Touching Fire (Touch Saga)

by Airicka Phoenix

  There was still a slight tilt in his lips, but hardness had begun to creep around his mouth and eyes.

  “To Ashton? Or is there someone else you long to return to?”

  I opened my mouth to tell him he had no idea what he was talking about but he continued on before I could even suck in a breath.

  “Perhaps if I looked more like this…”

  The air around him began to shimmer like heat waves rising off hot asphalt. His hair became darker and longer, curling around his ears and shoulders. His skin darkened to a warm gold. He blinked and his white eyes opened to oceans of crystalline blue. His thin face filled out, becoming sharp around the cheeks and square along the jawline. I didn’t watch the rest of his transformation, but stood paralyzed as the face became painfully familiar. My heart stuttered in my chest, hurting with the ache coursing through my veins.

  Damn him!

  “What are you doing?” My voice was a mangled sound of pain and fury. It raged beneath my skin and curled my fingers until half-moons were cut into my palms.

  “Trying to put you at ease,” he said easily. The perfect imitation of Isaiah’s voice was a fist in the gut.

  “Stop it!” I bit out.

  His eyes narrowed. “I would think this skin would please you.”

  “Stop it!” I growled, taking a threatening step forward, fully prepared to punch him if he didn’t take off that face.

  Without batting an eyelash, it melted away and he was himself again, thin, smirking and disgustingly pale.

  “Easy, Princess. I was only trying to be helpful.”

  It took several deep breaths before I could urge the tension away and calm down. I swallowed the sour taste in my throat. “What was that?”

  He splayed his fingers in what he probably thought was a look of innocence. “I am greed. Becoming what I want is second nature to me. All sins can change skins.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Skins?”

  “Of course. Nothing a Sire shows you is ever really what they’re showing you. Some call it glamour, others call it illusions. But we call it skinning, the ability to change one’s skin at will.”

  I thought of the other day in the library with Ashton and Celia and how Ashton was talking about his true form and how it was concealed beneath their human form.

  “Is this your real … skin?” I asked.

  He smirked darkly. “No. The real me would frighten you to death.”

  The cocky arrogance in me wanted to state that I’d seen worse, but commonsense clamped my lips shut. The last thing I wanted to see was a real monster in the flesh.

  “I would like to go home now,” I said.

  “And you shall … after we have talked,” he finished. Fluidly, he stepped back and motioned me towards the table. “Join me?”

  I hesitated. “If I do, do you swear I can leave?”

  He inclined his head. “I give you my word.”

  There was never any hint that he could be lying. His expression was somber and his eyes cool, for all I knew it could have just been another illusion. Who was to say he wasn’t sticking his tongue out at me from behind that human mask he wore? Could you really trust sin?

  Nevertheless, I fisted my skirt in both hands and started for the table. He was beside me the moment I reached the chair and drew it out for me. I slipped into it and watched as he took the chair at the head of the table.

  “Where am I?” I asked once we were both seated.

  “My home,” he answered, resting his cane against the side of the table. “One of many, but this one is more isolated than the others.”

  So in other words, no one will hear you scream, my pretty!

  “You said you were Ashton’s business associate. What sort of business?”

  “How about we eat while we talk? I’m famished.”

  My gaze darted to the decapitated heads lining the walls and my stomach churned. “I’m good.”

  Khrane sat back with a knowing grin. With a wave of his hand, the walls around us melted like water on an oil painting. The colors bled together and oozed to the floor before vanishing to nothingness. For a full heartbeat, the walls remained black canvases before they gave a shiver and shimmered back into view.

  It was a completely different room. The walls were white with beautiful crown moldings and the floors a glossy marble. One entire wall was glass broken by a trio of doors open to a brilliant afternoon. A warm breeze swept through smelling of honeysuckles, freshly baked bread and grass. It ruffled the sheer curtains hanging over the terrace doors, parting them to reveal…

  “Is that the Eiffel Tower?” I was out of my chair before my brain could remember that this was an illusion. My heels cracked against stone as I rushed to the French doors. I threw the curtains back and stepped out to the most glorious view.

