Candescent Read online

  Copy­right © 2019 by Zoey El­lis

  All rights re­served. Sale of any edi­tion of this book is wholly unau­tho­rized. Ex­cept for use in re­view, the re­pro­duc­tion or uti­liza­tion of this work in whole or in part, by any means, is for­bid­den with­out writ­ten per­mis­sion from the au­thor/pub­lisher.

  This book is a work of fic­tion. Names, char­ac­ters, places, and in­ci­dents are prod­ucts of the au­thor’s imag­i­na­tion or are used fic­ti­tiously. Any re­sem­blance to ac­tual events, lo­cales, or per­sons, liv­ing or dead, is en­tirely co­in­ci­den­tal.

  First Edi­tion: De­cem­ber 2019

  Con­tents

  East­ern Lands Map

  Chap­ter 1

  Chap­ter 2

  Chap­ter 3

  Chap­ter 4

  Chap­ter 5

  Chap­ter 6

  Chap­ter 7

  Chap­ter 8

  Epi­logue

  Dis­cover MYTH OF OMEGA

  Ac­knowl­edg­ments

  About Zoey El­lis

  Can­des­cent

  A chal­lenge so sweet he can’t re­sist.

  Al­pha Gen­eral Thorec is shocked to find a fiery fe­male tres­pass­ing in his ter­ri­tory.

  Un­fazed by his size and over­bear­ing de­mands, she re­fuses to leave, and glares at him with a beau­ti­ful mal­ice he en­joys too much to ig­nore.

  The Al­pha throws her over his shoul­der, in­tent on find­ing out who she is.

  But Ria proves more of a chal­lenge than he an­tic­i­pated.

  The stormy har­mony be­tween them burns brighter than ei­ther of them are pre­pared for.

  And though Ria may try to es­cape it, Thorec will not al­low their pro­found con­nec­tion to be de­nied.

  CAN­DES­CENT is a novella-length, fan­tasy Omega­verse ro­mance that delves into the depths of dark, con­sum­ing love. This story is set in Zoey El­lis’ Myth of Omega world but is a stand­alone story with a HEA. For fans of pos­ses­sive Al­pha anti-he­roes, feisty Omega hero­ines, and fiery ro­mances. This story in­cludes ro­mance of a dark na­ture.

  For more sto­ries in this world, start with CRAVE TO CON­QUER.

  East­ern Lands Map

  See the color ver­sion

  * * *

  Chap­ter One

  In a mag­i­cal world of Al­pha, Beta, and Omegas, Omegas have been miss­ing for over a cen­tury. As they slowly re­turn to the land, Al­phas dis­cover the unique beauty Omegas bring to their ex­is­tence, with dark, riv­et­ing, but al­ways sat­is­fy­ing re­sults.

  This is Thorec and Ria’s story.

  THOREC

  “This bet­ter be good,” Gen­eral Thorec growled. “I was in the mid­dle of a train­ing bout.”

  “I apol­o­gize, gen­eral,” the guard mur­mured as he bowed his head. “But there is a dis­rup­tion in the moun­tains. Since I can­not en­ter—”

  “I know, I know,” Thorec snapped, his voice gruff. He was the only out­sider per­mit­ted to en­ter Ariyon Moun­tains, so if there was a prob­lem be­tween the moun­tain peo­ple and the Lox, he was sum­moned. “What kind of dis­rup­tion?”

  The guard shook his head. “I don’t know. The moun­tain con­tact came to tell me we have bro­ken the treaty with them. She was shout­ing, and I couldn’t un­der­stand most of what she said. She stormed away be­fore I could find out what the prob­lem was.”

  Thorec frowned. Al­though the moun­tain con­tact tol­er­ated the pres­ence of the Lox, it was un­usual for her to be out­right an­gry. “Has any­one en­tered?”

  The guard shook his head again. “No one has passed through this way, Gen­eral.”

  Thorec held in the string of curses he wanted to bel­low. All across the Lox Em­pire, other gen­er­als were deal­ing with more rea­son­able prob­lems; swin­dling mer­chants, stub­born farm­ers, and fa­natic cit­i­zens want­ing a glimpse of the Omega Em­press. And yet he was forced to deal with the un­rea­son­able moun­tain peo­ple of Ariyon. He nod­ded at the guard. “As you were.”

  As the guard re­turned to his post, Thorec made his way into the val­ley that wound through the heart of the moun­tains. He had only just vis­ited the moun­tain peo­ple a few days ago, and usu­ally there wasn’t any rea­son for him to re­turn so soon, which suited him greatly.

