by A. K. Koonce
Fire Kissed
A.K. Koonce
Fire Kissed
Copyright 2021 A.K. Koonce
All Rights Reserved
Editing by Copeland Edits
Cover design by Killerbookcovers
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without express written permission from the author. Any unauthorized use of this material is prohibited.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Created with Vellum
Contents
1. The Gala
2. Toxic
3. The Good Guy
4. A Nice Hot Bath
5. Mine
6. Men and Monsters
7. The Horde
8. Love Magic
9. Neverend
10. A Quiet Night
11. The One
12. Freefall
13. A Cruel Realm
14. A Bit of Pizzazz
15. The Light King
16. The Tree House
17. Muspelheim
Also by A.K. Koonce
About the Author
1
The Gala
Rhys
I don’t even know that man. I spent so much time trusting him that it never occurred to me how easily I could hate him.
She wraps her long, delicate arm around Torben as she sways in his lap to press firmly against his broad chest. His long fingers splay across Hela’s thigh as her thin dress splits at the thigh, veering high to reveal the highlighted angles of her bare hip and even more.
I swallow hard, but I’m very aware that the dress Torben has chosen for me tonight matches hers in style. My lashes flutter as I peer down at the deep plunge of my thin, shimmery gown. It’s sensual. Incredibly so. But pretty in a magical way. Disgustingly pretty, I think to myself when I lift my attention back up from the chair my wrists are locked into. The metal bites at my flesh, but the ebony chair beneath me doesn’t move an inch.
I’ve sat like this every night for three nights now. Different gowns line my body while different dance partners sway in sensuous circles around me. I’ve come to know what to expect now.
I don’t understand the Realm of Hell though. It’s frivolous in Hela’s presence and dark and tormenting in other areas. Screams lull me to sleep at night. Screams . . . and the flashes of what Torben has become right before my eyes.
“Torben,” Hela says loudly, a smile like sin stretching across her face.
The dancers grind against one another in the dimly lit room of the cavernous castle. They continue to enjoy the festivities, but they are all too aware of what’s to come.
And so am I.
“Torben, Miss Love doesn’t seem to be enjoying the nightly gala.” Hela’s cold gaze cuts severely to me. As does the gaze of the crowned King who sits quietly next to her.
As does Torben’s.
And unfortunately, as does my mother’s.
I haven’t spoken to her since I flung myself into this literal hellhole. She’s bound, as I am. It seems invisible cuffs weight her wrist but instead of binding her to a chair, the magical imprisonment links her at the King’s side. She never leaves the mysterious man. Her eyes are held on me as her petite shoulders lunge forward when the King leans up slightly in his chair to get a better view. Tired arms hang at her sides, waiting for the show to begin.
His presence is like a shadow across this room, covering everything and everyone. He picks me apart with his eating eyes, taking in my every detail and every move.
“Perhaps she could use some company.” The repulsive man, Serpan, slithers through a tight, manic smile. He takes a single step toward me, my teeth grinding hard at the very idea of him touching me again.
But he’s stopped short.
Torben stands tall. He knocks the slender man out of the way as he strides out to the center of the well of dancers. To loom over me once more.
‘As you wish,” he tells his Queen from over the fast-paced strings of harps. Unseen elven fingers pluck the strings in a harsh chaotic melody that drives me mad with each clapping foot that dances by.
My glare is held high on him while my stomach twists round and round in perfect, nauseating tune. He waits for his Queen’s orders.
The vomit at the back of my throat waits as well.
“Entertain her, Torben,” she commands like glass shattering in a hailstorm of destruction.
Each heartbeat that stumbles by is a thrashing rage that builds inside of me. The beast buried deep inside growls, but my magic is so stunted here, it feels more like a tired purr.
“Like this,” the King adds after several beats have slipped by without Torben moving a single inch.
I don’t want to. I don’t want to look at him as the tall elven man rises from his chair and slowly lowers himself at my mother’s feet. The churning in my stomach sloshes when I finally flick my gaze quickly toward her to see what fate I’ll soon suffer.
Only to find the King on his knees, his long fingers pushing intimately at the hem of my mother’s long, white gown. Her eyes clench closed, as do her thighs.
But she and I both know how it will all end.
The dryness at the back of my throat is swallowed down, and instead of closing my eyes as his rough palm glides up my calf, I lift my lashes and glare deeply into dark, jaded eyes. The rise and fall of his bare chest matches the rhythm of every anxious breath I take.
I once dragged my fingers down each one of his abs. The shy smile he had when I did it isn’t against his lips right now. A hard-carved frown lines his face. His long golden hair skims along my knee when his head dips low, and just like the King’s example from across the room, he kisses sweetly, tenderly.
