by Faith Hunter
“Why’s that?”
“Did you notice we haven’t seen any spawn? We’re probably very close to the surface.”
“Hmm. You’re right. Without their leader, they don’t seem particularly brave. I never did figure out why the mule wanted us for breeding.”
“I’m not sure either,” I said. “He mentioned something about having a debt to pay to his master. That was after they’d taken—”
“Do you smell that?”
I turned my head, looking in the direction the kylen was pointing. “No . . .”
“The sweet smell of the winter air—it’s freedom,” he said, indicating a section of stone wall a few feet above us, no different than any of the rest. “The surface is there, mage.”
“Give me a boost,” I said.
He knelt, offering me his knee to step up on, and handed me his club.
I stood on his leg, grasping at the rough stone to steady me. His strong hands held my thighs, and my breath caught in my throat.
“Are you all right?” he asked, sensing me tense.
I didn’t respond, my voice stolen by the intensity of the desire flooding my body.
Once I had my balance, he released the grip on my legs, and I felt creation energy build at my back. A brisk winter air whispered and then whistled through cracks between the stones. Pebbles fell to the ground and I could hear the larger stones groaning as they strained in place.
I stuck the end of the club into the widest crack. Using it as a lever, I pulled with both my hands. My strength and the kylen’s conjure set the stones free, and I fell as the rock gave way taking my handhold with it, landing in a heap of kylen and stone.
“We did it!” he said, as he stood and pulled me to my feet.
“Why didn’t you do that before?” I asked, hands on my hips.
He just shrugged. “I’m weakened down here—the stone, the stale air—it’s too much. Just like you and your salty sea spray, your sister and her moonlight. But that sweet taste of the fresh air—it renewed me. And now I want more. Let’s go!”
Using the fallen stone as makeshift stairs, we climbed up toward the surface and out of the hellhole.
We emerged into the end of a day, the sun descending through a watercolor sky. I stopped, transfixed by the fiery globe. I could smell salt in the air. “Race you,” I said, as I took off toward the shore, mage fast. I smiled as I ran, dodging tree limbs, my feet trying to match the speed of my thoughts. Thoughts of the kylen, his strong, tanned body, his voice both a whisper and a scream, his hand in mine—thoughts of Betta, her form in the dream, finally at peace.
I closed my eyes for just a moment as I ran, feeling the call of the sea pulling me forward as I raced toward the edge of the woods.
The forest’s edge broke and the kylen swooped in, grabbing me before I could run off the edge of the cliff. He pulled me to him, his body warm and strong at my back. I twisted in the kylen’s arms and looked up at him. The sun had set completely, and his face was lit by the first light of the rising moon.
I clung to him as we glided out over the ocean, his wings carrying us through the salt air. I wrapped my legs around his, and felt the sea’s power surge, igniting the mage heat, my body barely able to contain it. Waves crashed against the rocks below, and he set me down on the sandy shore, only yards from the rising tide. The sea spray tickled my face. I still held onto him. He looked down at me, eyes the deep blue of the Pacific. I raised up on tiptoes to meet his lips. Smooth as satin and tender as a young lamb. He kissed me. I melted into him and sighed.
“What’s your name, kylen?” I whispered, my face close to his.
“Ezekiel.” His eyes, heavy-lidded and growing darker with lust, sparkled in the moonlight.
“I’m Piper,” I said as his lips met mine again. I tangled my fingers in his hair and breathed a sigh of relief against his lips.
I broke from the kiss and pulled back. He smiled, just a slight draw of the corner of his mouth. I was safe. I was alive. I had defeated a Darkness. And . . . I was in biiiig trouble.
MELISSA McARTHUR is a master swordswoman, a world-renowned traveler, and lover of all things bookish. One of these things is actually true. When she isn’t saving the world one word at a time, she’s busy lecturing university students on parenthetical citations and torturing authors with her red pen.
She can be found at any of the following cyber places:
Web: www.melissamcarthur.net
Facebook: www.facebook.com/melissamcarthurwrites
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The Best-Laid Plans
104 PA / 2116 AD
Faith Hunter
The deadminer lifted the saddlebags from his mount, unimpressed with Mineral City. Lolo had directed him here, aimed him like an arrow, to find the lost Stone mage, the girl hiding among humans, and become her teacher. He had resisted, fought the mage priestess long enough to search for and find the vanished city of Sugar Grove, buried beneath the glaciers of the mini-ice age. He had made a name for himself, become someone in his own right. Yet her resolve had finally conquered him, and he was here, saddlebags filled with dead-mined loot, items certain to interest a Stone mage who played at making jewelry.
