Bereft: Foretold

6 | An Untimely Complication

The Sin of Lust listened to the rapid patters of raindrops striking her umbrella and sighed.

She resisted the urge to lean against the wet town car at her back as she gazed upward at her own tower. In the night, most of its black windows reflected the hazy glow of the city's ambiance, though a few were yet bright from a careless employee leaving the light on or from someone working late. The tower rose ever into the misty dark, a javelin of obsidian threatening the heavens above. 

The voices of John and Wilson, her guards, interwove in a masculine jumble of words as they exchanged shift information. Amoroth thought their presence superfluous and didn't much enjoy waiting for such technicalities to be completed, but appearances were important to her survival. The CEO of a company who'd recently survived a terrorist's assault would go nowhere without bodyguards, thus Amoroth needed the musclebound ex-military men to stay with her.

Even so, her patience could only be stretched so far.

She released another drawn-out sigh and tipped the umbrella just enough for the water to dribble onto Wilson's already wet shoulder. "Must you two make this farce duller than it already is?" she complained, rolling her shoulders to dispel the ill feeling settling between them. "Let's go."

"A moment, Ms. Amoroth," Wilson replied, wincing when her eyes flicked toward his.

Neither man knew what she was, but both had been serving under her for long enough to recognize Amoroth's eccentricities and to understand she was not like normal, mortal women. They were paid well for their silence.

She again gazed at the tower, then her eyes roved over the skyscraper across the avenue that housed Khrest Technologies and the high-rise beyond that where DPC Innovations lay. Both were companies she presided over with Cuxiel acting as the silent partner. With him gone, she'd assumed total control of both enterprises and wasn't sure what she wished to do with them. It seemed pointless to hold onto the industries without Cuxiel backing her.

Everything seemed pointless without him. 

The ill feeling grew in strength and she again rolled her shoulders, baring teeth at the creeping sensation flowing along her spine like thick sludge. What was that?

"Wilson," she snapped, all but flinging the umbrella to him. The rainwater would ruin the white silk of her suit, but Amoroth suddenly wanted her hands free and could care less about a ridiculous garment. "We're leaving." 

Disgruntled but feigning obedience, the man went to open the town car and see her into the vehicle—but Wilson didn't move quick enough. The ill feeling became an ominous weight of great portent, and the Sin of Lust's knees went out from under her before she knew what was happening. In the split second before she collided with the concrete, Amoroth scoured the halls of her memory and recalled when, in a bygone age where women were expected to have more petticoats than sense and she'd played the part of a twittering court woman, she'd felt this sensation before.

At that time, Cuxiel had come, and in a flash of blinding, he decapitated her foppish host and had wrapped her in his arms, spiriting them away to the Realm before they could be hunted down.

"Absolian," she gasped in Gehen, the word slicing through the rain like an unsheathed blade as Amoroth scrambled to her feet and ignored the raw scrapes opened on her palms. Both Wilson and John had a hand under one of her elbows, but Amoroth shook them off with a rigid jerk.

"Run," Cuxiel had warned. "If you ever sense one and I am not there, you must run. Avoid using the Realm if you can, as they can sense the rips we open within it every time we move. Kill your host to sever your anchor and flee Terrestria. Flee, my Amor."