War-Torn
Page 26
Saghar returned down and nodded to her.
“What are you all up to?” Vicalus asked, growing suspicious, though sounding too depressed still to do much about it.
“Getting us out of here,” Aleena said, climbing up to look at the back wall catching aflame.
She couldn’t help but grin with excitement. Though her gaze was then quickly drawn aside.
The Kaliak guards were almost at the city, but something stood out more… the Kron were closer to them than they were to the village.
The Kron had the larger force, that much was clear, though a chunk of them broke off and began to move along the village wall. Right towards the front gate.
As Aleena watched the fire blow and fail to destroy the wall as she’d hoped, she glanced back to the battle that unfurled. There, the mass of Kron clashed with the guard forces, an out and out battle occurring. While aside, the second force of Kron made for the still open gates… and right in upon the throngs of Kaliak that had them barricaded inside.
“Well?” Vicalus asked hopefully.
Aleena had no good news, but she refused to give up.
She looked around, saw some of the weapons about the place. She noticed to one side, the military issue spades with the hatch blades on the side. “Everyone grab as many of those as you can. We’re gonna hack our way out through the back while the two armies fight. Let’s move!” She insisted, and immediately Saghar and Ramtok were in action.
The rest followed their lead and quickly, as Ramtok handed her a spade of her own, she ascended the stairs then began to climb down the roof of the barracks.
It was a steep plunge, but the snow piled between the wall and building made for something to brace her impact at least, and she leapt down.
By that point, the sounds of clashing forces from the other side could be heard, and Aleena waved the others down in a hurry before beginning to chop at the burnt wall.
There was no time to waste.
Chapter 46 – The Nobles
Caprice could not be more disgusted with herself or the situation, or so she thought.
Truth was, she had a lot further she could fall, and even she — deep down inside, somewhere — knew that, despite her sheltered upbringing.
But having serviced the Viscount’s lusts upon her knees the night before, she was humiliated, embarrassed and outraged.
In the early morning hours she snuck from her room, ready to pry open the secret passage and make an escape. Talk to her father. Anything.
She simply knew she had to do something.
What she didn’t expect, however, was to find the study door locked.
It seemed unnecessary after the nailing-shut of the passageway, but that only made her all the more suspicious.
Her father had taught her a few tricks over the years, many of which she’d never paid attention to. But this one had stuck with her.
When her mother would lock her into her room at night, he showed her how to pick the lock so she could escape and spend time with him in his study without her knowing.
Taking a pin from her hair, she managed to work the lock open in very little time. Though what she saw on the other side surprised her.
The room was empty, but there, in the corner… the secret escape.
It was shut, but the nails were clearly removed from it. All it took was the usual force to slide it open and reveal the hidden passageway.
Dressed in a simple — albeit still silken and beautifully purple — gown, she made her way down the tunnel. Though as she got further and further along, she started to hear strange noises.
Caprice slowed and walked more quietly, calling upon the years before of skulking about her father’s manor, avoiding her mother or caretakers.
As she approached the exit, it became clear it was the sound of talking coming from the other side.
Cautiously, she approached, through the open, concealed door there and towards the door of the storage shed.
She leaned in close with her ear towards the glass, but away from the light the morning light shed.
“...hold tight for now. It won’t be much longer,” came a woman’s voice she swore she recognized.
“This is tiresome political theatrics. How long must this go on? You promised me the whole of the house to rule over for myself, and now I find myself forced to tie myself to this woman. Who clearly loathes me, I may add.”
That was the Viscount’s voice, unmistakably close.
“Marry her. Once my agent returns from his last mission, her father will be out of the picture and you’ll inherit twice the noble lineage if she’s yours,” came the woman's now distinctly familiar voice.
“Easier said than done,” Beren scoffed.
“What? Did my letter from ‘her father’ not convince her yet?” the unknown woman asked. “Please, if you can’t manage to seduce a pretty girl with my help then what good are you?”
As Caprice lingered in shock, thinking about what the woman just said, she could tell Beren was bristling outside.
“I would marry her gladly, even without knowing I shall get her father’s estate to add to my collection. But a bitter wife who loathes me—”
“I bore of this, boy. I have a whole nation to claim and rule,” came the woman’s haughty response, and suddenly…
Suddenly Caprice recognized who the woman was.
Lady Iztira.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer was plotting to murder her father and seize her whole noble house, as well as the Union itself.
Chapter 47 – The Matron
As Aleena and her crew all worked at hacking down the village wall, the battle grew closer, and closer still.
Unfortunately, their progress was not going quickly. The spades were ill suited to the task of chopping down a tightly intertwined log-wall, and the group she had was working with a frenzy, but not well.
