by Raven Dark
But there was no anger there. Instead, his eyes were filled with a warm heat I hadn’t seen since that first day at the well, back at the Grotto.
A smile curved his mouth. Sheriff crooked his finger at me. My muscles tightened. I handed the bottle of moonshine to Emmy and got up, starting toward him. He pointed to the leash Steel still had in his hand. I slid it from Steel’s open palm and then went to Sheriff.
“Master?” I said softly, handing him the leash and kneeling between his knees.
He pulled me into him and put my back to his chest, his arms slipping around my shoulders. His stubbly cheek tickled my neck.
“I liked that,” he rasped throatily. “You’ll sing that song to me later in my bed, sweetheart.”
I glanced up at him, my eyes wide. Delight spread from my head to my toes. Not just because he liked my singing, but because he accepted the song. A song that, in any other place, might get a woman a lash or worse.
Slowly, the men’s conversations started up again. The moonshine must have affected me more than I thought, because I soon found myself leaning against him, sleepy. He smelled so good, like slow-burning wood and hot man, the scents making me pleasantly lethargic.
Sometime later, I half-felt Sheriff lifting me up into his arms. Either I was dreaming, or my master was carrying me away from the fire and into his tree.
He laid me down across his bed of furs and then folded me into his arms. Silence fell over us, companionable. Dazed as I was with sleep and drink, I still couldn’t help thinking. Sheriff was being almost gentle again. That could only mean one thing. Anytime the General let down his guard with me, darkness always followed. He always changed.
Would he be different tomorrow? And if he was, what would that mean for us?
* * *
“Kitten.” Hawk’s warm voice woke me sometime later.
Laying on my side, I felt him leaning over me, his lips brushing my bare shoulder.
“Up and at’em, Kitten. Preparations for departure have started.”
I rolled over and stretched languidly, meeting his warm amber gaze above me. “What time is it, Master?”
“Going on noon. Sheriff wants you out there helping the others with the packing.”
I sat up and looked at the empty area of Sheriff’s bed beside me, then at Hawk. He already had the end of my leash around his wrist. Faintly, I could hear Sheriff barking orders. His voice carried over the sounds of a camp filled with voices, over bike engines revving and people moving this way and that outside the tree.
It didn’t surprise me that the group had already started packing up, even though Sheriff had said we weren’t leaving until after dark. Preparations for leaving the Grotto had taken days, and with the Rebels leaving at the same time as us, the whole camp would take time pack up.
I poured myself a drink of water from a pitcher on a crate beside the bed and thought of last night. Emmy singing, Doc and Diamond, Sheriff taking me to bed. He’d woken me twice in the night to sate himself. I’d loved every moment of it, even if I was careful not to let him know that.
I drank the water down. Hawk handed me a fresh frock and watched me with open lust as I dressed. As soon as I had the frock in place, he handed me a pair of underwear, but I didn’t miss the scowl he gave the scrap of cloth.
“You’re letting me wear these?” I slipped the panties on gratefully. “What’s the occasion, Master?”
Hawk gave a rare smile. “I hate the thought of what’s mine being hidden from me, but you can’t ride in the heat and on hot leather with a bare ass.”
I had the panties halfway on when Hawk stood and turned me around.
“Is your ass still sore? Let me see.”
I lifted the frock, letting him run his hands over my cheeks. His warm palms heated my skin perfectly.
“Not a mark,” he marveled softly. He was referring to the night of my punishment, I knew. Most women would have had a sore and very bruised ass for a week after that night. “Incredible.”
I straightened the frock, hating the self-consciousness that pricked at me with the reminder of my Violet healing abilities.
“Did you dream last night, Kitten?” Hawk asked, slowly turning me to face him. Concern furrowed his dark brows.
“Not that I remember, Master. I get the feeling that, when I’m really tired, I don’t have the nightmares or not as many.”
