Treasure of the Fire Kingdom (The Elemental Phases Book 4) (13 page)

“But,
my grandfather gave it to me when I was a little girl and now he gone.”  Tears
shimmered in her endless blue eyes, spilling down her cheeks.  “It’s all I
have.”

Her…
grandfather?

Kingu
froze, replaying what she’d said over and over, and realizing that he’d just
made a complete ass out of himself.  “Your grandfather gave you that bracelet?” 
He repeated, dreading either answer.

One
way he’d just terrorized an innocent girl for a childhood memento of her dead
grandparent and the other way Hope’s heart belonged to some other man.

Actually,
no.  Kingu knew exactly which answer he needed to hear.

She
bobbed her head, giving him the confirmation he wanted.  “My grandfather raised
me.”  She ran a hand across her cheek and sniffed back more tears.  “I was
abandoned at birth and he gave me a home.  He saved my life.  He was so gentle
and kind to me.  The most noble man in the world.”

Yeah. 
It just got better and better.  Her grandfather had apparently been a saint.  A
wise and selfless old man, who probably lived in a forest glen and helped
change the color of bunnies in the springtime.  Or whatever the hell Color
Phases did to make the world a prettier place.  If Kingu did anything to try
and separate Hope from her memories of this paragon, he’d lose her.  He could
see it in her eyes.  Her love for her grandfather was a part of her perfect soul.

“I
didn’t know the bracelet was a sentimental token from your family.”  Kingu
hedged, trying to figure out a way to back down without making the situation
even worse.

A
grandfather wasn’t a rival.  Not in the way Kingu cared about, anyway.  With
the imaginary ghost of Hope’s great lover fading from his mind, he could see
that he’d overreacted.  Even if the bracelet
had
been a gift from
another man, what difference would it have made?  What did it matter what she
felt or secretly wanted?  The woman was trapped here with him and no one else
could touch her.  Let her have whatever she wished to make her feel secure.

“The
trinket clearly had great value to you.”

“Yes,
it does!  You can’t just ask me to replace it!”

“I
understand that, now.  And I have reconsidered.”

What
was wrong with him?  He’d
wanted
the woman to show some justified fear
and, now that she was watching him with genuine distress, all he wanted to do
was calm her.  Make her stop crying at him and smile.  She hadn’t smiled at him
yet and he desperately desired that.  Kingu realized that he wanted Hope’s
smiles far more than he wanted her to be frightened of him.

“I
will allow you to keep the bracelet.”

There. 
Maybe that would make her happy.

She
still didn’t trust him.  He could tell by her suspicious frown.  “You will?”

“Yes.”

“You
promise you’re not going to try and steal it the second my back is turned?”

“I
promise.”

He
knew what it was to have so little that belonged to you that you were
constantly on guard against someone taking it away.  When he’d been at his
mother’s house, he’d had several books that were his.  Books that he’d stolen
from the Air House library and that Kay had never read.  It hadn’t even
mattered what they were about, Kingu had treasured battered tomes because they
were
his
.  Just his.  Something solid and real to hold on to during his
captivity.

Now
he had his own captive who needed that kind comfort.

The
thought made him depressed.  Made him feel dirty.

Kingu
sighed and moved away from her.  “You have my word.  The bracelet is yours and
will remain as such.  Would you like anything else?  I promise you, I can get
you whatever you desire and you can keep it.  It would be yours.”  He really
wished she’d ask for something so he could give it to her and make her happy,
again.  “How about a unicorn?”

Hope
shook her head.

Shit.

Kingu
was out of ideas.  Before he’d come to the Cloud Kingdom he’d spent centuries
only talking to Kay and occasionally Gion or Parald.  He had no idea what to
say to this girl.  “Do you want to see your room?”  He finally tried.

She
ran a wrist under her nose and nodded.  “Alright.”  She still sounded subdued. 
Not sulky, but like she was apprehensive.

Kingu
hated that new caution in her tone.

“Alright.” 
He repeated, basically just so he’d have something to say.  “Well, it’s this
way.”

He
started down the hall and actually reached the door, before remembering that he’d
only assigned her this room as punishment for lying to him about how much she
liked the rest of the house.  Gods, that seemed petty, all of a sudden.  He
paused with his hand on the knob, wondering if he could snap his fingers and
redecorate the whole thing before she saw.

“What’s
the matter?”

“I
think you’d like another room better.”  He admitted.  “You can choose any of
them and I’ll decorate it however you wish.”  Once again, he prayed to all the
gods who ignored him that she’d agree to let him create some space she’d be
happy in.  He could even make it pink, if she wanted.  He despised the color,
but odds seemed good that he wasn’t going to ever see the inside of the room,
anyway.

“I’m
sure this one will be fine.”  She seemed confused, now.  “Don’t you like this
room?  You designed it, right?”

Maybe
he could lie and blame it on someone else.  “Well… Zakkery helped with some of
the décor in the house.”  The moron had given him a naked poster of some human
actress as a “fortress warming gift.”  He further suggested that it was the
only female who’d ever enter the house, given Kingu’s impossible standards and
lousy attitude.  Kingu had crumpled the poster up and tossed it at his head.

That
sort of
counted as helping him decorate.

He
reluctantly pushed open the door to the bedchamber, already preparing to claim
he’d never even
seen
this room before and that the Smoke Phase must have
snuck in and furnished it unsupervised.

“Oh.” 
Hope breathed as she took in the spectacle before her.

He
braced himself.

“Kingu,
it’s
beautiful
.”  She moved over the threshold as if in a trace.

Kingu
blinked.

