DESIRE (19 page)

A pair of cold, clammy hands gripped me from behind and pulled me away from Torrid. Within seconds three burly Catchers were all over him, bringing him down and throwing shackles on him. I struggled against my captor, but the brute strength overpowered me.

Tears filled my eyes and fear gripped my throat as I watched the Catchers drag Liam and Torrid away. The two loves of my life. The men I would do anything to save.

Pim stepped forward, his eyes showing his displeasure. He held up the leather band. “Now, Kama, will you put this on, please?”

“No,” I said with petulant defiance.

“Out of respect for your mother, I’m asking nicely. I would hate to have to get rough with you. Your mother would not be pleased.”

“You're a monster and I hope my mother sees the man you really are,” I spat. “You’ve imprisoned your own son. What kind of man does such a thing?”

“No harm will come to Liam. He’ll be safer imprisoned than out on the battle front. That’s the kind of man I am, Kama. I’ll do all I can to protect my son. And I’ll do all I can to protect Arcadia. I’ve spent a lifetime building a paradise here. I’m not about to let that all slip away because of a genie’s murderous plans.”

“My father only wants to free his people.”

“No, dear Kama. The truth your mother never dared tell you is that your father is a murderer. That is why she could never marry him. They would have killed her, despite your father’s standing. Their hatred for mortals is boundless and your fate would be sealed should you allow your lover to lead you out of Arcadia. Who did you think destroyed your mother’s childhood home and killed her parents… genies. They are the ones we are at war with.”

“You're a liar!” I shouted. I refused to believe a word he said, but in my heart, I couldn’t help but question where the truth lay.

“Your lover, Prince Torrid of the Western Nethers, he may seem charming and pleasant now, but he is one of the most ruthless fighters your father has in his army. Your youthful innocence prevents you from seeing beyond his physical attributes, but I assure you, he’ll only bring pain and suffering to your life.”

“He’s only doing what you claim to be doing; saving his people. If you choose to call him a monster, then know that you're just like him.”

“So long as you understand my need to keep Arcadia as it is. Think of all the people you hold dear; your mother, your friends. What will become of Sarah if Arcadia is to be invaded? How will your mother survive?” He held out the leather band. “Now do the responsible thing and put on this band.”

“I…” Biting my lip, I hesitated.

“This is your destiny, Kama. To uphold the peace and harmony Arcadia has always known. You’ll marry my son, bear him beautiful children and live the dream you’ve always held close to you heart. The mansion needs the touch of a woman like you and the Committee will be all the stronger for your strength and intellect.”

I turned away from him, more confused than ever. What was real? Who could I trust? “I don’t know what to do anymore.”

He put a paternal hand to my shoulder and I reluctantly turned to face him.

“I’ve watched you grow up. You’ve been the closest I’ll ever come to having a daughter. And you know of the strong affection I have for your mother. Can you truly imagine I would do anything that would pain her? Trust me, Kama. This leather band on your wrist is the right thing to do. It is, without a doubt, your destiny.”

“But…”

“Kama,” he said, his voice so cold it brought a chill to my spine. “If you refuse to slip this on, you’ll never see Liam again. You’ll never see your Prince Torrid, or your mother, or Sarah.”

“You can’t do this,” I cried. “You can't.”

I thought I would crumble to the ground. My world was being torn away from me and there was nothing I could do. I needed a miracle.

In that instant, the violet sky darkened, turning midnight blue. Fearing the worst, I wanted to run and hide, but Pim grabbed my wrist and slipped the leather band on. The night sky engulfed me, numbing my limbs until I felt nothing at all. No pain, no joy, no fear.

Everything went black.

*******

Kama, Liam, and Torrid’s story continues in Volume 2 of Desire.

Shattered (Volume 2, Desire)

November 11, 2011

SHATTERED

(Desire #2)

The sequel to DESIRE, about a dystopian society where at the age of 18, your life is planned out for you by a Committee. Kama made her choice, and now her world and everyone else's will change. The rebellion has begun.

Releases

November 11, 2011

SUMMER WISHES

(A Desire Novella)

A standalone novella from the DESIRE series.

Releases

June 2011

Excerpt from the Bestselling FROST SERIES™

Award-winning Finalist, Multi-genre Fiction, 2
^nd
Annual International Book Awards

Award-winning Finalist, Chick-Lit/Women’s Literature, 2
^nd
Annual International Book Awards

Bitter Frost

kailin gow

Prologue

T
he dream had come again, like the sun after a storm. It was the same dream that had come many times before, battering down the doors of my mind night after night since I was a child. It was the sort of dreams all girls dream, I suppose – a dream of mysterious worlds and hidden doorways, of leaves that breathe and make music when they are rustled in the wind, and rivers that bubble and froth with secrets.
Dreams
, my mother always told me,
represent part of our unconsciousness – the place where we store the true parts of our soul, away from the rest of the world.
My mother was an artist; she always thought this way. If it was true, then my true soul was a denizen of this strange and fantastical world. I often felt, in waking hours, that I was in exile, somehow – somehow less myself, less
true
, than I had been in my enchanted slumber. The real world was only a dream, only an echo, and in silent moments throughout the day it would hit me:
I am not at home here
.

