by Gina Manis
Arrow’s Wind
The Healing Touch of Wind
The Elemental Realms Series
G I N A M A N I S
Copyright © 2020 by Gina Manis
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing, 2020
ISBN 978-1-64713-589-8
Books by Manis Publishing
2593 Mayo Road
Altoona, AL 35952
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Epilogue
About the Author
Future Works
Follow Author
This book is dedicated to the women who have helped me grow as an author this past year.
Lori, Stacey, and Erin.
This book took an incredible amount of emotion to write and to give it life. Because of your inspiration’s, I feel this is my best book.
…So far.
Prologue
Jared
“His name is Arrow Cane.” My friends, Cris and Bret inform me as I sit up in my bed. I have been in it for seven days now and this Arrow has put me here. “He has been in Star Kingdom for several cycles now, working in the mines. From what it looks like he is from Mountainside.”
“I want you to lock him up until I can deal with him,” I order them. That bastard is not getting away with beating me like this. With two broken ribs, my right arm, and one eye I am just now getting to see out of again, I intend to show him pain. I will use my fire and burn him to a crisp inside out.
“He seems to have taken leave of the kingdom,” Cris says. “These commoners have been escaping without being noticed. We do however suspect he will return to his home.”
“Dammit!” I exclaim, pissed off that he has gotten away. “How long has he been gone?”
“He hasn’t shown at the mines for six days now,” Bret says. “Most likely, he left after he attacked you.”
I sigh as revenge seems out of the question now. I have more important things to do than go chasing after him. One of them being Jenna. “Fine. I want you to arrange a kidnapping then.”
“Jared, this obsession you have for Jenna McNeal is going to be your downfall. She is just a commoner and you are a part of the Elite.” Cris tells me.
“She is to become my wife if need be, but I will have her.” I ignore their warning with an ace in my pocket no one but me knows about. I want Jenna and I must have her. For cycles, I have tried to get over this fire I have for her, but she haunts my dreams. It is time I take more serious actions to get her under me again. “Take her to my special place and do not dare to touch her, you hear me.”
Cris and Bret look between each other hesitantly before Cris speaks up, “Jenna seems to be missing also.”
“What!” I shout, a sharp pain hitting me in my side, and I clutch at it. “Where is she?”
“We think she might have left with him.”
“That bastard has taken my woman also?” I guess there is time for revenge after all. I ignore the pain and rise from my bed. If they have been gone six days now, they have to be well away from here. It will take us some time to get caught up and they most likely are heading to Mountainside. “Start preparing for travel. I want to leave in two days' time.”
“Jared, you can’t be serious. Your father will not approve of this. The king has already set out forces to attack Clearwater. The only reason you are not with them is because of your injuries.” Bret says. He has always aspired to be a part of my father’s team more than mine. The only reason he does my bidding is because he knows I will one day have my father’s seat at the king's table.
“I will deal with my father. You both go and prepare. Now!” I shout as I pull on some clothes. They both leave me to dress and as soon as I am, I am looking for my father.
I see Clair, my sister as I walk into the dining room where she is eating breakfast with my mother. She has just return to us after missing for several moons. Apparently, the new King and Queen of Clearwater had been holding her and the Fire Kings spy rescued her. She didn’t seem right to me.
“Good morning, brother. Surprised to see you out of bed for a change.” She says as she sips her coffee. The old Clair would have been trying to get me back into bed to heal. Clair is the only one who has ever given a shit about me and she doesn’t seem to even care anymore.
“Save your worry, sister.” I pour myself a cup of coffee and don’t bother sitting down. “Where is father this morning, Mother?”
“With the king. Where else would he be?” Mother says, not even bothering to look at me. She has her precious Clair back now and I am nobody to her again. That doesn’t matter to me. The only love she ever showed me was when she disciplined me as a child. I don’t care to recall how she would tie me up and beat me before she played with my body. I prefer to be the one on the other side of the leather now.
“If you’re going to the castle, may I attend with you?” Clair asks me. “I would like to see the queen again. She still doesn’t seem to like that the king wants me to marry her son once he is found. I would like to get in her good graces still.”
“Fine, but I will not be staying long,” I tell her, not wanting to refuse her request. Even if she is different, I love my sister and would do anything for her.
She gracefully rises and kisses mother on the cheek before following me out. The Kingdom isn’t far away as she walks beside me with her hand on my arm.
“So what has finally gotten you out of bed, Jared?” She asks me.
