Warlord
WARLORD
TASHA TEMPLE
Published in ebook format by TempleFiction
Copyright © 2011 by TempleFiction
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Book Graphics
www.bookgraphics.wordpress.com
Sara’s life is boring and predictable. It’s also about to change. A startling use of cruel, inhuman power places Sara in extreme peril giving her only one way to escape. Sara must overcome her deepest fears and resist her most powerful desires to stay alive. In the struggle to conquer herself, Sara encounters a god of a man from a distant land who brings her to the heights of pleasure, beyond what she had ever imagined possible.
The fiery passion between Sara and the warlord, Arystan, is the material of legends. As their souls collide and lock in tangle of lust and ardor will Sara resist her deepest yearnings and give up everything so that they can remain together forever? Can she break through Arystan’s battle-hardened defenses and reach his heart while helping him defeat the cruel enemy of his past on the battlefield? This steamy novel of love, battle and passion will leave you on the edge of your seat with suspense.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 2-Alone . . . Not Quite
Chapter 4 - The Pool of Desire
Chapter 8 - The Price of Escape
Chapter 12 - Breaking the Rules
Chapter 16 - Getting to the Truth of the Matter
Chapter 17 - Seeking Forgiveness
Chapter 19 - Be Still Your Heart
Chapter 20 - Witch in the Mountains
Sara awoke with a splitting headache. She sat up, holding her head. It was dark.
Grimacing, she put her hand down on the floor, noticing that it felt cold, hard, almost like stone. Had she passed out from the wine and her friends taken her back to the hostel?
The accommodations were a bit rustic, but she didn’t remember the floor being made of stone. She peered around, trying to make out the contrast of furniture, walls, doorways, anything. There was nothing but absolute black.
The last thing she remembered was having dinner in a tiny restaurant called the Horoshaya Yeda in Dushanbe with all of the archaeology students and the professor who were along for the dig. They had ordered a variety of dishes and she had eaten something called “balls of goat” on a dare. She was sure that’s exactly what it had been. She also remembered having several cups of jazi, some sort of local wine. Whew, that must have been some wine.
Slowly she rose to her feet, disoriented from the lack of light. She felt cold and drew her arms around her, feeling the goose flesh on her bare skin. It had been a warm evening in Dushanbe and she was dressed in a sleeveless white sundress with matching low-heeled sandals. But the obscurity of the dark was so overwhelming she could not even make out the color of her clothing now. At least, she was still dressed.
Sara could not perceive how large the space was in which she stood, but had the sensation it was relatively small and circular. She stretched out her arms and turned carefully, brushing a wall with the tips of her fingers. She ran her palm over the wall, tracing large, rather squarish blocks of rough rock set against each other. What was this?
The situation was becoming more bizarre.
Sara shifted so that her back was against the wall and began inching around the room, finding it obvious as she moved that it was, in fact, circular. She stumbled, her right leg coming into contact with something firm. Sara stepped back. She didn’t know exactly why, but something told her she had touched a person.
“Hello?” she ventured hesitantly. “Is – is anyone there?”
There was no answer, but her voice seemed to echo a bit. The entire room must be made of stone. The person she had sensed was lower to the ground. Sara slid down the wall until she was resting on the floor and then reached out cautiously toward the form, scooting closer until she felt a cloth-like object.
She drew her hand back quickly.
“Is someone there?” she tried again, whispering.
There was no response. She reached forward tentatively, running her hand lightly down the length of what seemed to be an arm encased in fabric, rough fabric, like a cloak or a tunic, perhaps. It felt very thin. Maybe the person was asleep or injured. She snorted.
Probably too much jazi.
“Excuse me,” she said a bit louder to the form. “Are you asleep? Do you need help?”
The stone room was silent, the only sound the slight residual echo of her voice. She moved to a kneeling position and edged closer.
A little more boldly, she ran her hand over more of the figure. It was definitely a person
– a man, she judged, from his size. She couldn’t see his clothing but it felt as if he wore a tunic that fell to his knees and some sort of thick leggings underneath. She groped a bit further down and felt heavy boots. His legs were stretched out and he seemed to be reclining against the wall.
