[Imdalind 01.0] Kiss of Fire Read online

  Kiss of Fire

  Rebecca Ethington

  Imdalind Press

  Contents

  The Imdalind Series

  Kiss of Fire

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Book Two Is Waiting For You

  Eyes of Ember

  Also by Rebecca Ethington

  New Release Newsletter Sign-Up

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Afterword

  The Imdalind Series

  BOOK ONE: Kiss of Fire

  BOOK TWO: Eyes of Ember

  BOOK THREE: Scorched Treachery

  BOOK FOUR: Soul of Flame

  BOOK FIVE: Burnt Devotion

  BOOK SIX: Dawn of Ash

  BOOK SEVEN: Crown of Cinders

  Text Copyright ©2012 by Rebecca Ethington

  The Imdalind Series, characters, names, and related indicia are trademarks and © of Rebecca Ethington.

  The Imdalind Series Publishing rights © Rebecca Ethington

  All Rights Reserved.

  Published by Imdalind Press

  No Part of this publication may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For Information regarding permission, write to:

  Rebecca Ethington – permissions@ Rebecca Ethington.com

  Copyediting by Annette Skoubye, Dragon Fire Edits, C&D Editing

  Cover Design © Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations

  Cover Photography © Regina Wamba

  Formatting by Inkstain Interior Book Designing

  Production Management by Imdalind Press

  ISBN (print): 978-0-9884837-0-5

  ISBN (e-book): 978-0-9884837-1-2

  Printed in USA

  This Edition, November 2012

  To My Grandmother—

  Who loved to read and loved to hear my stories.

  You always told me I could write, and strangely enough it turns out I can!

  -

  To My Papa—

  Who taught me what true love really is.

  Prologue

  Everything changed on my fifth birthday while my parents were in the backyard hanging the “Happy Birthday Joclyn” banner that was surrounded by yellow and blue streamers. The colors danced through the trees as the wind blew them around. My parents laughed and joked as they decorated while I danced in the doorway as I waited for my friends to arrive.

  I stopped to watch a brilliant blue trail of glitter as something small flew around me. I only caught a glimpse of wings before a sharp stabbing pain shot into the right side of my head. It left me feeling like I had been slammed against a brick wall. The sensation burned like acid that spread quickly through me. I dropped to the ground as the pain coursed throughout my body. The hot current flowed under my skin like boiling water in my veins. My vision faded to black as the sensations grew into a torrent that split my bones apart. A buzzing silence filled the world around me until the sounds of my own screaming filled my ears.

  I remember my mother panicking alongside me; my father on the phone with 911. I remember the sound of the ambulance siren, my vision a never-ending black, and my body filled with the stabbing agony that incapacitated me. Trapped in my prison of unrelenting tortures, I drifted in and out of consciousness. No matter what the doctors did, what medicines they pumped into me, the pain didn’t go away. I couldn't move past it; sometimes I couldn't stop screaming. Eventually, I slipped into a coma.

  The first thing I saw when I woke up was my mother's face filled with worry. My father looked sick with fear. Even at five, I knew something was wrong. I had been in the coma for months, and no one knew what had happened. The only signs of anything having changed was a change in my eye color, from green to a colorless silver, and a small mark that appeared right below my right ear. It was the size of a penny, the skin vivid red and raised like a brand, while in the middle a small indistinguishable figure stood out in vivid black. I ran my finger over it for days. It didn't hurt, but it was ugly. The doctors assumed that I had been bitten by some sort of bug and had an allergic reaction, but deep down, I knew that wasn't right. Besides, something like that wouldn’t have affected my eye color.

  I wasn't the only one to doubt the doctors; my father doubted them, too.

  I went home the next day where my mother covered me in blankets and provided enough ice cream and cartoons to last me a month. She got time off work and took care of me like she had never done before.

  I almost believed the mark didn’t really matter… until the fighting started. It was weird to hear them yell. I had never known my parents to fight before; they had always loved each other so much. My father had become obsessed with the idea of the mark, convinced that the mark I now had on my neck was something different, that it meant something. He rambled and yelled about it. He spent hours at the library and days on the Internet. The grinding noise of the modem dialing-in wound on my nerves; some nights I couldn't sleep. The fearful face he had the day I woke up never left him. He wasn't the same man, but I still loved him. My five-year-old self would crawl up on his lap and plead for everything to be okay; I would promise him that I didn't hurt. I thought he believed me… until the day he disappeared.

  I heard them screaming for the last time from the security of my bed with my blankets pulled high over me. I cried as they screamed at each other and gasped at the crashing that rocked the doors in the house. That night, I cried myself to sleep. When I woke up, my father had gone, and it was all because of me.

