Seeing Stars

  That couldn’t be. Drew would come and Mara would find a way to contact her this time. She’d come clean, telling her friend everything—even how to incubate the egg. Hanging on to her new resolve, Mara made another pass at her treasure. As long as she had hope, she had a chance at life.

  About the Author

  Buffi BeCraft writes Romantic Paranormal fantasy with a heavy dose of East Texas thrown in. Her first book was the result of a challenge. At the time Buffi was casting around, trying to come up with an idea for a book that was both marketable and fun to write. When her mother insisted that no one could write a paranormal she would be able to understand, the war was on. She wanted create a book that was easy for those uninitiated to the whole paranormal/fantasy genre to both understand and enjoy. Buffi is happy to say that her mother is now waiting anxiously for the next release.

  Email: [email protected]

  Buffi BeCraft loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at http://www.total-e-bound.com.

  Also by Buffi BeCraft

  (previously writing as Buffi BeCraft-Woodall)

  Conjuring Cal

  TO BED A GODDESS

  Lizzie Lynn Lee

  Prologue

  Temple of the Sun, Durgha

  It all had been a sham.

  The prophecy. The life she had been living. And tonight, when the Great Khan finally took her maidenhead, he would see who she really was. The High Priest Mamnon had told her numerous times her worries were unfounded. But Amaranth couldn’t shake the heavy weight on her shoulders. Some said the truth would set you free. But if Shanrakhan ever discovered the truth, the only thing that would be set free was her head from her neck.

  Amaranth sat straight on the edge of the bed, her hands on her laps and her fingers laced together, intertwined in knots. Her nerves strung tight like an overstretched harp string ready to snap. As much as she tried to relax, she just couldn’t. She dreaded her fate, wishing she wasn’t a hetai, the chosen one. Born and bred to consort a ruthless man.

  She exhaled a deep breath and caught a glimpse of her own reflection in the mirror. The young woman in white regalia stared back accusingly.

  Fraud.

  Amaranth tore her gaze away. She couldn’t stand seeing the mask of lies she had been forced to put on all these years. Others might have revered her as the incarnation of the Sun God and bequeathed her with a pampered life since birth. But truth be told, she was nothing but the High Priest’s puppet.

  Outside her room, people were still celebrating. The cacophonous music and the revelries of Shanrakhan’s warriors seeped through her windows. Once in a while, she heard loud shouts of the Great Khan himself, followed by thunderous laughter from his men, clapping and cajoling their overlord. The Khan was probably half-inebriated. Earlier, when Amaranth had peeked outside, she saw he was drinking endlessly while fondling two semi-naked wenches besides him. Amaranth wished he would pass out from the drinks. But it was highly unlikely. Shanrakhan was a man who could take his liquor. Besides, his prowess in bed was legendary. If she had been granted the luxury of her own choosing, she wouldn’t give her body to him and spend the rest of her life as his plaything. She craved true love.

  From a man who would love her unconditionally…

  Amaranth was startled when someone knocked at the door. It must be her maid. She’d asked for a glass of water while she waited for Shanrakhan. “Come in,” she said in a choked voice, fighting the tears that threatened to spill. Renegade tears streamed down her cheeks nevertheless. Amaranth quickly wiped them with her sleeves. She didn’t want anybody to see she was crying. After all, it was a joyous occasion for her people.

  She failed to realise it wasn’t her maid who had knocked on the door. Several men stormed in and the next thing she knew, someone had sneaked behind her and covered her mouth to prevent her from screaming. Her dread turned to terror. She struggled but she was overpowered. The men who held her were far too strong.

  Several faces emerged before her. Their expressions were cold. Solemn. Like anger masked in stone. She recognised one of them, Orion Thane, the High Priest’s Chief of Acolytes. Orion loathed her. He’d always shadowed her every move, and when no one was around, he had always watched her with such a look as if he knew her deepest secret.

  “Please…” she begged him, her voice muffled by a man’s palm. “Don’t hurt me.”

  Orion ignored her plea. He motioned to his men and a heartbeat later, Amaranth was hoisted from the bed and was flat on the floor. The men held her limbs to keep her still while Orion produced something from his sleeve. It looked like a giant nail with a long, sharp point, and the mark of the Sun God Hecave crowned the nail-head.

