Heart of Flame

by Janine Ashbless

  “Where’s my Horse?”

  “Well, if it didn’t get knocked down the cliff when Zubaida lost her temper the first time, it’s still at the top of this face here.” He pointed with his chin to his left, along the ridge.

  “If we retrieve the Horse, we can all get down into the valley quickly.”

  “Yes.” He lowered his voice and his eyes flicked past her shoulder to where Ahleme stood gazing at the Palace of Glass, motionless. “Is she all right?”

  Taqla grimaced, wondering if he knew why the girl was so stricken. But she guessed that in his eyes it was only natural that she be broken with grief. She’d been abducted and ravished and shamed, so a cheery gratitude was hardly to be expected. “After what she’s been through?” she asked.

  “You should talk to her.”

  Like I know anything about comforting other women, she thought, aghast. “Yes. Later.”

  Rafiq nodded and stood, clearing his throat. “Come on then. We need to find the Horse Most Swift. It’ll get us all back to Dimashq.”

  Taqla went over to where Ahleme stood. The girl was blinking back unshed tears and her mouth looked wobbly. I should hug her, she thought. But if we’re nice she’ll just go to pieces and then Rafiq will have to carry her down this blasted mountain. “Come on, Ahleme,” she said briskly, taking the girl’s arm. “We have to walk. We’re going home.”

  Ahleme went where she was pulled. Rafiq cast them both a concerned glance and then led the way, breaking a trail through the unmarked sheet of snow, each footfall creaking. Their shadows stretched out, blue and growing longer. They made slow progress. Ahleme dragged on Taqla’s arm and the sorceress was just beginning to think that she would have to change shape into a bird again and fly ahead to the Horse, and was wondering if she had the strength or would simply faint, when Rafiq swore. The two women stopped in their tracks and looked up.

  Standing a little way ahead of them was the djinni Yazid. He was only human-sized this time, and much paler—gray marbled with blue—but his fiercely handsome features, set in a stony frown, were unmistakable. His arms were crossed over his bare chest. Taqla noticed abstractly that his wounds seemed to be healing nicely.

  Ahleme let out a little whimper.

  Rafiq glanced back at Taqla, his eyes wide.

  “Ahleme.” The djinni’s voice was gravelly and stumbling. “I have been thinking. I have decided that even if you cannot bear me a son…though it is grievous to me…yet I do not wish to lose you. I would rather you stayed with me.” He lifted his eyes. For someone so big and powerful he seemed to be having a hard time meeting the gaze of a girl. “If you would like that,” he added. “If you wish to stay.”

  Taqla let go of Ahleme’s arm. The girl lifted her face to her, eyes wide and questioning.

  Taqla shrugged. “Your choice.”

  “Truly?”

  Taqla didn’t look to Rafiq for confirmation. “Yes.”

  With the faintest of smiles just beginning to dawn in her face, Ahleme stepped out toward the djinni. She stopped within a few paces, when she was level with Rafiq, but it was Taqla she turned to address. “Tell my father that I’m well,” she said huskily. “And happy. And would love to have his blessing.”

  “It would sound better from you,” Taqla answered. “I’m sure you could find a way to send him a message.”

  She nodded.

  “Hold on,” Taqla added, and caught up with them. “Take this,” she said in a low voice, slipping the blue scarab on its thong from about her wrist, and wrapping it around Ahleme’s instead. “I don’t think you’ll need it. But…just in case. You only have to hold it between your hands until it warms through then call for help, and it will fly to seek the person you call upon. I will come find you if you need me.”

  Rafiq’s eyebrows shot up, but he didn’t protest.

  Ahleme dipped her chin, smiling. Then she turned and ran toward Yazid, and as she ran, she threw off Taqla’s robe so that her bare limbs flashed against the snow. Taqla’s eyes widened. Beautiful, she thought, but so young. I was never that lovely. Was I ever that young?

  Then Yazid opened his arms and Ahleme threw herself into them, and he swept her up and swung her about and kissed her. Even now that he was mortal sized, she looked tiny against his bulk. He held her in his great grasp for a lingering moment and then with a puff of steam and snow they both vanished.

