White Hot Holidays 20: Sealed With A Wish

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  Sealed With a Wish

  ISBN # 1-4199-0473-6

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Sealed With a Wish Copyright© 2005 Lora Leigh

  Edited by Sue-Ellen Gower.

  Cover design by Syneca. Photography by Dennis Roliff.

  Electronic book Publication: December 2005

  This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

  Warning:

  The following material contains graphic sexual content meant for mature readers. This story has been rated E–rotic by a minimum of three independent reviewers.

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing offers three levels of Romantica™ reading entertainment: S (S-ensuous), E (E-rotic), and X (X-treme).

  S-ensuous love scenes are explicit and leave nothing to the imagination.

  E-rotic love scenes are explicit, leave nothing to the imagination, and are high in volume per the overall word count. In addition, some E-rated titles might contain fantasy material that some readers find objectionable, such as bondage, submission, same sex encounters, forced seductions, and so forth. E-rated titles are the most graphic titles we carry; it is common, for instance, for an author to use words such as “fucking”, “cock”, “pussy”, and such within their work of literature.

  X-treme titles differ from E-rated titles only in plot premise and storyline execution. Unlike E-rated titles, stories designated with the letter X tend to contain controversial subject matter not for the faint of heart.

  SEALED WITH A WISH

  Lora Leigh

  To my readers and the Ladies of my forum.

  May all your Christmas wishes come true.

  Prologue

  “If you could have anything you wish for, Cara, what would it be? Riches and power, the world at your feet. Whisper it to me, and it would be yours for this service you have given unto my people.”

  The voice whispered through Cara Montgomery’s dream. She felt the warmth that surrounded her, a healing, mending warmth that eased the vicious pain tearing at her, brought comfort, peace and filled her with hunger.

  “Come, Cara. Whisper to me this wish. I would give you whatever would be your greatest desire.”

  She twisted against the sheets, her bruised body protesting the movement as she searched for a way to draw closer, to fill her senses with the sound. It was deep, rasping over her like dark velvet, pulling to the surface of her subconscious every sexually erotic act she had ever imagined. It was a caress in and of itself, stroking over her from head to toe, pulling her from the darkness that held her as she fought to draw closer. Just a little closer and she would have it, that greatest dream. Something to call her own.

  A voice shouldn’t pull a woman’s darkest desires from her deepest imaginings. It was painful, saddening. Especially for Cara Montgomery who had never known anyone to call her own. An orphan from birth, raised amid the cold disinterest and mercenary homes her foster families had provided. She had learned to hide, physically and mentally, even from herself. She couldn’t afford to wish, because she couldn’t bear the loss.

  “Cara.” Sensuality laced the tone. It was rich with amusement, with warmth. It was so gentle it awoke the sleeping sensualist inside her and made her scream out in horror at the barren landscape of her life.

  Cara squirmed to get closer, fought to fill the emptiness with this warmth, this voice, only to whimper in pain.

  The pain brought the memories. The child. It flashed before her again, the little boy, so small, laughter giggling from his cherub lips as he stepped in front of the car. The car was going too fast. The driver had to have seen the child, but it wasn’t slowing down. It wasn’t swerving.

  “Move!” Her scream was lost within her own terror.

  She raced from the curb, knowing she couldn’t make it in time, there was no way she could make it. The car was going too fast. Her heart was racing, her muscles straining as she pushed herself, stretched her legs, screaming in fury as her arm hooked around the frail little body and she threw him forward.

  But she hadn’t escaped unscathed. The breath knocked from her body as she was thrown to the pavement as the child’s screams had her battling the darkness threatening to cover her. She could feel her own blood, shattered bones, and the certainty that if she died, there would be no one to miss the woman she was.

  Weak, disoriented, she had tried to get closer to the little boy, to pull him to her, to assure him everything was okay. But just as quickly he was gone. People moved around her, rushed, anxious voices. But where was the child? Was it safe?

  “The child is safe, Cara,” the voice whispered. “So brave, so gentle. Sweet Cara. Whisper to me your wish, allow me to repay you for your strength and your bravery.”

  “Find the baby.” She could ignore the pain, she fought the more primal needs rising inside her, the demand that she wish for herself. Just once, for herself. Just a touch, a single touch.

  “The child lives, Cara. Come, sweet one, surely there is something you wish for the pain you have endured? I will give you whatever you request.”

  Touch her. That was her request. Just one touch, one kiss, one moment in time to call her own. But she had learned long ago, time and time again, that some things were not meant to be hers.

  “Find the baby.” Someone had to find the child. Why else would she throw herself in front of a car, risk her own life in such a manner?

  A sigh whispered over her brow. “I will find your heart’s desire, little one. I will find it, and by all that I hold dear, I swear that it will be yours…”

  Hers.

  The voice. The gentleness within. The promise of passion.

  That could never be hers.

