Guardian of the Storm

by Kaitlyn O’Connor

  A thrill of excitement went through Tempest. “They know about traveling to other worlds?”

  He nodded. “They have told of many strange things, some that we don’t understand. It is the Keepers of the Memory who told of the prophesy. The coming of the star people was the first sign. My birth the second. Even now the stars begin to align for the great darkness, which we were told comes but once in a thousand years. That will be the final sign. Before that, I must find the Storm. Together we are to find the secret valley where lies the temple Zoe built to summon the waters, to cleanse Niah and return the world to a place of growing things.”

  Tempest frowned thoughtfully. “It’s some sort of emergency plan. That must be it!” She glanced back at the building they’d just left. “I don’t suppose you know how to read?”

  From his expression it was clear enough he had no idea what she was talking about, but she grasped his arm and led him back to the statue, pointing at the plaque. “Do you know what that says?”

  His brows rose. He squatted to look at it more closely, studying it. “I have seen these signs before. Not exactly like these, but similar.”

  “It’s the written word,” Tempest said, trying to tamp her disappointment. “Maybe not your language, but a language that was once spoken on this world. Each sign represents a word, or a part of a word.”

  Kiran shook his head and rose, staring up at the statue. He should have felt surprise, he supposed, but he did not. His heart quickened as he studied the image captured of Tempest in stone. Certainty settled inside of him but no surprise. He had been given a sign, he realized. He had simply chosen to ignore it.

  He was not certain if it was his desires that had blinded him, or it if was simply a reluctance to accept that there would be no great revelation. He thought it was possible that his hunger for Tempest had distracted him. However, he realized that it was his own expectations that the prophesy would unfold with a great burst of wondrous magic that had truly blinded him.

  It was not the Mordune who were wrong. It was he who had refused to see and accept what was right before his eyes all the while.

  He had gone to find the Storm and he had found her as foretold, but he had expected a goddess and had refused to accept the little Earthling as anything more than a nuisance.

  He did not want to accept it now, he realized. “It is your image.”

  “It just seems to be,” Tempest objected, “because the Mordune dressed me to look like the statue.”

  Kiran glanced at her and shook his head, feeling absolute certainty settle inside of him. “The face is yours. And, at her feet, the grat you call Kirry.”

  An uneasiness crept over Tempest. “It’s just a coincidence.”

  “It is the prophesy. I refused to accept that you were the Storm, even when you told me—even when I saw that the grat obeyed you as if it knew you—because I had expected that the Storm would be a warrior.”

  “A lot of weird coincidences—look, you were looking for signs, because of what you’ve been taught to believe. Just because some of the things that have happened could be interpreted as part of the prophesy, doesn’t mean they really are part of it.”

  “You bear the sign.”

  “I didn’t until I stepped into that damned machine!” Tempest said irritably, rubbing the wound at the reminder, although it had ceased to sting and throb.

  Kiran looked up at the statue, feeling the beginnings of defeat churning his stomach even while a part of him rejoiced that Tempest was only a mortal as he was, no goddess. “How can an unbeliever bring life to our world?”

  Tempest bit her lip, feeling her excitement wane at the look of … defeat she saw his face. “Look, I never said I didn’t believe. At least, I think its gotten all garbled in all the time that’s passed. Whatever happened on this world, your ancestors must have devised a plan to help repair the damage. Maybe they left, expecting to return later and reclaim Niah. Maybe they were the star people referred to? Not us.”

  She took his hand. “Let’s go back inside. Maybe we can find something that will explain what needs to be done?”

  Kiran looked doubtful, but he didn’t object. It wasn’t until Tempest was inside that another thought occurred to her.

  The symbol on Kiran’s leg, and now her hip, was important enough that it had been genetically encoded into the gene pool—or at least Kiran’s line—as insurance. It must be some sort of security code to gain access to important information. She wasn’t certain how, or even why, she’d been able to activate the machine that had burned one into her own flesh, but she knew that must be the purpose of it. Tugging at his arm, she led him to one of the doors she’d been unable to open earlier, pushing at him until he was standing directly in front of it.

  When nothing happened, she twitched the flap of his loincloth aside.

  An audible click made both of them jump. Tempest chuckled with triumph when she turned and saw that the door had been released. Pushing on it, she grabbed Kiran’s hand and led him inside as the lights overhead flickered on. There was disappointingly little to see for all that, but Tempest refused to be daunted. She checked the virtually empty room thoroughly anyway before moving on to the next.

  If nothing else, she’d proven, to herself at least, that the mark was a security code of some kind and that it would give them access to areas that had once been deemed important. It had to be the key to the ‘prophesy’ that was so important to Kiran and she was determined to find answers for him if she could.

  In the end, despite Tempest’s determination, they found nothing of any significance to either of them. They discovered a room filled with maps, but since neither of them were able to understand the markings, they could tell little about them. It might have been maps of different areas of Niah, or some other world.

  Kiran said little throughout the search. Tempest was too involved with her own thoughts, and finding answers, to think much about it.

  Finally, tired and disheartened, she returned to the great hall. Kiran was standing with his back to the fountain, looking up at the ceiling. She studied him for several moments, trying to decide what he must be thinking, how he must be feeling.

