Child of Fire, Child of Ice-A Sci-fi Romance Series (The Waljan Chronicles Book 1)

by JB Trepagnier

  “They don’t seem to bother us after dinner. Tonight, in the hot springs? We can chat.”

  He let out a little growl. “It’s hard to concentrate on anything I’d want to talk about with you sitting there hot and naked.”

  She gave him a mysterious smile. “I’ll take care of that for you. I think they are coming.”

  “Do you want to watch?” Elan asked, stepping back from the peephole as the men started spilling in.

  “Just let me get eyes on them. It’s easier to tell who is who in my head.”

  Isolde pressed her hands on either side of the hole and peered in. “Did you used to watch council meetings from here when you were a kid?”

  “At first. I don’t know about Avala, but our council meetings are a lot of petty bickering where nothing productive gets done. You have my mother and maybe two other people who thinks there is a logical solution to our problems and the rest think we just need to pray harder because we’ve been cursed enough.”

  She stepped away from the hole to let him peep. They were all sitting around the carved, circular table and Elan took it as a good sign they were all sitting together. He could hear everything in the passage and hoped Ace positioned this correctly so he didn’t blow it with his opening statement.

  “We have a problem on our hands. Do any of you know anything about secret fighting pits?”

  Elan thought that was good. It didn’t let on about The Children and just made it seem like Ace was worried about illegal fights. Ace paused for a response and all the men seemed confused. He couldn’t get into their heads, so he looked to Isolde.

  “Boomer knows something. He’s not involved, but he overheard a careless conversation. He’s been digging on his own. He could be an asset. The rest don’t know,” Isolde whispered.

  Boomer confessed what Isolde had plucked out of his head, but he just thought it was a distraction. Isolde must have already told Ace the others didn’t know anything. Ace made Boomer confess what he knew before he dropped that huge bomb in their lap. Boomer had a list of suspects he planned on submitting for questioning. Boomer either hadn’t done a lot of digging or the problem with their military hadn’t gone as deep as they feared.

  Ace told them all about The Children and the sixteen’s secrets. Every single person on the tribunal started to argue when he dropped the bomb about Elan’s farce.

  “Elan has a soft body and I’ve witnessed him have a full meltdown and run to his mother. He’s no warrior.”

  “You’ve seen Elan in a padded shirt. I’ve seen him without it. He doesn’t even have the same nasally voice when he’s not pretending.”

  “If Elan is really a man and not an overgrown child, then why has he never visited the courtesans? Why is he playing children’s games with a slave?”

  Ace cleared his throat. “She’s not really a slave. She’s the Avalian princess and trust me, you don’t want to be alone with her.”

  The entire room erupted and Ace didn’t seem to be able to handle the situation. Elan felt Isolde press against his side. “Can we get in there from here if I warn Ace to tell everyone we’re coming in?”

  “Yes, there’s a switch right here. The painting will disappear and reveal the passage.”

  Isolde was quick and Ace was soon warning everyone they would both be there. The tribunal could see Elan for themselves. Ace apparently hadn’t forgiven her for rooting around in his head and warned them not to be offended by anything she said. Elan pressed the button and the painting shimmered. Once it was gone, all eyes were on Elan and Isolde holding hands.

  Every single one of the soldiers except Ace couldn’t decide if their eyes wanted to land on Elan’s muscular form or his hand holding Isolde’s. Boomer spoke first.

  “I can deal with you pretending and hiding since you’re supposed to be special. I can’t deal with you holding hands with her and what you might have done already when we thought you were playing games.”

  Elan growled, but Isolde just squeezed his hand. “That’s because you don’t know about the alliance that’s been in the works or the new planet. There are sixteen of us on Avala just like on Cendis. The same thing happened that night there too.”

  “Do you hide on Avala too?” Crash asked. Crash looked like he was coming to their side.

  “Not to the same extent Elan does. We hide our gifts because they would use us as weapons.”

  “I was the one who took the reports about the swarms dying in the slums. Did you bring Avalian science with you?”

