Lex Talionis

by Keira Michelle Telford

  “Do you want me to?”

  “Yes! Ya tebya lyublyu! Make me come!” She follows that with a wail of delight that’s mostly obscured by a crash of thunder.

  She’d been trying to hold back, but the sensations are too intense and she wants to let go. Her passions are fevered, her breathing labored, and her cries of pleasure are becoming more uncensored.

  Suddenly reaching her peak, she clutches at Silver’s good shoulder, scraping her fingernails against Silver’s skin. “Unghh!” She wails once more as the crest of her climax hits, sending her body into spasms.

  Feeling the tremors of Ria’s orgasm, Silver offers an involuntary, quiet whimper of satisfaction, her own body swiftly following suit.

  “That was perfect.” She sighs contentedly, looking breathlessly down at Ria. “You’re perfect.” She strokes Ria’s bare thigh, resisting the urge to delve her hand northward to feel how hot and wet she is. “I can’t wait to make love to you properly.”

  She instigates another long, amorous kiss. By the time it breaks, Ria is almost weeping.

  “Aren’t you afraid?” She sniffles.

  “Of what?”

  “Of this.” Deliriously happy, Ria’s teary eyes release a few salty droplets onto the pillow. “Of how good this feels.”

  “I’ve been so angry for so long. Almost everything I’ve ever done has been motivated by blind hatred or revenge. The way you make me feel doesn’t frighten me, it thrills me.” She lifts herself out from between Ria’s legs and lies beside her. “Honestly, I haven’t had a single homicidal thought since we’ve been together.”

  Ria giggles, cuddling up to her. “I should hope not.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Silver wakes suddenly, a beam of morning sunlight breaking in through a crack in the curtains. She turns over in bed, hoping for a good morning kiss, only to find that she’s alone.

  She sits bolt upright and looks around.

  Ria’s not there, but Carmen is. She’s lying on the couch, bundled up in her duvet, awake, but too lazy to rise.

  “Hey.” Silver rubs her eyes. “Have you seen Ria?”

  Carmen leans over the side of the couch and pantomimes dry heaving, complete with a delightful array of sound effects.

  “That’s me throwing up,” she explains, “because your infatuation with the Russian is starting to get really nauseating.”

  Silver sticks up her middle finger.

  “Wash that before you shove it in my face.” Carmen chucks the spare pillow from last night back at her, her aim lacking accuracy.

  “Fuck you.” Silver bats the pillow away easily. “It hasn’t been anywhere.”

  “Oh, please. I do have ears.” Carmen tilts her head back and performs an almost perfect—albeit exaggerated—rendition of Ria’s orgasm, including all the panting and heavy breathing. “That feels so good … you’re going to make me come … oh, oh, oh! Some nonsensical Russian crap … make me come! Yes, yes, yes!”

  Silver smirks. “Believe it or not, I did all that without using my hands.”

  “Hmm.” Carmen looks unimpressed. “So you tipped the velvet, then, yeah? You finally put that tongue of yours to some good use. Lord knows, it could use the exercise, since all you normally use it for is to spew out endless streams of vulgarity.”

  “Jealous much?” Silver laughs.

  “Ewww. No!” Carmen scowls. “Presumably you do remember that she’s Russian?”

  “I remember, but I’m still not sure why I should care.”

  “I’ll tell you why.” Carmen starts to get her dander up. “A few years back, a Russian was responsible for planting a bomb that killed a whole whack of secret service agents. A good friend of mine—a gaffer who just so happens to be the closest thing I have to a father—almost died that day.”

  “So?” Silver shrugs. “That’s one Russian, not the Russians. If I planted a bomb somewhere, would you then hate all Amaranthians?”

  “Whatever. She’s still a pinchcock. Not even that bothers you?”

  “Luther made her do things she didn’t wanna do. That doesn’t mean she’s a whore, or a pinchcock, or whatever other word you feel like using, so stop calling her names.”

  “Oh, no. I’m not having that.” Carmen swings her legs off the couch. “Luther didn’t make her a wench, she was already a wench when he found her. If she’s told you otherwise, then she’s been fibbing.”

  “Bullshit.” Silver yawns and stretches. “You’re clutching at straws, trying to justify your twisted, xenophobic way of thinking.”

