War-Torn

by J. E. Keep

  Those strong arms of his were so comforting through the night, so pleasing come the morn. He squeezed her in one, pushing up her breasts in the process, the other moving down over her to her inner thigh. He nibbled and suckled her ear all while that needful cock swelled between their tight leathers.

  She’d never been with a man before, of course. Her lot as a noble was to wait for her appointed day, when she cemented some alliance of houses. Or a trade between them at least.

  “Was worried we’d never get our chance,” he muttered in his gravelly, early-morning voice as he ground into her so purposefully. Getting that sweet friction of her body against his loins.

  Her stomach flipped, and she nodded dumbly. She could feel him all around her, and her breathing quickened. He’d been so professional, so capable. It’d barely occurred to her that he might have felt some desire for her feminine curves, for her body. Her finger moved to sweep her long, blonde hair from the side he sucked, and her blue eyes fluttered shut.

  “Is it safe up here?” she asked quietly.

  Those strong hands of his were so comforting, so powerful. He squeezed her inner thigh and slid his palm in towards her sex, all while he continued to rock his hips and grind into her backside.

  “Don’t worry,” he husked and suckled her exposed neck with his moist lips. “I’ve got you, Terrel.” And as his hand moved up and took hold of her breast he froze.

  Her mouth dropped open, and she stopped as well. Her breath held deep in her chest and she exhaled it with a low, “Ah... sorry...” Her face flushed and she felt stupid for even thinking he could have been interested in her.

  More importantly, she wondered if that was all it took for her to want to just... rut. A near miss, a terror beyond reason, and a hard, handsome man needing her back. She bit in her lower lip, because she knew it was. She wanted to feel alive, and to share that joy with someone else.

  He loosened his hold on her, taking his hands from her breasts and groin. He pulled back from her neck and cleared his throat. Suddenly the tight proximity a point of awkwardness. “Sorry,” he muttered, “I was tired and... didn’t realize...” He cleared his throat. “Thought you were...” His words trailed off, not forming any clear, distinct sentence.

  “Yeah, it’s fine.” He had excuses and reasons. All she had was that bright, warm flush that covered her entire, pale flesh. She tried to scoot away from him a bit, to give him his room, but her embarrassment ran deep.

  He helped her move ahead, and then he swung one leg to the side, getting ready to climb down. “We’ll eat and get ready,” he said lowly. “I’ve got some things in my pack I can share with you for now. We can’t spare the time it’ll take to go hunt something up today.”

  “Great,” she said with less gratitude then she wanted. She was about to give it all up for him, and he’d rejected her. Rosa glanced up at the sky and took a deep breath before finally looking down the length of the tree, swallowing back her fright.

  Chapter 21 – The Nobles

  As Caprice gazed out at the rainy streets below, watching her father leave for his carriage, the Duke’s last words rang in her memory: “Everything shall resolve itself satisfactorily in time, sweet child. Trust me.”

  It was nothing really, a simple platitude to the ears of the Landsreck guards that accompanied all visitors to the manor now. Though she couldn’t help but sense — or was it just hope? — that it held some greater significance. Did he have a plan? For she certainly had zero chance of giving birth to the old crow’s vile offspring. He’d never showed the slightest interest in her sexually during his tortures.

  Caprice Rensford — for she still bore the old man’s family name — was, by the books, a virgin in the terms of the nobility. None had taken that from her, and she’d never offered it to any. Though for once in the life of a noble lady, that was a detriment rather than an asset.

  “You’re not fooling anyone,” came the firm voice of that severe Viscount, the old Duke’s nephew, Beren Rensford. He had broken the spell of her reverie, the two confined to that spacious manor, making it seem like a prison despite its classic opulence.

  “I can tell you’re going to be a fabulous houseguest,” she spat acidly at the window, not even doing him the courtesy of turning to face him. Instead she watched her father — her hope — leave, and the strange reflection of her own face was distorted by the falling rain.

