Capture of a Heart Read Free Page B

quickened with the fantasy, his balls tightening with every twist of his fist around his cock. He felt as if he had been poisoned, feverish and single-minded with his phantom of her.
    He closed his eyes and saw her face, serene and yet so striking, and for a moment, he was enveloped by her. His hand was the dark, welcoming cavern between her thighs. His fingers were her breasts pressed so tightly against his, and the rain was her kisses.
    Gavenas’s hands worked faster, his heart pounding inside his chest like a demon demanding to be freed. As Gavenas finally broke, the notion of some inner force freeing itself of him was both ecstatic and fearful. His seed shot from his cock in forceful, hot jets pulling at every fiber of his being, leaving him gasping for air and weak.
    As he sank down the wall of his hut to the wet ground, he hoped that he had rid himself of the bout of madness that had overtaken him but was so afraid that the desire would return back home to his blood.

Chapter Three
    Her father had been proud of her craftsmanship. She could still recall the glint of pride in his amber gaze upon looking at the two swords she had fashioned. They were slender tools with ornate hand guards which could fit around the back of a hand or be free at a moment’s notice. Her creations were different from the thick, blunt weaponry many of their clan tended to carry. Her swords could never have been mistaken for axes, shovels, hammers, or even giant battle-sickles favored by mountain warriors.
    Her father had even mentioned so with a wry smile as he’d raised them high for examination by torchlight.
    As Shoraya thought upon her father, she realized that the day she had shown her crafts to her father must have been the moment when he had realized he would lose her. So long did he stare at her blades, lifting one for scrutiny and then the other, that she believed him to be searching for flaws.
    He returned her swords to her with his only comment being that she must craft fitting sheaths beautiful and sturdy enough to hold her blades. Nothing was spoken about how she was well into the time when she should have chosen a husband, had her own cavern, and certainly nothing was said about children. No, those notions had all been for Shoraya’s mother to harp upon, and she did.
    Her father had kept his tongue, even on the day when Shoraya said good-bye to the mountain range that had seen her birth.
    The scent of rich vegetables and meat permeated easily through a nostalgia built of high, rocky peaks and labyrinthine depths, prodding her to stir. Memories of racing through a forest, thick with vines, roots, and limbs, returned to her. She had been on the run from yet another contingent of errand boys sent to retain her skill. The shark had been more cunning than most, however, using projectiles to bring her down.
    Shoraya couldn’t recall how long she had run to get away from them, but when her vision became cloudy and her legs began to feel like nervous twigs, she knew that she hadn’t gotten far enough away.
    She dreaded opening her eyes, knowing one thing for certain: she had been captured. There was no other explanation for the soft blankets she lay beneath, the warmth and crackle of a fire not far off, and certainly the sumptuous scents carried to her nostrils.
    Lifting her lids proved a far more arduous task than it should have been as she took in the sight of the dwelling. The walls were made of intertwined branches of thick green leaves and flowering buds of various types, prevalent in random copses. A few weak rays of sun shone through, but the true illumination came from the center of the den and the stone-rimmed fire pit in the center. Suspended from two spokes was a good-sized cauldron, undoubtedly the source of the enticing aromas. Such was her focus on the pot that movement just on the other side of the fire pit caused her to gasp in alarm.
    She saw the table, but what she had thought of as a pile of robes stacked upon it