Tamed by the Fire

by Maxine Mansfield

  Tears glistened in her eyes, and though he knew she was probably lying to him, it was all Zander could do not to wrap her in his arms. He didn’t, though. He had to hear the rest of her story. “What task was so important it couldn’t wait?”

  “I…I think you might possibly be right about…about…Maycee,” she cried.

  A single tear welled up and slowly slid down her right cheek. Zander captured it with the pad of his thumb and wiped it away. He sighed. Yes, there was no doubt about it; Kitrina Dragonheart was definitely going to be the death of him someday.

  “I was right about what, Kit? And you still haven’t told me where you went or why.”

  She took a deep breath, and the words tumbled out of her mouth quickly. “I went to the library. I had to research something. There’s no class today, remember? It’s a holiday…kind of. So, I didn’t think anyone else would be there this early in the morning. And I was right, it was empty.”

  She paused for a breath, and Zander’s patience snapped. “For God Draka’s sake, Kitrina, quit beating around the bush and just spit it out.”

  She glowered at him. “If you’d give me a chance to tell you without interrupting me every other second, I just might be able to.”

  Zander made a point of glowering back at her, but he shut his mouth, crossed his arms, and waited.

  “Well,” Kitrina said. “When I woke this morning, I remembered something that happened while I was, umm, drugged. Something I think might be important.”

  “Must be nice,” Talon scoffed. “I don’t remember a thing.”

  Kitrina cringed. “Sorry.”

  Zander shook his head. “Talon, hush. Kit, get on with it.”

  She nodded. “I know it was Asla who you caught standing over me, and I’m certainly not ruling out any involvement on her part, but I swear I remember Maycee prompting her to ask me questions. Questions about the Dragon Heart Opal.” She paused for a moment. “I think Maycee was threatening Asla if she didn’t do what she told her to, but I can’t be sure. It’s all jumbled.”

  Kitrina swallowed a loud sob, and Zander reached out to gently stroke the same soft warm neck he only the dropping of a few grains of sand through the hourglass ago had wanted to choke the life out of. He felt ashamed.

  “Take your time,” he whispered.

  Then he made a quick promise to himself. Kitrina didn’t deserve his anger. She deserved his patience. Never again would he give credence to thoughts of violence against her in any way, no matter what trials the sometimes infuriating little bundle of feminine rogue put him through in the future.

  “I went to the library to check Maycee out,” she continued. “I wanted—needed to see what I could find out about her past. Even though I know it’s common for many trolls not to use a last name and that makes them hard to keep track of, what it takes to get admitted into The Academy of Magical Arts really isn’t that hard to pursue. I found the scores of her entrance exam. I even found recommendations from more than a few high-placed individuals, including three troll generals and Asla’s barbarian father of all people.”

  Zander’s spiritmaster sensibility zinged to life in a whole other direction, and he stiffened at her side, dreading to hear more, wishing he’d been wrong about Maycee. Being right should’ve felt…better than this did. It didn’t, though. It just felt…scary.

  Kitrina didn’t seem to notice his change in demeanor, however. She kept on explaining, just as he’d asked her to. “But what I didn’t find was any trace of personal history before this year or before her application to enroll in this institution. It’s as if Maycee didn’t exist before we all met her here at The Academy. I find that…odd. Don’t you?”

  Zander nodded. “I think we’d best call a meeting.”

  ****

  “Surprise!”

  Marquart stared at the two obviously disturbed individuals standing before her and wondered if they had any idea how close they’d just come to being dead? She resheathed her dagger and made a point of glaring at Pierced and his piss-poor excuse of a grinning, dark elf boyfriend. What a waste of bone, blood, and muscle. “Go away, I’m busy.”

  They didn’t leave. No, that would’ve made way too much sense, and there was certainly no one on Albrath ignorant enough to accuse Pierced Shortz of having anything as common as sense.

  “Ah, Maycee, don’t ya at least want ta know what we’re up ta today?”

  She really didn’t. But she had to admit, considering how they looked, there must have been some kind of really disturbing story behind whatever the two of them had going on.