  Guilt swamped her with the sudden realization that she had been so caught up in her excitement over the discovery that she hadn’t spared more than a moment for how devastating this would be for him—His whole religion, his society, had been built around misconceptions and half truths.

  How would she feel?

  She tried to imagine it, but failed. In a way, she supposed it would be something like she’d felt when she discovered her safe world wasn’t safe at all, that something invisible to the eye had breached their security and killed them all before they even realized they were dead. She supposed he must feel as she had when everything that had been a part of her world had been snatched away in the blink of an eye, leaving her to try to figure out how to go on when she had no one to show her or tell her how she was supposed to manage it.

  It didn’t matter that most of her excitement had been because she thought she could figure out how to make the ‘prophesy’ come true, because it was so important to him … because she desperately wanted to help him.

  She had shattered his beliefs and she couldn’t even justify it by making everything come out right.

  As if he suddenly became aware of her presence, he turned slowly to face her. His face was devoid of expression and Tempest felt a flicker of alarm. She moved toward him, wrapping her arms around his waist. “I’m sorry. I only wanted to help. I’ve messed everything up, haven’t I?”

  It comforted her when, after only a fractional hesitation, he wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly. “You have done what you were destined to do. You have done no harm.”

  The alarm of before resurfaced and Tempest pushed a little away from him, looking up at him. “But … there is no magic here! It’s science—lost to your world, but still science.”

  Kiran smiled faintly and lifted one hand to stroke her
cheek with his fingers. “I do understand, Tempest. I know the star children believe that all Niahians are backwards savages …. I understand that we lost much knowledge …. But we do not lack intelligence.”

  Tempest blushed despite her best effort not to. “I didn’t mean that!” she said, knowing it was a lie. They had felt so superior, despite their plight. And she’d thought they were right, the Niahians were savages. She hadn’t realized that, in truth, the colonists were no better off at all. They still had some of the knowledge that the Niahians had lost, but cut off as they were, they had been destined to regress just as the Niahians had, destined to reach the point where they had exhausted all that they had and could focus on nothing but surviving.

  Kiran released a ragged sigh, stroking her hair. “Fire hair. I have never seen hair this color. It was said that the Storm would have hair of fire.” And that she was meant for him. He was to join with the Storm on the altar in the temple of Zoe.

  He had wrestled endlessly with his growing desire for her, made more difficult by the longing he had seen in her eyes when he had, as he’d thought, foolishly yielded to the need to touch her if only briefly in a kiss. He had struggled against the possessiveness that had taken root and grown in him even before he’d consciously acknowledged that he wanted her for himself and would allow none other to have her regardless of his constant assurance to himself that he only meant to take her to someone who would care for her.

  “But....”

  “There is magic here,” he murmured, leaning toward her and brushing his lips lightly across hers. “When the doors to the Temple swung open and I saw you here, by the water, I knew it … even though I had never truly believed before.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Kiran’s lips felt like magic as he brushed them lightly back and forth across hers. Tempest’s eyes slid shut. Consciousness burrowed to the back of her mind with little more than a whimper of protest. Her breath caught in her chest.

  It was as if electricity arched from him, reaching down inside of her to set fire to the blood in her veins. Dimly, she recalled that she had lectured herself about the wisdom of yielding to him. It flickered through her mind that what she wanted was probably dangerous in ways she couldn’t begin to imagine, but her mind and body only acknowledged that this was something she wanted.

  Briefly, his hard mouth melded with her own, clung for a fraction of a heartbeat. Tempest released the breath she’d been holding in a rush as he drew back slightly to look down at her. With an effort, she opened her eyes to look up at him, wondering if he’d been as affected as she had.

  His face was taut with restraint. His eyes gleamed with a mixture of need and doubt.

  She realized he was waiting—to see if she would deny what she’d felt as she had before?

  Like a flock of noisy birds, thoughts flooded through her mind, the voice of reason clashing with the demon of want. His arms slackened around her, holding her loosely, allowing her to know that he would release her the instant he saw rejection in her eyes.

  Doubt assailed her. Disappointment warred with a sense of relief.

  She realized she’d wanted him to flood her senses so thoroughly that she couldn’t think, didn’t have to, so that she could excuse herself if she decided later that she’d made the wrong choice.

  He wasn’t going to give her the coward’s way out. He was demanding that she make her choice, now, based solely on her feelings toward him. Frowning slightly, she dropped her gaze to his chest. As she did, she felt him withdraw, not just physically, but emotionally.

  Sensing that he would withdraw far away, fearful of losing her only chance, she placed one hand on his chest, just above his heart. It thudded reassuringly against her palm, hard and fast with the feelings he hid. Her own heart echoed that painful song of desire and fear. Abruptly, certainty settled inside of her, bringing a sense of peace. Whatever their differences, and despite her inexperience, she knew they felt much the same.

  She moved closer, burrowing her face against his chest, above his pounding heart, closing her eyes and welcoming the sense of being enveloped by his warmth and his scent. He sucked in a shuddering breath as she pressed her lips to his skin, flicked her tongue out to taste the saltiness of his flesh. His hands tightened almost painfully at her waist as she rose up on tiptoe, nibbling a path of kisses and playful bites along his chest to his throat.

