Prince of Fire Read online

  Prince of Fire

  By

  Linda Winstead Jones

  *

  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  *

  Praise for the Sisters of the Sun trilogy and the novels of Linda Winstead Jones

  The Star Witch

  “Bewitching… a fabulous climactic romantic fantasy … filled with fascinating twists, beguiling “

  —Midwest Book Review

  “A fantastic denouement… For an action-packed and thrilling romance, The Star Witch is just what the doctor ordered.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  The Moon Witch

  “I can hardly wait to find out how she will [entwine] all the threads she has created!… This series is just too good to miss.”

  —The Romance Reader

  “An enjoyable romantic fantasy that grips the audience … Action-packed.”

  —The Best Reviews

  “A unique and imaginative realm … Prepare to be swept away!”

  —Rendezvous

  “[W]ill enthrall… Lushly imaginative.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  The Sun Witch

  “Entertaining and imaginative, with a wonderful blend of worlds and technology and magic. The characters are different and engrossing, the villain is fascinating.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Linda Howard

  “Charming … Winsome … The perfect choice when you want a Hghthearted and fun, yet sensual romance… with all the magic of a fairy tale.”

  —Bookbug on the Web

  “Fabulous … The story is spectacular and this author is unforgettable.”

  —Road to Romance

  “Let the fireworks begin! This whimsical, entrancing tale will satisfy the romance fan demanding something unusual and wonderful. With a skillful blend of the fanciful and the mundane, author Linda Winstead Jones weaves a marvelous tale of love and happy-ever-after, with a twist. Remarkable in imagination.”

  —Word Weaving

  “Amazing adventures unfold… marvelously captivating, sensuous, fast-paced.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  “Hot.”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  Titles by Linda Winstead Jones

  THE SUN WITCH

  THE MOON WITCH

  THE STAR WITCH

  PRINCE OF MAGIC

  PRINCE OF FIRE

  PRINCE OF SWORDS

  (Available May 2007)

  *

  *

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responiibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  PRINCE OF FIRE

  A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / April 20O7

  Copyright © 2007 by Linda Winstead Jones.

  Excerpt from Prince of Swords copyright ©2007 by Linda Winstead Jones.

  Cover art by Danny O’Leary.

  Cover design by Lesley Worrell.

  Handletlering by Isfcra Johnson.

  Interior lent design by Stacy Irwin.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York. New York 10014.

  lSBN:978-0-425-21481-7

  BERKLEY SENSATION®

  Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY SENSATION is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  The “B” design is a trademark belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  *

  For Linda Howard and Beverly Barton, two remarkable and talented women who have become sisters of my heart.

  *

  A darkness creeps beneath Columbyana and the lands beyond. This darkness grows stronger each and every day, infecting those who have an affinity for evil. As it grows stronger, it will also begin to affect those who are of weak mind, and eventually it will grow so strong no one among us will be able to defeat it. If this darkness is allowed to grow to this point, the world is doomed to eternal shadows, where evil will reign.

  Only the firstborn children of three fine women [later translated as Fyne] have the power to stop the darkness and restore the world to light. These firstborn will be the warriors who lead the fight. Our fate rests in their hands, and in the hands of the armies tfiey will call to them.

  Of the three fine [Fyne] warriors who are called to this battle, one will find and wield the crystal dagger. One will betray love in the name of victory. And one, the eldest, will die at the hands of a monster who will hurtle a weary soul into the Land of the Dead.

  Many monsters will rise from among us in this unholy war, soulless monsters such as the world has never seen. Heroes will be born and heroes will die. Death and darkness will threaten all those who choose to fight for the light.

  Scribbled in the lefthand margin, in an almost illegible hand:

  Beware Serrazone

  and beside it,

  He who walks through fire may show the way.

  Scribbled in the righthand margin:

  Those who are called must choose

  between love and death,

  between heart and intellect,

&
nbsp; between victory of the sword and victory of the soul.

  The remainder of the prophesy is illegible scribbling and indecipherable sketches. A scraggly tree; a bird with wings too large; a flower; a heart; a dagger [The crystal dagger, perhaps?]. Do they have meaning or are they simply a dying old man’s insignificant doodles?

