by Alana Serra
He’d done it. He had the information his clan needed. Now he could bring it to the Dark Lady and finally see justice done.
Chapter 8
Serving a Dark Lady was not what Liam had in mind.
He’d expected he might get the call at some point. He’d come under Aeredus’ notice after breaking his oath to the paladin order. The Dark God had tried for years to sway him, offering him his every desire in exchange for his fealty. Liam hadn’t accepted until he’d absolutely needed to do so, and now he was as much a pawn as the rest of them.
But though he’d sold his soul to the Butcher of All Mankind, he had no intention of losing his wits or anything else to a power-mad sorceress. He’d dealt with enough people who only cared for their own strength, their own wealth, their own betterment at the expense of others.
The call was something that couldn’t be resisted, true, and Liam would accept his role in helping this woman get to safety. He would even play his part in helping her carry out whatever Aeredus wanted with her. But he would never pact with her. That was the line he’d drawn when he first made his arrangement with the Dark God, and he intended to hold firm.
It wasn’t much of a feat to stick to his convictions if his temptation was dead, though. The half-orc had managed to scare her off and the warlock—another power-hungry degenerate, no doubt—was still playing with his tentacle beast. So it fell to Liam to actually complete the mission, as it usually did. Even in the paladin order, he’d been the one to take action while everyone else stood around with their cocks in their hands, waxing lyrical about how good and righteous they were.
He cut a path through the village, striking down any who challenged him. He had no use for petty squabbles, but he also wasn’t going to let some misguided humans distract him. She was getting away, fleeing toward the fields and soon the woods. He was no ranger, and if she made it deep enough, he would surely lose her.
At the edge of the village, Liam cast a glance to the east. His sturdy bay gelding tossed its head restively, the length of the village outskirts between them. Placing two fingers to his mouth, he blew a harsh whistle and the horse came running. Hand gripping the horn, Liam hoisted himself into the saddle before the beast had fully slowed, giving him a nudge in the flank and urging him on with the reins.
She was easy to catch up to, running on foot and clearly exhausted. He felt a cold prickle on the back of his neck, though, and was forced to veer his horse out of the way as a gout of dark flame exploded where they’d been.
“I swear I’ll kill you!” she called over her shoulder.
Right before she stumbled, the hem of her dress tangling in her legs. She tried to catch herself, tried to keep going, but the ground rushed up to meet her faster than she’d likely expected. Her palms hit the mud, splashing it into her face, and Liam jerked his mount to a stop, giving the gelding a pat before he jumped down.
“Come any closer and I will boil your organs in your body while you still draw breath,” she hissed, looking up at him with a murderous glare.
Murderous, but also terrified. It was as Karak said. Strange, since he’d never known a Dark Lady to outwardly display fear before. Most considered it a weakness, and rightly so. The moment they let their guard down was the moment someone else decided to usurp their position or end them for good.
This one didn’t have that knowledge, and that fear tugged at Liam’s heart, invoking the urge he had to protect the innocent.
She’s not innocent, you fool. If you weren’t one of the guardians, she would kill you in a heartbeat.
And like every other Dark Lady, she would likely send countless creatures to their deaths without batting an eyelash. They were frigid. Heartless. Beings so twisted by darkness that their very souls were bereft of anything resembling humanity.
Perhaps a bit of the paladin lingered in him still, to think such a way, but it had served him well thus far.
“I don’t mean you any harm,” he said, his hands lifting into the air. “I’m here to help you. I was called by Aeredus. We all were.”
She bristled at that name, her entire body going stiff. It was a sentiment Liam understood all too well, and again one that made him yearn to take her away from all of this.
A foolish thought. She’d chosen this fate, as had they all. She wasn’t some damsel in need of rescuing, and he was hardly the white knight to do it even if she was.
“All?” she asked tentatively, some of that dark energy fading from her eyes.
