Heart of Steel

by Samantha M. Derr

  The brute force of her kiss lacked any affection.

  Heat flooded Maud's face, rage and arousal intermingling. She wasn't herself when she bit down hard on Katrina's lip.

  "Slattern!" Katrina pulled back, her chin streaked with red, and backhanded her hard across the face.

  For that alone, Maud flipped them over, using her bulk to pin Katrina's hips beneath hers. She slid a knee between Katrina's thighs, grinding down. Katrina's breath caught with a gratifying hitch, her fingers twitching in Maud's grip, fury flashing in her gaze.

  She moved fast, faster than Maud's weary eyes could anticipate. Her kiss was rough but impossible to resist. Heat flared between them, a spark fanned from small flame to blazing inferno within half a dozen heartbeats. The smell of death and damp around them only served to heighten their turbulent lust.

  Maud strove to pour her anger and her resentment into every lewd instant, yet even as she fought against Katrina, her body responded to her, desire kindling where none should've been. She took perverse pleasure when Katrina broke off first, crying out sharp and unashamed as her spine went rigid with ecstasy.

  A flock of sparrows in a nearby bough startled. Maud glimpsed them from the corner of her eye as she rolled her hips and followed suit, release washing over her with a sharp, gasping surge. Stars shattered behind her eyes, her grip loosening enough that Katrina should have broken off easily, if she'd wanted to.

  She didn't.

  Breathless delight faded gradually. The world around them resolved into focus. Slick between her thighs and trembling, Maud yanked herself away, heart pounding at her ribs.

  "What, no cuddling?" Katrina taunted from the forest floor. She had the good grace to sound a little winded, too. Rusted leaves clung to her hair. Her face was smudged with dirt and blood.

  Maud cut her eyes away. "We have to… we must burn the bodies." She swallowed past the lump in her throat. "I'll look for kindling." Shame sinking like a stone in her gut, she turned away before Katrina could deliver another jab.

  Or worse, say something kind.

  *~*~*

  Running a house with virtually no servants was no picnic, but Maud welcomed the hard work. Tending the horses and chopping firewood kept her out of Alais's way and far from Katrina, whose knowing smiles had dogged her since their return from the woods. Mending the coop while chickens darted around her was too noisy a task to leave her mind room to wander.

  It was only at night, once Maud traded her linen shirt and breeches for a soft cotton nightgown that she fell prey to idle thoughts. Alais would have been easy to blame, but Alais was toiling between her thighs, doing her best to provide distraction.

  "Am I doing it wrong?" she asked, wiping the slick from her lips with the back of a hand.

  "No." Maud shook her head. "No, my love. I'm tired. It's been a long day."

  Alais made a face, but she was too tolerant of Maud's shifting moods to object. Crawling up the length of the bed, she draped herself half beside and half on top of Maud. "You're not worried there'll be more, are you?" Her fingertips found the hollow between Maud's breasts, where the laces of her nightgown gaped open.

  Warning her about the creatures in the forest was as much necessity as a paltry attempt at dissimulation. If Alais knew about the orcs, she would be on her guard next time she ventured into the woods. If she believed Maud to be upset about the skirmish, she might not take note of Katrina's leering glances.

  "I'm not," Maud answered, on the cusp of a sigh. "We're safe here."

  The moors were far removed from the upheavals of the south, part of the ancestral lands her family had patronised for centuries. Maud knotted her fingers in Alais's tresses. Very little moonlight penetrated through the window, and in the low gleam of candlelight, her hair looked almost coal-black—like Katrina's.

  Maud willed away the disloyal notion. "But my fatigue needn't stop us."

  "O-oh." Alais's expression shuttered. "I don't wish to—"

  "I can feel your excitement, you know." Hot and hard against her hip, a column of flesh arcing away from the apex of Alais's thighs.

  Even now, after sharing a bed for the better part of a year, it still took a little coaxing to get Alais on her back. Maud kissed her, tasting herself as she wrapped a hand around Alais's prick and slowly shifted the focus of their lovemaking away from herself. It wasn't long before Alais began to move into her strokes, grasping the sheets as pleasure rippled through her slender body.