  *

  1

  Shaking, trembling to her bones, Keelia lifted her head and studied her own hands—pale hands which were pressed against a chilly gray stone floor. Tangled strands of red hair fell past one cheek and pooled against the rough stone. A hint of panic welled up inside her, but she did not reveal that panic in any outward way, other than the tremble which she could not control.

  Her mind raced, but her body remained very still. Without moving from the spot where she found herself, Keelia gathered her composure. No matter what had happened, she would show no fear. No weakness. The gentle shaking of her body ceased as she quieted her mind and took control, searching for the memory of how she had come to be here.

  She remembered standing over Giulia’s bed studying an array of several overly ornate gowns in the style her little sister preferred. Her mind had not been on the simple task at hand. Ariana was coming, and there would be a celebration of sorts, even though Keelia’s psychic powers had warned her that there were not many celebratory times in the near future for the Anwyn or the humans in the lands below the Mountains of the North. An unspeakable evil was coming. No, that evil was already here.

  She and Giulia had been studying the gowns, and Keelia’s mind had been drifting, and then … and then, someone had grabbed her. Someone had actually dared to grab her, and then he’d done something to her throat and everything had gone black. Until now. She turned her head and studied the cave in which she had awakened. It was no ordinary cave but was a prison, a cell with bars built into a slender natural doorway. A narrow cot had been placed against one cave wall, but she had not awakened there. Whoever had brought her here had simply dumped her onto the floor. A chamber pot was discretely stored beneath the cot, and a crude wooden table sat near the rear wall. This was not a tempotary facility, but one in which a prisoner might expect to remain for a long while.

  An unwanted lump formed in Keelia’s throat. How much time had passed since she’d been taken? Hours or days? Who had taken her? Who would dare? She was rarely confronted with mysteries of any kind, but at the moment she grasped no answers to her questions.

  “Ah, the Queen awakes,” a deep voice rumbled from the shadows beyond her prison.

  Flaming torches lit the segment of the cave beyond the bars, but not well enough. Not nearly well enough. Keelia narrowed her eyes and attempted to focus, and finally caught sight of the man who spoke. He lingered just beyond the circle of illumination cast by the nearest torch so that all she saw was a shape, a distant and unclear silhouette. The shape was male, like the arrogant voice, but she could sense little else.

  Her powers of telepathy were usually quite sharp. Though they were far from all-encompassing, those abilities were strong and reliable. At least, they had been until recently. What had once been crystal clear was now muddy. Indistinct. Dreams continued to come even when the visions did not, but she occasionally misinterpreted even them, until she found herself questioning everything that came to her. Something was interfering with her gifts. Her mother believed mat if Keelia would search diligently for her mate and settle down, she would know a calm that had thus far eluded her and the visions would become clear once again. Keelia suspected there was something darker at work here, perhaps the very evil she sometimes dreamed of.

  It was true that in the past few months she had not been able to interpret the meanings of her visions well, as she should, but even when her powers were not at their best she could still reach into a person—any person—and know something of their thoughts. Were they scared? Angry? Well-meaning? Frustrated? It was a finely honed instinct she had relied upon all her life, and she needed it now.

  Keelia reached for this man who had dared to kidnap her, and received nothing in return. Not hatred, fear, or self-satisfaction at a job well done. Not arrogance or anger. It was as if he were a complete blank. She had sensed nothing of him as he’d snuck upon her either, which was alarming.

  Accustomed to being able to understand the people around her, Keelia was more afraid of the emptiness than of her imprisonment in this cell. It was as if someone had taken away her very sight or her hearing or her sense of touch. Without her gifts, she was not herself, and she felt horribly lost.

  “Who are you?” she asked sharply, refusing to show fear to her abductor. “What do you want? Are you a coward who always hides in the shadows?” Maybe if he moved closer, she’d be able to read something of his thoughts. Maybe if she could see his face, she could reach deeper and understand his intentions.

  She did not fear death. If this man had wanted her dead, he could’ve killed her there in Giulia’s room.

  “One question at a time, My Red Queen,” the man said, stepping forward so that the flickering flame of the torch illuminated his face.