  “You think I’m flapping my jaw?” Carmen unwraps the black silk ribbon around her left wrist, revealing a small tattoo. “See that? It’s a whore mark, and Ria has one, too.”

  She gets up and practically thrusts her inner wrist in Silver’s face, showing off three small black hearts.

  “It means she’s a case vrow—a tart who’s under contract with a particular Madam’s cathouse—and that red ribbon she carries around in her bag isn’t for tying her hair back, it’s for wearing around her neck. Red ribbons are for whores, and black ribbons are for whore runners,” she declares triumphantly. “Ergo, Ria’s a prozzie.”

  “So what does that make you?”

  There’s a brief silence. Suddenly realizing she’s painted herself into a tight corner, Carmen huffs and blurts out the truth.

  “Fine: I’m gay. Feel better now? My girlfriend is a Madam.” She holds up the black ribbon to prove it. “This is one of her ribbons, and I bear the mark of her house.”

  “Aha! I knew it!” Silver grins. “Was that so hard to admit? Poor Luka was starting to think he was losing his touch.”

  “First of all, it’s not hard to admit I’m gay. The hard part is trusting strangers. Especially foreign ones with big yaps and no respect for the law. Second of all, I know he’s your mate and everything, but that bloke, Luka, is a total sleaze.” Carmen cringes at the thought of him.

  “He’s been around the block a few times, that’s for sure.” Silver tugs her hair into a ponytail and gets out of bed.

  “How many times with you?” Carmen wonders.

  “None.” Silver looks around for her clothes. “Luka and I have never gone all the way with each other.”

  “Yeah, right. You must think I just fell off the turnip cart.”

  “Believe what you like.” Silver’s not in the mood to debate it. “He’s never put his dick inside me, and that’s all there is to it.”

  She watches Carmen struggle to tie the silk ribbon back on her wrist by herself, concealing the tattoo again.

  “Are you ashamed?” Silver helps her with it. “Is that why you hide it?”

  “No, but Mercia’s not a place you want to walk about freely with something like this on your skin.”

  “Because of Luther?”

  “And other men like him.”

  “Well, I won’t tell anyone.” Silver squeezes her shoulder. “You think I’ve got a big mouth, but I know when to keep it shut. I swear.” She retrieves her Hunter Division shirt off the floor and starts getting dressed, determined to hunt Ria down.

  Genuinely confounded by her refusal to budge on any and all matters pertaining to the Russian, Carmen slumps back onto the couch. “Is there nothing about her you don’t like?”

  “Not so far. Why do you want there to be?”

  “I’m only trying to figure out how you tick.” Carmen curls up in her duvet again. “What if she’s using you to get back to London? Have you considered that?”

  “She didn’t ask me to come—neither of you did. I volunteered.” Silver pulls on her shirt, wincing as she twists her injured shoulder to get her arm through. “Now, do you know where my woman is, or not?”

  Speak of the devil.

  Ria raps twice on the door and steps inside, noticing the unusually tense look on Silver’s face immediately. “What’s the matter?” She furrows her brow. “You look fraught. Is your injury still bothering you?”

  Silver’s not thinking one bi
t about her physical discomfort. “Are you okay?” She stretches her shoulder out. “I didn’t know where you were.”

  Touched by her concern, Ria smiles. “Are you always this protective?”

  “Only when I find something worth protecting.”

  Ria—wearing her kicksies, shirt and waistcoat again, her braided hair slightly damp—cuts across the room, greets Silver with a restrained peck on the lips, and starts buttoning the shirt for her.

  “How did you sleep?”

  Silver lets her tackle the shirt, more so for the physical contact than the help.

  “With you beside me? Very well. Then I realized you’d skipped out on me, and that took away some of the warm, fuzzy feeling.”

  “I’m sorry.” Ria looks dejected. “I would’ve been in no hurry to leave our bed, only I promised Memina I’d be up before dawn so that we wouldn’t be seen exiting the same room together first thing in the morning. I don’t want to get her into any trouble.”

  “And I don’t want you in any trouble. So, from now on, you don’t leave my sight. Agreed? These Deltas haven’t exactly been hospitable towards you, and if they were prepared to execute a young boy for being lost, I dread to think what they might be willing to do to you if left to their own devices.”