  Isolde explained bond animals had returned and that she and Elan were supposed to. She said the same thing both of them did when they were asked. They hadn’t yet, but the closer they got, things seemed to be happening on both planets. Boomer immediately argued that Elan may look like a warrior, but he didn’t think either of them had gifts of old. Elan felt the temperature in the room drop and Boomer jumped. Elan gave him a wicked grin and Ace just rolled his eyes.

  “Unless you want her spouting your private thoughts back at you, you should just believe the girl. Elan can move things with just a thought.”

  “Boomer wants you to prove it,” Isolde grinned. “He’s not sure if I’m a demon or not.”

  Boomer jumped when Elan made all of the empty chairs shoot away from the table and lit every candle in the room.

  “Can’t you just use that on these Children?” he asked, rubbing his face with his hands.

  Elan spoke first. “We have a plan for The Children. But we need your help to see how many members of our military have joined. Some might just be fighting and some may be secret members. If we round up The Children and try to give them a chance to speak before sentencing is carried out and this goes really deep into the military, it’s going to be civil war. There’s only sixteen of us with fire. Isolde can wield ice like a weapon and she’s a fierce warrior, but her mind gifts aren’t defensive.”

  Stretch finally chose to speak. Elan didn’t know much about him. The men of Cendis didn’t sport facial hair, but Stretch had a white beard down to his chest. He was also the oldest out of this bunch.

  “They’re right. The sixteen are clearly important and need to be protected. If a new planet has been found where we aren’t dealing with these infernal swarms and it means an alliance with Avala, we need to take it. All I know about Avala is what I’ve been taught, but maybe our people can accomplish more with them than fighting them. Out of that list Boomer has of suspects, I’d pick Hog as the first person who would join these Children. Think about it. He’s been trying to get his rank promoted for years without success. We’ve all heard one of his rants when it doesn’t happen. It’s never his fault.”

  Viper finally chimed in too. “If anyone would betray his brothers, it would be Hog. He’s arrogant, but he’s not stupid. And if he’s been in those pits, he’s familiar with pain. He won’t betray The Children no matter what we do to him.”

  “I can make him,” Isolde said. Boomer shuddered like he still thought she was some sort of demon. “How do you think we have all this information about The Children? I’m not the only one either. If you can get Hog to the old spaceship the original people came in, there are cells there and I can see everything.”

  “Getting Hog out there in the first place is going to be difficult,” Boomer argued. “He’s not going to willingly go out to a place everyone believes is cursed.”

  “No, it’s not. You’re just stalling because you think it’s cursed. You clearly saw Elan and I come from behind a painting. There’s underground tunnels in addition to the passages. Just knock him out and put him on something that can carry him.”

  “You think it’s that easy to knock a soldier out, little girl?” Boomer sneered.

  “I’m trained in all your fighting styles as well as my own. If you use Joono pressure points from behind when he’s not paying attention, he’ll be on the floor without throwing a punch,” Isolde said coolly like this should have been obvious.

  “She’s right,” Viper pointed out. “
I know the most about Joono, so I’ll do it. I’m not afraid of that ship either, but I’ll need someone to guide me through those tunnels so I know where I’m going.”

  Elan heard Isolde in his head. She had the exact same plan he did. “Tell Hog you heard about the pits and want a shot in the ring. Ask him to take you there so you can see it in all its glory. Isolde and I will be in the passage. I can take him out myself. Isolde and I will have someone there to carry him if she’s willing and guide you to the ship.”

  “How is a woman going to carry someone Hog’s size?”

  “My bond animal will carry him. She may find him disgusting and say no. I’ll find something else if she disagrees.”

  “Can I watch Isolde or one of the other sixteen when they work on him?” Viper asked. “I find all of this fascinating.”

  Crash and Stretch both wanted to be there too. Elan worked it out so they would be in the tunnels with him when Viper got Hog down into the pits. Ace and Boomer had no desire to be there, but they wanted to be informed immediately as to what was found. Elan thought Ace was still a little sore about Isolde getting into things in his head he didn’t want to be known.

