The Crack is Strong in This One
I picked up several Harlequin category romance novels this last week. They are quick reads and usually enjoyable. They also have the most delightfully cracktastic titles ever. "Ruthless Tycoon, Inexperienced Mistress". "Pirate Tycoon, Secret Baby". "One Night with the Rebel Billionaire". "Sheikh Boss, Hot Desert Nights
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"This won't harm your reputation at all," promises one of the villagers who brought her the injured nobleman. Song just sighs and doesn't bother to explain she has more important things to worry about than the effect keeping an unconscious man under her roof without a chaperone will have on her reputation.
Keeping said unconscious man alive is a good one.
~*~
He's been conscious for awhile, watching the girl sleep. He knows that it is only the two of them in this house, and he can tell she is the one who looked after him. He doesn't even know her name, but he knows he wants her for himself. The girl is wasted here in the back of beyond, and he will have her.
Long Feng just wishes he knew why.
~*~
"You will be my wife," he tells her while she changes the bandaging around his head.
"That's quite all right," she replies calmly, her hands never pausing, "but I'm fine here, thank you."
~*~
They argue quietly, because yelling is not something either of them does, about reputation and rank and things that neither of them wants to care about but has to because it's just the way things are. He will take her to wife because it reflects badly on him to leave her reputation besmirched; she refuses his offers because he is a nobleman and she is common, but those are the words and not the reality.
~*~
Really, he thinks as he looks down on his new bride, he should have realised sooner that the way to Song's heart was through her patients. A new clinic has bought him not only a wife and future heir, but a doctor to look after his loyal men as well.
Really, she thinks as she looks up at her new husband, she should have realised sooner how stubborn and savvy he is. She has been thoroughly manipulated, but she'll still be able to help people so that doesn't really matter.
~*~
Their kiss shatters stone.
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*claps in delight* Is awesome! I adore that final line especially.
So, what do you want in return?
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Vampatar: The turning of Song, Ozaiger and Kuoger (and maybe Jae Hwa)
Normalverse/LaSverse: Jae and Jae Hwa
Normalverse: Long Feng proposes and this time Song accepts.
Any one of those would be rockin'.
That or a Song Feng icon. :D
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That is Kuo's first thought as he watches the other big cat watch him. The tiger's gold eyes are disdainful, his stripes burnished bronze against a gold and white coat.
He is no more a tiger than Kuo is.
Such a fine tiger can only be a noble, and Kuo bows as best as his tawny-hided tiger form can.
The tiger acknowledges him with an incline of his head.
Kuo wants to ask questions. How did a noble of the Fire Nation come to be this way? The Water Tribes guarded their transformation carefully, did not give it lightly, and even he, simple soldier that he was, had only earned it protecting their children.
What had this noble done?
But tiger throats are not designed for the speech of men, so he shifts. No longer is he the giant tawny-colored tiger with the sandy stripes. Now he is a giant of a Fire Nation man, armed and armored and heavy with muscle like an earthbender.
"Let us speak as men do, lord," he offers.
The tiger merely watches him, and his tail begins to lash in irritation.
Kuo glances up at the full moon. Ah.
"This change is new to you, lord?"
The tiger nods again, and Kuo begins to talk. He speaks of transformation and change, of the moon and the sun, of the balance between being of the night and the day. He talks himself nearly hoarse, and the tiger watches him with gold eyes.
Then gold fur shifts and bones melt, and the transformation is ugly, but the first transformation always is.
The man who stands there, though... Kuo knows that face. Everyone of Fire knows that face.
He falls into a dogbow, for this is Firelord Ozai. No, Firelord no more, but still Ozai, still the man who once held the world in his hands.
"Your presence pleases me," Ozai says softly, indicating for Kuo to rise. His phrasing is one of the warmest acknowledgments, and Kuo wonders if he should be afraid.
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Eeeeeeee!
Ozaiger and Kuoger and big man and eeeeeeee!
*flails about happily*
And Kuo wondering at the end if he should be afraid! Yes, yes you should. :D :D :D
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