Steampunk Hearts

by Jordan Reece

  STEAMPUNK HEARTS

  by Jordan Reece

  Copyright 2018 Jordan Reece

  Cover photo courtesy of Depositphotos

  Cover by Devorah Mast

  Table of Contents

  The Hunter

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  The Seer

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Epilogue

  The Tracker

  Hexed

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  The Alpha’s Captive Omega

  Sample Chapters

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  THE HUNTER

  by Jordan Reece

  Chapter One

  Elario Repse had left too late from Briars.

  The wind was in the dragontrees, their bare branches fanning out like ribs and undulating in slow flight along the road. Behind them were taller oaks and sing-sung, shedding leaves that pattered down everywhere. Brushing one from his cloak, Elario nudged Jersey to go faster.

  The horse wearily complied, breaking into a trot with her right ear cocked to the Wickewoods. Still bleeding into the sky was the last light of the setting sun, its tapered red fingers curling inwards as the day died. Deep blue was seeping in to replace it, stretching shadows over Hopcross Road, but the woods were black as pitch. Beyond the soaring wings of the dragontrees, which grew beside the road in a line, it was already night.

  Sensible to weather the night in Briars, but the single inn in that small town was drafty and filthy, and its keeper drafty and filthy himself. A crackling sweetwood fire awaited Elario at home, a bowl of clean water in which to wash, and a warm bed. Autumn had swept in cold this year, the heat of summer vanishing overnight to a chill that bit at the skin and raised white mist from each breath.

  The hair lifted on the back of his neck. Something was watching him from the darkness.

  Merciful Elequa! He should have stayed in that foul inn; it was just for a night, and a night was no hardship. Better than being out here by evening, with the woods coming to life.

  The gaze upon him was as potent as a soft but malicious caress from his cheek to his shoulder. A chill ran down his spine. He did not turn his head to the woods, suddenly afraid that to look into the darkness was to invite the creature into the light. A wolf or a madman or a dervesh . . . Wheeling back for Briars was no longer an option. He was over halfway to Alming now. If only he had ridden Orman instead of Jersey, yet what was done was done.

  Nobody traveled the Hopcross at night. By day it was nothing but a road marked by wagon ruts, extending all the way from Ballevue along the River Avys to Goat’s Peak in the mountains. The Wickewoods bordered the road’s northern side, and innumerable quiet towns nestled in the foothills to the south.

  How many years had it been since anyone vanished upon the Hopcross? Three? Those who lived east of the Avys knew all too well the dangers of the road after dark, and the dangers of the Wickewoods by any time of day or night. One of the few thrashings that Jazan Repse ever dealt out was when he caught nine-year-old Elario and his band of small friends daring one another to trespass past the dragontrees at the Alming crossroads. Elario had the lightest of the punishments, for Jazan thrashed the whole lot of them, and then sent the rest of the boys and girls home to get thrashed a second time by their parents. Kosta Repse held back the second punishment for her wayward son, but her profound disappointment curdled his insides and turned his knees to jelly. Never again did he set a single toe into the Wickewoods.

  The wind strengthened as Jersey trotted around a curve in the road. Elario jumped in the saddle at the moving shapes ahead, and settled back feeling foolish. It was only the rippling branches of the dragontrees. The horse continued on, fatigue nibbling at her speed. While Elario had toiled to deliver the premature twins of Nonna Dremenger, her husband Iben whisked Jersey from the stall to haul his crop into Briars proper without asking for permission, which Elario never would have granted. Jersey was a short and sturdy gray mare, bred for pulling plows and carriages, but she was too old for heavy work now. Elario rode her on errands around Alming, to Briars and Winchistie at most, and used Orman for all else.

  The something was still out there.

  Its gaze was on the saddlebags. Though Elario saw nothing in his peripheral vision, he felt it. With the wings of the trees roiling over his head, he turned to check on his belongings. The straps were still firmly fastened over the bag holding his tools: eyedropper and syringe and scissors, mortar and pestle, alcohol lamp, knives and cutting board and more. Turning again to check on the second bag, his fingers passed over it in the fading light.

  Just like the other bag, the straps were tightly affixed. An herbal knacker’s remedies fleshed out the leather sides, depleted somewhat from the day’s work. Tomorrow he needed to go out and harvest argetonia leaves from around the lake. They were excellent at relieving pain. Also in that saddlebag were the coins that Iben threw to him in anger afterwards. Half-pay for half the babies he expected to have. Dirty looks from his wife’s kin shamed him into giving over the second half. To haggle with or outright cheat the herbal knacker was beyond most people’s kenning.

  For wearing out Jersey so badly, Elario should have charged him half as much again. The next time he went to the Dremenger farm, should misfortune favor him in having to do so, he would take along Nyca. The boy was fifteen but already the size of a man. There was an unfriendly look to him, which had been there since babyhood. Bald as an egg and wrapped in swaddling clothes, he looked like a tiny but very cross harbor jack stationed on a dock to watch for pickpockets. Even a man like Iben would think twice about taking Jersey with that cold gaze of Nyca’s touching down. It was only skin-deep, that stony countenance; within Nyca was a warm-hearted soul.