  Paris, a brilliant carpet of lush gardens, blooming trees and buildings. So many buildings. They went on forever, disappearing deep into the horizon. The Seine glistened under the radiant glow of the sun only a stone’s throw away. I couldn’t believe I was in Paris. The Paris. I’d never been outside of Canada, but if I had one destination wish … And the moment shattered. I stumbled away from the stone railing separating me from the ant-sized people below, my heart down somewhere between my ankles.

  It wasn’t real. I wasn’t really there. It felt real and smelled real, but it was an illusion. It was fake, like everything else in my life, manufactured by a monster in order to bring me inches from what I desired most only to snatch it away.

  Disappointment rested on my shoulders and they sagged. I bit my lip and turned away to find Khrane in the doorway behind me, pale eyes watching my every movement.

  “How did you know?” My voice wavered despite my best attempts to keep it steady.

  “I am greed,” he said again, not sounding quite smug, but not exactly ashamed either. “The hopes and dreams of others come quite easily to me.”

  “So you can hurt them with it?” I mocked.

  He said nothing, but his silence said enough.

  I had no idea why, but tears burned behind my eyes as I moved towards him. I paused when I was close enough to almost touch him. My head fell back and I glared up into his face.

  “You’re an ass is what you are,” I ground out through my teeth, before sweeping past him and marching back into the room.

  “And you, Princess, are much too human.”

  I didn’t hear him follow me until I whipped around to find him only feet away. “I am human.” I willed my limbs to stop shaking as I focused on his words. My brows furrowed and I was grateful for the distraction. The last thing I wanted was to cry in front of this guy and prove how right he was. “Why do you keep calling me that?”

  He raised a quizzical brow in question.

  “Princess,” I clarified. “Is that some kind of term of insult in this world?”

  Both brows lifted this time in surprise, then he laughed like I just said the funniest thing. “Has your father not told you who you are? Who he is?”

  Something in his tone made me not want to know. I was finding out new and more disturbing things about myself every day and, truthfully, I was kind of done with the whole self-discovery thing.

  “He hasn’t,” Khrane mused, marveling at my wary expression. “I wonder why he would hide this.”

  “What?” I blurted, my curiosity getting the better of me.

  Khrane shifted a single step forward to loom over me. “Your father is the leader of your legacy.”

  “Yeah, I know that. Seven legacies, seven Sires … yup. I’m aware. My dad is the ruler of Luxuria. Rem legacy. Yada Yada.”

  His eyes narrowed, the glee in them making me nervous. “Yes, but did he also tell you that in our world, this world, the leaders are of royal blood? In short, your father is king and you, as his heir, are…”

  I gulped. “A princess.”

  Damn you, Archer! I cursed repeatedly in my head. Damn you, damn you, damn you! Why didn’t he tell me? All that time I thought he w
as being condescending and a jerk. But nooo. He meant it. I was a freaking princess. I wanted to hit him. Then, I wanted to kick Ashton. How could he keep something that huge from me? Would it have been so hard to say, hey, you’re Rem legacy, oh, and by the way, you’re also a princess. Surprise!

  I supposed I should have put two and two together. It really was my own fault I was so slow on the uptake. Of course, as ruler, Ashton would be king of Luxuria. It just never dawned on me that I would be a freaking princess. The princess of lust. Awesome. I wondered if I could get that fitted on a business card.

  “You’re not pleased,” Khrane observed.

  I shot him a dry stare. “Caught that did you?”

  It was his turn to look surprised. Maybe he thought I would be jumping for joy, or something. Well tough crackers for him. What was next? I was related to a Goddess? How did I go from not knowing who I was, or what I was to suddenly becoming a weapon, a mutant, a sin and a princess? And that wasn’t including my need for blood or my little temper problem. That was a whole lot of hats to wear. I just wanted to crawl under a bed somewhere and wait until it all blew over and everyone forgot about me.