  Taqla put her arm around Rafiq’s waist. “You can stop staring now,” she said, unable to keep the smirk off her lips.

  “I think my eyes have burned out,” he said in a small voice. Then he shook himself and turned to her. His eyes looked fine despite his protestations—except that they were haunted by questions. He picked up her hand and slid his finger and thumb around her bare wrist, the one that had worn the scarab. Lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed each cold finger in turn and then folded them in his warm grasp. “That might have been useful to us sometime, you know.”

  “There’s no one out there for me to call on for help.”

  “There is now.” He stroked her straying hair back from her cheek. “Magic or no magic. I promise.”

  “Let’s go,” she whispered. She wanted to be somewhere warm enough to allow them to remove at least some clothes.

  Rafiq nodded and went to fetch her robe for her, beating out the snow. “So that was it?” he wondered as they turned along the ridge once more. “That was my Fate, I mean? All that way…and we didn’t rescue the girl after all.”

  “The djinniyah would have killed her without us being there. You saved her life.”

  “So that she could go back to the djinni who’d stolen her?”

  “She loves him.”

  “And who are we to stand in the way of love?” he said, a little wry. “But…”

  “Well maybe that’s the Fate written for her,” said Taqla, “to love a djinni. Maybe that is what God has written, so that they may have this child of power.”

  “You said she was barren.”

  “Yes, well…” Taqla pulled an uneasy face. “These things are never certain. There is no Fate but the one given to us by God.”

  Rafiq shot her a look both shocked and impressed. “You lied,” he said. “You lied…to a djinni!”

  “Is that worse than lying to the Senmurw bird?”

  “It might be more dangerous.”

  Taqla spread her hands. “I thought they both needed to know whether he loved her for her own sake or was using her as a means to his end.”

  Rafiq rubbed his neck. “What about what Zubaida said, that this son will be a tyrant?”

  “Maybe. But any child born may choose a path of evil—should we stop having children because of that? At least this one will be born to parents who love each other. It’s a good start.”

  “Wait… She’s actually pregnant, then?”

  “Uh-huh. I wasn’t lying about the sorceress thing. We’re good at that.”

  He shook his head. “Well, I suppose the djinni will be delighted.”

  “He’ll be in for a shock,” she countered. “Their firstborn child, the one who will inherit his power… It’s a girl.”

  Rafiq opened his mouth as if to exclaim, but he never got the chance to say a word. There was a clap like muffled thunder, and the bright sunlit world of the snow-clad mountain vanished. The soft snow under their feet turned to hard earth and they staggered, clutching at each other as they tried to balance. They found they were still on a slope, but a much steeper one, and among trees. It was late afternoon, and they were standing on a hill overlooking a walled city.

  “What the…? What? They’ve moved us!” said Rafiq. Warm air wrapped them like a blanket. A brown veil of smoke and dust hung over the distant rooftops.

  “Oh no!” cried Taqla. She whirled round. “My Horse!” she screamed at the slope, the sky, the thinly spaced olive trees with their gray-green leaves and their twisted trunks. “Give me my Horse Most Swift!” But there was no answer, only the noise of starlings flocking overhead. The
re was no one in sight. She caught her breath and sagged to her knees. Crickets were leaping about in the dry grass. She rammed her fists into the soil and clenched her teeth.

  “We’re…home.”

  “What?”

  Rafiq sat down rather hard next to her. “That’s Dimashq down there—look. See the big mosque? Three minarets—recognize the Tower of the Bride? The Issa Tower? She’s sent us home! We’re on the Jebel Qassioun, just north of the city.”

  “My Horse Most Swift,” Taqla groaned. “Oh…what am I going to do? I was going to return to the Abu Bahr and bury that temple. How am I going to do that now? How am I supposed to travel anywhere?” She looked around despairingly, but no answer presented itself from the olive grove.