She lifted her head more fully to look at him, and Liam held out a hand to help her to her feet. After a moment, she accepted, and he took in the entirety of her. He didn’t know what he’d expected. Someone older, likely. Sallow, papery skin. Those lines of corruption that tended to snake through the people Aeredus most had his clutches in. Someone with hard, cold, unfeeling eyes and a cruel smile.
But this woman wasn’t that at all. She was… beautiful. Breathtaking. So much so that Liam just stood there and took in the sight of her for several moments. Light skin, unblemished by age or darkness. Raven black hair that tumbled past her shoulders in loose curls. Bow-shaped lips, just plump enough for biting and sucking. And dark blue eyes that shone almost violet in this light, beckoning him in.
She was like no Dark Lady he’d ever heard of before, like no woman he’d ever known… and that made her dangerous. Liam knew all too well that the beautiful women—the ones who could wrap men around their little finger with the greatest of ease—were the most deadly when they wanted to be.
He stood rigid, scowling down at her as his gaze moved over the mark at her neck. Two black serpents wound toward one another, nearly meeting in the center. It was a mark of Aeredus if he’d ever seen one, and in so obvious a place.
“What were you thinking, going into a village full of humans with that mark?” he gestured to her neck.
She lifted her hands, touched her throat. For a moment, Liam’s gaze fixed on those long, elegant fingers. They were touching her skin in a panic right now, but how would they look taking a relaxed, leisurely path? Trailing down her body, tweaking a taut nipple, sliding between her folds to find that insistent bud. How would they look wrapped around his cock?
Dammit. It was the call. It had to be. Aeredus was doing something to him by proxy, trying to force him into servitude; to make him crave the pact. It wouldn’t work. He’d endured celibacy for years. He wasn’t going to falter now just because the Dark God had thrown a beautiful woman in his path.
“They were being attacked,” she said, looking back toward the village. “Oh Goddess, it’s on fire. All those people…”
“All those people tried to kill you,” he said incredulously.
“If I’d just been able to—”
“No,” he cut her off. “There’s no reasoning with people like that. They saw you as a threat, as some evil thing they needed to purge from this earth. They would have gleefully burned you alive and let their children watch as you screamed in pain. Those are the kind of people you’re protecting.”
Her face turned a bit green, and Liam knew he’d gotten through to her. Perhaps not in the most tactful way, but they didn’t have time for tact. They didn’t have time for any of this.
“Come with me. We’re meeting the others at the edge of the village.”
He moved to the gelding and mounted easily, then offered a hand down to her. She looked at it, suspicion in her dark eyes, before finally taking it with a strong grip. Liam hoisted her up before him and she settled as comfortably as any man, sitting astride the beast without any fuss. What wasn’t especially comfortable was the way she pressed against him, her luscious ass jostling against his cock as they rode.
Liam gritted his teeth, ignoring his body’s response to her. He’d learned discipline at the order, and those teachings hadn’t faded even if his trust in the paladins was gone. Even when he braced an arm around her, her body soft and yielding to his, he didn’t falter. He cleared his mind, thought of nothing, and rode along the ou
tskirts of the village, avoiding the smoke that billowed toward the west. It wouldn’t take long for the whole village to burn, and while he felt a pang of guilt over the possible death of innocents, he didn’t think there were many to be found in this place.
After all, he’d learned most orc clans weren’t foolish enough to attack without provocation. Humans usually outnumbered them ten to one. And they had been willing to burn a woman alive without proof that she’d done anything wrong. They weren’t to be pitied.
Fortunately—for the Dark Lady, if not for himself—the other two guardians had made it out. The half-orc’s bare chest was splattered with blood and the warlock looked even more fatigued than he had when Liam first met him. He seemed on the verge of collapsing, actually, and Liam gave the man a hard stare.
“Overexert yourself, warlock?” he asked, an edge to his voice.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” the man said through a tight smile.