Since the fight between him and Pretty Boy yesterday, we hadn’t had a chance for him to teach me his meditation technique. I couldn’t decide if I was relieved at that or not. Part of me disliked the idea of facing whatever was hidden in my dreams, but another part was excited at the idea of learning his ways. Ways that, as far as I knew, only men were allowed to learn.
“Good. We’ll—”
“Hawk! What’s taking so long? Where’s Setora?” Sheriff bellowed.
Hawk shook his head, his eyes twinkling. “We’ll get back to your meditation training at our next camp, before you sleep.” He pulled me against him and ran his hand over my backside, into the back of the panties. “What do you say when Master gives you something?”
“Thank you for the panties, Master.” I rested my hands on his chest, feeling an absurd gratitude.
“Hawk!” Sheriff again.
Hawk brushed my lips with his, then turned me toward the entrance to the tree and tapped me on the ass. “Let’s get you out there and put you to work before Sheriff has a fit.”
The day passed by in a flurry of organizing, cleaning, sorting, and packing. T-Man and Pretty Boy worked with the bikes, checking engines and fuel supplies, making sure everything was in order, then helping the Rebels’ mechanics, Jaz and Pit, check over the two transports. Hawk helped Striker and two other Rebels move the heavier boxes—of furs, clothing, food, and water—into the backs of the transports, then put our supplies into the bike compartments, since Doc refused to let Steel leave his bed for most of the day. Diamond, Emmy, Marna, and I gathered extra drinking water from the pond for both the Legion and the Rebels, washed all the laundry from both crews, then packed up more boxes of supplies.
Crash helped Doc gather herbs for special recipes for Steel, ones that added extra nutrients and would boost his energy. Crash’s leg must have been getting better, because he moved about the camp more easily and used his cane less. Even so, neither Sheriff nor Doc would allow him to move around as much as the others.
Several times throughout the afternoon, I checked on Steel with Doc. Doc wanted him to get as much rest as he possibly could before the long ride to our next camp. Especially since, according to what I’d heard the men saying, with regular stops along the way, we’d be on the road for almost sixteen hours before we reached the next campsite. The men knew we wouldn’t be able to find a safe place to sleep until we got further north, over twelve hours ride from here.
I brought Steel food twice. Porridge only, the closest Doc was willing to let him get to solid food, and something Steel grumbled about as much as the broth.
Sheriff and Utar supervised the preparations, keeping order and lending a hand where they could. The two men from Utar’s crew who’d spent most of their time in the infirmaries, were now up and about, helping the rest of us.
When they’d been brought here, the two men had been malnourished, severely dehydrated, and badly bruised, but both were on the mend, looking healthy and strong, their bruises mostly healed.
It was strange, but watching the camp slowly empty out of all the things that made it feel like a home—scattered boxes and crates beside tree hollows, blankets and clothes hung over the branches of trees to air out or dry—filled me with a bittersweet sadness. I’d grown to like the Lone Rebels, their company, and enjoyed the talking and laughter of a people recently freed and glad to just be alive.
In the two full days they’d been with us, Utar’s people had come to feel like friends, or perhaps even family. I’d seen Utar and Sheriff talking for long hours at the fire, or Hawk and Striker watching over the camp and making rounds t
ogether, exchanging battle stories and tactics. Brenna, Marna, and the rest of the Rebels’ women talked at length with Diamond and Emmy through the nights, and I’d joined them when my masters allowed. Doc and Trax had sat reading from medical books, gathering herbs and discussing their differing medical practices. This last dinner with our new group of friends felt much too short.
We’d made yet another group of allies, and I would be sad to see them go. Would we see them again? I didn’t know why, but I had a feeling we would one day.
We sat about the fire for dinner, with plenty of daylight left. Doc brought Steel out for the meal and a good stretch before he’d have to ride his bike for hours.
“Welcome to the land of the living, again,” Pretty Boy said to Steel when he sat with a bowl of porridge I’d given him.
