NEW PREVIEW! Dragon of the Desert (The Khehemni Chronicles Book 1)

Happy new year, fantasy fans!

I’ve been writing away, getting some things together for new projects in the new year, and I’m excited to bring to you a preview today from Dragon of the Desert: The Khehemni Chronicles #1.

This book is the start of a new trilogy that occurs 1000 years prior to the Kingsmen Chronicles, and tells the story of Leith Alodwine, last King of Khehem, and all the events that caused Khehem’s ruin (and caused the Kingsmen Chronicles to begin!).

This excerpt is of Leith and Maya’s first meeting, and occurs near the start of the book. Maya is an Order of Alrahel assassin sent to watch Leith, currently Khehem’s Dhenir rather than King – and kill him if he gets out of hand.

Enjoy!

Jean

EXCERPT: DRAGON OF THE DESERT (The Khehemni Chronicles Book 1)

CHAPTER 4 – LEITH

Within the crystal pillars of his bedchamber, Leith faced off butt-ass naked with the assassin by the light of his silver filigreed lamps. A breath of night stirred the veils of his chamber as she circled the pillars in her shrouded grey Berounhim attire, watching him with pale jade eyes like a wolf in the darkness. Leith’s hands were at his sides; he was ready. But even from twenty paces away, he could feel the dark, pacing sensation within her wyrria – she was a Wolf of Khehem, born of his city and sent here to rip out his throat tonight.

But all she did was pace, watching him with her uncanny green eyes, pale like a specter yet so vivid they could have melted emeralds. Twin sickled jherra-knives graced her charcoal loa-leather gear, bound close to her slim, iron-wrought curvaceousness. Though swaddled in Berounhim silks and a weapons-harness absolutely bristling with blades, darts, and poison-phials, she was smaller than he. Almost delicately petite, as she passed the lanterns on the bower walls – all the better to get into dark alleys and whisk away just as quickly. 

Leith watched her gloved hands hover near her knives as she circled the pillars of his bed, evaluating him from all angles. Within the predator of her nature he felt hesitation, as if she wondered why he’d not yet thrown a bolt of lightning, blasting her exceptionally round, firm ass all the way to the Southern Desert.

Leith kept his arrogant yet sexy naked stance within his crystal pillars, not facing her as she circled, only moving his head to track her with his eyes. He didn’t actually need his eyes to follow her. For some reason, he could feel her like a growl in the darkness prickling along his entire body, lifting every hair on his skin – though not in a bad way. He realized a hard attraction had hit him for this unknown woman, though she’d not said or done anything yet but track him. 

“Come for me or don’t, woman. But don’t keep a man waiting all night.” Leith spoke at last, giving her a sexy eyebrow lift – on purpose.

“Raise your hands and blast me, Dhenir,” she challenged back, spreading her palms with a slight crinkle of those jade eyes, as if she was smirking beneath her face-wrap. “I’ve seen what you can do on the battlefield.”

“Tracking me into battle, Wolf of Khehem?” He chuckled, his lips quirking. “Like a camp-follower?”

“Watching from afar. Like the Wolf I am, Dragon of the Desert.” Her face sobered, those green eyes digging into him now. She wasn’t smiling anymore, giving him a fiercely deadly look – that he’d figured out the flavor of her wyrria. 

“Are you afraid to attack the Dragon, Wolf?” Leith smiled, feeling a hot tension stir inside him for a fuck or a fight, or maybe both.

“Are you afraid to challenge the Wolf, Dragon?” She growled back, a sexy, dark menace to her low alto voice that just flat did it for Leith. His veins were screaming with fire suddenly, his body hot with it. His heart hammered in his chest and his breath came deeper as he watched her. 

“Who are you?” Leith asked, truly wanting to know now. “Who sent you?”

“Perhaps I sent myself.” She spoke back, turning his wiles against him.

“No assassin plies their trade for empty gain.” Leith spoke quietly.

“What if my gain is your death?” She countered.

“If that were true, I have a feeling I’d be dead by now.” Leith spoke seriously. She had a curious power, he could feel. Something deadly that didn’t come with the regular Wolf-side of Khehem’s magics. Though she simmered deep inside with conflict, she held some extra ability he’d never felt before. Something he wasn’t about to step past the safety of his crystal pillars to face yet. 

Without seeing what she could do.

Leith had only one option; to provoke her. Raising his hands fast, he whirled into one of his classic battlefield maneuvers – a lithe motion as if scooping sand up from the desert floor to hurl at her. Anyone who had ever seen him fight knew it was a concentrated strike, summoning the earth’s tremendous friction from its ever-constant movements to make lightning. The maneuver worked as intended; the assassin had seen it before. Shock widened her jade-green eyes as her hands flashed up as she executed a counter-spin so fast Leith hardly tracked her. But as nothing left his hands – no wyrric power able to be used within the four obelisks of his bedchamber – something did leave hers.

