Smashwords https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/333601
Author bio:
Mireille Chester is a fantasy author who loves to spend time in
made up worlds filled with magic. She is a firm believer that no hero is
perfect and that all villains are burdened with a tiny shred of humanity. While
she writes her Adult and YA novels under the name Mireille Chester, she is now
writing a middle grade series under the name M.G. Chester.
Blurb:
It's been five years since the Chosen One's war and Hayden's
pack has been able to enjoy life once again. Of course, things can never stay
calm and they soon find themselves caught up in another epic fight and this
time it looks like Ternach might hold the key to winning.
Mortal since losing his powers in the battle of Paradin, Ternach
decides to take a trip to Sageden in hopes that Hayden can help him get his
magic back. Along the way, he meets Sarah; a woman with a secret and an agenda.
It doesn't take long before sparks are flying and Ternach
starts to think that maybe being human has its perks after all.
When he discovers Sarah's secret he needs to make a decision:
Does he stay human so he can stay with Sarah, or does he attempt to become
immortal again knowing he has what is needed to win...
Excerpt:
Ternach reached over and checked his
shirt. “I don’t think it will dry very
well now that the sun is going down.” He
stood and held out his hand to help her stand.
She looked at him as she let him pull
her up and tilted her head to the side.
“If you miss your magic so much, why didn’t you head to Sageden as you
had originally planned?”
He grinned and she had to catch her
breath. “Let’s just say I love a good
adventure.”
“Oh?”
He chuckled. “I’ll tell you all about it when the rest of
your pack leaves.” They started back
toward the camp.
“What makes you so sure I’m staying?”
“I could almost see your cat ears perk
up at the word adventure.” He smiled
down at her and laughed when she stuck out her tongue.
“Alright, fine, I was going to ask if
you would mind if I stayed.”
“So long as you promise not to beat on
me.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. He had to be a good nine inches taller than
she was, not to mention that he outweighed her by at least eighty pounds. She’d have to take him by surprise and even
then it would be touch and go. He
stopped walking and grinned.
“Look at you standing there trying to
figure out how you’d get it done!”
“I was not!” She tried to keep the blush from rising to
her face but failed miserably.
“So?”
“So what?”
“How would you do it?”
She smiled crookedly at him. “Well, if I tell you, you’ll know what’s
happening when I try, now won’t you.”
He burst out laughing. “I’ll stay on my guard then.” He looked up at the movement farther in the
woods and his jaw clenched.
“Sarah, we’re moving on!” called Robert.
She saw Ternach tense and she put a
hand on his arm. She saw the dark look
harden his features and she knew without a doubt that should Robert do anything
to provoke him at this moment, Ternach wouldn’t just lie down and take the
beating. In fact, she was positive that
in a fair fight, Ternach was rarely the loser.
“I’ll be staying on with this crew,”
she called back to him.
“Our orders are to…”
“Your orders, you mean. I volunteer for this shift and now I’ve found
something else I’d rather do.”
Robert growled low in his throat. “It’s none of my business who you decide to
do, but can I remind you there are quite a few very available shifters
around. By the moons, even a dog would
be better than this!”
Sarah threw herself in front of Ternach
and pushed him back a step. “Don’t! He’s just trying to get a rise out of you so
you’ll go after him. After that you’re
fair game for the whole pack to join in.”
She stood with her back against his chest so she could look at the other
man. By the moons, he was solid. “You’re right, Robert! Who I do is none of your business and if I
decide that Ternach is the one who should take care of the urge when it strikes
me, then so be it.”
Robert grunted. “How can you even stand to have him touching
you? He’s human! And even if he hadn’t lost all of his magic,
he would still have been a freak!”
“And they say humans are narrow
minded,” mumbled Ternach. “If he hits me
first, can I hit him back?”