  “Find the baby,” she whispered tearfully instead. “Save the baby…”

  Because she couldn’t whisper her true wish. Her deepest desire. In that moment she knew the only thing she wanted, even more than life, was to be held in this man’s arms. Always.

  Kheelan Mattero stared down at the young woman, her cheek dark with the livid bruises that discolored it, her eyes swollen. Wayward strands of short black hair, so soft it put First Earth’s silk to shame, flowed around her face in tangled strands before falling barely to her shoulders in a waterfall of midnight color.

  She was beautiful. Delicate and small, unlike the warrior women of First Earth, but all the more beautiful for it. Like the pixies Jhemar had told him about. Kheelan believed the stories to be nonsense until he came here to this primitive hospital to assess the injuries of the young woman who had saved his ward.

  Jhemar had slipped from the prince’s safe house, determined to find adventure within the crowd of children who had gathered in the park across from the house. His Highness had made a mistake in choosing such a locale to hide his family within. Jhemar craved adventure, excitement. He was a warrior in a child’s body.

  The vehicle that had nearly crushed his little body in the hit and run had, of course, been driven by one of their enemies. Kheelan had taken great pleasure in the death of the coward who would kill a child. Who had nearly killed the glowing life and spirit of this brave young woman.

  He touched her brow, sending the healing heat of a warrior’s touch to ease her pain and heal the potentially fatal wounds. Without true healing,
she would not live past this night, and that he could not have.

  When he finished, he brushed his fingers through her hair one last time. Drawing back, he frowned down at her. He had felt her heart’s desire for the briefest moment. She was deserving of whatever she wished, and the prince would gladly have it bestowed it to her. Yet, her only concern had been for Jhemar. For the child she had fought to save.

  His lips quirked as he trailed the backs of his fingers down the other side of her face, unbruised, unblemished. Perfect satin and silk, it warmed his fingertips, drew him. Made him wont to linger.

  He sighed deeply as he drew back from her.

  “I will gift you, precious one, one way or the other, for the life of my ward. Had I been close neither of you would have suffered so.”

  Jhemar would forever be scarred by his actions after slipping from the house. He had been frantic when he called Kheelan, near hysterical as he cried over the pixie who had surely been killed saving him. His own pixie, he had wailed, and now she was gone forever.

  But she wasn’t and he would see to it that whatever this precious pixie wished, would be laid at her feet.

  “Soon, precious,” he whispered again. “Think on your payment for such a selfless act. For soon I will know it, and that payment shall be yours.”

  Her lashes fluttered. For a moment they opened and shock coursed through his veins. Eyes the color of a summer rain. The deep blooming violet of the mountain storms that filled the land of First Earth with its fertile, life-giving moisture. A color that had not been known to the Tarrans for millennia and came even more rarely to those of this Earth as well.

  She stared back at him, bemused, certain she dreamed. He could feel that certainty whipping through her with a touch of remorse. And amazingly, with a surfeit of arousal. On the heels of the heat in her eyes whipping around him, his gaze fell in amazement to the binding bands that circled his left wrist. They heated. Glowed. The gold bands, one thick, one more slender, were for one purpose only—the identification of his true mate. This woman, brave, courageous, and so very delicate, was his true mate.

  To seal the bond only one requirement was left. Her wish to seal him to her forever. To bind her heart, her soul, and her beautiful body to his own, the words must pass her lips, and the desire must fill her soul. And only her deepest most heartfelt wish would bind her to him.

  Chapter One

  The club was hopping and the golden sex god was back.

  Cara Montgomery watched him enter, decked out in black leather pants that worshipped powerful legs and muscular thighs and lovingly cupped an impressive bulge between them. They rode low on his hips, emphasizing the masculine stride that wasn’t a swagger but should have been.

  He was head and shoulders above most of the men at the club. He had to be at least six feet five and every inch of his body was proportional to his height. Now, if that bulge matched…

  Her face flamed as she jerked her eyes from him, refusing to track the rest of his body. It was forever imprinted in her mind’s eye though. The black silk shirt that covered his wide shoulders, emphasized the golden blond hair pulled back from a sculpted masculine face and tied at his nape. She rarely liked blond men, especially men so tall, powerful and confident.

  He could have any woman he wanted, but she had yet to see him leave the club with one. He arrived alone, he always left alone. And he always spoke to her. Smiled at her. Made her wet and ready to come. He never failed to rouse a hunger and a heat inside her that grew deeper, stronger, each time she saw him. And she saw him often. Too often.

  And she felt him. She knew the minute he headed toward her, everyone at the table went silent. The girls she worked with at the insurance office, their eyes were wide, their lips open, gasping for air like damned fish.

  But she could feel him. The closer he came, the warmer she got. Her womb tightened, her sex flooded with moisture and she could feel her nipples hardening, growing hot, pressing against the light chemise she wore.

  “Cara.” His deep voice was a weapon, one she couldn’t defend herself again. God help her if he ever decided to really turn the charm on her.

