Bloom & Dark
Page 27
And if my freedom was what needed sacrificing, well…after the willing heart with which she threw away her own ring of power, how could I refuse to cooperate in their return to the city? If nothing else, Valeria would need someone to defend her physically should things go really awry.
“Then we’d ought to get going,” I told the women, pushing myself upright despite their protests. “I’m fine, truly—but the sooner we make it back to El’ryh, the better our chances of being able to set out and find the ring again, or to come up with some means of summoning it back, or…I don’t know.” My head still ached and I swayed somewhat, earning a touch on the arm from my mistress. “I’m fine,” I swore to her. “Just a little dizzy.”
“Are you sure you’re—”
A commotion from a room away drew our urgent attention.
“Here’s another room,” called a woman, her firm voice emanating from the source of the clamorous sound.
I looked at my traveling companions and without hesitating hurried to the ruined altar with its broad table and thick, strangely textured black vines trailing off into another black box as though growing out of it. While I crouched behind this mess of tendrils, the women found other hiding spots—the tapestries shielded Indra and Odile, and my mistress ducked behind a few over-sized plants that had victoriously overwhelmed their pots and now seemed for all the world a natural growth. No sooner had we taken these positions than a scouting party of durrow burst into the room while talking among themselves, scanning the area only briefly before their attention was stolen by the dead wadjita on the floor.
“They might have been here after all,” said one, hurrying over to check the body. “That, or the spirit-thief killed her.”
“And went where?”
“Deeper, perhaps. There are only so many places it can go—come on. Let’s see what it’s done to the Materna before we kill it.”
“I still think it was that slave of hers—working with the spirit-thief, dropping poison in our lady’s ear. Isn’t this the wadjita always trading with Darkstar and the Nocturna girl?”
“They must have been involved.”
“No wonder they were all seen leaving the city together. So they’ve brainwashed the Materna…we’ll have to hope they haven’t taken her ring along with her mind.”
The durrow hurried on in the name of clearing the area, no doubt planning for a more thorough sweep when they confirmed they were not in imminent danger. As they exited through the doors that would gradually lead them to the flooded rear of the structure, I and my friends peered at one another from our hiding spaces. When the guards were a room away, we quietly reconvened by the primary exit of the room.
“They’re blaming us for this,” Odile hissed.
Indra, looking shocked, gazed in obvious sorrow toward the departed team of guards. “But I would never do a thing so sinister,” she protested.
“Nor I,” I agreed.
Distressed, Valeria looked between the three of us, then over at the inoperable portal. “If theirs is really the general perception, we can’t go back now—not empty-handed, at any rate. They’ll think the ring was sold off, or that I was forced to give it up. And…”
Her lower lip disappeared between her teeth to worry there for a few seconds. She neglected finishing her thought, but we all knew what she was thinking anyway. Without that ring, she had no power—in fact, without that ring, no one had power in the city of El’ryh. This might have been literal as much as it was metaphorical, for I suspected that ring was the source of Valeria’s greatest magical abilities. Without it, her powers as priestess were surely limited to the same level as most other devout practitioners of Roserpine’s faith.
“I cannot return to El’ryh without the ring,” she summarized, looking between us. “If I do, I will surely be a prisoner or worse for my failure to protect the artifact. I am grateful it was there as a sacrifice in my time of need, but I must find a way to get it back.”
“I’ll help you,” I swore to her, taking up her hand. She looked at me earnestly, almost pained by affection while I squeezed her fingers in mine.
“How could I ask you to do such a thing, Burningsoul? After you’ve already put yourself in danger for me so many times.”
“Why, it’s nothing, of course. Aren’t I your slave? Order me, and I’ll do as pleases you.”
Her lips turned up in a wry sort of smile, a soft laugh raising from her. “You are no slave to me, Rorke. I cannot own a man whom I love so deeply—nor one who has proven so loyal and good.”
Scoffing, Odile looked at Indra before asking, “You mean to say you’re freeing him?”
“He has freed himself through noble deeds. But”—Valeria pressed a hand to my heart, gazing hopefully into my face—“were he to choose by his own will to help me find the ring, he would be master of my heart and I, as good to him as any slave.”
As thrilling as it was to be so called by Valeria, I could not help but smile tenderly and draw her into my arms. “You are worth far more to me than a slave, Valeria. It will be my joy to help you retrieve Roserpine’s ring. You owe me nothing…but if you would still give me your love when we retrieve it, it would be the sweetest reward a man could receive.”
Her mouth yielded with great joy to the depth of my kiss, our lips mingling as one while Indra cooed and Odile rolled her eyes. While we separated, still embracing and gazing into one another’s eyes, the more jaded of the rogues said, “Well…we’d might as well come with you.”
Looking relieved to hear such a thing, Valeria swore to them, “It would be a boon to us, a great help—you’ll both be paid lavishly when all is said and done.”
“It’s not like we can go back to El’ryh right now,” Odile said sourly, her glance darting in the direction the guards had gone. “So we’d might as well get this sorted out and clear our names. Oppenhir crush your scaled soul, Kyrie! Blast it, running us out of El’ryh…well, come on! Let’s not stand around watching you two make goopy eyes at each other for so long that the guards come back.”