  “Perhaps you should rest,” Khrane suggested, almost kindly.

  I glowered at him instead. “Perhaps you should let me go home like you promised.”

  He seemed unfazed by my bark. “And I will, once we have talked.”

  I threw up my hands. “What is there to talk about? What do you want?”

  He made no response as he stalked casually back to the table and regained his seat. He watched me with those eerie eyes until I growled deep in my throat and stalked to my own chair. I flopped gracelessly into it and winced when the metal slats making up the corset in the dress cut into my ribs.

  “Talk!” I snapped and regretted my tone immediately when the quiet calm around him dissolved, twisting into something fierce and dangerous.

  Black tendrils swirled across the milky white of his eyes, consuming them until they were pits of hell glowering back at me. Lips that had been firm and pink turned black and curled back over sharp, jagged teeth.

  “Do not dare to tell me when to speak, Half-breed!”

  In the blink of an eye, the room tore apart. Everything vanished, including the chair I was sitting on. I hit the ground. Pain cascaded up my backside and splintered in all the places the corset gouged into my skin. I cried out. The sound was eaten by creaks and groans as the room rebuilt itself to compliment the menacing figure looming over me.

  Gone were the white walls, the city of Paris and the handsome man with the charming smile. In their place was a man cloaked in shiny black leather from the imposing boots on his giant feet to the body molding suit that hugged every rigid muscle like a second skin. Ivory horns protruded from the tops of broad shoulders to curl in an arc over a round, cleanly shaven head. Eyes as black as thunderclouds bore down on me from a face reserved for nightmares. Steam billowed from nostrils shaped like that of a bull. The silver hoop adorning the skin between each nostril glinted in the harsh light cast from the blazing torches surrounding the chamber.

  It fit. He fit. The rooms he’d shown me before, the faces he’d worn … the skins, those never fit him, but this … the dark room with blood spattered walls and the sea of blood crashing outside the terrace doors … this fit. This was the real Khrane. And I wanted to pee myself.

  The row of buckles running up the sides of his knee high boots jingled as he spun on his heel and stomped to the heap of twisted iron and leather sitting atop a two-step platform. He swung back around to face me before lowering himself down. I winced as I thought of all the jagged barbs protruding from the thing. Then I realized, it was a chair. No. Not a chair. It was a freaking throne.

  “Perhaps now that you have seen me for what I really am, we can forego the pleasantries and get right to business.”

  Even his voice was different. It no longer held the soft lilt of amusement. Instead it rumbled with eons of power. Outside the terrace doors, lightning sliced across the red heavens. The sea below it bubbled. Above my head, chains clattered and I looked up. Hooks, some stained with flecks of faded brown, swung with the chilling breeze that swept through the room. I shuddered.

  “Are you frightened, Princess?” Black lips quirked in one corner and where it had once been carefree, it now held contempt. “I seldom take lightly to being commanded and never by a mere girl. Your father owes me quite an explanation, which I am hoping you will help me with before I summon him here and kill him before your eyes.”

  I forced myself up and stumbled once when my foot caught on my skirt. I tore the stupid thing away and rose to face the devil himself.

  “Ashton hasn’t done anything.”

  “And yet you stand before me. You can see where I would be hesitant to believe you.”

  I moistened my lips. “What do you want?”

  “I want to know where you came from. I want to know how you were created. I want to know where you’ve been all these years, but most of all.” He leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees. “I want to know where you got all that power.”

  He couldn’t have started off somewhere easy, I mused, and felt my palms grow damp.

  “I don’t know,” I said honestly.

  His eyes narrowed. “I don’t believe you. You and your father thought you could keep this little secret and then use it against the Guild. Was that it?”

  I frowned. “Of course not.”

