Touching Fire (Touch Saga) (45 page)

“Who are you
?” I demanded at once. “And what do you want?”

He spread his arms as though expecting an embrace. “I am
Khrane, Master of Aumon and leader of the Khorne Legacy.”

My eyes narrowed. “You’re friend
s with Ashton, right?”

Khrane
’s head tilted to the side. His expression could only pass for amused. “No. Your
father
and I are more like business associates.”

I didn’t allow myself the chance to be surprised by the fact that he knew who Ashton was to me.

I crossed my arms. “Well that makes sense. It’s perfectly acceptable to just kidnap the daughter of a business associate is it?”

The corner of his full mouth quirked. “Can you
fault me, Princess?” He pinned me with those pale eyes as he ventured several confident steps closer. “You are such a rarity. Neither human nor sin, but a hybrid of both worlds.” He circled slowly around me. “Incredible.”

“Okay,
look.” I snatched up the skirt of my dress and scuttled back four steps. “You need to stop. Ashton will come looking for me and this won’t end well for you. But if you let me go now, I promise not to say anything.”

He stopped and ran a pink tongue over his bottom lip.
The glint in his eyes was bright and a bit feverish as he took me in.

“What are your powers?”

I started. “Excuse me?”

“Your powers,” he repeated.

“I don’t have powers,” I lied.

Yeah right I was going to
just tell this guy anything.

His eyes narrowed and he studied me for several very long minutes before he spoke again. His voice was low, cautious almost, like he was trying to decide something unusual.

“Oh you have powers, dear girl. There is no mistaking that. I can feel it pulsing deep inside you.”

“You’re wrong.
I wouldn’t be here if I did. I would have fried those jerk wads who captured me.”

Clearly I wasn’t as
powerful
as everyone kept telling me. Stupid, useless powers. Never there when I needed them.

Khrane
raised a pale eyebrow. “Oh I am never wrong. It is my job to detect the powers of those around me and you…” He bit his lip. “You have power. Lots of it. More than I have felt in anyone in a very long time.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. His certainty only made me doubt myself harder.
I wanted to scream at him that if I had powers, why was I there? I felt like an alien inhabiting a body that wasn’t mine and I didn’t know the workings of it. I felt like an idiot, which sharpened my tone.

“What do you want?”

“Only to get to know you better.” Something glinted behind his eyes. “We are family after all.”

I flinched as though he’d struck me. “We are
not
family.”

“Oh, but we are.” He set his cane down and folded both hands over the silver lion’s head. “
All sins are. After all, we share a lineage.”

“That’s why you kidnapped me? Because you
wanted a family reunion?”

“Kidnapping is such a harsh word. I like to think of it more as a surprise.”

In … sane.

“And people wonder why I don’t like surprises,” I muttered. “I
would like to go home. Please,” I added, hoping to appeal to his humanity.

There was still a slight tilt in his lips, but hardness had begun to creep around his mouth and eyes.

“To Ashton? Or is there someone else you long to return to?”

I opened my mouth to tell him he had no idea what he was talking about but he continued on before I could even suck in a breath.

“Perhaps if I looked more like this…”

The air around him began to shimmer like heat waves rising off hot asphalt. His hair became darker and longer, curling around his ears and shoulders. His skin darkened to a warm gold. He blinked and his white eyes opened to oceans of crystalline blue. His thin face filled out, becoming sharp around the cheeks and square along the jawline. I didn’t watch the rest of his transformation, but stood paralyzed as the face became painfully familiar. My heart stuttered in my chest, hurting with the ache coursing through my veins.

Damn him!

“What are you doing?” My voice was a mangled sound of pain and fury.
It raged beneath my skin and curled my fingers until half-moons were cut into my palms.

“Trying to put you at ease,” he said easily. The perfect imitation of Isaiah’s voice was a fist in the gut.

“Stop it!” I bit out.

His eyes narrowed. “I would think this skin would please you.”

“Stop it!” I growled, taking a threatening step forward, fully prepared to punch him if he didn’t take off that face.

Without batting an eyelash, it melted away and he was himself again, thin, smirking and disgustingly pale.

“Easy, Princess. I was only trying to be helpful.”

It took several deep breaths before I could urge the tension away and calm down. I swallowed the sour taste in my throat. “What was that?”

He splayed his fingers in what he probably thought was a look of innocence. “I am greed. Becoming what I want is second nature to me. All sins can change skins.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Skins?”

“Of course. Nothing a Sire shows you is ever really what they’re showing you. Some call it glamour, others call it illusions. But we call it skinning, the ability to change one’s skin at will.”

I thought of the other day in the library with Ashton and Celia and how Ashton was talking about
his true form and how it was concealed beneath their human form.

“Is this your real … skin?” I asked.

He smirked darkly. “No. The real me would frighten you to death.”

The cocky arrogance in me wanted to state that I’d seen worse, but commonsense clamped my lips shut. The last thing I wanted to see
was a real monster in the flesh.

“I
would like to go home now,” I said.

“And you shall … after we
have talked,” he finished. Fluidly, he stepped back and motioned me towards the table. “Join me?”

I hesitated. “If I do, do you swear
I can leave?”

He inclined his head. “I give you my word.”

There was never any hint that he could be lying. His expression was somber and his eyes cool, for all I knew it could have just been another illusion. Who was to say he wasn’t sticking his tongue out at me from behind that human mask he wore? Could you really trust sin?

