Prince of Fire

by Linda Winstead Jones

  Sex with Joryn was like the dreams and yet it was also unlike her fantasies. This act was genuine and powerful, and it went far beyond a simple easing of need. Her entire body was involved, and she felt very much like she did when the change to wolf came to her. Tension in her body rippled and shook, as if lightning flashed in her blood, and the heat… the heat was beyond anything she had ever known or expected. Her breath would not come, and her body reached for Joryn’s with a fierce desperation she had not expected. She not only wanted him, she needed him.

  She opened her eyes and looked up into his face. He moved faster now, and so did she. Completion was just out of reach, teasing her, guiding her moves and the way she clutched at Joryn. Her legs rose up higher and encircled his back, and he drove deep to touch a place that had, until this moment, been untouched.

  Fire warmed and reddened his eyes, but Keelia was not alarmed. She saw, out of the corners of her eyes, flames dancing on air all around their joined bodies. She did not care. Nothing mattered but the motion of his body and hers, the pleasure that danced just out of reach…

  Completion came with a crack of her body and a scream that was torn from her lips. Joryn’s release came on top of hers, and the heat increased inside and around her. Maybe he would turn her to ashes by making love to her. At the moment, she would gladly trade her life for ashes in exchange for an experience like this one.

  Keelia began to relax, to catch her breath once again. She opened her eyes to find Joryn staring down at her, his eyes red with fire. Flame on the air still danced around them in the tight confines of the cave. Not everywhere, but enough to light the dark cave as if it were daytime and they were warmed by the sun. She smiled, but Joryn did not.

  “Outside,” he said, rising up from her languid body with an unnecessary swiftness.

  “But it’s still raining.”

  He took her hand and hauled her to her feet, and then guided her very quickly to the cave’s small entrance. They walked past the fire he had created and into the night.

  The rain shower felt good on her overheated skin. Keelia closed her eyes and lifted her face to the rain, spinning about in pure joy. Joryn did not dance. He stood in the downpour with his arms out and his palms up. After a moment of no movement at all, Keelia danced to him. “You did not tell me that you lose control of your gift when you have sex.” She laid her hands on his naked chest, splayed her fingers, and leaned into him.

  He said nothing, and when he looked ather, the fire in his eyes was dimmed. Almost gone.

  Finally he said, “Perhaps I did lose control, but I was not alone.”

  “I did scream rather loudly, didn’t I?” Keelia was too satisfied to think of anything but what she and Joryn had just shared. They had troubles aplenty, and tomorrow they would have to deal with them again. But not tonight. Not now.

  Joryn turned slowly and presented to her his back. Four long gashes marred his perfect, muscled skin, and Keelia gasped. “I did that?”

  “Yes.”

  “With my … claws?”

  “Yes.”

  He had already begun to heal, and Keelia placed one finger against a recently healed gash. In her dreams she never lost control, but this was not a dream, and Joryn had aroused her to a place she had not expected. “I’m sorry.” She kissed a just-healed wound, and then licked the skin. “I’m so sorry. I might’ve hurt you.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “But I might’ve—”

  “I don’t care, Keelia. I swear, right now I don’t care about anything but the way you make me feel.”

  She rested one palm against a very nice, rain-slick butt cheek, and circled the other around to discover that Joryn was growing hard once again. She stroked, and pressed her breasts against his back. The scratches she had made with claws she had not known she’d unsheathed continued to heal.

  He was the one. Joryn, a Caradon, was her mate, the man who was destined to be hers until the day they died. He was hers for a lifetime, and given the circumstances, that lifetime might not be a very long one. Shouldn’t she make the best of it, whether he believed they were meant to be or not? The rain poured over her as she touched and stroked, as she tried to memorize every edge, every curve, every dip and muscle.

  The storm was forgotten as Joryn turned and lifted her into his strong arms. Her arms went around his neck, her legs snaked around his waist.

  How could he deny that they were meant to be? She was tempted to offer him her rain-dampened throat here and now, but it would not be right for a Queen to make such an offer first, no matter how she felt at this incredible moment. No, when the time came, Joryn would offer her his throat, and she would take it. Only then could she offer him her own.

  So she took his wet hair in her hands and kissed him deeply, in a much more human offer of supplication. He entered her once more and, with the rain pelting their bare bodies, set new sensations into play.

  *

  8

  Joryn didn’t tell Keelia that he’d never before lost control while engaged in sex. It was easy to evade the subject when it came up, as she was easily distracted once they became lovers. One touch, and she dismissed everything else from her mind. Once he took her mouth, all questions were forgotten.

  He continued to diligently set aside the preposterous notion that he and the Anwyn Queen were meant to be mates. When the battle they were destined to fight together was over, if they won—and he was not turned into a soulless monster—she would return to her people and her City, and he would return to his studies and his freedom. There were many other females who would make fine lovers in the future. Perhaps they would not be so beautiful, or so enthusiastic, or so valiant. Perhaps they would not call his fire to the surface, as Keelia did.

  Perhaps they would be boring and uninspiring and forgettable, but he would have his freedom.

