess the powers of the gods. But Set had felt nothing but fury at his loss, and as the battle continued to rage, he’d seen his opportunity to take home some type of victory.
    The instant he’d laid eyes on the little girl, he’d known. There was something different about her, so calm and peaceful despite the war raging around her. And somehow, he’d known she was worth the taking.
    Now he could only hope he’d trained her well enough to do what he could not twenty years ago.
     
     
    Winter enveloped the city, and the biting, cruel winds stung her eyes as Kira sailed through the darkness. She loved the night. It called to her soul. She’d worshipped the blackness since the night her father had told her the truth about Timara and the god who ruled the vast city.
    But now, something was changing inside of her. She felt herself softening, or as her father would call it, weakening. She couldn’t be sure, but her instincts were telling her that there was more to Jarek than just what she’d been told.
    He was fiercely loyal to Timara and would more than likely be willing to die to protect it, but she had read no cruelty in his eyes, no willingness to sacrifice others for the sake of his own pleasure. That was what she’d been taught all these years, but that wasn’t the ruler she had just seen.
    And it made her wonder about Lamar as well.
    Her breath fogged in the air, and she settled her feet on the snow-covered pavement, the