  A tremor went through Kiran that was part desire, part relief, and partly the effort to hold his desire in check at her tentative exploration. Bending his head, he buried his face against the side of her neck and breathed deeply of her, felt dizziness assail him with a hard rush of desire that engorged his cock. His desire for her had tormented him so long that his mind threatened to shut down altogether as a red haze of madness descended. He could think of little beyond the nearly overwhelming urge to push her to the floor and thrust inside of her until his seed exploded forth, filling her with himself, claiming her for his own.

  Anxiety found a tiny foothold in his fogged brain, however, as he tightened his arms around her and felt the delicacy of her form. Her frailty both fascinated and alarmed him. It made him feel protective and at the same time, huge and clumsy and fearful that he would damage her if he lost control.

  He pushed her a little away from him, gulping in deep breaths of air as he struggled to tamp the fire that threatened to engulf him. As he did so, however, he felt her mouth glide across his cheek, seeking his in mute appeal. The rush of her breath from her own desire sent a fresh flood of need through him. Mindless in his need, he covered her mouth with his own, felt his entire being focus upon the point where their bodies met and melded. Desperate for the taste of her, he raked his tongue along her lips, pushed them apart as he imagined parting the soft petals of her woman’s flesh between her legs, and thrust his tongue inside the hot, moist interior of her mouth in a desperate prelude to the merging he was trying to hold in check until he felt she was ready for him.

  Tempest moaned in pleasure at the shock of sensation that flooded her with his invasion. Slipping her hands up his shoulders, she held on tightly as she went up on her tiptoes to press herself fully against him. She felt his arms tighten reflexively around her. In the next moment, he released the vice-like hold. A hand settled at her waist and then she felt the skate of one callused hand along her back, moving restlessly from her neck, down her spine to the waistband of the garment she wore, slipping past it and cupping her buttocks, squeezing. As if impatient to feel her skin, the hand moved upward again and then down once more, this time his fingers delving beneath the thin fabric even as his tongue moved restlessly over the sensitive flesh of her mouth.

  He broke the kiss abruptly, set her away from him.

  Shaken, Tempest opened her eyes with an effort, stared at him in confusion.

  He scrubbed his hands over his face. They were shaking, she saw. He was breathing hard, fighting to regain control of himself.

  “Why did you stop?”

  “I can’t do this,” he said harshly.

  The words sent a shaft of hurt through her. “You don’t want me?” she asked in confusion.

  A look of anguish crossed his features. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said tightly.

  Tempest was more confused than ever. Did he mean wound her emotionally? Was he saying he feared she would become attached?

  Would she?

  “Too late,” she muttered, trying to keep her chin from wobbling. If he’d left that very first day instead of forcing his way into her life, she might have been spared, but from the moment he’d pulled her close to him to share his warmth he’d bound her to him as surely as if she’d been chained to him.

  That was why she’d welcomed the news that there were other survivors from the colony, because she’d told herself they would be her salvation from pain. He so obviously didn’t want her in his life. He desired her, at least a little. She knew that, but she also knew he hadn’t had a great deal of trouble ignoring his instincts. Surely he woul
dn’t have been able to wield that much control if he’d really wanted her?

  It must be her inexperience, she decided. Knowledge without experience only took one so far. She wasn’t skilled enough to drive him past the point of resistance.

  If she hadn’t been so enthralled with the sensations he was creating inside of her she would’ve realized she wasn’t enthralling him.

  She bit her lip, trying to control her chaotic emotions. His taste lingered, however, and it only made matters worse. Shivering as the heat of passion abruptly abandoned her, Tempest crossed her arms and, suddenly embarrassed by her own loss of control, turned away. A knot of misery gathered in her throat and she swallowed convulsively against it, trying to dislodge it. She cleared her throat, looking around at the room blindly while she tried to think of something off hand to say. “It’s alright,” she murmured to herself. “I’m not hurt.” It was a lie, of course, but she thought if she said it to herself enough she could begin to believe it.

  She heard movement behind her and stiffened, half afraid he’d leave, half fearing he would approach her. Then she felt his warmth behind her, the touch of his hand on her waist. She twisted away from his touch, took a couple of steps before she turned. “Don’t,” she said sharply, then forced herself to take a deep, calming breath. “Just … don’t.”

  His face hardened. “I only want to protect you.”

  Tempest swallowed with an effort. She wasn’t really interested in hearing his reasons. “From what?”

  “From me.”

  She gave him a look. “How noble of you,” she muttered, trying without much success to keep a note of sarcasm out of her voice.

  He strode toward her, gripping her upper arms almost painfully. Tempest winced and he released her abruptly. “You are so small, so frail. When I touch you I cannot think and if I can not think, I have no control. I’m afraid I’ll hurt you.”

  Tempest stared up at him in surprise. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might be afraid she’d break .... Perhaps because she’d never doubted that he wouldn’t hurt her on purpose? Or, maybe he wasn’t afraid of breaking her bones with his strength and weight as he was that her body was too small to accommodate his serpent?