Forged in Flames (A Godstouched Shifter Romance) Read online

  ALSO BY ALI WILLIAMS

  THE FREED HUNT

  FORGED IN FLAMES

  VALUE IN VISIONS (out 14th August 2022)

  * * *

  SOFTEST KINKSTERS

  THE SOFTEST KINKSTERS COLLECTION

  THE HIMBO LIBRARIAN COLLECTION (out 14th November 2022)

  FORGED IN FLAMES

  ALI WILLIAMS

  Forged in Flames

  Published by Claficionado Press Ltd

  © 2022 Ali Williams

  * * *

  All rights reserved.

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

  * * *

  No part of this book may be reproduced or modified in any form, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without express written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a review.

  * * *

  Cover design © 2022 Wolfsparrow Covers

  Created with Vellum

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  * * *

  AliWilliams.org/Contact

  * * *

  AUTHOR NOTE

  Please be aware that Forged in Flames includes explicit sex, including worship kink, cunnilingus, blowjobs, and some very enthusiastic shagging. It also contains references to PTSD, trauma, violence (mainly off-page, and some nonexplicit on-page) and death (off-page). I hope I have treated these issues with the care they and you deserve.

  DEDICATION

  This one is for me.

  Because I didn’t know if I could.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About Ali

  1

  ⚒⚒⚒

  SPARKS flew across the forge as Kenna brought the hammer down against the steel again and again, pounding the metal into waves of fire that seemed to undulate by the light of the furnace. Grasping the sheet with her tongs, she turned to plunge the piece into water. Steam hissed as soon as it hit the liquid, the dampness in the air making the strands of hair cling to the nape of her neck. She grinned. It was time to pull it out and lay the newly quenched piece carefully back on the anvil.

  Gorgeous.

  This really was the best way to start her day, allowing the thrill of the pure physicality of forging to take hold so she could lose herself to the heat and the flames. To really connect with the metal and the fire and that all-consuming heat that got underneath her skin until she just had to fire up the furnace to let it out.

  Definitely far more satisfying than having to consider projects that just weren’t quite right.

  Her steel-capped boots thudded as she moved across the forge to look at the sculpture again. Her current project had called for a lot of consideration. For a lot of stopping and looking. Thinking. Planning.

  There was something very satisfying about working in both steel and bronze, a melding of casting and forging that took her back to her days at university, where she got to experiment with all kinds of metalwork. And there was a warmth present in the bronze that definitely suited the naked curves of the woman before her. A female figure rising from flames towards… Towards what, she wasn’t quite sure.

  And therein lay her problem with this piece. Aesthetically it was pretty damn gorgeous, even if she thought so herself, but the sculpture felt like it was missing something. Unlike most of her work—archways and structures that slotted into the landscape of the South Downs—this was for a private collector, one who’d said they wanted a sculpted figure and left the rest of the details to her. For most artists, it’d be a bit of a dream, having the freedom to do whatever they wanted, but Kenna’s work was all about function and place and specificity. What was the point of spending hours bent over the anvil, working the power hammer or doing delicate casting work in temperatures that would make the most hardened of smiths melt, if the end product didn’t fit into the space it was meant for?

  Besides, the process of creating something for a private collection was different from what she usually did. Most of her art was focused on the space where she’d created it, the tiny village of Tunford, slap bang in the middle of one of the UK’s most beautiful national parks. A place where the most exciting event in the calendar was the annual cricket match—and only then because of the year the headteacher of the primary school fell in the pond. And past the village? Just rolling hills as far as the eye could see. Everything she usually created ended up becoming part of this wider community: the railings round the village pond (clearly needed post-pondgate), the sign for the local pub, and pieces that had function for local agriculture.

  Admittedly, her grant had helped her afford to focus on those types of pieces. She’d had to fight for the funding, to prove herself in an industry where being a woman didn’t exactly make things easy, but her work spoke for itself. Unfortunately, grants like those were few and far between, and this commission would more than pay for a couple of months of materials and the upkeep of the forge. She couldn’t grumble, especially when she secretly relished playing the silent and tortured artist for investors who just didn’t know any better. And this investor had named a price she couldn’t really afford to turn down and allowed her to make whatever she wanted.

  After she’d told her friends Rina and Arlee, they had spent the rest of the weekend celebrating at the Golden Martlet, playing darts and pool and generally toasting to her first private commission. But as the three of them had headed out of the pub together, she had absolutely no idea what she was going to make.

