by Elle E. Ire
Kila’s smile held no humor. “That’s my Cor, always taking everything upon herself. No, it’s not you. It says ‘in the blood,’ meaning in my family’s bloodline. A relative of the Chosen.”
I lay a hand on her shoulder. “It’s not you either. I’ve never met anyone as good as you, except maybe your twin. You saved my life. Stop beating yourself up over it. This aberration could be anyone in your family, a fifth cousin, a lost branch you’ve never met. Kila, it’s been hundreds and hundreds of years. Think of the possible spread of your genetics.” Regardless, though, I needed to make some time in my schedule to continue my study of the Generational.
She placed her hand atop mine. “Thank you. I hope you’re right.”
“I’m Guild Leader. I’m always right.” I paused, listening to the hoped-for giggle and reveling in it. “Except when I’m wrong.”
That got a genuine laugh, the first I’d heard from her in weeks. The sound echoed in the small space, nothing like the audience chamber, but we both glanced at the ceiling, then each other, and smiled.
I pulled the long, thin velvet box from my pocket and placed it on the table beside the Generational. Kila wasn’t the only one who’d been doing her research. I’d been picking Jaren’s brain for days.
Taking a step back, I assumed the appropriate position—feet slightly apart, hands folded over my heart, head respectfully lowered with eyes cast down. My submissive posture reminded me of the first time we made love, when she took complete control.
I heard Kila draw the box toward her, velvet whispering over the wood. The hinged container creaked when she opened it. I caught her sharp intake of breath. It took everything I had to hold my gaze on the floor. I focused on the quake cracks running in myriad patterns across the stone and waited.
Choosing the Bond chains had been a lengthy process. I’d studied gemstones from Lissex, focusing on the symbolism and significance of each type. Every stone meant something different, and I wanted mine to convey the right message. The necklace closest to Kila, the one she lifted from the box while I watched her hands in my peripheral vision, was a choker of alternating gold and teal gems. Not quite the yellow and aqua of the T’ral family colors, but close enough. It cost me a huge portion of the savings returned to me by the Guild.
The gold hermizite represented unwavering trust. The teal briaz stood for love stronger than death. Considering my new appointment, ours would need to be.
My heart pounded, and I resisted the urge to wipe my sweaty palms on my pant legs. When I heard the soft click as she fastened it around her neck, I forgot to breathe.
The chair slid back and Kila stood, coming to take both my hands in hers, pulling them from my chest. Both of ours were cold. I think mine shook a little. Good thing I didn’t need to fire a weapon right now. I’d probably shoot myself in the foot. Despite an almost overwhelming compulsion, I did not raise my head.
“You’re asking me to take the Bond with you?” she whispered, incredulous.
My throat closed over the words. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to say them. I simply didn’t know how. My exhalation of held breath was louder than I intended, and my face reddened as she giggled. Maybe looking back on this moment, I’d find this funny, but not now. She knew what I wanted. She wore the chain. She enjoyed torturing me.
“Yes,” I managed somehow, eloquent as always.
“You’re very nervous.” A simple observation. I imagined her head cocked to the side, eyes shining with mischief.
“Yes.” If my stomach muscles clenched any tighter, I’d turn inside out.
Her tone became serious. “You understand what the Bond means? It’s for life. My people don’t separate or divorce, even in the worst of times. We work through things as well as we can. Maybe not the best way, but it’s our way.”
With all we’d overcome, I couldn’t imagine any personal quarrels we couldn’t resolve. “I understand.” Now I did look at her, even though raising my head at this juncture broke with her people’s traditions. “Do you understand that life, especially for someone in my profession, might end tomorrow? That I don’t intend to change who or what I am, at least not any more than I’ve already had to?” My lips quirked a little on that statement, with me thinking of how much my life had altered since meeting Kila and leaving my little subbasement apartment on Deluge. However, the question was dangerous and pivotal. It gave her an “out” I didn’t want to provide, but I would not enter into this permanent relationship on false pretenses or inaccurate perceptions. I would love her to death, for as long as that might be, but I wouldn’t lead a sheltered life.
Wind howled through the corridor beyond the chamber, another fierce sandstorm raging outside. Ominous accompaniment to my inquiry.
