Keeper of the Flame Read online

  All thoughts of gaining her permission flew out the window as Flame felt her wet heat part under his adoring touch. Her tiny pleasure pearl exploded from its hidden hood and with great reverence he gently stroked and toyed with it.

  His mouth traced a volatile trail over her body only to replace his hands at her mons. He felt his energy pour into her in ever-widening waves as he tasted and tormented his love. Nothing was good as loving his Kendall, he thought as he flickering tongue over her.

  Kendall bit down on her lower lip as her body jerked uncontrollably. She stuffed her fist in her mouth to stifle her cries as his fingers, damp with her dew; crawled up her body to tease and pull at her painfully aroused nipples.

  “Flame,” she moaned and he deftly he turned her onto her stomach and began to nip and nibble at the small of her back.

  “Oh Flame, please,” she moaned. With trembling hands, he pulled her to her knees. Large hands caressed and pulled at her breasts and nipples wringing a muffled cry from her dry lips. Her hands flew back to tangle in his hair. His vibrating body glowed dimly in the dark room. He pulled her closer to the heat that he generated and she relished the feel of his hardened manhood against her back and his aura of heat surrounding her.

  “If I had a mirror above this bed, Kendall, I would place it in front of us so that you could see how beautiful you are to me.” His whispered words brought tears to her eyes.

  “No.” she whispered in reply looking over her shoulder at him. “How beautiful we are together.”

  Then she muffled a cry against his neck, for he chose that moment to slowly press the tip of his swollen cock inside of her. He gripped her hips to hold her in place as he slowly began to part her throbbing heat. She arched her body closer to him and felt she felt herself absorb more of his largeness into her very being.

  “I love you,” she whimpered as he began to move.

  “I want to make this last forever,” he responded, but knew that it would not, for she began to thrash and shake beneath his controlling hands. Quickly he pushed her down until her hands braced her body, in an effort to still her wild movements.

  Needing to feel more of him, she lowered her upper body until her hardened nipples grazed the covers on the bed and her hips were lifted higher. This allowed him to slide deeper inside of her, deeper than he had ever been before.

  “Oh yes, My Kendall!” he moaned at the tight wet feel of her fully caressing his length.

  For a moment Flame gave into his primitive animal instincts and began to pummel her depths, with Kendall urging him on with little gasps and whimpers of pleasure.

  When the bed began to protest such wild movements, he pulled away from her, despite her protests, to change their position. He came down on top her, holding his great weight off of her with strong yet trembling arms.

  “I want to see your eyes when you breach the gates of paradise,” he whispered as he slowly slid inside of her and began a vigorous swirling circling motion with his hips.

  “Flame!” Kendall cried as her legs clamped around his waist. “Yes, oh damn it! Yes!”

  They both groaned together at the feel of her enthusiastic welcome, while bolts of electricity danced across their moist skin, transferring joy and excitement back and forth between the two of them.

  “Kendall,” Flame spoke with his ragged desire-roughened voice, “I’m going to explode inside of you now.”

  His heated words were enough to tip her over the edge and into orgasmic bliss. Her reactions combined with the feel of her clenching inner muscles were too much for him to bear.

  “Kendall!” he cried as he felt his hot release shoot from his body in throbbing bursts.

  Together they reached a peak of unparalleled pleasure and together they slid to the other side of paradise, muffling shouts of joy against each other’s love-dampened mouths.

  Flame eased to his side, lifting his weight off of a grinning Kendall, and gently brushed the strands of his hair off of her face and body. She shuddered at the feel of that warm silk caressing her over-sensitized flesh and curled into her Flame.

  Flame pulled her warm body, limp with pleasure, closer to his sated one and began to stroke and caresses her back. He was her willing slave and protector. He would protect her from all, even from his own self if necessary.

  Kendall sighed in contentment and lay her hand on Flame’s still heaving chest. Power was indeed a heady, intoxicating thing. Flame’s lovemaking was fantastic and fiery, but that was only one aspect of their relationship. Here was her true soulmate. Whatever she lacked, he more than made up for, and the same could be said of him. They balanced out each other. She felt the peace that came from their physical and mental joining, and it fed her hungry soul. How she loved this man!

  If tomorrow went as smoothly as today, tomorrow would be one of the best days of her life.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was an exercise in hell. Only the devil himself could have orchestrated the events of the next few days. There she was, snuggled safe and warm in the arms of the sexiest man she had ever known, when she felt something hard and cold press against the back of her head.

  Waving a weary arm to brush the annoyance away, she pushed against it only to slam into something considerably bigger than the fly or the gnat she was dreaming about.

  With a wince of pain, she cracked one eye open to see what the annoyance was. Looking up, she saw a trio of grim-faced women standing in her bedroom, one with a very serious looking weapon in her hands.

  “So, my sibling has found a very cozy nest to land in,” sneered the woman who appeared to be in charge.

  She was tall, much taller than Kendall’s five-feet-nine inches, and carried an unmistakable likeness to the man sleeping beside her. Even her accent, a combination of a Russian lilt, melodious French, with the slow delivery of Italian, was the same.