I would shake the thought off, of course, dismiss it as stupid, try and apply my mother's armchair psychoanalysis to the situation. But then, before bed, the thought would come to me, trickle through the mire of worries (boys, school, whether or not I'd remembered to charge my IPod before getting into bed, whether or not my banner would be torn down yet again from the homeroom message board) –
will I have the dream tonight?
And then, another thought would come to me alongside it.
Will I be going home again
?

And the night before my sixteenth birthday, the dream came again – stronger and more vivid than it had ever come before, as if the gauzy wisp of a curtain between reality and dream-land had at last been torn open, and I looked upon my fantasy with new eyes.

I was a fairy princess. (When waking, I would chide myself for this fantasy – sixteen-year-old girls should want to start a fruitful career in environmental activism, not twirl around in silk dresses). But I was a fairy princess, and I was a child. I dreamed myself into a palace – with spires reaching up into the sun, so that the rays seemed to pour gold down onto the turrets. The floors were marble; vines bursting with flowers were wrapped around all the colonnades. The halls were covered in mirrors – gold-framed glass after gold-framed glass – and in these hundred kaleidoscopic images I could see my reflection refracted a hundred times.

I was a toddler – perhaps four, maybe five years old, decked out in elaborate jewels, swaddled in lavender silk, yards and yards of the fabric – the color of my eyes. I hated the color of my eyes in real life – their pale color seemed to make me alien and strange – but here, they were beautiful. Here, I was beautiful. Here, I was home.

The music grew louder, and I could hear its melody. It was not like human music – no, not even the most beautiful concertos, most elaborate sonatas. This was the music that humans try to make and fail – the language of the stars as they twinkle, the rhythm of the human heart as it beats, the glimmering harmony of all the planets and all the moons and all the secret melodies of nature. It was a music that haunted me always, whenever I woke up.

Beside me there was a boy – a few years older than I was. I knew his name; somehow my heart had whispered it to my brain.
Kian
. All the palace around me was golden – with peach hues and warm, pulsating life – but Kian was pale, pale like snow. His eyes were icy blue, with just a hint of silver flecked around the irises; his hair was so black that ink itself would drown in it. He seemed out of place in the vernal palace that was my home – out of season with the baskets of ripe fruit that hung down from the ceiling, with the sweet, honey-strong smell of the flowers. But he was beautiful, and all the more beautiful for his strangeness.

We were dancing to the music, our bodies echoing the sounds we heard – or perhaps the sounds were echoing us. We were learning the Equinox Dance. It was the dance that we would dance on our wedding day.

It was a custom in this fairy kingdom that royal children would learn this dance – the most complicated and mysterious of all dances – for their wedding days. And so we all practiced, day after day (night after dream-rich night), for the day that we would come of age, and dance the dance truly, our feet moving in smooth unison, echoing the commingling of our souls.

My father was the fairy king of the Summer Kingdom – a place where everything tasted like honey and felt like the morning sun on your forehead. Kian's mother was the Winter Queen of the Winter Kingdom, a place beyond the mountains where cool breezes turned into arctic chill, where a castle made of amethyst stood upon a rocky peak, and evergreens dotted the horizon. And it was only fitting that our two kingdoms should meet, should join together; we were the chosen ones.

“You will be my Queen,” the boy whispered to me. His voice was confident, strong.

The dance was still difficult for us. I got tangled in my waves of lavender satin, tripping over his silver shoes. He in turn kept fumbling with his hands, trying to spin me around the waist and instead, elbowing me in the side – but somehow it didn't hurt.

“Silly,” cried the other girl watching us. She, like Kian, was stunning – her hair was as long and lustrous as a starless night; her eyes were silver, like the pelt of a wolf. She was called Shasta, I knew. “Silly – that's not how you dance.” She giggled, and her eyes glittered with her laugh.

And then everything changed and became chaos – my home was suddenly ripped apart and replaced by a new scene. Something –
something
– was attacking, something with teeth and horns and claws that ripped, something that made a great and bellowing sound I could hear even when I pressed my hands tightly to my ears.
The Minotaur.

The screaming came from all directions; everybody was running – me and Shasta and Kian – and the adults, all of them – away from the Minotaur, into each other. Everyone had gone mad. And then someone – someone – was fighting it, a cavalcade of fairy knights each shining in his golden armor – and some knights from the Winter Kingdom too, in their silver.

The Summer King and Queen were there, and the Winter Queen was there too. She looked like Shasta, but older – and her face was different. There was something hard and glinting in her eyes that I could not see in Shasta's, like the shiny specks in stone. I was afraid.

“This is your fault!” a voice snapped – I could not tell to whom it belonged.

“No – it's yours!” Another voice – equally angry, equally cold.

“If it hadn't been for your kingdom...”

“Don't give me those excuses – the Minotaur is a device of your court!”

The voices grew higher and stranger, angrier, louder, quicker and quicker in their retorts until I felt like I was surrounded in a cacophony of rage, bellowing over and over again until at last all I heard was:

“
It's all because of that girl!
”