The Sun Sword Read online

  It was time to tell Torin she wanted to—

  “I am sorry. I did not intend—”

  The hurried apology, spoken in a voice so deep it was almost a growl, made Kala jump and she spun about, her hands balling into fists instantly, her sex constricting just as fast.

  Torin Kerridon stood in the entryway of her quarters, his massive frame almost filling it completely. His face appeared to be carved from stone, expressionless and unreadable, and his eyes studied the floor to the right of her feet. He shifted slightly and for a moment Kala wanted to burst out laughing. The man could probably kill an Earth grizzly with his bare hands and here he was looking nervous for finding her naked.

  Make him more nervous, Kala. Make him sweat. Make him suffer.

  The dark, unexpected thought whispered through her head and her nipples tightened, her pussy squeezing in a flutter of tight pulses. She locked her stare on his face, wanting those angry-sky eyes of his to turn her way. To look at her, see her. Wanting them to fill with carnal desire and tormented confusion.

  She wanted to shout, “Look at me!”

  But she didn’t.

  She didn’t have to.

  Torin swung his head toward her, his face a granite mask, his eyes…

  Kala lifted her chin, her pulse pounding. His eyes were turbulent. They drilled into hers, as if he could not look elsewhere.

  Make him.

  A tight shiver rippled through her and her lips parted with a soft gasp. She straightened her spine and pulled a deep breath, letting her breasts rise as she did so.

  Look at me.

  His stare didn’t leave her face.

  She touched the tip of her tongue to her bottom lip.

  His nostrils flared.

  Look at me. She took another breath, the pit of her stomach knotting. All of me. Please.

  Torin’s jaw bunched. His nostrils flared again and then he turned in the entryway, presenting her the sight of his broad back, the blazing sun tattooed across its muscled expanse hidden by the worn leather vest he wore. “Training will begin in ten.” He threw the words over his shoulder in a blunt command. “Do not be late.”

  Kala nodded, despite the fact he did not look at her. Torin stood motionless in the entryway, the silence growing so thick she could barely draw breath. A long second passed. Followed by an even longer one.

  She stared at him. Willed him to turn around.

  His fists clenched, his shoulders bunched and then, with a muttered curse in a language she didn’t understand, he strode away, disappearing from her sight.

  Kala let out a choked sigh, closing her eyes and dropping her still-damp face into her still-damp hands. She had to get off this ship. She didn’t believe in prophesies and destinies and saviors. She believed in pain. And she’d had enough of it. Both physical and—since the hulking man with the grey eyes and insane ideas came into her life—emotional. It was time to leave it all behind and get away.

  Storming to her bunk, she snatched up her training attire—leather trousers two sizes too big for her and the snakeskin vest she’d been wearing when Torin “rescued” her from Earth. They were the only two items of clothing she could wear. Her trousers—the original pair she’d worn back on Earth had disintegrated the minute she’d tried to clean them once coming aboard Helios Blade, leaving her with nothing but the snakeskin vest and her pride. Torin had given her the leather trousers when she’d come to him, angry, embarrassed and wrapped in a towel from the hips down. Where he’d procured them, she didn’t know. Despite their size, they would be too small for him. The quick look he’d given her in his own quarters, face expressionless, jaw clenched, spoke of displeasure and frustration.

  Six months later, Kala knew he still harbored those same emotions. Whatever Torin Kerridon, last command warrior of the Sol Order and keeper of the Sun Sword’s truth had expected to find on Earth, she knew she wasn’t it.

  A boy. He was expecting to find a boy. A male. The One Who bloody Burns, not some little girl. Someone strong and hard. Someone not you.

  Grinding her teeth, the familiar thought scratching at her nerves, Kala snatched up the long, thick blade tangled in the sheets of her bunk. She lifted its tip level with her eyes. It was sharp. Wicked in its lethal edge. She’d spent every day since coming aboard Torin’s ship with it in her hands. Learning how to use it, fight with it. Kill with it. It was ancient. A weapon from a lifetime ago.