  “You’re the sister,” Kendall managed, both eyes popping open in surprise.

  “Sibling. The only sisters that I lay claim to are the women of Testrios.”

  Tossing long raven-black hair behind her, the stern-voiced leader lowered her weapon and eyed Kendall with Flame’s piercing gray eyes. Kendall suddenly felt like a new species of bug under a microscope.

  The woman’s commanding voice caused Flame to awaken and sit straight up beside Kendall in the crumpled bed sheets. Tossing a steely-eyed look of shocked anger at the women in the room, he eased Kendall slightly behind his naked back before speaking to the woman who was his sibling.

  “Mistress Teeta.” He nodded his head slightly to her, causing his unbound hair to slide over his bare shoulders and chest.

  The other two women murmured in approval of the broad expanse of muscle that contrasted sharply with his auburn waist-length hair.

  “At least you have not forgotten all of your training, Flame,” his sibling quipped as she turned to view the ultra-feminine room and all of its luxurious trappings. “I expect that you have hidden the bratlings around here somewhere.”

  Incensed, Kendall narrowed her brown eyes at the heartless woman who looked so much like her lover. “They are your niece and nephew,” she groused, pushing aside Flame’s protective gesture and proudly facing the women again.

  Although she had never been more frightened in her life, Kendall refused to let this...this...woman intimidate her. So in true Kendall fashion, she took decisive action and stood her ground. These female creatures would not cow her.

  “It speaks,” Teeta murmured as the two women in the background laughed openly at Kendall’s brave stand. Turning, she again narrowed her eyes at Kendall, as if she were solely responsible for her having to track her brother to this backwater planet.

  “How did you find our exact location, Teeta? I thought you would be waiting in the forest where I programmed the coordinates to lead you.”

  Desperate to draw attention away from Kendall, Flame insolently spoke to Teeta, drawing her ire once more towards him. Teeta’s wrath was something that he did not wish his gentle M
istress to have to endure. There was no telling what she would do to what she considered an inferior alien.

  For a moment Teeta’s eyes flared with a violent anger. In two steps she reached Flame’s side. No one was prepared for the vicious backhand that she delivered to him, especially Kendall who now glared in mounting anger at the tall, dark hared-woman.

  Flame’s face turned with the force of Teeta’s blow, sending his hair flying around his head to fall covering his face. For a moment, it waved with a life of its own, before settling down around his shoulders.

  “Flame!” Kendall cried reaching for him, but he gently brushed her hands aside and slowly raised his face to meet his sister’s gaze. Blood trickled down the corner of his mouth but he refused to wipe it away. Instead, he steadily watched his sibling with no expression showing on his face.

  “Do not ever speak to me in such a disrespectful tone again, Flame. I will beat the arrogance out of you with great pleasure, if you try that again.” Teeta was angered, but unlike her womb-mate, she let everyone read the displeasure on her face. She knew she was the one with the power here and there was no need for her to hide her emotions, especially from her troublesome sibling or his alien lover.

  “I have taken worse blows, Mistress,” he replied, both happy and relieved to have Teeta’s attention solely on him once more. Teeta’s greatest strength or weakness, depending on how one perceived it, was her unpredictability. She was capable of destroying Kendall right there with no provocation other than she saw his Mistress’s words as an insult.

  “Rise and face me, Flame,” she demanded stepping back from the bed. At her command, the two giggling women behind her quieted, eagerly looking forward in anticipation of a peep show.

  Flame, as usual, did not disappoint.

  Even though he blushed almost as red as his hair, he stood and tossed the blankets that covered him to the bed, exposing his perfect body to the hungry gaze of the women in the room. The two women went very still, and then one was heard to whisper to the other, “Catla did not sample this one? I knew that she was strange, but to pass on a specimen such as this?”

  “That is enough!” It was time for Kendall to take swift decisive action. Tossing aside her blankets, she rose proudly and strode in all of her naked glory to the foot of the bed. She quickly pulled fresh clothing from Flame’s bag and handed him the first pair of pants that she grabbed, the leather-like ones that he brought with him from Testrios.

  She knew how much his compliance with his sister’s orders cost him after his new-found freedom. She was sure that these women were trying to strip him of the one thing that made up the essential Flame: his quiet dignity.

  “Get dressed,” she spoke gently to him before turning in all her bare skin to confront these intruders in her house and her new life. In her best no-nonsense voice reserved for know-it-all doctors and fainting husbands in the delivery rooms, she commanded, “Leave this room immediately.”

  When no one moved she drew herself up to her full height and bellowed, “Am I not Mistress and leader of this house? Have your mothers taught you no manners? Leave this room at once!” It seemed a little authoritative action was in order.

  After a moment of thought, Teeta nodded and motioned to her women to leave the room. “We shall await you in your great room, Mistress.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Kendall breathed in amazement. “It worked.” She watched as the trio of women turned on their heels with the precision a drill team and exited the room in single file, Teeta in the lead.

  Turning to a Flame who had just finished tightening the zip cords on his pants and was pulling on a shirt retrieved from his bag, she cried, “You have to get out of here now. Take the children and run! They won’t listen to reason. Where are the children?”