  “I shan’t argue.” She steals another kiss.

  “Yuck.” Carmen covers her face with her pillow. “Can’t you sneak off and do that icky romantic shit somewhere else?”

  “There’s no time.” Ria breaks away and scoops Silver’s jeans off the floor. “Bentley and Chapin have gone to saddle up the horses, so if you two sleepyheads want breakfast, you’d better—”

  She stops mid-sentence. A forgotten bag of white powder falls out of Silver’s pocket and hits the floor with a light thud. She can’t take her eyes off it.

  Silence descends, and Silver knows exactly what she’s thinking.

  “Would you believe me if I said this isn’t what it looks like?”

  “You are on drugs!” Carmen smacks her with another pillow. “I fucking knew it!”

  “What is this?” Teary-eyed, Ria picks up the bag. “Is it cocaine?”

  “It’s heroin, and it isn’t mine,” Silver states confidently.

  Ria doesn’t believe that for a millisecond. “How could it not be yours? It fell out of your bloody pocket.”

  Silver rethinks her prior statement. “Okay, I suppose it is mine, in the sense that it’s technically in my possession, but—”

  “You said you were clean,” Ria bawls. “And I believed you.”

  “I am clean,” Silver insists. “And even when I wasn’t, amphetamines were my drug of choice, not opiates. I needed the kick to counteract the copious amount of liquor I was consuming.” She takes a step closer, but Ria takes a step back.

  “Then why do you have it?”

  “Someone at D10 gave it to me—before Manchester—so that I’d have something of value to trade if I needed to.” Silver holds both hands in the air, showing that she has no intention of taking the drugs back. “If you don’t believe me, you hold onto it.”

  “Why don’t we flush it?” Ria threatens to take it to the bathroom.

  “Personally, I couldn’t care less, but we might need it.”

  Ria dithers in the doorway, still unsure.

  “Come on, Ria.” Silver snatches the jeans off her and finishes getting dressed. “We’ve been together almost twenty-four-seven. When have I had the chance to get high? And don’t you think you’d have noticed?”

  “Aww, this is cute.” Carmen pokes fun at them. “You’re having your first fight.”

  A fight. Is that what this is? If it’s not already, it certainly has the potential to become one, and Silver’s not about to let it escalate unnecessarily. She laces her boots and looks up at Ria from the foot of the bed.

  “Do you trust me?”

  Ria wants to, and honestly, Silver’s given her no reason to doubt. Slowly, she approaches the bed and perches beside her lover.

  “Yes,” she croaks gingerly, handing over the drugs. “I believe you, but … ne obizhay menya.” She captures Silver’s eyes with her own. “Don’t hurt me.”

  Silver leans forward to kiss her again.

  “Enough already!” Carmen protests. “I’m famished. Let’s eat.”

  The suggestion is a good one, and it makes Silver’s stomach growl. While she and Carmen grab a quick bite of breakfast, Ria drags Oliver away from the buffet table—where he’s been feasting like a king for the last hour—and makes him help her pack up their belongings and clear out their rooms.

  They’re still upstairs when Carmen and Silver exit the hotel and head for the barn, where Silver is hoping to find Bentley and Chapin with four ready horses. Unfortunately, she finds nothing of the sort.

  Brother and sister are standing at the other end of the barn, talking in hushed voices. When they become aware of her presence, they share one more glance, exchange nods, and Chapin strides toward her.

  “Where’s that little toe-rag now, huh?”

  “Toe-rag?” Silver dares her to say it again. “That’s a new one.”

  “I ain’t talking about your Russki tart. I’m meaning your Mercian runaway, who’s only gone and done a bloody bunk with our horses. The way I see it, I reckon you owe us two mares.”

  Two mares? Silver looks around the barn. Fitch, is there, and so is Carmen’s stallion, but Chapin and Bentley’s animals are conspicuously absent.

  “My money’s on the Russian whore.” Bentley deepens his voice for effect and puffs out his chest, his eyes pinned on someone standing in the doorway.

  Ria.

  Aware that she’s being accused of something, but at a loss as to what, she steps sheepishly inside the barn, quickly seeking comfort and protection by Silver.

