Survive My Fire Read Free Page A

her breasts, the delicate curve of her hips enticed even while she glared at him in righteous fury. Ah, she was a sight to behold.
    “So, should I kneel and present my neck for your blade? Do you want to take my head or simply cut out my heart? Or maybe...” She smiled, and sweat dripped down his spine. Involuntarily, his muscles tightened, bracing for battle. “Maybe you want to rut on me first? Do you want to take me from behind? I’m a dragon in heart after all. We enjoy mating like rutting beasts. And when I’m limp and trembling beneath you, you can sacrifice me to your dark God. Is that what you plan?”
    “No!”  
    She stood, her body vibrating with tension. Power rolled from her, buffeting him as efficiently as her dragon wings. Somma’s blood gave her great magic. He mustn’t forget who she was. Chanda the White, the last White.  
    Tracking her movements, he held himself still, making no move lest he antagonize her further. Not yet. “I want you to help me fight the Red Dragon’s forerunner first.”
    She smiled wider, a grim baring of teeth, but her rage and agony sliced his heart so fiercely he sucked in a hard breath. “Why should I help you when you plan to kill me in the end?”
    “Tellan, our neverending hope that someday our devalki will be paid. On the last Well, I will do all in my power to break your curse before I sacrifice you.”
    “I have no hope,” Turning away, she stared at the empty Well. Her shoulders shook, whether with tears or bitter laughter he did not know. “No amount of tears will fill the Well again. I’ve tried, Somma help me, I’ve tried. Why promise to break my curse?   To make it easier to sacrifice me?”
    “Tellan.   Hope for you, and hope for our people. That’s all I ask. You would die human, free of the Fire within.”
    “Hope burns just as fiercely as love and destroys just as much. Don’t you understand? We Keldari will never be free of the Fire!” Shaking her head, she walked up the gravel slope to the black fissure in the cliff. So graceful, so lovely, her body carved of moonlight. “You ask too much, Jalan tal’Krait. Come back at your own risk.   I won’t play with you before eating you next time. “
     
     
    Huddled in the darkness, I sat with my arms wrapped about my knees.   Watching him. Watching him leave.
    Jalan didn’t bother dressing. Tucking the voluminous folds of the taamid beneath his arm, he went in search of his pants, boots, and knives. He gazed up at my cave, his face illuminated with moonlight. My heart thundered and tried to crawl up my throat.
    Would he—
    But then he turned and walked away. I stared after him, straining my weak human eyes against the darkness, hungering still for his touch, his body beneath mine. Shadows swallowed him.  
    Gone, he was gone.  
    I was alone once more.
    Yet his blood pulsed in me. I tasted his regret, his sorrow, his respect for me, Chanda the White, who cursed the Gods. She whose heart was Riven. She who murdered her own tribe, and desert   seekers by the hundreds.   
    Jalan tal’Krait ached for me. Even now, he touched me through his bond, phantom fingers trailing down my spine until I shivered in the suffocating heat.
    On the last Krait Well, I will do all in my power to break your curse before I sacrifice you.
      For three nights, the full moon’s silvered light would transform me back to human.   Hope burned in my dragon heart.
    Maybe I wouldn’t eat him after all.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Three
     
    The clash of weapons woke me before sunset. Bleary-eyed, I crept to the opening of my lair and surveyed my domain. With dreams of Jalan fresh in my mind, his touch stirring Fire even in my dragon prison, I feared the smell of him in my nostrils was only a lingering dream.
    But no, he’d returned despite my threats. I had no time to contemplate the surge of emotion in my hateful heart, though, because he returned with company.
    Unfriendly company if the