  Her heart dropped to her guts.

  The Star of Hecave. An ancient seal the Sun God Hecave himself had used to punish his wife. The holy sutra recited that Ariana, the Moon Goddess, had tried to usurp the Sun Throne, but her attempt was foiled. When Hecave learnt the truth, he pierced Ariana’s heart and cast her to sleep for a millennia. Hecave’s wrath sent five continents into a thousand years without nightfall. The realm was swallowed in drought and pestilence. People suffered until the legendary Crimson Knight stole the seal from Ariana’s tomb and hid it in the Sun Temple, preserving the nature balance back into the realm.

  The Star of Hecave was the Sun Temple’s most prized possession. It was preserved deep beneath the temple’s catacombs. Only High Priest Mamnon and his predecessors knew where it was kept. No one else was allowed to look upon it, let alone touch it. But now Orion had stolen it.

  What is he going to do with it?

  Orion lifted his hand above his head, gripping the Star of Hecave as his men chanted some mantras. “Forgive me, my young goddess, but we cannot let the prophecy come true. The Khan must be stopped. He shall not unite the five continents.”

  The hand that covered her mouth tightened, making her jaw hurt. So Orion hadn’t learnt the truth after all. The secret was safe. But what he was intending to do with that seal? Amaranth abandoned her struggle. It was a futile endeavour.

  Orion narrowed his eyes, his lips thinning into a grim slit. The chants turned louder. “And you shall sleep. The Khan isn’t the right man for you. I know how much you loathe him. Who knows, when you wake up, perhaps you will find your true love…”

  He slammed the seal into her chest, piercing her heart with the Star of Hecave.

  A scream froze in Amaranth’s throat. Blazing white pain seized her momentarily. Then, an eerie numbness engulfed her being. The men let go of their grips. Amaranth struggled to breathe. The air felt thin. She heaved and thrashed.

  Help me…help me…

  She reached for them, begging for their help, but Orion and the men only watched her coldly. Her lungs felt like they had been filled with ice. Her heart slowed into a lazy beat. When she groped the source of her pain, she found that the blood from the wound had frozen into crystals.

  I don’t want to die…

  Darkness claimed her whole.

  Chapter One

  “Sir, we have a problem.”

  Graeme Darin caught himself from correcting his former aide. There was no reason for Keiran to keep addressing him as sir. After all, he’d been stripped from his ranks and his honour. Up to seventy hours ago, he was a Rear Admiral in the Arcova Imperial Fleet with a bright future ahead of him. Now, he was a fugitive, running from the wrath of Queen Breanna. Perhaps old habits were hard to break, and Keiran Mohr was one of those people with a deep loyalty streak. “What kind of problem?” Graeme asked.

  “The cargo, sir. It has the Imperial’s seals.”

  “What cargo?” Nate, Graeme’s brother, interjected from the captain’s chair. He was piloting their stolen ship and had been setting their course to Sierra-Allyx when Keiran came into the bridge, reporting his findings. Nate looked perturbed. “This ship is scheduled to be decommissioned next month. We aren’t supposed to be carrying any cargo.”

 
“Well, we are.” Keiran turned to Graeme. “The container is almost big enough to fill the whole dock. What are we going to do about it, sir?”

  Nate wasn’t convinced. “You’re shitting me, right?”

  “I’m most certainly not,” Keiran bit back. “Do I look like I’m shitting you?” Irritation painted his face.

  Graeme didn’t know how the two could conspire together. He hadn’t seen Nate in years. His brother had been practically a kid when Graeme left their homeland and joined the Imperial Fleet as a freshly minted lieutenant from the academy.

  “Nate is all right,” his mother had said to him once. “He takes after your father’s good looks, and he adores you.”

