“I hear we have fresh meat tonight!”
As if she had heard their conversation, Delennia’s voice pierced through the jeering. She took a slow turn, her gaze sweeping the crowd and the high-vaulted tiers all around the fight ring. The crowd erupted in cheering, pumping fists and hollering. “I quite agree – Delennia wants to fuck another strong man, and a little bird has told me we have quite a treat this evening! A boar of a fighter who’s entirely new to my domain! Where are you, fresh meat? Come to Delennia! Let’s see if you have the strength to take a real woman down to her back!”
Jeers and wolf-whistles sounded, the double entendre not lost upon the crowd. Like a swallowing tide, the chant of fresh meat began rolling through the space. Grump gave Dherran a nudge. “That’s us. Down you go. When you get there, strip. It’s a bare-handed fight, no weapons.”
“My Inkings?” Dherran glanced at Grump, suddenly worried about what fighting nude might expose in a foreign locale. “Will it be a riot if the crowd sees my Alrashemni Blackmark?”
“It’ll just get you more hollers, boy,” Grunnach smiled a little. “Even if the crowd is sour to your lineage. No one accosts the men Delennia fights – if you win.”
“If I win?” Dherran snarled. “This is a fucking disaster, Grump!”
Dherran pulled free of Khenria, scrubbing both hands through his short blonde mane in a sudden fury. He’d never shrunk from a fight and he wasn’t about to start now, even if the stakes were high. Khenria let him go, her grey eyes tracing his passage. Turning, Dherran began pushing through the crowd, his roaring temper preceding him as he descended tier after grime-slicked tier. The crowd was peevish, jostling him back, though some shrunk away from his raging fury. As he neared the ring, Delennia’s white-blue eyes caught his descent. Her gaze locked upon Dherran, and he felt a shiver crest through his body.
In all that scandalous noise, a moment stretched between them like a thick molasses cord. Something unnatural eased out from her, which prickled Dherran’s skin and plucked at his mind. Suddenly, Dherran began to doubt himself. Uncertainty crept into his head, made his limbs weak and cold. He found himself watching the incredible woman not with amazement, but the slow creep of fear. His guts tightened; a cold sweat washed his palms. Dherran stopped dead in his tracks at the third tier, the hollering dying out as the woman’s unearthly white-blue eyes bored into him.
What the fuck was wrong with him? He’d never been afraid of a fight before. With a low growl, Dherran felt the hot snap of his infamous temper flash back. It roared up through his body, making his skin hot and his vision wash red. Dherran tightened a fist, impassioned, ready to hit the bitch.
Whatever wyrric magic she had, he’d be damned if he’d roll over and take it.
“Fuck you.” Dherran snarled under his breath, as he resumed his steady approach.
“Fresh meat!” Delennia crowed, a wicked, knowing smile upon her perfect face. “Come on down and let me have a look at you!”
The crowd parted for Dherran, and he descended to the low stone berm around the sand-pit, then stepped over into the blood-spattered white expanse. Delennia pondered him, her hands on her bare hips, and Dherran saw a shrewd mind churning behind her impeccable, brutish beauty.
“You know the rules, fresh meat?” She lifted an eyebrow. He nodded. “Then strip. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Delennia Oblitenne quirked an eager smile. Dherran began to remove his clothing, first his leather bracers, then unbuckling his hooded black jerkin to whistles and taunts, followed by his weapons and boots. All of it was carefully received into the hands of a very large, dark-eyed bald man with crimson Inkings all over his well-shined pate, whom Dherran had been briefed was Delennia’s personal guard, Emeris ven’Khern.
“Your belongings will be stowed until the morning, sir,” the guard murmured, “at which time you will receive them back with your compensatory winnings.”
“You mean I get paid even if I lose?” Dherran blinked, ignoring the crowd's jeering.
“Of course,” the guard chuckled. “A small... compensation. For the show. Good luck to you.”
Dherran nodded, then turned back to Delennia, stripping his linen shirt off over his head. As it came off, he heard a hiss run through the crowd, then a series of low boos.
“A Kingsman.” Delennia’s white-blue gaze was frosty. “You have balls, Kingsman, showing your Blackmark here. Come on. Let’s see those big balls of yours.”