“Right then. Introductions. Your Ladyship, the lover of tentacled beasts is Wesley. The half-orc who frightened you so badly that you ran away is Karak. And you can call me Liam.”
“The oath-breaking ex-paladin,” Wesley was quick to put in. “I didn’t want you to miss out on a proper epitaph.”
“Much obliged,” he said through gritted teeth.
He looked to the Lady, curious to see if she reacted at all, but she was staring at Karak. “You were there,” she breathed.
“I was,” he said solemnly, “but it’s not what you think. We weren’t there to kill anyone or even hurt them. We just wanted information.”
She let out a harsh laugh. “You brought a catapult to get information?”
“It was meant to scatter them,” Karak said. “We purposefully didn’t aim at any structures.”
“And yet the entire village is burning to the ground.”
Wesley looked at her as incredulously as Liam had earlier. “They tried to kill you. Burn you at the stake like you were some witch of yore.”
“I told her much the same. It seems we’ve landed ourselves a Lady with a bleeding heart.”
Karak’s eyes bored into him, a bright amber that seemed to glow like firelight. “And we’re stronger for it.”
“We’ll be dead for it if we don’t get her out of here.” Wesley looked toward the village, where several of the humans were escaping the raging inferno.
Enough to come after them seeking retribution. Enough to summon the guild, if they were feeling particularly vengeful.
“This may be the only time you and I are in agreement, warlock,” he said, his arm tightening around the Dark Lady. “We must ride for safety.”
“I have no horse,” Karak said, eyeing him suspiciously.
Liam ignored the half-orc and searched the horizon. As he suspected, there were a few horses running free from the stables, grazing in the fields without a care in the world.
“Then I hope you can ride bareback,” he said, urging his own horse onward.
“What are you—” The woman was jostled against him once more and he sucked in a breath. “Let me down, I didn’t agree to go with you.”
He reached behind him for the saddlebag, pulling out a length of rope. Handing it to her, he simply said, “Tie a knot in this with a loop large enough to go around a horse’s neck.”
“Have you listened to a single word I’ve said?” her tone was exasperated, and Liam felt a smirk tug at his lips.
Exasperation was an emotion he knew all too well. Likely one he would be feeling much of the time in this woman’s service.
“With all due respect, Lady, my job as your guardian is to make sure you stay safe. I’m going to do my job, even if it means going against your orders.”
And when Aeredus was done with her, they could part ways with Liam not having endeared himself in the slightest. It was best if she thought him a heartless, boorish blackguard.
“Guardian… that’s what the others are, too? They’re… here to help me?” Her words were tentative, but her fingers were not. She worked diligently at the rope as she spoke.
“Bound by Aeredus himself, yes. We can only help you, as far as I understand it. So whatever your worries are about the other two, you needn’t bother. They can’t harm you.”
“The other two? You’re the one who’s been manhandling me this entire time,” she said with a scoff, handing him the completed loop.
Liam slowed as he reached the other horses, the gelding’s pace becoming far more approachable and friendly. It wasn’t enough. The others were still spooked, and he had to act fast, tossing the loop at a barrel-chested gray horse.
He pulled hard as the horse reared, but though he was able to keep it from fleeing, it wasn’t calming. Not surprising considering someone had come bearing down on it and thrown a rope around its neck, but still.
“Can you do absolutely nothing with tact?” the Lady groused.
Without aid, she slid down from the back of his gelding and approached the rearing horse cautiously. It snorted, nostrils flared, ears back.
“You’re going to get—”
“Would you just shut up?” she hissed.
Liam did, in fact, shut up. His jaw clenched and he watched, wondering if he was going to have to find a healer to save this woman from the internal hemorrhaging she was sure to acquire after getting kicked by a horse.
But to his surprise, the beast let her approach. She did so slowly, speaking in a soft, soothing voice that even Liam found calming. Reaching up, she offered her hand. When it wasn’t immediately rejected, she rested it on the horse’s snout and stroked gently. Liam watched as the mare’s chest stopped puffing out so far, as her ears pricked into a more neutral position, as she nuzzled into the Lady’s palm.
