Heart of Flame Read online

  Was this it, then? I’d die alone in the forest to a chorus of my own screams?

  When I jumped the trunk this time, my knees buckled and I went down hard. I had enough of a lead I was able to roll beneath the tree when he would have caught me. Thick curses shouted over my shoulder fueled my tumble forward. When I hit a tree’s roots, I pushed to stand when all I wanted was to lie still and find my breath. Turning so fast I wobbled, I located him.

  In his mad dash to finish our race, he’d lunged beneath the tree. He remained stuck there.

  “You’re clever, you are.” He cast me a wink as he grunted. “I fell for your trick.”

  I hadn’t enough air in my lungs to inform him he’d fallen for no trick of mine. Panting, I stared in the direction we’d come from. Muscles in my legs screamed in protest as I shifted my weight. “I’m going to leave you now.” I stepped forward, limping. “No one has to know of this.”

  His bark of laughter rang loud. “You do that.” His arm disappeared by his side. “Run to Rhys. Maybe you’ll reach him.” Before I blinked, he loosed a silver dagger. It sank deep in my side. “I’m betting you won’t.” His smile broadened and his struggle renewed. “I bet you don’t.”

  My hand shook as blood spilled through my fingers. “You’re not going to let me go.”

  “Now why would I do that?” He glanced up at me. “You’re exhausted. You’re bleeding. You’ll die from exposure if you risk this weather any longer. You may as well sit on my sword.”

  His sword…it remained sheathed at his hip…my salvation.

  I forced my trembling limbs to work and climbed to the other side, where the Mimetidae male’s boots had dug furrows into the ground. Careful of his legs, I had to stomp his arm and keep pressure on it as I worked the weapon free of its hilt. Scrambling back out of his reach, I tested the weight of the sword, the second I’d held in as many days, and deliberated over my options.

  I had only one if I wanted time enough to reach the city, reach Rhys, in safety.

  My grip was so tight my fingers went numb. I shut my eyes and spoke a prayer.

  Climbing over the tree a final time, I stood just outside of his reach and lifted his sword. I pictured Rhys. If only I had his strength and his skill…if only I had him here, if only I’d listened.

  Muscles in my arms trembled and burned as I accepted my role as executioner.

  My eyes closed.

  “Lower the sword.”

  I peered into the forest but saw no one. Heady relief threatened to crack me. “Rhys?”

  “Give it to me,” he coaxed by my ear.

  Heat sizzled between us, left me sagging against him, limp and his to command. When he reached around to disarm me, he brushed the dagger, no doubt frozen in place now. Though I’d thought I was numb, I felt that excruciating touch. Tensing my jaw, I caged the raw scream I refused to gift the male at my feet, but a pained whimper escaped through my cracked lips.

  “For all that is merciful.” He’d felt it.

  “It hurts.” It was a stupid thing to say, as though a blade stuck in my side should feel any other way.

  “Gods be damned,” he growled. His warmth left me, and my teeth began chattering. He spun on the male who’d ceased his struggles beneath the tree. “You did this to her.” A ripe curse fell from his mouth as the male acknowledged what he’d done without remorse. Rhys lifted his arm and curled his fingers in a silent signal. His men bled without a sound from the shadows.

  Brackets lined Rhys’s mouth and aged him.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, again stupidly.

  He ignored me in favor of addressing the pinned male. “Trefor, you were warned. Yet you still allowed your flesh addiction to thrive, heedless of the repercussions.” He glanced up, meeting the gazes of his rapt warriors. “Let this serve as a warning to you all. We consume our enemies’ flesh after battle to gain their strength.” He snarled. “We do not kill for sport. Nor do we allow flesh hunger to drive us. When we partake of an enemy, we are asking the two gods for their blessing. Ceremonial offerings are meant to please the gods, not to nourish our bodies.”

  “Rhys—” The fury banked in his gaze stole my voice.

  He continued on as if I hadn’t interrupted him. “Lourdes is mine. A hand raised against her is a challenge leveled against me.” His sight lowered. “Trefor, your addiction bested you.” He lifted the sword he’d taken from me. “You are not the male I once knew.” His voice rang clear. “Punishment for addiction is death. I showed this warrior leniency to the detriment of my female.” He swung the sword, and Trefor’s head tumbled clear from his neck. “It’s not a mistake I will make again.”

