Fanning Her Flames

by Lacey Thorn

  “I have waited as long as I care to,” Kiva thundered. “First I will brand her with my cock, mark her with my seed. Then I will mark her with fire, scarring her body as she scarred mine.” Kiva’s eyes were dark with anger and a zealous compulsion to hurt Farrah, mark her as she had marked him. “Then we will leave her to her mates and see if they still want her with her body scarred as my hands are.” Kiva threw his head back and laughed, the maniacal sound filling the air and sending chills down Farrah’s spine. With her hands bound she was at the mercy of a madman and she already knew that mercy would be the one thing he wouldn’t give her.

  * * * * *

  They all set out together in the evening dusk, Marcus, Alexi and Bannen Donan joined by the Savaris, Erika, Arik and Galen. Mariska stayed at home in case someone sent word that Farrah had been spotted or in case Farrah showed up. Although they knew that she was a Guardian no one could shake the feeling of impending doom that shook them. They all feared for her safety and Erika was more afraid than anyone. For Erika above the others knew that there was more at stake than finding a mate. “If one is lost, all will fail” seemed to whisper through her mind, a startling reminder of all that could be lost.

  They entered the edge of the forest where Farrah had been with the three girls when she had been taken captive by the Latoni brothers. All five of the warriors moved around, looking for signs of which way the men had taken Farrah. Alexi was the one to make the discovery.

  “They went this way,” Alexi called, pointing to a place where the grass had been trampled and several branches of the bushes nearby had been broken off. “They are moving quickly.”

  “Then so shall we,” Marcus stated as he led the way into the forest, following the path that had been left for them by the rush of the Latoni.

  Erika stopped by the bushes and waved her hands over them, mending the breaks and returning them to their beauty. The grass grew up around them and flowers broke through the earth all around, filling the air with their scent. Galen smiled as he took up his position just behind his mate, watching her restore order and grace to the lush vegetation around them.

  They moved quickly through the forest, following the signs that led them deeper and deeper into the interior of the forest. The sun was setting and darkness was falling all around them, hiding the secrets of the passing from them. Finally Arik called a halt.

  “We need to stop, Marcus,” Arik called out, bringing everyone to a halt around him.

  “We cannot stop,” Bannen declared. “We must find her.”

  “Arik is right,” Galen defended his brother. “It is getting too dark to see. If we keep going we might miss something and end up farther away from her instead of closer to her.”

  “We cannot leave her at the mercy of the Latoni for a moment longer than we have to,” Marcus uttered.

  “You are thinking as a mate,” Arik told him quietly. “I would ask that you think as a warrior.”

  “And you could think as a warrior if it were Erika instead of Farrah?” Bannen spat out.

  Arik’s eyes flared but he did not lie to his friends. “No, I would be as crazed as you are. But I would hope that my friend would force me to see reason and not let me search blindly when if I only waited I could easily follow the signs again.”

  “You are right,” Alexi agreed and, stepping closer to his brothers, he forced them to look into his eyes. “To continue now would be no help to Farrah and might even leave her with these Latoni longer. As much as it kills me to delay for even a moment longer, we must.”

  Marcus gave a cry of anguish that echoed all around them. “You are right, brother,” he admitted hoarsely. “We must rest and wait for first light.”

  Bannen turned and walked away, unable to speak for the misery that filled his soul and tortured his heart and mind with visions of Farrah at the mercy of two such villainous warriors. Farrah had come to them for protection, for safety and they had failed her miserably.

  * * * * *

  “She has been asleep too long,” Kito Latoni warned his brother. “Do you think that I hit her too hard? Perhaps I have killed her.”

  “No,” Kiva yelled. “Fate would not be so cruel as to deny me my justice.”

  “Then why has she not awoken?” Kito questioned.

  “Perhaps her mates have worn her out,” Kiva sneered. “It does not matter. I will wake her soon one way or another,” he vowed. “Keep the fire hot. I have plans for it.”

  “You will mark her here?” Kito spoke as he added more wood to the fire, keeping the flames high and bright.