He sat back in his saddle, genuinely impressed. “I had no idea Aeredus was fond of magic that handles animals.”
“It’s not magic,” she said, the words spoken sharply even if her tone was still soothing for the horse’s benefit. “It’s kindness, something you clearly wouldn’t know anything about.”
“You’re right about that, Lady,” he said darkly. “Since you’ve so kindly bonded with this mount, why don’t you ride it back to the others. Karak can join you.”
She stiffened, obviously uncomfortable with the idea. Liam felt a petty sense of vindication, because he could see in her eyes that her pride wasn’t going to let her refuse. Not if doing so meant riding with him.
“Very well,” she said as haughtily as if she were the queen herself.
She mounted the gray mare just as easily as she’d mounted his saddled horse, turning it around with minimal movement of her thighs. Without sparing a glance, she rode away from him, her black curls whipping out behind her like some billowing cloak.
Liam chuckled under his breath and shook his head as he spurred his own horse into movement. She had spirit, he’d give her that. An attitude he wouldn’t have minded matching wits with were she anyone else.
But she wasn’t anyone else. She was Aeredus’ pet, given power and prominence; command over men who had their own strengths and victories to speak of. The Dark God would not have chosen her had she not possessed a certain ruthlessness. Even if it was something she needed to grow into, Liam had no doubt she would get there.
And the last thing he needed was to get too close. It had cost him dearly once before. He would never let that happen again.
Chapter 9
Rhia would have ridden with Karak just to spite Liam, at this point, even if her knee-jerk reaction toward the half-orc was fear.
Before that fateful day in Esrinas—a day she now imagined she was some distance from, despite the fact that it felt like mere hours had passed—she’d never seen an orc before. There were paintings of them, of course. Tapestries hung in the libraries of great heroes squaring off against fearsome brutes. But an artist’s rendering was nothing compared to the real thing. They were taller than she could have ever imagined. Broader and more muscular, with thick barrel chests and rock-hard
arms and thighs. And those tusks… something about them just didn’t sit right with her. Every time she glimpsed an orc’s tusks, she imagined being gored by them in the most horrendous fashion.
But Karak wasn’t like the orcs she’d seen attacking the village. He was smaller, though still a good foot taller than Rhia herself. Muscular, but in a way that drew the eye and caused a heat to burn low within her as she looked him over, her gaze traveling down his bare chest to his chiseled abs and those powerful thighs. Thighs she felt press against her as they rode, Karak behind her on the mare.
He was warm, and he smelled of some exotic spice with a hint of smoke. It was a heady mix, one that made Rhia have to grip her horse’s mane tighter just to keep from getting light-headed. She leaned forward more than was comfortable, knowing her own thighs and back would ache when they stopped for the night. But if she didn’t, she feared she might settle back against him and feel his hard body cradling hers, just like she had with Liam.
For his part, Karak was far more of a gentleman than Liam could ever hope to be. Though he was getting jostled atop the horse, he never pressed closer than absolutely necessary, his thighs didn’t tighten against her, and he kept his hands to himself. For an hour or so, he also kept the conversation light and friendly—far more so than Liam had. But eventually Rhia’s curiosity got the better of her, and she couldn’t help the questions that plagued her mind.
“You said you never intended to kill any of the humans. Why were you attacking the village, then?” she asked as she guided the mare behind the two geldings, following a footpath into the mountainous terrain.
She felt Karak stiffen behind her, his chest expanding so much that the firm muscles brushed against her back. A shiver ran through Rhia, her mind wandering unbidden to a place where he might wrap those strong arms around her and pull her close. Goddess. What was wrong with her? She’d only ever thought of Desmond that way. Now it wasn’t even a full day in her mind and she was lusting after these men who worked for Aeredus.