by Sara Bushway
Honey Beaumont
Sara Bushway
5310 Publishing Company
5310publishing.com
Copyright © 2021 by Sara Bushway and 5310 Publishing Company.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever, except by reviewers for the public press. Reproducing, scanning, uploading, and distributing this book in whole or in part without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use any material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact 5310 Publishing at [email protected].
Author: Sara Bushway
Editors: Eric Williams, Alex Williams
Cover design: Eric Williams
ISBN (paperback): 978-1-7771518-6-7
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-7771518-5-0
First edition (this edition) released in June 2021.
For my husband Daniel and our two fur babies, Rory and Angus
And for anyone who has ever dreamed of being a hero.
“I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.” – Carl Jung
Prologue
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
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Prologue
You never notice how warm your blood is until it’s on the outside. I know I never did. I could still feel the lighting traveling through my chest, cooking my heart as I lay dying. Thick, congealed blood stuck like syrup. The bolt had almost caused and cauterized the wound in a single second. It was the first time I had ever been shot with magic. The good news was I got my shot off before he took me down. I imagined the imbued marble flying out of my revolver at the wizard who had shot me. I imagined the ball breaking against his chest and the spell going off, freezing him in place in painful silence. I had taken my time and aimed for his heart in hopes of a critical hit. Sadly, I never got to see the ending result.
The next thing I knew, I could feel Dane carrying me. Then I could hear Andy and Torq crying out for help. Medics of the People weren't common in poor towns, and you could only get lucky with healers at the Adventurer's outpost so many times. I wondered if it was the end for me. After all, I'd had a good life. Sold into servitude, bought to be a house pet, taught to be a functioning citizen, and then killed in the line of duty bearing the badge of The Adventurer's Guild, never mind the fact that I died while aiding the so-called rebels who only wanted freedom. Who could blame them? It was all I had ever wanted once I understood how little of it I had experienced.
Then I saw her face—my beautiful Loretta. Everything I had done, including leaving, had been for her. We grew up together, working in the same house. In a microcosm full of women, she was special. Not only was she born with the gift of healing magic. She was smart, funny, and willing to stand up to the master of the house, no matter how terrible he was.
And then I wondered. Had it been real? Had any of it since my master tortured me even been real? The buy-out? The escape? The Nobodies? The adventures? The magic?
Then I saw her hands glowing with healing magic. Suddenly, I felt warmer on the inside than the outside. I felt like a light had replaced something dark that had been taken from me and replaced with something new. I felt alive. At that moment, I knew where I was and what was to come next: My revenge.
Chapter One
Honey carefully pinched the pale-yellow material in between index finger and thumb and pushed the needle through. A pleat had gotten pulled in all the ruckus the night before. Honey shifted his legs underneath him as he worked beneath the dress.
"Just a few more stitches and I’ll be done."
"Take your time," Loretta replied. She sounded sincere but distracted, which Honey attributed to her still putting on her make-up for the day.
As Honey was tying the knot in the last stitch, he pushed the needle through once more to secure it and nicked his thumb in the process. He hissed and brought it to his lips to lick the blood away but was stopped. Loretta had lifted her skirt and grabbed hold of his wrist in the blink of an eye. The green of her eyes shimmered, framed by her fiery red curls as she smiled at him.
"Let’s have a look," she whispered. Honey hoped she was doing a better job of appraising the wound than he had. He couldn’t stop looking at her, his girl.
"It doesn't look too bad," she continued. She brought his hand to her lips and kissed his injured thumb. Then she put both hands around his and closed her eyes. Her warm, soft hands became cool leaves wrapping his callused fingers, and the pale yellow of shy morning light encompassed their hands together. She opened her eyes and appraised his thumb again where the wound had once been. "Not too bad at all."
Honey beamed up at her, basking in the natural glow he always felt around her even when she wasn’t using her magical gifts, but the moment was short-lived.
He heard the French doors slam into the walls behind them. Loretta threw her skirts over him again and turned to face her vanity mirror. Honey quickly packed his needles and thread away in his make-shift sewing kit as he imagined her feigning interest in her eyeliner and rouge in the mirror, not that she needed much of either.
"Doors open in five! What’s the hold-up?"
Beaumont, Honey thought as a sigh escaped his lips.
Mr. Beaumont’s gruff voice was enough to rake the sweetest tune from a songbird’s ears, but today it was worse. The opium dried his throat something harsh and made him sound like he had been gargling nails, which only made his anger and confusion more terrifying.
"Sorry, Master Beaumont. Some of our dresses needed mending," Loretta chirped. "It was those damn hooligans from last night, tugging and pulling on our dresses like we were common street flesh."
"Well, alright then," Beaumont replied, "I--" He stopped mid-sentence and stepped toward the vanity. Honey could see Loretta tensing as she shifted her stance, the musculature of her legs becoming more defined beneath her fishnet stockings as his footsteps came closer. There was a long pause, and then she asked, "Something the matter, sir?"
