Blood Genesis Read Online Free PDF Page B

—something incredibly powerful, something beyond the ordinary, and as a result, they were keeping a wide berth between themselves and their prisoner.
    Jessenia sighed inwardly, grateful for the reprieve. What did the foolish males think? That she could murder them with her eyes, turn their hearts into frogs with a flick of her wrist, or scatter their wits with a chant? Yes, she was a celestial descendant, just as they were, the progeny of gods and men, and as a female, she possessed an especially powerful magic—she housed a wealth of sacred knowledge in her latent genetic memories—but Jessenia had never been formally trained in the mystical arts. She had never been taught how to wield her power or access her celestial memories. She was the only child of a mother who had died while giving birth, making her father her only mentor, and he couldn’t teach what he didn’t know: The secrets of the race were passed down through the females, never the males, which only made the wholesale slaughter of the women more impossible to believe.
    Jessenia sat down on the floor in front of the thick granite slab and stared at Timaos, who was still unconscious. The guards had finally cut him down, perhaps an hour or so ago, and he was resting fitfully on his side, obviously uncomfortable on the stiff, unyielding cot.
    She wished she had some medicine, some salve, to treat his wounds. She had used what little knowledge she possessed to try and ease his pain, heal the worst of his injuries, and now, all she could do was watch him and wait, hoping and praying that she would get a chance to tell him what she had seen in her vision…before the morning came.
    She ran a gentle hand through his thick, silky black hair. Even matted with sweat and blood, it was beautiful, just like the man lying before her. To this day, she would never understand what it was about her, why Timaos had taken such a fancy to a skinny, auburn-haired girl who was five years his junior, when he could’ve chosen any woman in the kingdom.
    Unlike Jessenia, Timaos was born to a family of means and political power. He was groomed to be a warrior of great standing in the king’s guard, and with his tall, impressive bearing, his broad, muscular build, his rustic yet stunning features and charismatic personality, the sky had been his only limit.
    Yet and still, Timaos had pursued Jessenia from the first day they met, though she was only thirteen years old at the time. He had shown up on her humble doorstep each morning, rising before dawn to present her with a bushel of wildflowers from the southern hills. He had taken her on long walks through the mountainside, pointing out secret caverns and hidden valleys. He had beat the living stuffing out of Josiah Draghici for calling her a useless wench on the first day of Andromeda’s feast, and he had kissed her for the first time when she was fifteen years old, making her knees grow weak beneath her and her heart flutter like it was colonized by a thousand butterflies, each one swirling madly within her chest.
    She sighed, remembering his fervent promises: Despite his parents’ desire to wed him to a female of standing, a celestial acolyte, in the autumn of his twenty-first year, he had stood his ground, steadfast in his conviction, refusing to accept the unwanted pairing, insisting that he would marry none but Jessenia the moment she came of age.
    And oh, how she had come of age…
    In a lush, golden meadow, beneath a bright summer’s sun, on her sixteenth birthday, Timaos had shown her what true union was. And whether she lived another two hours or a hundred more years, she would never forget the lithe, graceful arc of his back or the powerful cast of his shoulders, the way his muscles had flexed as he’d held her beneath him…or the way he had spoken her name like a prayer. She would never forget how he’d soothed her innocent fears and awakened her dormant passion, all the while striking a perfect balance between