Fire's Touch (The Enlightened Species Book Three) by Wendy S. Hales Read Free Book Online Page A

crushing her. At five foot ten, she could look him in the eye wearing six-inch heels. Maybe he’d buy her a pair. Not that she couldn’t afford them herself.
    “Hey Jack, isn’t she an Aquatie?” Stacey tossed the magazine, forcing Conlon to catch it or be slapped in the face with it. The center unfolded to show a naked female in a sexy pose.
    Jack plucked in out of his hand. “Sure is. The photographer has airbrushed her legs to appear shorter, though.” Jack whistled softly through his teeth, appreciating the female image. Was Stacey attracted to females? He wasn’t getting that vibe from her at all, particularly when she quirked her brow at him.
    Well, two could play at that game. Conlon took the magazine and gave the female centerfold a hard glance. “She’s not bad in bed.” He handed the skin mag to the guards across the isle.
    Jack asked. “You know that female?” Conlon shrugged. In truth, he did, but he’d lied when he said she wasn’t bad in bed. The Aquatie had been amazing in bed.
    Mattie came back out and noticed Stacey’s pissed-off expression. “You want me to slam this for you?”
    Stacey glared at him past Mattie. “ Please.” There was nothing polite about her tone. Mattie slammed the door and plopped back into her seat.

Chapter Five
     
    Cast out of her colony, Cassie had spent ten years guarding the chortals of Easter Island for the SOSC and coming to terms with her shattered life. Then she’d gone to work for a private security firm. When the SOSC call went out for volunteers after the breeding-lab rescues, the alternative to her bodyguard assignment for a popular, self-indulgent musician who got handsie when he drank too much had Cassie rushing to sign up.
    The memory of Stacey’s terrified expression when she walked into the Hospe within minutes of being rescued would haunt Cassie for the rest of her life. Cassie had felt a connection to Stacey immediately. They both had been ripped from seemingly pampered and protected lives and set adrift into the unknown. Stacey’s story made Cassie’s pale in comparison and brought Cassie to a new perspective in her life. No matter how vehemently Stacey denied it, Cassie knew Stacey cared about her and considered her a friend.
    No doubt that intense flare of attraction between Conlon and Stacey meant they were bloodmates. Now that would be an interesting combination. In the nearly six hundred years she’d known Conlon, she’d heard him talk maybe a dozen times. A silent, take-no-shit kind of guy might just work with Stacey’s outspoken, take-no-shit, bratty personality.
    Seeing Mattie brought up a lot of stifled and painful memories. Stubbornness was the only trait shared by Mattie and their mother, Queen Della. Their colony had been one of the longest holdouts in joining the Symbiosis of Species Council. Her mother hadn’t trusted the motives of the historically war-hungry Volaticus and Aquatie species. Their colony inhabited the underground from Persia to Greece. Cassie’s forefathers had born witness to the fall of Atlantis and the destruction that followed. Thousands of their colony’s Tellus were killed in the battle between the Aquatie and Volaticus. They were collateral damage from a war that had nothing to do with them
    It wasn’t until thousands of years later that the Tellus species had enlightened, but the stories of the war had been passed down from generation to generation. Cassie’s great grandfather had groomed her mother for the throne with lessons that instilled a healthy dose of prejudice.
    The only true inter-species friendship her mother had developed prior to the SOSC had been with Girsu and Nippur Einar, Conlon’s parents, whose home sat above their royal castle. Nippur and his warrior sons had protected many of her colony’s members from human discovery and/or death. One time, Cassie and Mattie had been sparring on the surface when a tribe of humans had come across them. Unable to avoid the conflict, Mattie and