Sara sat back on her heels, staring into the blackness in the man’s direction, wondering what to do next. Well, there was nothing for it. She could spend all night alone, waiting for him to stir or she could wake him up now. She wanted to know what the hell she was doing in some circular, stone room when she was supposed to be in the middle of a semester of archaeology study in Tajikistan.
She’d already had second thoughts about coming on the dig. The fieldwork was scheduled during her last semester of university and taking the time off meant she would be unable to complete the requirements of her double majors in archaeology and anthropology. That meant postponing her graduation and making the classes up in the fall.
Her parents spared no breath impressing on her how utterly irresponsible and out of character it would be for her to throw away the opportunity to complete her degrees in a timely manner. They reminded her that there would be plenty of time to pursue fieldwork
after
she graduated, and obtained her masters’ degrees and, of course, her doctoral degrees. Then, if she was still interested, she could lead the fieldwork herself.
Sara listened carefully to her parents. After all, she had never done anything out of the ordinary. She was twenty-four years old and generally allowed her life to be meticulously orchestrated and controlled by her parents and boyfriend, John. But this time she refused to back down, feeling a deep sense of urgency to travel to Tajikistan, if only to do one interesting thing with her life.
Finally, persuaded by parents, John had given her an ultimatum. Stay with him and finish her degrees or their relationship was over. She wavered, but at the last minute had broken up with him and fled to the airport. John had been nearly too stunned for words, so certain she would never leave him. He begged her to stay and retracted his demands, finally telling her as she left that he would be waiting for her when she returned, ready to renew their relationship.
Well, she was here now. Halfway across the world in a remote, isolated section of Tajikistan. It didn’t hurt that the professor leading the dig was drop-dead gorgeous with wavy blond hair and blue eyes, the movie star-meets-explorer type. She had long been curious what his body was like under his customary lecture dress which wasn’t bad in itself – well-fitting jeans, cuffed shirts, tailored sports coats. In her class daydreams, Sara imagined working the buttons of his white shirt loose, a cut figure emerging, nice pectorals, hard six-pack, tanned and toned. And she wasn’t too far off. It was hot in this country and she had seen plenty of the professor’s torso while working at the field site.
He was forty years old, but hell, that wasn’t enough of an age difference to diminish her appreciation of his body. Since she was here, she’d put “fuck the professor” on her mental ‘to-do’ list of things Sara Aster would never do. She hadn’t gotten the chance.
Yet. But there was still time before they returned to America.
She sighed. It wasn’t likely she’d be fucking anyone, anytime soon, if she didn’t figure out what was going on.
“Sir,” said Sara, a bit of impatience in her voice now. “I’m really very sorry, but I need you to wake up. I need you to tell me where I am.”
She pushed on his leg. There was some sort of padding under his clothes. She crawled forward and brushed against something sharp.
“Ouch!” she cried, bringing her hand to her mouth.
Something warm and sticky oozed from her small finger. She tasted it. Blood. She sucked at the wound, trying to get the flow to stop. Very carefully, she lowered her hand and felt something smooth resting next to the figure, even colder than the stone, lying blade up. Metal. A dagger or a sword. What?
All right, she thought. Enough of this. Time to wake up this knight. She took hold of one shoulder and shook it a little. He didn’t make a sound and hardly moved. She brought her hand up to where she thought his head should be and felt a hard object. A helmet of some sort. Fine, she would touch his face, maybe give him a little slap. That should do the trick.
She hesitated, a bit reluctant to wake up a stranger in such an intimate manner, but went ahead anyway, bringing her hand below his helmet, feeling for his cheek. She felt something smooth and hard, almost like wood. She recoiled a bit and then touched him again, tracing his face. She found his forehead, his cheek, his jaw. His mouth was hanging open and she could feel his teeth. Why wasn’t he moving? Then she brought her hand up to his nose and felt nothing. She pressed her fingers forward and found a hole where it should have been and then slid them upward finding two large, gaping holes for his eyes.