by Aimee Moore
“I think you do. See how she’s looking at us? She’s never had two at once before.”
“Definitely not three.”
“No, definitely not. She makes me want to figure out how to fit four.” Their grins were nasty under their masks.
The one holding the ring around my neck pulled my throat close. “What do you say, Pretty Hair? Would you like to taste all of us as we take you? We promise to be gentle.” He ran a finger up the black shard in my shoulder and pain ripped through me.
Despite that, my body screamed yes. All of them. Here. Now.
“No,” I said.
They laughed.
“But look at her, she’s ready to pluck off. Just touch her and we get a show,” one said.
My breaths were shaking, my body screaming for the release that my idiotic stubbornness was trying to refuse. I bit my tongue hard. Clarity seeped into me, along with the metallic taste of blood.
“Put me down,” I growled.
The one holding the ring around my neck laughed. “Which of you idiots turned your allure down?”
They glanced at each other with frowns. “We’re all projecting. She’s different. Look at her arm.”
All eyes were on the tattoo spiraling up to my elbow, spelling out a side of me that, under normal circumstances, should have given them pause.
The one holding the ring around my neck yanked me down near his crotch. And another grabbed my arm, pulling it forward. The contact on my skin was delicious. I moaned, bent over as I was, hating myself for how my back arched in invitation.
“Any of you make sense of this?”
“No. Maybe whoever put the collar on her put that on, too?”
“Well not like she’d tell us who owned her, she’s out here alone, clearly on the run.”
“I recognize those symbols, Gentlemen. Those are the written language of Children of War.”
“Oh pluck off, you do not recognize it.”
“I do. I had a Child of War as a bed slave once. Remember my second century? Father got her for me. She needed it rough to come. Good for when I was angry, otherwise I let her skulk around the rooms while I cock teased her.”
“Perhaps she was skulking because there wasn’t much cock to tease her with.”
Laughter rang out.
“See there? Cock envy is ugly. But that bed slave, she was covered in markings just like this. I’m sure of it.” Fingers brushed over my skin as anger pierced my pleasure-drugged mind.
I yanked my arm away with a growl, and the surprised men let go of me. I held my arm to my body, backing away as pleasure boomed in my blood. My legs shook and I sunk to my knees, still glaring over heated cheeks and swollen lips.
“Gentlemen, I’ve had another thought.”
“She probably needs it rough? Yes, I’ve thought that, too. Think you can deliver? I know you like it like a woman.”
“Well not all of us prefer to hammer our genitals into our lovers, you know.”
“Gentlemen. We can simply ask her who she belongs to.”
“You mean she has a mind somewhere in that sack of joy?”
Laughter rang out again.
I sucked in a shaking breath. “Karne!” I yelled in a breathy voice.
They laughed again.
“Karne, that bastard. All the best toys.”
“Yes, but look, don’t his whores all wear that?”
“Indeed they do, you’re right.”
“Gents, I think that Karne deserves a lesson.”
“Grand idea.”
“Yes, when he lets his whores out, someone else gets to play with them.”
“What are we in the mood for, gentlemen? Should we tire her out with the chase first or tire her out with a good pound?”
“To the keepers with the chase, I want her now.”
They came at me then.
I got up to run, but the movement was too fast, my legs moving against my tender nether region, and I collapsed in climax.
One of them grabbed my neck ring as I pulsed with pleasure, my vision dimming as stars exploded somewhere on the periphery of my ecstasy, and another of the Nialae shoved at the barely-there cloth covering my breasts. They rolled free of the confinement, and hands were on me, kneading, grabbing as I moaned and offered myself for more. Desire ruled my mind, conquering any logical thought I may have clung to.
“I can’t wait,” one of them grunted. The fabric at my most intimate places was being pushed aside, and my legs were being spread by greedy hands. I obliged. I wanted them in me now, hard and deep. Nothing else existed outside of the roar of pleasure dominating my being. Something smooth and tender nudged at my mouth, and I opened my lips to oblige, to let it in to fill me in any way possible.