  My mother didn't talk about it for months. Her heart had broken; I think my heart broke, too. Even at five, something inside me had changed; I knew I was different. Part of me knew that my father was right and that the mark did mean something. It was also the reason he left; the reason my mother and I were alone.

  At five, I hid that part of me away.

  1

  My long board clicked rhythmically down the sidewalk as I moved. The warm wind of early summer tugging against my dark hoodie, pulling at the long strands of black hair that had fallen out of my hood. I didn't like traveling in front of the houses in this part of the neighborhood. I normally took the back alley, but today, some road crews were working on pot-holes and I had to make my trip in front of the giant mansions that littered the hills of the east side of the city.

  The rich ladies, with their upturned noses, liked to look out their windows at me as if I were somehow infecting their perfect little world with a contagious disease. They looked at me like I was poor—which I was—a menace—which I wasn’t—and like there was something wrong with me—which I wasn’t even sure of. Normally, I would laugh at their response to me, but I didn't like them taking so much notice. Chances were, they would complain to
my mother's boss, and she would get in trouble, again. It wasn't my fault the road crews decided to work on the alley, but it's not like “His Grace” would care.

  My mother had worked as Edmund LaRue’s cook for almost ten years now, having taken the job after my father took off. Mr. LaRue—or King Edmund as I called him—was an arrogant, greedy, self-righteous man who kept to himself. He probably had more secrets than rooms in his house, if that were even possible. However, as much as I despised him, he paid my mother well, so I didn’t complain.

  I jumped off my long board as I approached his house. If he heard the clicking of it against the sidewalk, he might throw another fit; that is, of course, if Mrs. Nose-Against-The-Window hadn’t already put in a call. I looked up the long driveway as I stepped in front of the gate. Only the gray Rolls-Royce lay parked against the side of the house, causing my heart to fall—no bright yellow Lotus. Ryland wasn’t home yet.

  I hopped back on my long board to roll down the side of the house; my somewhat good mood dashed by the absence of my best friend. Who cared if King Edmund got mad at me for making a racket?

  I crashed into the kitchen, the slam of the door disrupting the 70s music that my mother and Mette, the LaRue’s baker, were listening to. Plopping myself onto one of the many bar stools surrounding the long work surfaces, I placed my head on my arms and covered my face as much as I could with my hood.

  “Happy Birthday, Joclyn!” my mom said. I only grunted as I attempted to cover my head with my hoodie. “How was school?”

  “Fine,” I answered into the countertop.

  “Fancy that,” Mette said in her rich, Irish accent. “She can almost disappear into the table. Must be a trick learned when one turns sixteen.”

  I grumbled nonsense at them again and covered my head with my arms, trying to ignore the laughter of the two women.

  “Not funny,” I growled.

  “Hello, in there! Joclyn, can you hear me?” My mother lifted the side of my hood as she called into it, and I tried not to smile. “Well, I think she’s done it! She has melded into the sweatshirt and become one with it.”

  “That will make it easier to wash her, that will.”

  “Not funny.” I tried not to sound amused, but I don’t think it worked. My mother snorted so loudly it reverberated off the pristine marble countertops.

  “I’ll just throw her in the washing machine, then a little bleach, lots of detergent, and the skateboard can go in the dumpster.”

  “Hey! It’s a long board, and it’s the only way I get around! Unless you bought me a car. Did you buy me a car?” I shot up like a light, my face breaking out into an eager grin.

  “There she is,” Mom laughed, throwing a present at me. “Happy Birthday, honey! Sorry, no car this year.”

  “She lives. She lives. Praise the Lord! I thought for a second we would have to call a priest to exorcise her from the sweater,” Mette laughed, her red bun bobbing on top of her large, round head. “Happy Birthday, dearie.”

  My mom nudged the present at me again, prompting me to open it. Her eyes were sparkling with that eager anticipation she always got about gift-giving. The package was a good size, but lumpy and squishy. Clothes. Clothing had been an issue with my mother and me since that darned mark showed up on my face and chased my dad away. I preferred to hide the mark, and myself.

  She thought I should show the world how beautiful I was. I guess she might be right; I could be seen as the epitome of the fair-skinned, dark-haired beauty with some form of ethereal features. My mom fawned over my bone structure and perfectly-formed eyebrows that just grew that way. But, when I looked in the mirror, I only saw a skinny girl who wasn’t quite good enough. My mom obviously saw something different. She liked to give me blue shirts to highlight my black hair, or green belts to set off the silver of my eyes, or so she said. All I saw were vivid colors or an obvious lack of fabric that would make me stand out.

