Soul of Fire by Sarah A. Hoyt

Author:Sarah A. Hoyt
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance, Fantasy
ISBN: 9780553589672
Publisher: Spectra
Published: 2008-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

AMONG BEASTS; THE DRAGON’S FURY; BEAST AND MAN

Sofie was scared. She couldn’t have explained it to anyone. She wasn’t scared of St. Maur. It was hard to be scared of a man who had saved your life twice over, and who was determined to protect you at all costs.

He’d said that as they reached a small clearing in the woods. He undressed, briskly, hiding their bags and his clothes under a nearby tree and locking it under various spells of secrecy and invisibility—or as close to it as spells could get, carrying the strong suggestion that anyone noticing them should immediately stop doing so and look away as soon as possible.

Then he turned around. He’d removed all stitch of clothing, including his eye patch. His deformity should have scared her or shocked her, but it did not. Instead, with his eyelid closed on that side, he presented the aspect of someone who’d been through a great battle and not escaped unscathed. The only explanation he’d given her for his wound was that it had been “a sacrifice and a worthy one.” She didn’t know what that meant.

In her mind, she’d conjured up a lot of stories about his fighting many battles and being wounded in a noble charge against the enemy. The enemy in these daydreams was always indefinable, but she could see St. Maur clearly—being very noble and self-contained and self-sacrificing. She could see him losing his eye and telling his men to charge on, to not flag.

All of this would have made much sense had it actually fit in with the story of himself he’d told her. Of course, it didn’t. And yet, that didn’t deter her. She realized perfectly well that in the story he’d told her there were holes—places left dark. She supposed he thought they were too rough and ready for her maiden ears. And, as such, she was sure he would tell her the whole story, someday.

She realized she was certain of this as she watched him turn around. And at the same time, she realized she’d been a fool to think that friendship or any sort of intimacy between them could subsist or grow. Or, indeed, that anything about him was human and soft and the same kind and order of being as she was.

Naked, his face bare, standing in that clearing, St. Maur made one think more of a blade, naked and ready, shining in the sun, than of a man with human frailties. Sofie shivered, and couldn’t say why. There was a set to his jaw, all angles and sharp decision. His cheekbones looked more starkly planed, his shoulders thrown back, showing all his muscles in sharp relief. His body looked perfect—the even skin, the muscles of his torso, his perfectly shaped legs. He was almost hairless. The whole contributed, Sofie thought, to make him look more like a statue on display at a museum than the man who had rescued her. The man who, she realized, she’d been building up as some sort of knight-errant in her mind.

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