One Heart

One Heart

PLEASE, TALLAS WHISPERED. Please Sean, I need you.

I’m here, warrior. Relax and let yourself go.

He caught the scream of her release in his mouth as he covered her lips and swallowed the sound of her cries. He gripped her fiercely to him all throughout her echoing contractions, then he relaxed his hold. Sweeping his lips over her face and temples, he attempted to gentle her raging passion.

There now. Rest, Tallas. Sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.

When Tallas finally relaxed into the rhythmic breathing of sleep, Sean pulled back from the hot, silken sheen of her. Sometime during his pleasuring of her, her fever had broken, but his would never cool. He still felt the hot, seeking pressure of her mouth responding to his kisses. Her scent clung to him, laden with the smell of mating. His arousal throbbed with unfulfilled release, but he ignored that, just as he had done for the past two years. With a sigh, he leaned away from Tallas and pushed back into the tree limb behind him.

Sean took comfort in knowing Tallas wouldn’t remember anything when she woke up. He leaned tiredly back against the tree.

He, undoubtedly, would never forget.

Other ImaJinn Titles by L.F. Hampton

Winged Victory

Winged Darkness

Pleasure Dome

Forever One

One Heart

Book 2 of Kasara’s Children

by

L.F. Hampton

ImaJinn Books

Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.

ImaJinn Books

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Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61194-487-7

Print ISBN: 978-1-61194-508-9

ImaJinn Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.

Copyright © 2014 by L.F. Hampton

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

ImaJinn Books was founded by Linda Kichline.

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Cover design: Debra Dixon

Interior design: Hank Smith

Photo/Art credits:

Art © M. C. Krauss

Sword © Jaguarwoman Designs

Background (manipulated) © Evgeny Illarionov | Dreamstime.com

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Dedication

This work is dedicated to my sons, McCoy and Jared. You guys have my thanks and my love. As a mother and a female, understanding your humor, your needs, and your desires has sometimes been hard. I hope I haven’t failed you too badly.

And, to my husband who has so patiently suffered through all my hissy fits, a hug and a big thank you for helping me understand the male perspective . . . a little.

To Linda Kichline, ImaJinn Books, I’ll never forget you. My heart is so full of sadness at your loss. And, merely saying thank you for believing in my work is too trite for what I owe you. May we meet again someday.

And finally to the BelleBooks and the Bell Bridge Books staff and family, and especially, to my editor, Brenda Chin, thank you for the warm welcome and for all the hard work and help you’ve given a new member.

Prologue

SEAN LEAPED FROM his skimmer even before his surface-to-air craft’s engines had pinged off. Over the pulse pounding in his ears, he heard Kasara’s leonine warriors landing their vessels right behind his. Sand blowing from the ships’ exhaust blinded him, but he raced on into the Kasaran desert, fear lending wings to his feet. Normally, his human stature was no match for the towering warriors, but he remained in front. The scene he had glimpsed from the air had horrified him. And now, faced with the stark reality of his loss, not one sob escaped his tightened throat. All this had to be some dreadful mistake; some awful nightmare. He hadn’t believed his eyes, but now, faced with the brutality in front of him, he couldn’t deny the evidence.

His parents were dead—murdered.

Surrounded by the grisly remains of the attacking Slytreen, his parents lay unmoving, still embracing on the bloody ground while, from above, he had witnessed his sister rolling around naked in the arms of that—that animal! Right there! As if their parents’ deaths meant nothing to her! Sudden moisture blinded him and he dashed it from his eyes with the back of one fist. Well, his sister had finally gotten what she had longed for all these years. She was now mated with the Kasar warlord. The two of them, dressed in ragged silks, watched him approach—Cayla’s wary blue eyes glistened large in her pale tear-streaked face while Vadyn’s eyes glittered with yellow malice. Long muscles flexed in the warlord’s powerful jaws. Did he know of Sean’s guilt? Well, Sean didn’t care what anyone thought.

Sean, please, please listen . . . . Cayla’s words sounded muffled, as if from a great distance, but he couldn’t bear to be near her, couldn’t stand the sound of her voice.

