Stephanie Draven - Dark Sins and Desert Sands

“ Whatever it is, Layla, it’ s going to be all right.”

It wasn’t going to be all right. She was the twisted minion of an evil god. What comfort could a mortal man like Ray really offer her? And yet his arms were the only safe place that she’d ever known. “You have no idea who I am or what I’ve done.”

“I know what you’ve done. I was there, remember?”

“I’m nothing, nothing but what he made me!”

“Don’t say that,” Ray murmured against her lips. “It’s not true.”

But it was true. And yet, as Ray rocked her, it wasn’t fear that surged through her.

She kissed him. Because it might be the last time she could.

She’d never thought that Ray was hers to keep, but she hadn’t realized before now that she wasn’t even her own to give.

Dark Sins and Desert Sands

Stephanie Draven

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dear Reader,

The Minotaur was a bastard child born to a cursed queen. His mother rejected him as a monster and the cuckolded king locked him in a labyrinth, giving him sacrificial children to eat. In the end, it was the Minotaur’s own half-sister Ariadne who helped to engineer his demise.

For me, the symbolism of the story seems obvious. Our darkest secrets can never truly be locked away, and always come with a price—whether it’s a sacrifice of our innocents or our innocence. In this novel, I’ve envisioned a much happier ending for my minotaur, but I hope that, like the heroine of this book, you ask the crucial questions that need to be asked.

I love hearing from readers, so please stop by www.stephaniedraven.com.

Yours,

Stephanie Draven

STEPHANIE DRAVENis currently a denizen of Baltimore, that city of ravens and purple night skies. She lives there with her favorite nocturnal creatures—three scheming cats and a deliciously wicked husband. And when she is not busy with dark domestic rituals, she writes her books.

A longtime lover of ancient lore, Stephanie enjoys reimagining myths for the modern age. She doesn’t believe that true love is ever simple or without struggle, so her work tends to explore the sacred within the profane, the light under the loss and the virtue hidden in vice. She counts it amongst her greatest pleasures when, from her books, her readers learn something new about the world or about themselves.

To my brother-in-law and sister-in-law for their service.

And to my parents, who gave me a moral compass

with which to navigate the world.

The eyes are the windows to the soul .

The old proverb was wrong, Ray thought. Eyes aren’t windows to the soul; they’re doorways. And through those doorways, Ray Stavrakis could cross into another person’s mind. Into memories. Into dreams. Into fears. Into the darkest corners of the human soul.

Unfortunately, Ray had never seen the eyes of the man he was trailing, and, in the dark, he could only glimpse the back of his victim’s head.

The old Syrian neighborhood in Aleppo was a confusing labyrinth of twisting cobblestone streets and covered bazaars, but even without light from the occasional hanging lamp, Ray knew his way as if it were mapped in his blood. After all, Aleppo was part Greek and part Arab—just like him. His ancestors had settled in Aleppo after leaving Crete; he should’ve been comfortable here, but so soon escaped from his dungeon, every sensation stung.

The faraway horns of taxis in the distant marketplace pained him like trumpets blaring directly into his ears. Someone in one of the apartments above was smoking a hookah pipe and the smoke floated down from an open kitchen window, mixing with the heady scent of oregano. The smell sickened him; it was as if, having spent two years in a box where the stink of sweat and blood and urine were his only companions, he couldn’t bear any other odor now.

Swallowing his bile, he stalked his prey through the narrow, shadowed streets, his long leather coat snapping at his heels with every step. The man he followed walked faster, slipping a little on the cobblestones. The street was slick with the evening’s dew, which mixed with moss to form a primordial ooze. Still, Ray’s footsteps kept pace, clopping steadily behind, closing in.

Bathed in the faint yellow light of a street lamp, the man turned to look over his shoulder. Ray saw the furious whites of the Syrian’s eyes—the threshold—and those dark pupils beckoned. Ray leaned forward, ready to seize the man’s mind, but something made him hesitate. Maybe he wasn’t yet the monster they tried to make of him. He wanted to give the man a chance. Just one.

As his prey opened his mouth to shout for help, Ray shoved him beneath the stone archway, his broad forearm at his victim’s throat. The Syrian struggled, barely choking out in Arabic, “Who are you? What do you want?”

The Syrian’s voice was the sound of petty tyranny, the sound Ray had learned to obey for his survival. It was almost enough to make him quake. But Ray reminded himself that he was free now. He wasn’t the one trying to run away. “Don’t you recognize me?” he snarled at his former prison guard. “Then again, you did put a bag over my head.”

The first hint of recognition showed in the man’s eyes. “I know you … Rayhan Stavrakis.”

It was good to hear his name. A name gave him back a little of his humanity. After all, in the dungeon, he’d had no name. They’d only ever called him by number. He watched his former guard struggle, trying to catch his breath. Ray saw the man’s fingers twitch, inching for the pistol in his pocket. So much for trying to do things the nice way.

The guard shuddered. “How did you escape?”

Just like this , Ray thought. Focusing his powers, he reached into the periphery of the Syrian’s mind and seized control. Ray had escaped by turning his captors into his puppets. Now he’d stay alive the same way. “Drop the gun,” Ray commanded, feeling the slightly dizzying rush of his power. “And give me your wallet.”

To the guard’s obvious astonishment, he obeyed Ray’s commands. The pistol hit the stone and skittered away as the man reached for his wallet and thrust it into Ray’s hand. All the while, his eyes were wide. “How are you doing this?”

Ray couldn’t have answered that question even if he wanted to. “Where are you keeping my family? Tell me, or I swear I’ll end you right here.”

The guard’s astonishment turned to fear. Even in the pale light, Ray could see that the blood was draining from the man’s face. “We don’t have them!” the Syrian cried. “They’re back in your country. Safe. We only told you we captured them to make you talk.” It was what the others had said, too. “I’m telling you the truth,” the guard insisted. “What else do you want from me?”

At this question, Ray heard himself snort into the dark, low and bestial. There were so many things he wanted. He wanted the past two years of his life back. He wanted to clear his name. He wanted to know who had accused him of working with the enemy. But the Syrians didn’t know why his own government had wanted him tortured, nor had they cared.

“I want the woman,” Ray finally said. Every day he’d spent in the dungeon, he’d held her face in his mind, obsessed. He remembered her questions and her cool-eyed stare. He hadn’t had these powers then; he’d been at her mercy and he remembered how her questions inexplicably, impossibly, were worse than torture. Most of all, he remembered the way she’d toyed with his emotions. “The psychologist. The one who interrogated me. I want her name. Her real name.”