Take Me Away

Chapter 7

"Master. Your tea," Azir said calmly, as always, as he entered my study and settled the tea on a cleared spot of the desk. 

I lifted my gaze from the piece of glass I was currently inspecting, nodding at him in thanks. "Thank you, Azir." I turned to focus back on the shard of crystal, but Azir's voice interrupted me yet again. 

"Sir. The girl," he started, then his usual calm facade faded as his cheeks were tinged with red. "She is bored."

"I cannot entertain her now, Azir," I murmured, my eye catching a small fracture in the shard. 

"Yes, but Master.... she is your queen. Her job title shouldn't simply be to warm your bed. She is to be your equal, Master."

A flicker of rage burned inside me at his words. I loved Azir like a brother, he was more to me than a servant, but how dare he imply that Melisande meant so little? "Thank you, Azir. That will be all."

"She feels useless, Master. She's stayed in the same room she woke up in the entire day."

"Azir. I have heard enough. You are dismissed." A pang of guilt flooded my body, knowing that I had more than likely made Azir angry and that my future wife was alone in our bedroom, waiting for me to return after work. Yes, I had not left the castle, but she was not ready to be introduced to the sometimes gruesome task of deciding where the souls would go. 

Such as what I was doing right now. 

The shard of glass was small, but could tell me so much. A young woman was dead, eight and ten years old, and had a blade through her heart. My powers did not allow me to access what had happened, like I usually could. Which told me that not only was a young woman dead, but there were magics at work. Most likely dark magics. 

One of my gifts was that I could look into the River Styx and see how a certain person had died, as well as clips and visuals of their life, telling me how they had lived and where they belonged in their afterlife. But this time, for this young girl, my powers were useless, and that meant that something was blocking it. Like magic. 

Hence why I was examining the shard of glass, trying to pull a print, dust, even a small scratch that might lead me in the right direction. If a member of the Fae was guilty, perhaps there would be a few sparkles of purple dust from their magics. If a demon, perhaps the glass would be discoloured with a shadow. But so far, I had been examining this shard for an hour, and I hadn't found much, besides a hairline fracure. Which didn't help much at all. There were no fingerprints, no DNA besides the human girl's blood. 

I would never admit it, but I was worried. The killing was entirely wrong. A young, female, human victim. A murder as personal as shoving the knife through her heart. And somehow, a ethereal, mythological member had done it? For what reason? What motives could this creature possibly have? And, more importantly, how did it cross over into the human world?

Sighing, I set down the shard of glass in its container and sealed it, not wanting to look at it any longer. Leaning back in my leather chair, I closed my eyes and pictured the woman I wanted to see. Melisande. 

I hadn't been lying when I had told her she tasted like sin and innocence rolled up into one beautiful package. She was so innocent and desirable at the same time, asking me to kiss her again. I had wanted nothing more than to shift her body beneath mine and hold her there, to strip her body of all clothing and show her that she was mine. And I was hers. 

She couldn't have withstood it, though. Even with her mouth parted with with desire, and her chest heaving with her heavy breathing, her cheeks flushed with anticipation.... I could not take her. She was not ready for my kind of loving.