Get out of my way. The words squeezed through his clenched jaws, but he swallowed the sob that threatened to follow. If one escaped, a raging torrent would follow despite his control. A deep growl warned from behind him; Vadyn, but he refused to be afraid and he ignored the warlord, too. He felt too numb to acknowledge anything, but it wasn’t a comforting haze that insulated him, more like a threatening storm. Through it, he felt Cayla edging closer. He fisted his hands rather than grab her by the throat. But he wanted to; he wanted to vent this choking rage somewhere; anywhere. Roughly, he brushed her aside and fought the bile rising in his throat. Damn this, and damn them all. He stiffened his shoulders from their defensive curve, refusing to show weakness to Kasara’s warlord who now openly glared at him, straining against Cayla’s light restraint. Just her puny human hand resting on his arm and the mighty Kasar warlord submitted to her wishes. Now, bound and mated, the two of them linked for life. Bah! Why should he care?

Hypocrite! An inner voice condemned him. Yeah, he admitted the truth but only to himself. For years, he had denied that he, too, desired the same bonding with a royal lieutenant in Vadyn’s force, a desire he still resisted because she was a Kasar and had the power to link with him for life, knowing all his thoughts and feelings. And then he, a mere human, would be forced to live in her mighty warrior shadow while she knew his every move—just like his mother had, and now Cayla did with Vadyn. Well, that was never going to happen to him and Tallas! She watched him now with her golden eyes glowing soft with sympathy, but he refused to meet her gaze. She mustn’t know that this tragedy was his fault.

Defiant, he ignored them all and searched for signs of life in his parents. In his heart, he knew even before he had landed the skimmer that his parents were dead. But they hadn’t gone quietly or been easy to kill. The stark desert landscape, the sand-swept dunes were littered with smoking Slytreen outlaw carcasses of varied species. Surprisingly, even two Xeetag lizard-men, Kasara’s allies, were scattered, burned among the mercenary army. The unmoving bodies all told the same story. The outlaws had overwhelmed his parents by sheer numbers.

Grief finally overcame him and an anguished cry escaped his control. His knees buckled, and he fell in the sand next to his parents, his head bowed to the ground. There, breathing in the desert’s hot dust, he faced the awful truth. They were dead—gone forever.

And it was his fault.

But he couldn’t accept it. He kept searching—touching. He had to. As much as he wanted to lay this crime at Vadyn’s feet, the cause of this tragedy was his and his alone. Why, he hadn’t even heard their cry for help. Again, his fault.

Now, he felt the warlord’s accusing glare boring into his back. Well, Vadyn could assign blame whereever he wanted—he would never admit to it. After he saw his parents properly memorialized, he would leave Kasara and never return. His sister—well, she had certainly shown where her sympathies lay. She could bloody well stay with Vadyn. He set his jaw, and through misty vision, he glared up at the two of them—Vadyn, the warlord el’kota of Kasara and his sister, Cayla.

They had mated. His parents were dead.

Nothing was left for him in this world. Not even Tallas with her golden eyes could keep him here. Nothing remained for him here but nightmares and longings for things he could never have. He would go home to Earth, a place he had never seen. There, no one would ever know his crime. No one . . . but him.

Chapter 1

SEAN PACED THE parapet of the stone tower overlooking the rolling dunes in Kasara’s Valley of the Suns, awaiting Vadyn’s command to drop the torch to the signal fire, announcing the beginning of his parents’ funeral farewell. His attention should have been focused on the proceedings, but all he felt was Tallas’s condemning gaze burning into his back. She must know. She stood there in the dim shadows watching him with those searching golden eyes. She suspected his guilt. Damn her.

But this was her fault, too. He had taken his parent’s skimmer after dropping them off at the oasis to watch her—to spy on her for a change—to discover why she haunted his dreams as well as his waking hours. For far too long, she had tormented him. So many times, shaken by forbidden visions, he would awaken, sweating from lingering images of her long, golden legs tangled around his body, gripping him inside her sleek passion. Why did he dream such things? He didn’t want her. Liar! But, more truths than that still taunted him. His parents were dead.

He lowered his throbbing head and rubbed his aching temples against his knuckles. Too many disturbing scenes still played over and over in his mind. The morning had started out to be so ordinary. When had the day become this unending nightmare? His parents murdered by the Slytreen outlaws while they had just been enjoying a picnic—Tallas, her long, golden body naked, her muscles a bright sheen, as she trained in the desert with the other Kasar warriors—Cayla and Vadyn mating in the sand right there where his parents died.