  She was bony beneath her dresses and cardigans, a childhood of hunger-pangs impossible to shake in adulthood, but her cock was thick and hard in Maud's fist. When she came, it was with an unbridled, joyous sound, her whole face lighting up as she fell back against the sheets.

  Maud soothed her through it as best she could, her own thoughts quieting. Alais had always had the strangest hold on her. One look could stop Maud in her tracks. One smile was enough to set her heart beating faster.

  "Don't go," she pleaded, when Maud made to slip out of their bed.

  "Let me clean you up at least."

  Alais sighed. "If you must…" She herself was too boneless to move in the aftermath. "Is it always like this?"

  "Hmm?" Maud dunked a cloth in the washbasin and squeezed out the excess.

  "Love with a daughter of the Order." Alais dimpled up at her. "Is it always so… overwhelming?" Moonlight played on the debauched sprawl of her pale thighs, over the curve of her spent prick, which she was fondling lightly as she watched Maud's return.

  "I'm nothing special." Maud could only hope guilt didn't show on her face.

  "So humble." With a languid stretch, Alais let out a mirthful scoff. "Let me be the judge of that, Sir Knight." And before Maud could protest, Alais hooked a hand around her nape and tugged her into a passionate kiss.

  *~*~*

  Morning dawned clear and bright, with the familiar sounds of Alais's puttering about the kitchen below. Suppressing a shiver, Maud eyed the open window. The sun was already up, which meant Alais had been awake for some time. Maud buried a sigh into the pillow and reached for the covers.

  Her hand encountered only thin air. Alais hadn't simply cracked open the window, but also liberated the blankets from around Maud's body. It made for a rude awakening.

  Groaning, Maud sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the mattress. The smell of cooked sausage greeted her as she made her way down the creaky stairs. A year ago, before Alais, this house would've been silent and dusty, cobwebs everywhere. The minute inconvenience of early mornings was well worth the benefits of their little family.

  Halfway to the kitchen, Maud stopped. Unusually large parlour windows overlooked the front yard, where clumps of flowers struggled to poke their heads out of the hedgerow. In a white shawl and hat, Emelyne pranced about the garden like one of her peers in the gardens of some grand estate.

  Maud's insides pinched with guilt at the sight of her. "If it's a stroll you want," she volleyed, stepping out onto the front step, "there's a bit of a trail up the hills. Worth the view." Especially at this hour, the sun shining bright over the heather-blanketed moors, nary a cloud in the sky.

  Emelyne smiled from beneath the brim of her bonnet. "I would, but we'll be gone as soon as I'm finished warding the grounds."

  "Warding?" Maud repeated, when her mind seized on gone?

  Since the moment she'd laid eyes on Emelyne and Katrina, and realised that they'd come to take her back to London, she had wished for nothing more than to see the backs of them. Her less than warm welcome had finally borne fruit.

  This should have pleased her.

  "I cannot in good conscience leave you and Alais unprotected." In her hand, Emelyne clutched a curved blade inscribed with all manner of runes. She used it to hack off a small branch of hawthorn here, graft on a sprig of holly there, her movements as leisurely as though she were picking flowers. She smiled when she noticed Maud's bemusement. "Truthfully, I never thought we'd have much chance of persuading you. You were ever stubborn."

&n
bsp; "Then why come?" Maud asked, stung.

  "Katrina wanted to be certain. Besides," Emelyne added, producing a silver coin from the small cloth purse tied to her wrist, "I wanted to see my old friend again."

  "What will you tell the Order?"

  "The truth. That you would not let yourself be strong-armed into re-joining our ranks. Your faith in us was broken once," Emelyne said, her tone wistful, "and it never truly mended."

  The Regent was responsible for that, but the Regent was gone. The rightful heir sat the throne at last and the Order numbered sufficient adepts that he'd hardly notice Maud's absence.

  Such conviction did little to shift the sour frustration swirling in Maud's belly. "Make me sound less dewy-eyed, will you? I have a reputation to uphold."

  Emelyne laughed. "As if anyone would dare make a mockery of you. I still remember what a terror you were when we were young girls…"

  Maud heard what she left out. Before you left me the first time. Before you abandoned your family. That she had returned to Yorkshire after better than a decade with the Order didn't rate. By then her brother had gambled away their family's last cent and traded its reputation for a prison cell. At her weakest, Maud sometimes wondered if staying and playing the dutiful daughter would have prevented all that suffering.

