by Ashley West
Table of Contents
Free Paranormal Romance
Title Page
Prequel One: Sadie Foster and the Worst Day Ever
Prequel Two: Put it on Ice
Chapter One: The More Things Change
Chapter Two: Briefing
Chapter Three: Trouble, Trouble
Chapter Four: Savior in White
Chapter Five: A Break in the Habit
Chapter Six: And Further Still
Chapter Seven: Something to Lose
Chapter Eight: Gaining Ground, Losing Focus
Chapter Nine: Into the Black
Chapter Ten: Into the Fray
Chapter Eleven: (In)To the Rescue
Chapter Twelve: Things Fall Apart
Chapter Thirteen: Faith
Chapter Fourteen: A Blizzard
Chapter Fifteen: Thawed
Bonus Book: Craving
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Silas: Imperial Warrior Preview
About the Author
Publishers Notes
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CHILLED
Elemental Warriors
Ashley West
Prequel One: Sadie Foster and the Worst Day Ever
“Sadie! You’ve got admirers!”
“Two seconds, Carlos, I’m busy!”
“Too busy to be admired?”
She paused to consider, head tilted despite the heavy metal helmet that covered her face and protected her eyes and skin from the heat and sparks of flame that were an integral part of her job. “Okay, you’re right! Never too busy to be admired.”
Humming under her breath, she flipped the switch to extinguish her torch and then pulled her helmet up. The scents of fire and metal were familiar and comfortable to her at this point, and she paused a second to just take it all in. The workshop was a riot of heat and sound, flames and hammers pounding metal into various shapes. Everyone who was working was lost in their own little worlds, their projects taking up their focus as they worked with torches and furnaces to make functional things and beautiful things to sell and display.
It was like her home away from home, even if she did always leave it littered with burn marks and bruises, her shirt sticking to her skin with sweat. At this point, those were just signs of a job well done.
Sadie wasn't the type of girl someone would expect to find at a place like The Forge, blacksmithery and artist studio. She was petite and pert in every sense of the word, beautiful in a way that seemed to imply innocence, with wide brown eyes, freckles, and dimples. When she smiled, she looked like an angel, and when she told people what she did for a living, people were always shocked.
She'd gotten very good at shrugging off their surprise and then producing something she had made to show them that she was actually very good at crafting things with fire and steel despite her short stature.
She wiped the sweat from her brow and took off her gloves, walking carefully past the others who were working near her so as not to disturb them and ruin their projects--or get injured.
The lobby of the building was blessedly cool, the air conditioning humming usefully in the background. The lobby was the section where the works were displayed, trying to entice people to buy things or just to get them interested in The Forge and taking classes or attending workshops.
Near the largest of the pieces that were out there (a life-sized, fully welded and riveted model of Joan of Arc), were two people who she recognized instantly.
"Jas!" she called, wasting no time in flinging herself into the arms of her best friend.
"Sadie!"
She was immediately wrapped up in a tight hug and squeezed for dear life. If ever there was a study of contrasts, it was between her and her best friend from high school. Where Sadie was petite, her skin tanned and freckled, her hair and eyes dark, Jasmine was tall and fair and pale. She was beautiful at six feet tall with her head full of blonde curls and her bright green eyes.
If Sadie was the princess, then Jasmine was her knight in shining armor, and Sadie had missed her.
"I didn't know you were coming into town," she said into the skin of her friend's neck, holding on for dear life, even though her feet weren't even touching the ground anymore.
"It's a surprise," Jas replied with a grin, stroking her back. "Are you surprised?"
"Completely! It's been too long."
"You always say that."
"It's always true!"
"Ahem."
Both women stopped and turned at the not so subtle cough, and Sadie smiled at the other person who had come to see her. "Hi, Jamie."
"Oh, so you can see me," he said mildly, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans.
Sadie rolled her eyes at her boyfriend. "Always with the melodrama. And come on, James. I see you literally every day. I haven't seen Jas in months. Months!"
Jamie lifted his hands in a sort of 'I give up' motion, and Sadie rolled her eyes again before hugging Jasmine tighter and then sliding to the floor. "This is the best day," she said to her friend before she flounced over and looked up at James.
He really was an attractive guy, all curly dark hair and bright eyes. He even had one dimple at the corner of his mouth. He towered over her five feet three inches, even taller than Jasmine, and somehow that just made him even more attractive to Sadie who had always appreciated a man who was taller than her. Not that it was hard to accomplish.
Even when he was trying not to pout he was good looking, although maybe that just made him even more attractive, and Sadie reached up and grabbed a handful of his shirt to pull him down into a kiss.
"Hi, Jamie," she said again, this time murmured against his lips. It's really very good to see you."
