Ancientt (Elaine Waters)

✅ The First Flame: Complete

Added 2020-10-09 05:13:54 +0000 UTC

This Ezronian princess is one sassy, disobedient wildcard.

Ran’s life had been planned before she was born. As one of Ezron’s princesses, her destiny is to bear children to save her people from extinction. Her parents tried to shelter her in her childhood, but quickly discovered that this is one fire that cannot be tamed.

With her twentieth birthday approaching, Ran embarks on one final adventure. The princess does the unthinkable by stealing a spaceship, and soaring into the skies.

She comes across many challenges in her journey, and eventually crashes into a wall: a seven-foot, grumpy, Ezronian male that her father sent after her. He was ordered to drag her home no matter what, but Ran is nicknamed “fire” for a reason.

The princess is determined to get her way, even if she has to burn her bodyguard in the process.

 IT'S RECOMMENDED THAT YOU READ THE FIRST HER (Ezron book 2) BEFORE READING THE FIRST FLAME

• • • • • • • • • •

PROLOGUE

“Oh, Ran, you really did it this time,” Terra sighed.

“How mad is he?”

A roar echoed in the background, and both sisters winced.

“Um… does that answer your question?”

Eve leaned into Terra to get a closer look at the tablet. “Step on it and drive the mothers out of here. Dad is mad enough to catapult into space and drag you back.”

One of the swords that was hanging on the wall clattered to the ground when the door slammed open.

“RAN!” their father growled.

“Aww shit,” Ran grumbled.

Eve placed the tablet on the table so she could get a wider view of the room. Her father stomped toward the tablet. Tendons and veins screamed against his powerful body, his golden eyes glowed, and she could swear that his horns were thicker.

She leaned away from the screen although the man was a whole planet away.

“Dad, please calm down.” Terra begged. She tossed herself at him and palmed his chest to ground him. Seeing her struggle, Eve came to her rescue and wrapped her arms around Vrox. They couldn’t stop him, of course. He was a Commander for a reason.

If she weren’t so nervous, Ran would have laughed at the comical sight.

“What in the mothers...” Apollo entered the room. “What happened?” she yelled over Vrox’s roars.

“Ran happened,” Terra answered.

“Again,” Eve added.

Vrox pushed past his daughters and throttled the tablet.

“Turn around, NOW! Return to Ezron immediately. You better pray to the mothers, Ran, because when I get my hands on you, you will not see the fucking sun for a snowfall!”

“But…” Ran began.

“NOW!”

He kicked the table into smithereens.

“Dadd–”

“No. No ‘Dad’, no ‘please’, no promises. I am past fucking compromise. You will return now, or so help me…” he roared again, at a loss of words, and stomped so hard that she heard rock crumble.

“Mom!” Apollo yelled.

Footsteps entered the room, and Kira appeared on the screen. “What is this ruckus?”

“Ran took the spaceship and hightailed it out of here…” Eve mumbled. “And I might have given her access to the ship.”

Vrox charged at her, and Eve ran off with a squeal. “I’m sorry, dad! I didn’t know she would do this!”

“Vrox, Vrox!” Kira yelled. She threw herself in his way, knowing that he would catch her. When his hands found her waist, she cupped his face and connected their foreheads. “Breathe.”

“Breathe?! Look at what that little delinquent did this time! She ran off, Kira. She left!”

She palmed his chest, where she could feel his heart vibrating. “Breathe.”

“She is my daughter,” Vrox protested. “My princess.”

“I know. Mine too, but you will not bring her back by leveling the pyramid. Calm down, okay?”

He clung to her, looking torn between fury and worry.

“Good job, mom,” Eve chuckled nervously.

“You!” Vrox pointed. “Get out of here before I lock you away instead.”

Not needing to be told twice, Eve turned and dashed.

Vrox kept Kira pressed against him, as if she was his anchor to sanity, and continued to rant. “You will stop your games now, little girl, and you will return to my side where I can protect you.”

“That’s the thing, dad. I’m not litt–”

“Shut up and start driving back!” Vrox demanded. He wasn’t hearing it. In his eyes, she and her sisters would forever be his babies. Ran felt horrible for making him panic like this. She knew how much he loved his daughters and to what lengths he would go to protect them, but this argument was long overdue. She wasn’t as satisfied with life as her sisters. She had a never-ending itch for curiosity, and it wouldn’t tame until she explored the world.

“Ran, it’s not safe out there,” Kira tried to reason. “You need to listen to your father and return to Ezron. The world is a mean place. No one can protect you like we can.”

“I know it’s dangerous, but this is a rite of passage. I need to do this before I settle down and become a mother. With my training, I’ll be okay.”

Kira looked uncomfortable. She had always been more open to Ran’s adventures and less possessive than Vrox because she knew that Terrans weren’t as weak as they looked. Vrox’s paternal instincts were much more blinding.

"No. No. This is not happening," Vrox spat. He raised a finger, and pointed to the screen. You will come back now. Do not make me repeat myself."

“I love you, dad.”

“RAN!”

“You have my heart. To infinity and beyond.”

She disconnected the call. With a sigh, she checked the status of the engines, and then put them at full throttle.

