Page 25 of Luna

The temperature, once comfortable for him, plunged to a frigid mix. The sudden change shocked Kole, even Celso drew Cindra into his body.

In a voice more animal than man, Aspen growled, “Palma is mine.”

Thank you for reading!

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If you enjoyed Kole and Luna’s book, please leave a book review. Also keep reading for a sample of Book 1 in the Kelvinian Warriors series, Cindra, a Cinderella fire elemental tale.

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Chapter Thirteen

CINDRA

Book 1, Kelvinian Warriors

Run or be ready todie.

Terror made Cindra’s heart pound. Overhead, a pale gray moon hung in the midnight black sky, making her more vulnerable to discovery. No time for caution, she plunged forward into a dark, rocky ravine. Her lungs burned and her too-thin legs quaked from exhaustion. At the scrape of boots on the crumbled asphalt, Cindra pressed her back against a jagged wall. Suddenly, a steamy hiss filled the air. The rock beneath her fingers burned a bright orange glow before liquefying under her touch. Entering the forbidden zone had been a mistake. But, there was no other way for her to release a fire burst without injuring her fellow indentured laborers. Even for a fire elemental, male or female, she was running too hot.

She had thought the journey worth the risk. What a fool. After the last sector patrol air ship had scanned the Nepherian territory border wall closest to Kelvinia’s icelands for intruders, she’d set off for the forbidden zone. Sure that she could return to the tunnel she’d made before anyone found her, she crawled under the barrier separating the two elemental nations. Scratches and cuts from the jagged rock covered her arms and legs. The wounds were reminders of what the brutal journey back to the mining camp would inflict upon her weakened body. The mine was a desolate place she had survived in since her eighth season.

Pumping her arms, she sprinted for cover. But every direction she ran, the spotlight mounted beneath the air ship tracked her movement. Footfalls closed in, one male or a thousand followed at a steady pace behind her. It was hard to distinguish an accurate number over her ragged breathing. She could hear branches cracking and breaking behind her, being trampled beneath a heavy weight. Whoever tracked her was big.

Expecting to find more rock and barren land, what she bypassed was the remains of a ruined city hidden within the Appalachian Mountain range. Cindra wrinkled her nose. The air held the pungent scent of years old decay and sulfur, as if the blood and remains had fused with the crumbling structures. Weather and forces of nature had carved a deep scar here, the Toxic War’s destruction like a searing brand on the toppled housing stacks and twisted metal beams. At the start of the war, many had tried to escape the nuclear blasts by hiding in the Appalachian Mountains. There had been no escape.

A thought occurred to her.

If she was in the forbidden zone, then no one should be following. So, who hunted her? Was it guards from the Nepherian patrol ship? Or, was it spies from one of the other three sectors? Her people shared a border with Kelvinia. The water elementals who lived there supplied water and ice to all the sectors. Nepherians had the responsibility of heating and lighting within all the sectors. Prevail’s wind elementals helped with the world’s energy supply and pollination. Earth elementals of Thornica nurtured the land that supplied most of the food all the sectors needed to survive.

Finally, she reached a vast clearing. The wind was soft here so likely it wasn’t one of the wind elementals pursuing her, but the trees still seemed to crackle and move like a mighty force headed her way. A feeling of dread knotted her stomach and then she heard a male’s voice.

“Female. Raise your hands so I can see them,” the male voice demanded.

An involuntary tremor snaked down her spine. She didn’t think it was the voice of one of her kind. What would this male do to her? God, she shouldn’t have left her sleeping pod. Rising panic filled her. A familiar tingling began in her palms. Glowing orange swirls started to form on her hands, an intricate pattern circling her fingers, wrists, and arms. Terrified, she lost control of her power for the briefest second and a fire ball ignited in front of her. Everything seemed to freeze. No one was supposed to know how much fire power she could command.