  The strange little gay-Goth gnome was perched upon smiling Steve’s jutting rock-hard blue cock, and he was as naked as the day he’d been born, which wasn’t unusual, except today, he was also wearing a blond curly wig, had a red cape slung across his shoulders, and was carrying what looked to be a picnic basket of some sort in his hand.

  And Steve? The dark elf was just as equally bizarre, if not more so. He was stark-assed naked, too. But his normally clean-shaven face was framed by not only his usual snow-white locks of hair but also a furry-looking beard to match. He was wearing round, rimmed, old lady spectacles, and had an absurdly long, whiskered blue snout on his indigo blue face.

  She wasn’t going to ask them what they were up to, though. She wasn’t. No matter what antics the pair came up with or what they said to provoke her curiosity.

  Instead, Marquart forced herself back to her task, once more buried herself in the book on paladin genealogy, and smiled. All along, the answer to her dilemma of how to procure the Stone of Anthion from the grasp of the stupid human chit had been right at her fingertips, and she hadn’t even realized it.

  Well, she realized it now.

  It amazed her how one little word in one single sentence of one obscure text could so alter the outcome of her entire existence. And that one word was bahsheer.

  Sir Uthiel Dragonheart, the leader of the Paladins of Albrath, the Protector of the Dragons, the Master of Castle Kuropkat, and Kitrina’s father was part bahsheer. His mother’s grandfather had been a full blooded bahsheer, which made Uthiel Dragonheart part bahsheer, which made Kitrina not only a descendant of the race known as bahsheer, but also, apparently, a recipient of their unusual recessive gene.

  Maycee grinned as she read on. Bahsheers, a race of cat-like people, who, when their blood mixed with those who weren’t bahsheer themselves, sometimes produced offspring with the capability to shift into various cat forms. Perhaps even cats like the one who the Dragon Heart Opal apparently didn’t care about.

  “Little Red Riding Hood, that’s what we’re doing.”

  Marquart glanced up. “What?”

  Pierced placed both his hands on his hips. “I said we’re playing Little Red Riding Hood. I’m Red.” He pointed over his shoulder to Steve. “He’s the big bad wolf, and he’s gonna punish me for being naughty and eat me all up and other stuff.”

  Pierced giggled, and the sound echoed off the walls.

  Marquart realized that since most of The Academy was virtually vacant today because of the stupid Yulemass celebrations starting, she could easily kill these two idiots with none being the wiser. Not only would it decrease the number of bodyguards constantly surrounding Kitrina, but there would be two fewer pains in her ass to contend with later when the little human chit disappeared off the face of Albrath and the hunt for her began.

  Blood lust filled her. It had been a very long time since she’d had the pleasure of killing anyone, let alone these two who so deserved it. Marquart unsheathed her dagger. Why not indulge her urge? It was a win-win situation.

  “There ya two are. Da sent me ta find ya.”

  Marquart spun and starred straight into the face of a young purple-haired female gnome. What was it with all these people sneaking up on her today? She hadn’t managed to live nine centuries by being careless. And yet today, two idiots and a gnome youngster had managed to do something many grown men had failed at in the past and subsequently paid
for with their lives.

  It wasn’t to be tolerated.

  “What’s he want now, Lavender? Can’t ya see Steve and I are right in the middle of Little Red Riding Hood?”

  The female gnome stomped her foot. “He’s not going ta care what ya are or na in the middle of and ya well know it. He told me ta tell ya what the whatever pickled something or other on a wood-elf choirboy’s backside, and there’s an emergency meeting and ya’d better come quick.”

  “VoT, VoT, and double VoT,” Pierced swore. “I swear Da has a sixth sense. He always seems ta pick the most inconvenient moments ta interrupt our fun.”

  The library door swung open and in walked Asla. “Maycee, I was told you were looking for me?”

  Steve grinned and waved goodbye as he walked right past her with Pierced still balancing precariously on his stiff cock, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  Lavender followed them both, and Maycee resheathed her dagger.

  Too bad. Killing those three would’ve no doubt been a useless endeavor, but oh so fulfilling. But then, another opportunity would present itself. It always did.

