When Tomorrow Comes: Dawn

Chapter 2: Lyevn

The walls of the temple rattled and shook as Lyevn sat back in the comfort of the settee. His dark eyes traced along the moving floor and then rose to the shaking ornaments clinging to the wall for dear life. His thin lips curled up into a bowed smile, revealing his fanged teeth, and his tongue ran across them with delicious delight. There was hardly a moment to lose, but rushing wouldn't make the tremor stop. Not this tremor, anyway. Lyevn, the Anorii of the third state of Ichtaka Raz, Hod and Netzach, had the fortune of living a long life and had seen the days of Jnne and Laill. He'd seen the era where there were many Mateil before them and had played his role in the imprisonment of their kind in the seventh state when the Crystal Rebellion had failed to overtake the first order of Anorii. Back then, they were only the Anor and gave seats only to the pure Raz males of alpha descent. He was only a boy, barely pubescent, when the first female alpha took a seat among the Anor.

Idiiana was powerful in prowess and seductive with even the slightest gaze she made his way. It was his great awakening and she'd taken him as her partner, and his brother—an unfortunate omega born Raz—as her mate. Haakchet gave her numerous babes, but only Lyevn had given her another alpha. It wasn't intentional, and it had raised many questions about his blood. Was he unsuitable? Had the temple nurses been wrong? No—he was an alpha, but having an omega brother had made him vulnerable...a carrier. He dragged his hand through his dark slick hair. Try as he may, he missed those days carrying Idiiana's child even if laboring had been hard and ended in tragedy. Sometimes, when he closed his eyes he imagined what that first cry would have been like if ever the baby had taken a first breath. It was his fault. He'd not been careful enough, but who could blame him? He was an alpha who'd managed to accidentally come to be with child at the hands of a woman who'd claimed him without hesitation. Maybe his mother was right...he wasn't a true alpha, he was sigma with a touch too much ambition and hormone to keep himself still.

As the rumbling came to a slow but steady end, Lyevn rose from the settee and straightened his trim, tailored suit coat, the tails sweeping back like feathers. The heels of his boots clicked on the stone as he strolled from one end of the room to the other. He pulled his covers down over his eyes and fixed them in place. He opened the heat box of the fireplace, his limestone skin lighting up as the warmth and glow of the flames filled the room. A deep frown pulled at his lips, curling into a snarl as he slammed the door shut. The infernal light! How long had he wanted nothing more than to gaze upon it without it piercing his vision nearly to blindness? One day, he would find away even if he had to pick apart every last Mateil himself.

"Anorii Lyevn!" The guard threw the doors open and barged in. He hissed and groaned, throwing an arm over his face, shielding his eyes from the creep of light from the thin space between the fireplace door and latch. "Your grace, there is a Terra disruption."

"You think I am not aware?" he said calmly in return, once more adjusting the hem of his waistcoat. "It is...the eighth? Yes, eighth, I'm sure of it...in three tides. That's nearly one every handle."

"Anorii Salphrin has expressed again his concern for staying when there are other grounds in the Guverah and Chesed state--"

"No," Lyevn snapped. "We have always met here since we became the seven states, and so long as I am Alpha Superior, I will make the decisions." His voice rumbled through the air and the walks quaked in fear of his wrath.

"Yes, Anorii." The guard turned his gaze to his feet and nodded in submission. He dropped to a knee and breathed slowly. "For my transgression, how shall I serve you?"

Lyevn turned his head to the side as he circled the beta male. He wasn't worth the effort to use, unbreedable to males regardless of rank. Did he have a family? He huffed to himself, disgusted by the thought of cuckolding the guard and impregnating his wife for his poor behavior in uniform. It was too much work. If he were younger, perhaps it wouldn't have been half as much of an ordeal, but he'd matured and was nearly a full adult. Raz like him were lucky to have such long lives. They weren't snuffed out in a matter of seventy, maybe eighty, cycles the way the Mateil were--cursed and born blind to the midnight. Pathetic light seers. Lyevn stepped by the guard, more annoyed than he was before and cleared his throat.

"Where is Anorii Trpimira? Is she in quarters?" he said, steps from the door.

"Anorii Trpimira...she is audience to an invitee from the seventh state."

"Malkuthian? What does a harvester have business with in Tiphareth?" His hand came to his face, smoothing along his thin pointed jaw. "I thought it was clear we are not welcoming of those plebeian spiders."

"I believe, Anorii, it is a petition for relocation to a higher state."

"Laughable," Lyevn breathed, his hand dropping back to his side. He folded his arms behind his back and made for the door, abandoning the guard for the growing curiosity about Trpimira's guest. She was not one to permit anyone to pester or petition her when she was in her season, and it was a chance miracle for her to show up for meetings. For most of the season, she locked herself away and demanded no guests or intrusions for the sanctity of keeping herself unbred. Until she found her ideal mate, she refused to act on her birthright to claim and breed during the peak of the season—and with it being the heart of her hardest heat yet, the idea of her opening the doors to a Malkuthian was nothing shy of a grave risk to her good standings. It was well-known how saturated the lower states were with deltas and omegas. He hoped, for her sake, it was a gamma looking to climb higher as they tended to do, but if it weren't, then he'd have to protect her constitution and claim the forsaken livestock for himself. What was one more harem slave?

He walked swiftly down the hall, humming with delight and his mouth salivating at the thought of pouncing on top of an omega, already slick from Trpimira's mere presence. The way they'd flush and whimper, begging to be mounted in the haze of lust...it was a decadent treat. He slowed and then came to a stop, an eerie silence catching his attention. Lyevn stepped to the banister and looked over the edge to the grand foyer below. The guards were nothing more than splattered stains on the floor and the attended he'd selected only a few cycles earlier, was decorating a number of areas other than her desk. Torn up and spread out like spores on the cavern wind. At the center of it was an unfamiliar and frantic figure, too thin and long to be from the higher states and too ordinary for the lower states. The scent wafting from the unfortunate creature was a sweet, tantalizing nectar he'd never smelled before. His heart skipped, and without thinking about what he was doing, he leaped over the railing and dropped to the floor below with a hard thud. Shivers ran up his legs like the one up his spine as he neared the ghastly intruder.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"What?" he turned and stared up at the tall, thin Raz. "I...I was invited..."

The sound of hurried footsteps echoed against the ceiling. Lyevn looked around the mess, the corners of his lips twitching up. "What is your name?"

"Kazimir of Malkuth, the seventh state."

"Get up," he said firmly and turned his back, quietly drinking in the delicious scent. "Follow me, Kazimir of Malkuth."