  About three hours ago, Graeme had been surprised when a young Imperial Officer who visited his cell turned out to be Nate. His mother was right. Nate has become the spitting image of their late father when he was young. He had grown into a slender, comely, sophisticated young man whose elegant demeanour could only come from years of refinement in the Royal Academy. But it all was a con. His mother had told him Nate was a rebellious youth. When his brother turned nineteen, Graeme heard that Nate had joined an ill-reputed trader and become a smuggler. Graeme didn’t expect the news of his imprisonment to reach Nate, but it had. And it compelled Nate to impersonate an Imperial Officer in order to bust him out of prison.

  If Graeme was given a choice, he would have preferred to stay in his cell and face his trial like an honourable admiral of the Fleet should do. After all, he was innocent. The malicious persecution against him was nothing but the Second Queen Breanna’s tactic to bring him off to his heels. That wretched bitch had lusted over him from the moment Graeme was sworn in as the youngest admiral of the Fleet. When Graeme didn’t return her seductions, Queen Breanna threw him in jail for contempt. Graeme was sure the judge would clear his name. The evidence of contempt was laughably weak. When Graeme tried to convince Nate to leave, a prison guard spotted his brother’s fake credentials. Nate clonked the guard unconscious and everything went downhill from there. Graeme had no choice but to bust out of the prison with Nate.

  After they made their escape, Nate rushed him to the Fleet stockyard. Graeme thought besides turning into a nutjob, Nate was also suicidal. No escapee in their right mind would make a daring escape then run straight to the lion’s mouth. But later on, Graeme had to admit Nate’s escape plan was a brilliant one. While the authority was busy turning the capital inside out looking for them, they were safely hiding in their own enemy’s turf. His brother had planned to steal one of the Imperial’s ships as a gateway vehicle to get out of the territory. Since every commercial and private ship in and out of the planet was closely monitored by the stationmaster, Nate thought it would be much safer if they stole an Imperial ship. The stationmaster didn’t regulate the Imperial Armada.

  In the stockyard, Graeme was surprised to see Keiran Mohr and Brannan Shih waiting for them. They were his two aides from the Fleet. While Graeme was incarcerated, Queen Breanna did a housecleaning, firing those who stayed loyal to Graeme. He didn’t know exactly how Nate ended up recruiting Keiran and Brannan, but the three had hatched a daring escape plan that was so insane, it had to work.

  “Settle down.” Graeme ordered Keiran and his brother to break off their argument. “The cargo you mentioned, what is it?”

  “Brannan is working on it, Sir. He tried to open the container. The seal indicates it came from the archaeological department of the University of Durgha.”

  Nate knitted his brows. “Why would someone smuggle artefacts from Durgha using an Imperial ship?”

  Keiran’s face turned sour. “It’s Breanna’s doing, I’ll tell you. First, she poisoned the king and coveted the throne. Now she’s trying to rewrite history.”

  Graeme decided to inspect the cargo dock. Whoever owned the cargo would want their goods back. And if that person happened to be someone who had a connection with the first family, their asses wouldn’t be out of the woods yet. They had planned to go as far as the Sierra-Allyx system, then ditch this stolen ship and replace it with a legitimate one in the Forbidden Zone. Traders, pirates, and outlaws populated the outer rings of Sierra-Allyx so Nate felt they would blend in well. His brother thought it was best for them if they kept a low profile for a while, staying away from the humdrum of the Imperial Arcova political arena.

  Before he could step outside, someone beat him to it. Brannan Shih poked his head through the bridge’s entrance. “Sir, you have to see this,” he said urgently.

  Suddenly, anxiety seized Graeme gut-deep. He had a feeling he wouldn’t like what Brannan had just discovered.

  The stone coffin nestling inside the thick metal container looked as imposing as any relic from Durgha, the birthplace of the Imperial. It didn’t have intricate details like other royal tombs Graeme had seen as a boy during his school trip. Nevertheless, this one looked ancient and grand. But one thing that captured everybody’s attention was the body beneath the glass lid.

  It was a woman’s body. Young and breathtakingly beautiful. She was so pale, she looked as if she had been carved from the pristine white stone herself.

  Graeme peered closely at the glass surface. The streak from the glass obscured the woman’s beautiful face. Her hair was platinum white, arranged carefully around her head and cascading onto her shoulders. White lilies were placed all around her lifeless body. It seemed she was buried in white regalia that looked like her wedding gown.

  Poor girl.

