Sedition

by Raven Dark

  I supposed his behavior wasn’t that surprising, The General had always struck me as a distant man, aloof in a way that he probably saw as necessary from the leader of a society that held itself together through brutality. He had to keep others in line, and to do that meant never quite being one of the men, even when he was being their friend. He’d never be cozy with anyone, and he could hardly afford to be that way with his slave. Still, his distance stung, especially when I kept getting the odd feeling there was more to it than a leader’s authority. I should have felt closer to him now, being in his chambers, in his bed, with him rarely more than twenty feet away. But in the time I’d been in the Grotto, I’d never felt less his than I did over those three days.

  And Sheriff wasn’t the only one whose behavior had changed. Nearly everyone else’s had, too. Pretty Boy—and the one time he stopped in, Steel—were as incredibly attentive as they had been since saving me from Talak, only more so. Sheriff or Pretty Boy watched over me at all times. Slaves who normally rarely spoke to me dropped by and left gifts. Even Gretle stopped by, giving me a warm knitted sweater she’d made.

  Hawk was mostly absent, until the third day after I’d first awakened in Sheriff’s bed.

  That same morning, Doc was giving me my daily checkup when the doors to the room opened and Hawk stepped in.

  “You’re doing remarkably well,” Doc said, finishing his assessment.

  “Am I ready to return to my regular routine?” Warmth spread through me at seeing Hawk, but doubts quickly chilled it, nervousness nibbling at my insides. The last encounter I’d had with Hawk had left me a mess, shattering whatever had started between us. I smiled, but it felt as uncertain as the uneven beating of my heart. I was too unsure where we stood, or even how to feel around him, and as he came quietly over to stand on the opposite side of the bed, his presence seemed to press in on me until it felt like someone had set a heavy brick on my chest.

  “How is Setora doing, Doc?” Hawk’s deep, toe-curling voice rumbled before Doc could answer me. The formality in his tone broke my heart a little, making me feel even more lost.

  “She’s mending well.” Doc turned his attention to Hawk as my master moved the chair near the bed closer and sat in it. “She’ll be ready to return to her normal routine in a couple of days, but I want her on modified duties for another week or so just in case. Minimal but daily exercise. A walk twice a day for as long as she can go before she gets tired. She isn’t to push herself. Nothing exciting. The others will get the same update.”

  It didn’t go unnoticed that once my master was present, Doc gave his update on my progress to Hawk as if I wasn’t there. It was my master’s job to take care of me and see that I followed Doc’s orders, not mine.

  Doc looked at me, shaking his head slowly. “I still can’t believe it. It’s a miracle she’s alive. She should have healed much faster being a Violet, but the blade was still in her chest when her body started its accelerated healing. I think the blade was coated or dipped in something her body had a reaction to, which is why she’s still so weak. Or…it could be…”

  “Understood,” Hawk said quickly. Doc and he exchanged a look. Doc’s jaw snapped shut, but he looked at me again for some reason, as if I’d sprouted wings. Then he departed.

  Hawk bent over, brushing my hair off my forehead. Deep worry lines creased his brow and those shadows under his eyes looked as dark as ever. “It’s good to see you’re doing better.” His voice was soft and low. “I would have stopped in sooner, but I had to be elsewhere.”

  “Yes. I’ve hardly seen you.” My fingers twitched with the urge to touch his face, but I stopped myself. “Master are you sleeping at all?”

  He closed my hand in his, a slow, warm embrace, then dropped his head, watching his own fingers make circles on the back of my hand. “Don’t worry about me, woman. I just want you to get well.”

  “I will always worry about you, Master.” Even when I didn’t want to.

  He lifted his head, scowled, and smoothed the lines on my forehead with his fingers. “Well, stop.”

  My smile shook. “Yes, Master.” When he drew his hand back, I licked my lips, thinking.

  “What is it, Kitten? I see the questions in your eyes.”

  “Um.” Seeing Hawk’s face brought that dream I had flooding back, reminding me of what he’d said. Had it been real? “Master Hawk…I had a dream right before I came-to. You were in the dream.”

