Bitter Wind (Death's Handmaiden Book 2)

by Niall Teasdale

  Maybe Mitsuko noticed too, or maybe she had been planning this all along. ‘Mel, I dare you to kiss Nava. Properly. On the mouth. With tongue.’

  Melissa’s eyes narrowed. She looked neither shrewd nor menacing either. ‘I bet you think I’ll be too embarrassed to do it.’

  ‘I don’t think she’s thinking that,’ Nava said. She moved again, swinging her legs around and moving onto one hip so that Melissa could do as she had been told, if she was really going to do it. If she did, Nava was fairly sure that the drinking part of the evening was at an end. Maybe that had been something Mitsuko had planned from the beginning, or maybe the drink was talking.

  ‘Well, ha ha, because I’m too drunk to be embarrassed.’ Melissa got up onto her knees, then down onto all fours, and then she crawled forward until she was looking up at Nava’s face from no more than twenty centimetres. Her lips parted, but Nava did not move; this was Melissa’s dare. Nava could feel Melissa’s breath on her face; there was the scent of brandy, but it was not as unpleasant as Nava might have expected. In fact, Melissa smelled rather good.

  Melissa leaned further forward and their lips met. Nava felt Melissa’s tongue against her lips and decided that that was close enough. Reaching up, Nava cupped Melissa’s cheek in her hand and deepened the kiss. Endorphins buzzed through both of them and time slipped briefly away.

  ‘My turn,’ Mitsuko said. She had slipped off the sofa and untied Melissa’s robe without Melissa noticing. Nava had not really been paying attention, though she had known that Mitsuko was on the move.

  ‘Your turn?’ Melissa asked after Nava broke the kiss.

  ‘Yes.’ Leaning in, Mitsuko claimed Melissa’s mouth.

  235/9/25.

  Nava opened her eyes and took stock. No hangover; big surprise there. A little soreness might be expected, but she seemed to have escaped that. She was betting Melissa was going to be feeling a little tender.

  Limbs… Tangled. Nava was not entirely sure whose arm was around her waist and whose leg was across both of hers. Getting out of this was going to be interesting. It was probably impossible without waking anyone else up. Well, so be it.

  A groan came from somewhere as she eased her legs free. That probably meant that Melissa was down that way. Come to think of it, she had been ‘down that way’ not long before they had all fallen asleep. That probably indicated that Mitsuko was behind Nava. Yes, if that had been Melissa, the boobs would have been more obvious against her back.

  ‘I think… I think my head is going to fall off,’ Melissa said. ‘A-and something’s built a nest in my mouth.’

  ‘I’ll get you some water,’ Nava said. ‘You’ll need plenty of it.’

  ‘Do you think Suki has painkillers?’

  ‘I have,’ Mitsuko replied. ‘Thankfully, I don’t need them. When you’ve taken a couple of pills, we’ll take a shower.’

  ‘A shower? All of us?’

  ‘It’s supposed to be a big help when you’re nursing a hangover.’

  ‘Oh, uh, right. Will we all fit in the shower?’

  Fifteen minutes later, they were all in Mitsuko’s shower which was quite big enough for three women. Weirdly, Melissa did feel something of an easing of her headache as the multiple streams of water hit her body. That might have been the painkillers kicking in, but she was not going to look a gift shower in the heads.

  Barely audible over the water, a buzzing sound started. Then something slick and streamlined was parting Melissa’s labia. ‘Eep! What are you doing?’

  ‘I read somewhere that orgasms are good for headaches,’ Mitsuko replied. The vibrator was pressed deeper, the vibrations zipping ahead of it through Melissa’s body.

  ‘Where are you r-reading this s-stuff? I think you’re m-making it all up.’

  ‘Nope. I’m not. The people who wrote the articles might have been making it up… Anyway, we – that’s Nava and I – thought that if an orgasm is good, multiple ones would be better.’

  ‘We’re testing this hypothesis,’ Nava said, deadpan as usual. ‘You’re the guinea pig.’