  He examined all the sides looking for any indication as to who this coffin belonged to. The Romadjta dynasty, the founders of the Imperial Arcova, marked their royal tomb with some distinct glyphs. Herav for the kings. Lurva for the queens, and Amnteph for the prince and princess. This coffin bore nothing. The only mark etched at the base of the coffin was the symbol of the Sun Temple.

  Graeme stooped, examining the chipped lid. The coffin had been opened before in haste by someone who apparently had no respect for its archaeological value. He gave it an exploratory push. Graeme was surprised to find that the coffin was colder than ice.

  “Odd, isn’t it?” Brannan grimaced. “It’s almost like it’s made from frozen stone.”

  Graeme blinked. Something had just dawned on him. “It couldn’t be…”

  “What couldn’t be?” Nate asked, prodding the coffin then cringing when the chill singed his fingertips. “Shit. What the fuck is this?”

  “I might be wrong, but this could be the Goddess’ tomb,” Graeme said.

  “Say again?” Nate asked.

  “Don’t you know the legend? Amaranth, the virgin Goddess? The night he conquered the five continents, Shanrakhan was supposed to claim her virginity to achieve immortality.”

  Nate snorted. “Immortality, my ass. I heard that story. Didn’t he die choking on his own vomit later on?”

  Keiran studied the coffin with great interest. “I’m not an Arcovian so I’m not familiar with your lore. What happened to the Goddess?”

  “The enemies of the Great Khan killed her so the prophecy couldn’t be fulfilled,” Brannan said.

  “Actually,” Graeme cut in, “legend said she was frozen to sleep. The Star of Hecave preserved her body in ice, making her tomb icy to touch. The rebels then hid her tomb somewhere in Mount Heron. There have been many expeditions since the King Jovan era to unearth Amaranth’s tomb. They all failed.”

  “How curious,” Keiran commented. “Do you think this is the Goddess’ tomb, sir?”

  “Only one way to find out.” Graeme looked around and found what he was looking for—an antigrav crowbar Brannan used to hack the container’s doors open. He slid the tip of the crowbar into the coffin’s lid and turned on the device. A mournful creak filled the dock. The heavy glass lid budged a couple of inches. Graeme shoved it open.

  They all let out gasps. Expecting the unpleasant stench of something that had been dead a long time ago, Graeme was surprised to find the only smell coming from the woman’s coffin was the scent of lil
ies. A breeze of cold chill surged past them, making him shiver.

  Without the obstruction from the glass lid, he could see the body clearly. Her beauty was beyond words. He inspected her up close. Her alabaster skin was flawless, matching the colour of her hair. She looked almost like an albino, but the dark, black lashes that surrounded her eyes betrayed that. The regal attire she was wearing was a proof she might come from nobility. Cradled in white lilies, the beauty looked as if she was just taking a nap. But when he noticed she was clutching something on her chest, he feared his suspicion was true.

  “What are you doing?” Nate asked when Graeme pushed the woman’s hands from her chest. “You’re desecrating a dead person.”

  Graeme ignored him. He sucked a hard breath when he found something lodged in her chest. “I’ll be damned.”

  “What is that?” Nate wanted to know. He cringed afterward. “That’s sick. It’s a cruel way to die.”

  “Legend said she didn’t really die. Killing a Goddess was considered a bad omen. The High Priest’s son pierced her heart with an amulet called the Star of Hecave. It’s said that the amulet froze her, putting her in suspended animation,” Graeme explained.

  “Legend also said our great-great-great-grandfather was a two-legged goat bastard who consorted with a tavern wench. You shouldn’t really take everything from the folklore literally.”

  Graeme felt intrigued. He knew his idea was fucking wrong, but hell, he was curious. “Let’s find out, shall we?”

  Nate gasped in horror. “You wouldn’t.”

  Gah. For a trouble-maker, his brother was such a wimp. Graeme fisted the five-star amulet and yanked it with all his might. Beneath the jewel, a long spike emerged from the woman’s chest, trailing droplets of blood that was way too peculiar to his find.

  Dead bodies didn’t bleed.

  “What the fuck…” Graeme mumbled, examining the dripping blood.