  There were less than two weeks until the next full moon, and they had not yet found the Caradon wizard who possessed the stone which must be destroyed. Keelia led the way as if she knew where she was going, but in truth she was moving forward with only her admittedly impaired magical senses to guide her. His life was literally in her hands, and he followed her without question.

  And he wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t in his nature to follow anyone mindlessly. Joryn questioned everything; he trusted no one.

  They left the forest behind and moved upward on a rocky slope. He did not know where they might sleep tonight, or if they would sleep at all. For the past three nights they had not slept much. They napped when rest was necessary, but since the night of the storm they had not truly slept. They had found a better way to pass die night.

  Keelia reached a plateau and stopped. Again, Joryn could not help but think that she looked very much like a Queen, in spite of her travel-weary state. With the blue sky above and beyond her and the majestic mountains beneath her feet, she looked like Queen of the world.

  At first he thought she’d stopped for a moment’s rest, but when she turned to face him, her expression was one of puzzlement and concern. “I’m not sure which way to go,” she said softly. “There are two possible routes from this point, but I can’t see clearly which is the right path.”

  “Will they both lead us to the wizard?”

  “Yes.”

  ‘Then what difference does it make?”

  She paled. “One will get us to his cave in time. The other will not.”

  Joryn nodded. He had accepted death the moment he’d been bitten. True, he did not want to die, but if it was meant to be, then there was nothing he could do to save himself.

  He could save his soul, however. “Remember your promise.”

  Keelia’s hands balled into fists. “As if I could forget! That damned promise is on my mind night and day, and I wonder if I can make myself do what you have asked me to do if it becomes necessary.”

  “If I am cursed to become a monster and you do not kill me, then you not only betray me by breaking your promise, you doom me to live out my life a
s a soulless beast. Remember that if you question again what must be done.”

  She did not cry, but her lower lip trembled. She fought tears, with her jaw rigid and her lips thinned.

  “You need rest.” He took her arm and led her to a rock outcropping, where he forced her to sit. “When you have regained your energy, you will know which path we should take.”

  She nodded, but her expression was less than certain. “I do not wish to think about failure at this moment.”

  “Neither do I,” Joryn agreed.

  “We will find the wizard and destroy the stone before the next full moon.” She bobbed her head decisively.

  “You command it,” Joryn said with a smile.

  “I do,” she said seriously. And then she smiled a little.

  He sat beside her, and Keelia laid her head in his lap. She made herself comfortable in a place that should be very uncomfortable, and sighed. “Maybe I just need a quick nap. Til doze off, and when I wake, the correct path will be clear to me.”

  “Yes.” With his fingers, Joryn brushed Keelia’s tangled red hair away from her face.

  “After I have a nap, if the way is not evident, then we will have sex. Sometimes an orgasm clears my mind.”

  “Really? It befuddles the hell out of mine.”

  She turned her head so she could look him in the eye. “Ah, does our sexual union make you question the lightness of our bond? Do you wonder if perhaps I am right and we are truly mated in a manner which goes beyond what you have accepted as true?”

  Yes.

  “No” he said firmly, even though his mind whispered otherwise.

  “Then we will not speak of it again. Today.” With her head resting on his thigh, she boldly teased him, her hand tracing and cupping the erection beneath his strained trousers. “Do you know it is said that there are none more sensual than Anwyn Queens?”

  “Oddly enough, I never heard that from a Caradon,” he teased, though in truth, he could not deny that he had never met another like her.

  She was not offended. “Until I met you, until we became lovers, I thought I was doomed to be different, as I am in so many other ways. I thought I would be a virgin Queen, never to know a real man’s touch, never to know what it’s like to be so caught up in true ecstasy that the rest of the world fades away.” She licked her lips. “Never to know the touch of my mate.”

  “I am not…”

  He sometimes forgot how strong she was. Her size and build were deceiving. But when she forced him onto his back and straddled him, he was reminded.

  “If I found you in the company of another woman, I would have her beheaded.”

  “Beheaded? Isn’t that a little harsh?”

  “Not when it comes to the sanctity of a Queen’s mate.”

  “I am not…” He stopped suddenly and squinted at her. She looked so sweet and beautiful, but she was the Anwyn Queen. “How many people have you had beheaded?”

  She pursed her lips for a moment, then answered, “None, but it is within my rights to so order if I deem it necessary.”

  “And if I desired another woman, you would do so.”

  “Yes.” She squirmed against his hips, rubbing her body against his erection, and he knew there would be no sleep for her or for him. Not for a while. “If I desired another male to please me, would you not order his death if it was within your power to do so? Think before you answer, Joryn. Do you, in any part of your heart, consider me to be yours?”

  Unfortunately, he did.

  Fortunately, he knew how to end Keelia’s probing questions without answering them.

  *

  On horseback, with a smile on his face, Ciro watched from the end of a narrow dirt-packed street as his Own rushed into the sleeping village. Weapons raised, screams bloodcurdling, they descended on the simple wooden houses with a mindless fury. He had made them wait for this moment, insisting that they march slowly onward, insisting that they not rush carelessly from one village to another. Their first attack had been weeks earlier, and since that time they’d grown stronger. More of his Own had been called to join him, and tiiose who had once been farmers or merchants or beggars were becoming a fine army. His legion.

