Nikolai

Tartar (Land of The treacherous)

1970 Tartar Years Ago

I let her hand go, as the flames of Tartar burn in my blood. I spin around, keeping my back to her. I've pictured this scenario for eons, a time where a woman would stand here, telling me she wants me, she is mine. But for the last 30 years since I placed Harlow in my bed, that woman had a face and it was hers. And here she is, but only she isn't mine. I knew it the day I saw that necklace around her neck, the day I saw the black imprint on her foot. I think a part of her knows it too.

"What you want can not be if you have no recollection of what was. It's like saying you only love heaven when you haven't tasted the lure of Hell. How would you know what you want when you have only felt the one side of the coin."

"I have felt the sides of heaven, hell, and the in-between, and each time I think of it, I am led back to this moment, to now, here in Tartar with you. I might not remember a few hundred years of my existence but I have been around for 3 apocalypses, so I am well aware of the feelings of my soul. Yet, you deny yours"

"You have no idea what you are asking Harlow."

"I'm asking you to be honest and tell me that I am not alone in this madness. Tell me that you feel something for me, Nikolai!"

I dissipate and in less than a second, I am so close to her, my hand around her neck, my arm around her waist.

"You are asking me to go against everything I know to be logical, you are asking me for my sanity. How selfish are you?" I say the words but stare at her lips, wondering how soft they would feel against my sinful ones.

"If selfish is what I am then so be it Nikolai, but no amount of hurtful words could change how I feel, nor will it change the words I have shared with you today. Unless my heart has been beating solely on its own, and every time you have stood in this very room looking at me like I am more than just Harlow like I mean something to you has been my own warped up illusion conjured in my head. Tell me I mean nothing to you and I will walk out of this place and never return, tell me."

I watch her hair glow like flares, eyes like emerald jewels, she is so beautifully wicked in her power but utterly forbidden that it makes me mad to a point. I have her in my arms, she is begging me to want her and I do, I want her, but Harlow, The Storm Raider is not mine to want, she is not mine to desire and until we find out her past, any future we have would be a lie.

Would I be able to live with that? Another heartache? Or will she be the final one, the key to the last parts of me? Is that something I really want to risk?

Questions assail my mind, and as I remain a watcher of her physical form, a keeper of her emotional distress, I know within my heart I will eventually succumb.

So I utter the words, knowing as honesty spills from my lips that one day the time would come where I would wish I didn't but still.

"You are not alone Harlow, for my soul is now yours, show me all you are."

She flutters her eyes and I watch her ethereal form come to light. I see it properly for the first time, and I let her go as her mouth opens, and outcomes the most shattering sound of a siren's voice. I feel the power of her form, as something in me heals but I also notice the bareness of her feet, and veins crawling around her jaw.

A smile touches my lips as I am surprised. She closes her mouth and stands there, wrapped in her red, and green light, as her skin sparkles like she is made of marble when I have touched her skin and felt the suppleness of her flesh.

"You are one of the Deities of Deities, the bringer of Ethereal Life, I thought you were a myth?" I have heard of the ones who came before the Gods, Angels, and demons. But there was never proof of their existence, it was so many eternities before. But here is one, in the flesh. I frown, as to why she would show me herself now. According to my knowledge, they were extinguished by their own creation lifetimes ago. I only know about it because Azazeal kept a book he found that supposedly belonged to them.

She frowns, "I don't know who I am, besides one day I woke up in the Garden of Eden, I was a child but I felt timeless, like I wasn't born, nor created. Amon was the one who rescued me, and put me in his army. He also insisted I keep my true form hidden, so he taught me to create another form, one that people would believe is me, so they wouldn't ask questions."

I take a few steps closing the gap between us once again and I stare at her lips, the urge to kiss her, is almost unbearable, but I don't.

"And now you have another two years to add to your memory lapse, are you sure it was Ara who took your memory away?"

"I was sure in the beginning but now I am not, but I just want to be with you, to stay here in Tartar."

I frown at her choice, but I don't move away from her, nor do I tell her she is wrong, that she should want to know who she is. She has the markings of the Deities of Deities, which meant she once hunted by the Ethereals. Amon must have known that when he chose to save her. There was something I was missing, and I knew going to Azazeal would be my next plan of action.

She drops her true form as one of my Elementals knock on the door, halting both of us and I reluctantly let her go.

"Do enter Ezra," I call the Guard.

"Master, Adonis wishes to enter Tartar and collect the Shifters."

"Adonis may enter, but send him straight into the Court, I will have a word with the Tempter first."

"He wants to torture the shifters, and you are just going to allow it?" Harlow says, completely forgetting that I just found out she is a mythical being, that is supposed to not exist, and I just confessed my soul was hers.

"I was going to hear him out and then decide," I respond smiling as she goes back to pacing.

"You are welcome to join by my side if that's what you wish." She beams, and a piece of my soul lightens, forgets that I am the king of Hell.