Talios

By Taige Crenshaw and Aliyah Burke

I am of war and have no home that I call my own. Destruction was my closest bedfellow until I was given to a goddess to pay my penance. Now set free I am adrift with my nomadic ways. Home for me is just a place to rest until I move on to another. I know I do not deserve a place or anyone to call mine. Yet I cannot resist her.

Candace Jermaine is everything I long for but cannot dare to expect for my own. She is a woman whose heart is so big that it shines from her with a sultry innocence that I find intoxicating. A scientist who is so dedicated to her work that she shuts all else out. Including me. I question if this is but another test.

Another form of penance for all the destructiveness I wrought... but I have found I do not care. She is in my blood. Candace is the other half of my soul. Something I never expected to find. Yet I wonder can I, a god who is newly free of the bonds of my past, find a future with a woman who shakes me to my very core. I need Candace more than I ever expected that I would. My need for her goes outside the bounds of her humanity. I want her to join me in forever and beyond.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Totally Bound Publishing
• Release date: Dec 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9780857158284

Taige Crenshaw

USA Today Bestselling Author Taige Crenshaw has been enthralled with the written word from the time she picked up her first book. It wasn't long before she started to make up her own tales of romance. Her novels are set in the modern day between people who know what they want and how to get it. Taige also sets her stories in the future with vast universes between beautiful, strange and unique beings with lots of spice and sensuality added to her work. Always hard at work creating new and exciting places Taige can be found curled up with a hot novel with exciting characters when she is not creating her own. Join her in the fun and frolic, with interesting people and far reaches of the world in her novels.

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A Total-E-Bound Publication

www.total-e-bound.com

Talios

ISBN #978-0-85715-828-4

©Copyright Taige Crenshaw and Aliyah Burke 2011

Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright December 2011

Edited by Rebecca Hill

Total-E-Bound Publishing

This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Total-E-Bound Publishing.

Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Total-E-Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.

The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.

Published in 2011 by Total-E-Bound Publishing, Think Tank, Ruston Way, Lincoln, LN6 7FL, United Kingdom.

Warning:

This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has a heat rating of Total-e-burning and a sexometer of 2.

This story contains 76 pages, additionally there is also free excerpts at the end of the book containing 16 pages.

Kemet Uncovered

TALIOS

Taige Crenshaw and Aliyah Burke

Book one in the Kemet Uncovered Series

I am of war and have no home that I call my own. Destruction was my closest bedfellow until I was given to a goddess to pay my penance. Now set free I am adrift with my nomadic ways. Home for me is just a place to rest until I move on to another. I know I do not deserve a place or anyone to call mine. Yet I cannot resist her.

Candace Jermaine is everything I long for but cannot dare to expect for my own. She is a woman whose heart is so big that it shines from her with a sultry innocence that I find intoxicating. A scientist who is so dedicated to her work that she shuts all else out. Including me. I question if this is but another test.

Another form of penance for all the destructiveness I wrought... but I have found I do not care. She is in my blood. Candace is the other half of my soul. Something I never expected to find. Yet I wonder can I, a god who is newly free of the bonds of my past, find a future with a woman who shakes me to my very core. I need Candace more than I ever expected that I would. My need for her goes outside the bounds of her humanity. I want her to join me in forever and beyond.

Talios

Taige Crenshaw’s Dedication

To my sister who is like my second mother, thanks for believing in me and for that first book that opened the world of adventure, romance, and my imagination.

Aliyah Burke’s Dedication

To the teachers who taught me to love mythology, thank you!

Trademarks Acknowledgement

The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

Formica: company

MD-11 Airliner: company

Infiniti QX 56: company

Jell-O: company

Ne-Yo: company

Navigator: company

Prologue

He remained standing, as still as the mountain, whilst the rain cascaded down over his naked form. Freedom. Freedom! The word almost exploded out of him, but he thrust it back, behind gleaming white teeth—teeth that had begun to lengthen.

His skin tingled where the fresh drops of rain hit. He effortlessly rolled his massive shoulders as the feeling spread throughout his body. Seconds ticked by as the forest near him slowly faded into silence.

