The Mercenary's Bounty

by Kristen Banet

  The Mercenary’s Bounty

  Age of the Andinna

  Kristen Banet

  Copyright © 2019 by Kristen Banet

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Illustration by Merilliza Chan

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  1. Trevan

  2. Mave

  3. Matesh

  4. Brynec

  5. Mave

  6. Mave

  7. Rainev

  8. Mave

  9. Luykas

  10. Mave

  11. Mave

  12. Zayden

  13. Mave

  14. Alchan

  15. Mave

  16. Matesh

  17. Mave

  18. Mave

  19. Rainev

  20. Mave

  21. Trevan

  22. Mave

  23. Brynec

  24. Mave

  25. Zayden

  26. Matesh

  27. Mave

  28. Mave

  29. Luykas

  30. Mave

  31. Alchan

  32. Mave

  33. Mave

  34. Luykas

  35. Mave

  36. Rainev

  37. Brynec

  38. Mave

  39. Luykas

  40. Mave

  41. Matesh

  42. Mave

  43. Mave

  44. Zayden

  45. Mave

  46. Luykas

  47. Trevan

  Dear Reader,

  Andena Glossary

  About the Author

  Also by Kristen Banet

  Don’t let anyone tell you

  what you’re worth.

  They’re probably wrong,

  because the answer should always be

  priceless.

  1

  Trevan

  Trevan coughed up the dirt he ate when he hit the ground. As he tried to push himself up, a sharp kick to his ribs had him groaning in pain.

  “Get up, Elvasi. Fight me,” the Andinna snarled.

  He wasn’t going to go further than his hands and knees. He knew better than to try. His best bet was to wait for training, get better, get stronger, and hope he won against the Andinna when the day of monthly games came. Until then, he just needed to survive. By not fighting back, he was just keeping himself from getting more injured. They couldn’t kill him without getting themselves into more trouble than they could handle.

  “He’s a coward, like the rest of his people,” another one spat.

  A coward. He gave up wealth and privilege to become a guard in the worst place in the Empire. He gave up the security of his position in the military to save a few slaves from their own deaths. The same slaves now beating him.

  Yet they called him a coward.

  Of course they did. They didn’t know or care what he’d given up or why he’d done it.

  “Break it up!” a guard yelled. “Break it up before I have all of you beaten!”

  The Andinna scattered, growling and snapping at every Elvasi they saw as they left. They wouldn’t pick a fight or start a riot over this, just posture and be pissed off.

  “You. Get up.” The guard was sneering down at him.

  Trevan pushed up slowly, leaning against the earth wall to look at an old brother at arms. Without saying anything, the guard threw a punch to his gut. Trevan coughed, the air knocked out of him. While the Andinna hadn’t been armed, his Elvasi brothers were. With gauntlets on their fists and steel on their boots, their beatings were worse.

  Trevan sank back down, groaning.

  “Eventually, the Empress is going to have you killed. I’m going to be first in line. For Gentry.”

  Trevan began to chuckle.

  “What are you laughing about?” another guard snapped, kicking his leg.

  “Gentry was high that night,” he answered. He found it funny, anyway. Everyone was so upset by the guards who were killed when he’d gotten the Andinna out of the pits. They had been drunk, high, and done with whoring. So honorable. Some heroes.

  “Leave him,” a rougher voice ordered. “He’s not worth it. He wasted his time saving a few of the fucking Andinna, and look where it’s left him. I’m happy the Empress didn’t have him executed.”

  “Why?” the first one asked incredulously.

  “He fucking saved the Champion. He’s in the pits with his own worst enemies now. Hers.”

  Trevan tried to ignore the spit that hit his face.

  Three weeks of this. Three weeks of living in the hellhole that he had spent six hundred years guarding. He’d thought he could survive it, but he didn’t have anything he once had. No armor, no weapons, no backup.

  He was alone.

  All he had was a glimmer of hope that when he died, his gods would judge him fairly. Once, the Elvasi gods had been about the balance of living things. About fairness and kindness. They hadn’t been a warrior people, but a peaceful one. They weren’t built for brutality. It’s why they were so high and mighty with the Andinna.

  But their gods were about balance and goodness. For every justice, there was injustice. For every good, there was evil. For life, there was death. He just hoped he’d done enough good in the world that his hell ended when he died.

  He slowly and silently walked to a tiny room he was using to sleep, hidden from the Andinna and the guards he was now living with. He hunkered down.

  Three weeks.

