His Fire Maiden - Michelle M. Pillow Page 0,2

will not interfere. Someday you will be a great captain, heir to my fortune and to my position on this base should you choose that path. But, blood is thicker than military ranking. Promise me, when Josselyn comes, you will obey my wishes and not lift a finger to stop what she chooses to do. You will let events play out as they are meant to regardless of the cost.”

“I don’t understand,” Violette protested, puzzled. Her father lifted his knife and sliced through his arm. Without giving her a choice, he lunged forward and grabbed her, placing her cut to his to bind the wounds together. Their blood mingled on her skin, and she felt dizzy. The acrid odor seemed all at once overwhelming and comforting.

“Your blood has made the oath for you. The scar you are left with will remind you of the promise, but I would have you say the words. Say you promise. You will not ask about Josselyn again. You will not speak of my history unless I speak of her first. And, when the time comes, if I ask you to do something, to help her, you will do what I say without question and without hesitance. Do you understand me? Say you promise.”

“I promise.” Violette nodded, and her father released her arm.

“Good girl. Good.” He suddenly seemed despondent. The general stood for a long moment, staring at his wound. “I am sorry you looked at the box, Violette, thus making this necessary. I wished for you never to have known.”

She backed away from him, wanting nothing more than to run to the furthest corner of the military base. There was no escaping the enclosed building beneath the moving white sands, but she knew every secret hiding spot, every tight corner.

Her father turned from her and lifted a decanter to pour himself a drink. “Before you go to your virtual flying lesson see the medic and have your cut attended to, but leave the scar. I will not have you forgetting your promise.”

Chapter 2

Imperial Palace of the Zhang Dynasty, Planet of Lintian, Many years later…

“Holy space balls,” Rick Hayes swore as he reached forward to poke his finger into the transparent elderly woman floating next to him. The spirit turned and arched her brow in annoyance. When she moved away from him, dark hair streaked with white lifted around her head unhampered by gravity, and her long sleeves drifted in the breeze.

Dev tried not to let his grimace show. It appeared the Imperial Palace was infested with ancestral spirits. Actual ghosts were rare occurrences. In fact, many cultures didn’t believe they even existed. He’d seen several milling about though he pretended not to since no one else had indicated they knew the apparitions were there…until Rick’s run in with this mysterious elemental lady.

Blast it all!

Dev had been on enough high skies adventures to know things generally did not end well when Rick became curious. The pilot’s big mouth was sure to drop them into trouble again, and it would be Dev’s duty to make sure he pulled them out of it. He owed Rick his life. If Captain Samantha’s crew hadn’t saved him and made him part of their family, he’d be nothing but a crispy memory told by a Data Moon Base Brimstoneman.

Rarely had he felt such desperation and fear, as he had the day he was almost sacrificed. Bad wiring had compromised Dev’s vessel, and his shields had given out during entry into Data Moon Base’s atmosphere. The local zealots saw the flaming ball of his ship zipping to the ground near their Earth Settlement and naturally assumed it was a special delivery from the devil.

Yeah, Dev thought sarcastically, because what would be more likely? The legendary devil cared enough to attack a fanatical orb of a dust ball world, or a transporter ship had malfunctioned and had to make an emergency landing?

Luckily, Dev’s Bevlon blood had kept him from burning up during reentry. Not so fortunately, that same blood had also almost gotten him skinned and set on fire. In his nightmares he could still hear a young boy’s hateful chanting, “Into the fire! Into the flame! Burn him now and feel no shame!”

Dev knew how he appeared to many humanoid cultures. One look and they wanted him dead, all because he had been born Salebinaben Johobik en Dehauberkelsain en Thoraxian en Yyrtolzx Devekin. His father had been full-blooded Bevlon, a demonic-like race in appearance. His mother had been human. The fruition