All the animals took to their dens, nests and other places of protection. The smell in the air indicated predator. Even those that were normally the hunters seemed to shrink into the background, not wishing to gain the attention of the creature whose scent filled the air.

Freedom.

Freedom!

Freedom! What started out as a low shout ended on a roar. A sound that vibrated louder than the thunder and reached throughout the forest and surrounding fields.

He began to jog towards the sanctuary of the woods. A thick pelt replaced the dark skin of his body. His face elongated as whiskers sprouted around his nose. The sharp, acrid smell of dirt, rain and animals was enhanced as his body began to experience its change.

Bone and muscle contorted and reformed themselves. Hands and feet turned into massive paws. Fingernails were reborn as five inches of deadly claws that could peel skin away from a body with surgical precision. He weighed over a thousand pounds—all of it was pure, toned muscle. His jaws could easily snap the backbone or crush the skull of a large creature.

As birds flocked into the skies, four padded paws moved him from the field and into the forest.

The creature was massive, standing over five feet at the shoulder and more than twelve feet in length. His coat was a deep, burnished gold with teak-coloured flecks in it and around his neck grew a thick mane the colour of a moonless night.

Despite his size, the creature moved silently deep into the woods, oblivious to the animals that desperately tried to hide from him. He knew they were there, but he didn’t care. His goal was strictly to enjoy his new-found freedom.

It had been many, many years since he had felt this way. Before, he had always had a tie, a bond he couldn’t break. A mistress to return to and serve. But not anymore—today he was free. The only person he had to answer to now was himself.

Deep coughs of contentment left his throat as he headed farther into the woods. As his immense and powerful muscles carried him smoothly over fallen trees and rock outcroppings, he released another uninhibited cry.

Before it could fade from the air, he balanced easily on a dead and fallen tree. He surveyed the land around him, easily seeing through the fog left behind by the rain, all senses sharp and honed. Fear from the multitude of forest dwellers permeated the air. It was a scent he understood.

He was a predator they had never seen before—one who, by all rights, should be extinct. For not only was he dangerous to them in human form, but his other form carried with it a threat greater even than the human one. His other shape was a cave lion, colossal and deadly.

Putting his head back, he roared, then jumped over the log and ran. The wind rushed by him as he raced through the forest and beyond. Time lost all meaning as he moved on and on.

Day merged into night, then on and on in a cycle as he moved from place to place, living off the land in his animal form. On and on he moved, as if driven.

Padding out of another forest, one of many he had seen in his travels, he shifted. Bone re-knitted as his animal receded, and he walked again on two legs. Putting his hands on his naked hips, he studied the dwelling ahead of him. It would need lots of work. With soft steps, he approached the building, looking around and feeling the rightness of the place. Raising his head to the darkened sky, he viewed the beauty of the night.

Home. His voice, not used for months, sounded foreign to him.

He hadn’t been here before but something about this place soothed him. Sitting on the sagging porch facing the lake, he crossed his legs under him. He placed his hands on his knees palms up, closed his eyes and started to meditate.

Home resonated in his soul.

Chapter One

Candace Jermaine sat up with a sigh. She took off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose before taking the time to actually set the offending things down on the pearl-grey Formica countertop.

Her glasses lay in the newly clean spot. When she’d sat down earlier, there had been a huge stack of papers sitting there that she had needed to review and double-check. Rolling her head on her neck, she groaned when she saw the time.

I’ve been sitting here for five hours?

Candace used her foot to push her chair across the cool floor to where her drink was, picked it up and took a healthy swallow. Lukewarm, but still refreshing. She shifted in her chair and closed her eyes against the brilliance of the fluorescent bulbs that filled the otherwise silent room with their incessant buzzing.

Candace knew she didn’t have to do all the work in the lab on her own, but she was overly picky.

But damn if it isn’t hard and time-consuming to double-check the spelling on each taxonomic classification.

Candace Jermaine worked at New Mexico’s Palaeontology Centre in Taos. She loved her job, regardless of how tedious logging data on extinct animals could be, making