Keeper of the Flame

by Stephanie Burke

  Oh Lordy! The thoughts that image conjured up! Shaking her head a bit to clear her mind, she strove onward. “Remember what we discussed yesterday? You are now a respected businessman in a lucrative field. You don’t follow orders from anyone, you give them!”

  Flame had to take a deep breath and shake his head to dispel the images that popped into his head—of ordering her to strip out of her clothes so he could examine the differences between them personally. Of ordering her to strip him of his garments and then do the same for herself.

  It was certainly warm this time of the year on this small blue planet!

  The whole idea of this nature hike was to help ease the tension that had shot up between them in the cramped confines of the small cabin. Exposing a small bit of his power to her back at the cabin had been a calculated way of putting some distance between them. If she feared him a little, he would have a reason to avoid being in her close company and limit the time they spent together.

  But now she seemed to be drawn closer to him, as if they shared a secret only the two of them knew.

  Flame had analyzed the feelings her presence caused in him and was amazed to discover that his body was sending a loud message to his brain. He wanted her in a most shockingly carnal way. He had thought such desires long dead inside him. Even his own body would not heed the orders he gave it. He did not know how to answer her properly. “Yes, Mistress,” he managed, trying to decipher her feelings.

  Kendall sighed. Time to change the subject. Flame was beginning to look uncomfortable again. “How does that little computer thingy of yours work? I can’t believe how fast you changed those records and downloaded all that information.”

  Kendall recalled the little palm top computer that Flame had whipped from his black duffel bag the previous day. After speaking a few guttural-sounding words, the little black box began to vibrate. In a few moments it spit out a small disk, not unlike a miniature CD, with all the information Flame needed to start a new life in the fireworks business. It was amazing. She did want to know more about it, so it was the perfect topic to use to give the man some time to pull himself together.

  Flamed leaned against a nearby tree as he observed Kendall. Both children were asleep, snuggled on his chest safely in the double harness and he smiled at the sweet noises they made.

  The sudden image of his Mistress snuggled up against his chest and cooing made his body harden yet again. Quickly he sat on the ground to hide the change in his body that those blasted Earth clothes so easily revealed, using the harness as a little extra shielding.

  “The computer is of the same design as the navigational computer on my ship. It is capable of picking up any signals broadcast from any satellite on this continent.” His voice sounded rushed even to him. Surely she would know there was something he was trying to hide.

  “So it’s a mini receiver?”

  “That is correct. It can also create subliminal files of any information I desire and replay them to me at any given time. The information is automatically accepted by my subconscious and I assimilate the skills as if I have had extensive training in the subject. It is really quite efficient.”

  “You don’t have to be asleep?” Kendall smiled, looking speculative.

  “No, Mistress, sleep is unnecessary, but it can be done that way also. The brain is a remarkable organ. It receives input from all around us, categorizes it in order of importance, stores what is needed and disregards the rest. You just need to be taught how to listen and your brain can absorb all kinds of data. I learned your language while flying to this planet and learned other useful information while sinking my ship in your lake.”

  The images that thought produced—his ship in her lake! There was something about the words that caused another instant rush of blood from his brain and into his nether region.

  Even Kendall began to eye him mysteriously with those sparkling Tarcas brown eyes as she took in what he had said and shifted through his words, no doubt searching for a double meaning.

  “Tell me about your past mistake.”

  He changed the subject out of desperation as again his lower anatomy began to painfully fight the restraints of his earth jeans. The look she was giving him was having a direct effect on his libidinous desires and he was in danger of acting like an untried youth struggling to serve his first Mistress properly.

  “I guess it's time for a reality check.” All through his short computer lesson, Kendall had been hungrily eyeing his magnificent body and trying to keep her mind focused on his words, but it wasn’t easy. She had begun picturing a fantasy with him naked and wet in the sunshine, swimming to her in warm tropical waters of some South Pacific island, while she lay in wait on blush colored sand wearing a thick coat of oily sun block, a big smile, and little else.

  He had made her forget that she could have been here devouring Richard with her eyes instead of an intergalactic fugitive who had probably never even seen a naked women outside of an altering room, let alone know what his body was trying to tell him.

  She hadn’t missed the flashes of desire in his eyes or the bulges filling out the front of his pants, nor had she misunderstood the reasons for this impromptu nature hike. Flame was a bit horny and the giant of a man didn’t know what to do about it.

  “Okay, I’ll tell you about Richard,” she finally sighed. “It might do me some good to get the whole sorry story out in the open.”

  Flame nodded encouragingly. This talk of another man was already making his blood return to its proper place. Funny, even though he was relieved to have his blood flowing in the right direction once more, the thought of Kendall in the arms of another man made him feel, well, odd.

  “It’s simple really, Flame. He betrayed me. We were supposed to be married, ah mated,” she added at his confused look, “a few days ago. The day I first met you actually, but I had broke it off with the jerk some time ago.”

  Flame looked sympathetic but patiently waited for her to continue.

