by Brenna Lyons
Daniel looked around the main room in disbelief. Clothes had been hastily shed and the plush rug set before the hearth was crushed down and mussed. The scent of sex was heavy, leaving little room for speculation that most of the three days they’d been gone had been invested in his daughter’s sexual education.
The sounds originating from behind the closed bedroom door left no doubt as to what was going on inside. Again. Whispers and ragged breathing were punctuated by moans and the vigorous creaking of the bed.
Kyle cried out, and Crystal seemed to soothe him. His roar shook the walls, and his thrusts slowed. There was a moment of near silence, more whispers, Crystal’s laugh of delight and...
“What?” she demanded.
Tim took a step toward the closed door, and Daniel grasped his arm, wrenching him to a stop. They wouldn’t barge in, unless it sounded as if Crystal needed them.
“Crystal...” Kyle’s voice was one of half-soothing and half-warning.
“I’ll be damned if...” The rest was muffled, most likely in a kiss.
Tim and Daniel looked to each other, nodded, and stepped forward together, prepared to judge Kyle for whatever was going on behind that door.
The door in question flew open an instant before they reached it, bringing them to a halt.
Crystal stood in the doorway, dressed in a rumpled silk spaghetti-strap nightgown that nearly reached her knees. Her lips were kiss swollen, her breasts full and lush and her hair in disarray. A fragrant lotion of some sort made her skin glow. Her fists were planted on her hips, and her eyes flashed in seeming fury.
Daniel abruptly felt chastised. As well I should. What was I thinking, coming here?
Kyle appeared behind her, holding a sheet around himself at the hips, looking decidedly tense. He pulled a light blanket around her shoulders with his free hand. “Crystal, please,” he hinted.
“I put on a gown,” she challenged. “It’s more than they deserve.”
Kyle didn’t argue it. He pulled the blanket shut, then raised her right hand to the overlap. She complied, holding it shut, as he wished.
“Well, I guess we should return home.” Her voice shook in fury.
Daniel started to offer apologies, but she cut him off.
“After all, Kyle and I finally agree on several things.”
The young Warrior’s eyes went wide and wild. “No, Crystal. Never make decisions like this in anger.”
“If his vow means—”
“No,” Tim shouted. “I demanded this. I was worried. Your father tried to talk me out of it. On my honor, he did. Whatever you’re planning—”
“Do you want to spend every generation at a disadvantage with your relatives?” Crystal snapped at him.
Tim managed a sheepish smile. “You know I don’t.”
Crystal nodded, then glared at Daniel. “And you...” She faltered. “I think it would be better if Kyle and I lived at the manor house.”
Daniel sighed in relief. “If you’ll be happy there, by all means.”
“Happy? If you wanted me happy, why didn’t you tell him—” She jerked her head at Tim. “—to go home and let me call when I was good and ready to?”
“Well, you see—”
“Oh, I see very well, thanks. You just couldn’t let us seal in peace. You didn’t trust Kyle, or you didn’t trust me. Checking up on me meant more to you than your word to let us work this out for ourselves.”
Daniel felt his cheeks heat, and he fumbled for words. How could he argue it? She had nailed his dishonor perfectly.
“Go on. Deny it,” she invited acidly.
“I...can’t. You know I can’t.”
Kyle wrapped his free arm around her, laying a kiss on top of her head. “Misguided but protecting you,” he soothed her.
Crystal nodded, easing into his chest. “If you’ll excuse us, I’d like to enjoy our first time as a mated couple with some semblance of privacy.”
Daniel met Kyle’s eyes in disbelief. He’d reached Endspiel already? He must have waited until he was near mad before asking for that transfer.
Kyle smiled crookedly, drawing her back into the bedroom and shutting the door, his sheet sliding away as he accomplished the task.
Tim shook his head. “I think we’ve been dismissed.”
A creak announced them flopping to the waiting bed.
“I think we have. Come on. I’ll buy you a beer on the way back.”
Excerpt from The First Book of Texts
By Gawen first Lord Schwertträger,
Stone Lord and master trainer
“The Rules of Sanction”
Part One (penned in 510 AD)
A Warrior must be mindful always of the humans around him. More than human, less than damned; the cursed have the potential to do great good. Inherent in that potential is the ability to do great harm.
A Warrior will have enemies, and to protect those humans bound by the Stone’s sacred trust, the Warrior will kill in honorable battle those enemies.
A child is never truly an enemy. He may be disarmed and even rendered unable to continue the present battle, but though the child of today may grow to be the enemy tomorrow, today he is naught but a boy.
A woman may be slain in battle only as a last resort. If she raises her blade against a Warrior, he will first treat her as he would a child. Remember always that a woman battles most fiercely for child and home. Whenever possible, a Warrior should seek his true enemy elsewhere and leave her to protect what is hers from less honorable men—and less dangerous.
In battle, unforeseen events will occur. In battle, innocents will often die. The Warrior should never carry a battle to innocents that can be fought elsewhere. When there is no choice, the Warrior must be mindful of the innocents in his midst. An innocent life taken in honest error is lamentable. One taken in negligence is unforgivable.