How could Cayla have done something so cold? Damn them both to oblivion. He pounded his closed fist against the gritty stone, realizing only then that his nails had cut bloody half-moon prints into his palms. He hadn’t felt them before. Absently, he wiped his hand against his leg and stared out at the rolling sand dunes. The golden mounds went on for miles before disappearing at the shimmering horizon. The bleak desert was the perfect setting for his parents’ final farewell. He felt the ache in his soul with the desolation of the place. The desert wind, brushing across everything in its path, swept over him with silent accusations. Sand swiped his face with gritty fingers. The fine dry grains stuck in his tear ducts, leaving tracks. The tower was the only thing standing in the open vista and even its nine-foot-thick stone walls were worn smooth, every wall ground flat and even. Too bad the wind couldn’t cleanse him the same way. In his heart, he doubted he would ever be free from guilt. He had been near here once today, in these hills, but too far away to answer his parents’ cry for help. The morning replayed through his mind.

In the torturous Tuberon Valley, just over the rise, rested the grim testing ground the Kasar warriors used for training. There, he had spied on Tallas, training with the troops. Hidden by a rock enclosure, he lay mesmerized while she had shed her leather body armor and bared her body. Her naked image again rose and tortured his fantasies—fascinated him, delighted him—repelled him. But, drawn in spite of himself, he had watched, spellbound, while Tallas fought against and defeated opponents larger and more powerful than herself.

Again and again, she battled other warriors, feinting and dodging their powerful rushes with graceful ease. And she had enjoyed herself in the fight, laughing aloud with the sheer joy of combat. With massive strength, she danced around and easily flipped her opponents from the fight circle. Finally, bloody from a careless talon cut on her forehead but panting in hard-won victory, she stood in the warrior ring undefeated. Her bright hair blew loose, wild in the wind. Alone in the circle of bowing warriors, her head held high in naked feminine beauty, she was in her glory. Her rosy breasts thrust up in undeniable victory when she planted her fists on her hips and roared to the skies. What a vision! Dangerous but beautiful at the same time. With a touch of jealousy, he couldn’t help noticing how all the warriors took note of her. In silent awe-filled admiration, he had watched her shake back her golden hair then re-braid it into a warrior’s calte. Then, once again, she raised her clenched fists to Kasara’s twin orbs. She had won; she was now First Lieutenant in Vadyn’s guards. With her thick gold war bands as her only adornments, Tallas was victorious and needed no other decoration. Sean acknowledged a grudging pride in her even as he fought the throbbing swell of desire his body betrayed. He pushed both fists against his pulsing member, but his touch only fired the swelling. Oh, how he longed to sheath himself between her legs, something he had done with no other. Oh, to reach inside her moist inner lips, to feel her grip him deeper. No! He was still sweating in self-indulged release when the warriors suddenly broke formation and rushed toward their transports. Something was wrong. With his damaged com’s signal too weak to pick up the reason, he had trailed behind the warriors—until he realized where they were going. Omajar Oasis!

He hadn’t heard his parent’s call for help. He had taken their only means of escape and stalled it in a dune. It was his fault they had died. Now, the single mound shrouded in silver, awaiting their final ceremony in the plains below, taunted him with accusations.

Stars—how his head ached! He leaned against the signal tower. The worn rock still reflected the warmth left from the setting suns. Soon the cool desert winds would start. Down below, the people of Kasara had gathered together to bid their friends farewell. A mixed variety of red healers, bronze messengers, brown workers, golden warriors, and silver-white elders filled the plains, grouped in their separate orders. He sensed the warriors’ features, their high cheekbones and slanted eyes giving them their human-like aristocratic air turning, toward him with those accusing eyes.

The warrior at his back shifted her position. Perhaps he was wrong. Maybe Tallas couldn’t see him in the darkness. He could relax the tight control he maintained.

He didn’t.

As the twin suns set behind the jagged mountain peaks, the evening sky bloodied, turning red and black shadows into long, eerie nightshades. They really seemed like ghosts, haunting him with further recriminations. Finally, from below, Vadyn signaled him with an upraised fist. Obediently, Sean dropped the torch into the bundled fire. A crackling roar arose. A blaze flared that would be visible for miles. His feet still felt glued in place. His vision misted, but not from the smoke.

The time nears. The dim shadow behind him spoke with her noncommittal purr.