  “It was going to be a big ceremony. I wanted to do it right. My marriage was going to last for lifetime and beyond,” she explained as tears welled up in her eyes.

  “I called in my older sister from Ohio. She’s the only family I have left and I wanted her to share in the joy, in my joy.” The last was said in a singsong voice that heralded the coming of some great irony or tragedy.

  “My sister is a beautiful model and had the time off between jobs. Heck, she could afford to take a few days off anyway. She rushed right down to Baltimore, nothing but warm smiles and tearful hugs. She actually said that she wanted to help me in any way possible and do anything she could to aid me on my journey to wedded bliss. She helped me, all right, the prissy overgrown slut.”

  Kendall looked down in her lap and clenched her hands into a fist as if what she was about to say was so shocking that she actually felt ashamed about what she was going to reveal to him.

  “A week after she got here, I got off work early and dropped in to surprise Richard. And I wanted to check my wedding gown. It was such a perfect gown! I felt like a fairy tale princess when I wore it. My veil was designed to look like a crown to prove to the world that I was princess of the day. He and my sister were to have picked it up from the bridal shop, you see? I didn’t have the time to pick it up and they both said that they would be happy to do it. Because my sister didn’t know her way around town yet, Richard offered to drive her. It was a perfect arrangement. Richard would get to know my sister, my only living relative, and she could find out why I wanted that man so much.”

  Flame nodded again. He saw that this last ditch effort to bring about some sibilance of sanity in his over-stressed mind had opened an emotional valve in his Mistress that needed to be released. He saw that this self-contained woman needed to talk about her experience, her pain, but had no one to help her vent these painful and destructive emotions. He found himself even more startled to find that he wanted to be her confidant; he wanted to be the one to help her. He was better equipped t
o understand humiliation and betrayal than anyone she knew.

  “I came home and caught my sister wearing my wedding veil!” she wailed at last, covering her face with her hands.

  “This veil is sacred?” he asked, confused but still encouraging her to continue. How could the donning of such a simple garment mean a great betrayal?

  “No, but my fiancée was!” she cried. “She was wearing nothing but my veil and Richard! He was making love to her, right on top of my wedding gown!”

  Flame winced, then frowned at the tears streaming down her face. That indeed was a true betrayal. On his world, a woman’s mating gown was something sacred passed down for generations in even the lowest of houses. In the five ruling houses, the mating gowns were passed down from the five original Matriarchs and were considered valuable pieces of that family’s history worthy of showing that power still ran through their blood, and worn only at the mating ceremony to reaffirm their family’s position.

  Thinking of the beautiful gowns from the original five houses brought to mind the picture of a gown so white it hurt the eyes to stare directly at it. Only in his mind the ice white gown was flawed, the hem of its great flowing skirt splattered red with blood.

  Chapter Six

  “Richard’s apartment was closer to our hospital than mine, so we thought that it would be a good idea for me to have a key.”

  Kendall stared off into space remembering the sound of the key turning in the lock and feeling a little bit naughty because she carried a bottle of Champagne and wore nothing beneath her light summer coat.

  It was the soft music she had heard first. She slung open the door; picturing Richard reclined in his favorite chair listening to Pachobel, sipping a glass of his favorite Bordeaux. Instead she heard the odd rustling of tissue paper. Instinctively, she turned to the sound, thinking that Richard might be cheating and peeking at her dress before the wedding and that she might catch him in the act.

  She pulled the bottle out of her bag with one hand as she let her coat slide open revealing her body in all it’s natural glory, then stopped frozen. The sound of the bottle shattering like her dreams of the future caught the attention of the straining couple on the kitchen table, and brought her out of her shocked daze.

  “Do you know the worst part?” she asked beginning to control her tears now that the first burst of emotion had past she began to pull herself together. “Besides the fact that they were doing it on the gown that I had hand picked from about two thousand dresses, he said that I drove him to it! He said that I was too independent and sexually aggressive for a woman who couldn’t have children. He said that he screwed my sister because I scared him! He said that my sister was what a woman was supposed to be.”

  Flame stared at her, face frozen in amazement. Never had he heard such a ridiculous reason for breaking such an important vow.

  Women on Testrios were proud of their sexual prowess. As a young man, he was drilled as much in the ways of physical pleasure for women as he was in basic rules for survival. Being able to feel the full range of sexual desire was an achievement to be proud of! Not every woman could.

  And as for having children, what woman would want to? It was a painful and messy affair that could drag on for hours at a time. That was why The Matriarch decided that men were better-equipped to deal with dangers of childbearing.

  Kendall was a perfect example of Testrios femininity, except she had a heart with a capacity for deep feelings for others. That alone set her apart from every other woman he had known and made his Mistress unique.

  “Mistress, I can not fathom the thoughts of such a man, but know this. You should not waste emotion on such a man as he. On my world, it would fall to me as mate to a house leader to terminate this being, for one such as he is not a man. A man would consider it his life’s duty to protect his Mistress from any harm, be it internal or external, and not to cause pain to fill the eyes of his life-mate. The fault is not yours, Mistress. The responsibility must rest on his shoulders, his and those of your sister.”