“Get your hands off of her,” came a dangerous voice.
All hands left me then, and I moaned in loss at the cold, aching deprivation of the release I needed so badly. Clarity began to filter into me at their absence, and I pushed myself up on shaking arms, legs quivering as I closed them carefully.
“Is this yours, Karne?”
“I’m fairly certain you know she is,” Karne said. He was dressed in browns and golds today, a knife at his belt and a leather tie in his hair.
I moaned as another climax threatened to rock me, and I clawed at the dirt.
“Gentlemen, it would appear that Karne is sour at having his toy played with. If you leave it out, Karne, then someone else is going to play with it.”
Darkness gathered around Karne then, and he spoke to my offenders in a musical language that belied the darkness curling around him. He appeared to grow before me as his voice echoed, and yet he was the same size as before when I blinked. The four men cowered in Karne’s shadow.
And then, mercifully, the allure was gone. My throbbing lessened to a dull aftershock as I caught my breath.
Karne, back to his normal self, knelt to help me up. I smacked his hand away, glaring.
Laughter sounded again. “She doesn’t even want him!”
“This is a first, gents; a toy that does not want.”
I stood on shaking legs, my body heavy and throbbing with residual pleasures. “You maggots,” I hissed.
They laughed again.
I glanced at Karne, standing near me with a frown, and grabbed the knife at his belt. Adrenaline slowed time as my guffawing assaulters continued to laugh. I took aim with my left palm, cocked my right arm, and chucked the knife at the group of men. In their laughter they didn’t see it coming.
Karne made no move to stop the blade as it somersaulted through the air and dug deep into the arm of one of my laughing assaulters. Laughter was gone then.
Rip their throats open, bathe this road in a river of their blood.
“Pluck off, Karne, your damn whore just chucked a knife at me!”
“That she did, who in keeper’s shit does she think she is?”
“Kill her.”
“Rut her then kill her,” another said. Laughter sounded from three of them.
Karne’s deadly voice interrupted their games. “You are lucky, gentlemen, that I did not throw the knife.”
“No. You worms are lucky that I do not have my gift, or I would set fire to you from the inside out,” I said in a dangerous tone.
“Rather savage, isn’t she,” one of them said.
The one with the knife in his arm was switching between grasping the handle to yank it out and gently edging the blade out of his flesh. His lips were white.
“I was correct, those are Child of War marks she bears. Keeper-damned barbaric race, they are.”
Karne cut me a strange look, then looked back to my assaulters. “Leave. And if I see you near my village, you know what will happen.”
I scowled at them as they loaded themselves into their obnoxious white chariot, shooting filthy looks at Karne and myself. They flicked the reins on their white horse-deer creatures and were off.
Alone on the dirt road with Karne, the space between my legs soaked with col
d, shame washed over me. If he didn’t save me, I would have done horrible, unspeakable things. Exhaustion nudged at the back of my eyes.
“Come,” he said in a sour tone, holding his arms out.
“I can’t leave Mint. She’s tied,” I said.
Karne frowned, lowering his arms. “Mint.”
“My horse.” I gestured to the woods.
Karne looked in the direction I indicated, then back at me. “You stole my butcher’s horse. Stole items from my house. Then left without repaying your debts to me. All of that after having killed one of my staff. Then, you called upon me to save you a third time today. I have been a tolerant man, human.”
“You knew where I was the whole time. I never called upon you.”
“Oh Seraphine, but you did. I heard my name. And if I hadn’t arrived, you would have given yourself to violations far worse than I have ever wished to impose upon you.”
I dug my nails into my palms as I turned away, stomping back to Mint. Stomping on my good foot, anyway.
“You know I didn’t have control over it. I resisted with all that I had. And they nearly had me anyway, this damned shard is still in my shoulder, and you’re here to enslave me once more.” My voice cracked.