Another pause, too long for Honey’s comfort, and then she gasped, her dress swaying as though she was trying to pull away from something.
Honey announced, "That ought to hold until we can get you a proper tailor to fix it!"
He pushed his way out from under her skirts, fiddling with his sewing kit. Beaumont stared dumbly, still holding Loretta’s wrist.
Her curls fell over her cheeks as she appraised her skirt.
"Thank you, sweetie, she managed. "You’re a life-saver."
"Honey!" Beaumont yelled. He was a tall, domineering man. His skin was dark and leathery, dry and scarred from years of fighting off drunken johns who didn’t respect his House. His hair was a matted mess concealed by a dark brown cowboy hat. He released his grip on the girl, sending her nearly tumbling to the floor, and stepped toward Honey, his heavy cowboy boots thumped against the old floorboards. "What have I told you? You can’t be in the girls’ dressing room! It’s for the g
irls!"
Honey’s deep, blue eyes widened. The black leather of his chaps squeaked as he leaned away and placed the sewing kit on a small table nearby. He smoothed his soft-leather vest, un-fastened to show off his muscle-toned chest.
"I’m sorry, sir," he said meekly as he plucked a black cowboy hat with a small braid of brown leather strips around the crown from the table. "It’s just…A woman ought not be on her knees, not before a shift, and…It doesn’t sit right if you try to pleat it while it’s not being worn."
He ran his fingers through his short golden hair with his free hand and glanced around uncomfortably.
"You know, this wouldn’t be a problem if we had our own tailor to keep up our wardrobe and make us new dresses. Or, maybe a bouncer to keep johns from acting like idiots in the House," Loretta snipped, packing her make-up away in the little boxes she kept on the vanity.
"That’s money we don’t have," Beaumont growled, "unless you’re offering to pay them out of your purse. Goodness knows you can’t pay a tailor with your flesh, not the male ones anyway. A man who can sew is a man who can blow."
Honey opened his mouth to refute Beaumont's claims about tailors’ sexual preferences but was silenced by Loretta’s pleading gaze.
"Honey. Out," Beaumont demanded. Honey put his hat on and rushed out of the room. He passed the first two doors on the left and then stepped around the corner into the next hall. It was a fair distance, but he could still hear them arguing.
"He’s not like that," Loretta said. "He’s sweet and kind, and he knows how to--"
"He knows how to shake it on stage and please clients in his room. That’s his job."
There was a long, uncomfortable silence.
"Get dressed, and get ready to work," Beaumont snapped.
The doors slammed shut. Honey marched down the hall at a brisk pace. He heard Beaumont's boots thumping behind him at his usual lumbering pace until he turned at the next hall. He wasn't sure what Beaumont had wanted from Loretta, but he was glad he had been there to stop it. She was a sweet girl - his girl- and she deserved to be protected from Beaumont's evil clutches. Honey had resigned himself to the fact that he couldn't protect them all, but he could save her, and someday he would.
Honey sighed as he entered his room and grabbed the pile of outfits off of his bed. He stuffed his room key into the band of his hat and closed his door on his way down to the lounge area where he would be performing. As he rounded the corner of the first-floor hall and opened the door to the backstage area, he couldn't help but smile. A plated sandwich and a tall glass of milk sat on a small table near his dressing area.
"Betty," he whispered to himself as he hung the clothes on a nearby rack.
He enjoyed his cucumber and melon sandwich and sipped at his milk as he organized his outfits and props into different crates in the staging area. The lull between sets as he changed clothes and flipped the record over in the record-player was a buzzkill, both for Honey and the clients, so anything that could shorten those weird silences was worth doing ahead of time. He learned this early in his career when a group of clients decided that brawling was a good use of the time between sets. All of the lounge furniture had been broken into splinters. The bottles behind the bar had all been smashed, leaving glass and liquor all over the floor to be cleaned after a long night. It was awful, but this time, he was ready.
The dull roar of talking and eating died down and the lights dimmed, leaving only a faint view of Honey's shadow on the backdrop of the stage. Then the music started. He strolled up the catwalk with his slightly effeminate sway and poised himself in front of the chrome pole at the end. Before long, he didn't hear the music anymore. He was feeling the guitar riffs streaking across his skin like warm water and the drums beating through his veins like his own pulse. He wasn't a whore performing on stage anymore. He was a dolphin, dancing through the warm waters of the pink-sand beaches to the south. He was calm and beautiful and free.
*****
After a long bath to scrub off the sweat and glitter from his night on the stage, Honey changed into some comfortable sleeping clothes and made his way to bed. He stopped dead in his tracks as he gazed upon Loretta, cross-legged atop his covers, wearing only a sheer sleeping gown and a pair of socks. She smiled up at him and held out a small cake in her hands with a tiny lit candle atop it.
