Heart's Desire

By Candice Raquel Lee

Anger flares and Love ignites....

A bag of gold to pick up a trinket from an old friend, that's what the wizard said, and it didn't sound like such a bad deal until Conraydin found out who his travelling companion was going to be. . . the woman he had assumed dead for the last five years. Anger flares and love ignites in this heartbreaking and magical short story about making your own destiny.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Candice Raquel Lee
• Release date: Mar 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310322457

Candice Raquel Lee

I was born in Brooklyn in one of the worst neighborhoods man has ever created. All other details are kind of fuzzy, thank God, except that at times I was happy there. I am mixed raced and mixed cultured. The primary culprits in my creation are Native American, Jewish, European and African-American. I think that is why I write mixed-up stories. I like to mix reality with fantasy, the sacred and the profane, the illuminating with the infuriating. I am also one of the last Romantics living. That is why I write stories about love (not lust.) I write about love of one soul for another. I write poetically and deeply. I write about longing and people who are pure of heart. I am primarily from a different time (somewhere around the Late Romantic period. They would have loved my stuff!) When I am not writing, I read classics and am trying to build a time machine, so I can go back home. P.S. I also have a sense of humor. P.S.S. I am also very appreciative. Thanks to all of you who enjoyed my books and took the time to rate or review or like me on Facebook. If you didn't, now's a great opportunity to do so.

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Copyright © 2015 Candice R. Lee

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Cover created by: Candice Raquel Lee

Table of Contents

Heart’s Desire

Dear Reader

Also by the Author

Heart’s Desire

It was dawn when Conraydin staggered into a back alley and dropped down to the warm embrace of a refuse pile. He was ready for a nap, a little dream of another time, another place, a dream of another self. He had almost captured oblivion, left life far behind, when he felt an ungentle tug. Conraydin didn’t mind being robbed--he didn’t mind much anymore--but being awakened when he had finally found oblivion was unforgivable. He stumbled to his feet ready for a fight, but she was smiling.

Conraydin, Evangel said, and the alley, the filth, and smoke of five charred years disappeared. The terrible white sword was still lashed to her hip. She was not like other women: her skin was not pale and full but dark and lean from fighting under the sun, battling in the heat with death. She turned, and her blood-red hair swirled as she walked away. He could not help but follow.

Everything in Conraydin warned that she was an illusion, drink induced or magic born. Yet, his heart would not allow him to stop hoping against hope that she was alive. She led him out of the alley into the silent morning. She crossed the threshold of a swirling maw of gray mist that hung across the road. It was a boundary into another world, another place to which he would not go except for her. The mist was cold as he entered it and hot as it deposited him in a green room with seven black windows and a single glorious bed made for an enchantress. She lay down before him on red furs and