  Fear of the Wickewoods overrode Elario’s thoughts of how to protect his horse from Iben. It had been a peddler from Penborough who was the last to vanish on the Hopcross. The last anyone saw of him was a mug of ale hoisted in the air as he drunkenly bellowed a crude ballad, the wheels of his wagon bearing him in the direction of Lagette. The wagon was found the next day, stranded in the road. No horses, no driver, simply the wagon with all of its goods intact. Fool, they called that peddler. Fool to pass up three towns for Lagette far away, and fool to die for no reason but Lagette’s summer festival, where he hoped to sell his wares.

  Now it might be Elario they called fool. Loathing to do it, he kicked Jersey.

  A strange, distant whistle rose from the woods at the same moment as his kick, and he was not sure which of the two suddenly propelled the horse to sp
eed. The red was almost gone from the sky.

  He had never seen a dervesh in the flesh. Years ago, however, he came across a picture. Three of them were drawn and identified on a page ripped from a book. The page was in Elario’s own attic of all places, folded and hidden within an old spice ledger. Ovane, a son of Great Elequa, was a beast of seven feet tall. The fur covering his body was wet with blood, and he had talons rather than fingers. Ovane’s daughter Nechto was even more hideous. She was a scrabbling thing upon the earth, dragging useless legs behind her, and her long, snarled hair hid all of her face but her fanged mouth. The last figure on the page was named Gerger, fraternal twin to Ovane, a dark-haired and wholly average man, so long as one avoided his eyes. They were hollows, fathomless pools of darkness. To look in was to be trapped there, forever gazing out through the lens of insanity. That was what the bit of text said beneath the pictures; the rest was lost to the other pages of the missing book.

  A page of dervesh was an odd thing to find in a spice ledger. Elario had searched fruitlessly through the others for more. They were all centuries old, the youngest dating back to the Troubled Times. The oldest dated a hundred years before that, several of the pages disintegrating in his fingers despite careful handling. The ledgers had been carried out of the Great Cities when they fell to dervesh, and kept in the Repse family ever since. Each had a glass cover shielding it upon the shelf.

  He had no desire to see a dervesh off that page. Gripping the reins, he thought about taking out the knife he used for his herbs. That was no easy task on the back of a galloping horse, and all of his blades large and small were at the bottom of the saddlebag wrapped in cloth. Strange to hope it was a wolf keeping soundless pace with them among the trees; at Jersey’s speed, it eliminated the possibility of a madman.

  The wind flung open his cloak. He did not tighten it. Those malicious eyes were on Jersey, and perhaps she felt them, too. Spittle flew from her mouth as she bolted between the wagon ruts, the thud-thud-thud of her hooves increasing at a second, and nearer, whistle. Not a wolf.

  He wanted to pull off the road and walk among the trees at his left. Danger reached the Hopcross with darkness, but no further. Unluckily, that side could only be reached by mounting a short but steep slope with crumbling soil. Nor was the land much more advantageous above. Erosion was chewing holes in it, and there was a good chance it would give them no alternative but to return to the road to get around. They had to stay on the Hopcross.

  A flash of brilliant, blue fire appeared, illuminating oaks far beyond the dragontrees. It was gone a moment after drawing his eye. He blinked away the after-image as Jersey swung around another curve, her skin damp with sweat.

  The blue fire reappeared a little closer to the road. Hovering in mid-air, it sent up sparks into the darkness. Illuminating tree trunks and branches, a falling leaf went up in a crisp when a spark struck it from below.

  Awestruck, Elario stared at the fire. Then he realized what it was, what it had to be, and forced his eyes to close. Danger reached the Hopcross, true, but it also lured people off the Hopcross, it was said.

  The blue light teased through his eyelids. It was from this strange thing that he was receiving the sensation of being watched; it filled him with opposing urges to both look at this mesmerizing fire and get away from it as fast as possible. Jersey had no such internal conflict. She careened down the road as an animal possessed. The crossroads to Alming was beyond the next curve.

  The radiant blue light disappeared and Elario opened his eyes. That malicious caress was back, smoothing over his skin, the horse, and the saddlebags. It was not so soft this time, that covetous look eerily twinned with touch. It had tried to entice him into the trees, and it was angry at its failure.

  Meat. It wanted the meat of his horse, the meat of Elario himself, it wanted to paw through his bags for the dried meat in his rations. Hunger brought it to the road, whatever twisted kin of Elequa this was, for not all of the divine family were kind of heart and protective of mortals.

  The mare pelted around the last curve, so frightened that she was trembling in her exertion. The crossroads! They were visible just ahead. The Hopcross met Cuthill Road there, and Cuthill ran straight through the heart of Alming and out to the farms. Elario would be home soon, and never, never, never would he leave so late from Briars again.

