Zhoardaeash smiled knowingly at Eielawyn. She didn’t care that he was a royal guard. They were bullies. She smiled back at him, and gave him the finger to fuck off.
“You bitch! You’re going to pay for that!” Zhoardeash said with spittle flying out of his mouth.
“You can’t arrest me for shit,” she said. “I haven’t done anything against the realm or the queen. So, get the hell out of my shop.”
The other guards slowly left, as Zhoardeash stood glaring at her. “Leave, Sergeant. Now!” the taller guard said to him.
Zhoardaeash slowly turned and walked out of the shop. Eielawyn continued to stare at the taller guard, willing him to leave with the rest of them. He didn’t. He surprised her by kneeling to the floor, as he began to pick up the broken pieces of porcelain.
“Y-y-you don’t have to do that,” she said to him. “Just leave.”
“I apologize for those guards,” he said with a deep voice. She noticed his accent then. He had a slight accent of the north, she thought. It was sexy, and alluring, and…she needed to end her dry spell and get laid, if she were noticing the voice of a royal guard.
He stood too close to her, holding out the broken porcelain pieces. “I am Lieutenant Raenos, son of Xiaxion.” He bent his head in a curt bow.
“O-okay,” she stuttered feeling the nervous butterflies in her belly from the nearness of him. “Thank you. Leave.”
Raenos smiled slightly, but his gaze remained on her. “I don’t get your name?”
“I’m not in the practice of offering my name to royal guards. You’re all alike. So, no.” She opened her power of thoughts on him, and got nothing. The only thing she saw was a brick wall. She frowned in confusion. It wasn’t possible, unless he was some kind of supernatural being. And if that was the case, what kind?
“Very well.” He bowed again and left the shop.
Eielawyn let out a pent up sigh of relief. She attributed the sigh to the guard finally leaving so she could see to Frodrisa, not to what she’d felt from his gaze. She quickly collected herself, squaring her shoulders, as she went over to lock the shop door and then headed to the back room to butcher the stolen goat.
Chapter Two
She was out of breath by the time she walked over to Kinsbithu’s inn. The inn was located on a lone peninsula that jutted out from the rest of the town. It was perfect for the tourists, looking out on a breathtaking sunrise and surrounded by sugary soft sand. That is, it was perfect. For the last several months the inn hadn’t seen much in the way of tourists. Of course, Kinsbithu could let some of the royal guards stay there, but Eielawyn knew her friend would rather let the place wither around her than cater to the royal guard.
She didn’t bother to knock as she opened the door on the side that led into the kitchen. Kinsbithu was at the stove making the delicious pies the inn was known for.
“You know,” Kinsbithu said, glancing up from what she was doing. “One of these days you’re going to bust in here, and I’m going to be fucking some hunk on the counter.”
Eielawyn took a seat at the long island counter in the middle of the kitchen. “And how would Praedis feel about that?”
Kinsbithu stared at her incredulously. “He would be the hunk, Eielawyn. What brings you all the way out here anyway?”
Eielawyn fingered the woodwork of the counter, as she glanced at her best friend. Bithy was her only true friend in Yaesdrah. When Eielawyn had run from Mocmoran and the registration, she had no idea where she was headed. She had no money to pay for air transport, or mass transport. All she knew was that she wouldn’t subject herself to King Gaeldos’ sadistic needs. That’s what it would have come to. He would have taken one look at her and known that she was vaedra, and the next thing she knew she would be his concubine—his whore, to call it what it was. But ironically, she ended up using her body for that reason. She thought it would have taken no more than three times to get the amount needed for transport. She would strike it up to a necessary evil to get the money to Yaesdrah. She could have taken a mass transport and been packed with a hundred other travelers like a tin of eudis beans. But she told herself that if she were to whore herself out to escape a life of being a whore, she was going to make enough to leave in comfort. But once was all it took, thanks to a special man with an understanding heart.