Dherran unbuckled his trousers and dropped them, unashamed. He’d never fought naked before, but it was strangely exhilarating. As he stood before this gorgeous woman, also immaculately naked, with the passion of a fight thrumming through his veins, his excitement showed.
“He wants Delennia to fuck him, gents!” She laughed, surprise in her white-blue eyes as she leered at his crotch. A riot of laughter went through the crowd. Delennia strode forward, sinuous and deadly. She could have been an empress, with that slow, sultry stride. When she neared Dherran, he found himself caught in her icy, dominant gaze. “Do you need me to fuck you, fresh meat? Because I will. If you ask nicely.”
Reaching down, she stroked his cock with her fingertips, her commanding gaze never straying. Dherran felt those rippling tendrils come at him again, like a white mist in his thoughts, trying to take root like a thousand seeping leeches. The fight went out of Dherran suddenly. His passion guttered. Breathless, he could only stare down at her, feeling weak.
Her first punch, Dherran didn’t even see. Delennia telegraphed nothing – not a lift of her shoulder, not a shift of her weight. Her muscled arm and solid fist just came straight at him, catching him hard on the angle of his jaw. Stars exploded in Dherran’s vision. Her punch carried the weight of a mountain, and it was all Dherran could do to let the momentum drop him in a backwards roll. He came up on the other side of the ring, sand-coated, as the crowd erupted in drunken jeers.
“Gotcha, Kingsman.” Delennia teased, her white eyes utterly dominant now.
Dherran cussed as he shook stars from his head and spit blood from a bitten lip, fresh crimson upon the sand. With the taste of iron and the radiating pain consuming his jaw, his heart to fight flared back: like a demon it roared through his body, making the world tinge bloody. Bristling with the power of a mad boar, Dherran snarled and raised his fists, pummeling back her seeping wyrria with a blistering fight of his own.
Delennia’s silver-white eyebrows rose. She gave him a subtle nod, an eager smile lifting one edge of her ruby-stained lips.
Then the fight began.
They circled each other like keshar-cats. Dherran had long years of patience learned at the uncomfortable end of his rash temper, and like him, Delennia was graceful, stalking him and taking his measure. Dherran couldn’t help but admire her as they moved in a lithe dance, his arms loose like the Vicoute Arlen den’Selthir had taught him. Their bodies were supple in their readiness, and Dherran had a sudden realization that the Bitter and the Lance had once trained together in the ring.
That was why they were here, after all: to see if Delennia could be convinced to come to Arlen’s aid once more – reunifying their Kingsmen and Khehemni forces into an army.
All thoughts were erased from Dherran’s mind as Delennia struck. Even faster than Arlen den’Selthir, her sinewed strike was direct, again without any telegraphing, only a swift pivot of the hips. Dherran slipped it like Arlen had taught him, not contesting but allowing her to complete her strike. To feel as if she had won, rolling past and deflecting her fist off his chest laterally. Flowing up under her guard, Dherran struck at her ribs, but she curled her body around his punch like she had no bones at all. Deflecting his fist off her ribcage, she directed it back into Dherran. He slipped it, pivoting as she tried to land a punch on his spine, sliding it off his shoulder-blade.
It was fast, complicated. Neither opponent allowed punches to land, only slipped and slid like water around an oar. They used torsos, chests, ribs, and thighs to deflect. Delennia caught one of Dher
ran’s punches with the instep of her foot and sent him rolling down into the sand, a move Arlen had never used. Dherran took one of her punches and let it flow past, slipping aside to get her in a headlock. Using the crown of her head, she rolled off him, up under his armpit and away.
Minutes passed of this tenebrous, complicated dance. Tens of minutes; the crowd utterly silent. Dherran and Delennia both breathed hard, sweat glistening as they separated for a moment, gazing at each other from across the ring. Delennia lifted an elbow, wiping sweat from her eyes. Dherran took the moment to do the same.
Delennia lifted her chin, and her white eyes flashed. “Knives!”
Her guardsman rushed forward, silver brows furrowed. He bent his massive bald head low in conversation, but Delennia shook her head, her white-blue eyes pinned to Dherran. “Knives, Emeris. Now.”
The guardsman gave a guttural snarl, his gaze flicking to Dherran, but he obliged his mistress, producing one plain belt-knife for her and turning to hurl a matching knife into the blood-spattered sand at Dherran’s feet. The guard shot a warning glower at Dherran from under his silver brows and crimson-tattooed head and stepped from the ring.
