Caress of Flame by King Sherri L

Author:King, Sherri L. [King, Sherri L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9781419956317
Google: l5YwMuIzTm0C
Amazon: B0030CMJSQ
Publisher: Ellora's Cave
Published: 2006-05-01T06:00:00+00:00

Isis saw the worry in his eyes that she would say yes. She thought about it and found that, no, it didn’t matter to her. But it was definitely weird. “No. But I must seem like a real adolescent to you.”

“Not in any way,” he assured her.

There came the sound of a bell ringing. Isis glanced at the entrance and saw a small brass bell above the door, connected to a string that led out of the door to the other side.

6Isis supposed such a thing was quite useful. It would be hard for someone to hear a knock on a solid stone door, no matter how keen their hearing might be.

A tall, lithe woman with ankle-length blonde hair came into the room with a tray.

She was the first Shikar besides Flare that Isis had ever seen. The woman was delicately beautiful, not at all brutish like her male counterpart. Yet she carried the heavy silver tray with an easy strength. Her skin was like cream, smooth and unblemished in any way, perfect. And her eyes were the same color as Flare’s.

The woman gave Isis a curious glance but said nothing. She went into the sitting room with her tray and set it down on the stone coffee table.

“Hello, Sence,” Flare said by way of welcome.

Sence smiled at him with a fondness that had Isis clenching her fists in jealousy. “I brought you some bread and cheese in case you were hungry,” Sence said.

“Thank you,” Flare said gently.

The woman gave Isis one last glance before she left the way she had come. Isis relaxed, her jealousy waning, cooling her rising ire. She shook the remnants away with a physical toss of her head.

Flare took a cup of steaming warm tea and offered her the other. “It’s sweetened,”

he warned her.

She liked her tea sweet anyway. Isis took a sip of the brown liquid and raised her eyebrows at Flare. “This is delicious. This makes normal tea taste positively bitter.”

“The leaves are grown in specially designed gardens. Our livestock is in a large grazing area, though our animals have evolved separately from their brethren on the surface world. They may seem odd to you, were you to see them. But I am assured that their meat tastes pretty much the same from either place.”

Isis reached out and took a small square piece of cheese. She bit into it then smiled.

It tasted just like Colby cheese, which she happened to like very much.

Flare finished his tea with one final gulp and set the cup down on the tray. He looked at her for a long while, as if he were trying to see into her very soul. He seemed to come to some decision and nodded to himself.

“I have to leave you here for a little while. I won’t be far. I just need to meet with my superior about something,” he told her. “It won’t take long.”

Isis understood. He was a soldier first and foremost. “I’ll just stay here,” she said obviously.

Flare laughed and turned, leaving her standing there watching his retreating back.

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