"Is it?" he asked, quirking an eyebrow at her.
She smirked and leaned in to kiss him again. "Yes."
"Okay, okay," Jasmine interrupted. "Enough with the kissy kissy. I didn't come all the way here from Florida to watch you two make out. I want to see some fire! I want to see metal melting! Show me!"
Jamie laughed and straightened up, resting a hand on the top of Sadie's head. "If I knew it was going to be this loud, I wouldn't have brought you here, Jas," he said.
Both women knew he wasn't serious.
"Come over to the observation window," Sadie said. "I'm not making anything cool yet, just cutting pieces, but you can watch and then we can go get some dinner, okay?"
They both agreed and Sadie waved cheerfully at them before she went back to the work area to fire up her torch again.
"What?" Sadie asked for the fifth time that night as she watched
Jamie watch her. It felt like his eyes had been on her ever since they'd left The Forge and come out to dinner, and it wasn't in the way she usually liked his eyes to be on her.
"Nothing," Jamie said, also for the fifth time, and he looked away.
Sadie frowned. They'd been dating for a good six months now, and she knew how to read him well enough. There was something on his mind, something he wanted to say, but he was holding back for some reason. Probably because she wasn't going to like whatever it was.
"It's not nothing. If it was nothing then you wouldn't keep looking at me like that. What's going on?"
He sighed, running fingers through his hair. "I don't think you want to do this now."
They were in the restaurant still, and Jasmine was in the bathroom, leaving the two of them alone at the table. "Do what?" Sadie asked, playing with the remnants of her shrimp alfredo, pushing it around the plate. "What are we doing?"
"Having this conversation."
Now she was really confused, and cranky. "What conversation?" she snapped, patience wearing thin. "We're not having a conversation. You're being cryptic, and I'm trying to get you to make sense. I don't think that qualifies."
He sighed again, giving her a beseeching look. "Sadie, please."
"Please what?" she demanded. "I don't understand what's happening, and I'm not going to just sit here like there's nothing going on, when clearly you've got something to say. So just spit it out."
"God, I can't stand when you get like this."
"Like what?"
"Like this! You always have to be in charge, always in control. Always the strong one."
She just blinked at him, at a loss. "You're mad because I'm strong?"
"No!" he insisted. "Well...kind of."
Sadie almost couldn't believe what she was hearing, except...well, she'd heard it all before. Jamie wasn't the first man she'd been with who had ended up being threatened by the fact that she was strong and not all that 'girly'. She'd had men break up with her using such classic lines as 'a man needs to feel like a man' and 'there's no fun in dating you because you're not like other girls'. She'd cried the first time someone had said that to her, but now it just made her mad.
"You're pathetic," she said, not bothering to keep her voice down. "Do you know that? You're absolutely pathetic."
"Sadie--"
"No," she snapped, cutting him off. "I don't want to hear it. You're sitting there, complaining about how you don't feel like a man or whatever because I don't need you to save me at every turn and because I can weld or whatever. Because I'm strong and you feel threatened. And you know what? That's not my problem, James. It's not my problem that your masculinity is so frigging fragile that you're threatened by me."
"I didn't say I was threatened!"
"But you are. That's what it always comes down to. If you weren't you wouldn't be bringing this up."
Sadie got to her feet in a rush, grabbing her purse off the back of her chair. She saw Jasmine coming out of the bathroom area, looking bewildered as she headed closer to them.
"What's going on?" she asked, looking back and forth between them.
"James here has had a change of heart considering our relationship," Sadie said. "Apparently, I'm too strong, and it makes him feel like a weak baby."
"Oh." Jasmine had heard men said that to her before, and clearly didn't need any other explanations. "So we're leaving." It wasn't even a question.
"We're leaving," Sadie confirmed.
"The bill--" James said, and she whirled to glare at him.
"What, don't real men always pay for dinner?" And with that, they left.
It was easy to hold up her anger in the march from the restaurant, and easy to rant about men who weren't worth her time once they'd gotten into the car to drive back to Sadie's place.
But once they were there, it was harder to keep it together.
"I just...I thought he understood, you know?" she said, her head in Jasmine's lap as she tried to keep swallowing back tears. "Usually guys have their jerk moments before it gets to the sixth month point. I just...I thought he was going to be different."
"I know, sweetie," Jas said stroking her hair.
"Maybe it's me," Sadie whispered. "Maybe I really am the problem. I mean, they can't all be wrong, right? We can't just assume that every man who's ever broken up with me because of this is a jerk. Can we?"
"Of course we can. They're men."
Sadie laughed weakly. "I guess that's a fair point."