  Melissa had a feeling that the alcohol had not entirely worked its way out of her system yet. Her coordination was a bit off, for one thing. Her reply to Nava was another deciding factor. ‘Well, I’m in n-no position to argue,’ she said. ‘Bring it on.’

  ~~~

  ‘Really, Hoshi is a better match for Chess,’ Melissa said. ‘She’s a metaphysicist and she actually likes chess. The game of chess.’

  ‘He did get rather enthusiastic about me when we first met,’ Mitsuko said.

  ‘He met Mel because he came to me as someone who seemed a match for him in metaphysics,’ Nava said. ‘It was hardly a surprise that he would find Suki interesting, given her greater education in the subject.’

  ‘Maybe we should’ve seen this coming earlier,’ Mitsuko said. ‘Though I didn’t think young adult males would give up sex for a better mental match.’

  ‘Chess has always been a fairly cerebral man,’ Nava added.

  The three of them were sitting in Mitsuko’s lounge after dinner. They were drinking, but this was just juice, and there was a vid playing, but everyone except Nava had completely lost the plot after only about thirty minutes. Nava knew what was going on but did not care. Melissa had missed Flight Club having decided that her delicate state was not conducive to tight manoeuvring. She was, however, almost suspiciously at ease about her break-up.

  ‘Yeah,’ Melissa said. ‘He has. Next time I’m going to go for someone big, muscled, and dumb.’

  ‘No, you won’t.’

  ‘No, I won’t, but it’s a nice thought.’

  ‘You seem to be over the worst of this,’ Mitsuko observed. ‘You’re discussing Chess without bursting into tears.’

  ‘It’s difficult to be depressed when you’ve had two beautiful women making your body sing for almost twenty-three hours.’ Melissa pursed her lips thoughtfully. ‘I might have another cry at some point and I’m not entirely ready to forgive him. All in all, however, I think I’m over the worst. And over my hangover. That’s a big plus point. I can probably go back to my own apartment tonight.’

  ‘No,’ Mitsuko said.

  ‘No?’

  Getting to her feet, Mitsuko pulled the T-shirt she was wearing off over her head. ‘No,’ she said firmly.

  235/9/27.

  Mathias Statham Mendel was as disagreeable as ever. His head was shaved a little closer than usual for some reason; maybe it made him feel more manly. Nava was not sure why he would need to enhance his masculinity since she thought it likely he was ninety percent testosterone by weight. His dark skin tended to emphasise his musculature, not that it needed more emphasis.

  He was not, perhaps, the brightest teacher at the school either. Or maybe he was just slow on the uptake. No, he was slow on the uptake, but perhaps he had only just realised that three of his class 12C students had been in the symposium incident over the summer.

  ‘Someone told me that you three were in Alliance City when the terrorists attacked,’ he said, having walked up to Nava, Melissa, and Rochester while they were getting ready for an exercise.

  ‘That’s correct,’ Nava said. ‘We were all part of the student team the school sent to the symposium. It was reported in the News Club’s summer roundup release.’

  ‘So, you hid somewhere until the ASF took out the terrorists.’

  ‘Any part we may have played in the resolution of the incident is classified, Mathias Statham.’

  Mathias grinned. ‘Thought so.’

  ‘I will be sure to let the student president, vice president and the captain of the SSF know that you think they’re cowards, however, since they were with us.’

  There was a second of silence, followed by a sullen, ‘Get ready. Your team will be going in first.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Uh, a-am I still on the team?’ Rochester asked in a quiet voice once the instructor was gone.

  ‘Let’s ask the injured party,’ Nava re
plied.

  ‘I’m not going to break up a good practical team over something so trivial,’ Melissa replied. Nava winced inwardly at the choice of words and wondered whether Melissa had been working that line out for the past day or two. ‘Of course you’re still on the team, Chess.’

  ‘Uh, oh,’ Rochester said, eyes downcast. ‘You think it’s trivial?’

  ‘Well, we had a few months of fun, didn’t we? You found someone who is objectively a better match for you and decided you wanted that rather than me. Without telling me. You obviously thought it was trivial.’

  ‘Uh, well, maybe I–’

  ‘I mean, mostly what we had was physical. You decided the mental stuff was more important, and I can respect that. I think I’ll have to find someone more compatible next time too. For now, Nava and Suki seem to be more than happy to meet my physical needs, so it’s not a problem.’