  It was also an imposter. Not the sword of which Torin believed her to be the destined wielder. That sword—the Sun Sword—she had yet to see, let alone hold.

  “Not until you are ready.”

  The memory of his proclamation uttered to her the seventh day aboard his ship sent a ball of angry heat down into her belly. She swung the training sword down, the swoosh it made cutting the air like the sound of old ice shearing in two. Something in his eyes, something dark, something troubled, told Kala there was more to Torin’s reticence than her current physical ability. Whatever it was however, the warrior refused to divulge and any time she pressed him—which she did almost every day—he increased the punishing intensity of her training.

  With a sharp shake of her head and a low snort of disgust, she cast the small room one last look. It had been her home for half an Earth solar cycle, the longest she’d ever stayed in one place, the longest she’d ever felt safe, but enough was enough.

  She tightened her grip on the heavy sword and walked through the doorway. It was time to go. Before she went just as insane as the Sol warrior.

  ***

  Torin stood in the training room—an area in Helios Blade’s aft dedicated to the preparation of the One Who Burns, equipped with every weapon Kala needed to be proficient with, every weapon she needed to be an expert at defending against. His eyes were closed and he pulled deep, steady breaths of his ship’s artificial air into his lungs through his nose, forcing the heat in his body to subside.

  The shower. Syunna. He’d found her in the shower.

  Well, technically, just out of the shower.

  Curse it. Were the old gods taunting him for fun, tormenting him to see his suffering, or was there a purpose to their actions?

  Unbidden, an image of the bane of his existence stepping from the shower cubicle flooded his head. Glistening beads of water trickled down her small lithe body, charting seductive paths over her breasts and belly and thighs and he wanted nothing more than to follow them with his tongue. Her drenched hair clung to her back and shoulders like black silk, highlighting the column of her neck, the straightness of her posture, her sinewy but still feminine muscles moving under her smooth brown skin with fluid strength.

  A scalding knot of repressed hunger tightened in the pit of his belly, making his groin stir and his pulse quicken.

  He bunched his fists, forcing the base response aside. That he harbored such carnal wants disgusted him. Filled him with contempt. Kala Rei was the last hope for the worlds of man against a future too horrific to ponder. She was not an object to desire. To lust after.

  Oh, but you do desire her, Kerridon. You do lust after her. Every minute of every hour of every gods-cursed day.

  He pulled in another deep breath, slower this time, directing the thrumming urgency in his body to subside. The last six months had been a long, drawn-out torture with no end in sight. Every time the One Who Burns drew close to him—her skin wet with perspiration, her chest heaving with exertion, her eyes blazing with hate and rage—his blood turned hot and his balls grew tight. Every time she crossed his path outside the training area—on her way to the galley or her quarters, her body uncharged with the wild energy of his preparation, her steps wary, her expression more so—he wanted to take her into his arms, hold her close to his heart and make her feel safe.

  He retired to his quarters every night, exhausted from the sheer willpower it took to not throw her against the wall of his ship and take her every time he saw her, to not show her the rapture of true pleasure and the serenity of complete rapture. The training of t
he Sol warrior was the most brutal and grueling in the known universes but what he endured in the presence of the One Who Burns, the tiny slip of a female no taller than his chin, made that training look like a high-summer picnic.

  He had but one hope and one hope only. Get her to the Sun Sword as soon as possible. Get her to the Immortals’ weapon before the False Fire. See the weapon in her hand, its true and destined wielder, and then get as far from her as possible. Before he did what he swore to her six months ago on the dying surface of planet Earth he would never do. Stick his dick between her legs.

  A low growl rumbled in the base of his throat and he dug his fingers into his palms. Time was his enemy, their enemy. All would be lost if he didn’t find the Sun Sword soon.

  All will be lost if you don’t remove yourself from Kala Rei’s presence soon.

  Torin growled again. That was not possible. Until the sword was found, until the One Who Burns held it in her grasp, he could never leave her presence. It was too dangerous for the worlds of man. It was too dangerous for her.

  And whenever her green eyes raze your form, Torin Kerridon, it is too dangerous for you too.

