Innkeeper Chronicles 3.5: Sweep of the Blade

by Ilona Andrews

  they didn’t know how many Arlands House Krahr could field. They feared

  what they couldn’t see and didn’t know. Arland had to appear

  invulnerable.

  She slid her shoulder under his arm. He leaned on her. His weight

  settled on her and her knees almost buckled. It was bad. He wouldn’t

  have put that much weight on her if he could have helped it. He had to

  be on his last legs.

  Arland bared his fangs, his face grim. “Stairs.”

  “One at a time, my lord.”

  They staggered up the stairs.

  “The Road Lodge offered me seven,” she growled in her best Arland

  voice.

  “It’s true.”

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  “That was different. The fight in the Lodge was a brawl against bandits

  and scumbags in outdated armor. You could kill them. You went up

  against nine knights in prime condition, in good armor, and you couldn’t

  kill any of them without ruining the wedding. You went into the fight

  with one arm tied behind your back. Who does that?”

  “Well, sure, it sounds unwise when you put it like that. But I won.”

  They paused on the landing. His breath was coming out in ragged gasps.

  “Do you feel cold or drowsy?” she asked.

  “I’m not bleeding out.”

  “Well, we don’t know that, do we?”

  “I would know.”

  “Shut up.”

  He grinned at her.

  “What?”

  “We’re like we were before. At the inn.”

  She glanced at his face. “Beat to hell and bleeding out on the stairs?”

  “No. You are talking to me again. Really talking to me. You’ve been so…

  distant since you arrived. I like when we’re like this.”

  They started up the second flight of steps.

  “If I had to fight nine knights every week…”

  “Don’t say it,” she warned him.

  “…to keep you talking to me…”

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  “I will throw you down the stairs, Arland. I mean it.”

  “No, you won’t. You like me. You are impressed.”

  She rolled her eyes. “That you can’t walk, unassisted, up a flight of

  stairs? Yes, my lord, very impressive.”

  He grunted and swayed. For a moment they tottered on the last step,

  careening back and forth, and she thought they would lose their balance,

  but they pitched forward and conquered the final stair.

  “As I was saying,” Arland said, a sheen of sweat covering his face, “if I

  had to fight nine knights every week for the pleasure of you berating me,

  I would do it gladly.”

  “You are an idiot. I abandoned my sister and a perfectly good inn and

  traveled half way across the galaxy for an idiot.”

  The door slid open in front of them. The breezeway stretched in front of

  them, suffused with sunshine and impossibly long. They would be

  watched by the vampires on the lawn for every step of it.

  Arland grunted again, gently pushed away from her, and stood on his

  own.

  “You can do it,” she told him and slid her arm in the crook of his elbow.

  They walked into the sunlight side by side, as if out for a leisurely stroll.

  “If I fall, don’t try to catch me,” he warned.

  “You are not that heavy.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  They kept strolling. One step at a time.

  One step.

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  Another.

  Another.

  “Did it have to be nine? Couldn’t it have been five?” She knew the

  answer but talking would distract him.

  “It had to be more than there was at the Lodge. Beating seven again

  wouldn’t be as exciting. I already did that.”

  “You make me despair, my lord. Is there no common sense in your

  head? None at all?”

  He gave her a dazzling smile. “No, not right now.”

  Maud sighed. “Figures.”

  “You should stay with me. Here. You and Helen. Don’t leave me. I don’t

  want you to go.”

  Her heart sped up.

  “Marry me, or not, I will take what you’re willing to give me. Don’t leave.”

  There it was. He just came out and said it. He went for it. She had to

  give him an answer and this time it couldn’t be a maybe. “Lord Arland?”

  He sighed quietly, his voice resigned. “Yes, my lady?”

  “I’m not going anywhere, you fool. You are mine. But if you decide to

  fight nine random knights again because you want to make a statement,

  I swear I will leave you bleeding right there and walk away.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  “Yes, I will.”

  “How about this: next time you can help.”

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  She swore, and he laughed. Slowly and deliberately they walked together

  across the breezeway.

  Chapter 12 part 3

  August 9, 2018 by Gordon

  222

  Twenty feet from the fork in the hallway that led to both their rooms,

  Arland’s personal unit chimed. He glanced at it and continued. She was

  almost carrying him now. The unit chimed again and again.

  “Soren,” Arland told her.

  They reached the spot where the hallway split. They had a choice, his

  room or hers. Soren likely had a direct channel to Arland’s quarters with

  priority access. If they went to Arland’s room, they would get no peace.

  “Does Lord Soren have an override code to my quarters?” she asked.

  “No.”

