by Randi Darren
Dear Steve,
Ina’s offered to write this letter for me, so I’m taking her up on it!
Steve’s eyes flicked down to the bottom of the letter and noted it was from Nikki. Frowning, he considered tossing the letter aside immediately.
After a few seconds of that thought, he sighed and continued.
First, I love you.
I desperately miss you and am maintaining our farm in readiness for when you come home. Everything is going quite well and normal here.
Although Ina and Ferrah miss you. (Ina: I really, really, really miss you. Come home?) Airlea seems rather forlorn, but Unicorns often like to overdramatize such things.
I swear it’s like she’s in a romantic tale and her husband’s gone off to war.
Steve smirked at both Nikki’s comment and Ina breaking into the letter. He could see what Nikki meant about Airlea, though. She’d had an interesting disposition, from what he’d seen of her.
Enart dropped by to hand off some more plants, seeds, and the like. She said she still has no intention of marrying.
Ever. Or anyone.
But that she appreciates your willingness to let her come and go as she pleases.
The mayor Geneva installed defers to me on anything I bring up. On the expressed orders of Geneva herself. Please do be sure to thank her for me, just in case I haven’t had a chance to thank her myself yet.
Do remind her as well that she’s always welcome to come home, with or without you.
Other than that, I can only reiterate again that I love you. I know you disagree with me and how I wish to treat this, but I cannot help but want to let it pass. Let it pass and live our lives.
I’m sure you think me foolish and optimistic. Naïve, I’m sure.
But that doesn’t change that I do strongly feel that our lost would agree with me. I think they’d be rather saddened to see we’ve separated ourselves from one another.
And beyond that, I know that you’ll come home to me eventually. I’ll wait for you, and when you do come back, I’m going to be angry at you.
For at least a little while. Until we have sex.
I think you called it anger sex at one point? It really did help alleviate some of it.
You’re a stupid brute of a man.
But I desperately love you, and I want you to come home.
Tell you what, if you come home with this letter in your hand, I’ll pretend nothing ever happened. Come home and conquer your Faun instead of a queen?
Pausing, Steve was sorely tempted to go straight back to Nikki. He didn’t agree with her.
He felt mildly betrayed by her, in truth.
But he did love her. Deeply so.
If not, that’s alright as well. I’ll just keep mailing you every week until you come home.
I wouldn’t mind if you wrote me back? If only to keep up communication?
Honestly, I’d be rather distraught if I thought you were ignoring me outright. I know I upset you, angered you, and possibly hurt you, but I really am doing only what I think is best for our family. The living members of our family.
Well, I’ll close this letter and get it sent. Today’s the third day of the second week of the last month of fall.
I hope this reaches you quickly.
With all of my love and more,
Your Faun, Nikki
Sighing, Steve looked at the letter for several more seconds.
“And I’m doing what I feel is best for our family,” he said. “Because honestly… I don’t for an instant believe the queen would have left it the way she had. Not at all.
“But there’s no way you’d see that until it was too late. So I’ll protect you, my traitorous Faun. Even as you wound me.
“Because I love you.”
Steve took the letter, walked over to the bedside table he’d made, pulled out a drawer, and dropped it in.
He’d write her back later tonight.
Even if he was angry, sore, and hurt by her, he could at least write her back.
“Steve? Are you up there?” called Aubrey.
“I am,” Steve called back. “What’s up?”
“Can you help me? Everyone just—” There was a thud as it sounded like Aubrey hit something. “Everyone just laughs at me.”
Grinning, Steve nodded his head.
“What’d you do?” Steve asked, walking to the doorway. He couldn’t see down the stairs from here, but he’d hear her better.
“Kimor told me to put on a helmet and then put my tunic on over it. Now it’s stuck,” Aubrey said.
Yeah… those two really are stupid.
Good thing I’ve surrounded myself with a lot of intelligent women to make up for my dear sweet idiot duo.
“Can you make it up the stairs?” Steve asked.
“Yeah, comin’,” Aubrey said, her heavy footfalls coming toward him.
“Can’t promise I won’t get handsy with you, though,” Steve said.