  “I was, was I?” His eyes danced. “What did I do to you in this dream?”

  My cheeks heated. “Master, I’m serious.”

  His face cleared, and he waited.

  “You said something to me. I’m sorry, I don’t know what was real and what wasn’t. But you said you were going to tell me something when I woke up. When it was all over. You were going to tell me everything.”

  He let out a long sigh. “About why I hurt you.”

  So that had been real. “I want to understand what you’re protecting yourself from.”

  He nodded. “I know. I owe you that after what I did. When you’re well again, I will tell you.”

  “Master.”

  He shook his head. “I mean it, Setora. What I will tell you will be hard for you to hear. I want you well when the time comes.”

  I drew in a breath and let it out. The last time I’d seen him, after everything that had happened between us, I’d made the decision to keep my distance and let Hawk take the reins. If he wanted me, he’d come to me. But everything in me needed to know him, needed to understand him on the deepest level. I wanted to press him, but I also understood why he needed me to wait. What in the Maker’s name could he need to tell me that would make him think he couldn’t say it now? I shuddered but nodded.

  “Good girl.” He kissed my forehead, then brushed my lips with his. “I was a prime ass with you before. I’m sorry for that. Things will be different from now on, Setora. You’ll see. You’ve changed everything.”

  “I have?” His apology was like a balm to the uncertainty and doubts eating at me. I knew enough about my masters to know what it cost men of the Dark Legion to apologize, and to a slave, of all things.

  “Mm.” His lips caressed mine again, and I moaned softly into his mouth. “Wings of the Maker, I missed you.”

  I bit my lip, the ache between my legs making me squirm.

  “I better leave before I climb in that bed with you and—”

  “Princess? Time for—” Pretty Boy cut off when he saw us and cleared his throat, remaining by the doors with a breakfast tray in his hands.

  Hawk’s mouth pulled down and he stood up. “See you later, Kitten,” he said stiffly. He touched my chin and stalked for the doors.

  “Come to play head games with her again, Hawk?” Pretty Boy growled.

  Hawk shook his head and muttered something, but I couldn’t make it out. Whatever it was, it made Pretty Boy’s jaw tighten before he closed the doors.

  “He shouldn’t be allowed in here when you still aren’t well.” Pretty Boy set the tray on my lap and propped my back up with pillows. He seated himself in the chair Hawk had just vacated.

  “What’s going on with you two, Master?”

  “He messed with you too much, Princess. He took things too far, and now he expects everything to be rainbows and unicorns.”

  “Hawk and I talked already. He apologized.”

  “So? That’s not good enough for me.”

  Privately, I loved that Pretty Boy was so protective of me but…

  “I don’t like seeing this rift between you two. Dice told me how close you are. Like brothers. Now you can’t even be in the same room because of me.”

  “It’s not because of you. It’s because of him. He’s the one who has to make this right. Not you.” He kissed my palm. “You’re too forgiving, Setora.”

  The use of my name warmed me to my toes.

  I’d always been taught that there was no use in a slave being angry with her master, but this was more than just the teac
hing Damien had imparted. Hawk’s behavior had come from a place of pain, and it wouldn’t help anyone holding a grudge, especially when I knew he was trying to make it right the only way he knew how.

  “Look,” Pretty Boy said, squeezing my hand. “I don’t want you worrying about this shit right now. Eat up.” He stole a slice of binacca from the bowl on my tray and put it in his mouth, then held a wedge of the pink, succulent fruit up to my lips.

  I smiled and let him feed me, but I couldn’t help feeling as though something vital was missing from my world, like something was broken, and that, for the first time in my life, I didn’t know how to fix it.

  Two days later, in the early afternoon, Sheriff left to take care of Legion business elsewhere in the Grotto, leaving Pretty Boy with me, and what started as a visit with two or three people soon morphed into a lot more.

  Cherry came in with Dice while Pretty Boy was using the latrine. The ex-General of the Dark Legion pushed his wheelchair to my beside and his once handsome, chiseled face split into that silver-fox smile.

  “Sir.” I struggled to adjust the pillows behind my head, and he helped me prop them up. “It’s good to see you.”