  For years my mom kept trying to convince herself that my choice of baggy, dark-colored clothes was a stage that I would outgrow. I always found a way to hide myself; I kept my black hair long and falling in a sheet around my face, my clothes always dark and at least a size too big. It was all done in a way to help me blend in so people wouldn’t notice me. I felt comfortable inside my safety shield, hoping that no one could see me or figure out what was wrong with me. When the Goth kids showed up at school, it worked to my advantage. My mom, for once, thought I was trying to be cool, but I wasn’t overly emotional or narcissistic like they appeared to be. I just wanted to disappear.

  “Go on,” Mom prodded. “Open it.”

  I sighed before ripping off the paper. It was a deep red shirt, embroidered with some beads and fabric flowers. There was no denying it was pretty. It even looked like one of the things I wished I could wear, if only I felt comfortable doing so.

  “Just try it on, Joclyn.” My mom danced around in her white kitchen shoes. How in the world could I say no to that?

  I dragged my feet all the way to the bathroom with the red shirt sticking out of the arm of the hoodie my hands were hiding in. I put on the shirt, cursing the fact that my mother could tell what size I was even through my purposely too big clothes. It was snug, but not too tight.

  I stared at myself in the mirror for a second, looking through the tunnel of dark hair. I looked so different in the shirt, almost pretty. Without thinking, I pulled my hair up into a pony tail, just to see what it would look like, but the mark stood out so vividly; its ugly shape stuck out right behind and below my right ear. I pulled my hair around the side my neck. The low twist covered it easily, but I still didn’t trust it. Part of me wished I could dress like this, but I could never tell my mother that.

  I looked in the mirror a second too long, trying to figure out a way to get out of this. Even if I said it was too small, my mom would insist I show her anyway. Best to get it over with. I sighed just a little bit before leaving the bathroom, knowing that Mette and my mom would fawn over me. I closed my eyes so that I wouldn’t have to see my mom dance around with excitement again. The door clicked open, and I stood there, eyes closed, waiting for it to come.

  “Oh, Joclyn,” my mom said, “it’s beautiful.” I didn’t need to have my eyes closed, I could hear the soles of her non-slip shoes squeak against the floor as she danced in joy.

  “Mom, don’t...” I pleaded, but I knew it was useless.

  “That color... with your hair... Oh, please wear it to dinner tonight, without that darn sweatshirt,” she added. I could feel her tug on the hoodie, but I hung on to it for dear life.

  “Mom. No.” My eyes snapped open in my attempt to retort, and I froze. Ryland stood right in front of me, a huge grin on his face. My jaw dropped as my heart went into overdrive.

  Ryland LaRue was the son of my mother’s boss. Ry was two years older than me and stood a good head taller. We had been friends since my mother first started this job when I was five, playing together in the kitchen and hiding on the grounds of the estate. Ryland would always be my very best friend, but lately, it was hard to see past his dark, curly hair, crystalline blue eyes and “private school Rugby muscles” without feeling like my heart was getting restarted. This heart-slamming was for a different reason though: he hadn’t seen me wear anything other than a hoodie since I hit puberty. I felt uncomfortable, and Ryland’s appreciative grin wasn’t helping matters much.

  Mette and my mother broke out into huge bouts of laughter at their little joke. The look of surprise on my face must have been hysterical. Rather than join along, as part of me wished to, I squeaked and moved to put my hoodie back on. I slid into it as quickly as I could without revealing my scar. I had kept it hidden from Ryland for this long, thanks to Band-Aids and carefully-placed hoods or hair; I didn’t need him seeing it now. It would only give him a reason to run away.

  “Ah, come on, Jos... It’s pretty,” Ryland pleaded.

  “No,” I spoke as sternly as I could, turning to repeat the word to my mother who was in stitches
with Mette against the confection mixer. My mother’s laughter stopped.

  “Joclyn, you have to wear it tonight,” she pleaded. “Your grandmother bought you a matching skirt.”

  “Skirt?” I gasped. There was no way they were getting me into a skirt. Although, I could tell by the look on my mom’s face that I was trapped. My birthday dinner was the only time of the year I saw my father’s parents. It would break their heart if I said no.

  “Ugh. Fine. Fine!” I snapped, ignoring my mother’s look of triumph before rounding on Ryland, one finger pointed into his face. “One word of this to anyone, even mentioning it to me, Ry, and I will kill you.”

  “Uh huh,” he laughed, his blue eyes rolling. “What are you going to do, Jos? Hide from me? It does look very pretty on you, you know.”

  “Ryland LaRue, so help me...”

  “Yeah, yeah, I got ya.” He smiled, grabbing my hand that still pointed in his face. “Come on. I’ll have her back in an hour, Mrs. Despain.”

  “Better make it two, Ryland. I don’t need her moping around while I try to get the chicken broiled.” My mother smiled so brightly that I could have almost guessed what was on her mind. More gifts.