All of a sudden, the sounds of combat seemed to come to a halt. No longer were there gunshots and clashing weapons, just stomping feet and the impact of metal on wood.
A cry went up in the air, and Aleena had only to look to the side to see a Kron — more savage and angered than she’d ever seen Ramtok or Saghar appear — standing around the corner of the barracks, pointing at her and her group.
*****
It didn’t long after that for Aleena and her group to be taken and brought before the Kron leader.
The shifters were tied up by the hands, but Saghar and Ramtok made sure she was given passage between them unbound. If unarmed.
There, in the midst of the village, strewn with corpses, stood a ring of warriors. And at the center, a towering woman that dwarfed even her own two men. She had a mighty glower upon her greenish face, eyes boring intensely into Aleena as she stood, hands upon hips. Looking impatient.
“Matron Ugra,” Aleena said, recognizing her instantaneously.
“That’s right. And I am tired of waiting, elf,” she said, her voice gravelly and unpleasant to the ears.
“We have been working as quickly as we can,” Aleena said.
“Events transpired against us,” Ramtok said, butting in, which earned him a glare from the powerful Matron.
The towering woman closed the distance between them and backhanded the mighty Ramtok across the face with a loud, sickening impact.
“My clan’s waiting is at an end,” Ugra declared definitively. “You shall lead us to this hidden city of yours without delay. My people shall wander no further.”
Aleena could do little more than nod.
“Yes, Matron Ugra,” Aleena said.
Though as of yet, she’d not had the chance to even speak with Thia about the Kron’s proposal.
At least, not since Thia’s first rejection.
Chapter 48 – The Nobles
Caprice had managed to return to the manor before the Viscount could discover her. Though her nerves were a wreck.
She had gotten news of her father’s intended assassination, and a planned coup, but she remained
captive.
As her mind was in turmoil thinking of how to escape or at least get word to her father, Beren came to her. He caught her at her door in the midst of her pacing back and forth, and he put on a rather smarmy, wry smile.
For her part, she could barely force her own faux-pleasant warmth, clasping her fidgeting fingers at her waist.
“Good morning, my dear,” he said, leaning one arm against the frame of the door, hedging her in as he stood there in his crisp black suit with crimson cravat.
“Good morning to you, Viscount,” she said, her voice smooth but she was no longer able to will it into being as seductive of a purr as she usually did.
“Tell me, pet,” he said, letting his gaze slide down to stare upon her cleavage, his fingers raising up. And for a second she thought he was going to lewdly grasp her breasts, but instead he touched the emerald upon her choker.
“Yes, my Lord?” She asked, trying to play it cool as she was so close to a man that was in on the conspiracy to kill her beloved father and oust her family.
“Would you consent to marry me and be my darling pet of a wife, if I agreed to save your father’s life?” he asked. His head was tilted to the side, but his gaze lifted to hers, and a smirk graced his lips as their eyes met.
Chapter 49 – The Rebels
Rosa towed the body of Faze along with her newfound friends, the two formerly despondent deserters seeming to warm to her as the trio walked.
But then, that might all be due to the fact she offered them their only shot at long term survival. After all…
“You two seemed about as desperate as I was just a short while ago,” Rosa said.
“Oh yeah? You look like you know what you’re doing,” Caslian responded, obviously reading more into Rosa’s attire and appearance than was there.
“We really can’t thank you enough, Rosa,” Levek chimed in, despite the long day of hauling Faze, after a long night of fleeing the front. “Beyond getting away and settling down somewhere, we really had no idea how to go about the in-between parts.”
“Hey, that’s life. Or at least, that’s what I’m learning life’s like beyond the city walls,” Rosa corrected, feeling a little too humble after all that occurred to boast so brazenly.
“Life beyond the front is going to be an adjustment for me,” Levek confessed.
“But so much better,” Caslian was quick to offer up, seeming on the guard for negative thoughts.
“Right. I just… I’ve not left the front in so long I can barely remember life without the boom of mortar,” he said.
Rosa could see in his haunted gaze that Caslian was being diligent for good reason. It didn’t seem to take much to plunge the shell-shocked man into a morose state.
“Well, you know what I say? Live a little. Hell, it might be very little if the folks back at the city are real upset at me for bringing you two along,” she joked.
“Are you ser—” Caslian was interrupted as they heard the sound of approaching footsteps along the road.
“Hello?” Came a man’s voice, sounding unsure. “Who goes there?”
It was too late to avoid being detected; their chatting had left them exposed. So Rosa and Levek lowered the makeshift gurney and crouched.