  Kendall had hoped that Teeta would not notice their absence and began to search through the house looking for them. She knew that Flame had not anticipated the squad’s early arrival and that he had no time to hide their precious children.

  A fully-clothed Flame walked over to the bathroom door with Kendall dogging his every step, and cracked it open a bit. Inside the two babies slept in their cubes undisturbed by the ruckus in the next room.

  When Flame had attended their late night feeding, he must have moved them to the bathroom just in case something like this happened.

  “I will not leave you, Kendall.” He looked deep into her eyes and she knew from the determination shining there that he would end this situation today, no matter what the cost.

  He clasped her shoulders and pulled her to him in a brief embrace. “I will stand and fight for you, My Kendall, for our new life together. If I seek to escape, they will hold you responsible and destroy you before seeking the children and myself. I will not risk losing you or my children to them. You are all dear to my heart and as essential to my well-being as the blood that runs in my veins.”

  “Flame,” Kendall cried, the force of her feelings overwhelming her. She grasped handfuls of his luxurious hair in her fists as if she wanted to memorize the texture of the thing that made him so sought after to begin with.

  “I will find a way to make all of you safe,” he murmured as he gently rocked her in the warm cradle of his arms. His racing heart beat in time with hers as they sought comfort in each other.

  “We, Flame. I won’t let you go through this alone.” Pulling herself together with some effort, she gathered her raw emotions and raced to dress. “I will hurry and make myself presentable, Keeper. It’s not polite to keep our guests waiting.”

  “Will you do one thing for me, My Mistress?” Flame turned her to face him and handed her a pair of scissors. “Will you cut the lock of hair from my head?”

  Kendall fought back the tears that welled up in her eyes as she motioned him to sit at the bottom of the bed. She pulled his head forward to rest against her stomach and gently, wit the lightest of touches, pulled the whole mass of his hair forward. She bit back a sob as she selected one long lock from his nape. With a prayer that his plan worked, she snipped through it.

  Flame gasped as if in pain and clutched her tightly for a moment as if the shock of losing that little piece of himself was too much for him to bear.

  Kendall felt as if she held an uncontrollable blaze in her hand as the lock of red hair writhed within her grasp then lay still.

  Flame tossed back his hair and pulled her face down to his for several small kisses. “Thank you,” he whispered with each kiss.

  She hoped that that one small bit of Flame’s energy was enough to satisfy his power-hungry witch of a sister waiting in her living room. Again she closed her eyes and uttered a small prayer to make his plan successful. But above all else, she prayed for his safety.

  * * * * *

  “Why can we not enjoy the man before we kill him, Teeta?” one of the whining women, Grilla, demanded. She was one of many devoted House of Ice followers trying to make a good impression on the future leader of their great house.

  “It makes no difference that he is no longer pure. I want to see how he performs. After all, he received early training from Alonzid and every one knows that the men he teaches are among the most skilled in the bed sports.”

  “May I remind you two that that is my sibling you are lusting after.”

  Grilla had the audacity to look a little shamefaced.

  “Need I also remind you that we have a mission to complete with all due haste?”

  Killing her sibling was her set mission, eliminating him and his offspring. She had never really liked him much, but seeing what he had gone through at Catla’s hands had somehow made her a little more sympathetic toward his death.

  She sighed heavily and leaned against a window that faced the flowerbeds that graced the front of this small house. This place reminded her of the history pictures that she had been forced to study as a child, pictures of Testrios before the war that had separated the planet and created the five continents. Now her duty was to take her awkward sibling out into all tha
t lush greenery, brightly colored flowers and tall trees and splatter his molecules along the landscape. She hated history.

  She turned as the short female that Flame was fornicating with descended the staircase and entered the room. Instantly, she motioned for the two women to re-enter the upstairs bedroom and prevent her sibling from joining in on their conversation. Turning to face the woman, the mistress of this house, she wondered what to expect and how to treat one such as she. She decided to give her a little respect. After all, she might be from a backwards culture, but she was a woman.

  “So you are the sister?” Kendall noted that the two women prevented Flame from leaving the upstairs bedroom, but said nothing about it. They would not harm him unless they had direct orders from this woman standing there smugly before her.

  She compared Teeta’s shiny black jumpsuit made of that leather material that Flame’s pants were made of, and tried not to feel underdressed in her jeans and long -sleeved flannel shirt.

  “Sibling,” Teeta automatically corrected this woman yet again. She reminded herself that she must have patience when dealing with these Earth creatures. After all, they were not considered very bright.

  “And your mission is to kill your...sibling.” That was said with enough venom to raise one of Teeta’s black brows.

  “Speak not of what you think that you know, Mistress.”

  “I know that that man has been through tortures rarely seen in any nightmare.” She took an aggressive step forward. “I know that that man was a victim until he escaped that slave pit that you call a home. I know for a fact he could have incinerated you and your cronies in a blink of an eye, yet he chose not to.”

  “Think you I care?” came the bored reply.

  Kendall paced the room in extreme agitation. How could she reach this woman? She seemed set on autopilot and her destination was the destruction of her own brother.