It
wasn’t a lie or a trick.  Hope was genuinely enraptured with the horrible
space.  Kingu had created it and even he thought it was grotesque.  Scenes of
twisted hellfire crawled up the walls, painted in glowing crimsons and yellows. 
Victims writhed in the punishing flames, their bodies contorted in agony.  The
bed sat in the middle of the room, the massive posts of it as thick as tree
trunks and supporting acres of draping ebony fabric from the canopy.  It looked
like a tomb... Of a vampire… In the center of hell.  He’d even doused the
ceiling in red.

No
woman could
possibly
want to sleep here.  And yet Hope was bouncing
around, examining all the gruesome murals on the wall with something
approaching delight.

Kingu
stood there for a moment in total shock.  Why in the world was a Color Phase so
pleased with room painted like a crime scene?  Didn’t they usually like
rainbows and dragonflies and…

Actually,
who cared?

He
shook his head and stopped trying to analyze Hope’s reaction.  What did he know
about women, anyway?  To hell with the reasons behind her pleasure.  She was
happy, again, and he wasn’t looking a gift horse in the mouth.

“Come
to think of it, Zakkery didn’t have any input on this room, at all.  This was
all
my
idea.”

“Oh,
you did a wonderful job.”  Hope opened a door to the connected balcony and made
a face at the pastel landscape beyond.  She closed the door again and pulled
the black curtains closed, nodding in satisfaction.  “I’m going to redo my room
at home to look just like this.”

This
was
her home, now.  Kingu wasn’t stupid enough to point that out
though.  “I can make you more some clothes, too.”  Or at least he could try. 
He wasn’t sure even his powers could create the bizarre outfits she seemed to
prefer.  “Just tell me what you’d like and, in the meantime, there are some…
plain things in the closet.”  Which happened to be shaped like a casket.

Hope
frowned.  “How do you know my size?”  She looked kind of annoyed.  He had no
idea why.

“I
have a good eye.”  And it had been measuring the lush curves of body all day. 
“Believe me, everything’s going to fit.”

“Well,
I’m going to start a new diet, so…”

“No!” 
He blurted out, appalled by the very idea.  It would be blasphemy to alter her
figure.  “No.  Gods, don’t do that.  Your body is perfect.”

She
turned to meet his gaze again and caught him staring at her really glorious
backside.

Kingu
swiftly glanced away.

In
that second, he had the horrible feeling that Hope could sense exactly how much
he wanted her.  How could she miss it?  It still felt like a column of pure
heat connected them.  Kingu swore he could feel it against his energy,
scorching along the edges of his control trying to reach for her.

He
deliberately hadn’t crossed the threshold into Hope’s room and he wasn’t going
to without permission.  Which would obviously never, ever come.  The continued
urgency of his burning need for the woman surprised him, though.  The desire to
just stalk into her bedroom and touch her for as long as she would allow.  Even
knowing how much he’d wanted Hope from the first, Kingu was unnerved by how
fast the feeling was growing.

Was
it some kind of biological response or a side effect of his developing powers? 
Kingu didn’t know.  But, if she smiled at him –gave Kingu even the smallest
hint that she wasn’t repulsed by him or desired him even a
tiny
bit-- he
had the horrible feeling that he’d cross the bedchamber, push her down onto the
gigantic mattress and show her what ancient gods did to their pretty little
captives.

And
she would feel like heaven.

Kingu
dropped his eyes and cleared his throat.  “So… are you hungry?”

“No.” 
Hope was still staring at him.  “Kingu, why did you want the bracelet?”

He
winced.  Were they not past that?  And weren’t his motivations obvious?  “I
thought it was a gift from a suitor and I didn’t like you wearing something
that came from another man.  I truly am sorry I scared you.  I was out of
line.”  To his knowledge, that was the first time he’d ever apologized and
actually meant it.

He
was
extremely
sorry that she was wary of him, now.  Kingu wanted Hope
back the way she’d been before.  He wanted her to treat him like he was a
person and not a monster.  He hadn’t known how important that was until she’d
backed away from him.

Hope
was quiet for a long moment.  “I think --No, I
know
-- that my family
would have reacted the same way if their Mat…
girlfriend
was wearing
something from her past lover.  Warriors are very possessive.”

Kingu
had never heard of a Color Phase warrior, but he nodded anyway.  He would have
nodded at anything she said that even hinted at clemency.

“I
fear I am very possessive, too.”  He allowed carefully.  Not just possessive,
insanely, violently obsessed with this impractical little creature.  He would
kill any other man who tried to claim her.  There wouldn’t even be a choice. 
“It came over me suddenly and I was… wrong in the way I acted.”

Hope
bit her lower lip.  “I can understand that.  I wouldn’t like it if you refused
to part with some memento from an old girlfriend.  I was raised to be a
warrior, too, you know.”

“Oh.” 
That was the best he could manage.  In three sentences she’d packed in so much
nonsense.

That
a god would have an “old girlfriend.”

That,
even if he
did
, Hope would care.

That
she’d somehow been raised as a
warrior
in the Candylandish countryside
of the Color Kingdom.

That
Hope was honestly forgiving him for making her cry.

What
was he supposed to say to any of that gibberish?  The woman was either the most
trusting soul in the history of time or an incredibly sophisticated liar. 
Kingu
willed
her to be a liar.  It would be so much simpler if this was
all an act.  Looking at her innocent face, though, he knew that he wasn’t going
to get off that easy.

She
hadn’t been sent here to kill him or to trick him.  Kingu had been kidding
himself with that idea.  His luck just wasn’t that good.  No, Hope was
completely genuine in her purity.

How
could someone this naive, possibly survive here with him?

Kingu
sighed, covering his eyes with his palm.  “You shouldn’t forgive me for scaring
you.  You should take it as an indication that I’m a monster.”  He hated it
when she watched him fearfully, but he still felt compelled to warn her away.

For
her own good, she should run.