“Your tender soul need not know,” I tell her.
“I’m not so tender anymore.” She says but doesn’t seem sad about it. “In fact, I may have turned a little wicked like you.”
“And what do you know of my wicked nature?” I ask, wondering why she says it like that.
Clair has always thought I hung the moon. I have never let her know of the things I like or do.
“There are whispers why you were beaten and found in that alley, Jared. Even among the Elite.” She tells me. “Why would you want a little commoner like her? As I have heard it, she has a past. Wouldn’t you prefer someone cleaner?”
Being in the Elite gives me special privileges and I can get away with just about anything. Jenna had value to the Elite, but to me, she is special. As long as I marry her, no one will care what I do to her in our bedroom. Not even the king, himself.
“Who I want in my bed should not be of your concern,” I tell her. “You should worry more of pleasing your prince once he is found.”
“Prince Damon Firestone will be pleased, I am sure.” She says like she already knows how to please a man. She promised the king and my father she was still untouched, but I have wondered if she is the way she looked at that Fin who brought her home. I think my father did too, and that is why he sent him away.
“You’ve changed, Clair. Something happened to you of which you are not telling.”
“I am nothing more than a pawn that I have always been.”
A pawn who seems happy about it. “You’re planning something, aren’t you?”
“Who, me?” She says with a wicked smile. Clair doesn’t do wicked smiles. Each day I feel I don’t even know my sister anymore. That she has turned even more wicked than me.
“You should watch yourself, little sister. A Fire Element can still be burned by the king.”
“He is a powerful king, but he wouldn’t dare hurt the future bride to his only son. I know for a fact, he intends for us to marry as soon as possible and to have him a grandchild. He is obsessed with having another heir as powerful as he.”
She is right there. The king is obsessed with finding his son and getting him married. I have heard him talk too much in his plans over the last few moons. He craves power and believes the greatest power is within our own bloodlines. It is why he chooses Clair as his son's bride. Because my family is some of the strongest Fire Elements in his kingdom.
I brush it off and focus once more on my task at hand. It isn’t like my father is going to be pleased that I am leaving now when we are on the brink of war. He will refuse my request, but I do not care. It is time my father learns that I will not be controlled like his wife and daughter.
As for the king, I will offer him something he can’t refuse. My ace. Most people don’t know that he has an attraction for men. Hell, I didn’t even know it until he cornered me one evening when we were alone. He didn’t force anything on me, just asked if I would be interested. I told him no at the time, but I am willing to give him what he wants.
He can fuck me however he likes if he allows me to go for Jenna. I may not like it as I have never been with a man before. The king desires me and I will use it to get what I want.
Because I must bring Jenna back. I must make her mine in all ways before I go insane with these needs inside me. And Jenna is the only one who can take my beast. She is the only one strong enough to survive me.
And as for Arrow. He can watch before I kill him.
Chapter One
Jenna
“Jenna, you can’t be serious,” my sister exclaims as I pack my bag.
“I am,” I tell her, stuffing in a few more of my clothes. “I am not staying here to be married off and have two husbands telling me what to do.”
“But you don’t have to leave right now. Jenna, it isn’t as bad as you think, having a husband. Look at Thomas and how much you love him. There are more men out there like him.”
“Thomas is like a big brother, and no man compares to him,” I tell her as I move by my dresser and pick up the bag I packed moons ago. I have been planning this forever, and it is time I do something about it. “You and Thomas have been together forever. You’re past the age and are not being forced to marry again.”
“You have at least another cycle before you have to marry. You promised me you wouldn’t leave until then.”
“How can you hold that against me after what happened the other night?” I throw the bag on the bed and face her. “As soon as I am nineteen, he is going to find some way to trap me into marrying him. Jared doesn’t take no for an answer, remember? I do. How can I forget when I still have the bruises from where he touched me? He is always trying to touch me, Beth! He follows me and it is getting worse.”
“Okay, I get it!” She shouts back and flops down on my bed and sighs, “I just thought… we had more time together.”
“I’m sorry,” I sit beside her. “But I can’t stay here. I am scared of Jared. Something isn’t right when he is around me.”
“But you feel that way with all men.”
“I feel it more with him.” Most men do make my skin crawl, but Jared, unlike most others, is the only one who makes me feel dirty too. He traps or comes upon me, putting his hands on my skin, and all my past nightmares come rushing back.