  Ignoring the lusty sighs of the women around her, she turned her head, gazing up…oh Lord, that bulge…up, until she met the blue-gray depths of his eyes.

  “Kheelan.” His name slipped past her lips, drying them out, sending a flush of need whipping through her body.

  Cara felt the flush that washed over her face then through her bloodstream. It wasn’t fair that a man should look so sexy, so tempting. Surely he had some kind of horrible habit. Bad breath? With a mouth like that she doubted it. Sensual lips, perfect white teeth. He had to be a lousy lover.

  He smiled then, a slow, wicked curve of his lips that forced her to breathe in deep to keep from panting like the women around her.

  “You are looking especially lovely tonight.” He bent, balancing his weight on bent knees between her chair and her best friend’s.

  “You’re looking pretty good yourself.” Yeah. Right. He looked good enough to make a meal out of. For a couple of years. Yeah, she could do without food for a steady diet of Kheelan.

  His head tilted in acknowledgement of the compliment.

  “I had hoped to see you tonight,” he murmured, the sound barely carrying past her own ears as one long finger stroked around the dip of the chemise material at her back.

  Oh shit. He was touching her?

  “You did?” She blinked back at him. “Why?”

  The twitters of nervous laughter around her reminded her that she wasn’t alone with Kheelan. That every word, every look would be dissected later. This was what she got for having friends.

  He smiled again. That crooked little curve of his lips that made her want to eat him right up.

  “I missed you.” His finger was drawing designs on her upper back that were driving her crazy.

  “I was out of town.” She ducked her head, wishing her hair were longer, to hide the guilt on her face. Wishing she could lie to him, to her friends.

  She was supposed to give up her insane search, but she couldn’t. Her accident the year before hadn’t been a mistake, it hadn’t been a figment of her imagination. There had been a child. She would not have rushed in front of a speeding, oncoming vehicle for the hell of it.

  “Again?” His fingers paused on her back before resuming the caress. “Your boss sends you out of town too often.”

  “Uh yeah. She’s a real slave driver.” Cara ignored the disgusted snorts that came from her friends.

  What the hell did he think he was doing? Didn’t he know the questions she was going to have to answer if he didn’t stop this insanity. Teasing lonely spinsters wasn’t very nice of him, anyway. Especially lonely, virginal spinsters.

  “Perhaps I should discuss this with her,” he suggested teasingly. “You need time to play, pretty Cara. You cannot play here with me if you are out of town.”

  The sudden silence was nothing compared to the shock that sizzled through her system.

  “Excuse me?” She nearly choked.

  “I miss you when you are not here.” His blue eyes twinkled. “How am I to have fun if you are not here?”

  Cara licked her lips nervously. Okay now, this was getting out of hand.

  “I’m sure you have plenty of other friends, Kheelan.” She kept her voice gentle, despite the certainty that he was playing with her now. “I doubt you’ve even missed me.”

  He was tired of playing games with this woman, with his true mate. Kheelan narrowed his eyes on the delicate little beauty, and fought to hide his determination to have her in his bed, behind the fall of his lashes.

  She was stubborn, this Cara. For a year he had tempted her, come to her dreams and teased her with his touch, and for a year she had denied him. She did not come to him, but rather made him seek her out, made him all but go to his knees to plead for her attention.

  A woman of First Earth would have never done such a thing. They were certain of their ab
ility to draw their true mate, and made no excuses for their sexual natures. They tempted their warriors, drew them, used their exquisitely honed bodies to ensure the mating held firm. As with any bonding, neglect could weaken the binding bands and leave a couple forever distant, unable to enter each other’s souls. It could literally be the death of a warrior or a warrioress.

  “I have few friends, Cara.” This was no more than the truth, a warrior made few friends out of necessity. The lands of First Earth were still wide-open, and other than small sections, unpopulated. A warrior’s travels could take years, and unless he was mated, such travels were made alone.

  Suspicion glittered in her eyes then. She was an intelligent little thing, his Cara. She took no one at face value though, trusted no one, loved no one. From his investigation of her, other than a few friends, she had been alone most of her life.

  What made her wish such an existence?

  “Then go find your other friends, Kheelan.” Her voice was gentle, her eyes, though suspicious, were kind.

  “Oh Cara…”

  “She’s lost her mind…”

  “Where’s the straightjacket, she needs to be committed.”

  He watched the frown that flitted over her face at her friends’ muttered comments, as well as the heat that intensified in her face. And such an intriguing little face. Like a curious little cat, especially when those unusual eyes narrowed on him and she pushed her chair back.

  Ahh, success.

  Kheelan straightened, staring down at her as she rose to her feet and grabbed his hand.

  “Come here.”

  That did not sound like an invitation to the nearest bed. Her voice snapped with ire as she tugged at his hand, leading him through the club at what he was certain she thought was a quick pace. It was a leisurely stroll for his much longer legs.