  She turned right, to her rooms, and he went with her. The last fifty feet

  of the hallway was pure torture. Her knees shook and her back burned

  from the strain.

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  The door whispered open. They stumbled through and it slid shut behind

  them. His full weight hit her. His face had gone blank and almost

  soft. He was done.

  “Bathroom,” she squeezed out, “we have to get you into the bathroom.”

  His face jerked, and he staggered to the bathroom, fueled by pure will.

  “Medbed!” she ordered as they crossed the threshold.

  A shelf shot out of the wall and she half-lowered, half-dumped Arland on

  to it. He landed on his back, his mane of blond hair fanning over the

  bed. His right leg hung off the edge. Maud heaved it on to the shelf.

  Arland tapped his chest. The syn armor cracked along its seams, pieces

  of it falling off. Maud pulled parts of the breastplate off him, dropping

  them on the floor.

  “First aid kit!”

  A tray slid out of the wall, offering the usual vampire assortment of

  stimulants, antibiotics, wound sealants, and anesthetics. She got the last

  piece off of him. Arland was built like a vampire hero of legend. Saying

  that he had broad shoulders, chiseled chest, and a washboard stomach

  didn’t do him justice. He was big. There was really no better word for

  it. Hard, powerful muscle sheathed his massive frame. When you

  looked at him, you saw pure force in physical form. Arland was

  mighty. A large, athletic human male would look like a fragile teenager

  next to him.

  All of that muscle came with a price. He had endurance and could deliver

  bursts of devastating power, but he couldn’t run for hours the way Sean,

  her sister’s boyfriend, did. Sean, being an alpha strain werewolf, had

  alm
ost unlimited speed and stamina. Arland was designed to stand his

  ground. And that’s exactly what he had done. His entire left side was an

  oblong bruise. His right biceps bled in two places, where something had

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  punctured the armor. His right hip had turned dark red, the result of

  blunt force trauma. He’d gotten hit in the back too, but she would deal

  with it later.

  Maud took a smooth nutrient cartridge from the tray, slid it into the

  injector with practiced ease, found a vein on his left arm, and shot it.

  Vampires healed faster than humans, but they also required a lot of fuel

  to do it.

  “Scanner.”

  A mechanical appendage slid from the wall with two prongs about eight

  inches apart. She pulled it forward, positioning the prongs horizontally

  over the bruise on Arland’s left side. A screen shimmered into existence

  between the prongs, showing her the black and silver view of Arland’s

  bones. Two hair-line fractures. Not great, but not awful. She had half

  expected to find broken ribs puncturing vital organs. If he had been

  human, she would have.

  Maud moved the scanner to his right arm. Whatever punctured it had

  missed the major blood vessels. The bleeding had already slowed.

  His right hip was next.

  “A little to the left and down,” he said, his voice quiet.

  “Do keep in mind that I have a whole tray of tranquilizers.”

  “That would be nice, too.”

  The pain killers would have to wait until she finished evaluating the

  extent of his injuries.

  The hip offered her a muscle contusion, bruised bone, and hematoma. A

  lump had formed as a pool of blood saturated the injured tissue. It hurt

  like hell, which had contributed to him limping, but wasn’t fatal.

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  She grasped his shoulders. “I need you to sit up.”

  He sat upright. She moved the scanner over his back. He’d taken the

  blow on his left shoulder blade. Fractured scapula. Crap.

  “Lift your left arm.”

  Arland raised his arm a couple of inches out to his side and

  stopped. “No.”

  “Does it hurt to breathe?”

  “I’ve had worse.”

  “You need a medic.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Human, vampire, werewolf, didn’t matter. If they were male and

  severely injured, they all thought they could just “walk it off.”

  “Take a deep breath, my lord.”

  “We’re back to ‘my lord,’” Arland said dryly.

  Right. Misdirection was a wonderful strategy, when it worked. Maud

  smiled and clapped her hand on his back. Arland jerked forward, sucking

  in a sharp breath.

  She plucked a heavy-duty pain reliever cartridge from the tray. It would

  knock him out, which was the best thing she could do for him.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t want to be sedated. It will make me slow and

  sleepy. I don’t have time for a nap.”

  “You have a fractured scapula and two cracked ribs. You have lost the

  full use of your arm and every breath is torture. You need some quality

  time with a bone knitter.”

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  “Maud,” he said.

  “No. You are not a teenager. We both know you require sedation and a

  visit to a medward. Why are we even having this con…”

  He reached out with his left arm and caught her wrist in his fingers,

  drawing her close. Suddenly they were face to face and he was looking

  at her. His eyes were very blue.

