I am happy to report that I’m making steady progress on the ol’ WIP. Today’s #1lineWed THEME of **HERO** helped. I was at the start of a new chapter yesterday morning. As is my SOP, I left a couple of notes giving me an idea of where I should start since I ended the previous chapter without a firm plan for what comes next. Also, the only snippet I had incorporating the theme is a total spoiler so I’m not sharin’ it. Just sayin’… Anyway, I also knew I needed to look in on Sinjen. And the following is what transpired. I’m leaving the set-up to your imaginations because I’m a big ol’ tease like that. Yuppers. I am.
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The sun beat down on him. Like a rabbit in a pot, he boiled inside his armor. He’d killed his horse, putting the poor beast out of its misery. The water skin he’d retrieved from his saddle was empty. And still the run stabbed his eyes with bright knives. Ahead, walls made of mudbrick shimmered, a mirage drawing him to his death. He was ready. He’d come to this forsaken land to sacrifice his life for the cause.

Dropping to his knees, he swayed. Voices washed over him. Then he was on his back looking up into that blinding sky as water trickled across his parched lips. If he never saw the sun again, it would be too soon.

“It appears we have a hero,” a deeply feminine voice said.

His body tensed in places it shouldn’t. Not if he was half-dead. Not if he remained true to his vows as a Templar.

“Yezzz, my queen,” a voice hissed. Nominally male, it was higher pitched than the queen’s.

“Prepare him.”

When he next opened his eyes, the room was blessedly dark, lit only by flickering torches. He lay naked upon a flat stone. He closed his eyes. He’d heard rumors of a witch, one who ruled a land with magic and terror. She was despised and revered. No one spoke her name aloud for fear of being discovered. Sahira. She who comes.

“Get up, boy, lest you die right there. And trust me, we don’t need another dead hero.”

He startled, the muscles in his abdomen curling until he was almost sitting. The commanding voice, speaking English with a slight accent, drifted from the shadows.

“Who’s there?”

“I am Mathias DeVrie.” A man only slightly shorter than him stepped into the uncertain torchlight. “And you are Kristian St. John.”

Sinjen. A woman’s voice. Throaty and ending on a breathy sigh. A voice filled with need. With desire. A woman not yet sated. A woman only he could—

Sinjen roared, railing against the darkness of his prison. He would not say her name. Not aloud, not where his captor could hear but in his heart, he shouted her name.

SADE!
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I will add that this is something of a flashback for Sinjen, recalling events from his past life that were touched on in SEASON OF THE WITCH. Also, this is very literally a rough draft as I wrote it yesterday and then copy/pasted to the blog to set things up for today. Ignore the typos, ‘kay? So, inquireing minds want to know… who is your favorite fictional hero? TV, movie, play, literature, romance novels–not that romance novels aren’t literature but like Robin Hood and James Bond aren’t…well…you get my drift. Anyway, off to more heroic adventures for our star-crossed lovers today. Later, gators.