by Raven Dark
Sedition
Saving Setora Book Three
Raven Dark
Petra J. Knox
Praise for Saving Setora
"The softest woman requires the hardest men to survive. Dark, gritty, and perfectly filthy--modern MC meets Mad Max in this amazing RH tale. You will lust, you will crave, and you will scream for more!"
~Addison Cain, USA Today bestselling author
"So incredibly well-written. Compelling. Suspenseful. I was holding my breath as I was reading. But be warned, the authors aren't joking. This is definitely a DARK romance. If you like sweet, this is not the book. But if you like dark romance, you won't be able to put this one down."
~ Nia Mars, author
Sedition (Saving Setora: Book Three)
Copyright © 2018 Raven Dark and Petra J. Knox, all rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Please purchase only authorized editions of this book, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrightable materials.
Cover by Raven Dark
Editing by Jenifer Knox
Proofread by Susy Strom Hoefer
Cover and interior images courtesy of DepositPhotos
Created with Vellum
Contents
Note to Readers
1. The Heart a Fortress
2. Unanswered Questions
3. Holding Court
4. Blue
5. Stronger Than Blood
6. The Sting of Forever
7. Leaving
8. What Pirates Do
9. Steel’s Promise
10. Fire and Smoke
11. Sheriff’s Orders
12. Just a Slave
13. The Face of Darkness
14. Bad Seed
15. Tied to the Heart
16. The Only Way
17. Backfire
18. Bad Odds
Epilogue: Brothers in Arms
Connect with Raven Dark
Connect with Petra J. Knox
Recommended Reads from the Authors
Dedicated to our fans.
We would not have made it this far without you.
Note to Readers
This book has dark elements and scenes that may be triggering for some readers. The world and the characters about whom you read herein are not sweet, friendly people. The hell in which they live is a dark, desolate place, lawless and without mercy. It will either build them up or kill them.
Welcome to Setora’s world.
Enter at your own risk.
Chapter 1
The Heart a Fortress
Since the dawn of the Order’s creation, before the Old World became the New, the Yantu have had ten precepts a warrior must follow. Only the Yantu were permitted to know and understand all ten, but there was one with which nearly everyone was familiar.
A warrior must never make a choice based on fear.
Here and now, I wanted to march myself down to the prison cells beneath the Grotto and tear Madi’san limb from limb. I wanted to utterly destroy her for nearly taking the best thing that had ever happened to me from this world and for trying to kill Sheriff. In my world of darkness and pain, Setora was a rare ray of light. And Sheriff was not only my general but the closest thing I’d ever had to a real brother.
Except I couldn’t kill Madi’san. Never mind that if I killed her now, we’d never know who’d sent her here and why, nor would we learn who wanted Sheriff dead. Killing her now would indulge my thirst for vengeance, but it would also play into my fear of losing Setora. Both would constitute a loss of control, something I’d trained hard against for years. My Yantu ideals were often all that kept the monster in me leashed. Those ideals were all that kept me from being destroyed by the poison of my past.
As I prepared to head down to the prison cells and begin the interrogation, I shut out the image of Setora, pale-faced and out cold in the General’s bed, took a set of twin swords from my living room wall, and rammed them both into the crossed twin scabbards on my back.
I picked up the neatly folded ceremonial black scarf from the coffee table, about to wrap it around my head but stopped when someone spoke from the entrance to the cave behind me.
“Hawk. It’s time. You coming?”
I glanced over my shoulder at Steel while I wrapped the scarf so it hid all but a strip across my eyes and from my nose down. “I’ll be ready in a moment.”
Steel crossed the room to me, his always laid-back smile in place while he watched me tie the scarf at the back of my head.
“You wearing that when we interrogate Grizzle’s bitch?”
I nodded.
He glanced around my living room, at the many swords still on the wall, at the mats that flanked the low, narrow table I used when eating.
“You need real furniture in here, man. Where the hell do you sit? It’s too stuffy in here.”
“You say that every time you’re here,” I said dryly. “I don’t like guests.”
“Right. You and your privacy.” He took in my garb, the silken black pants and folded over jacket, the scarf, an outfit that covered every inch of me, even my hands. His eyes settled on the scarf that formed my partial mask. “You know she’s already seen your face, right?”
I said nothing, waiting for Steel to figure it out.
He looked me over again and his brows went up. “Ah. It’s for effect. You want to scare the fuck out of her.”
I allowed a half-smile.
“Wouldn’t it be easier just to treat them like any other criminal?” His voice brimmed with anger and protection for Setora that echoed my own.
For a moment I envied him. He was allowed to feel those things, allowed to let them fuel his actions and carry them into battle like weapons. A Yantu was a living weapon, a man whose body was a sword, always wielded with purpose and precision. A Yantu who lost control was far more dangerous than a man who was not. Wearing this garb was as much to remind myself to stay in the role of a Yantu warrior, as for Grizzle’s benefit.