“Pick it up.” Delennia Oblitenne nodded at the knife in the sand. “There is only one rule, which I swear upon my house I’ll not break. And you will not either, on pain of death under my house rules. No throwing your blade. I want to see what you can do with it in your hands.”
“How do I know that an oath upon your house means anything?” Dherran hunkered, retrieving the knife, keeping his eyes on her.
She blinked, those white-blue eyes startled for just a moment. “Don’t you know House Oblitenne of Valenghia, Kingsman?”
“Should I?” Dherran growled, nonplussed.
“No...” A slow, amused smile came to her face. “No, I suppose not. Shall we fight?”
Dherran nodded, and they began to circle again. Dherran let Delennia set the pace once more, in that slow, sinuous dance. When she rushed him, he was ready, sluicing like water around the deft thrust of her knife, rolling his shoulders and camming her hilt back towards her. She slipped out, bringing her center of gravity up to unseat Dherran’s balance. He twisted, slipping the flat of her blade with his palm. She struck at his neck with her elbow. Dherran rolled under, his blade up in her ribs, and she arched like a cat to avoid it.
She landed a punch from her unarmed hand, right into Dherran’s stomach. He huffed in surprise – and in that moment the heel of Delennia’s palm came up under Dherran's chin, fast. Dherran was blasted backwards, landing flat on his back in a spray of sand, ears ringing and vision black.
Delennia was astride him. The steel of her knife was at his throat, leaving Dherran barely room to swallow, but he jiggled his own knife, snugged perfectly up under her left breast. The point of his blade was angled between her fifth and sixth ribs, poised to take her heart. Her blood trickled over his fingers as his knife-tip pierced her perfect white skin.
“You're quick, Kingsman,” Delennia leaned in, whispering by Dherran’s ear. “Hopefully not too quick...”
“Arlen says hello,” Dherran retorted, unimpressed by her seduction.
Delennia jerked back as if she’d been struck. Her blade still up under Dherran’s jaw and his dug into her ribs, she went perfectly still as if she’d turned to stone. Ignoring the raucousness all around them, her face settled into a hard mask. “If Arlen said hello, Kingsman... I’d have his guts strewn all over this cavern in half a heartbeat. Are you telling me you say hello on Arlen’s behalf?”
“Maybe.” Dherran gave a hard smirk. “End this charade and find out.”
She smiled, ruthless, more a snarl than a smile. “This was no charade, Kingsman. If you hadn’t fought so well, I would have killed you. But you’ve talent, with the flavor of Arlen’s training, not to mention some resistance to my wyrria. So you’ve earned a talk, even if it is for that brazen bastard den’Selthir. But first—”
“First what?” Dherran growled.
“First, this.” Delennia leaned down and slid her perfect lips over Dherran’s, drawing him into the most luscious kiss he’d ever tasted, and the most bloody. Which didn’t stop, for a long span of whistles and jeers.
CHAPTER 7 – ELESHEN
Moving like silk over water, Eleshen den’Fenrir parried and slipped, pivoted and cut. Bouting at swords with Temlin den’Ildrian in the dusty promenade inside the First Abbey, she glistened with sweat in the crisp autumn afternoon. Her breathing steady and deep, Eleshen’s long limbs were corded with sinew that obeyed her every instinct. Her mind sighed out to the quacking of ducks in the pond nearby, to the crunch of a bare footstep upon gravel as someone passed, to the ring of steel as she slipped another down-stroke and spun, bringing her sword up to slice beneath Temlin’s armpit. Gone was her lack of balance. Gone were hands that dropped things. Gone was fumbling and stumbling. After two hours, Eleshen was barely winded – her new body knowing the precise timing of every movement for battle.
“Halt!” Temlin finally barked. He stepped back, lowering his beautiful silver-white sword inset with runes down the blade and a massive ruby in the pommel. He gasped to catch his breath, drenched with sweat in his light linen shirt, tan breeches, boots, and the weapons-harness he’d found up in Mollia den’Lhorissian’s vale atop the Kingsmount. The Jenner-turned-King-Protectorate of Alrou-Mendera had been handsomely aged when Eleshen had met him at Highsummer, but now, the wire-tight vigor of his prime was restored. Eleshen could feel the roar of a lion in Temlin’s every movement, a true den’Ildrian royal. Palming sweat from his thick russet mane, Temlin wiped his bare forearm across his brow.