  ‘N-Nava and Suki?’

  ‘So, it’s all good and we can get on with our lesson without worrying about little things like love and sex.’

  Nava was a little surprised that there wasn’t smoke rising from Rochester. The burns had been enough to set light to concrete. There should be a Rochester-shaped charcoal briquette standing there. Melissa had definitely been going over this conversation in her head for days.

  ‘Let’s get going,’ Nava said. ‘I’m not sure how much use Chess is going to be after you napalmed him so thoroughly, but we should get started.’

  ‘I’ll be okay,’ Rochester said. ‘I probably deserved… most of that.’

  ‘Yes,’ Nava agreed. ‘Yes, you did.’

  235/9/34.

  ‘What is going on with the weather?’ Mitsuko said. She was walking to class with Nava and Melissa. Rochester was still not forgiven enough to be eating breakfast with them. Melissa had been sleeping in her own apartment for the last week, however. Well, aside from Saturday night…

  ‘It is warm,’ Melissa agreed. ‘Yesterday was a lot cooler.’

  ‘The forecast was for more of the same. They’re normally pretty accurate.’

  ‘Hopefully, they’ve set the air conditioning appropriately,’ Nava said.

  ‘Hopefully. I can’t keep Shade up all day.’ Shade was a wonderful spell for the summer months on Shinden. It was magical sunblock, sunglasses, and personal air conditioning, all rolled into a package most students could cast as a cantrip. Unfortunately, it was a constant drain on your quintessence reserve cast that way.

  ‘Well, for a day, this isn’t bad,’ Melissa said. ‘Busy week, this one. You’re in Alliance City on Friday, right, Nava?’

  ‘Sure am.’

  ‘And then there’s the party on Saturday night.’

  ‘Sure is,’ Mitsuko said. ‘Celebrating a new member of the clan.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s okay for me to be there?’ Melissa asked.

  ‘You’re Nava’s friend. Mine too but, in this case, Nava is more important.’

  ‘I guess that’s all true. I’m going to be so nervous. All those important people…’

  ‘You managed at the last party,’ Nava pointed out.

  ‘Oh. Yes. I suppose I did.’

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ Mitsuko said, smiling. ‘There’s no one you need to worry about. Despite our reputation, the Sonkeis are a friendly bunch.’

  ‘Spencer’s not invited?’ Nava asked.

  ‘No, he is not. You’re going to have to get used to calling him Uncle Spencer.’

  ‘No, I will not.’

  Alliance City Eastern Line, 235/10/2.

  It took about an hour to get from SAS2 to Alliance City by train. The time varied a little because the first part of the journey was done by local conveyer – what amounted to four-person, self-driving taxi cabs on rails – and then you had to wait for a scheduled service to Alliance City at a hub fifteen kilometres northwest of the school. You waited in the conveyer; each unit was loaded onto a carrier car at the hub, having been placed in readiness as they arrived for efficiency.

  Nava had insisted on making her own way to Alliance City. Both Zackery Trenton and the Greyling family had offered air transport, but Nava had said that they could fly her back if they wished. The journey to become a member of their clan would be done under her own power. Even then, the Greylings had cheated.

  As a member of the family, she was entitled to additional funding for her education. She had not objected to this because she was not an idiot. As a clanless nobody, Nava had little in the way of expenses. She had actually managed to get a reasonable emergency fund saved up because all she really spent money on was food. As a member of a high-status family in a high-status clan, she was going to be expected to have a better lifestyle. She could likely get away with sticking with her current apartment until the new year because everyone viewed her as pragmatic, but she was going to need to buy more, better clothing and there were other expenses which came with her changed position in society. Just thinking about it gave Nava indigestion. At least the Greylings were not noted as a highly social family.

  Because of this, Nava had accepted the money. Then her soon-to-be family had cheated and put her first month’s allowance into her account two days early. Complaining about it had, however, seemed asinine. Well, since she was noted for being pragmatic, she had gone against type and booked a private conveyer with a refreshment dispenser, and now she was sitting in comfort with a cup of pretty reasonable coffee watching the landscape zip by.