“Of course,” she glanced up and back at
him. The white green eyes were full of
mischief and she almost screamed with surprise as his strong hands turned her,
his lips pressing against hers. She
heard Robert growl and tried to pull away but Ternach’s arms wrapped around her
and she was trapped. She started to feel
lightheaded before she reminded herself to breathe. She tried to stay focused on the attack she
was sure was coming from behind her.
Ternach’s tongue ran along her bottom lip and before she could stop
herself, she groaned. She melted against
him and wrapped her arms around his neck.
Ternach jerked as her tongue found
his. By the moons, he’d only meant to
give her a peck then look up and stick his tongue out at that idiot of a man,
but the instant his lips had touched hers he’d realized a peck wouldn’t be
enough. His head was reeling. Her fingers laced in his hair and his groan
vibrated through both of them. He had to
end this now or he knew he wasn’t going to be able to stop. He softened the kiss and pulled away so that
only their foreheads were touching. Both
of them were breathing hard.
When he trusted himself to look at her
without trying to kiss her again, he straightened, his thumb running over her
lips.
“Sorry.” His voice was thick.
The corners of her mouth twitched. “I wasn’t aware I’d been complaining.”
The sound of Robert punching a tree
made them both look in his direction. He
was stalking away, his anger evident in his steps.
“Damn it, I wanted him to hit me.” Ternach reached down and grabbed a rock the
size of a small egg. He tossed it into the air a few times before throwing it
as hard as he could. Robert stumbled
forward with the impact of it hitting the back of his head. He spun around, his face red. Ternach wrapped an arm around Sarah’s
shoulder, pulled her close, and gave a cheerful wave. They watched in silence as he shifted into a
lion and bound into the woods.
Sarah burst out laughing. “By the moons, that was great!”
Ternach grinned. “Why, thank you.”
She gave him a shove. “Not that!”
He laughed at her blush.
“Well, alright, that too.” She thought of the look on Robert’s face as
he’d spun around to see what had hit him and her laughter started again. “Where in the world did you learn to throw
like that?”
He shrugged. “I’ve been alive since the beginning of
time. What can I say, I’ve been bored a
few times. It’s fun to throw rocks at
the dragons and watch them try to figure out which earth dragon has done
it. You see, the trick of it is to be
well hidden behind something and to be far enough away that they can’t smell
you.” He grinned. “It took a few thousand years to perfect my
aim, but I can pretty much hit anything I want to now.”
She shook her head in disbelief. Other than the eyes, it was easy to forget
what he’d been before the war on Paradin.
His smile softened.
“It just sank in, didn’t it? What I am?
Or I suppose I should say was.”
She nodded but didn’t pull away from
him. “I have a couple of questions about
that kiss.” She blushed at the memory of
it.
“Alright. What would you like to know?” He had no clue where she was going with this.
“You said you’d never had a mate. There’s no way you can kiss like that without
having had some sort of practice.”
He smiled. “I’ve never had a mate, but there have been
women in my life and about three thousand years ago I was taken prisoner by the
Dreygt Witches. No one around here has
heard of them; they live two oceans away on a tiny island most people don’t
know exists. They, um, well, they were tired
of using mortals to satisfy their urges, as you so politely put it earlier, and
had decided that an immortal might do the trick.”
Sarah’s eyes were about to pop out of
her head. “How did they catch you?”
“Magic and that’s how they kept me as
well.”
“How long did they keep you?”
“One hundred and twenty seven
years.” He smiled. “Let me tell you, you can learn a lot from
four experienced women in that many years.”
He blushed at some of the memories that were coming back.
She frowned. “Why did they let you go?”
“They didn’t. I managed to convince them that I would be a
good boy and stay if they took off the magical bindings. I think the winning argument was that if I
wasn’t busy trying to keep my magic from attacking their bonds on me I could
concentrate more on what they’d brought me there to do.”
She seemed about to ask something else
but stopped. He smiled.
“What?”
“Well, I suppose I’m a bit curious as
to why you would want to leave that type of situation. I know of a few men who would kill to have
been in your place.”