  “What does he think I did?”

  “He seems to be blaming you for letting their horses out of the barn.” Silver folds her arms, keeping a close eye on Bentley.

  “Why would I do that?” Ria eyes Bentley in the periphery of her vision. “We need them to get to Mercia. More’s the pity.” She mutters the last three words under her breath.

  “I saw you wandering about unsupervised this morning.” Bentley bolsters his allegation with ‘proof’. “Your hair was all wet like you’d been caught out in a downpour.”

  “I had a shower this morning,” Ria defends herself. “Is that so farfetched? I certainly wasn’t traipsing around unfamiliar countryside in the middle of the night—during a thunder storm, no less—disposing of your horses.”

  “I’m telling you: it’s the boy who’s done this,” Chapin maintains to her brother. “He stole our mares and buggered off back to Mercia to flog ‘em.”

  She seems so confident in her proclamation, performing a double-take when Oliver stumbles into the barn. Wrestling with Ria, Silver and Carmen’s bags, he trips on a fallen rake and face-plants into a pile of hay.

  Silver nudges Ria. “You couldn’t have helped the poor kid?”

  “He didn’t want my help.” She watches his weedy body flail in the hay. “He wants to make himself useful so that you’ll allow him to travel with us all the way to London.”

  He looks up at Silver from the floor, hay caught in his hair. “I appreciates what you’s done for me, mum, and I’m forever in your service.”

  “I said I’d put a good word in.” Ria flashes Silver doe eyes. “He appears to think I have some sway over you.”

  “That you do.” Silver resists the temptation to kiss her, instead diverting her attention to Oliver. “Get up, you wally.” She kicks him in the shins. “Why do you wanna go to London anyway?”

  “I wants a job, mum. I wants to get meself established so as I can send money home and pay off me mam’s debts.”

  Silver shrugs. “All right. Whatever.” She turns back to the Deltas. “When are we leaving? This horse crap doesn’t change anything, right? We’re still going to Mercia.”

  “We can’t very well take you anywhe
re else.” Chapin sighs theatrically. “But we’ll have to make a detour to—”

  “I knew it.” Carmen starts to laugh. “You two are so full of it. How long did it take you to plan this? Was it a spur of the moment thing? Last minute jitters? Or did you have this up your sleeves from the very beginning?”

  “Whatchu gabbing on about?” Bentley glowers at her.

  “You’re afraid of the Angau.” Carmen dares either one of them to deny it. “I’m not simple in the head. Honey told you to lead us on the most direct route to the Trefaldwyn outpost, and that means cutting straight through the Angau.”

  “What’s the Ang-eye?” Silver matches Carmen’s pronunciation of the word.

  “Coedwig o Angau: the forest of death,” Oliver answers on Carmen’s behalf, still sitting in the hay. “A place so dark you can’t tell north from south, and so quiet the thoughts in your head sounds like whispers of ghosts.” He looks pasty and fearful.

  “Suicide forest.” Ria shivers involuntarily, goose bumps pricking her skin. “I’ve heard of it, and it’s a place we ought not to tread.”

  “It’s fine.” Carmen barely conceals her annoyance. “I’ve made this journey once before don’t forget.”

  “You traveled through the Angau?” Chapin, wide-eyed and high-pitched, looks and sounds disbelieving.

  “Yeah, ‘cause I’m not afraid of ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties.” Carmen heads for her horse’s stable. “I’m not veering a day off course to skirt around it just ‘cause you have some childish fright of the place.”

  “It’s not childish.” Chapin tries to prevent her from opening the stable door. “Do you know how many people disappear in the Angau every year?”

  “A bunch of superstitious nitwits who panic, get themselves turned around, and can’t find their way out—that’s all it is.” She greets her horse with a nose pat. “I’ll have us at the Mercian border before sundown, so you may as well fetch your horses from whatever pasture you’ve stashed them at and head back to D10. I don’t need your help.”

  Prompted by Ria’s concerned expression, Silver feels it’s her duty to question Carmen’s judgment. The thought of riding through a forest, no matter how dark or quiet, doesn’t exactly have her quaking in her boots, but she does hope that a gentle prod might get Carmen to say something that’ll put Ria’s mind at ease.