I know that, he snapped back. Her inscrutability irritated him. Even in daylight, he never quite knew what she was thinking. Sometimes, not even her big, liquid eyes gave her away. The color of purest honey, they only darkened when angry, and he made them darken often enough, but this time he squinted at her, trying to separate her shape from among the other shadows. As if she sensed his inability to see her clearly, she stepped forward, her chin raised. The moon’s light kissed her broad cheekbones, and added more beauty to her strong features. Obviously, she didn’t know her power over him. Tallas, with her warrior’s control, never changed facial expressions. She just blinked ever so slowly, her lashes sweeping against her cheeks like golden fans. Oh, she thought she was so much more mature now that she’d earned the rank of lieutenant in the royal guard, so much grander than the lowly human that he was.

Ol’ Stone Face, he had called her behind her back during their childhood days. Cayla warned him once, years ago, that if Tallas ever found out about his degrading nickname for her, she would beat him to a pulp. But he’d never feared her, not then, not now. Strangely, perhaps because she was older and bigger, she had protected him, sympathized with his many hurts; most of which he had gotten while trying to prove that he was as good a fighter as any Kasar warrior. As if. He snorted in disgust. He knew he had shown such immaturity then, but now—now, he never noticed their age difference any more, and he no longer needed her help. Not since he had caught up with her—as much as he was going to.

He acknowledged that the Kasar lived longer than human beings. But finally, in this past year, he had matured into almost the same six-foot height as Tallas. Well, maybe she had a few inches on him, but they were nearly the same—until recently, when she had suddenly spurted new growth in lots of interesting places. At twenty-two earth years, he knew he would never really catch up. His mother, in her wise council, always told him not to worry, that they were nearly the same in comparable years. His mother . . . . He choked on the recent memory, the nightmare. She was gone!

They are waiting, Sean. Tallas again broke the silence and pointed a talon toward the gathering below. They’re ready to begin. Her words purred carefully neutral, controlled, and just as carefully, he answered her.

Yeah. He sighed. I can see that. Below on the plain, Vadyn stood in front of the crowd and again purposely looked up at the tower. Even knowing the warlord couldn’t see him, Sean ducked back into the shadows. Undeterred, Vadyn raised his arm and pointed right at the darkness where he hid.

Grudgingly obeying the warlord’s final signal, Sean dropped the next torch onto the waiting heap of wood. This time the fire flamed blue—officially time for the ceremony to begin. Visible for miles, the burning tower blazed the solemn hue, announcing the ritual. He stood in silence but his mind whirled in recriminations.

Aren’t you going to join them? Tallas nodded toward the mass waiting below on the plain.

He shrugged away his annoyance. Of course, I am. Did she constantly have to prod him? He preceded her down the dim staircase, feeling her warmth at his back. For some reason, her shadowy presence both irritated and soothed him. He squared his shoulders and stepped forth into the waiting crowd.

All eyes focused on his late arrival. Did they blame him, too? He raised his chin. Let them look; they knew nothing. But he knew and damned himself with the knowledge.

Chapter 2

THE FUNERAL ceremony took forever. Many times during the testimonials of his parents’ friends, Sean struggled to maintain a proper stoic countenance. Despite his confusion over some of the revelations, he gave no indication of his churning thoughts. He remembered speaking to Vadyn or rather doing his best to insult the warlord. Only Cayla’s pleas with them both to remember why they were gathered together had forestalled a fight. Like he could forget. The whole ritual seemed like a numb dream with him on the outside and everything moving around him.

Finally, at the close, his parents shimmered from sight into the Great Unknown by the joined laser fire of Cayla and Vadyn. He had endured his sister’s one swift, loving embrace when she’d bid him goodnight and had glared at Vadyn before hurrying from their presence. The idea of the two of them together choked him. The smiling, the touching, the secret mind messages between the Kasar leader and his sister—how he loathed that. Just as he had hated knowing that his mother and Vadyn had been linked the same way. Well, perhaps, they were only mind-linked, but they had been joined and his father had been excluded. Only the absence of physical mating kept his mother and Vadyn from being life-bonded mates instead of mind-linked whatevers. There had been nothing like their three-way mind-linking on Kasara before his parents’ arrival. How could his mother have done that to his father? Sometimes, he had to fight against hating her. And, now, his sister had done the same—no, not the same—she had committed the final obscenity and physically mated with the warlord, too. They were bonded as life-mates.

With all his heart, Sean wished Vadyn had died with his parents. They were gone! He swallowed the sob that clogged his throat.

Suddenly, he wanted to take back all his memories, go back to the summer day when he was thirteen and