  “I thought I’d have lunch with a pretty lady today.”

  “Oh?” I chuckled at his playful charm. “What is Cherry?” I winked at the red-haired head of the slaves as she came to stand behind him, Crash at her side.

  “My crabby granddaughter,” he teased.

  Everyone laughed.

  He started on a plate of fries with gravy and handed me a plate of the same.

  “Still won’t eat the healthy food, I see,” I said, noticing there was no binacca, his least favorite fruit, on the tray.

  “I got him to eat a salad yesterday,” Crash, the club’s cook, said with a shrug.

  “Rabbit food,” Dice muttered.

  “It’s progress,” Crash said.

  He and Cherry sat on my other side, Cherry on the side of the bed, Crash in a chair, close enough that his fingers made lazy circles on her leg.

  “How you doin’ Violet? I heard Doc tell Pretty Boy you’re getting better.”

  “She’s getting there,” Pretty Boy said, coming back into the room. He whistled at the crowd gathering there. In addition to Dice, Cherry, and Crash, Gretle, one of Cherry’s friends, had taken up a seat near the wall, knitting something that looked like a blanket, and two of the other slave women sat near her, chatting away.

  “Sheriff’s going to love this. His room’s become a gathering hall.” His cocky grin said he’d love nothing more than for Sheriff to walk in and see his private chambers taken up by half the Grotto.

  He elbowed his way past those around the bed and flopped down next to me.

  “I think the bed is supposed to be an infirmary,” Dice said mildly around a mouthful of home fries.

  Pretty Boy gave a fake cough. “I think I’m coming down with something.”

  “Yeah, right.” Crash laughed.

  “I am. Who wants to get us drinks?”

  “If you’re sick, I’m the General,” Steel said sticking his head into the room. He sauntered over, and I thought I saw a book in his hand vanish into the inside of his cut before the whole room could see it. He gave Pretty Boy a brother’s handshake and then bent down toward me. “Give your master a kiss, Petal.”

  “Happily, Master.” Conscious of the eyes on us, I let my lips brush his. Steel grabbed the back of my head and kissed me thoroughly until my whole body hummed with awareness of him. Then he stole one of my fries and popped it into his mouth.

  Cherry glanced around the room and then looked at me with a raised brow. “Look at this. You have no idea what you’ve done, do you, Violet?” She looked like I’d performed some kind of miracle.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re changing everything. Sheriff—”

  “What the fuck is going on here?”

  Everyone fell silent, looking toward the door. Sheriff had returned and now stood in the doorway, his arms crossed, glaring at the crowd. “What is this, a zone traffic stop?”

  Several people laughed. Steel snorted.

  “It’s a party,” Pretty Boy said with a winning grin.

  “Sir, we’re sorry. We shouldn’t be here,” Gretle said, putting her knitting back in her basket. The grandmotherly slave started to shoo the other girls around her out, but Sheriff wasn’t paying any attention to her.

  “Pretty Boy, are you seriously lying on my bed?”

  But the words sounded strange, too forceful, and he made no further move to get him out. Pretty Boy shrugged.

  “Slaves and all,” Sheriff grumbled. “You’d think I was fucking patched in yesterday.”

  Gretle chuckled and took out her knitting again, looking at home once more. Pretty Boy got more comfortable in the bed, Crash looked around like he thought he was in the wrong room, and Cherry winked at me, leaning over. I just stared at Sheriff, baffled.

  “You see?” Cherry said with an I-told-you-so look. “You’re changing everything.”

  A pleasant sort of shiver raced through me. What was happening here?

  I heard a door open in another room and then footsteps approaching the bedroom. Sheriff spun around like he was going to tear a strip off yet another visitor, but he snapped his mouth shut when Hawk joined him.

  “General.” He held up a folder in his hand. “We need to talk.”

  Sheriff dropped his shoulders. “Fine. Since everyone’s already making themselves at home in my bedroom, we’ll have the meeting here.”