  "Of course," Emelyne pursued, her gentle voice yanking Maud back into the present, "I wouldn't wish to defend you too strongly to our monarch, lest he should think us in cahoots."

  "An unblooded fop of only seventeen," Maud countered with a rueful smile. "What does he know?" Rumours of the prince's love of art and fashion had reached the Yorkshire moors even if his elegant tread had yet to—and likely never would—venture quite this far North.

  "He may be young. But one must consider his ministers," Emelyne went on, green eyes twinkling with glee. "And what they may have to say about us shieldmaidens closing ranks."

  "His ministers are a gaggle of old farts who've never forgiven the Order for closing its doors to their sons in the first place," Maud scoffed. "I'd as soon listen to my dog bark at a horse." The Bard of Avon had said it first and he had said it best.

  Emelyne shook her head. "Dear, Maud. How I've missed you."

  "As have I." Maud shifted her weight. Guilt was a familiar sentiment whenever the Order crossed her mind. But Emelyne stood before her now, not a wisp of memory or regret, but a flesh and blood woman, one of the few people alive who'd ever helped Maud feel as though she had a home. "Perhaps," she started, awkwardly. "Perhaps if, uh—"

  Shadows circling overhead cut her off. Maud glanced up, prepared to find a flock of ducks or geese hell-bent on coasting overland toward the nearest lake. Her heart leaped into her throat.

  The dark clouds blowing in from the east were feathered, yes, but they weren't birds at all.

  "Holy Mother," Emelyne bit out as the creatures swooped down.

  Black, leathery wings folded close to their bodies, the wraiths looked more like wolf-headed lizards than anything remotely human. Legend claimed they'd been mages once, twisted by their thirst for power, devoured by their ambition until nothing was left. They were instruments now, ghouls at the back and call of any warlock powerful enough to command them.

  They attacked like a hungry swarm, fangs bared and talons outstretched.

  Maud dodged out of the way, sliding off the stone steps and onto her back as the wraiths banked hard. Vines tore through the air above her not a moment later, forging a makeshift shield. She glanced to the hedgerow, where Emelyne stood braced against the hawthorn, her left hand slashed open, her eyes all pupil.

  The vines protecting Maud fell away all too quickly. "Alais!" she shouted. "My sword!"

  She didn't wait for confirmation before leaping to her feet. Their weapons were still inside the cottage and there was only so much Emelyne could do without her staff.

  "Inside," Maud urged her, trying to keep an eye on the enemy. Sinuous bodies twisted in mid-air and dove back toward them.

  "Here!" Alais shouted from the doorway.

  Whirling around, Maud released her grasp on Emelyne. The claymore was too heavy to toss, but no sooner had Alais emerged with it than Katrina slammed into her side and propelled them both onto the gravel path. A fireball whistled over their heads and through the open door like a cannon shot. Heat blasted from within the foyer, wood and rugs consumed at once by an unnatural blaze.

  Maud grabbed Alais by one arm, Katrina by the other. "All right?"

  Alais nodded, visibly shaken. There was no time to ask if she was certain. The wraiths loosed two more fireballs, both to the cottage roof. The effect was swift and incendiary. Windows shook. The ground itself seemed to crackle beneath Maud's feet as she unsheathed her sword.

  This time, when the wraiths slanted into another attack, she was ready for them. "Get down," she shouted, to Alais, and swung for the nearest creature.

  As it had done in the forest, her blade found its target with practiced ease. Shrieks of agony and effortful groans filled the courtyard.

  Katrina joined in the fray, picking off the more distant wraiths in mid-flight. Her arrows curbed their trajectory whenever she couldn't quite fell them before they attacked. Those who managed to dodge her volleys dipped straight for Maud and, once within range, swiftly discovered the keen edge of the claymore.

  There was a familiar rhythm to any battle, a muscle memory that took over when reason would have left Maud paralysed. She couldn't let herself think as she swivelled on her heel, planting herself between Alais and the wraiths. Attacks came at her from three sides, the creatures single-minded in their destructive rage. Serrated teeth snapped so close that Maud just about felt their bite on her flesh. Claws raked the air, nearly but not quite scoring her arm. Without her gauntlets, without her armour, she felt more vulnerable than she had in years.

