Ellora's Cavemen: Tales from the Temple III

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ELLORA’S CAVEMEN: TALES FROM THE TEMPLE III

An Excerpt From: WOLF’S LAW

© Copyright CHEYENNE MCCRAY, 2004.

Law frowned as he caught the woman tighter to him. Rage still burned within him at what the men had done to this small creature, and he desired only to kill both of the bastards. He would have hunted them to the ends of Dair if he hadn’t been concerned about the woman running through the dangerous forest alone.

Analeen, he had read in her thoughts. Her name is Analeen.

His frown turned into a scowl. What did he care what the woman’s name was? He had no interest in human women. He would simply return the wench to her village and be done with her.

Yet a deep, primal part of his being did not want to let go. Her scent of woman’s musk and wildflowers mingled with the smells of blood from her wounds, and dirt clinging to her skin and clothing. Her eyes were closed but he remembered their blue-green depths, and her spirit combined with fear in her gaze. He could not help but admire the way she had fought him, the way she never gave up even though she had been physically abused and terrified beyond reason of the wolf.

Of him.

Law held the woman against him with one powerful arm, and stroked a clump of matted hair from her face. He couldn’t stop himself. Even covered with dirt, dried blood crusting her wounds, her brown hair wild and filthy, and her clothing in shreds, she was quite simply the loveliest being he had ever seen.

His fingers left her hair and he trailed them down the slope of her delicate nose to her slightly parted full lips, and over her chin. Before he realized what he was doing, his fingers neared her beautiful bare breast, traveled up its slope and then rested on the hardening nipple.

A growl rose up in his throat and his cock went rigid against Analeen’s belly. Unbidden visions filled his mind. Of caressing every inch of her bare flesh. Of sucking her jensai red nipples, licking a path down her body, and tasting the heat of her juices between her thighs. Gods how tight she would be, her quim sheathing him as he fucked her hard and so very deep.

With a cry that neared a howl of frustration, Law jerked his hand away from her nipple as if Analeen’s body had scalded him. His need for her, his desire for this woman, was so intense that his body began to shake.

No. This woman was human. He would not take a human for a mate.

An Excerpt From: SCARLET SWEET

© Copyright ANYA BAST, 2004.

She wanted him badly, but the cost was too high. She needed to stay strong, her emotions unfettered. There was no way she could ever take this man to her bed and maintain the cold aloofness she needed to survive and be a leader to her people.

Cerian swallowed hard, masking as best she could the hammering of her heart, the heaviness of her breasts and the slickness coating her sex at the thought of him strong and lean between the sheets of her bed.

"Get off me, Rhys," she commanded evenly. "Your attentions are unwanted."

He slid a finger over the plump of her breast, up to trace her collarbone and came to a rest on her chin. He tipped her face to his. When he spoke, she could see the sharp points of his fangs flashing within his mouth. "Oh, I disagree, though you're a good liar."

There was an accent to his words, spoken in a thick, aroused voice. Welsh, she supposed. She knew enough about the Vampir to know he was old…very old. The Council had sent a little information on him before he'd arrived. He'd been Embraced in Wales sometime around 1100 AD Earth reckoning. Cerian was centuries old, but the Vampir was far older. Cerian wondered if he'd always exuded this confident sexuality, or if he'd honed it over all that time.

"I will have you, cariad." His voice was like velvet against her skin. "Once I've decided to seduce, I seduce." The dark threat hung in the air between them, pregnant with erotic possibility.

And arrogant presumption.

It was that last that really annoyed her. She brought her knee up and he twisted out of her way at the last possible moment.

She drew a shaky breath and turned on her heel. "If you'll excuse me, I have a date with a hot shower." She threw a pointed look at him. "Alone."

An Excerpt From: WRITERS UNBLOCKED

© Copyright DIANA HUNTER, 2004.

Affecting an air of nonchalance, Jack sauntered out into the living room where his wife was busy tidying up. Saturdays were housework days, and she had changed her weekday suit for jeans and a simple oxford shirt. All business, Jessica’s hair was pulled back, the red scrunchie a mismatch for her maroon button-down shirt rescued from the back of Jack’s closet. The oversized shirt gaped when she leaned over the low coffee table and Jack grinned when he caught an innocent glimpse of her white breasts hanging free from any confining bra. It was a sight he could look at all day.

Jess recognized that look in his eye right away. Putting her hands low on her hips, she swayed them seductively. “Hey there, big boy…wanna have some fun?”

Jack’s delighted laugh pealed through the room. How could he ever think such a little minx might give into the same dark fantasies that fueled his own soul?

His grab for her was rougher than he intended. With a small cry, she fell against him and in one of those split second decisions, he decided he would not apologize. Instead, he seized the moment, pressing his lips against her in a hard, passionate, possessive kiss.