  The sound of his boots upon the carpeted floor were loud, for he dressed like he was about to head off riding despite their state being so near to house arrest. High black boots, grey trousers, and a high-collared white shirt that tried to hide the fact that despite his height, he was not a particularly bulky man.

  “Guest?” he remarked, running a finger along the windowsill where some condensation had built up from where the cold rain met the warmth of their fire-heated manor. “This is my family home,” he said confidently. “Soon to be mine,” he remarked with absolute confidence. “All mine.”

  Caprice rolled her eyes. How could any one person be so obnoxious as he? “Well, that’s what you think. Your uncle was quite devoted to me. He’s probably spinning in his grave as you try to take from me what he gave so openly.”

  It was all lies. Hell, she didn’t even expect him to believe it, but Caprice wasn’t one to admit defeat.

  Brazenly he stepped up beside her. He looked every bit the ideal Union noble. His dark hair cut short and in the court style, with his sideburns and bangs given this wispy curve that looked natural yet took careful primping to achieve. With his steel-grey eyes he gazed down at her with a severe look. “The late Duke Rensford wouldn’t have slipped his dick in you to save his fortune. Certainly not to give it away.” And the crassness of the words rolled off his tongue with the effortlessness of one of the vulgar proles that worked the factories or streets.

  Her face screwed up in disgust and anger, and she turned from him. “You’re disgusting,” she hissed. She was still in that black dress, her mourning outfit, but she was a still a beautiful young woman. Vibrant, with fresh skin and smooth hair.

  But she bore the hatred of the Rensford family through her deceased husband, and even though she was grateful at the time that his tortures stopped at sex, now she lamented it. It could have been so easy.

  The Viscount looked so young still, hardly older than her judging by looks, for he still bore some faint traces of freckling upon his cheeks when she looked long enough. Which was rarely.

  For his youth and vulgarity, he didn’t explode at her outburst. He continued in his self-assured manner, sounding so confident. “I would’ve thought you’d adopt a more conciliatory tone,” he remarked. “I have to admit, it disappoints me some.” The cocky prick smirked. “I figured you’d be working your ways upon me by now to preserve what you could of the estate. Yet instead...” He simply trailed off, a look of wry amusement upon his face.

  “Yet instead I know how wrong and vile you are. The thought of being forced to spend time with you makes me ill, knowing how different you are from him.” She brought her dark eyes back to him and narrowed them. “You’re nothing but a leach.”

  He had seem so unfazed by everything that occurred. Taking it all with that harsh stoicism. Yet at that last remark, she saw it: she’d upset him. “That goes to show how little you knew him then,” he retorted to her darkly.

  Without pretense, he leaned in, a hand upon one shoulder as he gripped it tight and twisted her about to face him, to stare into his harsh gaze. “Your little charade might be enough to fool some others,” he said in a raspy, low voice. “But I knew that rotten old villain better than anyone. Anyone,” he stressed with a narrowing of his eyes, those cold eyes of his trembling with something. Anger? Fright? She couldn’t tell, except that strong emotion broiled behind his facade. “He’d sooner be rid of his manhood than slip it into a woman.”

  She desperately hoped he couldn’t see that flash of understanding pass her gaze as she tried to yank his shoulder from his grasp. “What a hein
ous accusation about my departed husband!”

  Her attempt failed though, for he was strong, his grasp large, and he held her in place with seeming ease. He might not have been a bulky man, but there was muscle and sinew with power on that tall frame of his.

  “Continue your little act if it comforts you,” he remarked with a cocky smirk again. “Though it won’t change a thing.” Without warning he brought his free hand up and grabbed her face, clenching her jaw between his thumb and fingers, twisting her delicate stalk like neck back as he glowered at her. “But just you keep in mind that never was I a leach, you failure of a high-class hooker.” His words were nearly spat out. “Nobody has ever earned such station and wealth as harshly as I. Don’t you dare forget that.”