“I understand,” Kila said, squeezing my hands. “Changing you would change the person I fell in love with.” She released my hands and embraced me then in a quick grasp, as if she’d been resisting the urge to do so all along. Then she resumed her formal stance. “I will take whatever time we have together and cherish it.”
I didn’t think it possible to feel more for her than I already did. I was wrong.
She stepped away and removed the second chain from the velvet box. Mine was a little longer, designed that way to hang lower beneath my collar and not be so obvious to a casual observer. Letting my enemies know I had someone special in my life did not seem like a good tactical move. It hurt to realize I clung to my assassin’s nature even here and now, but that nature kept me alive.
This necklace had alternating stones of deep green and blue, celathyst and unilite respectively. Celathyst signified steadfast loyalty. Unilite symbolized intense desire. I lowered my chin to my chest as Kila slid around me, her body brushing mine and eliciting delicious chills. Lifting my hair with one hand, she fastened the chain about my neck. It was lighter than I expected, not restrictive at all. She drew it centimeter by centimeter from where it had fallen down my shirt to rest on my breastbone and lay it over the black fabric for the universe to see. Well, what I did with it while away on assignment, she didn’t need to know.
“We are Bonded.” I spoke the final words to seal the ritual, a ritual I could live with for a change.
“We are Bonded,” Kila echoed, pure joy and a touch of laughter in her voice. Her arms wrapped around my waist, and she laid her head on my chest. A sigh of contentment and relief left her.
Maybe there was a dark one out there, a “bringer of death.” My mind flicked briefly to the odd weather patterns and increased number of sandstorms we’d experienced lately, and I shoved those thoughts to a corner and locked them there. Whatever evil awaited us, I knew with absolute certainty it wasn’t Kila. And whoever it was, we would face it together.
More from Elle E. Ire
Storm Fronts: Book One
All cybernetic soldier Vick Corren wanted was to be human again. Now all she wants is Kelly. But machines can’t love. Can they?
With the computerized implants that replaced most of her brain, Vick views herself as more machine than human. She’s lost her memory, but worse, can no longer control her emotions, though with the help of empath Kelly LaSalle, she’s holding the threads of her fraying sanity together.
Vick is smarter, faster, impervious to pain… the best mercenary in the Fighting Storm, until odd flashbacks show Vick a life she can’t remember and a romantic relationship with Kelly that Vick never knew existed. But investigating that must wait until Vick and her team rescue the Storm’s kidnapped leader.
Someone from within the organization is working against them, threatening Kelly’s freedom. To save her, Vick will have to sacrifice what she values most: the last of her humanity. Before the mission is over, either Vick or Kelly will forfeit the life she once knew.
ELLE E. IRE resides in Celebration, Florida, where she writes science fiction and urban fantasy novels featuring kickass women who fall in love with each other. She has won many local and national writing competitions, including the Royal Palm Lite
rary Award, the Pyr and Dragons essay contest judged by the editors at Pyr Publishing, the Do It Write competition judged by a senior editor at Tor publishing, and she is a winner of the Backspace scholarship awarded by multiple literary agents. She and her spouse run several writing groups and attend and present at many local, state, and national writing conferences.
When she isn’t teaching writing to middle school students, Elle enjoys getting into her characters’ minds by taking shooting lessons, participating in interactive theatrical experiences, paying to be kidnapped “just for the fun and feel of it,” and attempting numerous escape rooms.
To learn what her tagline “Deadly Women, Dangerous Romance” is really all about, visit her website: www.elleire.com. She can also be found on Twitter at @ElleEIre and Facebook at www.facebook.com/ ElleE.IreAuthor.
Elle is represented by Naomi Davis at BookEnds.
By Elle E. Ire
Vicious Circle
STORM FRONTS
Threadbare
Published by DSP PUBLICATIONS
www.dsppublications.com
Published by
DSP PUBLICATIONS
5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Vicious Circle
© 2020 Elle E. Ire
Cover Art
© 2020 Kris Norris
Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.
All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact DSP Publications, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or www.dsppublications.com.
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-64405-444-4
Digital ISBN: 978-1-64405-443-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019950113
Digital published January 2020
Second Edition
v. 2.0
First Edition published by Torquere Press Publishers, November 2015.
Printed in the United States of America