  “Yes, I will,” Kiva smiled. “I just have not decided which will please me more; her screams when the fire caresses her skin or her screams when my cock rips into her flesh. Both will please me greatly but I have yet to decide which to do first.” He moved a hand down and rubbed along the swollen length of his shaft, anxious for Farrah to awaken so that he could begin.

  “Shall we eat while we wait?” his brother spoke again, annoying Kiva once more with his constant questions.

  “By all means let’s fill our bellies before we sate our other hungers,” Kiva agreed, sitting back and relaxing while his brother worked around the fire, preparing their meal.

  It had always been this way between them. Kiva was the thinker, the plotter while Kito was the one who followed. Kiva had wished many times that he had not been cursed with a brother who was so simple but then again having one who was so easily manipulated had its own rewards. Kito would follow him anywhere, do anything that Kiva told him to. This was the only time in their lives that Kito had ever questioned Kiva about something. One more thing to lay at Farrah’s feet. She had been nothing but trouble since he had decided to mate her, always playing hard to get, running from him. He had thought his chance had finally come when he had cornered her alone in the forest. All he had needed to do was to mount her and his claim could not have been stopped but she had eluded him, still somehow burning him and getting away.

  He looked down at his gloved hands and glared. Always he wore gloves now, refusing to let any see the seared flesh of his palms, the webbing that now connected his fingers. She had made him a freak, taken from him what no woman should ever take from a man. With his scarred hands and webbed fingers he could no longer use his sword with much skill, his hands refusing to do as he ordered them. So now he was less of a warrior, unable to help defend and protect as the others did all because of a whore in a red top.

  He glanced over at her and filled his eyes with the sight of her creamy thighs, exposed by the way her skirt was caught around her. He could just make out the curves of her breasts and the dusky shade of her nipples through the sheer veiled top she wore. His body responded by growing harder, his cock long and thick behind the laces of his pants. He needed release if he was to think clearly. He would not take her while she lay unconscious. That would not give him what he needed, for it was her fear he wanted most, her screams of begging and pleading.

  Still he found himself standing and crossing to where she lay on her side, the backs of her thighs calling to him. He knelt beside her and jerked her skirt high, exposing the globes of her lush ass and groaned with pleasure at the thought of taking her there. He pulled his laces free and released his cock into his hand, stroking up and down along its length while he looked at her and let his imagination run wild.

  Farrah lay still, biting her lip to keep from crying out with her fear. She could no longer feel her feet or her hands and would be unable to fight Kiva if he chose to take her. She felt his hands lifting her skirt and almost moved then but somehow she remained still and silent. She could hear his heavy breathing, hear him doing something with his hand. She held her breath and prayed to the goddess to help her. She heard the harsh groan that rumbled through Kiva’s chest and with the splatter of his release landing on her ass, she knew what he was doing. Tears ran down her cheeks in silent waves, hidden from the men by the long hair that hung in her face. But it wasn’t of herself that she was thinking when she
cried but of her three warriors and how they would feel about her when they found her like this.

  Chapter Eight

  Sunrise was near and Marcus was restless and uneasy. There was a sense of urgency flowing through him, like he needed to leave now. Bannen and Alexi rested fitfully beneath a tree nearby. Arik and Galen lay on either side of Erika who was wide awake and looking at him.

  “I must go,” Marcus whispered to her, trying not to wake anyone else. “I feel as if I must leave now.”

  “Then go,” Erika murmured back to him. “Perhaps her soul calls to yours. You must listen and follow your heart.”

  “You will let the others know?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Erika assured him. “We will follow you shortly.”

  Nodding, Marcus turned and followed the path that called to him. He could feel Farrah with his soul and he would not fail her this time.

  Erika lay still, wrapped up in the arms of her two mates, knowing that if Farrah were calling to Marcus it would only be moments before her heart called out to Bannen and Alexi as well. Soon they would all be up and following the call that Farrah sent out. Erika could feel that Farrah was still near and she could also feel Farrah’s fear. Erika closed her eyes and prayed to the goddess for aid.