More than human, less than damned. The Warrior must never forget that humans are powerless before him. This is not a reason for pride but rather a warning.
The Stone made a pact in its wisdom. One of the foundations of that pact is the Warrior’s promise to do no harm. Those under a Warrior’s protection and innocents all, the Warrior must protect to death.
Humans are fragile things in that they are frail and unable to heal as Warriors do as much as in that they fear and attack any perceived threat. Warriors possess the power to be perceived as a threat.
As the chain is only as strong as its weakest link, so the pact is only strong as the trust imparted by its weakest to its strongest. For the safety of Warrior and mate, no Warrior may threaten that trust and live.
Warriors are cursed. Stone-Chosen or passed from father to son, the curse manifests in the same fashion, generation after generation. Akin to the damnation of the beasts, never doubt the curse for what it is.
Blutjagd, the blood lust, comes first and foremost. Where the beasts are driven only by darkness, the darkness in a Warrior’s soul will be very strong. The urge to kill the beasts is at its heart, for dark knows dark, as the Warriors and beasts each sense the other and seek each to destroy the opposing dark.
Blutjagd in its purest sense is naught but good, but that is not only how it will make itself known. The gift of Blutjagd is also the ability to protect what a Warrior holds dear to him and what he has a duty to protect, but there is a fierce streak in him that rivals his love and loyalty.
When a wrong is done by a human to him and his, a Warrior must not allow darkness to rule him. Capital offenses require the ultimate price. Of that there is no doubt, but the price must be exacted on the one who has wronged him alone. Revenge is not something a Warrior indulges in. The ones who have not acted against him are innocents. The pain of their loss is more punishment than they deserve.
If the offense is injurious but not capital, retribution should be taken in kind. If no injury is sustained, no blood may be spilled in return, unless the guilty attacks in earnest.
A Warrior must ever be mindful of the nature of the crime against hi
m. He cannot allow his pain to rule him. Capital crimes involve grave harm and disregard of innocence. Murder or rape or the attempt of either, an unprovoked attack on a Warrior’s mate or child— In such a case, the interloper must pay the ultimate price, as the pact demands. The Warrior who exacts the ultimate price for a crime that is not capital or not in defense will face death himself from his true judge, having proven himself lacking in control and respect for the fragile sanctity of life.
Likewise, the Warrior must gauge his punishment of Warriors who wrong him by the rules of sanction. A Warrior has the right to face the Warrior he has most wronged as judge—or his house lord, as case the may be when the injury is to his own house or to a human not of a Warrior’s household. One who acts as judge in another’s stead faces sanction by both the true judge and the Warrior he judged out of place—or the Warrior’s lord, if he is incapable of judging for himself.
The drive to print can lead to madness in Endspiel. Printing can make a Warrior the most stable of men, unless his mate or children are endangered, but the time of printing is the most dangerous and unstable time of all for a Warrior.
Warriors are not lawless soldiers. A Warrior must rule his curse, lest the curse rule him. The sanctions in taking women are understandably rigid because of the great danger printing poses.
The beasts take women brutally, without care and concern. Until a Warrior finds his mate—or after he loses his mate, he will require release with women aside from his mate. While he has a mate, she will provide the only true release he will find. She is a balm for his soul, calming his Blutjagd and appeasing his sexual appetite as no other woman can while she lives. He will have no need and no wish to perform with another, as long as he has her.
But, a Warrior who cannot control his curse is no better than a beast. A Warrior may not take an unwilling woman, even if she is the woman of an enemy or an enemy herself. Neither shall a Warrior use his whiles to sway an unwilling woman to some form of willingness to bed her. Such a move is dishonorable in that it exploits her innocence and does her injustice.
A lover must always be treated kindly and with respect. It is the Warrior’s duty to repay the peace a lover grants him with pleasure. If she gifts him with her maiden’s blood, he must ease it from her and repay her tenfold for her sacrifice.
A Warrior must never take a child to his bed. A woman shy of fifteen years, though she bleeds, is not a woman for the taking. Her body is not adequate to carry a Warrior’s child until she matures, and her innocence is still largely intact.
If the woman of a Warrior’s desire is the freed daughter of another Warrior, she may not be taken without her father’s consent or that of her house lord, if her father is dead. The Warrior protecting his child is a dangerous man, and the interloper may be perceived as a threat to that family. For the safety of all, this rule must be adhered to.
The Warrior who takes simple pleasure without permission from her keeper owes a solid blow for every instance to the one who would give his permission. Judgment of whether or not the Warrior is worthy of the woman will then be rendered by her judge.
If the Warrior takes his satisfaction in her in such a case, he must submit to that same man as judge. It is within his judge’s rights to exact one of three punishments. If he deems the Warrior without either honor or control, he may take his life for it. He may take him to trial and forbid his interaction with the woman again. Or, he may take a single blow and give his consent—with any reasonable restrictions he deems fit the situation, from the question of when children are appropriate to loyalties in repayment for his trespass.
In any case—satisfaction taken or no—the judge has the right to strike the woman a single open-handed blow if he feels she is without honor in her actions.
A Warrior who cannot control his curse is no better than a beast. A Warrior who returns to a forbidden woman a second time faces the certainty of death.