"Happy Birthday!" She whispered with a wide grin. Honey dried his hair and tossed his damp towel into a nearby basket.
"It’s my birthday?"
"Yeah. I looked it up in your paperwork. Beaumont might count our ages by the new year, but today is your actual birthday. You’re sixteen!" Honey smiled and sat on the bed next to the girl. She turned and held the cake out to him. "Make a wish, Honey!"
He stared into the flame for a moment, unsure of what he would wish for, even if he thought it would come true, and blew the candle out in one quick puff.
Loretta picked the little candle out of the cake and set it on his side table.
"What did you wish for?" She asked.
Honey thought for a moment about how he hadn’t wished for anything. He hadn’t wished for freedom or to have a mysterious benefactor who would leave him so much money that he wouldn’t have to work. He hadn’t even wished for his feet to stop hurting. It just felt odd to ask some unknown force of the universe to change his life.
"I can’t tell you," he lied, "then it wouldn’t come true."
She nodded and looked at the little cake in her hands. She had done a good job of making the most delicious-looking pint-sized version of a cinnamon-wrap cake either of them had ever seen. Loretta had never baked a cake in her life, but with Betty’s help, she had made something truly great for the only boy who hadn’t treated her like anything other than a proper lady. Honey beamed at his gift.
"You’re going to help me eat this, right?" He giggled as he pinched a piece of the cake off the side. "There is way too much here for me."
She smiled. "Well, why don't you get started while I read you this amazing story I found? I had a paperboy come in today between deliveries and offered a little something extra if he would leave me one."
Loretta reached behind her and produced a folded newspaper. A big smile spread across Honey's face while she unfolded it. She refolded the paper so the national news was neatly put before her and began to read about a group of adventurers who had stopped a crime-ring of highway robbers in the New Texan territory. New Texas was like the old West of the Southern Canadian Provinces, except it didn't extend very far West. It actually comprised most of the lands along the coast, including most of what was once Louisiana, Florida, and some of Georgia. Loretta had once read some of the political pages to Honey, which stated that the Governor of New Texas was trying to annex the New Mexican and Arizonan territories into its own. Still, Canada Proper was not receptive to the deal.
"I wonder how they do it?" Honey said, tearing another piece of the cinnamon bun off and popping it into his mouth. "I wonder how you get to become an adventurer. Traveling around the world and helping the people? That sounds like a great way to use your talents, you know?"
"I believe you have to join a guild," she replied. "After all, we can't just have people going around inflicting justice on whoever they cross. I had a client once who was planning on joining the Adventurer's Guild after he finished sowing his wild oats." Honey cocked an eyebrow at her, and she leaned in. "I was one of those wild oats."
The two laughed and talked until morning. Honey still didn't have a birthday wish at the end of it all, but he still had his dream of being free.
Chapter Two
Honey’s first day as a sixteen-year-old started very much as most other days had. He dressed himself, helped the ladies get ready, and made his way down to the main hall. The clientele was decent, mostly usuals returning for a fix. Two of his usuals, the voyeur and the sadist, seemed to have made friends in the main hall while they waited for him to be available and made his hour worth more than twice his usual rate. That wa
s one thing he liked about his clients with unusual tastes; he could charge a lot more for his time, and they were happy to pay it. There was a lull in the day after the lunch-rush passed. That’s when she came in.
She was a handsome woman in a fine silk dress. Her long, dark hair had been pulled into a tight braid that draped down her back and met the sash wrapped around her waist. Her pale skin made her pupils disappear into her dark brown irises. Honey stared from his position near the doorway to the lounge. She is gorgeous, he thought as she floated through the room like a leaf in the wind. I wonder why someone like her would be here. She could have any man she wants.
She smiled at him and engaged a group of girls posing near the stair banister. Honey made his way around the edge of the room, straining to listen in to their conversation while still holding himself in a gentlemanly manner. The girls giggled and chattered, but he couldn’t seem to pick out any keywords he could use to interject himself. He gasped as she spun on her heels to face him.
"I wondered if you would make your way over to me." Her voice was deep and melodic like the lowest string of a master-crafted violin. She was strong and confident. Even her mahogany lipstick seemed pale beneath her deep, piercing eyes. He took a moment to regain his confidence before flashing a brilliant smile.
"Well, I’m not usually one to give chase. I just couldn’t help but notice--"
Her playful smile turned to a look of both scandal and intrigue.
"Notice what?"
Honey stepped toward her, placing his hands on her hips as he looked over the pattern of deep burgundy and cream swirled all over her bodice and skirt. The dusty rose sash around her waist did little to detract from her unwavering stare.
He started again, "I just couldn’t help but notice that you are far too beautiful for this dress. It does not do you justice."