Seeing the bruises on my arms from his attack the other night brings too many memories to mind. It has been four cycles since I was raped, and I had felt like I was finally leaving those memories behind. Looking down at the marks on my skin leave me terrified, it is going to happen again.
“You could marry and a husband could protect you.” I stiffen at her comment on marriage. “I know it isn’t just Jared you are running from, but Jenna, you’re going to be alone out there. It could happen again without protection.”
I stand up and walk away, “You know I can’t do that. Who is going to marry me anyway when I won’t even allow him to touch me?”
“There is Arrow?” she says, looking away from me.
“Oh, Beth,” I vent. I hate that she brings him up again. Arrow was Thomas’s friend and years older than me. He is nice but I have no interest in him or any man.
“He saved you the other night,” she hurries to say. “And he knows of your fears.”
“I barely even know the man!”
“You have known him for over three cycles now,” she says, putting her hands on her hips. “He eats with us almost every other night.”
“And we barely even speak to each other,” I exclaim to her. “Besides, it doesn’t even matter. There is still the fact I would have to marry two men. I may not mind Arrow so much, but there isn’t another.”
I hate the new law the Fire king has set for all us commoners. A sickness ran through our people a few cycles ago, killing many women. It is decreed that all marriageable women would marry a first husband before her nineteenth birthday and a second husband before her twenty-first.
I hate men, all except my brother-in-law, Thomas. He is more like an older brother who helped Beth raise me. He has cared for me like a father does his child, and I love him dearly.
Our mother passed early on from the female sickness. I became ill too, but Beth pulled me through. She was only sixteen at the time and me eight. Thomas was a few cycles older than her at the time and asked her to marry him. She accepted, and I was quick to make him a part of our family. My father passed when I was just a baby, so I immediately took a male figure in my life.
“Jenna, please,” she begs me. “You’re the only family I have left. I can’t lose you.”
“You’re not losing me.” I stop and turn to her and shake my head. “I can’t do it, Beth. I can’t marry a man.”
“You have to get past what happened to you,” she says softly. “Not all men are cruel. You just have to let someone in to show you.”
“I’d rather kill myself than have another man touch me,” I say, knowing I could never do what she asks. I can never get over the pain of being raped by three men. What they did to me, I still have nightmares about it. Four cycles, and yet, I remember their breath on my face, their bodies pressing hard on me, so hard that I couldn’t breathe.
I shake my head, pushing the horrible memories away. I get back to packing my bag, knowing Beth will never unde
rstand. She is of an age where she doesn’t have to face this new law, and all she has ever known is Thomas. He is kind to her, and I love him, but even he can’t protect me anymore.
“Please, just wait a few more days,” Beth says, not giving up. My mind will not change, though. I am leaving now, just as I told her last night. She didn’t believe me then, but I can’t stay after what Jared did to me.
I had been coming home the other night after working all day in the castle kitchen and was tired. Thomas usually came for me, but he was on guard duty for the night. I was used to walking alone when he couldn’t come. Nothing ever happened until it did.
Jared caught me off guard. The streets here are small, and he had been hiding in one alley. I passed by, not even seeing him, and Jared grabbed me from behind, covering my mouth as I kicked to get free. He pulled me into the alley a good way, then slammed me into the wall and pinned me with his body.
“I’m tired of chasing you, woman.” His breath hit my face, and all my memories came flooding back. I cried as I fought him, but he pushed my hands away as he groped my breasts. “All I can think about is getting between those soft thighs of yours. I want to feel my cock, squeezing tight as you buck me, wild one.”
“It won’t be you.” A voice sounds beside us, and all I see is an arm flash in front of my face as Jared is yanked from me. I fall to the ground as the two men fight and look up. It is Arrow, who lives down the street from us.
I don’t know how but, I made it to my feet and ran from them both. I ran all the way home and hid around back to be alone. I cried for the longest time before I squared my shoulders and went inside. Arrow was sitting at the kitchen table, and Beth was tending to a massive gash in his forehead.
“Oh, Jenna!” Beth said, throwing her arms around me. “Are you okay, sweetie?”
“I… I’m fine,” I told her even though I wasn’t. I looked at Arrow, who was now standing. He stared at me with pity, and I looked away from him. He knew the way I was with men. At least he was respectful and kept his distance.
“Arrow told us what happened. Thomas is out looking for you.” Beth pulled me to a chair and sat me down. She goes for a clean cloth and dips it in a bowl of water, and washes my face. “Thomas is going to kill Jared for this.”