So, when her parents had told her they were sending her to stay with her aunt and uncle in Balknae, she knew it was her chance. She and three of her friends, girls who also wanted to escape the registration, left in an old mover one day. Her parents waved to her smiling brightly, telling her to use her aunt’s Technical Communication Device, to contact them when she arrived. But instead of arriving, one of the girl’s boyfriends met them along the way. Eielawyn helped them push the mover over the side of an embankment, then watched as the octal caused it to explode far below on the rocks, and rode the rest of the way with them to Zinvia. They were heading west, but Eielawyn wanted to go east.
Deciding to use her body for money was the easy part. Actually committing to the plan was harder than she thought it would be. But her first sexual experience revealed to her what she was. She’d always known she was vaedra. Her mother had told her that she carried that gene passed down from her side of the family. It wasn’t until she’d had sex for the first time that she truly embraced being a vaedra. Luckily, the man had been very attractive and, after hearing about why she was willing to whore herself to a complete stranger, sympathetic. It wasn’t the way she wanted her first time to be, but he’d been very gentle, even loving to a point. He’d paid her twice the amount she’d asked for, and told her that she didn’t have to continue selling her body. But that one time had done more than introduce her to sex. It had introduced her to desire, passion, sexuality, sensuality, and pleasure. After that one time, she never sold her body to the highest bidder again, but she did find that she loved, perhaps even craved, sex with the right man.
What she’d thought would take a week only took that one day to earn the money for transport. And even as she sat in her seat on the transport high above the clouds, and on her way to freedom, she sobbed for the loss of her parents and family. She reasoned that it was better not to tell them where she was, just in case the royal guards came to ask why she hadn’t registered. It was better to fake her death, and let her family grieve for her loss.
Kinsbithu had taken her in, hiding the obvious Mocmoran woman from sight until the search for wayward Mocmoran women was called off. For months she stayed hidden in the attic of the inn, until one day it all ended. No one was searching for her. There were no longer any guards roaming the streets of Yaesdrah asking questions and looking suspiciously at random women. Kinsbithu helped her set up her memento shop, loaning her the money without question. She’d paid her back within a year. Business was good. She was happy. Eventually, she contacted her parents and told them what she’d done and why. They hadn’t cared. All they cared about was that their daughter was alive. But she didn’t go home. She was happy in Yaesdrah. It had become her home.
That was five years ago. And she never thought she would leave, but lately relocation looked pretty good. Queen Balaedras was intent on cracking her whip on those that refused to follow her edicts without question. Some of the people she knew in town were missing. No one knew where they’d gone. Their homes were abandoned, sometimes with their dinner still on the table. Eielawyn knew what had happened to them. They’d been taken by the fuckin’ royal guard. Yaesdrah had always been a town too far from the capital for King Gaeldos to bother with. But Queen Balaedras wanted complete power over her realm, and others. Gone were the days where Yaesdrahains could live free from under the scrutiny and conditions of a power hungry ruler. A life in Yaeltaran or Valwithia was beginning to look like a possibility for Eielawyn.
She glanced over to where Kinsbithu was measuring and pouring the contents into a large bowl on the counter. Kinsbithu smiled at her with large brown eyes, as she reached up with her hand to brush a lock of curly black h
air off her forehead, leaving a white splotch of flour on her dark, honey skin.
“Well?” asked Kinsbithu. “Spill it. What’s with you?”
“There are guards in Yaesdrah,” Eielawyn said, absentmindedly tracing small circles along the counter.
“Yes? I saw them. Have you been smoking cullen flower or something? They’ve been here for months, Eielawyn.”
“They came into the shop, Bithy. Five of them. They were looking for Filkothinor,” she said, looking to Kinsbithu.
Kinsbithu stopped what she was doing, wiping her hands on a towel tucked into the waist of her apron tied around her slim figure. She went to the door that led from the kitchen into the rest of the house and closed it.
“You have guests?” Eielawyn asked her.
“Drisians, and they don’t need to know my business. We both know where Filkothinor is. Did you tell the guards?”
“Hell, no. Why would I do that, Bithy? But they were asking about him. I don’t think they know anything. They were fishing. But that’s not why I told you about the guards. They were destroying shit, you know? Trying to get a rise out of me. It didn’t work. Then this other guard came in. He—he wasn’t like the others. He tried to clean up the broken shards on the floor.” She swallowed almost too hard, knowing how it would look to Kinsbithu. She looked up to see her staring at her intently.