Jessica’s head reeled. Jack had never been this forceful before. While her first instinct was to recoil, her second was to yield before the onslaught of his tongue. Confused, for a moment she hung suspended, off balance, attacked. When his hand grabbed her breast through the fabric of her shirt, she whimpered and her mouth surrendered without her consent. Through her parted lips, his tongue stabbed in to twine around hers, as if her mouth were something he owned.

An Excerpt From: LOOKING FORWARD

© Copyright MARY WINE, 2004.

The color on her face actually bled down her neck and onto her chest. Leah watched her breasts swell with just the idea of the man. She didn’t know him but there was a deep awareness of the man inside her head.

Of course he’d said he was empathic. Which made her imagine some very naughty possibilities. Leah giggled because she didn’t think she’d been considered “naughty” since she was five years old. But, well, the idea of sharing…intimate ideas through just her thoughts was…naughty.

It was such a tempting idea. Leah wandered away from the mirrors and back into the bedchamber as she battled her better judgment. Her entire life had been correct. Proper. Her few acts of boldness had always been kept tightly leashed inside her mind.

Now she’d met a man whom she couldn’t hide those thoughts from. Leah moved closer to the bed and ran a hand lightly over the covers. All she had to do was summon the man.

“Your thoughts have already done that, Sister Leah.”

An Excerpt From: RAPTOR’S PREY

© Copyright DELILAH DEVLIN, 2004.

I dreamt of him. My dark warrior.

He pulled me from a deep REM cycle with the force of his summons. Standing with my toes sinking into heat, I found myself on a ridge of shifting sand—red as Mars and hot as the fury of his gaze. And I was naked. Again.

Rays from an orange sun beat down on my skin. Even knowing he was angry, my stomach tightened and my breasts grew heavy with desire. His hard, golden-eyed gaze raked my body, pinning me like a rabbit between his namesake’s talons. And yet, I longed to thread my fingers through his long, dark hair and drag his mouth toward mine. He had taught me to crave the taste of his lips.

“I shouldn’t be dreaming,” I said, breathless with anticipation of what new sensual wonder we would explore.

“Are you?” His deep voice rumbled, and yet his lips didn’t move. He stood still as a pillar, naked as I was. Aroused.

“I must be. How else am I here with you?” Emboldened by the thought that within my dream I was free to explore my fantasy, I reached to touch his face. He didn’t move as I brushed his sun-warmed skin and feathered a light touch over his high cheekbones and sharply defined nose. My fingers paused at his mouth, and then I swept my thumb over his lower lip and pressed inside. The tip of his tongue stroked my finger and I gasped.

His expression didn’t change, and his gaze didn’t leave my face as though gauging my responses. The calculating gleam in his brown eyes gave me a moment’s pause.

“If this is a dream, then why don’t you give me what I seek?” he asked. “What harm would there be?”

An Excerpt From: VOYEURS: OVEREXPOSED

“Hi. I am a human.” Agate scrunched and then reschooled her features, affecting what she hoped was a flirtatious look of nonchalance, and tried again. This time using a breathy voice instead of her normal one. “Hello. I am a human.” She beat her chest and scowled fiercely. “Human, I be.”

No, that wasn’t it, either. She glared at her reflection in the mirror, took a deep breath, and tried it again in a much deeper voice. “Greetings. I am a human.”

An amused burst of laughter sounded from behind her as Cady, wife to the great Shikar Warrior Obsidian, glided into the room.

Glided? Cady Swann never glided. She marched everywhere she went. Agate was being fanciful again. It was from all those romance novels she smuggled down from the human world. They called to something soft and dreamy in her soul…and The Elder would have a fit if he knew about the stash she kept hidden in her room.

“You sound like a science fiction alien,” Cady snickered, handing her a bundle of clothing.

“I’m trying to perfect my human voice,” Agate defended, and immediately turned back to the mirror, practicing what she believed were human gestures and expressions.

“And you look like you’re constipated,” Cady pointed out. “Or drunk off your gourd. Look,” she turned Agate around to face her, “you don’t need to affect any kind of persona. Just be yourself and no one will ever guess that you’re not human.”

“But I don’t look like a human,” Agate insisted, looking into her friend’s Shikar-yellow eyes. Eyes that were the same vibrant color as her own.

Large, dark pupils surrounded by starburst irises in hues of gold, orange and yellow fire—this was the trademark characteristic of all Shikars. Except for those of the Traveler Caste. Travelers’ eyes were black as the shadows they walked in…but that was neither here nor there.

Agate would be wearing brown contacts for her trip up to the surface world, the human world. Her eyes would not be the trait to give her away tonight, so long as the contact lenses stayed put.

“You look just like a human with those contact lenses covering your pretty eyes.” Cady’s words echoed Agate’s thoughts. “And I should know. I was a human once,” she winked reassuringly.

Agate sighed and rolled her shoulders, trying to relieve some of the tension that had gathered during her ablutions. “I’m just nervous about tonight,” she said unnecessarily.

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