  Kenna wasn’t entirely certain where the eventual idea came from—leftover remnants from a dream she couldn’t quite remember perhaps—but the woman in the sculpture had leapt unbidden into her work like she’d been waiting to be seen for far too long.

  The flames surrounding the figure? Those had been Kenna’s own private rebellion; forged from steel, hammered on the anvil, and smoothed and shined until they almost seemed alive. They were her favourite part of the piece.

  She ran her hand across the flames. The reflection of bronze and the steel looked as if they were setting the woman aflame, making her a phoenix in human form, rising from fire.

  But for all that, the piece still needed soul.

  She sighed and moved impatiently forward, meeting the metal gaze with her own. “What is it that you need, lady? Well? Tell me so I can be done with you.”

  It had been a long couple of months working on a piece with no real clue of where she was going, or how she’d feel when she finally got there, and something in her was ready to snap. The culmination of all her efforts was just out of reach.

  The hard line of her mouth softened, and for a moment she could have sworn there was something akin to compassion in the eyes that she’d crafted in bronze. Something almost tender.

  She laughed abruptly. This was why Rina and Arlee said she needed a break. They were used to the Kenna with a slight swagger to her step, not someone who talked to metal figures and imagined the face was looking back at her. At this stage in the project, she wasn’t even sure that she recognised herself. Something about her need to finish this commission just felt…off.

  This was more than her usual impatience to see the finished piece; there was a deep-seated longing that was more than a little unsettling, and Kenna was quite certain she’d never felt anything quite like this compulsion before.

  Leaning in, she gently blew away some shavings on the figure’s thigh, pausing in irritation when she realised it was in fact a blemish that would need some hard work and more than a little elbow grease to polish it out. She ran her thumb over it, gauging the depth and width of the mark, only to startle when the steel gave way to flesh.

  ✨✨✨

  * * *

  BELISAMA looked down to where the mortal’s hand rested on her thigh and raised an eyebrow. The poor thing seemed fairly taken aback, although she supposed it had been more than a few centuries since she’d last visited a forge in person. And mortals did startle ever so easily. She’d need to be a little understanding.

  “Dear mortal—”

  “What the fuck?!”

  She paused, furrowing her brow. She recognised the language from years behind the Veil, watching mortals’ lives as if they were a play, but it was hardly appropriate for it to be used in her presence.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  But the redhead had backed away from her, wide-eyed, and seemed to be muttering something about long hours and psychosis and the need for v
odka. Clearly her new priestess needed a few moments to adjust. Belisama sat, pulling the flames about her. They wouldn’t keep their shape for long, but they didn’t exactly need to. And a flaming robe was always such a great look.

  She watched as the mortal walked determinedly over, rubbed her eyes, and looked again.

  “Dear mortal—”

  “Kenna.”

  “Stop interrupting me!” The flames flared a little, but the mortal seemed undeterred.

  “Listen. It’s Kenna. Not mortal. This…this dream or whatever the hell it is, is mine. And I’ll do what I bloody well like.”

  The mortal—Kenna—reached out and swore again as the flames burnt her hand. Belisama saw a flicker of real terror cross the woman’s face. She was fairly certain that her new priestess now knew she wasn’t dreaming. There was a thud as Kenna pulled away and sat solidly on the table behind her.

  “Are you ready to listen now?”

  One quiet nod.

  “I am Belisama, Goddess of the Forge and Fire, of Crafts and Light, and you are my priestess.”

  The mortal’s eyes widened and, before she could open her mouth, Belisama hurriedly added, “Not a virgin priestess, I assure you. I’m not Vesta.” She resisted the urge to add something very rude about Roman Goddesses and their apparent fear of a healthy orgasm. It probably wasn’t the right time. Priestess to induct and all that.

  “No offence, your Goddessness—”

  She quite liked that actually. She’d have to mention it to Andraste.

  “—but I don’t think I’ve ever actually heard of you before.”

  Belisama stopped.

  Once, every person in Britain had known of her, of her skill and craft, and had petitioned for aid in the forge. And now? Here was a smith who not only didn’t worship her, but had never even heard of her.

  After the Menai Massacre she’d refused to be amalgamated with a Roman counterpart, unlike so many of her fellow Briton Gods and Goddesses. Poor Sulis had become Sulis-Minerva, forever remembered as the Briton Goddess who was just a facet of someone else. It was a fate Belisama had refused to bow to. Instead, she’d been trapped behind the Veil that had been drawn across this world, watching as the centuries rolled by and her true home, the forge, almost fell out of existence. She’d been forced to watch generation after generation be born, grow old, and die, always just out of reach from those she could have helped, from those who could have saved her with their worship. And this was the result.