“Huh? Oh, that’s fine. You always do a little bit of that when I suck you off,” Aubrey said, getting closer. “We gonna fuck soon?”
“Probably. Just haven’t had the right time for it yet,” Steve said. “Come on over here, you big dummy. I’ll take care of you.”
“Okay, thanks. You’re pretty nice, you know that? I thought for sure my life was done for. One way or another. Really thought I wasn’t going to wake up after you hit me,” Aubrey said, stumbling into Steve’s room. “Oh, there you are.”
“I try to be, and I really was trying to hit you as gently as I could. Didn’t want to hurt you,” Steve said, looking at Aubrey. The helmet was on correctly, and even the facemask was down hiding away her features, but the tunic was wedged in tight to it and didn’t seem like it was going to be going anywhere.
“You’re not gonna rip it, are you?” Aubrey asked, sounding rather sad. “I really like this tunic.”
Rolling his eyes, Steve abandoned the idea of tearing it off her.
“No, I won’t rip it. Just sit down,” Steve said, taking Aubrey by the elbow and guiding her over to the bed.
“Are we officially an army now?” Aubrey asked, the helmet turning partially toward him as she sat down.
“Suppose so,” Steve answered as he started to pull at the tunic to get it up and back over Aubrey’s head. “An army on the brink of declaring civil war while clearing the Creep and all the lost lands it entails.”
“Okay,” Aubrey said, her hands sitting in her lap. “Is it okay that I don’t care about that? I just wanna fight and fuck. Is that alright?”
“I mean… sure? Did you have someone else in mind you wanted to fuck, or—”
“Oh, no, no. Just you. I just want to fight and fuck you,” Aubrey said. “The other girls said you don’t fuck your witch-knights, though.”
“I don’t,” Steve said, pulling a corner of wedged fabric away from the helmet. It came loose with a ping and the tunic came free. Exposing Aubrey’s bare chest and all its glory to the world.
“Huh,” Aubrey said, the metal helmet turning toward him. It was odd having a semi-naked woman wearing a helmet on his bed. “Would you fuck me first? That way I can lord it over Kimor? That’d wipe the smug grin off her stupid face. She keeps telling everyone she’ll be first.”
Grinning at that, Steve shrugged, laying his hands on Aubrey’s extremely muscular and lovely body.
“Sure, why not? You can be first,” Steve said. “Just not today, mind you, or right now.”
Why not indeed?
He wasn’t going to say no anymore. He wasn’t going to decline what was rightfully his. He wasn’t going to let anyone take anything from him ever again.
“Your hands are warm. Feels good,” Aubrey said, not pulling off the helmet or pulling away from him.
I’ll start by taking my pet back. And the queen. She can be my pet, too. I’ll take their lands from them. And then… maybe the alliance, too.
They’d try to stop me, wouldn’t they?
Nothing wou
ld ever be taken from Steve again.
Ever.
Thank you, dear reader!
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If you enjoyed this book, try out the books of some of my close friends. I can heartily recommend them.
Blaise Corvin- A close and dear friend of mine. He’s been there for me since I was nothing but a rookie with a single book to my name. He told me from the start that it was clear I had talent and had to keep writing. His background in European martial arts creates an accurate and detail driven action segments as well as his world building.
https://www.amazon.com/Blaise-Corvin/e/B01LYK8VG5
John Van Stry- John was an author I read, and re-read, and re-read again, before I was an author. In a world of books written for everything except harems, I found that not only did I truly enjoy his writing, but his concepts as well.
In discovering he was an indie author, I realized that there was nothing separating me from being just like him. I attribute him as an influence in my own work.
He now has two pen names, and both are great.
https://www.amazon.com/John-Van-Stry/e/B004U7JY8I
Jan Stryvant-
https://www.amazon.com/Jan-Stryvant/e/B06ZY7L62L
Daniel Schinhofen- Daniel was another one of those early adopters of my work who encouraged and pushed me along. He’s almost as introverted as I am, so we get along famously. He recently released a new book, and by all accounts including mine, is a well written author with interesting storylines.
https://www.amazon.com/Daniel-Schinhofen/e/B01LXQWPZA
