His Fire Maiden Read Online Free Page A

“And I must be metal because my body is rock hard with muscles.”
    “I think the elements refer to the ones we are meant for,” Evan said. “Not who we are.”
    “She didn’t say that,” Rick protested. “I’m metal. I know it.”
    Dev didn’t speak. There was nothing for him to say. It was as if she’d found the one secret weapon that could hurt him and stabbed him with it—the desire to be loved and accepted. A physical ache filled his chest, so he held himself rigid and waited for the pain to pass. He knew he was not meant to find love, but to have it dangled before him so unexpectedly was most brutal. His hand clenched. He wanted to punch Rick. He wanted to chase after An and make her tell him more. For if he had a chance at losing love, then that meant there was actually a chance he would someday find it. That hope was the cruelest part of all.
    And maybe the whole curse thing was just a mean prank told by a cranky spirit, and nothing had really changed.
     

     
Chapter 3
     
     
    R ifflen Federation Military Base , Several Months Later
    “Back away. That is the general’s heart alarm. He’s dying.” Captain Violette pushed past the men who were rushing toward the general’s door. They couldn’t do anything for him, not if his heart alarm was already sounding. She hurried to be by her father’s side, hoping in vain to make it in those last seconds of his life. When she’d obeyed his order to escort the mysterious Josselyn safely onto the base, she never expected the woman would dare to murder him in his own office. Why would she? He was giving Josselyn land, travel papers, and credentials. Why would she kill him?
    Violette’s stomach tightened. Time appeared to slow as she strode toward the office door. Part of her had been waiting for this day for the last thirty years, since he’d made her promise an oath over their bloody arms, but she never thought it would result in his death. Her father was so healthy, so good, so…
    Dead?
    The base’s alarm repeated in a series of two short beeps and one long. Violette ignored it. She didn’t want to be here. She wanted to rewind time, back to the moment when Josselyn approached her on the floating bucket of asteroid dust they called a fuel dock out in the middle of deep space. She should have disobeyed her father. She should have insisted on being in the room with the two of them. Already she knew it was too late. Her father was gone. There were no last seconds to be had with him. Not with the alarm. The death notice was being automatically sent out to the Federation.
    Her father hadn’t talked about Josselyn since the day Violette found the holo-box—until a few weeks ago when he simply told her it was time. It would appear her father’s mystery lady was real— very real —and, by the look of her, too young to have plagued her father’s conscience as long as she had. Josselyn looked to be Violette’s age, maybe even younger, but had been born when her father was a very young man, which made her closer to a hundred. If Violette hadn’t known about the Federation’s short stint preserving prisoners into a stone-like state, she would have wondered at the clear discrepancy in the timeline.
    Violette kept moving. She didn’t let her panic or grief show. The general wouldn’t have wanted her to display weakness. As she touched the door, she said to the soldiers, “You have your orders. As his heir, I’m in charge now until the federation sends his replacement. This base operates on the old codes, and I invoke my rights.”
    She walked into her father’s office, and the sick feeling intensified. Violette had grown up with Josselyn’s name in her head, a recording that never stopped playing in her dreams. The woman wasn’t in any database she’d ever accessed. And the most surreal part was that when she finally met Josselyn, the woman didn’t even know who Violette was—no idea she was talking to the general’s daughter.
    A shudder of grief