“Is that so?” said Kinsbithu suspiciously. “And did you notice what this guard looked like? I mean, just in passing?”
“Tall, like all of those guards. Why the fuck are they all so tall? I mean, are they grown like that? He was very tall. That’s all. With a deep tan complexion. Like he spent a lot of time outdoors. Maybe he did. Being a guard, I guess he would have to. He had a nice smile, though. Nice full lips, too. And he had dark hair to his shoulders. It looked soft. Maybe he uses conditioner. I didn’t know men liked to use hair products like women, but his hair looked very soft. And his eyes…he had blue eyes. He seemed to look right…he…um…” She shook her head, realizing what she’d been saying, as Kinsbithu was leaning against the counter edge staring at her. “He was a fuckin’ guard, Bithy.”
“Uh-huh. So, he was. Did he have a muscled chest and tight ass?”
“Shit, yeah,” she whispered softly before glancing at Kinsbithu with wide eyes. “I mean, I guess. Whatever. The point is, he’s a royal guard stuck up Balaedras’ ass. I wouldn’t care if he was wearing a damn halo and riding a white horse, Bithy. He’s a fuckin’ royal guard, and I hate the Teveoch royal guard. They’re bullies. All of them.”
“Yeah. Bullies,” Kinsbithu said agreeably.
“But the weird thing was that I couldn’t read his thoughts.”
“No? Was he able to block you?”
“I-I-I don’t know. I know about what a vaedra is, but my parents never thought I would need to know about many of the other beings and creatures in Ai, or even Oaes. Do you know…? I mean, have you ever heard of a being that can block the powers of a vaedra?”
“Eielawyn, I hadn’t heard of a vaedra until you told me, so no. Just ask him.”
“No. I won’t. I hate them. All of them, including Raenos, son of Xiaxion.”
And she did hate the royal guard. She hated what they stood for. She hated how they used their power to threaten, and sometimes kill those that said anything against the guard or the queen. But Raenos struck her as different. He hadn’t broken anything in her shop but tried to clean up the broken pieces. Maybe, she thought. Maybe.
* * * *
Raenos sat on the ground where his unit was camped, staring at the guards joking and laughing in the middle of the encampment. He watched one man in particular. Zhoardaeash. He didn’t like the man, and he didn’t trust him. He used being a guard as a right to do whatever he wanted. Most of the guards did. Balaedras had reassigned many of the guards he’d trained with. They’d all been good men. Men loyal to the realm. But he knew she didn’t want men loyal to the realm. She wanted men loyal to her, to do whatever dirty dead she needed done. Zhoardaeash was one of those men.
He used to love being a guard. The respect it garnered. The pride the men took in guarding the kingdom. Of course, Gaeldos had been a false king. He’d ruled Teveoch with the intention of fulfilling his own needs. They all knew that. But he’d also stayed out of the business of the guards, leaving it to be run by the commanders. Commander Theoch, son of Baeod. Captain Crodaelin, son of Aeobahr, Commander Thixbahninahr, son of Woedin, and others. All of them were great men, loyal to the realm. But those that Balaedras had put in command had no honor, in his opinion. They were criminals, thieves, rapists, and scum. They thought nothing of torturing a man in front of his family for no other reason than to see the horror on their faces. Zhoardaeash was that kind of man. Raenos knew that it was only a matter of time before he started to kill people for sport, if he hadn’t already.
A female guard approach him, sitting down on the ground next to him. She glanced over at him, with a soft smile playing on her lips. “No, you can’t kill him,” she said. “You can wait like the rest of us, and let him kill himself.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“You mean is the glare you’re sending him obvious? No, that isn’t. But the sneer on your lips is.” She adjusted the tracer strapped to her side. “He’s an ass, Raenos. He continually makes comments about my attraction to other women like it’s something new. He and his cronies think that I’m going to be offended in some way if they insult me. He even tried to rape me once.”
“What! Shahneeris, why didn’t you report the motherfucker?”