  Keelia’s heart reacted fiercely to the sight of that face, skipping a beat and racing and thudding so hard she was afraid he would hear it. This was not possible. He was supposed to be nothing more man a dream, a figment of her imagination, a fantasy she called upon when her fertile time came and demanded that she find physical satisfaction. This man, this face she knew so well, he was of her own making, her own imagination. He was not real.

  She closed her eyes tightly, wondering if she was caught in some kind of nightmare. No, the stone beneath her was real, the pounding of her heart, real, her inability to see into her captor… real. She opened her eyes, wondering if perhaps she had made a mistake. Maybe her abductor favored the man of her dreams only in some small way, and in her panic she had imagined that he was her dream lover come to life.

  Her eyes flickered over him, from head to toe. No, it was not her imagination, not at all. The man who had kidnapped her had long dark blond hair oddly streaked with auburn. That distinctive ginger streak she had caressed in her dreams originated at his temple and shot back to eventually blend with the thick waves of the more ordinary blond.. He was much taller than she, but a bit shorter than most Anwyn males, which had always suited her in her fantasies since, like her mother and sister, she was petite in size, and did not care for being completely dwarfed by the men in her life.

  Her kidnapper wore plain brown trousers which fit loosely over long legs and were tucked into soft boots, and a worn leather belt which held a scabbard and dagger. He wore nothing else but a wide silver bracelet which graced his right wrist.

  Keelia had been waiting for a long time for her mate to come to her. All Anwyn mated for life, and while the males had to move beyond The City to find their destined mates among human females, as Queen, she should have known for the past ten years or so who her mate would be. She was the powerful Red Queen who had been promised to her people, a Queen who—according to prophesy—would be like no other. She’d been trained from birth to rule, and her mother had gladly abdicated when she and the priestesses judged it was time. Juliet, now the revered Queen Mother, had had the duties of Queen thrust upon her. Keelia had been well prepared. At the age of fifteen she’d taken the throne with no doubts about her ability to lead, without even a hint of uncertainty. She’d not expected her King to immediately appear before her, but neither had she expected to be made to wait so long. She was twenty-five years of age, and still, her mate’s identity remained a mystery to her. There were few mysteries in her life, and she had often wondered if this loneliness was the price she had to pay for her other abilities. Perhaps she would never have a true mate and know the love that came with such a union.

  Her mother had always told her how she had been unable to read her mate’s mind when they’d first met. The love that Juliet and Ryn shared had always seemed ideal to Keelia, and it was what she wanted most of all. More than being Queen, more than possessing rem
arkable powers like no other… she wanted what her parents had found. Was the fact that she was unable to read this man’s mind a sign that he was her mate? Were the dreams and fantasies of him unrecognized visions of what was to be ? She held her breath. Had she been dreaming about her mate all along? It was tradition for Anwyn males to abduct their mates, and while this scenario was extreme … perhaps he was the one. Perhaps her mate was a rogue who lived beyond The City walls, arid he had finally come for her.

  He wrapped his fingers around the bars that imprisoned her, and the bracelet he wore made a clinking sound as he settled his hands there. By the light of the torch, Keelia finally got a clear look at his face. The mouth was full and wide and wicked. In her dreams that mouth smiled often, but it did not smile now. The nose was perfect in shape, and the cheekbones were high and prominent. The eyes were slightly slanted and mysterious.

  It was as she studied those eyes that Keelia put aside her wish that he might be the one she had waited for and she suffered her first real rush of fear. In her dreams, those eyes were as golden as her own. All Anwyn were graced with golden eyes, some deep amber and others brightly gold, with most colored somewhere in between.

  Her captor’s eyes were green. Not just any shade of green, but a deep and lively shade reminiscent of emeralds.

  Her dream lover was a Caradon, and he was not a happy creature.

  Keelia had always refused to accept that the ancient prophesy that the Red Queen would take a Caradon lover and thereby bring peace to her people might be true. It had been told so many times, for so many years, it had obviously been twisted and misinterpreted. Her mate would be Anwyn, not a contemptible Caradon!

  The Caradon kidnapper gripped the bars tightly with large hands. Hands that had grabbed her, hands that had found a pressure point on her throat that had disabled her.

  In her dreams, her lover whispered only sweet things in her ear as he used those hands for happier purposes, but in reality he scowled and asked hoarsely, “What have you done to my people?”