Knives of darkness leapt from her fingertips, like she’d cast pinning-points at him. They were so fast, Leith only saw him in his memory as they tore through the wyrria-nullifying protection of the four crystal pillars around his bed. But those knives of void-shadow had been hurled with such determination that even the obelisks around Leith’s bed were not quite enough to stop them. With an instinctual twist, honed into him from decades fighting with blades, Leith slipped those daggers of night. But he didn’t slip them fast enough – one scoring a vicious rent across his chest even as those blades of dark wyrria flashed out inside the pillars.

Scoring a red line of pain right over his heart.

Breathing hard, Leith knew his eyes were wide as he turned back to face her. Stepping deeply back inside his protective barrier, his heart pounded as he saw her eyes – just as wide as his. She breathed hard through her charcoal shouf; he could see her breath puffing the thin silk in and out. He saw her glance flick to his chest, to the blood she’d drawn. Then he saw her gaze flick to the columns, realizing they were a wyrria-nullifying barrier. And then her pale jade eyes returned to him, firming with resolve.

She had tried to kill him and failed.

She wouldn’t fail again.

In a dead silence she rushed him, with the quickest flying leap through his barrier that Leith had ever seen, or practically didn’t see – kicking him down to his back upon the bed as she drew both cruelly-sickled jherra-knives at her belt. But he was already twisting her leg, flinging her down to the bed, those keenly-honed blades finding nothing but air as he tried to pin her with brute strength. But she was quick, her petite curves like rushing water beneath his hands as she rolled out, scoring behind with one blade so fast Leith had to roll backwards off the bed to avoid getting cut. 

Lunging at him in the space beside the bed now with determination in her eyes, she whipped her knives in almost-unseeable cuts, meant to disembowel him. Leith cammed her slices away with thrusts of his bare hands, though it took all his concentration to match her vicious speed. Rolling fast, swiping like a badger enraged, she came for him like a hurricane in the desert, Leith desperately countering her strikes until he was hot with sweat and hard breaths rather than thoughts of sex.

He wasn’t going to win this fight on speed, magic, or even brute strength. She was too fast; too lithe in her precise, impeccable strikes. As he saw her whip one hand to her harness, liberating a small glass phial of something burnt-orange, he slapped her hand away hard – sending the item flying across the room to dash on the floor near one wall. 

Too late, he realized the item had been a trick. His hard slap had put him off-balance and in that split-second, she swiped his feet out from under him and sent his ass crashing to the marble floor. Flashing atop him fast, she already had one sickled knife to his throat, pressing in at his artery. Leith had her other wrist pinned, his twist crushing her tendons and causing her to drop the second knife.

But only one blade was needed to kill a man.

She had him. As Leith heaved hard breaths, the assassin doing the same atop him as she held the cruel tip of her sickled blade pinned to his throat, ready to jab into his artery, Leith realized they were breathing in synch. As if some force of wyrria yoked them together, even though it was impossible within the pillars, they paused, breathing hard as their hearts pounded in a twinned rhythm.

Watching each other.

“Take it. It’s yours.” Leith spoke at last. He didn’t know if he offered her his life for the honor of besting him – or his heart, for this incredible sensation moving between them.

She blinked. Her straight dark brows narrowed, emotions cascading through her green eyes as she breathed with him. “A Werus et Khehem ne khannioc shri. Ankhi, lhem’kharnus. Ankhi, en lhentriat.”

Leith blinked. It was an ancient dialect of Old Khehemni she’d spoken in, a scholar’s tongue used only by the most learned. It impressed him that an assassin would know it, and his golden brows furrowed as he responded with the more modern translation. “The Wolf and Dragon can never be one. Always, they battle. Always, in opposition.”

Slowly, he released her wrist by their sides. Reaching up, he pulled her charcoal shouf down, baring a slender nose and high cheekbones, and a luscious, full mouth in a beautiful heart-shaped face. Sliding back her hood, he revealed thick twists of curls so black they shone blue in torchlight, bound back from her face in a heavy bun at the side of her neck. She was beautiful; stunning – a creature of such incredible comeliness that it made Leith’s heart howl in the night. 

“Who are you?” He whispered, undone as he stared at her.

“I’m no one, milord.” She spoke back in that luscious alto, her green eyes blinking, almost startled that he would want to know. “Just an urchin of the night.”

It was a phrase used in Khehem’s markets, to signify a child that had been abandoned at a young age, now fending for themselves in whatever way they could. Leith knew it well, and it brought to mind the face of the filthy little girl he’d saved from a life of poverty and probably prostitution this same night. In the assassin’s face, he saw that little girl, though they were not the same. Twenty-five or perhaps thirty, this woman had lived a life of hardship the girl had been saved from today. Leith saw that knowledge shining in the woman’s pale jade eyes as they watched each other, shadows of the night flickering all around as a cool desert breeze blew through the lamps. 

