HeartsAflameCollectionV (4 page)

Authors: Melissa F. Hart

“
Bellaron
!”

“
You taste wonderful,” he whispered, straightening
her hair quickly with his clean hand. “Now look like we've been talking about
molecular gastronomy.”

She didn't even bother to ask what that was, but
when the gallery manager entered the room, she thought that she looked demure
enough. She apologized for going missing, but she had been so hungry, and the
food was so delicious, after all. She batted her large brown eyes at the
gallery manager, who said that there were many important people who wanted to
speak to her, and Apple found herself being hurried back to the main gallery.

She managed to sneak a quick look back at the
kitchen, and the image of
Bellaron
, staring after her
with eyes that were afire with lust and longing, was one she thought she would
carry forever.

Chapter Three

After the night was over, and most of the equipment
was put away,
Bellaron
plated up three last plates,
filling them with the delicious odds and ends that were in some ways tastier
for having been sitting for so long but would have been tossed out after the
festivities. He stripped off the tuxedo jacket, and he was just beginning to
roll up his sleeves when Bryan Hillman and Vicky Campbell came in.

They were a striking pair, and though Bryan Hillman
was a multimillionaire hero who could turn invisible at a moment's whim, it was
obvious through his shy glances and soft smiles that he would never think
himself grander than his wife. Vicky Campbell was tall and thin with black hair
that she had recently cut fashionably short. Her green eyes snapped with life,
and though her high heels made her tower over her rather slender husband, it
was obvious to see that they were equals in every way.

“
I saw you in the gallery, but I didn't get a chance
to come over to say hello,” said Vicky, taking a comfortable seat at the
counter. She was a longtime veteran of events like this, and she knew that
sometimes, the best eating occurred after everyone had gone.

“
Good event,” said Bryan comfortably. “People were
raving about the food, thank you for handling it.”

Bellaron
tugged his tie loose and sat down at his own
plate. He knew when Bryan asked to meet with him after the opening that it
wasn't just for food.

“
You want me to meet him?” he said, frowning. If he
wasn't careful, he would crush the edge of the table in his bare hand;
carefully, he let go and sat with his hand resting on one thigh.

“
It's long past time,” Vicky pointed out. “You've
been living in Colossal City for more than two years now. You need to meet
him.”

Bellaron
frowned at her, and she only smiled serenely. He
supposed that after some of the interviews she had run, aliens must be fairly
old news.

“
We've gone on as we are just fine.”

Bryan wiped his mouth with his napkin before
speaking, shaking his head.
“
No, we've not. Last
winter, when those things came out of the sewers, we could have used you then.
And just a month ago, when that
Ichor
godling
attacked the Third Ward, don't tell us that you
were so pleased to handle that alone.”

Bellaron
found himself baring his teeth at Bryan, and he
forced himself calm. He genuinely liked the other man. As a matter of fact, he
owed a great deal of success to Bryan's patronage, but that sure as hell didn't
mean that he was going do whatever he said.

“
I did just fine,” he said stubbornly.

“
You could be doing better, and that's what we're
trying to say,” Vicky said, putting down her fork. When she looked at him with
that clear and earnest expression, it was easy to see why people trusted her
immediately. It was all genuine too, and he could find it in himself to envy
Bryan mightily if a certain sweet-faced artist hadn't stolen into his kitchen
that night.

Bellaron
sighed.
“
Fine.
Arrange your meeting, but don't expect me to be impressed by the man.”

“
That's just fine, I'm not asking you to be best
friends, I'm just asking you to talk,” Bryan said, smiling with relief. “Thank
you. If there's anything I can do for you...”

“
The artist,”
Bellaron
said bluntly. “I couldn't get close to
her,
there were
so many people who wanted to talk to her. Who is she?”

“
Her name's Apple
Muldoon,
and she's the artist in residence at the Hillman Center for the next month,”
Bryan said proudly. “I caught a small display that she had at an art fair a few
months ago, and I knew that she had to bring her work here.”

“
She dropped out of the art college here a few years
ago,” supplied Vicky. “
Independent,
did a bunch of odd
jobs until her art took off. It's still not paying the bills, I don't think,
but tonight changed everything for her. They can't take the pieces yet, but
nearly every piece sold.”

Bellaron
nodded thoughtfully.
“
Everything except the big wolf.”

“
Yes,” said Vicky with surprise. “How did you know?”

Bellaron
grinned, and if there was something sharp to his
smile,
neither Vicky or
Bryan let it bother them.

“
I recognized it,” he said. “That's a hunter. That's
something that stalks the forests and kills without a sound. It makes every
human who looks at it realize that they're prey.”

Vicky lifted a cool eyebrow.
“
Oh? And what does it make you think,
Bellaron
?”

“
I see a brother,” he retorted.

He stood up abruptly, and both Vicky and Bryan,
human to their core despite the alien company they kept, shivered. They could
see the hunter in him, and a deep part of them responded to it.

“”
Bryan, I want that piece. I don't care how much it
costs.”