  Right now, though, there were more important matters to contemplate.

  She glared at Asla. “It’s about time yout showed up. Go get packed. We need to leave.”

  ****

  “What the chewed-up and spit-out crunchy balls of wax from deep in the ear canals of an overly friendly ogre streetwalker with a penchant for dirty little dwarf boys who like ta dress up as donkeys and bay at the three moons of Albrath while doing the humpity-bumpity wiggly-giggly squirt do ya make of that? It’s ta bad really. I was just starting ta…kinda like that troll.”

  Kitrina swallowed back her guilt. She should’ve shared her suspicions concerning Maycee with her friends earlier much earlier. And she certainly should have never lied right to Zander’s face.

  She realized that now. It’d been a mistake, a big one. She should’ve had the guts to own up to the fact she was a shifter, even if the only thing she could shift into was an embarrassingly useless, and as Zander had so eloquently put it, stupid cat. But she hadn’t.

  What if he found out later she’d deceived him? He’d never again trust her, he’d never ever forgive her, and she wouldn’t even blame him.

  “I say we track Maycee down right now,” Zander said. “Bring her back here. We need to interrogate her. Perhaps we could even finally get a good look at the back of her neck and see if there’s a K tattooed there. It’s time we got to the bottom of this.”

  Pierced jumped up from his seat in the middle of Steve’s lap and waved his hand in the air. “Oh…oh, I know where she is or at least where she was. Steve and I talked to her in the library just before coming here. You can ask Asla. She was there, too.”

  Kitrina sighed. The library. Of all the places on Albrath to set her lie to Zander and Talon, why had she picked the one location that could be so easily disproved?

  Everyone knew it was a requirement to sign the ledger in the lobby before entering or leaving the library. A ledger Zander definitely wouldn’t be finding her name on this morning. And Maycee had been in the library at the exact same time Kit had told Zander she’d been there? And Asla, too? Why? And if asked, would they expose her deception?

  Kitrina swallowed hard and tried to breathe calmly.

  Not that her entire story had been one big fat fabrication, for it hadn’t. The part about going to the library and checking out Maycee was one hundred percent true. It just hadn’t happened quite when and the way she’d said it had.

  Her real visit to The Academy’s library had taken place more than a week before, and what she’d found or really hadn’t found had been the true catalyst behind planning the trip to the Isle of Shak-spere in the first place. She’d wanted a chance to draw Maycee out into the open, test her, make her comfortable, and at the same time make herself appear vulnerable in hopes the troll would finally show her hand.

  She sighed again. Well, that whole fiasco hadn’t gone quite as planned, now had it? But then, lately, nothing seemed to.

  The sound of raised voices snapped Kitrina out of her introspection.

  Zander’s voice boomed. “Speaking of Asla, I for one don’t trust her, and it’s not just Maycee we need to be concerned with. Let’s not forget, it was Asla that Talon and I found standing over Kitrina. Women or not, if we find proof they’re trying to do Kit or her family harm, they’re both dead as far as I’m concerned.”

  Ten’s face turned a frightening shade of red. “Don’t be trying to put this off on Asla. She’s innocent, I tell you. I’ll vouch for her.” Levin nodded in agreement with his brother and stood with his hands fisted at his sides.

  “Innocent,” Zander scoffed. “Asla hasn’t been innocent a day in her life. At least not since the moment she learned to speak.”

  Levin bristled. “Take it back, Zander. That’s the woman Ten and I love you’re speaking ill of.”

  Zander laughed, though there was no real humor in the sound of it. And then he simply shook his head. “Well, I feel sorry for the both of you if you really and truly are in love with Asla. Because the only person Asla Fistslammer is capable of loving is Asla Fistslammer.”

  “That’s not true,” Ten yelled. “You don’t know her like we do.”

  It was Zander’s face that turned an angry shade of red this time. “I don’t know her?” he bellowed. “I was engaged to the crazy barbarian baron’s daughter for what seemed like two eternities. Don’t tell me I don’t know her.”