  Another blast shook the foundations of the cottage. The wind changed, a fierce gale bearing with it sooth and smoke, stinging Maud's eyes.

  "My staff!" Emelyne yelled, as a portion of the roof collapsed beneath its weight, flames jutting out from the sinking beams.

  Maud turned. "Alais, no!"

  Too late. Loose hair spilling over her shoulders, Alais booked it back into the house, darting under a wraith as it fell, pierced by Katrina's arrow. Maud shouted for her again, to no avail. She made to follow, fear gripping her by the throat, but two more wraiths blocked her path, feinting when she made to run them through with the claymore.

  The swarm had thinned, but the remaining creatures were the hardier of the host. Maud swung again, her grip around the sword hilt beginning to slacken. Laboured breaths scoured her throat as seconds ticked by.

  No sign of Alais. From the corner of her eye, Maud saw the draperies on the upper floor of the cottage flutter out like billowing sails, embers rising from the dusty, burning cloth. Alais was in there. Alais could be choking on smoke, trapped and helpless. And all because Maud couldn't protect her.

  A clatter sounded from the kitchen. Maud whirled around, sword at the ready, as it burst open.

  Emelyne was faster on her feet. Relinquishing her bloodied grasp on the hawthorn bush, she clasped the proffered staff from Alais's fist and thrust the crystal-bearing end toward the sky. Bright light filled the gemstone and burst out with an almost seismic wave.

  Vision gone instantly white, Maud shielded her eyes in the bend of an elbow. When she blinked them open again, the ground was littered with the bodies of dead wraiths, leathery wings and sinuous bodies as twisted in death as they'd been in life. She jumped, startled by the crash of shoddy masonry, and turned to face the house.

  Where before had stood a modest cottage—not a luxurious abode by any means, but one greatly improved by blood, sweat and tears of two women who had nowhere else to go—now stood a crumbling ruin, the roof entirely toppled, the upper floor gutted by fiery tongues. Windows and shutters lay broken in the flowerbeds, the smell of char pungent in the eerie stillness.

  "Still think that merchant was working alo
ne?" Katrina asked, her voice raw. Blood marred her cheek. One of the wraiths must have managed a lucky shot.

  Shouting echoed over the moors. Maud turned at the peal, panting as she braced for another attack.

  Men and women were rushing from Holsworth and its surrounding farmhouses. Some struggled to bear buckets of water to put out the blaze. Others had snatched up pitchforks and wood axes and were coming prepared for a fight.

  They were all of them as daring and defenceless as Alais.

  Maud flexed her hand around the sword hilt. "I need a bloody drink."

  *~*~*

  The inn wasn't much, but it was better than sleeping on the streets. The hubbub of the public house below was bound to die down as its patrons ventured back to their homes, leaving those taking rooms above to their rest. As best as Maud could tell, her party were alone in that predicament.

  Holsworth didn't see much in the way of visitors. It was bound to see even fewer once word of its recent troubles reached neighbouring towns. Trade would dry up. Supplies would begin to run short by winter.

  Maud took another sip from her tankard. At least Holsworth made its own ale.

  "You're brooding," said Alais, gathering her skirts as she sat down. She'd doffed off the shawl and bonnet lent to her by one of the women in town, exposing her narrow shoulders and wispy brown hair. "Is something wrong?"

  Everything. Maud sidestepped the question. "How do you find our new rooms?"

  "Room," Alais corrected. "Emelyne talked her way into the larger apartment. We'll have a fire tonight, at least, though the view leaves a little to be desired."

  "The windows overlook the privy?"

  "The stables." Alais wrinkled her nose. For a commoner who'd spent her whole life dirtying her hands, she could be astonishingly fussy. "Still," she added, drumming her short, bitten fingernails against the table top. "I suppose it's not all bad. 'Least this way we can be sure no one will steal our horses. Shall I get you another pint?"

  Her insouciance prompted a scowl. "Not all bad?" Maud was too tired, too angry to chisel outrage from her voice. "The cottage lies in ruins, Holsworth has been gutted by malevolent forces—you almost died twice in the space a fortnight! Not all bad? We're hanging by a thread." One she couldn't stop fraying with every drawn breath.