Onto new horizons we go.

Previously Published Sneak Peek:

“Lieutenant, you have been summoned by the General.”

Ran tossed down her tablet and reached for her neck brace. Instantly, her armor stretched across her body, covering her limbs and printing a sword at her hip. The technology was pretty handy.

If only it would do something about this mane of hair and stop suffocating my boobs.

She gripped her long, brown locks and stuffed them into a ponytail. The generator had been designed for men, so no one thought to code hair control into it.

She walked out of her cabin, her armor clanking against the floor of the spaceship with every step. Men stood to attention when she crossed them, stomping their right foot out of respect for their Lieutenant.

She went to the flight deck and greeted the man on the screen by stacking her forearms and stomping her foot. “General Kirokis?”

“Greetings, Lieutenant Ran. How are you accommodating to your position?”

“Well, sir.”

He asked the same question two weeks ago, and she gave the same answer.

“Lieutenant, a warrior has requested a duel.”

Another one?

She graduated from the academy two months ago and had been serving as a Lieutenant for one. In that little time, three soldiers challenged her for her position. All failed.

“Lieutenant?”

She stood straighter, her face remaining stoic. “Understood, General. I accept the challenge.”

“Good. I will summon you when I have further details.”

She stomped her foot. “Long live the Federation.”

“Long live the Federation,” the General repeated before signing off.

“Is there anything you need?" She asked the flight Captain.

“No, Lieutenant. I have uploaded today’s logs to your personal tablet.”

She nodded and walked back to her cabin.

“Another duel?”

She nearly groaned. She had a meeting with the other six Lieutenants. Usually, they communicated over comms, but they couldn’t risk the transmission being hacked, so the meeting had to happen in person.

“You’re early, Siox. The meeting does not start for another two hours.”

Lieutenant Siox was leaning against her spaceship's wall, contaminating it with his presence. He wore civilian clothing, as if he was confident that he didn’t need his armor.

He was mocking her as usual.

“Did you accept the duel?”

That’s none of your business.

She nodded.

“The duels just keep piling on,” he said, licking his lips. He was a powerful, relatively handsome male. If his heart weren’t darker than the nearest black hole, perhaps Ran would have found him attractive.

“You know, Ran, it is only a matter of time before…”

“Lieutenant Siox, please use my title when addressing me,” she interjected.

His eye twitched. The academy taught all soldiers about emotion-repression in the academy, but Siox must have skipped those lessons. He was very easy to read, because he only owned one emotion– anger, and he wore it more often than his armor.

“What do you think would happen if I dueled you, Lieutenant Ran? I would win and take it all from you. But I am a generous male, so if you bed me, I would leave you alone. Just give in–”

Poof.

“Lieutenant Siox! Oh, sir, you have my apologies!”

Ran examined her savior. He was one of the janitors, low in rank. At his feet was a tipped over dustpan.

“Incompetent just like your Lieutenant,” Siox snarled as he brushed the dust off his pants.

Ran turned sharply, letting her blade cut Siox’s leg. “Oops. Sorry, Lieutenant Siox. I’m just so incompetent.”

She sent the janitor a subtle nod and left a blustering Siox behind.

She kept her head high until she reached her cabin, where she allowed herself to sink into her bed and grip her hair.

Siox was a serious problem. He was the General’s son, so trying to remove him from his position would cause a huge rift in The Federation. Ran wasn’t particularly liked, so they would probably push her reports aside.

After The Vanishing wiped their females, leaving all four planets barren, The Federation desperately sought a way to escape extinction. They figured out how to create babies in laboratories, but they could only create boys. Although Ran traveled across the stars to serve these four planets and learn more about their ways, The Federation was ungrateful. They were convinced that they didn’t need women since they had their technology, laboratories, and sex toys.

If only Siox would shove a dildo so far up his–

Her tablet projected an image of her mother.

She touched her neck brace to recede her armor and sat on the bed.

“Hey, mom.”

“Hi, sweetheart. How are you?”

“Its been rough.”

Her mother shook her head. “Ran, just come home. Those people do not deserve you. You have done enough to bring them to their feet.”

She sighed. “I can’t give up. That would give them satisfaction.”

“There’s that fiery look in your eyes. I wish you hadn’t inherited your father’s stubbornness.”

“Actually, she got that from you.” Her father appeared and kissed her mother’s temple.

“Get off me, Vrox!”

Vrox chuckled. “Hello Ran.”

“Hi dad.”

“Come home, yes? I miss you. Your sisters and uncles miss you too. It is time to settle down.” He grunted when someone jumped at his back. “Terra, how many times must I tell you to not jump around? You will get injured one day. Fathers, Mothers and Fates, you girls do not listen. Just like your mother. You are never still. Always have to be bouncing off the walls. One day–”

“I love you guys!” Ran said before disconnecting the call. Once her father started rambling about safety, not even a Vanishing would shut him up.

She missed her family, but it wasn’t time to go home yet. Something told her that her adventure just began.

She jumped into the shower and washed away the stench of Siox. She had to get ready to meet the other five Lieutenants that were coming for the meeting.