Bryan nodded, but when he looked at the tense lines
of
Bellaron's
body, he knew that it wasn't all that
the tall man wanted.

Chapter Four

Apple had fallen asleep in her makeup and her
clothes the night before, and when she awoke around noon, her thoughts were
still full of green eyes, clever fingers and a mouth that was made to pleasure
her. The thoughts stayed with her as she showered and dressed, pulling on her
favorite pair of paint-splattered jeans and a soft purple peasant top, and she
blushed all over again to think about how bold she had been. She was no
shrinking violet, but usually she waited a bit before she unleashed her inner
vixen. Something about the chef she met at the gallery showing had changed all
that, and when she remembered his hands on her flesh, she felt herself heat up
all over again.

She wondered what would happen if she showed up at
the doors of The Hunt, if she walked through the fancy dining room and
confronted him in the kitchen. Would he look at her the same way? Would he
touch her again? Then she looked down at her clothes, at the vivid green paint
splatter on her jeans and her worn sandals, and realized that that was pretty
unlikely.

Apple had every intention of hunting him down, but
at the moment, she needed time to gather herself. Her reaction to him last
night was simply so strong that she needed time to collect her thoughts, and to
do so, she made her way down to the midtown market.

The midtown market was Colossal City's summer flea
market. From April until October, the market took up an enormous four-block
lot, and vendors of all kinds hawked their wares from stands, from
wheelbarrows, from blankets and from carts. There were farmers selling rich
colorful produce, booksellers, junk sellers, antique dealers and clothes
vendors of every sort, and Apple thought it was her favorite place in the whole
city.

Sometimes she bought things, but more often, she
walked around, staring at the oddities that lurked in every bin and bag. She
wondered if a pair of ancient tin soldiers would go well on her next piece, she
petted an enormous friendly dog that was about the size of a pony, and on a
whim, she bought herself a bag of roasted almonds to eat as she walked.

Apple found herself looking over a blanket that was
scattered with all sorts of odds and ends, and for some reason, she found
herself drawn to a leather book. It was
small,
barely
the size of a normal paperback, but the leather was a deep rich brown, worn
down by years of handling. She would have passed it by, but when she opened it,
her eyes fell on a strange animal that she had never seen before. It had the
body of what she thought was a lizard, but it had two cat heads on its
shoulder. They both stared intently at each other, baring sharp fangs.

“
How much?” she asked, and the man held up two
fingers.

She passed him two dollars, and she ran home to
devour the book. It was full of
monsters,
ones that
sparked her mind and made her long for clay, for metal, for anything that would
let her capture their sinuous curves.

Apple spent the day making sketches, trying to
figure out how she could give life to the illustrations. The book was strange,
with no publisher, and she could not understand what it was for. There were no
words, only picture after picture of glorious monsters. Some of them swam, some
of them flew, some of them were tiny and some huge, but they were all unique in
their own way, with expressions on their faces that made her smile and shiver
by turns.

She fell into bed fully clothed
again,
holding the book in her hand, and this time, her dreams took her straight to
Bellaron's
arms.

This time, they weren't interrupted, and he spread
her out on that table so that he could see her,
touch
her, taste her all they wished. She could feel her hands curl around his
shoulders as she drew him on top of her, and she could feel his hot lips on her
mouth, her neck,
her
breasts.

“
Come on, finish what you started, big man,” she
said in her dream, and he grinned, doing exactly that.

Across the city,
Bellaron
awoke in his enormous bed in the apartment above the restaurant. Shards of his
dreams came back to him, and panting, he fell back against the pillows. It had
seemed so very real, her long brown hair, her laughing dark eyes,
the
feel of her skin under his hands. She was smiling at
him, running her hands down his body.

Come on, finish what you started, big man,
she had whispered, and oh, how he
longed to do so.

Among his people there were false dreams and true
dreams, and as he
lay
alone his bed, certain that he
could still feel her breath on his cheek, he knew that the dream he had just
had was true.

He had to find her.

He couldn't let anything stop him.

Far away, a crystal that hung suspended in the
center of a dark chamber trembled and fell to the ground. Its ringing chime
echoed throughout the stone room, and slowly, the figures that curled up on the
floor around it started to stir. They shook off dust and rags, and for a
moment, they were confused, snarling at each other and calling out.

The tallest and oldest among them strode to the
center of the chamber, where he knelt and inspected the shards of the crystal.
They were sharp enough to rip his fingers to ribbons, but though his skin was
cut, there was no blood.

“
It's awakened,” he whispered. “It is time.”

He was momentarily still, and then he began to
laugh.

Do you like this book? Be sure to check other books in
this series

Eye of the Beholder - Volume 14

Scars of my Past - Volume 15

Glory in Victory - Volume 16

Lynxar
Series - A Star from Far
Away: Books 14-16 (3-Book Bundle)

Be
sure to check the other books of this series

Lynxar
- Volume 1

Lynxar's
Choices - Volume 2

Lynxar's
Legacy - Volume 3

Lynxar's
Ghost - Volume 4