  Boomer probably still thought she was some sort of demon, but would do his duty with this investigation.

  Chapter 23

  Isolde was starving by the time they made it back to Elan’s chambers. Sartika must have been watching the passage and possibly the council room and saw how late they were in there. Almost as soon as they arrived back in Elan’s chambers, there was a knock on the door. She hid like she always did when they didn’t know who it was. Her stomach turned in on itself when she realized it was food. The food here was unlike anything back on Avala and she hoped they could get spices on Ragnis Crystal.

  She no longer found the floor pillows strange and sank down on one in front of the short table. Like always, she had no idea what was in front of her. She hadn’t been served the same thing twice since she had gotten here. She loved watching Elan swell with pride as he explained to her what everything was and he always watched her eat with this small smile, like he shared her enjoyment of the food.

  Tonight was some beast she hadn’t heard of before and didn’t exist on Avala. As Elan was explaining it to her, she thought it may be too cold for it there. He explained it as some large type of reptile that liked heat and had large teeth. It walked around on two legs like a man and only the best hunters could take one down.

  She plated her meat and vegetables. “Have you taken one down?”

  “A tytops? It’s what I hunted when I bonded with Tati. We hunt them together often. The tytops have a taste for the Pawswearseas. They are the only predator big enough to bring one down.”

  Isolde’s eyes widened. Tati was almost the same size as Soelva. She was bigger than any cat she had ever seen. “You have lizards bigger than Tati?”

  Elan laughed. “We have several animals Tati’s size or bigger, but most of them eat plants. We can only grow certain crops or the swarms would destroy them, but we don’t really have a shortage of meat to hunt.”

  “But you’ve served me so many different foods!”

  “You’ve eaten the same vegetables, just prepared differently. Our crops grow underneath the ground or in greenhouses, where the swarms can’t get them.”

  “Tell me about bringing down the tytops when you bonded with Tati,” she said, digging into her food. The meat was a little gamey and not as tender as what she had been served before, but it had been marinated in spices and roasted over a fire like what she had been served before and much better than salted meat.

  Elan’s eyes lit up. She wished they had more time to just talk. Most of their day was interrupted by business with The Children. She suggested the hot spring because she enjoyed it and she had just the thing to get his mind off seeing her naked.

  “Botak told me the bond normally happened at eleven and it may be dangerous. He sent me out alone into the forest with only a general idea of what I was supposed to do. I knew I would find a Pawswearsea somewhere, just not where. I followed my gut and started going to parts of the forest I hadn’t been to before where the swarms weren’t as thick. I came to the clearing I took you to where Tati kept being cryptic. She was waiting for me like she knew I was coming. She huffed at me like she wondered what took me so long.

  “We couldn’t talk yet, so I just followed her. She took me to a clearing in the forest with a lot of sun. I’d never seen a tytops before and they are much more frightening before they end up on your plate. There was one sunning itself in the clearing. I don’t know if it smelled us or sensed us. It was on its feet in seconds making these hissing noises. Those things stand at least seven feet tall and they have these gold eyes that glint when the sun hits them.

  “All I had with me was my spear since I was told that was how I had to do it. I usually hunt with a bow. Most hunters use guns now. The tytops are lightning fast, even if they have these short, squat legs with long, sharp claws. It came barreling at me and that was when I knew. This thing was faster than me, so I needed to hunt with strategy and I had already lost the element of surprise.

  “The tytops are brutal killers, but they are also very smart. He saw my feet were planted and I was waiting for him. He knew I was up to something or I would have heaved my spear at him. He let out this cry that nearly shattered my eardrums. I knew whatever that cry was, I needed to hurry. He slowed his approach and started circling me. He was over seven feet tall, but I’m six foot four and tall myself and I was tall even then.

  “When he finally approached me, I knew this wasn’t something he was sure of. He was used to fighting with speed and I had halted that. He tried swinging at me with his claws several times, but it was easy to dodge. I could tell he was getting frustrated and sloppy. He went off balance with one of his swings. I rolled under him and stuck my spear in his side.