He threw the bags over his shoulder, touched the amulet at his neck, making certain that his mule glow—energy patterns that coursed through the skin of the second unforeseen—was completely damped. Satisfied, long leather duster flapping in the wind, he strode across the ice-covered street, leaving his Clydesdale where it stood, head hanging in exhaustion. If he played his cards right, he’d sell the plunder, making a nice profit off of Thorn St. Croix, move his horse into the stable behind her shop and himself right into her bed, whether it was what he desired or not. He had his orders. It was what mules did best: followed orders, serviced, served, lived off of, and at the behest of, mages. That and fight Darkness. Sex and blood, the coin with which they paid their way.
The shop was neat and bright, taking up the ground floor of a refurbished stone and brick two-story building. Windows—real glass windows, when he had expected them to be boarded over to preserve the meager warmth inside—displayed jewelry, things made of stone and glass and intricate settings of gold and copper. He pushed open the door, jingling bells announcing him, his head nearly brushing the top of the doorway as he entered.
Inside, it was warmer than he had expected, and it smelled of tea. He felt his muscles instantly relax. The shop had been painted recently, and boasted a gas log fireplace, tables, upholstered chairs. Display cabinets ringed the central open space. To his right was a door, ajar, to reveal stairs leading up. Up to her home, he knew. Another door led to the workroom in the back. He had done his research.
A plain, brown-headed woman looked up from the center chair and set aside some needlework. Standing, she said, “I’m Jacey. Welcome to Thorn’s Gems.” Though far smaller than he, she was too tall to be a mage, and he remembered that Thorn had partners, a human male and a human female. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m Audric Cooper, deadminer. I hope we can do business. I’ve got gold, some good quality faceted stones, and . . .”
A man stepped through the door in the back, his laughter filling the room as he turned and stopped. And Audric forgot what he was saying. The human was tall, some six feet, with long, jet black hair that caught the light and curled around his ears and collar. His eyes were black—or a blue so dark they looked black—and he wore an apron, heavy leather scored with burns and stained with chemicals that Audric could smell from where he stood, open-mouthed and mute. He was the most beautiful human Audric had ever seen.
The woman spoke, her voice laced with amusement. “Meet my business partners, Rupert Stanhope and Thorn St. Croix.”
Rupert. Ahhhh. Their eyes met and held as Audric’s world tumbled and shook and rearranged itself in an extended/instantaneous moment. When Rupert extended his hand, oddly shaped with a long index
finger, Audric took it almost reverently. The flesh was unexpectedly hard, callused, as Audric held both it and Rupert’s eyes.
And Lolo’s plans fell away. He could feel his life shifting and resettling, remaking itself into something new and unknown. And frightening. Audric was aware of the little mage behind the man, and he thought he lifted a hand in greeting, but he wasn’t sure. His eyes never left Rupert’s.
“There’s a Chinese place down the street,” Rupert said, as uncertain as he. “You want to get lunch?”
“Yes,” Audric said, knowing the single word agreed to much more than simply lunch.
“You boys go play,” the human female said, “but unless you want to be gutted like rabbits, I’d wipe the sexual tension off your faces and pretend the lunch is business. At least until you see whether or not the town fathers will accept your—um,” she faltered, clearly at a loss for words.
“Proclivities?” Rupert offered, his tone droll. “You have a point. One lone gay man is acceptable. Two could be, Realms forbid, an epidemic.”
Audric blushed, the sensation shocking. He hadn’t blushed since he was a child. Jacey laughed but he didn’t care. Couldn’t care for anything but the human man holding his hand.
“Put your horse in the barn,” the mage in hiding said, “and you boys be sure to talk some trade over lunch while you flirt. The kirk is powerful here in Mineral City.” She swatted Rupert across the butt in a familiar gesture, finally drawing his attention. “Be careful.”
Audric tore his eyes from Rupert’s and looked at the mage. She was everything and nothing like Lolo’s description. Small, laughing, her mage attributes damped to human dull like his, her scarlet hair piled atop her head, a hunk of rough stone in one dirty hand. She thought he was human. The mage couldn’t see past his glamour.
He wouldn’t be sharing her bed. He’d be sharing another’s. But at least he had found a stable for his horse. Unplanned laughter burst from him.
When they looked at him curiously, he shook his head and dropped Rupert’s hand. “Lunch. Yes. That is, indeed, a good place to start.”
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Introductions
Prologue: Stone Walls a Prison Make
The Honeymoon is Over
Finding the Way
Set in Stone
Wind Blown
TNT
Epena’s Epiphany
The Price of Power
Day One
Monster
Wheels in Motion
Bait
Ashes and Dust
Storm Songs
Defiance
The Stars Were Right
Alone
Mettilwynd
Sons
Requiem Of The Sea
The Best-Laid Plans