Obedience (Samara POV)

Samara kneels with her sisters in front of the throne. Her father slowly sits up, coming out of his trance. “Bah! This is what happens when you use flawed tools. Halid couldn’t even hold my power long enough to wound the little mage.”

He stands from his throne and stretches. Samara wonders if her father is taking this threat seriously. Her encounter with Kali had shaken her. How did she have that power? How had she broken free? Who was this man that had somehow taken Samara’s ambitious, eager little sister, and transformed her into some kind of avenging angel?

The Kali that Samara had known was filled with a **** desire for acceptance from their father. Somehow this human had convinced her to abandon that path. This mage, he was somehow special, too. His ability to simply shrug off her strongest magic was terrifying. Even her black lightning had simply disabled him for a moment. And Kali simply healed him!

These thoughts had plagued her since their brief encounter. She watched her father as he stood over the gathered Lilim. “At least he held it together long enough to blast one of the mageling’s little toys. That should occupy him for a while.”

Samara knew that wasn’t right, the mage didn’t call his harem toys...he called them family. The word should be meaningless, but it somehow held weight in her mind. She would scry on them when she could, whenever that powerful selkie seer wasn’t around, and she never saw them be anything but kind to each other. They were equals.

Samara stiffens as she feels her father’s eyes on her. “Samara. You do not approve?”

Answering quickly, she shakes her head. “No father, I would never second guess you. I just worry that you don’t take this man seriously enough...”

She is answered by a backhand across the face that sends her sprawling. “Do not speak to me like that, Samara. Your failure on the plains has not yet been forgotten. You failed to capture or wound any of them. Keep this up and I’ll begin to think you’re a traitor like that other half breed.”

“S-sorry father. It won’t happen again, father.”

He glares at her. “See that it doesn’t. You don’t want me to send you to the pits again, to serve my troops like the whore you are, do you?”

Samara shudders, shaking her head. The things the demons did to her every time she was punished like that...

“No father. I am your loyal daughter.”

“Good. Now silence. We must focus on crushing this returned triumvirate before we finish the humans. Samara, I’m sending you to try to capture this Josh again. Do not fail.”

Samara nods.