  I scrubbed my palms against my coat. I’d thought myself ready to end another life, and while in the heat of Trefor’s pursuit, I would have. His life in exchange for mine, I accepted. What I’d done to Rhys, though…the way his eyes emptied on the blade’s downward swing…

  After wiping the sword clean, he passed it to one of his men and advanced on me. Before his clan, here in the wintry forest, while a body cooled at our feet, I sensed his need to mark me, claim me as his. I steeled my spine, ready for punishment. I deserved no less than his worst for what I’d done.

  His large palms landed with such force upon my shoulders, my knees buckled beneath the weight of them. Leaning in close, I trembled as anise on his breath filled me with his scent. Lips I knew to be soft were ice hard now. His voice lowered. “This is going to hurt.”

  His fangs grazed my throat before he bit down, and my skin punctured on a crisp pop. I cried out as my eyes watered. This was no gentle claiming. This hurt. Rhys’s venom was fire in my veins, his poison a brand that threatened to render me to soot beneath his ravaging mouth.

  When at last he withdrew, he pressed a chaste kiss to the stinging wound. With a grim smile, he opened his palm, and Trefor’s dagger lay there.

  “What a clever male you are,” I said as my eyes rolled back, and the fear etching his handsome face faded to black behind my eyelids.

  All her light—and all his love—may not be enough to hold the nightmares at bay…

  Dust of Dreams

  © 2010 Renee Wildes

  Guardians of Light, Book 4

  Mingling with other races is strictly forbidden, but dream faerie Pryseis has no choice. An innocent goblin child suffers dangerous nightmares, and it should be a simple task to cure him and return to her anxious sisters before the council knows she’s gone.

  Yet there’s a reason a creature of air and sunlight has no business underground. Now in chains, prisoner of an ungrateful goblin sorcerer, Pryseis despairs that anyone will save her. Her only comfort—the memory of a man she can only touch in her dreams.

  Benilo ta Myran, with the reluctant blessing of his elven king and queen, takes up a quest some would call mad, driven by the certain knowledge that the beautiful faerie who invades his dreams is in danger. He carries a terrible secret—war has broken his healing powers—yet he cannot leave her to face the darkness alone.

  The first touch of their flesh surpasses their most erotic dreams, but the nightmare has just begun. There’s the suffering child, and a sorcerer who won’t go down without a fight. And the clock is ticking down for Pryseis, who must return home—or fade away.

  Warning: Beware of wounded bunnies, hungry trolls, low ceilings, glowing mold and goblins bearing gifts. Most of all, beware beautiful faeries and hot elves appearing in your dreams. They may lead you astray…and steal your heart.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Dust of Dreams:

  Pryseis watched the goblins leave the encampment and gave up trying to discern their intended target. Benilo was right. She curled up next to him. They both needed rest. At least she wasn’t alone. He pulled her into his arms, and she ended up half-sprawled across his chest. She stiffened and pulled away. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Does not hurt in the slightest,” he said.

  She felt no deception in his thoughts. And she felt better, surr
ounded by his warmth, his strength. His heart beat under her ear, slow and steady. She went boneless by slow degrees, matching him breath for breath. His scent curled around her, through her. That’s what had been absent afore, in her dream. He’d not felt real, for all they’d shared. Now there was solid warmth, hot male skin scented with sunlit ferns. She toyed with a lock of his hair—unexpected softness, a cascade of light. His calloused fingers caressed her back, and she shivered at the goose bumps that rose in their wake. Unbidden, her mind drifted back to the dream. Her breasts swelled and she flushed, embarrassed as her nipples tightened against him.

  His fingers trailed over the curve of her backside. She tried to squirm away, but Benilo held her still. “Shh, easy, beauty,” he soothed, the brush of his mind in hers seduction itself. “Do not fear me. I would never hurt you.”

  “It wasn’t real,” she denied.

  “But it was, and this is. Look at me.”