  Rafiq held out his hand, saying, “Is this any use to you?” He thumbed off the twist of wire that allowed the wearer to control the Horse Most Swift and offered it to her.

  Taqla took the ring but shook her head. She had no idea if she could bring the Horse safely back to her over such an immense distance. She greatly doubted it. When Rafiq put his hand on her shoulder, she shrugged him off angrily. “Don’t!” Then her face crumpled. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  She let her shoulders slump and bowed her head, and when he put his arm about her, she leaned into him with a sigh.

  It was good to be warm again, she had to admit.

  “We should try and get back to the gate before dark,” he said after a while. “It’s walking distance, anyway.”

  “A good job,” she said, a little grimly.

  He ran his fingers over her temple, through the disordered locks of her hair. His touch made her shiver. “You’ve lost so much on this journey. Your scarab, your Horse, your Bag. And you gave up the Seed of Knowledge. It’s a lot for me to make up for. Will you let me try?”

  Taqla lifted her head, the line of her mouth softening to a smile. “Every day,” she said, and he laughed.

  “Come on then.” He jumped to his feet and held his hands out to help her up. “We have a judge to find.” His eyes twinkled as he added, “Not to mention food. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

  “I…” she said, and at that moment something rather less than the size of a human head popped out of the air and fell to the ground, rolling against her bandaged feet. It was a ball of silver wire.

  “They’re not deaf then,” said Rafiq, a grin lighting his face.

  Taqla picked it up, her eyes welling with tears. “Thank you,” she whispered happily. “Ahleme, Yazid—peace be upon you.”

  If they heard, they made no sign.

  “Well?” Rafiq said expectantly.

  “We’re not riding to the city,” she said, stuffing the ball away into a pocket. “We’re walking, we have to be discreet.” Anxiety seized her. “Oh—what are we going to tell people? About us? About me?”

  “That you are Taqla bint-Umar, and that your father hired me to bring you to him from your mother’s people, and that at great risk and with many perils that is exactly what I have done. And that now we will marry.”

  “I will have to live in my own house. In Umar’s.”

  “If you wish.” Rafiq was serene. “There’s more than enough of my family crammed into mine anyway. I’ll explain to them that Umar is an old man and has no other children. It pleases him to have his only child and his son-in-law live with him.”

  She smiled. “You’ve always got a good story to tell.”

  “This,” he said, slipping a hand upon her waist, “is better than any of my other stories. Except for the bit where you sent me away.” He touched her lips with the tips of his fingers.

  “I won’t do that again.”

  “We really do have to stop shouting at each other, you know.”

  Taqla nodded. “We do. But I doubt that we’re going to. It’s going to take us a while to rub the rough edges off each other.”

  Rafiq took her in both arms. “I suspect you’re right. How about if, every time we have an argument, I take you to bed and wrestle your clothes off and pin you down—” his teeth grazed her ear, sending shivers down her spine as he murmured, “—and love you until we’re both too exhausted to even speak, never mind fight?” He kissed his way back along her cheek and down to her lips, his own communicating a restless hunger that spoke directly to her own need. His arms tightened, drawing her up against him as he tasted her. The strength in his hard frame made her lightheaded. She felt an infinite landscape of desire open up within her, instantly. It almost shocked her how responsive her body was, and how it seemed to know the ways of coupling so well when she was only just starting on her journey into this new realm.

  “What do you think?” he whispered, breaking the kiss and leaving her breathless. He smiled, his eyes dancing with wicked promise.

  Taqla didn’t answer. She just stared, her brows knotted.

  “No? Something wrong?” he wondered.

  “Nothing. I’m just trying to think of something to start a row about.”

  His own brows arched speculatively. “What—right now?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Right now.”

  He started to grin. “Here?”

  She slid her hand down his torso and snuggled it between his legs, finding him already spoiling for battle. “Here. Who’s to see? Only…it’s so pathetic of me—I can’t think of anything to complain about at all.”

