Heather James

Today and onwards, I stand proud, for the bridges I've climbed, for the battles I've won, and for the examples I've set, but most importantly, for the person I have become. I like who I am now, finally, at peace with me...

He could never care about you. He sees you in the same way they see all of us: ruthless, cruel and power hungry." He laughed callously. "I guess we're about to prove them right.

I sat down on the grass and looked up at Brae. He was still shirtless and - although it pained me a little to even think it - it suited him. He was in really good shape and he looked less uptight without it, more relaxed. If it wasn't for his weird silver hair he could have looked perfectly ordinary. Better than ordinary in fact.

We were the only humans - the only forms of life, in fact - for hundreds of miles in each direction, unreaching and unreachable as we rocketed back towards civilisation.

While they argued, the pain blazed on. My blood boiled in my veins. Why was I doing this? Was he worth all of this pain? Why should I care if he lived or died?"I love him." The words came out as a whisper, but they seemed to diminish the heat. I felt stronger and more sure of myself.

Vincent laughed. "No, you still need to look like a Helian.""So I should burn everything to a crisp?""Well, that would definitely get your mother's attention, but I think that she's looking for something more sophisticated and less... scary.

I forced myself to breathe deeply; perhaps they would have vanished. Perhaps I'd been imagining them because Brae was gone and I was scared without him, and now that he was back I'd feel safe enough again that they would go away. Perhaps it was just paint or something and would have been washed out by the sea spray earlier. I breathed again, feeling much calmer and then, slowly, opened my eyes.

Poor girl," I said, letting my eyes lock with hers for a moment before turning to face Cin again, weaving my hand possessively around his waist. "This is probably the first time she's ever seen anyone having fun before. I suppose we shouldn't blame her for being jealous.

I loved him, more than anything else in the world and that when he was away it was hard to breath and that I couldn't go through a single second without thinking about him.

I don't know if it was the cold sincerity in my voice or the shock of being straddled by a wild, mud covered woman, but he didn't try to argue. "Give me your ring. Now.

Well, most people would have said `thank you' after they'd been given help, and then I would have responded to that with `you're welcome'. I figured we'd skip straight to my part since social graces aren't your forte.

I felt as though a large knot of flames had been lit in my stomach, making me feel nauseous and excited all at once

I'm a Helian, and you're an Arcan. We're just made that way. I don't think we would ever be able to really understand each other.

I closed my eyes and let a wave of heat pass over me, tingling right down into my fingertips. As my eyes flickered open I let my hands shoot out in front of me, sending a spiral of flames into a nearby tree. The entire structure caught alight and glowed grotesquely."Remind me never to make you angry!" A now all-too familiar voice said behind me.

It was exactly the sort of thing I needed to be reading that afternoon: a story where, no matter how bad things got, you knew everything was going to turn out fine in the end.

They're terrified of us Firefly, all of them are.""Well, good," I replied, forming a tiny ball of flames in my fingertips, which were curled round the handle on the back of the bike. "They should be.

I'm not trying to avoid you,' I replied lamely, but what else could I say? Sorry Brae but when I first came down to meet you I had no idea how hard it was going to be to avoid telling you that I was turning into a grotesque monster and I am worried that there is a good chance I could wake up one morning with a sudden lust for your blood. Somehow I didn't think that would go down particularly well.

The hero was the sort of character you could feel yourself falling in love with, no matter how much you tried to convince yourself that he wasn't real