  His com­man­der had as­sured him that care­ful thought had gone into the de­ci­sion about which ter­ri­tory each gen­eral would man­age. Still, Thorec could not un­der­stand how it was de­cided that he would be suit­able for Ariyon. He had trained hard to join the Lox, and spent decades de­vel­op­ing the skills needed to rise to the level of gen­eral in the only Al­pha army that ex­isted across the en­tire known Lands. But, since they had con­quered the East­ern Lands, now known as the Lox Em­pire, he had be­come more of a ne­go­tia­tor than a war­rior. Yes, he still trained war­riors and took part in strat­egy brief­ings, but he also had the ex­tra re­spon­si­bil­ity of man­ag­ing a dif­fi­cult set of peo­ple—that no other gen­eral had the mis­for­tune of deal­ing with. It was al­most of­fen­sive to him that his ex­ten­sive ex­pe­ri­ence was be­ing wasted in this way. He couldn’t deny it had made him bit­ter.

  To add fur­ther in­sult, the rare fe­male Omegas who had been re­cently dis­cov­ered by the em­peror and promised to Lox war­riors, were only ac­ces­si­ble through strange “pair­ing” events, in which Al­phas were matched with Omegas to see if they were a fit. Thorec had heard some of his men prais­ing the pair­ings, glad to be on their way to find­ing their Omegas, but he found it some­what… odd. Maybe he was of an old-mind­set, but an Al­pha shouldn’t have to go through nu­mer­ous mon­i­tored matches to find his Omega. He should be able to pick her out of a crowd and know that she was the one that be­longed to him, even if it meant pound­ing in the face of an­other Al­pha to prove it. It felt un­nat­u­ral to do it any other way. In the twenty years that he’d spent as a war­rior for the Lox, he had looked for­ward to a life with an Omega mate and their chil­dren. But he de­tested the idea of be­ing “matched,” and he came to the re­al­iza­tion he may end up with­out that life af­ter all. It added to his dis­sat­is­fac­tion with his cir­cum­stances, and gen­er­ally made him a very dif­fi­cult man for his sub­or­di­nates to please. He knew he was surly, but he just didn’t care.

  As he rounded the cor­ner that led to the heart of the largest moun­tain town, he was sur­prised to see sev­eral moun­tain cit­i­zens stand­ing out­side their huts, long­sticks in their fists, and growls on their faces. Crack­ling hos­til­ity charged the morn­ing air, and ag­i­ta­tion tensed their joints. He’d never seen them so riled up be­fore. But when he saw the tar­get of their frus­tra­tion, he stopped in his tracks.

  A small fe­male stood in the cen­ter of the val­ley. Dressed in a dark red tu­nic, her black hair fell to her shoul­ders, and sturdy boots cush­ioned her feet; it was clear she was not from Ariyon. In fact, no one in the Ariyon main­land would have been fool­ish enough to en­ter the moun­tains with­out Lox ap­proval.

  “Who are you?” Thorec de­manded as he eyed her un­usual state of dress. Her tanned bare arms and legs were an un­com­mon sight in the chill­ier cli­mate of the moun­tains, and she was curvier than most of Ariyon’s peo­ple. A warm blend of ex­cite­ment and cu­rios­ity rushed through Thorec’s chest. “What are you do­ing here?”

  She glanced at him but fo­cused her at­ten­tion on the man she was ar­gu­ing with. “I just want to find out where they used to live. I know they were from this moun­tain range, and I just want to speak to some­one. Is there any­one that speaks the Com­mon Tongue avail­able—”

  “I told you that you are not wel­come!” the ma
n said sharply. He was an older Beta male who some­times joined dis­cus­sions Thorec had with the moun­tain con­tact. “You should not have even en­tered this far into our moun­tains with­out per­mis­sion.” He turned to Thorec, his thin mouth twisted in a snarl. “Is this what you call abid­ing by our treaty? Al­low­ing ran­dom peo­ple to storm in here, dis­rupt our herds, and de­mand things of us?”

  Thorec ig­nored him. “How did you get here?” he asked the woman. “This area is not open to vis­i­tors or ex­plor­ers.”

  The fe­male turned to him, her dark-brown eyes bright with de­ter­mi­na­tion, and for a mo­ment, he was stunned. She was very, very pretty. Who would al­low their fe­male, par­tic­u­larly one who looked like this, to en­ter the moun­tains unat­tended?

  “I am within my rights to travel any­where in the East­ern Lands that I choose,” she said sternly.