  Jersey knew where they were going. But just as she edged to the left, careful even in her panic to steer clear of the deep ruts, that fire burst into existence right on the edge of the road. Framed between shaking dragontrees, it set the naked branches alight with vivid blue flames.

  The horse reared, screaming, and threw him.

  He landed hard on his back. Though the wind was knocked out of him, he tumbled on purpose for the far side of the road. The world revolved around him, dirt and sky, trees and fire, and then the ground beneath him changed to grass and brambles. He struck a boulder and stopped, dead leaves crackling under his legs.

  Jersey wheeled for the crossing, clots of dirt kicking up from her hooves. Making it to Cuthill Road, she raced up it and vanished. Elario stayed against the boulder and gasped for breath, too much of his body in pain to pay heed to any one part in particular.

  Standing on the other side of the Hopcross was a figure.

  The young woman was wearing a short cloak made of that brilliant fire, flames snapping up at her shoulders to reveal a face of tremendous beauty. She smiled coyly to Elario, red lips peeling back from delicate white teeth. Sparks jumped and nestled among the strands of her pale hair. If she had on a dress beneath that cloak, if she had legs at all, he could not tell. There was only the short cloak, and her face.

  She held out a hand to him. There were promises in her icy, reddish-blue eyes, promises to make most men stand up straighter, and a few women, too. A kiss, those eyes offered, a bed of the softest moss beyond the trees, if only . . . if only . . .

  Meat.

  She would kiss her victims. Copulate with them, if the mood took her. And then she would feast. Elario saw straight past that sultry smile to her basest intentions. Who would see this and still go with her into the woods? Getting his breath back, he clutched the boulder to get up. Her smile widened and her hand came out further; she thought he was getting up to cross the road to her. Instead, he staggered up the slope, dirt breaking away under his boots, until he got to the top.

  She was gone when he looked back. Just gone, like it had all been an illusion. The dragontrees waved in the breeze, smoke rising from the burnt branches where she had been.

  He limped the rest of the way home. Nyca met him just as he rounded the stone posts to the drive. Holding a lantern aloft, the boy cried out to find him there. “Master Repse! You live!”

  “I live,” Elario said in exhaustion. “Did Jersey run here?”

  “She did, sir! Papa and I weren’t expecting you home tonight, so we were laying out our dinner when we heard a horse running mad past the house. She took herself directly to the barn, sir, and stood quivering by the door. We thought she threw you somewhere and Papa is saddling Orman to start a hunt for you.”

  On Cuthill Road. That was what the boy wasn’t saying. Were Elario not found on the Cuthill, Yens and Nyca would have had to wait until dawn to search the Hopcross.

  “Well then, run ahead to the barn and tell him never fear,” Elario said. “Tend Jersey with care. She’s had a hard day followed by a dreadful fright.”

  How had he ever believed the boy had a cold look about him? It was nothing compared to that dervesh in the woods. Nyca ran for the barn, shouting to his father that all was well, and Elario looked up to his home gratefully.

  Family lore held that his ancestors fled the Great Cities when the dervesh attacked with only the spice ledgers and a purse of gold coins. Most people fled with much less than that. The gold had built this solid, but modest, two-story house of gray stone and timbers, which remained to this day one of the finer homes in humble Alming. Acres of farmland were behind it, where Yens oversaw t
he tubers and cornfields and the small orchard. Elario had the charge of the herbal garden, where he grew many of the plants he used in his remedies, but some could not be grown in the area. At least twice or thrice from spring to autumn, he traveled north to Penborough’s Grand Market, where he bought the rest. In winter when the weather was amenable, he stumped up into the mountains to gather frost helotte and savory, as his family had done for generations. Their spice sales earned petty coin, but petty coin was still coin. In years of poor harvest, those spices tided them over until better times.

  He hung his cloak upon the peg beside the door. It was filthy from his fall. Just as filthy were his boots, which he removed in the entryway so that he did not track dirt through the house. Tending them could wait. For now, he needed to sit and have his heart stop racing.

  The door opened as Elario fell into his chair in the living room. It was Yens, his narrow, lined face filled with worry. For all the twenty-five years of Elario’s life, Yens at’Matte had been the houseman, as had his father and grandfather and the generations before him. They occupied the servants’ quarters at the back of the house.

  His face was as familiar to Elario as family. After the contagion five years ago struck both the Repses and at’Mattes, depriving Elario of his parents and Yens of his wife and daughter, family was what Yens and Nyca became to Elario. They had been the only two in the household still breathing when Elario at last returned to his home from that ill-fated trip to Penborough. His knack cured them of their illness, but nearly destroyed Elario’s skill in the process. If he pushed too far, he ran the risk of burning himself out.

  Yens stooped beside the chair to examine him. “Are you hurt?”

  “I am well. Bruised, nothing broken,” Elario said.

  The shifting light from the fire was the sole light in the room, and Yens rose to spark the lantern. “I did not expect you home tonight,” Yens said. “How fared the birth?”