“Don’t tempt me.” I sheathed several smaller knives on my person in a holder on my hip and one in each boot, the hilts of all three easily visible.
“I can’t believe that Violet bitch. She doesn’t deserve your Yantu mercy after what she did. She’s a killer, Hawk. She might have a pussy, but she’s...”
I knew what he couldn’t bring himself to say. “An assassin,” I finished softly.
Steel was like most guys; if he hadn’t seen proof that Madi’san was a trained killer, he wouldn’t have believed it possible of a female.
I focused on the many candles lit on shelves along the wall across from me, letting the fire calm the anger that threatened to bubble up. Setora had helped me light those candles not even two weeks ago, and I’d almost lost her.
“It was a brilliant strategy.” I didn’t realize I’d spoken until I heard Steel reply.
“Huh?”
“Whoever is pulling Madi’san’s strings used her as the perfect weapon. No one would have suspected a woman.”
“It’s Grizzle. She works for him.”
“No. I don’t think she does.”
“What?” He looked around again, seemed to realize a couch for sitting upon hadn’t appeared for him, and dropped his shoulders. “Who sent her, then?”
“I don’t know, but I doubt it was Grizzle. He’s not smart enough or high-ranking enough to have a trained female assassin at his disposal. A female killer would have to have been illegally trained and would therefore cost a lot more money. Whoever sent her is a lot higher up—and a lot wealthier—than a man like Grizzle could ever be.”
Steel grunted. “All right then, let’s g
o mess him up and get some answers.”
I took a moment to extinguish the candles and then nodded for him to start down the wooden walkway outside the cave, headed for the prison cells.
We clattered down walkway after walkway, toward a tunnel on the bottom of the Grotto’s grounds. With dawn a few hours away, all around us the high cliffs of the Grotto rose up toward a star-studded ebony sky, black edifices that cast long shadows over the hills and sprawling greens, the only home I’d ever felt was home.
How close had we come to losing this home, watching it fall apart and not for the first time?
It had been three hours since I’d checked on Setora. Everything in me ached to be at her bedside. Had there been any change? But I couldn’t think of that now. Thinking of her would undermine the focus I needed in order to handle Grizzle and his Violet correctly.
On our way down the tunnel stairs that led to the cells, Steel said nothing. The inside of the tunnel flickered with firelight from torches mounted along the walls, fire that provided a little heat for the guards but kept the cells down here just this side of uncomfortable for those housed there. The light was minimal, just enough to see by in a place intended to keep prisoners as off balance as possible.
The further down we went, the darker things became. Steel took a torch from a bracket on the wall for extra light, the fire chasing the shadows from the stone steps. Down here, the air smelled of shit and urine and old sweat. Blood and rot clung to every breath.
Old memories, memories of my life before the Grotto, clawed at the surface of my being, and for an instant, I wanted to be anywhere else. Anywhere the demons of my past didn’t lurk in the shadows, threatening to shatter my control.
The sounds of the guards down here, the jingle of cell keys, men talking amongst themselves in the guards’ area, jarred me from my thoughts. One of the guards came out from behind the protective mesh wall that separated them from the rest of the containment area and unlocked the gate to the cells. He followed us down the narrow hall of empty cells toward the two at the end, the only two that were currently occupied.
Grizzle and his slave had been immediately separated, put in cells side-by-side, the stone walls in each lined with two-inch thick steel-plating that prevented them from being able to talk and get their stories straight.
Steel’s silence quickly reminded me why I’d chosen him to accompany me on this interrogation. A man of few words, unpretentious and driven by only the need to protect those he cared for, Steel’s presence always soothed me. Despite his liking for beat-downs and violence, Steel was uncomplicated, his presence peaceful.
“She’s in here.” The guard opened the heavy steel door to the woman’s cell and nodded for us to step in.
I took a fraction of a second, doing what the Yantu called “finding my center.”
Yantu warriors had long referred to a man’s control over his emotions as his Fortress. Self-control was a high-walled fortress of stone or steel that kept emotions contained, the heart tightly guarded, beyond the reach of others. There, a man found the peace and self-control he needed when faced with his adversaries. When the Fortress was there, no one was allowed within its walls, emotions forbidden to affect him.
Standing outside the door to Madi’san’s cell, I visualized the Fortress surrounding me, walling off the vengeance that wanted to flood my veins like poison.
When I opened my eyes, Steel was watching me, waiting. He didn’t know exactly what went on in my head in moments like this; I’d never told him about the Fortress exercise, but he knew it was a ritual he was supposed to wait out.
“You first,” I said.
Steel stepped into the room, and I followed him.
When we entered, the woman opened her purple eyes. A hint of a smile touched her lips. She almost looked unaffected by our entrance, a slave trained to remain calm in the worst situations. But I also noticed she sat up straighter, tension tightening her grip on the metal arms of the chair the guards had tied her wrists to.