Shahneeris brushed a strand of her brown hair from her face, and looked at Raenos with her brooding, dark eyes. “Why? So he could run off to whine to queen mommy, and have me transferred to some hellhole in the middle of the desert? Or maybe send me to guard the talius fields, so I die in a few years from choking on my own pus? No. Besides, I’m the commander of the combat division. He didn’t stand a chance.”
They felt free to talk without fearing their TCDs would transfer their conversation. Yaesdrah was too far to the east of Teveoch’s wavelengths to monitor communications. To communicate with the capital and the queen, a portable TCD had to be used, and even they failed more often than worked. He was thankful for that. Sometimes he needed to speak freely with Shahneeris about his thoughts without fear of any repercussions.
“Not only is he a piece of shit,” he said, smiling to her. “He’s a stupid piece of shit.”
“Exactly. So what did he do, besides being the piece of shit he is, that has your tension balled up and ready to strike?”
Raenos thought about the woman in the shop earlier that morning. She was the most beautiful woman he’d seen in his life. He knew she was Mocmoran. He could tell by the shape of her full, curvaceous body. But it was more than that. Her eyes were intoxicating, pulling him into her gaze. He’d never been in love. Being a guard, he’d taken the vows of the guard to heart. A royal guard was to never marry, never let his heart overpower the duties that bound him to the guard. Of course, many men in the guard didn’t adhere to those words. They had secret girlfriends, and even more secret wives and families. He’d never thought of ignoring the oath of the guard until seeing her.
“We’re here to maintain the safety and integrity of Yaesdrah,” he said. “Balaedras’ concern about the Drisians coming into Yaesdrah is the reason we’re here. I get that. It makes no sense, in my opinion—”
“Or mine,” Shahneeris agreed.
“But, if that’s our job, I’m willing to do that. To keep the peace. To maintain the order of Yaesdrah. What I’m not willing to do is assault the townspeople, or use my status as a royal guard to disrupt or degrade them in any way. This morning, I walked into a shop and found Zhoardaeash and his cronies destroying the place. Breaking shit up. The owner, or she could have been the manager, I don’t know. She was visibly upset, but she didn’t do anything. They were trying to get her to do something so they would have a reason to take her in. I have this
feeling that if I hadn’t walked in when I had, they might have—”
“Might?” Shahneeris asked with a raised eyebrow. “There is no might. Those shits would have raped her. They’d have raped her, and she’d just be gone right now. Disappeared,” Shahneeris said, as she snapped her fingers.
Raenos let out a long, deep sigh. He nodded. “And that’s why I’m glaring at Zhoardaeash right now. I’m going to keep an eye on him. The others won’t do shit without his okay. They’re followers. I won’t let him harm her—anyone—harm anyone,” he said correcting himself.
Shahneeris caught his slip. “Oh really?” She smiled knowingly. “After one brief meeting, huh?”
Raenos tried to hide his interest in the beauty he’d met that morning, but Shahneeris was his friend. They’d gone through guard training together. If he’d had a sister, she would have been as close as any. “Ah, shit,” he smiled. “Maybe. But she was clear. I’m a royal guard. Her hatred for the guard was clear. But again, our job is to maintain the order of Yaesdrah.”
“Protect the town and its people,” Shahneeris said with authority. Raenos nodded to her. “And a pretty shop maid on the side,” she added with a smile, as they stood to go back to their duties.
Chapter Three
Eielawyn loved the beach in the morning. Growing up in Mocmoran, she never had the opportunity to go to the beach. But once in Yaesdrah she made sure she took advantage of the sea air, the soft sand, and the soft breezes every chance she got. She went in the early mornings, sometimes before the sunrise, sitting quietly in the sand on a low dune, and watched the world come to life. It was her time. At least she thought it was.
She wasn’t alone. She looked down the beach and saw the tall figure of a man. Not just any man. A tall man. A tall man, with a muscled physique, and dark wavy hair to his shoulders. He was shirtless, but the telltale leather pants of the royal guard were noticeable even from where she sat.
Eielawyn [The Maidens of Mocmoran 3] (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 3