“Tired, old man?” Eleshen stepped back with a smirk.
“Hardly! Give me a breather and I’ll take you for a second round!” Temlin barked a laugh, eyeballing her with piercing green eyes full of impish humor, devoid of spectacles now.
“I think you need a nap,” Eleshen sassed.
“I only nap with beautiful women.” Temlin lifted a red-gold eyebrow. “But bouting with them is far more fun.”
Eleshen felt heat flush her pale cheeks, and not from the sword-practice. Temlin was a rake, the kind of man she would have hit with her frying-pan once upon a time. Destiny had brought them together these past three weeks. A dance of flirtation had sprung up between them as they practiced at swords day after day, but it was a thing of cheeky banter and little substance. Over the weeks, it had helped Eleshen heal from her ordeals under the old Abbott’s cruel blades.
But fighting helped more. Though Eleshen had not earned Inkings, the Abbey’s Kingsmen had seen her move and conferred upon her the honor of their garb. An ancient set of Greys had been gifted to her from the armory – a charcoal leather jerkin with a high collar and deep hood, tooled with Alrashemni symbols, with charcoal leggings and tall boots with longknife side-sheaths. Sliding the sword away over her shoulder in her weapons-harness as if she’d done it all her life, Eleshen pulled the longknives from her boots.
“Well if you want to bout, come at me, old man.”
Eleshen’s voice sighed through the air like midnight reeds as she settled into a fighting crouch. Sinews bunched in perfect coordination as her left foot slipped back in the dirt. Her hands were pale in the sun, her long cable of black hair cascading over her shoulder to her waist, sleek as an otter’s pelt. Eleshen pierced Temlin with her eyes, now vibrant as violets in the rain.
Gone was the golden innocent she had been – replaced by something darker.
For a moment, she saw Temlin’s breath catch. Saw him undone in a way Eleshen had never affected men before. She had always been able to read people, but since her ordeal with Lhem, she had a keener understanding of the world. Of how a person could be bent or broken by another. It was a dire knowing – the understanding that she could break a man with her beauty, ferocity, and passion.
Temlin gave a wry grin, then tossed his sword to the dust. “You slay me, woman. Enough. I’ve matters of war to attend today.”
Eleshen slid her longknives back into their sheaths with an answering grin. As if he’d been waiting for them to finish up, brawny Brother Sebasos from the brewery approached, clad in his own well-worn Kingsmen gear from decades past. Sebasos’ grey-shot beard was neatly trimmed to his boulder-cracking jaw, his iron-shot black curls pulled back into a tight tail streaked with grey. Sebasos set a palm to his chest in the Kingsman salute, one hand upon the longknife at his hip, a two-handed broadsword strapped to his back. Temlin’s gaze flicked to Sebasos as he swiped his sword from the dirt and slid it away over his left shoulder. Sebasos gave Eleshen a nod next. Setting a palm to her chest, her other hand a longknife at her belt, Eleshen nodded back. She wasn’t a Kingsman, but she would damn well do them honor like one.
“King-Protectorate,” Sebasos turned to Temlin. “We’ve had an answer from Roushenn.”
“Have we?” Temlin’s grin was sour. “Lhaurent’s decided to parlay at last, has he?”
“He has.” Sebasos’ dark gaze was brooding. “He wishes to talk terms. The city is in severe unrest from your order to close the Abbey and withhold ale from the masses, in addition to the war-fronts. The new king wishes the populace to enjoy their upcoming celebrations for Autumn Harvestfest in the manner they are accustomed. With ale.”
“Thought so.” Temlin flicked his fingers to Eleshen. “Milady. Accompany us?”
“Of course.” Eleshen nodded, and they set out toward the paving-stone path near the byrunstone towers of the Abbey Annex. The trio received salutes from all around. Men in grey quadrant-split Kingsmen garb with blackened steel buckles and the tooled Mountain-and-Stars honored them near the arched gables of the Brewery with a palm to the heart. Women wearing black Jenner Penitent robes and picking herbs in the burgeoning gardens placed two fingers to the lips and stepped a foot back into a moderate bow before resuming their tasks. A company of Palace Guardsmen in cobalt actually bent a knee before their King-Protectorate as he passed, and Temlin gave them a sober nod back.
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