“If you’re bandits, we don’t have anything for you to take!” came a woman’s voice, quavering with fear.
Caslian and Levek looked to each other, before Cas moved quietly forward to peer out onto the road.
Rosa followed after, and together they peered out, finding two tall strangers on the side of the road. One man, with messy hair, shielding his wife and holding a crude cudgel, nothing more.
“It’s okay,” Caslian said, rising up, hands out to show she was harmless, despite the gun in her pocket.
“Don’t go out there!” Rosa hissed at her, and Levek made a grab, but it was too late.
“We’re not bandits,” Caslian said, climbing up onto the road from the ditch between the woods and them.
“You’re… you’re military?” the man asked, looking Caslian over with confusion, just as Levek came out to join her.
The man brandished his cudgel between the two, but at their distance it was not threatening. Merely a toothless gesture of protection.
“No… no,” the man muttered in disbelief, sounding crushed. Clearly believing he was caught and about to be apprehended. His wife sobbed loudly, pressing into his shoulder blade.
But then Rosa emerged alongside the others in her tattered and dirty leathers.
“Calm down fella. We’re not military. At least, they’re not any longer,” Rosa said.
“Yeah, we’re just passing through. You can go along your way. We won’t bother you,” Caslian said reassuringly.
“Wait… you’re not… you mean,” the troubled man looked between them. “They’re deserters, honey,” he said to his wife, wrapping one arm around her to comfort her.
“That’s right,” Rosa said, though Levek shot a glance her way, uncomfortable with giving too much info away.
“Oh thank heavens… we’ve been on the run for so long. Searching for a place to settle down in, we thought we’d finally gotten far enough away from the city when… when you came out,” he said, cradling his wife in his arms and stroking her messy hair to reassure her.
“Where are you headed?” Levek asked, the older man’s brow furrowing in distress by Rosa’s judgment.
“We don’t know,” the wife said through her tears.
“Anywhere. We just… we need to go where they can’t find us. So we can be together, to live as husband and wife,” the man said, brows furrowed, sounding so desperate.
“Why couldn’t you do that in the city?” Caslian asked.
The man very carefully, very slowly, guided her wife out from behind him to his side, and helping wipe her tears away with his thumbs he kissed her on the lips.
“It’s okay, honey,” he said, and she slowly calmed, looking into his eyes for reassuring.
The man very carefully pulled back the woman’s blonde hair, and showed them her lightly pointed ears, marking her as a half-elf.
Realization dawned on the trio immediately. Not a one of them was blind to the situation, even as Rosa felt the long inbred notion of disgust towards such a thing. Even in her, it vanished soon after and she felt only pity for the couple.
“What’s your names?” Levek asked.
“Lura,” the woman said.
“And Roland. Roland and Lura Malik,” he said, holding his wife in his arms, squeezing her hand which held a brassy looking, unimpressive wedding ring.
Rosa sighed and ran her fingers back through her own hair.
Levek and Caslian looked to her, and it was clear to see the sympathy in their eyes for the couple.
“Fuck it,” Rosa said. “Come with us, you two. We’re headed to sanctuary, you might as well come along.”
Rosa was already climbing back down to get Faze’s unconscious form.
“How much more shit can I get in with an extra couple, huh?” Rosa muttered to herself as the two couples smiled and greeted one another, relief washing over them.
They were all headed to sanctuary.
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More by the Authors
Series:
Possessed by the Vampire:
Claimed
Hunted
Caught
The Warlord:
The Warlord’s Concubine
The Warlord's Queen
Her Master
Her Master’s Madness
Her Master’s Corruption
Novels:
Her Descent
When Dreamers Wake
Corrupted Hearts
Magic Academy
Vile
Outcast 1 & 2
Novellas:
In Her Dreams
Brutal Passions
The Enforcer: 1
The Enforcer: 2
The Fembot
Biography
Joshua and Michelle Keep are best-selling authors of romance, fantasy and horror. Fifteen years of joint-authorship together has earned them an enthusiastic readership and a reputation for unique, well-written stories.
Exploring the heights of romantic love and the depths of darkness, they focus on characters developing, growing and falling for one another amidst an engaging plot. Working to make sure a Happily-Ever-After exceeds your expectations.
Full time authors now, in years gone by they were a historian and corporate-ladder-climbing supervisor, respectively.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1 – The Front
Chapter 2 – The Soldiers
Chapter 3 – The Nobles
Chapter 4 – The Rebels
Chapter 5 – The Matron
Chapter 6 – The Soldiers
Chapter 7 – The Rebels
Chapter 8 – The Nobles
Chapter 9 – The Front
Chapter 10 – The Matron
Chapter 11 – The Soldiers