Torin met his Sol guide’s unseeing gaze, his chest tight, his blood a surging pressure through his veins. He’d trained Kala to wield the ultimate weapon, but in doing so had he made her the very weapon he’d dedicated his life protecting the worlds of man against? He loved her more than he thought ever possible, but was it enough to heal her heart?
You gave your word.
And still you made me scream.
Kala’s words from his nightmare sliced into him. He squeezed his eyes closed, pressed his face into his hands. His guilt rolled through him like sludge. He’d promised her he would never…
The sludge oozed through his soul, lapped at his heart.
He’d made her scream. He’d broken his word. He’d hurt her when he promised he wouldn’t. He’d taken her when he swore he would not. He’d loved her when…
A steady beat thumped in his throat and Kala’s words came back to him, “For everything you have let me become, Torin Kerridon, I love you. For everything I am since you saved me, I love you.”
Realization flowed through him like a silken wave and he smiled. He understood it now. There was no need for contemplation or hesitation. No need for consideration or anxious worriment. There was no need for waiting. He knew the answer. His heart knew the answer as surely as his soul knew the question. Lifting his face from his hands, he opened his eyes and looked at the old man standing before him. “The One Who Burns plunged the blade into my heart, Old Seer,” he said with more conviction than any words he’d ever uttered before. “And she burns for me.”
The ancient seer smiled, his expression calmly happy. “Yes, my child.” He dipped his head in a single nod. “She does.”
And then the white light enveloped him in a blinding, consuming eruption, and Torin stood alone in its pure, cleansing brilliance.
***
“Torin?”
Torin opened his eyes. There was no pain, no heat, just light. White light. And Kala. Standing over him.
He smiled, levering himself up onto his elbows. “The One Who Burns shall be your undoing,” he murmured.
Kala stood motionless, her stare locked on his face, her expression guarded. Hesitant. She looked like she wanted to move, but she held still, her hands empty, her lips parted. “You’re…you’re…” An exasperated frown suddenly pulled at her eyebrows and she shook her head, shoving her hands on her hips. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Yes, I am alive,” he said with a grin, finishing what he knew she stuttered over. “And it is something the Old Seer told me a lifetime ago.” He gave a low, wry chuckle. “Something tells me now it doesn’t mean what he—what we—thought it did.”
Kala’s expression grew more guarded, but hope shone in her eyes. “What do you think it means now, Torin?”
He let his smile fade as he rose to his feet, towering over her as he always did. “It means you tore me apart, Kala.” He took a step closer to her, her heat on his body a caress he never wanted to be without, an undeniable force that gave him strength beyond comprehension. He gazed down into her face. “Everything I was, everything I knew, you tore apart. Rendering me unmade, vulnerable and defenseless.”
She studied him for a long moment, so still she didn’t appear to breathe. “I didn’t mean to undo you, Sol warrior,” she finally said, her voice solemn and grave. And then she grinned and the hope in her eyes sparkled with cheeky mischief. “But I’m glad I did.”
Torin chuckled, skimming his gaze over the empty temple around them. His heart skipped a beat when he saw the carved image of himself standing above the altar, heart and sword in hand, an image chiseled into the stone over half a millennium ago, and then he returned his attention to the only thing that mattered. “So—” he smiled down into Kala’s face, “—you’ve finally accepted who you are.”
She gave him a small shrug. “It seems so.”
He let his stare wander her face, the pit of his belly growing tight. She’d always been beautiful—stubborn, yes, surly, at times—but now she seemed to glow. Now, she seemed…to burn.
He pulled a slow breath, dragging his gaze from her eyes to scan the temple again. “Where is Uloch? And the walking corpse?”
“Uloch…Uloch tore Zroya in two and…” She stopped and he looked at her again, watching an uncomfortable expression flicker over her face.
“And when you plunged the Sun Sword into my heart?” he offered, giving her a small grin.
“And when I plunged the sword into your heart, Uloch turned to…”
“Toast?”
Kala rolled her eyes, scowling at him. “You know, I think I like you better when you’re a bastard beating the crap out of me in the training room.”
Torin chuckled. “There are other things we can do in the training room, Kala Rei.”
She rolled her eyes again, shaking her head, but she didn’t move. The corners of her lips twitched. “You’ve just been resurrected from the dead by a weapon made by immortal beings from existence’s very heart, a weapon that vanished the second it pierced your heart, a weapon that doesn’t seem to exist anymore and all you can think about it sex?”
“You’re wrong, Kala.” He shook his head, taking the one step left between them, sliding his hands over her hips to tug her close to his body. “The Sun Sword will always exist, even when it can not be seen.” He lowered his head, brushing his lips against her cheek. “And all I can think about is you. The One Who Burns, the False Fire, the tiny slip of a thing covered in filth I found on Earth who beat me to the ground with nothing but her courage and a steel pipe.”
Kala studied him, a frown pulling at her dark eyebrows. “So, you did know all along. The One Who Burns and the False Fire are one and the same.” Her frown deepened. “And yet you still trained me. You still told me about the power of the sword and what it was capable of.” She paused, the expression on her face more than puzzled. “Why? How could you know what I’d do? Which one I’d become in the moment of truth?”