“You were raised in Khehem’s markets, yet you wear Berounhim attire,” Leith spoke, feeling the strange mood of the night surrounding them now, as if all of time had paused.

“I am both, and I am none,” she countered, her blade steady at his neck, though she watched him with a curious intensity now.

“You are lovely is what you are, all dark shadow and fierce light.” Leith breathed, reaching up to stroke his fingers over her long twists of dark hair, caressing back an errant curl from her face.

She shoved the tip of the knife up under his chin now; hard. Leith inhaled, tensing, though it was a bad angle for a cut. She’d moved the knife-point from his artery up to where it would hurt if he got handsy but wouldn’t kill him. Carefully, Leith pulled his hands off her, raising them palm-open though he still lay on the floor naked, her straddling him. He was thoroughly aroused at the situation now and with a haughty eyebrow lift, she let him know she could feel it. 

“Why do the Order of Alrahel want Khehem to fall?” She spoke suddenly, her green eyes intense.

“Fall?” Leith blinked, the turn of conversation taking him by surprise. “Who says the Order want Khehem thrown down?”

“They want you dead.” The assassin responded pragmatically. “If they want you dead, they want Khehem to fall.”

Leith’s lips closed as he watched her, his golden brows furrowing. She wasn’t wrong. With his father the King no longer able to wield wyrria and his aunt Jennira sworn to the Order and wearing their manacles, there was no one that could hold the city against the Ghreccan threat, other than Leith. His mother was a formidable storm-funnel of a warrior, and his daughter was a lioness, but they didn’t have the furious abilities Leith held. If this new player, this God-Queen of Ghrec sent mages, Khehem would fall without him. 

Lowering his hands, Leith slowly pushed up to sitting and the assassin let him, sliding off his naked body and coming to crouch beside him on the balls of her feet. She made eye contact, then slid her knife back into its sheath on her harness. Taking up the second knife from the marble floor, Leith offered it hilt-first and she took it. They paused, regarding each other in a sudden moment – as Leith realized the assassin loved her city more than she loved the Order.

“Khehem will never fall.” Leith spoke quietly. “Not as long as I stand before its walls.”

Something shone in her eyes, then; some fierce readiness Leith had known all his life. It was a look of battle, a look that was unapologetic in its ferocity, and he suddenly knew that like him, there was nothing this woman wouldn’t do for the city of her birth. In some ways, Khehem was rotten, and in some ways it was a treasure, but what it was, was their home – hers and his.

And like him, there was nothing she wouldn’t do to protect it.

“The Order will have my head if I do not follow you, milord.” She spoke at last.

“Follow me then,” Leith responded with a quirk of his lips. “I’m sure I wouldn’t mind.”

“And when they ask for your head?” She countered with a lift of one dark eyebrow.

“Tell them it’s unavailable.”

“Unavailable.” Her jade eyes glowed with humor suddenly as she tried to suppress a smile and failed. It made her radiant, and Leith felt his heart smash into smithereens. But he didn’t let it show, pushing to standing as she rose. 

She was tiny. The top of her head barely reached the line she’d scored across his heart as they stood close. Leith had an irrational urge to protect her suddenly, as if with her petite stature came delicacy. But he knew the incredible strength in that body now. He knew the darkness that could flow from her fingertips – something he’d never seen nor even heard of in all his study of fight-magics.

“Tell me your name,” he breathed, gazing down at her. Though everything inside him roared at him to take her in his arms, he knew it was folly and left his hands at his sides.

“My name is Maya,” she spoke, watching him. “Maya al’Khalir.”

“Maya.” Knowledge of her name’s meaning curled his lips wryly. “It means illusion, in Old Khehemni.”

“Close your eyes and I will vanish, milord.” She breathed.

“Never.” Leith did move then. Reaching out, he corralled her with his hands; feeling her hard, strong muscles beneath his palms as he held her by the waist. She let him, falling into him gently; molding to his naked body. Sliding a hand up, he cupped the nape of her neck beneath her hair, holding her as she watched him. Slowly, he massaged his fingers into her nape and she sighed, closing her eyes as her head tilted back.

Surrender. She surrendered to him as she closed her eyes, and Leith felt something in her soften. Like wind in the night, a cool scent wafted from her skin with the curling midnight breeze. Leith found himself intoxicated by it, even as it made him heat. Bending, he did what his instinct told him to do – leaving the softest kiss upon her lips. Even as his eyes closed, she kissed him back, the barest brush of lips and tongues. And then he felt her twist out of his hands. When he opened his eyes, she was gone – vanished by her magics back to the night.

A soft smile curled Leith’s lips as his gaze took in his empty room. 

“Follow me, then. And see where I go, Maya al’Khalir.”

Turning, Leith moved around his room – blowing all the lanterns out to darkness.

Copyright Jean Lowe Carlson 2020. All rights reserved. No portion of this post may be reproduced without the author’s written permission.