  She had survived a thousand years. He held onto that. She had been strong enough to suffer and grow stronger. She had done everything she could to live. He just needed to channel whatever that had been. He just needed to hope she didn’t need whatever inner strength that was anymore. He hoped her life was better and that strength wasn’t necessary anymore.

  That would make his thousand years in the pits worth it.

  Right?

  He passed out, trying to imagine the better life she had and he was paying for. It was all he had left.

  2

  Mave

  Mave spun, remembering to keep her wings close to her back as she slashed her blade through the air. The sing of steel called to her soul, a promise of violence and a release of frustration. She cut downward and across, killing an invisible foe before turning to take out another enemy in the imaginary battle she fought. With sea water spraying her, she kicked back enemies and gutted them. Sailors talked amongst themselves, ignoring her and her practice in the dead of night. She could pretend it was just her and the sands for a moment. The cool, salty water hit her skin in the same way sand used to when it was kicked up.

  And she slowly worked out every ounce of frustration that she carried.

  She continued to fight until her arms felt heavy and her legs moved too slowly. Even her tail was sluggish. She stopped, breathing hard. She had no idea what time it was, but for a moment, she enjoyed the cool night air of the sea. Closing her eyes, she let the feel of this new place wash over her again. She wasn’t in the pits anymore. She hadn’t been in the pits for over three weeks. Her longest time away from them since she had been tossed into them.

  “Impressive,” a male commented politely.

  Mave’s eyes flew open and she looked back over her shoulder to se
e Alchan watching her. His amber eyes, a rare color for their people, seemed to glow in the night.

  “Care to join me?” she asked, just as politely. Not that she particularly wanted to spar with him, but he was her boss. He was one of the two leaders of the Ivory Shadow Mercenary Company, something she was now a member of. Not that she had done much to earn it. She was pretty certain they offered it to her out of pity and because she could kill well. She didn’t particularly care, though. It wasn’t the pits. She wasn’t going to turn them down at any point or leave, and they knew it.

  “No. I came out because I noticed Luykas was sweating again in his sleep, tossing and turning. Come inside and do something less strenuous. You can do this during the training sessions I host in the afternoons, but I don’t want you staying up all night out here.” He was diplomatic and professional, not showing her any of the asshole she had come to know him as. She knew it would come out if she pressed, though.

  “Fine.” She sheathed the blades and picked up her shirt from the deck, having discarded it when it became drenched in sweat. She had an undershirt on, but it only covered the important bits so the sailors didn’t whistle, leaving most of her flesh exposed to the cool night air.

  Glancing at Alchan, she didn’t feel self-conscious about her state of undress.

  At least I wear a shirt, unlike every damned male on this boat.

  “Why are you out here?” he asked as she drew closer, with what almost sounded like a shred of concern. Almost. She looked at the door that led below deck, already planning her escape, and watched him slowly slide between her and her destination.

  Looks like I’m talking to Alchan for a moment.

  “I was practicing my Andena earlier. I grew frustrated and needed to work it out before getting into my Common and Elvasi reading.” She saw no reason to lie about it. She met his amber eyes and tried to push him out of her way with sheer force of will.

  Andinna were naturally a pushy, temperamental race, and eye contact was a constant game of dominance and submission. She was hoping he would submit and move out of her way. Instead, he held the gaze almost without effort. He was one of two males she had ever met who could.

  She always got pissed off when either of them did it. The other one, Alchan’s brother Luykas, was smart enough to drop his gaze even if he didn’t feel the need. Alchan wasn’t nearly as intelligent.

  “Well, try to get some sleep tonight.” Neither of them broke the gaze and showed submission. The right response would have been to look down. Alchan’s eyes went up, a clear sign he wasn’t willing to fight with her over it, but wasn’t backing down from any future challenges.

  “I got some,” she said, stepping around him.

  She left him on the deck and went to her shared room with Matesh. She ignored his large form on the floor and pulled out two books from a small chest she had been given. Settling in on a stripped bed, with no mattress or anything else, she opened the first book. Realizing it was too dark, she fumbled around to light a secured lantern that filled the room with the light she needed. Then she decided her clothing was too sweaty to be comfortable, so she got up one more time and stripped. There was no way to bathe, but that was just how life was on the ship. She had never thought she would be in a place less clean than the pits. She threw her dirty clothing onto a small pile in the far corner. They would need to be washed as best they could be when the sun came up. She could get Mat to do it.

  Finally, she began to read. At first, she was confused by the letters, but she remembered the sheets of information Luykas and Leshaun gave her. She sounded out the first word, smiling as the word came to life, rolling off her tongue.