  Rafiq pushed her back into the shelter of the olive tree’s canopy. His hands sought within and beneath her clothes, searching out the soft, warm skin that thrilled to his touch. Taqla cried out as he found and captured a nipple between his fingers and arched her back to push her breasts into his hands. “In that case,” he said, pressing her to the gnarled bole, kissing her with hot, devouring kisses, “we’ll just have to make up now and fight later.”

  End

  About the Author

  Janine Ashbless is a multi-published author of erotic romance and erotica. Her first book was published in 2000. She’s always used elements of fantasy, mythology and folklore in her writing, with occasional forays into horror. She particularly enjoys sneaking references to H. P. Lovecraft into completely inappropriate stories.

  Janine loves goatee beards, ancient ruins, minotaurs, trees, mummies, having her cake and eating it, holidaying in countries with really bad public sewerage, and any movie or TV series featuring men in very few clothes beating hell out of each other. She’s a roleplaying geek and can still sometimes be found running round in the woods hitting other geeks with a rubber sword. It is unlikely she will grow up anytime soon.

  Janine lives in Yorkshire, England, with her husband and two rescued greyhounds, and is trying hard to overcome her addiction to semicolons. You can catch up with her by visiting her website at www.janineashbless.com and her blog at janineashbless.blogspot.com

  Hope dangles by a silken thread.

  A Hint of Frost

  © 2012 Hailey Edwards

  Araneae Nation, Book 1

  When the head of the Araneidae clan is found poisoned in her nest, her eldest daughter, Lourdes, becomes their clan’s new maven. If her clan is to survive, she has but one choice: she must marry before her nest is seized. All she needs is a warrior fierce enough to protect her city and safeguard her clansmen. Such a male is Rhys the Cold.

  Born the youngest son of an impoverished maven, the only things Rhys has to his name are his sword and his mercenary reputation. His clan is starving, but their fondness for the flesh of fellow Araneaeans makes them unwelcome dinner guests. Torn between loyalty to his clan and fascination with his future bride, Rhys’s first taste of Lourdes threatens to melt the cold encasing his heart.

  Amid the chaos of battle, Lourdes’s sister disappears and is feared captured. Lourdes and Rhys pursue their enemies into the southlands, where they discover an odd plague ravaging southern clans as it travels north, to Erania. Determined to survive, Lourdes will discover whether she’s worth her silk or if she’s spun the thread by which her clan will hang. />
  Warning: This book contains one mercenary hero with a biting fetish, one determined heroine who gets nibbled, and an answer to the age-old question, “What does dragon taste like?” Matricide and sibling rivalry are available upon request. The house special is revenge, best served cold.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for A Hint of Frost:

  Dead limbs slapped my face as I ran, slicing gashes unable to bleed for the cold.

  When I’d planned my escape, my goal had been simple. I wanted to see for myself where my sister had gone. My mistake was in assuming the Mimetidae would let me be if we crossed paths. At worst, I expected to be dragged before Rhys, where I’d explain myself. I’d been a fool.

  Banishment to the spinning rooms was a milder fate than the one I’d created for myself. My estimation of my cleverness had been generous. My reality, though, was lacking. I should have gone for Rhys. I’d rather he picked my motives apart than this male pick me from his teeth.

  I stumbled, and pain seared a red-hot seam from my shoulder to hip. He must have swung his mace. Pumping my legs harder, I couldn’t dwell on how my misstep had likely saved my life.

  Ahead, an overturned tree’s blackened limbs stretched toward the sky. I leapt the trunk and circled, keeping the tree between the Mimetidae and me. His face was flush, but instead of aggravated, he appeared invigorated by the chase. With brute strength, he slammed the mace through the thickest part of my cover and splinters flew. With a grunt, he crashed to my side of the tree.

  Panic stripped me of all logical thought. I doubled back, jumped the trunk and circled as he laughed and gave chase. His strike from above had snapped the limbs below and made a gap between the trunk and the ground. As I ran, I measured the hole and decided I’d fit through it.

  Heart pounding and lungs burning, I’d made myself drunk from the circular path I’d trodden over and around the tree. He had only to outlast me, and he showed no signs of slowing.