  * * * * *

  Dawn was near and Farrah had yet to move or awaken as far as the Latoni brothers knew. Truth was that at this point Farrah couldn’t move. Her arms and legs were like dead weights, the feeling long since gone due to her tight bonds. She could feel the dried seed on her buttocks from Kiva’s earlier release and it repulsed her. So far they had not touched her in any other way and she was fine with that. She knew with the rising of the sun that her time was up. They wouldn’t wait for her any longer.

  She closed her eyes and thought of Marcus, the mate of her soul. Her capture would be torturing him, each moment apart like a lash against his heart. She yearned for him, his strength, his love, just the touch of his hand. Anything would be enough if only she were back with him safe and loved.

  Next her thoughts went to Alexi, her gentle warrior, her heart. He above his brothers would mourn for her loss. Bannen and Marcus would remain stoic on the outside but Alexi would show his pain to the world, loving her with all he was. She longed for his tender embrace, his soft kiss. Mostly she longed for his sweet smile and ready laughter.

  Then she thought of Bannen, her passion, her fire. He would be destroyed if anything happened to her. He was so rough on the outside but really like a child on the inside, needy for affection and love. And she loved him. Loved them all. No matter what happened to her, no matter what the Latoni did to her, she would survive and make it back to her mates. That was her vow as a Guardian.

  She sensed a presence behind her and no longer cared to hide the fact that she was awake. She turned her head and looked up to see Kito kneeling there, looking at the dried seed of his brother across the cheeks of her ass. He seemed startled when she turned her head and looked at him and he jerked to his feet.

  She licked her dry lips and whispered, “I can’t feel my arms or legs. The bonds are too tight. Will you release me?”

  Kito looked over his shoulder where his brother rested on a pallet in the corner of the cave close to the fire. “I… I shouldn’t touch you until Kiva wakes up,” he murmured, his gaze darting back and forth between her buttocks and his sleeping brother.

  “Please,” she begged him. “I cannot hurt you. I have no feeling left in my limbs. Kiva will be upset if I cannot feel it when he tortures me.”

  Kito snapped his gaze back to her, his eyes wide at her words. “He…he only wants to mark you the way that you marked him. You shouldn’t have hurt him like that. He wouldn’t have hurt you. He was only trying to help you.”

  Farrah had no idea what story Kiva had made up and shared with his brother but obviously it wasn’t the truth. “Your brother tried to force me, Kito. I was eighteen and he wanted to mate with me.”

  “No. He told me about what happened,” Kito shook his head vigorously back and forth and it dawned on Farrah how childlike his speech and mannerism were. Before, when Kito had spoken it had been with anger and worry and Farrah had overlooked what was right in front of her. “He was going to help you gather and carry the wood and you burned him. You shouldn’t have burned him. That made him very angry.”

  “Have you ever made him angry?” Farrah whispered the question.

  Kito shook his head up and down before answering. “I make him mad sometimes and he has to punish me. I try not to make him so mad though. I get really mad though sometimes and I speak without thinking.” And in revealing his anger hid the fact that he was more like a child than a warrior fully grown.

  “What does he do to you, Kito? How does he punish you?” Farrah asked and gasped for breath when the brawny warrior turned and showed her his back. She had never paid attention to him before other than to get out of the way when she saw either him or Kiva coming her way. Now she saw for the first time the scars that crisscrossed all over Kito’s back. They looked as if they had been made with a knife, as if he had been cut repeatedly just deep enough to scar the flesh and make it hurt and bleed. How could anyone do that to another person, much less their own brother?

  “Untie me please, Kito,” Farrah whispered. “I don’t want Kiva to take out his anger on you if I can’t feel his punishment.”

  “Better me than you,” Kito smiled down at her tenderly. “I am big, strong. I can handle the pain.”

  “Not this time,” Farrah whispered. “This time he means to have me. Please release me, Kito. I’m begging you.”