  Tonight they were hungry, and there was nothing more fearsome than Ciro’s Own when they were hungry. The villagers wouldn’t have a chance. They’d awaken from their sleep to find warriors of a sort they had never imagined hovering over their soon-to-be dead bodies.

  They would bring him what he needed, when a portion of their fury had been sated. They would bring him a woman, preferably. Someone young and tender and not entirely innocent. He would take her blood and her soul, and then he would be stronger.

  Diella dismounted and walked down the middle of the street. The former empress, caught in the body that had once belonged to an almost innocent girl, held a short sword in one hand. It swung there comfortably, and more than a little restlessly. She was ready to do battle with the first villager who crossed her path.

  Ciro closed his eyes as the first shouts rose. When he concentrated, he could see what was happening through the eyes of his Own. He could see through Diella’s eyes when he wished. For now, he tapped into the one consciousness that connected his Own. He saw and felt the excitement and blood lust of all the soldiers as they prepared to slaughter the villagers in their beds. He did not see all, but images flitted through his mind, hazy and quick. More than the images, he felt the frenzy of his soulless Own. He felt their collective hunger.

  It was rather like sex, he decided, to be so completely and totally joined. There was a rush of emotion, a surge of pleasure. Yes, this was good.

  Unexpectedly, Ciro felt a slash of pain in his midsection. One of his soldiers had been stabbed, Ciro’s fury rose to the surface. In a fair battle there was always a possibility that one or two soldiers would get sloppy and be harmed, but this was not a fair battle, and he could not stand to lose even one soldier before he marched on Arthes. Not even one.

  Another of his Own cried out in pain, and Ciro felt that agony in his lower back, as if a sharp knife had slipped deep into his flesh. And then another… this time across the throat. In the midst of the pain, Ciro saw a flash of something that stole the last of his contentment.

  Green. Not just any shade, but a sentinel’s green. His father’s soldiers were here.

  Resistance came not only from the soldiers, but from the villagers themselves. They’d been waiting … waiting … for Ciro and his Own to arrive. These villagers were not caught unaware, as the others had been. They were well armed and prepared for battle, as much as suchr simple people could be.

  Simple people taught and led by die emperor’s soldiers.

  When the pain became too much, Ciro disconnected from his Own. Some of his soldiers were running toward him, escaping the battle they had not been prepared to fight. They’d come to this village in order to slaughter uie unsuspecting in their beds, not take up something resembling armed combat.

  Diella swung her short sword at a man dressed in brown when he tried to hit her on the head with a sturdy length of wood, missing her head by inches. She did not miss when she lashed out with the sword, and the man dropped.

  Villagers fell here and there, and so did Ciro’s Own. His soldiers had no souls, they were willing to do anything he asked of them, but they were not the finest of fighters. If determination alone were enough, they would be sufficient, but they needed skill. They needed proper training.

  Half a dozen of his Own placed themselves between the resistors and their lord and master, protecting Ciro—who needed protection much less than they did. Since the demon had taken possession of more of him, he had become almost indestructible. Wounds didn’t hurt him, and they healed quickly. The blood he shed was no more than an annoyance.

  If they separated his head from his heart, he imagined that would do him in for good, but nothing else would kill him. No, the Isen Demon would survive in this body it had taken.

  One quick sentinel fought his way pas
t the protective soldiers on Ciro’s left. It would be easy to turn and run, since Ciro was on horseback and the sentinel was on foot, but the prince did not run from anything. He waited as the sentinel struck down one soldier and then another before breaking through the guard and rushing toward Ciro.

  Ciro’s lack of movement or resistance gave the sentinel false hopes. The lad rushed fearlessly forward and thrust his sword upward, trying to pierce the rebellious prince’s gut with the end of his long blade.

  Ciro caught the tip in his hand and halted the process, catching the sentinel by surprise. Blood seeped from between Ciro’s fingers, but he felt no pain. He whipped the sword away, and then reached down to grab the sentinel by his green shirt.

  The sentinel tried to fight, but Ciro touched the lad’s mind with his own and ordered compliance. Relax. Come to me. You are mine now.

  It was no effort at all to take what he needed.

  He did not taste the soul and blood of a young woman as he had originally intended, but the young man who died an ugly death atop Ciro’s horse sufficed. His skin was tougher, his blood not so sweet, but Ciro was nourished.

  The sentinel’s body discarded, Ciro called his Own and ordered them to retreat. He could not afford to lose another soldier. He had already lost too many on this night, and he needed to be as strong as possible when he marched on Arthes to take the throne from his father.

  He sent the assigned meeting place into the minds of his Own, then turned and led his horse into the darkness.

  In moments, Diella joined him, once again riding her own horse. “That was a disaster,” she exclaimed.

  “Yes. Yes it was.” Ciro’s voice remained low and calm.

  “They were waiting for us. They knew we were coming. How?”

  There was no way they could’ve known that he would choose that particular village on this particular night. No, it wasn’t possible.

  “I would suspect they’ve prepared every village between here and Arthes for possible attack.”