My thighs clench, but it’s a confusing sensation. It always is. He teases my flesh in a demanding way that rushes past all my hatred and delves down into the neediest part of me. It shouldn’t feel good. He brought me here to be another one of Hela’s prisoners.
I spent so much time wanting to be here, just for them to lock me away the same way they did Latham. The same way they did Aric.
The darkness of those memories claws to the front of my mind just as Torben’s palm slides up the inside of my thigh, parting my thin silver gown like glistening water. He straddles his knees over the lower part of one of my legs, forcing me to open even more. Hot, delicious breath washes over sensitive skin along wide-spread thighs.
My sex throbs.
But my rage speaks louder.
With my lip curling back at the man I once thought to be more beautiful than the gods themselves, I bring my foot up fast.
And slam my shin right to his balls.
Serpan’s crawling, cackling laughter is heard even over several gasps, a queenly slap against my cheek, and the intensely satisfying stream of curse words from the man now lying in the fetal position at my feet.
And that’s the fucking show, folks. Enjoy the gala. Tip your elves. Have a magical night.
2
Toxic
Rhys
Nightly imprisonment under Torben’s bed is a punishment I’ll take again and again over the option of seeing that man touch my mother. I sat through years of Kyvain’s harassment. I think I could sit through watching the dark torment in Torben’s eyes as he . . .
I shudder at the thought of it.
He kicks off his boots at the side o
f the smooth, granite door. The castle isn’t hot and blazing as I thought it would be in this realm. It’s cold and dank. Every inch is like it’s carved right from the rock of the earth itself.
As for the realm’s physical location, I have no idea. Nor do I give one single care. But everything is intensely controlled by Hela here. Just like the rules within the realm of the living, the rules here are apparent: she prevents peoples magic—like mine—and she enhances peoples magic—like Serpans.
Which only hurts my wolf locked away inside of me even more.
I narrow my eyes on Torben, but just like the night before and the night before that, he doesn’t have the nerve to look at me peering out from the cage I’m hunched in. At first, I didn’t look his way either. I was stunned.
How could he? How could he lie about bringing me here to finally meet my mother? How could he pretend to be my friend? How fucking dare he pretend to care about me?
“Does it feel good?” I grind out, watching him change on the far side of the room at his polished, black wardrobe.
He drops his jeans and gives me the full view of his taut ass, but other than that, he completely ignores me like I’m nothing more than a dog whining for attention.
“I said do you like it? Do you,” my molars clench at the thought of his hand roaming up my thighs, “do you get off on making me care about you as much as you get off on touching me?”
“Enough,” he growls out so violently, I actually flinch. “Don’t.” In a flash of a second, he’s storming toward me. He drops down to his knees in nothing more than a thin pair of clean, dark boxers. “Don’t turn into them. Don’t let them take the light inside you, Princess. That’s what she wants. You’re not like this. Just . . . don’t.” The weight of his heavy breath fans against my lips, our glares battling silently for a single moment.
His persistent demeanor used to be so attractive to me. His confident focus on what he wanted and where he was going was sexy in a way.
I hate that it still flutters my heart when he speaks like that.
I hate him.
“Don’t pretend you’re not one of them, Torben. If anyone’s taking the light inside of me, it’s fucking you.” The words hiss out, snapping with so much anger, it shakes through my arms and my fists held in my lap.
Golden, messy locks shake around his strong features as he rejects my accusation.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know three men rescued me from a man who abused me every day and promised much, much worse in the future. And now you’re standing before me like you’re any better than Kyvain Morganson.”
“I—” His hands lift to explain, but no words come to aide him.
“Exactly,” I finish for him.
He shoves off hard from the smooth flooring, and the sound of his bed rattling above me is the final sentiment between us. It’s the sweet goodnight between enemies.
I don’t know how, but the pale lighting of the room dims slowly. It’s another gift of magic Hela’s given her favorite pet, it seems. Total darkness slides across the room, making it seem colder. The nights are worse, I think.
The memories of every terrible moment in my life carousels through my mind on an endless ride. I can still see the look in Bea’s eyes when she realized I’d taken her mate. I can hear my mother’s sobs as the King did unspeakable things that first night. I can feel my heart break over and over for Aric and Latham.
My knees bend, and I hug them hard to my chest, the anger within me melting down into an ocean of regret. My wolf whines at the back of my mind. She’s made me stronger being kept away. I can feel it. But all the strength in the world doesn’t change the disgusting life I’m now living.
“They’ll test you,” a warm, rumbling voice says so quietly, it startles me to realize it’s Torben’s. “King Mordon and Queen Hela have nothing better to do but torment us—”
“Us?” I cut out on a gasp of laughter. “You are so toxic.”
“What does that even mean?”
A smile bubbles up in the mess of outrage and bitterness.