  “No, you are not,” he replied, his voice rough. “The Lox Em­pire has de­clared—”

  “I have no con­cern for the Lox Em­pire.” Her eyes flashed as her voice rose, and a twinge twisted through his groin. “I am in the East­ern Lands. That is what these Lands have been called for cen­turies.”

  Thorec found him­self both of­fended and strangely thrilled by her at­ti­tude. “Your opin­ion is of no con­se­quence. You are now in the Lox Em­pire, and these moun­tains are re­stricted, as they’ve al­ways been.”

  The fe­male’s eyes hard­ened. “There has never been any re­stric­tion to visit these moun­tains.” She turned to the man she had been in ar­gu­ment with, her brow raised. “Isn’t that true?”

  The older man’s face dark­ened as he stared at her, but he did not re­spond.

  In­ter­est­ing. That was some­thing the moun­tain peo­ple had failed to men­tion in their prior ne­go­ti­a­tions with him about the treaty, but now wasn’t the time to de­bate it. Thorec strode to­ward the lit­tle woman.

  “I’m not leav­ing un­til I get what I came here for,” she warned. “And you can­not—”

  “Quiet!” Thorec barked, as he ap­proached.

  The fiery ex­pres­sion that jumped into her face made her brown eyes molten bronze, and coarse plea­sure threaded through Thorec at the sight.

  Gor­geous.

  “Don’t come near me,” the fe­male snarled, hold­ing up her palm as she inched back­ward. But he didn’t slow down.

  Swoop­ing her up off the ground, Thorec threw her over his shoul­der, her round bot­tom high in the air. Her soft body pressed into him, and he couldn’t help but be highly aware of her breasts on his back as he se­cured his thick arm around her thighs.

  A sud­den gust of scented air made him halt. It was dif­fer­ent from the fresh, bit­ing breeze of the moun­tains—this was heavy and rich, with a de­li­cious sweet edge to it that made his mouth wa­ter and his cock jolt. It curled into his nos­trils, al­low­ing him to draw a deep breath of it, mak­ing his mind spin and stir­ring a raw, prim­i­tive urge deep within him. Be­fore he could even ac­knowl­edge what was hap­pen­ing, the scent sud­denly dis­ap­peared.

  The moun­tain con­tact, a stern-faced woman, ap­proached and be­gan speak­ing as Thorec turned his head, dis­ori­ented, try­ing to pick up the scent again. It was im­pos­si­ble to de­ter­mine its ori­gin from just a gust, but an urge to ex­pe­ri­ence it again, to se­cure it for him­self and revel in it, took hold of him so strongly, he could fo­cus on noth­ing else. By the time the urge cleared, the fe­male over his shoul­der was pound­ing her fists into his back, and the con­tact woman was glar­ing at him. “Did you hear any­thing I said?”

  He nar­rowed his gaze at her. “This will not hap­pen again.”

  “Good.” She lifted her chin, her ex­pres­sion solemn. “Rest as­sured that we will no longer up­hold any treaty with the Lox if it does.”

  The fe­male in­truder didn’t stop fight­ing him as he made his way back down the val­ley. There was no point in try­ing to ques­tion her while she was shout­ing and strug­gling to be re­leased, but he would most cer­tainly be in­ter­ro­gat­ing her. Not only was he cu­ri­ous to know where she came from, but he also couldn’t have cit­i­zens turn­ing up in the moun­tains when­ever they wanted.

  Even though the Lox now ruled the East­ern Lands, the em­peror wanted to main­tain all its beauty, in­clud­ing the un­usual Ariyon moun­tains. There was in­deed a mys­tery about them that made them spe­cial. The en­tire moun­tain range ra­di­ated in a mul­ti­tude of col­ors all year round and was one of the most pop­u­lar nat­u­ral phe­nomenons and beau­ties of the Lands, at­tract­ing peo­ple to them from far and wide. Some said they had heal­ing qual­i­ties, oth­ers said they in­spired great­ness, but for most, it was sim­ply a sight to be en­joyed while see­ing, and en­thused about af­ter re­turn­ing home. As such, tours were ar­ranged for peo­ple to visit the moun­tains.

  Thorec couldn’t see why they were so spe­cial. Stand­ing around look­ing at big rocky hills wasn’t how he pre­ferred to spend his time. A chal­leng­ing bat­tle, a mys­tery to solve or a fuck was al­ways prefer­able, yet main­tain­ing the moun­tains was his pri­mary con­cern be­cause it mat­tered to the em­peror. Thorec joined the Lox for Em­peror Drocco, and he would not be the gen­eral that would let the em­peror down in any way. Un­for­tu­nately, the moun­tains were in­hab­ited by a com­mu­nity who were in­te­gral to its nat­u­ral bal­ance. They were also ex­tremely pri­vate.