Mint nickered as I approached, turning an inquisitive gaze onto me. I wrapped my arms around her neck and buried my face in her soft fur as I fought the tears pricking my eyes.
When Karne’s hand met my shoulder, I shoved him away.
“Seraphine, you do not have to turn to beasts for comfort. I offer it freely.”
“I’m sure there’s a price tag on that, too,” I said, my voice muffled into Mint’s neck. I fought my frustration and shame, wishing I could turn off emotion as Nialae turned off their allure.
Karne pulled me to face him, gently, the look on his face half amused. “You think me a monster.”
“I think all Nialae are monsters,” I whispered.
“Is that why you agreed to betray Tanebrael?”
I glared. “Don’t you people understand privacy? You can’t just go pulling anything you want out of my head.”
Karne’s soft gaze searched my own, the honey color warming. “You may find, once your hatred ebbs and your resistance fades, that our goals are not so dissimilar. Come, we need to leave this place, a ristulg wanders nearby.”
“I’m not done looking for Dal,” I said, pulling away.
Karne frowned at me. “You’re being foolish. The only thing you’re going to find out here is death.”
I tightened my hand around the horse’s saddle strap and steeled my spine. “I’ll find my mate if it kills me, Karne.”
Karne was quiet for a moment. “And what if he had the same thought,” he murmured.
Coldness trickled down my spine. “What do you mean?”
“Do you know what took me so long to answer your call today?”
“No.”
“I was looking for them, Seraphine. For you. And I’m sorry to say that I found them.”
“What?” I whispered.
“Truly, I am sorry.”
I gave a weak laugh, clinging to Mint’s saddle as my knees went weak. “No, whatever you think you saw, you’re wrong. Dal and Lianne are formidable warriors; you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Karne shrugged, gesturing with his hands. A familiar helmet appeared in them, and he tossed it at my feet. It crunched in the dirt and leaves with a loud clank before rolling onto my toe.
“I’m not often wrong.”
“Where did you get this?” I trembled as I stooped to pick up the helmet. My fingers poked into the visor holes.
“A ristulg found it… unpalatable.”
“Lies,” I whispered, raising my lashes in an angry glare.
“Believe what you want. But if you trust anything at all, trust that your world is no longer safe to be alone. Think of that before you set off into the wilderness with only a sack of stolen trinkets and dried meat to your name.”
My vision hazed with adrenaline. I didn’t want to believe, but the knowledge in my gut was as cold and heavy as the steel in my hands. I turned the helmet over and peered inside.
Dried blood.
“Take me to them,” I said.
“You don’t want to see it.” His voice was gentle.
“Take me,” I snarled up at him.
Karne watched me for a moment, and then he strode forward, putting both hands on my shoulders. I tucked the helmet under my arm and put my hands on Karne’s chest, barely aware of what I was doing as my mind raced ahead to what I would find.
And then we were in a different forest. It was frigid here, the whites and blues of the trees a stark contrast to the brown and green I’d just left. Karne pushed me down between the ferns and directed my gaze into the distance.
Dal’s sword was embedded in a blood-splashed tree near a ristulg, its roving eyeball stilled at last as it leaned toward something on the ground. One of the legs was working at something below the line of greenery in front of me. A snaking leg lifted a stringy tendril of red from below and applied it to the rest of the meat on its metal body.
The claws on the end of the leg were remarkably deft as it patted and poked, and soon the meat was molded on to its side like bread dough, pulsating with the rest. My entire being iced with dread.
The ristulg reached down again with its working leg, which began to twitch with its movements. Then it brought more meat to the mass on its body.
“By the gods,” I whispered. “Please, no.”
“We should not have come,” Karne whispered back.
I shook my head. “No, there’s a misunderstanding. They’re… Stars above, they’re too big for such small deaths.”