  “Stop,” Kitrina implored. “This bickering isn’t going to get us anywhere except at each other’s throats.”

  Leeky Shortz pointed toward Ten and Levin. “Ya two just sit down and keep ya short-n-curlies out of a bunch before I box both yar ears and send ya back home ta Sherman and your mothers.” He shook his head. “Love, bah, makes a man plum stupid.”

  Then he gestured toward Talon, Wally, Graydon, and Gareth. “And ya four lads? Ya heard Zander. What the pox-infested oozing pustules on the outer lips of a stinky, overly used vagina tucked betwixt the legs of a high elf harlot strutting the streets in search of her next unsuspecting prey are ya waiting for? An invitation ta dance? Go find Maycee and Asla and bring ’em back here. But don’t tell them we suspect anything just yet. Don’t want ’em high-tailing it off before we get answers.”

  Leeky waved them on their way. “Now, get going. We’ll be waiting, umm, patiently. Zander’s right. It’s well time we finally know the truth.”

  ****

  Zander couldn’t put his finger on the reason Kitrina looked so…guilty. He knew it deep in his gut just as sure as he recognized the difference between the sound of her voice and the feel of her soft sigh against his skin in the middle of the night.

  Over the last few weeks of their forced confinement, every nuance of Kit had become so familiar to him that, at a single glance, he could differentiate even the most subtle of variations in her moods and expressions.

  Today, however, she had him…stumped.

  He wasn’t exactly sure if the sly little rogue was remorseful about an act she’d already committed or feeling guilty about something she was yet contemplating. One thing was certain, though, the woman’s mind was running an out-of-control race reminiscent of an Alarian water buffalo stampede.

  Not that anyone else would notice. To the remainder of the room, Kitrina Dragonheart probably appeared just as calm, cool, and aloof as she did most days, but to Zander’s eyes, she was anything but.

  She sat waiting, just like the rest of them, but there was nothing still or calm about Kit under the façade she presented to the rest of the world. She’d fidgeted with the edge of her tunic to the point the hem of one section lay frayed, and even though she was being discreet about it, her eyes darted back and forth like a caged animal searching for an escape route, and the left corner of her bottom lip was chewed raw.

  Oh, yes, there was no doubt about it. Kitrina was definitely covering something up or devising a p
lan that would put herself, if not all of them, in imminent danger.

  Zander wasn’t sure which he wanted to do first, grab her up and demand the truth straight from her luscious lips or wrap her within the confines of his arms and make sure she knew that, above all else, he’d keep her safe…always.

  He didn’t do either, though. Just as he hadn’t confronted her earlier when she’d stood before him, looked him straight in the eye, and lied right to his face about drugging Talon and then sneaking off to the library. After all, God Draka knew Kitrina Dragonheart could be an extremely exasperating female on her best day, and today certainly wasn’t one of her best.

  Recognizing her lie was yet another example of his strange spiritmaster abilities. But today, that gift made his heart ache. She obviously didn’t trust him enough with her safety, with the safety of her family, or even with his ability to see this quest through to be truthful with him in all things.

  Zander had no idea what had caused her to so doubt his skills, his loyalty, even his word, but she obviously did. The only time he’d ever even been remotely untruthful with her had been concerning the Asla-being-his-fiancée debacle. And that hadn’t really been a lie. It had been nothing more than a simple case of omission so as not to offend her tender little eighteen-year-old view of the world around her. Women, they were illogical creatures, and if he lived to be a thousand, he’d never completely understand their thought process.

  He did understand certain nuances of Kitrina, however. After all, she was one hundred percent woman from the top of her head to the very tips of her delicate little toes and every delightful inch of her in between. And as a member of the female gender, it was taken for granted that she had her own motives for keeping secrets. Reasons that were private, incentives that obviously made sense only to the feminine brain.

  After years spent in the company of his mother and sister, it was an unstated privacy that Zander comprehended he had no right to breach. Especially since, when this quest was all said and done, and the Dragon Heart Opal and those who would wear it were once more safe, there would be nothing of permanence he could offer Kitrina except for his friendship.