Nevertheless, I fisted my skirt in both hands and started for the table. He was beside me the moment I reached the chair and drew it out for me. I slipped into it and watched as he took the chair at the head of the table.

“Where am I?” I asked once we were both seated.

“My home,”
he answered, resting his cane against the side of the table. “One of many, but this one is more isolated than the others.”

So in other words, no one will hear you scream, my pretty!

“You said you were Ashton’s business associate. What sort of business?”

“How about we eat while we talk? I’m famished.”

My gaze darted to the decapitated heads lining the walls and my stomach churned. “I’m good.”

Khrane
sat back with a knowing grin. With a wave of his hand, the walls around us melted like water on an oil painting. The colors bled together and oozed to the floor before vanishing to nothingness. For a full heartbeat, the walls remained black canvases before they gave a shiver and shimmered back into view.

It was a completely different room. The walls were white with beautiful crown moldings and the floors a glossy marble. One entire wall was glass broken by a trio of doors open to a brilliant afternoon. A warm breeze swept through smelling of honeysuckles, freshly baked bread and grass. It ruffled the sheer curtains hanging over the terrace doors, parting them to reveal…

“Is that the
Eiffel Tower
?” I was out of my chair before my brain could remember that this was an illusion. My heels cracked against stone as I rushed to the French doors. I threw the curtains back and stepped out to the most glorious view.

P
aris, a brilliant carpet of lush gardens, blooming trees and buildings. So many buildings. They went on forever, disappearing deep into the horizon. The
Seine
glistened under the radiant glow of the sun only a stone’s throw away. I couldn’t believe I was in Paris.
The
Paris. I’d never been outside of Canada, but if I had one destination wish … And the moment shattered. I stumbled away from the stone railing separating me from the ant-sized people below, my heart down somewhere between my ankles.

It wasn’t real. I wasn’t really there. It felt real and
smelled real, but it was an illusion. It was fake, like everything else in my life, manufactured by a monster in order to bring me inches from what I desired most only to snatch it away.

Disappointment rested on my shoulders and they sagged. I bit my lip and turned away
to find Khrane in the doorway behind me, pale eyes watching my every movement.

“How did you know?” My voice wavered despite my best attempts to keep it steady.

“I am greed,” he said again, not sounding quite smug, but not exactly ashamed either. “The hopes and dreams of others come quite easily to me.”

“So you
can hurt them with it?” I mocked.

He said nothing, but his silence said enough.

I had no idea why, but tears burned behind my eyes as I moved towards him. I paused when I was close enough to almost touch him. My head fell back and I glared up into his face.

“You’re an ass is what you are,” I ground out through my teeth, before sweeping past him and marching back into the room.

“And you, Princess, are much too human.”

I didn’t hear him follow me until I whipped around to find him only feet away. “I
am
human.” I willed my limbs to stop shaking as I focused on his words. My brows furrowed and I was grateful for the distraction. The last thing I wanted was to cry in front of this guy and prove how right he was. “Why do you keep calling me that?”

He raised a quizzical brow in question.

“Princess,” I clarified. “Is that some kind of term of insult in this world?”

Both brows lifted this time in surprise, then
he laughed like I just said the funniest thing. “Has your father not told you who you are? Who
he
is?”

Something in his tone made me not want to know. I was finding out new and more disturbing things about myself every day and, truthfully, I was kind of done with the whole self-discovery thing.

“He hasn’t,” Khrane mused, marveling at my wary expression. “I wonder why he would hide this.”

“What?” I blurted, my curiosity getting the better of me.

Khrane shifted a single step forward to loom over me. “Your father is the leader of your legacy.”

“Yeah, I know that.
Seven legacies, seven Sires … yup. I’m aware. My dad is the ruler of Luxuria. Rem legacy. Yada Yada.”

His eyes narrowed, the glee in them making me nervous. “Yes, but did he also tell you that in our world, this world, the leaders are of royal blood? In short, your father is king and you, as his heir, are…”

I gulped. “A princess.”

Damn you, Archer!
I cursed repeatedly in my head.
Damn you, damn you, damn you!
Why didn’t he tell me? All that time I thought he was being condescending and a jerk.
But nooo. He meant it. I was a freaking princess. I wanted to hit him. Then, I wanted to kick Ashton. How could he keep something that huge from me? Would it have been so hard to say,
hey, you’re Rem legacy, oh, and by the way, you’re also a princess. Surprise!

I supposed I should have put two and two together. It really was my own fault I was so slow on the uptake.
Of course, as ruler, Ashton would be king of Luxuria. It just never dawned on me that I would be a freaking princess. The princess of lust. Awesome. I wondered if I could get that fitted on a business card.

“You’re not pleased,”
Khrane observed.

I shot him a
dry stare. “Caught that did you?”

It was his turn to look surprised. Maybe he thought I would be jumping for joy, or something. Well tough crackers for him. What was next? I was related to a Goddess?
How did I go from not knowing who I was, or what I was to suddenly becoming a weapon, a mutant, a sin and a princess? And that wasn’t including my need for blood or my little temper problem. That was a whole lot of hats to wear. I just wanted to crawl under a bed somewhere and wait until it all blew over and everyone forgot about me.

“Perhaps you should rest,”
Khrane suggested, almost kindly.

I glowered at him instead. “Perhaps you should let me go home like you promised.”