Everything was grey and blurry. There was no distance, no focus. Sounds were muted and indistinct while being too loud to understand at the same time. And everywhere there was pain…. so very much pain in this dark and floating no place. Swallowing caused her dry and rasping tongue to scrape cruelly against the blister which was the roof of her mouth.
Something cool, much too cool; shivered raggedly over her aching eyelids. Unable to control herself Lyla let out a pathetic whimper of agony.
“Hush, beautiful.” The deep voice was unfamiliar, but the large hand which cupped her cheek tenderly warmed her comfortingly. But comfort or no, Lyla had to keep going. The message had to be delivered. To the Magistrate.
Leaning close Rengard Lan strained to make out what the girl was saying. Carefully he dabbed her lips with the corner of a cloth dipped in water. Reflexively she swallowed the first drops which tentatively found their way between her lips. Still, she struggled to speak, her sightless eyes staring at memories that were not there.
“The Magistrate.” The girl mumbled. “The message.” Despite being at death’s door only hours before, the woman tried desperately to move. She had not fulfilled her duty so far as she knew. To ease her struggle and keep this brave lady from pulling out her stitches, Rengard Lan leaned close and whispered in her ear.
“Your message has been delivered. You have told the Magistrate what he needed to know. He has the message and the courier’s case.” Instantly her feeble efforts lessened as his Imperial Chaos magic soothed her and she became pliant on the couch. She smiled softly with relief.
Whoever she was, this messenger was beautiful to the young prince. There was something about her. Something that grasped at his soul and made him want to protect her. It was more than her just being another citizen of his empire. More than the genetically imprinted conditioning of every Imperial Mage to protect human life.
Now that she wasn’t frantic, her eyes seemed to focus on the prince for the first time. He liked her eyes. They were pretty. A soft color between gold and brown. Like the toasting on meringue deserts. She assessed his face and gazed up at him with an almost dreamy trust as if being so close to him were the most natural thing in the world. As if she felt that tingling connection to him that he felt for her.
She’d been through so much. He could feel how horribly her strength had been sapped by the deliverance spell, and the poison that suffused her body, probably from the wound she had sustained. Now that she’d been stabilized and her life was no longer in danger, it would be so easy…
Just a touch of magic would be all it took to heal her completely. While Rengard Lan did not have the great and terrible ability of a fully trained Imperial Mage, he was more than capable of passing on a healing spell. Leaning over he brushed the woman’s lips lightly with his own.
A wave of energy seemed to pass between them. Like electric poles magnetizing and aligning. His heart stuttered and he gasped with the realization of the terrible mistake he’d made. Unable to stop himself and not wanting to even if he could, Rengard Lan breathed his life and health into the injured woman he didn’t know with all the ability he could muster.
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From a great distance, Lyla felt the heat that filled her body. It had started as tender warmth but had grown to an inferno that seared her lips and melted the sluggish blood which sat torpid within her arteries. Soon it was a torrent, a flood, a roaring, deafening, blistering rush that pulled and tossed her up, up, up out of the dark cold waters of death.
Awake! Alert! Lyla was back and conscious. She had been gone. That she absolutely knew, that she had been gone on the cusp, further from her body than her mind had ever been. Gods it had hurt. Where was she? The message. The Magistrate.
“Your message has been delivered.” She remembered being told this. Comforted by the words she instantly relaxed. And in that moment of relaxation, she noticed the man, whose face was inches from her own.
His masculine scent surrounded her and filled her nostrils to the exclusion of all else. Deep kind eyes in a broad face with a strong jaw and agile expressive lips blocked her view of what else there might be in this room. Those blue eyes, the color of the sky on a clear day in the highest peaks, crinkled at the corners as the man smiled down at her.
“Good morning, beautiful.” A voice like roasted apples gave her delightfully warm tingles as she listened. And it seemed completely natural when the hand which had been cupping her face traced a callused thumb along her cheek. Lyla didn’t blink as this strange man leaned closer and slid his tongue between her parted lips. His kiss was slow and careful.
There was no struggle, no fight, and no surprise. Lyla melted as the warrior’s fingers slid slowly into her tangled locks. She felt weak at his touch and was certain that she would have fallen down if she had not already been lying on her back.
A throbbing heat and desire she’d never known before began to build within her. She moaned as a second hand cupped her face before sliding down the side of her neck and over her breast. An erect nipple straining tautly in his palm and she gasped with shuddering delight before the hand reached back up to her face. The kiss became deeper, fiercer, and more passionate.
Unable to stop herself, Lyla felt her back arch her body up to the stranger. Her lips moved of their own accord and parted further, her tongue flicked hesitantly against his…Then the fire came again, filling her lungs with life and breath, and sweeping all weakness and the muddling of her thoughts away before it like wildlife fleeing the forest ablaze.
With shock, Lyla realized that there was an unknown man kissing her, in an unknown place. It could not be allowed to continue. Mustering all her strength she shoved him away forcefully and slapped the stranger across the face.
“Get your hands off of me or by the Gods you will rue the day that you were born.” To Lyla’s complete astonishment, the man laughed. Not cruelly, or with malice, but with a genuine, hearty, deep belly laugh. Tears leaked from his eyes and Lyla was quite certain that she might try to murder him if he didn’t stop soon.
She glared at him and cradled the hand she had slapped him with. It had hurt. Kind of a lot. His stupid face was stupid hard. Lyla’s breath was rushed and her heart raced as she glanced around assessing her surroundings.
“You have no idea how glad I am to hear you say that.” Her host fairly bellowed through guffaws. “Welcome back to the world of the living, Beautiful.” When he called her beautiful, Lyla felt a fresh wave of heat wash over her already flushed face. And her breath caught with a slight gasp.
The man noticed it. She could tell he had noticed it. The way he looked at her as if he wanted to resume their closeness. His eyes were like an open gash in his soul and they pled for her to let him into her heart. Then that doorway closed and the wistful sensitivity she thought she saw there was replaced with a sly smirk.
“I am very glad that you are alive.” His voice was cocky. His smile was cocky. And he had a cocky tilt of his head that nearly earned him another slap. This accoster-of-sleeping-women infuriated Lyla beyond reason. Abruptly, he bowed and backing away, left her side with a smile gracing his face pompous, stupidly handsome face.