  It would have been easy to pull away. A part of her, the one that

  panicked and kept her alive on Karhari, warned her to be cautious. But

  she was so damn tired of being careful and prudent. Something wild

  swept through her like a scorching sariv. She kissed him. His lips were

  warm on hers and she opened her mouth and let him in. He tasted just

  as she imagined, hot and male, and he kissed her like she was the only

  thing that mattered. It started tender, then turned hungry, as if they

  both couldn’t get enough. Her whole body strummed with need. He

  kissed her until she could think of nothing except stripping off her clothes

  and climbing on top of him to feel him against her skin.

  They broke apart. His eyes had turned dark. She saw raw, naked lust in

  his face, and it thrilled her.

  “Looks like I have some use of my left arm,” he said.

  “It does,” she said and emptied the cartridge of sedative into his back.

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  Chapter 12 Part 4

  August 13, 2018 by Ilona

  We have important appearance announcements for you this afternoon,

  so if you want the next part of the story, you have to come back tonight

  to the main site.

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  Maud stared at the display projecting from her personal unit. The medic

  didn’t answer, which wasn’t unusual. Medics often ignored direct calls

  because they were occupied, and Arland’s handiwork on the lawn

  guaranteed the medical staff would be busy. But after calling him

  directly, Maud had tried the medward and hadn’t received an answer

  either. That didn’t happen. There was always someone in the medward.

  She had to find some way to get Arland to the medward. Leaving him

  alone wasn’t an option. He was sedated and had to be under

  observation. Besides, his injuries needed to be treated. They weren’t

  life threating, but they were urgent.

  She tried the medward again.

  No answer. What the hell?

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  She could try Soren. Arland was ducking his uncle, but given that he was

  peacefully sleeping, Soren couldn’t exactly bug him with whatever duties

  Arland had been avoiding. She tried Lord Soren.

  No answer.

  A cold heavy weight landed in her stomach and rolled

  around. Something was wrong. Something bad happened or was

  happening.

  Helen.

  Maud snapped a brisk order. “Helen, priority override.” The parental

  override would pierce through whatever Helen was doing. It would

  interrupt a video, or another call, and it would supersede a silence

  setting.

  No answer.

  Panic hit her in an icy rush. She used logic to surf the wave of fear,

  keeping on top of it. Either nobody was answering her calls, or her

  personal unit had been jammed. If someone was jamming her calls, it

  meant only one thing. An attack was coming.

  A door chime, normally soothing, lashed her senses. Maud unsheathed

  her sword, priming it. The blood blade screeched.

  Another chime.

  “Show me,” she ordered.

  A screen ignited above the door, showing the hallway and Karat, alone.

  Karat’s face was paler than usual, her expression tight, her eyes focused.

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  Only House Krahr had enough power and resources to jam her unit. She

  was on their communication grid. The other vampire houses didn’t have

  access to this part of the castle, and they didn’t have the capabilities to

  penetrate the House communication network and isolate her,

  specifically.

  She and Karat were friendly. If House Krahr had turned on her, that’s

  exactly who they would send.

 
“Audio,” Maud said. The audio icon flashed in the corner of the screen.

  “Yes?”

  “Open the door,” Karat said.

  “I’m indisposed at the moment. Can it wait?”

  “It’s an emergency.”

  Sure it is. “What sort of emergency?”

  “Maud, we don’t have time for this.” Karat put her hand against the

  door. “Command override.”

  The door slid open. Maud backed away, putting herself between Karat

  and Arland, giving herself room to work.

  “Put that away!” Karat waved her hand. “You have to come with

  me. Something bad happened to Helen.”

  “What?”

  “She’s been poisoned.”

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  Chapter 13, Part 1

  August 13, 2018 by Ilona

  Maud ran.

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  She had heard two words: poisoned and medward. She didn’t wait for

  anything else. She just sprinted. Hallways flew by, the doors flashing

  one after another. The air in her lungs turned to fire, but she barely

  noticed. Karat chased her but had fallen far behind.

  The medward loomed ahead. There were people in the antechamber,

  Ilemina, Otubar, Soren, but they might as well have been ghosts. Getting

  to the door was all that mattered. She tore past them and burst into the

  triage chamber.

  Maud saw it all in an instant, as if the image was seared into her mind in

  a fraction of a second: Helen lying on a medbed, tiny and pale; a dozen

  metal arms hovering over her; the spider web of an advanced iv drip; and

  the medic sitting next to her, his face grim.

  She charged to the bed, and then Karat was on top of her, pulling her

  back with all of her strength, and the medic was in front of her, holding