  Kito glanced once more at his sleeping brother before kneeling back down beside her and taking a knife from his belt. He slipped it between the bonds at her wrists and cut clean through before moving down to her ankles and doing the same. Farrah bit hard into her bottom lip to keep from crying out when he took her hands and began to rub them briskly between his own. It was like a thousand fiery ants biting her flesh as the nerves tingled and screamed their way back to life. She couldn’t contain the cries when he moved to her ankles and rubbed them just as briskly.

  “What they hell are you doing over there, Kito?” Kiva demanded, coming to his feet as he woke at the sound of Farrah’s cries. “Get the hell away from her!”

  Kito backed away but not quickly enough as Kiva’s blow caught him across the cheek and sent him reeling back against the wall. He landed hard, knocking his shoulder and bruising it on the rough rock of the cave walls. He cowered there for a moment, knowing through experience just how brutal his brother could be when he was angered.

  “So you finally decided to wake and join us,” Kiva glared down at Farrah who had managed to pull her skirt down and sit up on the floor in front of him, her back braced against the wall. “I am glad that you decided to, for I have plans for you.”

  He pulled his hand back and slapped her, the blow exploding across her cheek before she even realized what he intended. She hit her other cheek against the wall from the force of the blow and cried out as she felt her lip split and drip with her blood.

  “I have anticipated this day for three years,” Kiva told her, his eyes glowing with fury and hunger. “For three years I have dreamed of you at my feet, at my mercy, begging me not to hurt you. Go ahead, Farrah, beg me not to hurt you. Beg me to leave you alone.”

  “No,” Farrah said, her eyes burning with her own anger. She could feel the fire in her blood, the building of flames within her searching for a way out. She clenched her hands into tight fists, not willing to show her hand so soon. Bracing her hand against the wall, she surged up to her feet, preferring to face him while standing from this moment on. “Never will I cower at your feet. Never will I beg you for anything.”

  “You will beg,” Kiva told her, his beady eyes filled with purpose. “You will scream your surrender to the skies before I am done with you. Kito, light the torch and bring it to me,” he ordered his brother, never taking his eyes from Farrah.


  “What-what are you going to do, Kiva?” Kito asked, afraid now that the moment of truth had arrived.

  “Just do as you’re told, brother, or you will be punished with fire as well,” Kiva shouted, spittle spraying through the air. “Bring me the torch!”

  Kito looked at Farrah and mouthed “I’m sorry” even as he lit the torch in the flames of the fire and carried it the short distance to his brother.

  Farrah smiled at Kito, enraging Kiva further with her words. “It is okay, Kito. I am not afraid. Kiva cannot hurt me. Do what he tells you.”

  “Warrior whore,” Kiva shouted with rage. “You will be afraid!” he promised her as he peeled the gloves from his hands and held them up in front of him. “You will know true fear when the flames lick your body and turn your flesh as mine.”

  Farrah gasped at the sight of his scarred hands. They were red, the skin twisted and knotted, joining his fingers in several places. He could not open them fully because of the thick skin that now covered him where her skin had seared him when he touched her. It was grotesque to look at and must have hurt very badly for a long time. She felt no remorse for what she had done though. Kiva Latoni had planned to bed her and claim her as mate three years before she was of claiming age. Seeing the scars that Kito bore on his own flesh, she knew that it would not have been a loving union as she had with Marcus, Alexi and Bannen.

  “Fire does not scare me, Kiva,” she told him quietly and lifted her hands into the air. “I call upon the caress of flames, the fire brought to life within my veins. What burns to one shall cleave to me. As I will it, so shall it be.” She lowered her face and looked at him then and her eyes seemed to glow with flames.

  Kiva backed away from her and threw the torch at her feet, laughing joyously as her skirts caught and blazed around her. Farrah only smiled and lifted her arms again until she resembled a human torch. She didn’t cower. She didn’t scream. She didn’t run or roll upon the ground in hopes of stopping the flames. Instead she smiled at him, her entire body bathed in fire, her hair like a rope of flames hanging from her head.