  Her eyes widened in anger as she tried to push him away from her, desperate for some space. She felt no shame for what she had done, no pity for what he insinuated was done to him. She deserved this house. Her father deserved this.

  “Never touch me again!”

  The Viscount let her go, but only after letting her futile struggles continue long enough to make it known it was by his will alone she got free. “We’ll see how that tune changes,” he remarked, standing tall and sternly, as if nothing so intensely inappropriate had just occurred between them. He straightened his shirt and looked to her. “When you’ve been in here long enough, and realize there is no hope for getting your payment but through me...” He smiled unevenly at her, walking about her towards the door. “We’ll see.”

  She was seething at him as she spun around, her face red with anger. “And when they find I’m pregnant with your uncle’s child, you’ll know true pain!”

  Chapter 22 – The Front

  *****

  Chapter 23 – The Front

  The front was always punctuated by the sounds of warfare. The rattling of old machine guns, the poof and boom of mortars. Though to be at the very first line of trenches during an actual battle was something else altogether.

  Sergeant Levek cowered in the trench, just as all his men did. The whistle of approaching ordinance shrilly rang out and they all knew what was coming.

  There was no light, the clouds above them blocking out everything. Not that anyone was aware of whether it was day or night anymore. The enemy had contraptions, cruel devices that were alien and terrifying to the men and women of the Union. Rockets that exploded and released harsh smokes that stung the eyes, made one break into a fit of coughing, and blotted out the sky for days when used en masse.

  More than that though, they could slaughter indiscriminately with a direct hit. Not that the things were precise. The whistle of their approach was part of their effect. They were so long in coming, and you never knew when or where they would land. It tore an individual’s guts up inside.

  Levek tried to shift his mind from that crushing anxiety, tried to think of sweet Caslian. Though it didn’t work. Worry consumed him. He’d been away from her a while now, and had no way of knowing how she was faring.

  The wait ended abruptly, the area lit up as the rockets landed. Each strike a hissing burst as the barrage of their landing caused the trenches to explode. None near him then... the scream came up from one of the lines behind him.

  A cacophony of horror filled Levek’s senses and it was so deafening that he didn’t notice right away that a rocket had landed in his own trench. It had dug into the dirt before exploding and so the casualties were light, but his men watched in horror as one of their comrades’ flesh melted before their very eyes, as he flailed and screamed in agony.

  There was nothing to do for him, they all knew. They could only watch as they hunkered down, or force their gaze away as the wiser ones managed. Such horrors were not meant to be witnessed by anyone.

  As the cries died down, their comrade-in-arms dead, some of the men stirred, anxious to move from the reek of burnt flesh and excrement that permeated their stretch of trench line. Levek placed a hand upon the closest one’s shoulder and pushed him back into place.

  It didn’t take long to understand why, for that symphony of shrill whistles rose up into the dark charcoal-and-red-clouded sky, growing every higher. The next barrage on its way.

  Levek thought, I hope she’s okay.

  Chapter 24 – The Matron

  Saghar and his brother both reported back into the long-cabin at the same time, the two burly Kron looking battle ready. “They’re coming from the east” stated Saghar, and his brother simultaneously said, “West.”

  Looking to one another, they then changed their story. “They’ve got us surrounded and are approaching, Matriarch.” The two large, brutish-looking men in their armour and clothes looked not particularly disturbed by this, though Aleena knew much was at stake. The bandits coming for the trade could be a huge problem for her.

  But it was just the next hard step in a march of many, and as she pinned her hair up in a ponytail and covered it with the fur-lined hood, her shoulders squared. She looked professional, and dangerous, the pale elf covered head to toe in white leathers and furs with daggers strapped to her hips.

  She was a beautiful woman with her exotic features, and her green eyes moved from one brother to the next. Briefly she wondered if navigating the trade with the bandits could possibly be any worse than trying to figure out the Kron and their strange customs.

  “You know what to do,” she said as she moved past them and out the door.

  The brothers simply nodded as she vanished out the door by herself.