Torin placed a soft kiss on the tip of her nose. “I didn’t.”
Kala’s eyes widened and she pulled away from him a little. “But the prophecy? The worlds of man? Death, destruction? I could have destroyed it all. I could feel the power of the Sun Sword in me. It was terrifying and seductive all at once. If I’d wanted to, I could have extinguished every star in every universe with just a single thought. If I’d wanted to, I could have placed a fire in every living soul and let them burn alive. And I almost did. I came so close…” She pulled farther from his body, disbelief shining in her eyes. “How could you risk that? How could you—”
“You need to listen to me, Kala Rei.” He chuckled, tugging her back into his embrace and smoothing his hand up her back. “I believe in you. Not the One Who Burns, not the False Fire. You. I have since the second you threatened to castrate me back on Earth.” He placed his lips on her forehead. “And it seems the Sun Sword believes in you too.” He smiled. “Being that I’m alive and all.” He folded his arms around her waist and held her close, breathing in her scent before kissing her gently on the lips. “Thank you for that.”
She looked up at him, the corners of her mouth curling, her green eyes sparkling gold heat. “You’re welcome,” she murmured, tugging his head down to hers. “You’re very, very welcome.”
She kissed him back with a little more force, a little more heat. Her lips parted under his, her tongue slipping into his mouth, her hands stealing up his back to tangle in his hair. Holding him to her with undeniable love and desire.
Setting him on fire.
Making him burn.
And burn.
Epilogue
Kala Rei stepped out of the lost Sol temple, stretching her arms above her head. She lifted her face to the night sky, pulling in a slow breath as she studied the stars’ glinting beauty. They were completely foreign to her but she knew them all the same and, as she gazed at their strange constellations, a warm sense of comfort rolled over her.
She smiled as the words of the prophec
y she’d fought so hard to deny came to her. In the hands of the One Who Burns the Sun Sword will bring new life to the hearts of man.
Kala smoothed her hands up and down her arms, smiling wider. Not the “hearts of man”. Just one man. One very important man. What happened to the rest of the known universes now, she and that one man would discover together.
Hugging herself against the cool air, she let her thoughts turn to the Immortals’ weapon. The Sun Sword smoldered in gentle slumber within her existence, a simmering heat radiating through her from its new home within her soul. She didn’t understand how she knew it was there, nor in fact, how it could be, but she did. It wasn’t just that she could “feel” its presence. It was more than that. It was symbiotic. Its warmth charged her with life and her life charged it with heat. If she needed to, if the worlds of man needed her to, she would draw the sword again from its mystical sheath and do what she was created to do—bring death where there was life and life where there was death. For now however, all she wanted to do was return to Torin’s arms and make love to him.
She let out a contented sigh, letting her gaze move among the stars without really seeing them.
“Do they call you, Kala?” Large, strong hands slipped around her waist, tugging her back against a body just as large, just as strong, and she closed her eyes with a smile. Torin pressed his face to the side of her neck, his lips nuzzling the sensitive dip below her ear. “Do the stars ask you to come to them? To set them on fire?”
She leant into his body, rolling her head to the side to grant his mouth delicious access to her neck. She loved the way he kissed her there, with a tenderness so reverent it stole her breath and made her knees weak.
“They do.” She ran her hands up Torin’s arms, to his shoulders, turning in his embrace as she did so to gaze up into his eyes. “But they can wait.”
He cocked an eyebrow, slipping his hands down her hips to rest lightly on her backside. “Really? And what pressing business does the One Who Burns have that the worlds of man must wait for her fire?”
She rose up onto her toes and rolled her hips, stroking the curve of her sex against the growing length of his erection trapped behind the taut leather of his trousers. “I have a fire here that needs tending.”
Torin’s eyes glinted in the pale moonlight and he tightened his grip on her arse, pulling her hips harder to his. “This fire will never be smothered, Kala. Will never be extinguished.” He lowered his head and placed a gentle kiss on her lips. “This is something you should know.”
She chuckled, tangling her fingers in the shaggy length of his hair. “Are you trying to scare me off, Sol?”
His nostrils flared and he squeezed her arse, pulling her closer still to his rigid cock. “Does this feel like I’m trying to scare you off?”
Before she could answer, he yanked her feet off the ground and wrapped her legs around his hips, turning on the spot to press her back to the carved rock wall of the temple’s entrance. She gasped, delight rippling through her in a hot wave as, without a word, he grabbed the bunched hem of the cotton slave shift she still wore and tore it over her head.
The cool night air of the P’Helios moon caressed her naked body, turned her nipples into rock-hard points. She sucked in a swift breath, her breath becoming a whimpered moan when Torin closed his hands over her breasts and captured her nipples between his knuckles.
“Does this feel like I am trying to frighten you away?” he murmured, pinching the puckered tips of flesh with an urgency Kala could feel all the way to her core. His shoulder muscles bunched, his stomach muscles flexed, and before Kala knew what he was doing, he’d pressed her harder to the stone wall. “Or does this feel like I am ready to burn with you hotter than before?”