  Fi­nally, the fe­male slumped against him, ob­vi­ously tired from her ef­forts. “I’m go­ing to go back in there as soon as I can,” she said, some­what breath­less, from be­hind him.

  Thorec’s growl was low in the back of his throat. “And you think I will al­low that?”

  “I don’t need your per­mis­sion!”

  “If you want to en­ter the moun­tains, you do need my per­mis­sion. The Lox has con­trolled these Lands for over two years now. You can­not be so un­aware that things have changed.”

  The cute girl-growl that came over his shoul­der roused an un­bid­den smile to his lips. “The Lox don’t have the right to dis­card cen­turies of cul­ture and tra­di­tion!”

  Thorec frowned. She spoke as if she hadn’t been in the East­ern Lands for the last two years. Be­fore he could an­swer, the beau­ti­ful, rich scent bloomed around him again, burst­ing into ex­is­tence like moon­flow­ers at dusk. He halted abruptly, ev­ery inch of him climb­ing to high alert as it swamped his in­hale, ac­com­pa­nied by that strange fog­gi­ness in his mind that pressed in on all sides. Turn­ing his head, Thorec was shocked to dis­cover that it was com­ing from the fe­male over his shoul­der.

  A sav­age need tore through him. He crushed his nose onto her smooth leg and ran his hand up the back of her thigh and un­der her tu­nic. Ig­nor­ing her whim­pers, he grabbed her ass cheek and squeezed, sat­is­fac­tion gleam­ing at the way it filled his hand. His hard­ened cock jerked, and raw, wild crav­ings thun­dered through him, urg­ing him to claim what was within his reach.

  He pushed his fin­gers be­tween her legs, forc­ing them to widen as he ex­plored along the heated, moist­en­ing crotch of her panties. Slip­ping his fin­gers in, he groaned at the slip­pery feel of her warm and smooth slit. Her slick aided him as he played along her folds, swirling his digit around her clit, and the soft moan that came from her worked through his body straight to the ooz­ing tip of his cock.

  Thorec was yank­ing her panties down her legs when the scent sud­denly faded again, and as the fog lifted from his mind, he forced him­self to still.

  Al­though the urge to free her of her cloth­ing and bury his face be­tween her legs still pulsed ea­gerly, he couldn’t ig­nore the strange­ness of the sit­u­a­tion—it went against all his train­ing as a Lox war­rior and a gen­eral. As his com­man­der fre­quently said, skilled and for­mi­da­ble war­riors do not will­ingly ig­nore even the sub­tlest sign that could sig­nify some­thing fa­tal.


  Thorec doubted any­thing about this sit­u­a­tion was fa­tal, but this fiercely en­tic­ing scent that had sud­denly ap­peared and dis­ap­peared twice while in the pres­ence of this woman, could only mean one thing, and yet Thorec strug­gled to be­lieve it.

  He eased the fe­male off his shoul­der, slid­ing her down his body. Her breasts pressed against his chest, and he couldn’t help but let out a gruff ex­hale as her hard nip­ples grazed him. The feel of her al­most had him dis­card­ing all ef­forts of con­trol, but he had to know. He held her firmly around the waist with one arm and grabbed her thick black hair, gath­er­ing it into his fist so she couldn’t turn away from him. As her face came into view, he searched her eyes. “What are you?” He kept his voice low, but it still rum­bled from his chest, vi­brat­ing be­tween them.

  She didn’t re­spond, but her brown eyes were now re­served.

  “Tell me what you are,” he de­manded.

  Her throat un­du­lated as she swal­lowed, hold­ing his gaze. “You al­ready know.”

  A mul­ti­tude of thoughts and emo­tions clashed within Thorec. His sus­pi­cions were right; this was an Omega. He gripped her harder, bat­tling with the im­pulse to drop to the ground and fuck her with the fierce in­ten­sity of the urges she’d roused. But some­thing told him there was more to dis­cover about this fe­male. Be­sides, the moun­tain val­ley was not the place to take her. Shunt­ing all urges aside, he care­fully hoisted her back over his shoul­der, un­tan­gled her panties from her an­kles and se­cured it into his pocket, then con­tin­ued down the val­ley. Thank­fully, the fe­male was quiet the rest of the way.