  “But Flame,” she cried out with great anguish, “I am sterile! Unable to have children!”

  “So am I, Mistress,” he stated flatly, his gray eyes dull with the seriousness of his statement.

  She stopped shaking her head in protest, shocked into silence. She had forgotten that on his world a man was only as good as his ability to reproduce and protect.

  “I feel that I must reveal a little more of myself to you, Mistress. You do not seem to understand how unusual I really am. I ask you, what good is a man who possesses my energies if he cannot yield them? I was sent to the Society of Brothers at a young age and it could not have happened soon enough. My twin sibling had always hated me.” He paused at her indrawn breath.

  “Yes, I have a twin. I told you once before that twins were a common occurrence on my world. Until the scientists perfected the fertility drug administered, many men carried up to seven, even eight children successfully per pregnancy, but the strain on the male body was great. Later it was deemed too much of a population hazard to allow the practice to continue and twins became an acceptable amount for a man to bear during a single pregnancy.”

  Once again Kendall was speechless. There was another one of these hard-bodied space jockeys flying around somewhere? Would he pop in large with child and needing a place to hide too? The women on this planet would go wild for another one of her aliens if he in any way resembled her daring space man.

  “My twin is female and the next ruler of the House of Fire but hates me because she possesses not the slightest of energies.”

  Kendall hid her shocked reaction and waited for him to continue with his tale. How could a sister hate a brother for something that was not on his doing? She cocked her head to one side and continued to await the conclusion of this strange story.

  He smiled lost in thought for a moment, then continued. “My sire said that I was in anguish when he petitioned my mother for my placement with the healers. I was happy there until my mother returned for me. In truth, I thought that she had forgotten my existence. I was ten of your years when I was sent away and almost thirty years when she returned for me.”

  “After all that time, what could she possibly want with you?” Kendall asked, lost in his life’s story.

  “My mother wanted power and saw that she could increase hers if two great houses were combined. It has never happened before but there is no rule against it, probably because we all live on different continents. Only traders and the Ruling Matriarch, their life-mates and close assistants often meet each other. I did often wonder though, how my family’s shame came to be heard in the House of Ice. No matter which paths the information traveled, it seems the uniqueness of my situation came to the attention of the Ruler of the House of Ice.”

  “Catla loved the unusual. She was the first daughter of the House of Ice to be born with hair the color of blinding snow in several generations. As a result, she was indulged her every whim and considered special. Her mother was killed in an accident when she was still quite young and that made her a young ruler easily swayed by the attention of others. In fact she craved much attention, needed it, and owning one such as I could only give her more of what she craved.

  He pulled a lock of his deep red hair forward and eyed it thoughtfully before giving an un-Flame like snort and throwing the lock over his shoulder. Kendall almost giggled at the gesture that was so at odds with his normal controlled behavior. The gesture was almost human!

  “It was determined through testing that my body could accept the alteration that would allow me to carry a child. The scientists were not sure if someone with these energies could be altered, but after the tests were performed, I was immediately taken away for my manhood ceremony.”

  “Isn’t that where they remove...My God!” Kendall’s mouth opened and shut without losing any sound, she was so shocked. Without even being trained for such a role in life, Flame was snatched away from all that was familiar and put literately and figur
atively on the chopping block.

  Flame watched the color leach from his Mistress’ face and decided not to tell her of the jeering women of the Ice house who witnessed him being stripped and examined for approval like a choice animal at a breeding mart. Nor would he tell her how ill-prepared he was for pain of the actual circumcision, her word for the ceremony.

  He could tell her that instead of his week of recovery, he was immediately forced to stand in attendance behind his Mistress that very evening for a council meeting.

  “Even my mother seemed surprised to see me there. My sire hid the tears of sympathy as he watched me fetch for Catla, my new life-mate.” Even when he felt that he would scream from the pain of his surgery, his sire’s eyes commanded him to silence. Pride was the only legacy his sire could give him for he could do nothing to help his unique son now.

  “After the meeting, I was immediately taken to the altering room. When I balked at such treatment, I was ordered to receive twenty lashes with the discipline whip,” which he silently endured, “then I was taken and impregnated with Catla’s egg.”

  “They didn’t give you time to recover? That’s barbaric! You could have died from shock or from blood loss!”

  The nurse in Kendall was totally outraged. Any civilized people would see the needs of their own, not exploit them for their own behalf.

  “The next night,” he continued after Kendall had calmed herself somewhat, “was the celebration of out mating vows.”

  In extreme pain he had knelt before his mate and accepted the cutting of his hair ties, freeing his long hair so that he was then declared to the world a mated man. Then he was passed the Ring of Attendance, a small ring of metal keys that allowed him to oversee the day-to-day operations of Catla’s great house. He was to be the perfect example of masculine behavior, someone the men of the House of Ice could emulate.