  “I…” How did she explain that? Explain centuries of grief and loss for who she’d been, to a mortal who’d barely lived a few decades on the earth?

  She settled for the basic truth. “I’m a Briton. You’d consider me pre-Roman.”

  Kenna quirked her head to one side. “Pre-Roman…”

  “Yes.”

  “A pre-Roman goddess.”

  “Exactly.”

  “A pre-Roman goddess, who thinks that I’m her priestess. Right. Cos that makes all of the sense.”

  She sighed impatiently. “I don’t think you’re my priestess; you are my priestess. You’ve spent the last few months working in clay, casting and then forging to create a statue of me.”

  “Huh.”

  “You’re what we’d call Godstouched. Blessed with skill beyond your ken.”

  “My skill…? Do you mean in the forge?”

  She inclined her head. To be honest, she was fairly impressed with how well this Kenna had taken the news. There’d been significantly less screaming and fainting than she was used to, although also a distinct lack of prostration and declaration of unworthiness. She got the impression that the latter wasn’t going to happen any time soon. And just as well really, because prostrate priests and priestesses had a habit of being too meek to stand the flames of her ministry.

  “Besides,” she added, “It was you who breathed me into the statue.”

  “My breath?” Belisama watched as Kenna breathed onto her hand. Nothing.

  “Your powers will grow with time.”

  “My powers. Right.”

  “You doubt me?” The flames flared once more against her skin.

  “Look, it’s like this.” The mortal met her eyes, straight on. That hadn’t happened for millennia. “Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that this is all real. I don’t have the time to be a priestess. You’ve just destroyed my latest commission—took months to make, by the way—and I’m going to need to get straight onto making something new before I have to return my advance. Which I can’t afford to do.”

  “Your commission?”

  “The sculpture you’ve just, I don’t know, embodied? Taken over? Possessed?”

  “It will be unharmed.” Belisama shook off the flames and stood, towering above her new priestess. “All I ask is a commission for me. Fully forged in flames—no casting. And,” she added, before the redhead could interrupt again, “I will bestow upon you the blessing of my patronage. Your breath will be imbued with flames, your mind free to soar, and the sky will embrace you. But make me the sun. I am the Goddess of Light, after all.”

  She exhaled gently, suffusing the air with her own power, and watched with satisfaction as the mortal breathed it in.

  Reluctant inductee to the priestesshood Kenna might be, but channelling such power meant that Belisama would get her commission, one way or another. Fighting such gifts never ended very well for mortals.

  * * *

  ⚒⚒⚒

  * * *

  “THE sun. Right. Anything else? Do you want me to pull the moon from the sky as well?”

  Silence.

  Kenna blinked several times in succession and then looked hard at the sculpture, which now looked identical to how it had when she’d first entered the forge that morning. “I seriously need some coffee,” she muttered. “Clearly I’ve been working way too hard. Goddesses and priestesses and breath imbued with flames indeed.”

  She jumped down from the table and headed straight to the only altar in the building, where her office kettle sat. Two minutes later, she had a steaming mug of instant coffee, the kind that made Rina shudder and Arlee bemoan the ways of the world. One sip and she sighed. She’d mainline the stuff if she could.

  Absentmindedly, she ran her thumb over the small welt forming on the back of her hand. A burn. Nope. Nuh-uh. She took another sip hurriedly. That must have been from her session on the anvil yesterday, not from some forged steel bursting into actual flames.

  But the coffee didn’t settle her the way that it usually did; instead, her stomach felt distinctly unsettled. Kenna hiccupped, the sensation rising like a weird heat, and then she looked in disbelief at the result.

  There were flames in her mug.

  She closed her eyes, counted ten and then to twenty just in case, before opening them again. The flames were still very much there and, even worse, she could feel a second hiccup following the first.

  “Fuck.”

  2

  🔥🔥🔥

  THE dirt beneath his hands was harsh, chafing against his skin after the soft suppleness of the leather reins he’d held for centuries. Morcant clutched at the ground desperately, unwilling to believe that it was real. That this was real.

  For too long he’d imagined a moment like this. When he’d be able to dismount from his horse without crumbling into dust. Without joining his brother in oblivion.