  Pryseis was caught in the hypnotic blue power of his gaze. Blue as the mountain sky, hot as the living fires within the earth. Open desire there for her to read, to feel. She gasped, and his eyes darkened. She reached out to trace his lips with her fingers. He captured her hand in his, raising it so he could tease, not her palm, but the sensitive skin of her inner wrist. It caused an unexpected tingle in her breasts, and she whimpered as her nipples tightened further, an almost painful arousal.

  “This is crazy.”

  “The sweetest madness.”

  “Anyone could walk in.”

  “Then we shall have to be quiet.” Benilo rolled over so they lay side by side, raised himself up to nibble along the side of her neck. Her nails tightened on his shoulders when he found a sensitive spot, and he stroked her there with his tongue, suckling on her skin until she whimpered and wriggled closer. He curled a hand around her breast, circling her aching nipple with his thumb, and she gasped in his ear. He shuddered at the sound, and moved to capture her lips with his.

  Pryseis opened to him, taking him deep, savoring the dark, wild taste of him as her tongue tangled with his. Every stroke of his tongue heightened her craving, her need. This was naught like the dream. It was so much more real. She felt herself swelling, softening, kenned he caught the scent of her arousal when he slid his muscled thigh betwixt hers, drew her leg up over his hip. Benilo bent his head to her breast, taking a long pull, teasing her nipple with the rasp of his tongue. She bit her lip to silence the cry that rose. Sweet Mother, how he made her ache!

  “You make me burn, beauty.” He drew her hand down to his erection, pulsing hot and heavy against the fingers she curled around him. His mind was a swirl of hot air, boiling water, pure fire. A chaos of pure need pulled her in until she drowned in sensation. Desire and need. The light of his passion drew her, but instead of burning, she took it in, took him in. It was a magic she’d never kenned, a joining she’d never conceived of. Body and mind. Heart and soul.

  “Dracken rue, beauty, this is as real as it gets.” Benilo sounded desperate as he thrust into Pryseis’ wet, willing body. She held him close, in her heart, in her mind. He surged into her body, again and again, taking them both higher until barriers shattered as the Light swamped them both. “I bind myself to you. Whenever, whatever your need, I shall come to you. To you do I answer with body or blood. My life for yours. My soul to yours, ’til our last breath. Never again shall you be alone. You are mine, in this lifetime and the next. I shall ever be yours, for always. We are one.”

  Pryseis shattered in a splendor of Light, and he took her mouth to silence her cry as she screamed in his mind and pulsed around him. His heart answered her back as he poured himself into her. Solid earth in his muscles, churning water in the trickle of sweat, the blood boiling in the fiery heat of passion, the air in their shared breath, his very life as he succumbed to passion. She took it all in and flew. The cold air of the mountaintops, the Mother’s very breath. The Light settled deep within their souls—sun, moon and stars.

  Her net shone bright. She felt rejuvenated, almost as if she’d drunk from the pool itself. And Benilo…he felt whole. Healed. Balanced.

  He gasped for breath. His eyes widened as he sensed the change in them both. “Lady of Light, what have I done?”

  “Umm…I think you healed us both.” She grinned. “Interesting technique, healer.”

  “It is more than that. Give it a moment.” He looked wild and a little desperate as he took her hand and placed it against his stomach. “What do you feel?”

  “Your skin under my hand.” She stroked her hand across his stomach, and she flinched as she struck a ticklish spot—on her own side. It was as if she felt her own touch. Her heart pounded in her ear—with his trepidation. “Wait…”

  He reached out to run his fingers through her hair, and she shuddered as the silken strands slid across her knuckles. “Stop it! What did you do?” Pryseis hissed, trying to keep her voice at a whisper. “Get out of my mind.”

  “I cannot.” His voice was grim. His face, grimmer still. “I found a way to heal us, aye. But the only way to do so was to open up to the elements—and each other. I found a way for you to take my energy—by binding us together. As life mates.”

  She felt him in her heart, in her blood. In her mind. The words of the vow came back to her, blessed by the Mother. Permanent. Irreversible. “I don’t believe this!”