“Thanks.” He tugged on Pretty Boy’s ponytail. “It feels good to get out of that flea-ridden Dreg bed.”
“And when the work’s done no less,” Pretty Boy teased.
“Timed it perfectly.” Steel winked at me.
“Yeah, ‘cause we all know what a lazy ass you are.”
“Fuck you, PB.”
It warmed my heart to hear their banter, to see Pretty Boy’s joy at his best friend’s recovery.
The two of them started playfully punching each other. Steel set his bowl down and got up, and Pretty Boy got Steel in choke hold, holding him at the waist with an arm around his neck.
“Hey, you two!” Doc bellowed, pushing the two of them apart with a glare. “Knock it off. Steel needs to take it easy, Pretty Boy.”
“Hurry it up. We need to get on the road soon,” Sheriff added, coming over and taking the bowl of quail stew I’d dished out for him.
Once the Dark Legion men were served and Sheriff gave his permission, I served myself some stew and sat at Steel’s feet.
“Let me have some of that,” Steel whispered, playfully reaching for my bowl. “Quick before Doc sees.”
“I heard that, Steel,” Doc growled.
When we finished eating, Sheriff handed me a pair of leather pants. They were almost like the kind Diamond and Emmy sometimes wore as part of their road rat outfits, black and formfitting but with silver, skull-shaped studs at the waist that marked them for a Dreg woman’s attire. I widened my eyes at him.
“You’re letting me wear pants, Master?” I asked quietly. I wasn’t foolish enough to think I’d earned back my road rat status so quickly. Not when he still insisted I had to be on that leash and could only eat with permission after my masters were served.
“It’s for your safety while we ride. Bike metal gets hot when we ride for long hours, and it’s going to get colder the closer we get to where we’re going. Your legs need to be covered.”
Disappointment in myself took root, but I nodded and went into his tree. I pulled on the pants and then the boots I’d borrowed from Diamond last night. The pants were a little loose in the hips and waist, but one of Diamond’s studded belts kept them in place. I tucked the pant legs into the boots.
All too soon, darkness descended on the forest, and it was time to go. As I helped Diamond close up the last jugs of water and stow them in one of the bike compartments, it hit me how safe this wooded camp had come to feel. Maybe that was partly the presence of the Rebels, but whatever the case, going back out into the world filled me with the absurd urge to hide.
Not only were Damien and his J’nai still out there hunting for me, but Sheriff was likely right; there was no doubt Saketh and his Hellhounds would let the beatdown the Legion had given them go without payback. If they found us again, they’d pose as much a danger to us as Damien. Or more.
Maker, I missed the Grotto.
Delta was only six days travel away, but it might as well have been on the other side of the world.
The men and women packed up the last few supplies and closed up the Rebel’s transports. By the time we were ready to head out, it must have been close to ten.
There was a lot of friendly back-slapping, handshakes and brotherly hugs before four of the lower ranking Rebels climbed into the transports, two each. The rest slowly started piling into the backs of the vehicles.
“You’ll need this more than us,” Sheriff said, taking two large bags of coins from Pretty Boy and handing them to Utar at the back of one transport. “To help you rebuild, my friend.”
I recognized the symbols on the sides of the bags. They were filled with the credits the Hellhounds had taken from Oasis Fueling Station before they killed its owner and personnel.
Utar clapped Sheriff on the back. “So much for the legendary reputation of the Dark Legion,” he chuckled. “We thought you guys were supposed to be badass pirates.”
“We are,” Sheriff teased. “Keep out of trouble, or we’ll have to come find you and set you straight.”
Utar gripped his hand tightly and looked at all of the Legion men. “If you men are ever in need of aid, all you have to do is call on us. We’ll come with swords drawn.”
“Thank you, friends.” Hawk said. “We won’t forget…”
I missed whatever else Hawk said when Marna spoke up beside me. “Setora.”
I looked up from the last of the packing to find Marna at my shoulder holding several small boxes taken from her and Utar’s tree.