“It means you’re an asshole,” I say flatly.
“I know I am! Stop using creative words for it!” I can’t help the smirk as I close my eyes slowly and try to focus on how cruel he truly is. Then he continues. “And absolutely nothing will change who you are, Rhys,” he says so gently, it sends a shiver racing across my flesh. “I won’t let it.”
I flop back against the hard floor, but to my surprise, a mound of soft pillows and a thick warm blanket meet my back tonight. My fingers slide over the inviting, makeshift bed someone has seemingly snuck into my prison sometime today . . .
With both hands, I pull the cover all the way up to my chin, and still I glare daggers at the bed above me. He’s confusing. Cruel one moment and kind the next.
“Toxic,” I whisper once more into the darkness.
“I know,” he whispers right back.
3
The Good Guy
Rhys
I’m kept in the dark long after the day seems to begin. The magical blackness still surrounds me. It’s like the night, but it doesn’t feel as authentic. Torben’s magic is different than shifters I know. It’s the god in him.
But clearly Hela has blessed her favorite warrior lover with more powerful magic.
I scoff at that.
“As if creating some shade is much of a power. Hela throws shade all day, and it’s honestly just more petty than anything. Petty, petty magic.”
The scraping of the big door closing behind Torben’s heavy boots is still fresh in my mind. I bite at my lips as I consider the confusing man.
“Asshole,” I whisper to myself, chatting to no one as I’ve started to do more and more lately.
He’ll come back for me. When the gala begins, so does the show, and Hela wouldn’t dare forget to bring out the main entertainment.
A deep sigh shifts from my lungs, but the truth is, I’m not just lying around waiting and crying.
Sharp tension lines my back as my arms flex and my hair wafts over the cold stone floor. Sweat clings to my forehead, but I force myself to finish the repetition. On the one hundredth push-up, I heave another breath and roll to my back, tangling in the soft blankets and pillows.
The wolf inside me nearly purrs. She feels closer when I push my limits, when I show my strength. She’s always been nearer when my emotions show. This constant press for strength brings her out as much as my emotions though. She’s wild, but she can’t be free here. So I’ll reach out to her any way I can.
If I get the chance to unleash her, I want us both to be ready.
Light illuminates without a single flicker. It shines pale ivory colors across the room with a sudden swiftness that only hellish magic is capable of. I wipe my brow quickly before flinging one leg over the other and bringing my hands behind my head as if I was just day dreaming with my head in the clouds.
Not a single, tragic worry here. Absolutely nothing to see here.
Black boots storm closer, and my heart kicks up despite my careless features.
Torben’s messy, long hair appears just before his brooding gaze meets mine.
“Gala’s canceled,” he grunts.
My brows lift high.
“I was so looking forward to this one too,” I mumble. “I thought a prince or some asshole like you might show up to rescue me finally.”
He rolls his eyes hard before sliding his big palm down his face slowly. Then his forearms meet his knees, his hands lazily hanging as he continues to hunch down at my level but look off into the short distance of the room. There’s a darkness in the depths of his green eyes.
Something that’s always been there, but I’ve never ventured into to ask . . .
Or what if it’s something else? Something worse than his normal brooding. What if something bad happened?
“Is my mother okay?” I ask carefully, trying hard to cling to that unyielding confidence I’ve built up, b
ut ultimately failing.
His attention flicks back to me with confusion clouding his gaze. “Yeah. She’s fine.” A line creases his brow. Still, he gives nothing away.
“Can I see her?” I try once more.
“No,” he answers flatly.
My stomach knots, and I’m left to imagine what kind of terrible thing has happened to make him act more tormented than usual.
“Aric and Latham—”
Booming aggression cuts me off.
“They’re fine. Everyone is fine. As fucking fine as you can be here.” He smooths his beard with too much force, and I know when he’s about to storm away.
I just don’t know why I care enough to react. My hand rushes out. I catch his between the chilled metal bars before he can shove away from my little prison. The line between his eyebrows softens but doesn’t fully fade.
“What is it? Tell me. Please.” My heart pounds in my ears. A thousand different deadly scenarios assault my mind. What isn’t he telling me?
His lips part. A sound of pained hesitation slips between us.
“It—it’s our anniversary.”
My head rears back as my mouth falls open.
“What?” I try to start again, but it takes several attempts at opening and closing my mouth like a flopping fish dying on a bank before more words fall out. “Your anniversary. Your and Hela’s ann-i-ver-sary! That’s what you have me worried over?” A biting laughter shudders out of me, and I just cannot fucking believe this man.
My fingers release his hand like he might infect me with his audacity.
“Tell her husband, the Creepy Elfie King, I said hi, by the way. And what is with that? He fucks my mom, and she you, and everyone fucks me in the end?”
