Order of the Mist: Soul Protector [NOOK Book]

Chapter One

Gallina Region--1299 A.D.

Within the eerie dance between dusk and dark they came--swarming over the Earth like giant ants. Terror filled screams reached crevices and open sky. Body parts littered catacombed cliff homes and dotted the parched, sun-ravaged ground below. The 'demon men' scaled vertical escarpments to the hollowed out abodes, some sauntering up the sheer vertical incline as if out for a moonlit stroll. The cliffs held no refuge now except to house the spirit of the Anasazi for all time.

Slowly Sarkinda crept, working her way further into the blue Halgaito shale chasms, hoping against hope to escape the carnage that foretold the end of an entire people. Tears burned her eyes which she frantically blinked away. Her sight must be clear or the demons would not claim her life but the cliffs, themselves. Stealthily, skillfully, methodically, she descended, the still-baking-hot rock, scraping and scorching her fingers and any place her bare skin touched for more than a few seconds.

Sarkinda, small and lithe, had covered her sunlit hair and donned a dark shift in an effort to blend seamlessly into the mountains. The giant beasts, however, must have caught her movements for like jackals sniffing out a further treat, they swerved in her direction. Their glowing orbs tracked her progress as they loped toward her, confidently. She leapt the remaining distance to the ground and ran, knowing her time drew to an end. She clearly posed no match in speed and preternatural powers compared to the abominations pursuing her. She glanced back, gauging how many seconds she had before they reached her, when she collided with warm molten rock that banded aroundher, shifting to align itself to her body even as a cylinder of light drizzle encased her. Since no rain had fallen on the pueblo in three seasons, she knew the mist to be a dying vision. Darkness took her.

Elicean cradled the small body tightly, materializing in his chambers deep beneath the earth. Her hair had lost its covering and he buried his face in the unbound mass breathing deeply, drowning himself in her scent, the scent he had only caught whiffs of from sibilant winds, until this moment. She had come so close to perishing in the massacre that his entire being shook. They would have torn her to shreds, draining her bodily fluids until nothing remained of her delicate frame and pure heart but dust.

Two seasons before, he had traveled to the surface and chanced to observe her tending a young cougar. Her gentleness in the face of a creature that could probably kill her with one careless swipe of its paw terrified him to a degree nothing had before. Since that day, he'd returned to the surface regularly to observe her playfulness when far enough from her tribe to safely run and tumble with her giant pet.

He'd also witnessed her many kindnesses and unrelenting dedication to those needing her healing skills ... and her vulnerability and sadness at not being accepted by those same people she aided. For though she served as shaman to the tribe of Anasazi her differences painted her an outcast. The Anasazi had warm brown eyes and sable hair straighter than the sheer cliffs they called home. Sarkinda or Sari, he'd overheard them call her, possessed hair the color of sunlight that shimmered in rivulets down her back, all the way to her small but firm bottom. Her figure was slight and lithe, her facial features finely chiseled, but for large, slanted turquoise eyes. She had a pert, button nose, and a delicately bowed mouth ... a mouth he had fantasized on every part of his anatomy. But her differences did not stop there. An inner glow lit her from the inside out and the transparent colors of green, yellow, and pink spiked at different times seemingly dependant on her activity. The first few times he noted the phenomenon he thought it a trick of the light but as time went on it became just another part of her, making her appear both other worldly and of the Earth simultaneously.

A lovelier sight than Sarkinda, he could not envision and the need to approach her had become a constant ache living in his heart and lower. He envied the breeze that brushed along her skin, swirling in and around her glorious locks, and sometimes floated her tinkling laughter and alluring scent to his watching place. He sighed, something he couldn't remember doing before Sarkinda danced into his sights. She had become somewhat of an obsession but one he had no desire to quell. Then today, when sensing her life almost forfeit, he shifted to the surface, killing the murderous fiends pursuing her with a mere thought before bringing her to his lair.

Sarkinda stirred, groaning and mumbling in her sleep until she froze, recalling the explosive images of carnage, blood, and terror. Her eyes flew open, confused and disoriented. A giant man with deep-set, iridescent copper eyes and shoulder length hair the color of midnight, slouched lazily in a massive high-backed chair with ornate panels on either side supporting his well-defined forearms. Had her waking vision invaded the horrific nightmare? Wondering if she had ascended to the next realm or simply dream-weaved herself into her reoccurring dark-sided reverie, Sarkinda stared blinking over and over. Since coming to her aunt's people, she'd caught shadowed glimpses of this apparition watching her, but whenever she sought to catch a glimpse of him, the shadow-man vanished. The giant also invaded her dreams and what once seemed frightening to behold had, in fact, become comforting in his constancy. She now thought of him as her spirit guardian, possibly sent by her parents. However, this was no spirit. He looked as solid as the throne he sat on and infinitely more intimidating, almost terrifying if not for his relaxed, non-threatening state. His body measured as enormous as his countenance. His hands, large and square-shaped with thick, long fingers, rested on dense, corded thighs thicker than her waist. Everything about him was of massive proportion right down to his booted feet. As her gaze worked its way back up his body, her eyes widened at the burgeoning organ between his legs that his leggings failed to hide. It seemed to stir and increase while she stared. As a healer, Sarkinda studied male anatomy and regularly treated and touched it in every conceivable area. But never could she recall the awareness her body now experienced with nothing more than the light graze of her attention on him. Her abdomen felt heavy and tight, making her rub her legs together to ease the ache there, and her nipples hardened, pushing uncomfortably against her dark leather shift. Confused by her body's reaction, she turned her gaze upward, colliding with twin molten copper pools ... regarding her intently.

Sarkinda cleared her throat, color flooding her cheeks. "It's not polite to stare," she blurted before realizing she was every bit as guilty as he. The brow above his right eye rose slightly, while the corner of his mouth quirked up on one side. She seemed to have quite a talent for humiliating herself suddenly. "How did I get here?"

"I brought you," he answered.

"Where is here?"

"You are in my home."

"Where is your home, you obtuse being?"

"A safe enough place for you," he answered evenly.

"Why won't you tell me where you have taken me?" And why was she more aggravated than worried about her situation?

"I have answered every question you asked."

Sarkinda snorted and leveled a measuring look of disgust. "Who are you?"

Elicean hid a grin at her growing impatience, but he had a few questions of his own. "Who are you?" he asked very softly.

"I am called Sarkinda but then, you know very well who I am. You observe me when I tend the members of my tribe, and watch over me in my dreams. I have seen you quite clearly since arriving to the Gallina Region."

"You dream of me, little one," Elicean murmured--how scintillating, how stimulating, how gratifying, "...how nice."

He'd been unaware she'd espied him above but to dream of him as well made something in him swell.

"They are more like nightmares," she clarified with a honeyed smile.

Elicean rose to his full height and strode purposefully across the room toward her.

Sarkinda stared in dawning horror supplanting the image before her with ones of those who had slaughtered her tribe. "You, you're one of them. One of the monsters who massacred my people," she accused, her voice rising in tandem with her realization. "What do you really want with me?" Terror took hold of her, shattering, for the moment, her unflappable nature.

Elicean froze in mid stride. Hands fisted at his side and through clenched teeth slowly and quietly stated, "I am not some monster, nor a soulless entity bent on devouring you. I'm your rescuer, curse it, and have never harmed a surface dweller," he added indignantly. "Now get that terrified look of accusation off your face or I will erase it for you." Eli realized almost immediately he'd embarked on the wrong tactic, for Sarkinda bolted for the exit.

She did not get far.