  “By the gods,” he muttered, shaking his head, “if I could resurrect the Old Seer I would strangle him.”

  A soft scratching behind Torin made him tense. He sucked in a sharp breath, the air about him suddenly sweet and intoxicating. He caught his groan—part frustration, part carnal want, part self-loathing desperation—before it could rumble up his throat.

  She had arrived. The One Who Burns. She stood but a few feet away, waiting for his very command.

  Then command her to—

  Opening his eyes, he studied the wall opposite. The training room’s array of weapons adorned its metal span, all deadly in the right hands, all beyond deadly in his. It had only taken six months for Kala to be a master at each, no matter their origin in space or time. Just as the Old Seer had foretold.

  He clenched his teeth, her prowess reigniting the heat in his groin. “You are thirty-five seconds late.”

  He could feel the hot hate in her glare.

  “Yes.”

  The single word turned his already too-fast pulse to a rapid tattoo. He felt Kala shift on her feet, the air around him rippling with the slight movement, the noise like a loud hiss over the hum of his ship’s propulsion engines. There was a low scraping sound, metal on leather, followed by the sound of her feet shifting again.

  His mouth went dry and he curled his fingers into fists. “We do not train with the sword today.”

  Silence met his blunt statement. So absolute he could hear his own heart hammering. She was surprised. Thrown off-guard.

  He swallowed, throat tight. “Today we train hand-to-hand combat.”

  Are you mad? You are going to touch her? Skin-to-skin, flesh-to-flesh? Do you really want to torture yourself more than you already are?

  “Hand-to-hand?”

  Her voice was steady, cut with that same confronting aggression he’d heard the very first time he saw her, blocking his path on Earth. But underneath the clipped syllables, a waver reverberated. A tremble so slight he almost missed it.

  He scowled, the realization making his skin prickle. He spent hours convincing himself every day she was the ultimate warrior of destiny, and with just three words his tenuous conviction was shattered. She unnerved him. Unsettled him. Weakened him.

  Dangerous, Torin Kerridon. “The One Who Burns will be your undoing. And your end.”

  The Old Seer’s words slipped through his head, spoken over a decade ago but as clear as if only just uttered.

  Teeth ground, he turned, fixing his stare on the child standing in the room’s entryway. She held the training sword in her right hand—a long, broad blade of hybrid tempered steel with a core of compressed actinide—as if she’d been born with it in her grasp, her chin jutted in stubborn defiance, her green-gold eyes glinting with uncertainty.

  He skimmed his gaze over her coiled perfection, partially hidden by her attire, his throat squeezing tighter still as the memory of her wet, glistening body smashed into his mind.

  She’s not a child, Kerridon. She’s never been a child. No matter how hard you try to fool yourself otherwise, she is a woman.

  Ignoring the all-too-alluring thought, he gave her a curt nod. “Hand-to-hand. You need to learn how to defeat your enemies with only your hands and feet. How to use your body to bring about their demise.”

  An ambiguous light flickered in her gaze and he saw her breasts rise with a sudden intake of breath. “Use my body…” She trailed away, catching her bottom lip with her teeth.

  The sight sent a shard of something hot and thick into Torin’s gut. Syunna, he wanted to bite that lip. Bite it, nibble on it, suck it. He sank his nails harder into his palms, keeping his feet planted to the floor. “We begin,” he instructed, readying himself for what was to come next. “Attack me.”

  The fire in Kala’s eyes flared brighter. She stared at him, a frown pulling at her eyebrows. The muscles in her arms and shoulders flexed, the sword’s tip swaying a fraction at her feet. He saw her swallow, once, twice.

  “Tell me why you need me.”

  Her calmly spoken command took him by surprise. He narrowed his eyes, his thumping heartbeat leaping into his closed throat. “Do you ignore my order, Kala Rei? Attack me.”

  She shook her head. “Tell me why you need me first. Why you need me on your ship with you. Why you took me from Earth.”

  “You know this, Kala Rei. The One Who Burns must take possession of the Sun Sword before the False Fire.”