  Gretle stood and started gathering up dishes and her knitting—for good this time—then followed the other slaves out. Cherry and Crash waved goodbye to me and departed with them, leaving Dice with me for company. Sheriff shut the doors behind them.

  In less than half a minute, the heads of the Legion, Sheriff, Hawk, Pretty Boy and Steel, had gathered around a round, wooden table, seated in chairs a few feet from the bed. The men leaned in and talked in hushed voices. This was the first time I’d seen Hawk and Pretty Boy together without them sniping at each other.

  “Are they seriously holding court right here?” I whispered to Dice.

  “It’s called Church, little one, but yeah, looks like.” He took a deck of cards from the inside pocket of his cut and shuffled them, somehow managing to do so efficiently with one good hand and a hook for the other. “They’ve been doing this all week while you were out cold. Here, you cut the deck, girl. We’ll play another game of Bluff while the men talk.”

  Over the last three days, Dice had been tutoring me in the finer points of two-handed Bluff, laughing when I couldn’t fake my way to a winning hand and showing me how to fool my opponent.

  Over in the corner, Sheriff banged his gavel to start the meeting. Church, with a slave a few feet away. Changing everything, indeed. And yet he still wouldn’t come near me or spend the night in his bed with me there.

  “First order of business. Hawk tells me we have an invite to a Delta summit in three weeks,” Sheriff said. “You all know it’s mandatory.”

  “You’ll be riding with us then?” Pretty Boy said, clapping him on the shoulder when he nodded. “You haven’t been on a run with us in ages. This’ll be great.”

  I looked over at Sheriff, who looked happier than I’d ever seen him, his eyes bright.

  “But we also have to find this Lars first,” Hawk said.

  “We will. If he’s the one stealing our gems, we’ll deal with him. But we’re not leaving until Setora is ready to travel.”

  Travel? My ears perked up.

  “She’s going with us?” Steel asked. “Good. I don’t want to leave her unattended. The last time I went anywhere, those barbarians kidnapped her.”

  “None of us is going anywhere without her, but Delta is a long journey and the summit is at least a week long. We’ll be gone the better part of a month. She needs to be good as new. I don’t want any complications on the road when we don’t know exactly how her bo
dy will react to things.”

  “Agreed,” Hawk said. “But I want to bring plenty of men to keep watch on her at all times. We have no idea how dangerous this Captain Lars is. He could be as ruthless a leader as Damien.”

  “Right, plus the J’nai are still looking for her,” Steel added. “Damien wants her back by any means necessary. He’ll kill anyone who has her.”

  “Hey.” Dice tapped me on the shoulder, startling me. I hadn’t realized I’d stopped paying attention to the game.

  Damien. I hadn’t thought about my former master and his men in a long time. Here in the safety of the Grotto, it was easy to forget the J’nai were still after me.

  “Sorry, sir.” I put down a card, and he shook his head, laying his down.

  “I lost again?”

  “You’ll get it. Come on, deal another hand. No listening to the man-talk.”

  I didn’t miss what he was doing, distracting me from hearing a conversation a slave was never normally allowed to hear.

  A short time later, Sheriff banged his gavel and the room gradually emptied. Dice and I finished another round, and Steel wheeled him out, leaving only Pretty Boy behind with Sheriff and me.

  “I’ll take her for the evening walk, Sheriff. Let you have your room back again.” Pretty Boy walked over and gestured for me to get up.

  “Leave her to me, Pretty Boy. I’ll take her.” Sheriff crossed the room to the bed.

  I swallowed, looking up at him. Over the past week, he’d barely spoken to me, to the point where I’d started to think he was avoiding being alone with me. The only time he even looked at me was when, as Doc had done, he watched me too closely when he thought I didn’t see, as if he was waiting for something to happen. Numerous times, he’d stopped on his way to the bed or even sat in the chair there, looking like he wanted to say something, but when I asked him about it, he just stalked off. His wanting to take me on a private walk now felt…ominous.

  Pretty Boy looked surprised, and then a knee-wobbling smirk pulled at his mouth as he looked between us. “It’s about time.” He kissed the top of my head and clapped Sheriff on the shoulder. “See you, General.”