He shrugged. “I missed my home in the Northern Regions and
I missed the dragons. I’d go back and
visit them from time to time. They’d
promised me they wouldn’t try to capture me again if I went back every once in
a while; besides the dragons, they’re the closest thing I’ve had to a family
really.” He frowned. “You know, it just occurred to me that I’ll
never see them again.” He seemed to
shake himself mentally and smiled.
“Alright, did that answer your question?”
“More than adequately, thank you. Can I ask one more?”
He nodded.
“You lost all of your magic?”
“All of it.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, why?”
She blushed. “I thought maybe you’d used magic on me
during the kiss to make it feel like that.”
She looked at the ground. “It… it
was different than the other men I’ve been with.” She wanted to slap herself in the face. By the moons, she sounded like a twit. She was thirty, for crying out loud. It was like he was her first crush and she’d just
turned of age. And he was Ternach! What in the world was she doing?
He watched as emotion after emotion
passed over her face; shock, embarrassment, disgust, bewilderment, and finally
confusion.
“I’m glad you didn’t finish with
disgust,” he said softly.
“Oh, well, that was at me, not you.”
He lifted her chin and kissed the
bridge of her nose. “Don’t forget, I was
just as out of breath as you were.” He
took a few deep breaths. “We’d better
get back.”
Sarah’s hands were playing along his
arms and he shivered. “Alright.”
Neither one of them moved. He ran his thumb over her bottom lip. The last time, no wait, the only time he’d
felt like this had been when the three way link between Jasper, Hayden and
himself had been blown wide open in the Burrie clearing. The only difference was that this wasn’t what
Hayden was feeling for Jasper. This was
all him.
He closed his eyes. “I need you to go back to the camp.” His voice was hoarse.
“Ternach! Are you still down here?” Cassandra’s voice caused both of them to
jump.
He cleared his throat. “Right over here, Cass!” Thank goodness for distractions, he
thought. He took Sarah’s hand and
started walking back, but that wasn’t quite enough so he put his arm around
her. There. That was better. He looked down at her and smiled as her arm
went around his waist. She looked up and
blushed.
“It’s a good thing she came along. I think I was about to force myself on you.”
Ternach threw his head back and
laughed. In all of his years of
existence, he couldn’t remember anybody he’d ever found as amusing as this
woman.
“I don’t think I would have
complained,” he chuckled.
Peter grinned as they walked back into
camp. “Supper’s ready.”
Sarah thanked him and took a plate when
he insisted there was plenty for her as well.
She glanced at Ternach.
“So what’s this great adventure?”
He grinned. “We’re going orb hunting.” He frowned and reached over to pat her back
as she choked on the mouthful of food she had in her mouth.
“Orbs?”
She stared at him with wide eyes when she could breathe again. “What kind of orbs?”
Peter reached into his pack and pulled
the yellow sphere from it. Sarah
blanched.
“Sarah?” Ternach put a hand on her arm in case she
fainted. She blinked and slowly looked
away from the orb to him.
“I… what does it do?”
Peter shrugged. “Nothing as far as we can figure out. This is the second one we’ve found since the
battle at Paradin. A green one was found
in Braw’s offices when they were searched.”
“There’s…. There’re two?”
Peter held it out to her and she shook
her head.
“Where’s the green one now?” She seemed to have trouble looking away from
the orb.
“Marilynn, head sorceress for the
Namaels, has it. She’s in Sageden with
Hayden at the moment.” Cassandra looked
at the newcomer with interest. “Is everything
alright?”
Sarah blinked and looked from one
curious face to another. She smiled,
took a bite of her supper, and nodded.
“Everything’s fine. This sounds
like a fabulous adventure.” She grinned
at Ternach who raised an eyebrow at her.
He shrugged off her odd behavior. After all, he didn’t know her; this could be
normal for her. He took a drink of his
canteen and smiled. Now, if he could only remember where he’d seen the red orb…
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