  “Common,” Mave murmured, staring intently at the book, finally parsing it enough to know which language it was. “This is Common. Nearly all of the short-lived races speak it, as do the long-lived races. Humans don’t have the time to learn the age-old nuances of Andena or Elvasi. Nothing looks like Andena, but Elvasi shares some letters with Common.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She jumped, remembering she wasn’t alone in the small room. She looked down at the floor from her spot on the bed and saw that Matesh was awake, only half-covered by the blankets that had ended up down there. It left his large chest bare and much of his stomach, with well-defined muscles, and when he shifted a little, she was given a teasing glimpse of what she knew was under the blankets. There was nothing she found unattractive about Matesh, even his broken horn.

  “I’m…reading,” she answered tentatively. “And this book is in Common. Luykas says my Common reading is coming along really well, but it still takes me a moment to really figure out which language is which. There’s just so much to learn.”

  “So you were mumbling facts about Common versus Andena and Elvasi to yourself?” He sat up, yawning. “What time is it, Mave?”

  “I don’t know. It’s not dawn yet, but there’s enough light from the lantern that I can read.” She shrugged. “I wanted to practice more.”

  “I thought you would sleep longer after the night we had,” he commented, giving her that arrogant smirk.

  “Maybe you should work a little harder,” she retorted, sending him a taunting smile back.

  With a growl, he pushed out of their pile of blankets and pillows. That’s what their two beds had become. The mattresses were on the clean floor, covered in every linen he could find, and she was sure he stole half those pillows from other Andinna. Sometimes two or three of them would go missing for a couple of days, then they would be back.

  There was a silent war going on, but she was staying firmly out of it. She didn’t particularly care about all the creature comforts Matesh had filled the room with. They were nice, but unnecessary in her mind. The only thing I need in this room at night is him. I wonder if he knows that.

  No. I can’t tell him. His ego will explode.

  She leaned back as he drew closer, his beautifully nude male form looking appealing in the dim light of her lantern. From the heat in those emerald eyes, she knew he had noticed that she wasn’t wearing anything either.

  “Come back to bed,” he crooned, continuing to draw closer until their lips touched. The kiss was tender, but there was a power beneath it she knew well now. He was a strong male with firm hands that knew just how to grab her body to make it sing. And she didn’t miss the note of arrogance in his order, like he knew everything she was thinking.

  As good as that idea sounds, I can’t spend all my time fucking him.

  “I want to get this down before we’re there. I only have a week left.” It was the same answer she gave every morning. While on the ship, she sank into her studies, only doing enough physical work to keep her body maintained. She could admit she liked not having to train three or more times a day now. She could study. She could learn.

  So she did.

  “You are completely fluent in Common and Elvasi. You’re getting better at the alphabets every day for those two languages. You can read anything in Common and most things in Elvasi. That’s a lot done in just three weeks. You can spare a moment to come join me in bed.” He made it sound like she had nothing to worry about.

  But they both knew she had a lot to worry about.

  He didn’t bring up Andena, because I’m terrible at it. They’re all worried I’ll never pick it up well enough to have a real conversation. I’ll always be a weird, Elvasi-speaking Andinna.

  “I’m not stopping because you woke up hard,” she told him simply. “It’s nice, this.” She waved the book around. “You can help me. I have a few words in this one I’m sure I’m pronouncing wrong.”

  He nodded slowly, eyeing her carefully.

  She shifted, holding her wings tight to her body so he could sit next to her. Their tails trailed to the floor and she resisted smiling as his wrapped around hers. She liked the casual touching he did, a simple contact that didn’t distract. The further from the Empire they got, the more he touched her. They had grown close in the pits, but now t
hey were becoming truly comfortable. Well, she was, at least, and he never said anything about it.

  I’ve never been this comfortable with anyone before, especially not a male.

  She downright hated casual touch, but here she was, enjoying every touch he gave her. Only Rain came close to how this male made her feel, and Rain’s was familial, not the low fire constantly burning between her and Matesh.

  “What are you having trouble with?” he asked softly, leaning close enough for their horns to touch. Their closed wings were pressed together until he shifted one over to cocoon her in their own little bubble. In that moment, like every time he did it, she felt like it could just be the two of them in the world, private and intimate in ways she didn’t understand.

  It felt good.

  “This one. How do you pronounce it? I feel like I’m forgetting a rule or something.” She pointed to the word. It was a name, which made it even more difficult.

  He sounded it out with her several times. It was the captain’s first name. She had heard it before, but never seen it written down. They were teaching her with every scroll and book they could get their hands on, which was usually the ship’s manifests and other business documents to make the enterprise legitimate. Not that it was actually legitimate, but appearances mattered.