"Of course it is. Sweetie, you're amazing. You're strong and talented and awesome, and one day, you're going to meet some guy who will realize all those things about you and love it. He won't be threatened just because your muscles are bigger than his or whatever weak, whiny child reasons these jerks keep coming up with."
"You think so?"
"I know so. You deserve the best, darling."
Sadie managed a smile, sitting up to wrap her arms around her best friend. "I'm really glad you're here."
Jasmine opened her mouth to reply when something that sounded an awful lot like an explosion rocked the house, making them jump.
"What was that?" Jasmine asked, wide eyed.
"Dunno." Sadie scrambled to her feet, hoping that one of her neighbor's cars hadn't exploded or something. She went to the window, but she couldn't see anything from the thick haze of smoke that had suffused the street. "What in the world?" she murmured. "Jas? Maybe get 911 on speed dial or something. I think something's happening."
"Something like what?"
The question was followed by two more explosions, which, now that Sadie thought about it, sounded more like thunderous impacts than something blowing up. Like something heavy had smashed into the ground.
...Or into someone's house.
As some of the smoke cleared, Sadie was able to see flickering flames engulfing the house across the street and one down from her, and right in the middle of it, was...some sort of craft.
A breeze blew away more smoke, and she could see another craft in the middle of the street, practically sunk into the asphalt at this point, and a little ways down the road, there were more flames--evidence of another.
"Holy crap on a cracker," she breathed.
Jasmine screamed, and Sadie whirled to look at her. She was standing in the open doorway, mouth open as she looked out into the night.
"What?" Sadie said. "What is it?"
"I don't know, but...oh my god."
She went over to look and had to take a step back at what she was seeing. In the middle of the street were men. Or...something sort of like men, at least. They were much taller than any man she had ever seen before in her life, huge, imposing, and armed.
They all held spears with forked blades that seemed to be sparking with electricity. There were four of them in all, moving in formation from the darkness down the road into the middle of the street.
Her neighbors, all clustered in front of their houses as they watched, were silent as they approached, until they got close enough that the panic got the better of them, and then they took off running, screaming into the night.
Some of them made it. One man was clever enough to get into his car and start driving, one woman was fast enough that she made it to the end of the street and then just kept running, disappearing into the darkness. Some were not so lucky, and when electricity arced from the blades that tipped the spears, it hit the stragglers, who went down with gurgling cries.
Jasmine’s fingers were wrapped around Sadie’s arm tight enough to cut off her circulation. She could hear her friend breathing hard, and she didn’t need to look at her to know that her eyes would be wide with fear.
“What do we do?” Jas whispered.
“I don’t know,” Sadie replied. And suddenly, having broken up with her boyfriend didn’t seem like such a huge deal anymore.
Prequel Two: Put it on Ice
There was something beautiful about the way light looked through a solid wall of ice. No matter how good t
he ice was at keeping out people and pests, it couldn't block the sun completely, and sometimes Cullen caught himself watching the way the light sparkled and shifted when it shone through a particularly clear bit of ice.
The thicker the ice, the more dramatic the effect, and he found himself pausing often to watch it, awed, as he usually was, at how he was able to work with such a lovely material.
It wasn't as brash as fire, or as malleable and moveable as water, but there was something deadly and graceful about ice that made him more than pleased to call it his element.
"Cull!" the cry split the silence of the air, and Cullen's head snapped up and around to see who had called to him.
Frist, one of his fellow warriors, was running over the hill, leading with him the men they were there to fight.
"What did you do?" Cullen called, bewildered. They had been waiting for the Drosteg to come out on their own, and here was Frist leading them in a wave. The icy tundra behind him was dark with the forces of the Drosteg as they gave chase.
"Just said hello," Frist said, and Cullen shook his head. If there was anyone who didn't seem to understand how being one of the ice elemental warriors worked, it was Frist. He wasn't like any of the others, and it was often causing problems. Like this one.
Cullen's hand went to his belt, and he pulled the great horn from it, putting it to his lips and blowing hard.
A loud, deep sound echoed over the valley, making the ice caps on the Mountains of Shamin shudder. It was a rallying call, and it was answered seconds later by a higher note from another horn, and then another, and then another. The others had heard his call, and were on their way.
In the meantime, he and Frist and the three others who were with them would have to defend this area against the--Cullen stopped to try and count them--well over a hundred Drosteg who were barreling down on them.
Cullen lifted his hand and concentrated, pulling in power from his body and cold air from around him. Right there in his palm, a sword started to grow.
It was the privilege of any elemental warrior to be able to shape a weapon made from their own element, to call and move it as they pleased. Cullen favored something sharp and wide, but not heavy. Easy to move, easy to slash through his enemies.