He slid partly down her body, supporting her weight with his broad chest, one hand flat to the base of her spine, the other still cupping her breast. He tweaked her nipple with his knuckles one more time, sending jolts of liquid heat through her, and then closed his lips around its distended shape and drew it into his mouth.
Kala moaned, gripping her legs tighter around his torso, the pulling suction on her breast flooding her sex with warm moisture. She fisted her hands in his hair and gazed up at the stars, her lips parting as her breath grew shallow.
No, this did not feel like he was trying to scare her off. Not at all.
He bit her nipple with gentle force, once, twice, and she moaned again, her head swimming with dizzy pleasure, her heart thumping with building rapture. This felt like he was trying to set her on fire.
And she was more than ready to be engulfed by the flames.
More than ready to be incinerated by his heat.
She was, after all, the One Who Burns.
About the Author
Lexxie’s not a deviant. She just has a deviant’s imagination and a desire to entertain readers with her words. Add the two together and you get darkly erotic romances with a twist of horror, sci-fi and the paranormal.
When she’s not submerged in the worlds she creates, Lexxie’s life revolves around her family, a husband who thinks she’s insane, a pony-sized mutt who thinks he’s a lapdog, two yabbies hell-bent on destroying their tank and her daughters, who both utterly captured her heart and changed her life forever.
Contact Lexxie at [email protected], follow her on Twitter www.twitter.com/lexxie_couper or visit her at www.lexxiecouper.com where she occasionally makes a fool of herself on her blog.
Look for these titles by Lexxie Couper
Now Available:
Savage Retribution
Death, the Vamp and his Brother
Is he the hero of her childhood dreams…or the death of them—and her?
Prophesied
© 2008 Liz Craven
On the day of her birth, Lia fulfilled a prophecy that ended a 5,000-year war, and became a wife. But being the fulfillment of a sacred prophecy makes for a stifling childhood—not to mention a dangerous one. When an assassination attempt goes wrong, Lia takes the opportunity and runs from her destiny—as well as from her absent husband.
Talon isn’t sure what to expect when he rescues his bride from a mining colony on a barren moon. What he doesn’t anticipate is her lack of gratitude and her repeated escape attempts. Determined to convince his wife to accept her duties, Talon knows he also needs to keep her safe, even if he has to lock her up in his own quarters to do it.
As they get closer to their planet and Lia’s coronation, the danger around them increases, and so does the tension between them. For their growing attraction to turn into something more, they need to stay alive and learn to trust each other—a tall order when Lia’s experience in life has taught her that trusting people can get you killed.
Warning: Contains adult language, sexual content, and as always, reading anything by Liz Craven may be hazardous to your sanity.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Prophesied:
Lia’s eyes, accustomed to the dark mines, burned under the harsh office light. Blinking the tears back, the face of the speaking soldier wavered briefly, before coming into focus.
Her heart stuttered, and she managed to keep her jaw from dropping. Just when she thought things couldn’t get any worse—or any better, she wasn’t sure which.
His face was leaner than she remembered, giving his cheekbones a sharp edge. He had lost the soft features of a young man. The roundness of his cheeks had faded, making his square jaw more pronounced and giving him a determined look. He regarded the rep with gray eyes, the color of melted xyreon ore when light struck it. Unlike the ore, however, his flinty eyes were ice cold. The world “ruthless” flitted across her mind and a shiver danced down her spine.
His body had been long and lanky when she had last seen him, but the man before her was not the awkward boy she once knew. His chest had filled out, making him easily three times her width. His upper torso tapered to a lean waist. Body armor hugged trim hips and strong legs. The red emblem of an elected planetary official gleamed
on his shoulders.
He barely glanced at her, and the feeling of disappointment that swept over Lia surprised her. She hadn’t wanted him to recognize her and had no business feeling hurt because she had gotten her wish.
As she studied him, he glanced at a soldier behind him and jerked his chin in her direction. A man with blond hair and the flush of youth still in his cheeks stepped towards her. He smiled at her—the first courtesy ever offered to her in the rep’s office—and extended his arm.
“This will only take a moment,” the young soldier assured her.
Staring at the device he was holding, Lia took a cautious step back. The rep still had a death grip on her arm—her fingers were going numb—so the step was small, but it was enough for the soldier to hesitate.
“What is that?” she demanded, relieved she sounded angry rather than panicked.
“It won’t hurt.” His tone was polite, if condescending, but he didn’t lower the device.
“What ‘won’t hurt’?” Lia snapped out.
The young man actually blushed. “It’s a simple DNA scan. It will take less than five seconds, and you won’t feel a thing.”
This time Lia wrenched her arm free from the rep as she leaped backwards. “Absolutely not.”
“I promise it won’t hurt,” the youth reassured her.
“I said no.”
Then he spoke, and he had the audacity to sound amused. “Madam, we are looking for someone. The DNA scan will help narrow our search by eliminating you. We will compensate you for your time.”
She snorted. Even if they gave her money, the rep would be the one “compensated” for her time. “I still refuse.”
“We must insist.”
Ignoring the furious glare of the rep, she stood her ground. “Under League privacy laws, a DNA scan cannot be compelled unless an individual is under arrest. Am I under arrest?”
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