A Warrior must always submit absolutely to his judge. If he raises a hand in his own defense to any Warrior—judge or no—or does not meet and live by his punishment gracefully—even unto a sentence of death, he will face death, as he has shown himself without control. If the Warrior lies to his judge to hide his misdeeds when asked for the truth, he will face any penalty up to and including death, as his judge wishes, for he has shown himself lacking in honor.
If the woman wronged is human not of a Warrior house, the house lord of the Warrior who wronged her will sit as his judge. If the accused is a house lord, the Stone Lord will stand as judge. If he is Stone Lord, a council of the lords will stand as judge. In the case of the house lord, he will no longer be deemed worthy of his position and shall forfeit his place as house lord to the next in line to hold the seal. The Stone will take care of its own succession as It always has.
Taking any woman—human or of a household—unwilling or attempting to do so, automatically warrants a sentence of death, as would attempting her murder or the murder of a child. The body of the Warrior would then be presented to the woman and her family and personal protection be granted them in repayment by the house lord.
If the Warrior is come upon in the act, the woman’s safety is paramount. If he can be restrained and presented to his true judge, it should be done despite the fury driving the Warrior who comes upon the scene. If such a thing cannot be accomplished without the threat of further violence to his victim, the criminal should be executed as he is. She should then be tended to medically and returned to her family with proof of the attacker’s state.
If a human family wishes to exact their own punishment on a Warrior, they will be permitted the right of inflicting their own beating, with the protection of the Warrior guard, before the judge passes his own sentence. Remember always that when a Warrior breaks the pact, the safety of all depends on restoring the peace with the humans injured.
Only in a challenge of trial is the Warrior to defend himself physically. Only to his true judge, at the appropriate time, is the Warrior to defend himself in words—if such is the case that there is any excuse or explanation for his actions—or to plead mercy for the woman involved. A Warrior should never plead mercy for himself, as his actions are his own, dishonorable or honorable, and honor demands he take responsibility for them.
The Warrior may demand his right of his true judge and no more of the Warrior who places him in custody. If he raises a hand to that Warrior, he will be restrained or killed as the situation unfolds. Should he survive the punishment of his true judge for his first crime, he still faces death at the hands of the Warrior holding custody for his lack of control. If the Warrior taken into custody attempts violence against an innocent— In such a case, no move will be made to restrain him. His life is forfeit.
Ani (birth/the mother)- Regana first Lady Kreuzträger, Jayde Marie Albright
Baroo (thunder)- Olbrecht first Lord Kaufmann
Dobler (twin peace-bringer)- Ditrich first Lord Jäger
Fih (twin war)- Geldric/the beast Cerran, Cody König-Armen
Geil (iron)- Bryon König-Kaufmann
Hir (the cool wood)- Gerhardus first Lord Landwirt
Iol (immovable ice)- Redulf/the beast Carstol
Jee (justice)- Mikel of Crossbearer-König and all descendants thereof
Kor (the bear)- Corwyn of König-Maher
Len (mountain)- Wilhelmus first Lord Maher
Mul (flowing water)- Mitchell König-Farmer
Nul (stealth of the night)- Bertolf/the beast Draden
Ori (the sun)- Pauwel first Lord Kreuzträger, Hunter Lord Crossbearer-König
Pol (the horse)- Dado/the beast Lorian
Reg (intensity of the fire)- Jörg/the beast Veriel
Syth (the Stone lord)- Master Trainer Sibold, Gawen first Lord Schwertträger, Etienne Lord Kaufmann, Joseph Lord Armen, Carrick Lord Armen, Corwyn Lord Hunter, Lewis of Maher
Tes (stars and moon)- Kevin König-Smith
Vin (wind)- Cunczel first Lord Schmied
Wul (the wolf)- Tilbrand/the
beast Resten
Zel (ending/death)- Erin of Crossbearer-König, Kaitlyn “Katie” of König-Maher, Skye of König-Armen, Victorious Ellen “Vick/Vicky” of König-Smith, Margaret Elizabeth “Maggie” König-Farmer, Colette “Lettie” König-Kaufmann
About the Author
Brenna Lyons wears many hats, sometimes all on the same day: president of EPIC, author of more than 75 published works, columnist, special needs teacher, wife, mother... In addition, she’s a member in good standing of ERWA, TELL, MWW, RWU, IWOFA, and Broad Universe.
In her first five years published in novel-length, Brenna has finaled for seven EPPIES (in six separate categories), three PEARLS (taking Honorable Mention second to NY Times Bestseller Angela Knight), two CAPAS, a Dream Realm Award, and has taken Spintetingler’s Book of the Year for 2007.
Brenna has been termed ‘one of the most deviant erotic minds in the publishing world...not for the weak.’ [Rachelle for Fallen Angels Reviews] She writes milieu-heavy dark fiction, mainly science fiction, fantasy and horror (in 20 established worlds plus stand-alones), poetry, articles and essays. She teaches classes in everything from POV studies to advanced editing, networking to marketing. Brenna loves talking to readers and can be reached via her site at http://www.brennalyons.com.