While Odile marched off toward the front entrance of the temple, muttering to herself all the way, Indra smiled more kindly at us and enthused, “How exciting! I’ve never done anything like this before…Odile and I travel quite a bit to scavenge as we do, but I get the feeling we’ll be going awfully far out of our way for this.”
“I get that sense as well,” I agreed, adding that, “I noticed that a window was set into the wall of the place where Al-listux fled. It overlooked the night sky.”
Valeria’s body tightened in anticipatory hope in my arms; Indra gasped with delight. “Oh, the surface! I’ve always wanted to see the surface…I hear it’s a very strange place, full of all kinds of odd creatures and plants.”
“And sky,” whispered Valeria.
I brushed my lips over her brow. “Yes, Valeria. The sky.”
A tapping sound filled the room. We glanced up to see Odile waiting, the toe of her boot drumming in impatient rhythm on the ground. Together, the three of us laughed, then went to go meet her.
The journey back through the temple and around to where was started was tedious, but simple. We spent the whole way on high alert in case we should hear, from one direction or another, the footfalls of another group of guards, but Weltyr saw us through to the hidden cache of supplies the women had made up before we dove into the waters. After once more gearing themselves and taking up the lantern, my friends looked around.
“I don’t even know where to start,” Odile said, sighing heftily for effect as though in an effort to keep us aware of what an inconvenience all this was to her. “Any ideas?”
I meant to suggest that we might try the surface, where we could ask around for a wizard who knew something of scrying—but my blood ran cold.
A woman’s scream cut through the air like a new knife in my side, echoing terror through the tunnels of the Nightlands.
“Oh, great,” said Odile as, without a thought, I dashed off in the direction of th
e noise. “See what happens, Materna? You free a man from slavery, and suddenly he thinks he’s in charge…”
While the durrow hurried after me, I drew Strife and sprinted in pursuit of the sound. My magically healed wounds still ached, but I cared less for them than I did for whatever danger lurked at the end of the tunnel the second scream convinced me to follow. On I went, plunging through the bloom and dark, glowing fungi lighting the way in groups here and there until a mass of them illuminated the shut door at the passage’s end.
Another scream rose up, now accompanied by the word “Help!” in a voice I swore I recognized. With my right shoulder, this side having been unwounded in the fight, I threw my weight twice against the door before backing up a step to kick heftily above the knob. The wood cracked open around the lock and I shoved it wide, stumbling into the den of misshapen bandits whose spider legs skittered on the ground as they turned to see their interloper.
But, as the durrow caught up with me, I found I barely saw the enemies who made ready to fight. Rather, my gaze was caught and held by the beautiful woman wiggling in the tight bonds of her captors’ webbing—her hips and bosom bursting from the white silk, her hands firmly bound behind her despite her efforts to break free. Golden hair poured around the peaks of slender elf ears…but even with these sensory instruments mostly hidden, I would have recognized Branwen in a second.
Blue eyes lifting to mine, her expression filled with shock, shame—and, I was glad to see, hope.
With an assessment at the five misshapen around her, I raised Strife.
Together, my companions and I charged into the fray.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
Thank you so much for reading, my friend! Do you want to see more Burningsoul? Be sure to leave a review! When Book I hits 50 reviews, I’ll be able to release Book II in confidence readers will love it! And don’t forget to join my mailing list so you can know when it’s on the way.
IN THE NEXT VOLUME OF
THE BURNINGSOUL SAGA
Rorke Burningsoul is free again, now able to pursue the party of adventurers who betrayed him and left him for dead in the harrowing realm of the Nightlands: and when one of those treacherous adventurers falls right into his lap, all he can do is praise Weltyr and make use of his good fortune. When the paladin learns that the dwarf, Grimalkin, has taken the Scepter of Weltyr for himself back to the dwarven city of his birth, Rorke manages to convince his beautiful durrow companions to come with him on this retrieval mission—not just for his own purposes, but to increase their odds of successfully retrieving Valeria’s sacred ring.
Not everyone is on-board with the plan, though. High elf druid Branwen, freshly rescued from the den of misshapen bandits, has some designs of her own…and though Rorke is devoted to assisting his mistress, Branwen seduced him once before. She’s confident she can do it again.
But, with these sensual durrow as her traveling companions and Rorke now the center of an unofficial harem, can Branwen avoid being seduced, herself?
JOIN REGINA’S MAILING LIST TO LEARN WHEN BOOK II IS ON THE WAY!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Regina Watts loves writing torrid smut, transgressive fiction, horror, fantasy, and whatever else comes to mind. Check her out on twitter @WritesWatts, at her own website, or follow Painted Blind Publishing’s website for more information about her work. If you’re enjoying the series, don’t be shy about leaving a 5-star Amazon review—and if you really want to help her produce these books at a faster pace, support her on Patreon in exchange for anything from exclusive stories, to enamel pins, to private commissions. And a special thanks to the Harem Lit Facebook Group for letting her advertise!
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
Painted Blue Publishing is an imprint of Painted Blind Publishing, a publishing house devoted to bringing you the finest in psychedelic literature. We here at PBP firmly believe there are many routes to consciousness expansion, and sex is one of them. It is our pleasure to produce works that challenge the American preconception equating literary erotica with pornography by default, but if you would like to see more from Regina Watts with a less erotic emphasis, we would encourage you to check out the works of M. F. Sullivan, Painted Blind Publishing’s flagship author and devoted editor of Ms. Watts.