  “Don’t play stupid with me!” His roar shook the ground beneath my feet. The chains went wild above my head, clanging with deafening force that rang in my ears long after they had stilled once more. “Your false ignorance will not help you, Princess. It will not save you from the gruesome and horrific things I will do to you and your father. I will not stand being made a mockery of.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  Rather than the anger I expected, his features became contemplating. His round head cocked to the side and he squinted at me thoughtfully. “And would you tell me if you did, Princess?”

  Would I throw Ashton under the bus, even to save my own skin? The answer was simple. No. I only had the one parent and even if I didn’t, I wasn’t a snitch.

  A slow, creeping smile coiled across his mouth. It was warped and scary. I felt all the spit in my mouth turn to ashes. Cold dread formed a tight fist in my gut and I was sure I would soil myself right there.

  “If you weren’t an abomination, I might almost admire your loyalty, and your beauty.” His grin broadened when I blinked in surprise. “Yes, Princess, you are exceptionally beautiful, not a surprise considering your legacy. Rem women are breathtaking, flawless and seductive. The perfect lure for any man, be they mortal or not. Everything about you drives a man to want to sin. It was, after all, a Rem woman who caused the fall of Troy. Could I not smell the filthy stench of human in your veins, I would have kept you for myself. Made you mine.” Dark hunger glinted off the black surface of his eyes. They moved over me and I felt his gaze as though I were naked. The phantom caress of it made my teeth clench and my skin crawl. I wanted to scrub with a steel brush to wash it away. But then he rose from his chair and stood over me, a daunting eight feet of radiating power and hatred, and I was once more terrified. “Let’s see just how deep that loyalty of yours runs, shall we, Princess?”

  Chapter 25

  I was taken to my room and left there to rot. Well, maybe not rot exactly, but definitely die of boredom. There were no books, or radio to occupy my time. There wasn’t even a TV. There was something almost comical about the fact that the underworld didn’t get cable.

  Several times, or at least for as long as it took to feel as though my brain was going to explode, I tried telepathically linking with Isaiah. I called his name over and over again, sometimes out loud, but not a single response was returned. I had begun to suspect, unlike Luxuria, Khrane’s world didn’t have that nifty option, or he was deliberately trying to keep
me from communicating from anyone. I wasn’t sure how he was doing it, but then how was he able to change skins the way most changed underwear?

  I tried to determine the passing days, but the world outside my windows remained bleak, a perpetual gloom of dark clouds over an even darker landscape. Weeks could have passed for all I knew, or only mere hours. I wasn’t even given a clock.

  No one came to see me, except Isama, who brought me trays of food I didn’t eat, mostly consisting of fruits, sandwiches, cheese or soup. Things that could have been eaten at any point in the day as though Khrane was deliberately trying to keep me from knowing just how long I’d been his captive. Isama must have been given instructions not to speak to me, because she always left the trays on the vanity and scurried from the room as though she were afraid I might set her on fire. So I spent a great deal of time pacing, sleeping or sitting in front of the fire waiting for something to happen.

  At one point, I started keeping track of minutes by making ticks with a nail on the wall. But twenty minutes in, I began to feel crazy, like one of those people in the asylum, huddled in the corner counting to themselves. The thought was so chilling that I instantly stopped and lost count.

  A few times, I tried opening my door, but it was locked from the outside, which made me think I was being held hostage in a celebrity prison. Very clever of Khrane really. As royalty, tossing me in the dungeon would probably cause some kind of war, I was assuming. What better way to keep peace and get information then locking the princess in a tower?

  Bravo, jerk wad.

  It was during one of my many active moments, as I lay sprawled across the bed, starfish-style, studying the creepy little cherubs smirking back at me—bastards—that Isama swept into the room, void of a tray. I shot upright, interest and curiosity piqued. Her bulging lizard eyes shuttered like a camera lens before focusing on me.

  “Master wishes to see you,” she said in her child-like voice.

  Well you can tell Master I’m busy and would rather rot in this room than see his face, I thought. No way was I going to voice that thought out loud, especially when there was a chance I would be faced with demon Khrane again.