  The school was about a hundred and thirty kilometres from the city, basically to the east. Shinden had a population of about five billion – about as much as the colony could support – but the distribution of that populace was not that different from most worlds. In other words, a lot of the population was concentrated in cities which meant that there was open country between the urban areas.

  It was not like Earth. Not even Earth which had existed before climate change and resource depletion had ruined everything. There were fields and forests, but they were all artificial in the sense that they had been planted on purpose using varieties of vegetation cloned from genetic material brought along on the colony ships. If Nava had been forced to describe the difference, she would have said that it was too organised. The forests suggested plantations more than real forests. The grasses were too uniform, having a restricted variety of plants to work with. The fields had more of the appearance of lawns. Where there were flowers, they too came in restricted varieties. The wildflowers were not, in fact, very wild. For someone who had never seen anything different, it probably looked natural, but Nava had seen the real thing. Shinden had the appearance of a landscaped planet. A famous gardener seemed to have been brought in to design the place to best effect. It was once said that no corner of Earth was unaffected by the hand of man, but Shinden was a world humans had basically built from the ground up, and you could tell.

  Eventually, the suburbs of Alliance City appeared on either side of the tracks. Not right beside the tracks; since the entire city had been designed along with its transport infrastructure, a corridor had been left for each incoming train track to avoid sound pollution for the residents. Still, you could see the buildings a few hundred metres away through trees which had been planted to add extra sound baffling, and it would soon be time to disembark. It was just after ten a.m. and Nava had a couple of hours before she was due to meet Rhianna. Time enough to do a little shopping. She had a party to attend on Saturday night and, like it or not, she was going to need a new dress to wear to it.

  Shinden Alliance School of Sorcery.

  ‘First order of business,’ Mitsuko said, ‘is to welcome Francis Goretti Orlando as the new chairman of the Extracurricular Activities Committee.’

  ‘Welcome, Francis,’ Darius said.

  ‘You’ve big boots to fill,’ Courtney said, ‘but we all have confidence in your ability to do so.’

  Melissa and Marie mumbled something positive sounding. Melissa had not had much contact with Francis before and he was a handsome young man. Big in the MagiT
ag Club, he was fit and moderately muscled, lithe rather than bulky. His hair was a golden blonde and styled to stick out at various angles and hang in slightly random bangs as well as sharply down over his cheeks. His blue eyes were a little small, but he had a sensuous mouth and strong jawline. Not the most handsome man in the world, but enough to trigger Melissa’s latent shyness. As for Marie: she just had not been the same since the Dana incident.

  ‘Thank you,’ Francis said. ‘I can’t possibly fill Naomi’s boots. He’s two or three sizes bigger than me. I’ll try to give my best, however.’

  ‘That’s all we can ask,’ Mitsuko said. ‘I believe Naomi is staying available for aid for a while. Melissa is here to keep you in line. If you need to know what the council needs of you at any time, just ask Mel.’

  ‘Okay. Hey, Melissa, aren’t you in Nava Ward’s fireteam for combat lessons? I’ve heard really good things about you three.’

  ‘Uh, yes,’ Melissa said. ‘W-well we’ve been friends since the f-first day of term this year.’

  ‘Right. I only met her when she shot me. Uh, that was in MagiTag.’

  ‘Of course it was,’ Mitsuko said, grinning. ‘If Nava had shot you under any other circumstance, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.’

  Alliance City.

  It was not just Rhianna that was waiting for Nava in the Clan Council’s administrative building. Zackery Trenton was there too, which came as something of a surprise. Nava had thought that she only needed one sponsor from the family she was joining, but here was the de facto head of the clan sitting patiently in the building’s lobby. If she had known he was going to be there, she would have cut her shopping trip short.

  ‘I’d imagine you’re wondering why I’m here,’ Zackery said once the greetings were done with.

  ‘The question had crossed my mind,’ Nava said.

  ‘Essentially, since you’re dating my daughter, and I’d imagine Mitsuko wants to make your relationship public as soon as possible, we wanted it quite clear that the Trenton family approve of your entry into our clan.’