  “Tati grabbed him in her jaws and dragged him away while he was still hissing and dying. I had no idea what was going on. I still couldn’t hear her like I was supposed to. I thought she was never going to stop pulling on him, even after he was dead. She yanked him all the way back to the place we met and looked at me expectantly.

  “I did the only thing I knew how to do. I hunted it, so I did what I did with all my hunts. I carved him up as best I could, lit a fire, and roasted the meat. As Tati and I ate together, I felt the bond start and pretty soon, I could hear her. I know you said you had to eat raw meat, but you can’t do that with the tytops. Their flesh has a toxin. That’s part of why they are such a delicacy. They are hard to hunt and if you don’t skin them right, you can get sick or go mad.

  “Tati told me that after I had done a haphazard job of skinning him and cooking him. I asked why she dragged him all the way back there. Apparently, that shrieking cry it gave was it calling other tytops. I would have been outnumbered and probably killed. Tati told me she was glad I killed him in time because the others would have been there soon.”

  “Your bonding was much more dangerous than mine. Mine involved a lot of tracking and dealing with snow in my boots. I think it was more about outsmarting my hunt than facing it in battle. I probably had to eat it raw because I’m not meant to start a fire with my mind.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. I had a toxin to deal with for my hunt, so I had to cook it. Maybe it was something in the blood of your hunt that completed your bond. Maybe not dying from that toxin was part of how I proved myself.”

  “Do you want to go to the hot spring and continue our talk?”

  Elan gave her a lopsided grin. “If you want to talk and not end up in bed, you can’t sit on my lap and kiss me like that again.”

  She cocked an eyebrow at him and winked. “Why do you think I don’t mean to talk and also end up in bed?”

  Elan groaned. “You’re going to kill me, Isolde. Even when you just flirt with me, I want to rip off all your clothes.”

  “So, do you want to chat with me in the hot springs or rip off all my clothes?”
<
br />   “If I rip off all your clothes right now, I’m going to beg for the bond, so let’s sit in the hot springs so I can contain myself.”

  Just thinking about Elan ripping her clothes off and completing the bond had her heart racing. She wanted to pull him to bed, but she would have begged for it too. She followed him to the hot springs.

  “I’m going to turn my back while you get out of your clothes and get in so we actually chat in the spring.”

  She laughed and quickly undressed. She sunk into the hot water. She didn’t turn around or avert her eyes while he undressed. She watched every inch of his beautiful body as he got into the pool and she no longer wanted to chat now. She wanted Elan. He looked at her with confusion when she started laughing.

  “I guess I have trouble controlling myself when you’re naked too. I can’t think of anything I want to talk about. All I can think about is touching you.”

  “Should we get out?”

  “No,” she said, sliding into his lap. “Kiss me for a little while.”

  She captured his lips with hers and nibbled on his bottom lip. He let out a little growl and his hands went underneath her to squeeze her buttocks. He roughly pulled her closer and bit her tongue. She liked this side of him. She plunged her hand under the water to grab his shaft and started stroking it. She didn’t know why he removed it.

  “Not yet, Isolde. Let me enjoy you for a little while.”

  She pulled the strip that tied his hair back and let it loose. She let her fingers run through the silky white strands before she tugged it when he bit her neck. She liked it when he pulled her hair and she could feel the little jolts where he enjoyed it too. He also liked it when she clawed his back. She felt that the night before. She moaned his name and dug them in when he nibbled on her collarbone.

  “I love it when you say my name like that,” Elan said, his strong hands lifting her up out the water a little.

  Even his voice hit her right to the core. She was about to beg him to take her to bed. She couldn’t handle their fevered kisses anymore. She wasn’t even trying to be quiet when his warm mouth latched onto her nipple. She wrapped her arms around his neck and rode wave after wave of pleasure as he alternated between swirling with his tongue and biting. She wanted more of him. All of him.