“Did we interrupt your beauty sleep, slave?” Steel stalked to her chair and tapped her flawless, alabaster cheek just hard enough to rattle. “We need you awake for this, woman.”
Madi’san blinked at both of us, and the lines around her pretty mouth deepened that smile.
Steel walked back to me, his fists tight. “You better make this quick, ‘cause I’m gonna kill her in about thirty seconds.” His voice was pitched low so only I heard him.
I gently pushed him behind me, back toward the door of the cell.
“We know you were sent here to assassinate the General. What we don’t know is who sent you.”
“Grizz—”
“Don’t even try it. Grizzle isn’t smart enough to be behind this. Who do you work for, Madi’san?”
“You’ll never know.” The evil glint in her eyes made my muscles tense, but I didn’t get a chance to respond.
Madi’san’s jaw flexed, clenching hard.
Like she was biting down on something.
I was at her side in an instant as I heard Steel curse behind me. “Steel, tell the guard to check on Grizzle,” I barked.
While Steel shouted for the guard, I grabbed Madi’san’s jaw and pried it open with both hands. Too late; her throat had worked on a swallow, she foamed at the mouth, and her body convulsed, then stilled. Her eyes stared blankly, already glossing over.
“What the fuck did she just do?” Steel demanded from beside me.
“She swallowed it,” I growled. “She must have had a cyanide tooth.”
“She was so terrified of the man she worked for that she’d rather die than spill secrets?”
“Or she was trained to kill herself rather than talk.” I released her roughly. “Which means whoever trained her knows his shit.”
Steel shoved her chair backward and it crashed to the floor, the dead woman with it, releasing pent up rage I didn’t have the luxury of feeling.
“Steel.” When he looked at me, I opened the door to the cell. “We’ll find out who’s behind this.”
He followed me down the hall to the neighboring cell. “That son of a bitch better have answers.”
I knocked on the door to Grizzle’s cell and the guard, already in there watching him, opened the door for us.
Grizzle sat in the middle of the cell tied to a chair exactly as Madi’san had been, wrists bound to the metal arms, ankles bound together with rope. The guard stepped out. The door banged shut, locking us inside.
Grizzle’s gaze fixed on me as if Steel wasn’t even there. His bearded face was too pale in the firelight from the torches mounted on the walls. Sweat beaded on his forehead.
“Yantu.” The word trembled from his lips. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”
“Shut your hole, Grizzle. Tell—” Steel started, stalking further into the room toward him.
I put up my hand and he silenced. I needed Steel’s cool head right then. I’d have expected that sort of impulsivity from Pretty Boy, not him.
“Yes, she is.” I clasped my hands behind my back, answering Grizzle. “And unless you want to end up the same way as her, you’ll tell us what we want to know. Who do you work for?”
“Look. I had no idea that bitch was going to do what she did. I had nothing to do with it, I swear.”
I looked at him impassively, taking in every movement, reading what I could. The way his throat worked nervously, the way his eyes kept flicking to Steel beside me, taking in his enormous frame, then going to the door like he was trying to figure out if he could get past him given the chance.
“You’ll save yourself a lot of unnecessary pain if you tell us,” I told him.
“The man I work for would never have gone against the Dark Legion. He wouldn’t have sent anyone in here to kill your general.”
“What’s this person’s name?”
“Listen, my being here has nothing to do with him. I’m here on my own, to broker business between the Legion and your buyers. Everything was going fine until th
at slave tried to assassinate your leader. Which I had nothing do with.”
Except his voice quavered and his gaze flicked to Steel for too long.
“You’re lying,” Steel snapped. I heard his feet shuffle.
“Steel.” At my glare, he stopped and folded his arms, grumbling something about taking too long. I looked at Grizzle, waiting. He squirmed under my stare.
“I must have terrible taste in women. Traitorous bitch.”
“Where did you get her from?”
“She was a gift.” But his eye twitched. “A thank-you from one of my employers for closing an exceptionally large deal.”
Ah. The pieces were starting to fall into place now. I leaned into him, gripping the back of his chair so that my face was inches from his.
“Who gave you the Violet?”
He shook his head. “He’ll kill me.”
“He’s the one stealing our jewels.”
The way the merchant focused on anything but my face told me all I needed to know. “He’ll kill me,” he said again.
“So will we.”
Grizzle said nothing. I straightened. Clearly, more extreme measures were in order here. I turned to Steel. “Have the guard bring me the Box.”
Steel’s eyes widened. I thought I saw his mouth pull in the start of a smile before he thumped his fist on the door. The guard unlocked and opened it, and Steel departed. The door squealed and clanged shut.
“What are you going to do, Yantu? You can’t torture me. It’s against your code.”