“The women and I would like a word with you before we go,” she said setting the boxes inside the back of a transport.
I nodded and looked at Sheriff, the closest of my masters at the moment.
He handed my leash to Crash, indicating for him to take me. “Go. She has five minutes before we head out, boy.”
Marna walked me back to her tree, Crash following a few paces behind to give us privacy while we talked. Crash grunted as he seated himself on a stump outside the hollow, letting us head inside.
My eyes widened. All the women from Utar’s crew were gathered in the hollow. When we entered, they’d stood up, one and all regarding me with a look that somehow felt ominous.
“What’s going on, Marna?” I looked at her uncomfortably.
“We just wanted to tell you. That is…we…” She ran her hand through her red curls with a helpless glance at the other women. When no one spoke up, she sighed.
I wasn’t used to seeing a woman as confident as her struggle with her words.
“We just wanted to tell you. It hasn’t been lost on any of us, what you’ve done for us, Setora.”
Realizing what she was getting at, heat spread across my face, from my hairline all the way to my chest.
“Marna, you don’t have to say that. I didn’t do much, really.”
She clasped my hands in hers as her face took on a solemn look. “Yes. You did. We owe you our lives. Utar knows it. Our men know it. We know it.”
Maker, help me. Accepting her words went against everything I’d been raised to believe. Women, slaves, were supposed to remain humble, always handing credit and glory for anything to a man, whether a man deserved it or not. Her words themselves warred with what had been drilled into my head from the age of six, that there were only two places for a woman; in a man’s bed or at his feet.
Besides, the men had honestly done all the hardest parts. They had fought the Dregs. They were the ones who had really saved the Rebels. But all I had to do was look around at these women staring at me like I was—as Sheriff had said—‘the fucking Maker come’, and I knew telling them that men had saved them would have been the wrong thing to say.
Unsure how to reply, I just inclined my head slightly and shrugged.
“Do not sell yourself short,” Marna said, her voice suddenly sharp, her grip on my hands earnest. The other women murmured in agreement. “You set everything in motion. You made our freedom possible.”
She looked at the others and they swarmed me, agreeing.
“The way you live…with your Masters…may not be for us any longer,” Brenna said, taking my shoulder. “We may not agree with it, but we do understand it. After all, the greatest heroes in this world of
ten start on their knees before they come to stand on the shoulders of men.”
Marna nodded. “One day the world will change. The New will become the Old again. But that won’t start with men like Sheriff or Utar. It will start with people who have a lot more to lose by doing what is right. It will begin with people like you, Setora.”
“I…well…thank you.” Another blush.” My head spun with her implications, and I didn’t have the heart to tell these people I wasn’t some hero out of a storybook.
Marna drew me in for a hug.
“Something wonderful is about to happen,” she said into my ear. “It’s been coming for a long time. And when it does, it will be you, our Violet-eyed Liberator whom the world will remember as having paved the way.”
Liberator? Oh Maker of Light. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be swallowed by the ground, or to give her the world’s biggest hug. I settled for hugging her hard and exchanged hugs with the other women, expressing our hope of seeing each other again someday.
What would Damien have said if he’d heard what these women were saying? He’d probably have them all hanged for heresy.
I left the women behind to gather up the last of their things and walked toward the waiting men with Crash, my face still hot.
“Liberator?” He gave me a sidelong smile, his eyes gleaming. “Wait until the others hear this.”
My heart did a nosedive. “Oh, Crash, no. Don’t.”
I giggled when he winked at me and headed for the group.
That was all I needed, for Sheriff to hear what the women called me. He’d never stop rubbing it in.
“Oh, Sheeeeriiiiff!” Crash hollered in a sing-song voice.
“Crash, sir! No, please don’t!” I tugged on his arm, and he put his arm around me, knuckling my hair with his fist.
“Hurry it up or get left behind, both of you,” Sheriff growled, mounting his bike. “Enough fucking around.”
Several of the Rebels laughed.