  She stood alone as the ragged-looking bandit leader approached from the tree line, his ratty furs draped about him and covering what was once an old military trench coat. The standard wear of most every bandit.

  With two large men at his side, he approached her with gun in hand. An old long-barrel rifle, tied and repaired numerous times by the look of it. “We’re ’ere for our stuff,” he said in a harsh voice, his black beard shorter than Aleena would have figured, almost neatly trimmed. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “All business.” Aleena smiled. “Fine by me.” She was short for an elf, but the piercing green eyes were intimidating. There was something about her facial features that seemed almost feline or predatory, especially when she seemed pleased, and she straightened her spine.

  The leader of the trio paused before the door and looked around. “No tricks,” he stated. Then looking aside at her, sizing her up briefly, he added, “We know ya got fellas workin’ with ya. Don’t think of pullin’ no surprises.” With that his two flanking guards pushed around him and opened the door, making way for them both to follow with their clubs in hand.

  “Hey, you’re the man with the gun. I know better than to bring my knives to a gun fight,” she said amiably as she let them brush past her. She ignored the heavy thudding of her heart in her chest, and the rush of annoyance at the paranoid and impoverished. These were the people who would help her, after all.

  Whether they knew it or not.

  Entering into the building, the bandit Chief and his two guards looked about, no sign of Saghar or Ramtok anywhere. Though the crates of supplies waited there, same as before.

  The Chief gestured towards the crate — “Open it” — and the two men went to work prying the lid off.

  While they laboured, the wary Chief cast a curious, dark gaze towards Aleena. “So these northern fuckers are recruitin’ elves now, huh?” He remarked and shook his head in amusement. “Never thought I’d see the day.” And the tall man rubbed his hand along the wood under barrel of his gun.

  “My hunch is that they wanted someone disposable,” she said thoughtfully, her eyes staying focused on him mostly, even as she kept her sights on everything around them as well. “I guess you’re quite dangerous?”

  She could sense the gears turning behind his dark eyes as he turned away and peered around the length of the cabin. Whatever dark aspirations he had, or whatever chances he was thinking of taking to rob her blind. “Does that warrant an answer?” he responded as the two men pried
off the lid and he went over to inspect the goods.

  Her lips quirked, and she shrugged, folding her arms beneath her small, leather-clad chest. “I won’t pump you for answers if you don’t like.” There was just the slightest hint of innuendo, of teasing to her voice.

  While the Chief went about inspecting the goods with more dedication than she’d have hoped with her not-so-subtle innuendo, the other two men had eyes glued to her. One even cocked a wry, toothy grin at the fair-skinned elf.

  The Chief however, pulled out a gun and inspected it with some look of disapproval on his face.

  “It’s all there,” she said, though her gaze moved to the one smiling at her, and her lashes descended in a flutter for half a heartbeat. “All in good order, too, I trust.” She was getting antsy with them taking so long, and she knew it wasn’t going to end well.

  Ignoring her words, the Chief bent over the bin again, and she heard him pushing more of the guns and supplies aside. He laid his gun down, and then with an outraged growl he declared, “The fuckin’ crates are bottomed with rocks!” and he grabbed for his gun as the other two men brandished their clubs immediately.

  Aleena’s eyes narrowed. “Fucking traitors,” she hissed under her breath. “No wonder they didn’t want to be here. Hey now.” She looked at the three men. “Killing me is what they want! They’re the ones that packed this, I’m just in the middle,” she said without reaching for her weapons. Her body prickled with anger and adrenaline.

  Growling out his words, the Chief said, “Tie her up, we’ll take everythin’ we can and leave the rest in ruin.” Though before he could even finish saying that a large hand reached down from above, grabbed the barrel of his rifle, and slammed the butt of it back into his face.

  The other two froze in their tracks as they watched their Chief fall back onto the floor, a large Kron descending from the ceiling, draped in white furs. They were startled into silence, the bestial-looking brute the last thing they expected, especially in such a manner.