“You don’t want to see this, Seraphine, sit down,” Karne said in a harsh voice, pulling me.
“This isn’t right,” I snarled, shoving him away and rising just enough to peer at the ristulg’s victims.
The spill of blood drew my eyes to Lianne first. Head dangling from pieces of her neck, plate armor wrenched apart like giftwrap on a fruitcake, innards ransacked. The shock washed over me, past me, in one painful jolt. The world seemed to move slowly as I let my gaze travel toward the ristulg’s current meal, each heartbeat spanning my vision into eons of fear-blurred focus.
“Dal,” I whispered, my own voice echoing in the space in my head.
The ristulg was tearing him into pieces. His beautiful body, capable of so much love and destruction all at once, it was being plundered. Violated. Taken from me to nourish this undeserving, thoughtless monstrosity of evil.
My mind stumbled over what I witnessed. It wasn’t true. Some other explanation, there had to be one. A reason why fate would smear this horror in my face. And then I crashed into the truth of my reality. Ugly, cruel, pointless reality. I saw it with my own eyes. I smelled the blood. I held Lianne’s cold helmet. Rage washed onto the shores of my shock. That thing didn’t deserve any part of Dal at all.
I reached for my gift, all of it, every spark in this world and the next, and I snarled as pain ripped through me.
“Seraphine, don’t,” Karne commanded, pulling my arm.
I dropped Lianne’s helmet with a clatter as I stood tall. My vision blurred with tears as anger poured through me, and I pulled harder at the fire that was supposed to be there for me, clawing my hands with effort. The world slowed into a throbbing bulb of fury and agony as I tried to smash through whatever force took my gift from me.
Karne was yelling something nearby as my growl evolved into a scream, the ristulg was turning toward me, and my entire being shook as I funneled every drop of myself into obliterating the evil before me.
But no obliteration came, the pain was going to break me, and the scream shredding through my throat was unending. Karne’s iron grip bound me to sanity, taking this from me the way his people took everything else from me.
The ristulg crashed toward us, the undulating pieces of Dal on its body fueling it. I fought toward it with
everything I had, and then the world sucked away.
Chapter 18
Puddles Of Dreams
How do we go on?
When the air that sustains us is so suddenly snatched away? When we know, deep in our bones, that fate has only a melancholy march to the end remaining? How do I piece together the jagged remains of my shattered life to form a whole again?
I had always known that death would claim me and Dal. At the tip of a glinting blade, severing our ties to the things we would die for. Or if we were lucky, it would seep into our old bones with the warmth of our shared bed, a whisper of an invite to lay our weary heads to rest at long last.
But this? How could fate have taken so much from us, and then snuffed him with such carelessness?
Life after death; it is a question for the living. For those trying to find life after the cruelty of a sudden end.
My grief often ushered me from that search in the weeks to come. In the lonely hours of my sparse room, where the suffocating black of night whispered my anguished regrets across my mind. I struggled to find the courage to face them. I hated myself for my last words to Dal, and then I hated Dal for insisting we go to Sunwold. If we’d only told Ysiel no. If we’d done anything other than venture into that university. Dozens of opportunities to change our fates had passed us by.
No good deed is without cost.
After I’d cried out every drip of moisture my body possessed and ached from the intensity of it, Yasmil came to force food and drink into me with biting hands. She made me bathe without a word, then left me to my misery.
I spent a night trying to wrench the black shard from my shoulder, screaming with pain as I battled myself into blackness. I went through this twice before giving up, it was one with me now. Whatever magical means rooted it to my flesh also seemed to keep the wound clean and mostly pain free. Not even infection would set in to end me.
The months trudged on as I forced myself through my waking tasks. Dal would want me to be strong and carry on, and that was probably the only thing that kept me functioning. I moved through Karne’s mansion like a ghost, doing what was asked of me, counting the hours until I could be asleep again. Dal was in my dreams and nothing could take him from me there.