  “It was not what I intended to do at all,” he defended himself. “I did not even intend to kiss you.”

  “Don’t you blame me for this!”

  “I do not, but I believe there was a higher power involved.” He glared at her. “Without the pool, you would have died, Pryseis. I remember that much of my lessons. Faeries do not survive without a direct infusion of elemental energy. I can give you that. As much as you need, as often as you need.”

  His conviction burned in her chest. His pure intentions. He hadn’t intended to bind them together, but it was the only way to do what they both needed doing. He’d needed healing as much as she had. And with the sharing, they were both stronger. She tried to recall what she kenned of elven life mates. They kenned what each other felt, thought. No secrets. No privacy.

  “No loneliness,” he whispered. “Total support. A passion that just grows hotter with time…and practice…with a partner who kens what you need almost afore you need it.”

  She shivered at his words, at the way his gaze dropped to her breasts. She could almost feel his mouth on her, there…

  He groaned, and she felt her body—his body—tighten in response. “Careful, beauty.”

  “Well, you missed one. ’Tis feeling neglect-ed.” The last part of the word was all but a squeak as he captured her nipple betwixt his lips. She felt the pull of it betwixt her thighs.

  “So sweet…” She caught Benilo’s thought, the wonder of her silken skin sliding against his body. She felt her tightly puckered nipple on her own tongue and panicked at the momentary disorientation.

  “Easy, beauty.” Benilo was right there with her. “Do not focus on you, or me. Just go with the feeling, the sensations. It is us.”

  It was like the dream, but a hundredfold more intense. Wonder and awe, softness and hard strength, drowning in fiery need. She rained kisses down his stomach, no longer hesitating at the trail of flame that flickered across her own skin. He stroked betwixt her wet swollen folds, and she felt the hot cream coating her fingers. She ached to be buried in all that softness, feel all that hot, wet tightness squeezing around her. She took him in her hand, in her mouth, and the exquisite agony of her tongue circling the sensitive head of an organ she didn’t even have almost made her shatter then and there.

  “Do it.” His voice was rough, almost harsh, in her mind. He spun her about so she straddled his face. He buried his head betwixt her thighs, his tongue probing for the sensitive bud hidden in her folds. Embarrassment warred with excruciating arousal. “Do not hold back.” His need for the wet heat of her mouth, the intoxicating taste of her on his tongue, drove her to take him into her
mouth, tracing the engorged vein that ran along the underside of his shaft. She moved on his mouth, rubbing against his tongue.

  “Mmph!” Pryseis jerked as he suckled that bud into a point of pure fire and she shattered over him. Relaxing her mouth, she took him deeper, down her throat.

  Benilo, too, was beyond words, at the wet heat of her tongue, stroking, pressing. She sucked him down, squeezed around him, and his body erupted. She started, gagged and then swallowed. The second shock of pleasure at that action all but knocked him senseless.

  Heart of Flame

  Janine Ashbless

  And on the One-Thousand-and-Second night, Scheherazade told this story…

  By day, Taqla uses her forbidden sorcery to move freely about the city of Damascus in the guise of an old sage. Her true identity known only by her faithful servant woman, Taqla is content with the comfortable, if restrictive, life that keeps her safe from the control of any man. Until she lays eyes on a handsome merchant-traveler. Suddenly her magical disguise doesn’t rest so easily on her shoulders.

  When long-time widower, Rafiq, hears that the Amir’s beautiful daughter has been kidnapped by a scheming djinni—and that she will be given in marriage to her rescuer—he seeks the help of “Umar the Wise” to ensure he will be that man. Yet as he and the disguised Taqla set off, he senses that his prickly male companion is hiding something.

  In a moment of dire peril, all of Taqla’s secrets are stripped bare—her fears, her sorcery and, worst of all, her love for Rafiq. Yet the princess’s life hangs in the balance, and there is no running away or turning back. Even though passion may yet betray them all...

  Warning: Scary monsters and creepy ruins in the desert—check. Pagan gods that demand blood-sacrifices—double check. A handsome hero who looks good in a robe and even better out of it—oh yeah. Check, check and check. That’s worth a heroine dropping a veil or two.