  Her stare remained fixed on his. “Why?”

  She’d asked about the False Fire more than once. He’d never answered her.

  “Why?”

  The question was sharp, and yet Torin’s pulse quickened at the hint of frustrated desperation in its single syllable. “If the False Fire takes the Immortals’ blade before the One Who Burns, the worlds of man will suffer untold agony.”

  If she was shocked by his sudden divulgement of information she did not show it. “Is that the only reason?” Her stare never wavered from his face. “A sword in someone’s hands?”

  He bit back his own frustration. “It is not just a sword, Kala. And the False Fire is not just ‘someone’.” He paused, his mouth dry. “You are not just ‘someone’.”

  She stood motionless. “Who am I then, Torin Kerridon? To you?”

  He looked at her, keeping his face free of expression. “You are the One Who Burns.”

  Her lips parted at the title and she flicked her tongue over their soft fullness before giving him an unreadable stare. “Then tell me, who do I burn for?”

  Me.

  The word almost fell from Torin’s mouth before he could stop it. He growled, letting Kala see his contemptuous anger. Gods pray that she believed it directed at her. “Attack me now, wielder of the Sun Sword, or I will break your back and spit on your pain.”

  Disgust flooded her face. Misery shone in her eyes. She threw her training sword aside and ran at him, her knuckles white. As always, her speed astounded him, her natural grace arousing him. She feigned left, her right arm swinging into a wide arc, as if to smash her fist into his jaw, just as she dropped into a low spin and punched her left heel into his gut.

  Or would have, if he’d not snatched her ankle mid-air and flipped her onto her back.

  She slammed onto the floor, the wind bursting from her in a choked grunt. He grabbed her calf with his other hand, his grip on her ankle tightening as he twisted her leg until she lay half on her side, half on her belly. “Too obvious, Kala,” he stated, looking down her leg into her face. The pain he saw in her eyes made his chest ache with guilt and regret, but he denied it power. “And too slow. You will need to do better before I give you what you want.”

  Her jaw clenched, her eyes becoming heavy-lidded. “What I want.” She jackknifed her body, using his hold on her leg to act as a counter pivot, slicing her other leg up into a swift arc as
she slammed down into the side of his knee. He buckled, red-hot pain lashing up his leg into his hip and gut. Kala didn’t hesitate. She twisted in his grip, smacking her shin against his calf. New pain detonated in his knee but he switched it off, flinging her onto her stomach with a savage flick of her leg and ramming his foot between her shoulder blades.

  “You are better than this, Kala Rei.” His gut squirmed, as it did every training session, the thought of causing her any harm like blades dipped in acid slicing into his body. “You had me on the ground in half the time back on Earth.” He pressed his foot harder to her back, his stare fixed on her profile as she struggled beneath his pinning hold. “What is on your mind to stop you doing so again?”

  “You,” she snarled.

  His heart stopped, his whole body stilling.

  She took advantage of his aberrant hesitation, twisting on the floor to smash her elbow into his ankle. The blow would have been awkward, ineffectual—if he’d been focused on holding her to the ground with his foot.

  He stumbled forward, the pain in his knee bursting with new white heat as his full weight crashed down on it.

  Kala was on her feet in a second, slamming her heel into the small of his back. He careened several steps forward, new pain detonating up his spine. It sank into the base of his skull before, with the same preternatural speed that kept him alive through umpteen bloody battles, he flung himself into a deep cartwheel and swung his foot upward, straight into her chin.

  She arched backward, arms flailing. Before she could regain her balance, he rammed his body into hers, his blood roaring in his ears. He drove her backward until she slammed against the training room’s cold metal wall. De-atomizers, gutting blades, pulse pistols and twin scythes jolted from their hooks, clattering to the floor in a jarring cacophony. Torin didn’t care. His hands curled into fists around Kala’s wrists and he pinned her to the wall, his stare fixed on her wide, stunned eyes. “Concentrate,” he snapped, a carnal fire igniting in his groin at the feel of her firm softness pressed against him. “Stop thinking of me and think of your training.”