by Aimee Moore
The Kraw gave a nod. “At your leisure then, human. What might I call you?”
“Seraphine. And you?”
The Kraw gave me a dashing grin. “No. Names have power, Seraphine, and now I have power over you. But I won’t give you that power over me.”
“Surely someone here must know your name.”
“Of course, he will not tell us,” Zraine said. “And since that guttural language of his is like the growl of an angry beast, we have resorted to simply calling him Growl.”
“I’m K’cine,” the woman said, turning back to her book.
“Alright. What is this room?” I asked.
Growl came to my side and stretched his arm wide before the room. “Karne’s library,” he responded in Kraw. “Few of his staff are astute enough to decipher and comprehend what lies in these tomes. Often times he is otherwise… occupied, and so leaves us to digest the tomes he finds and give him the meat.”
“And what sort of meat does Karne hope to find in these books?” I asked in common.
K’cine spoke. “Whatever strikes his fancy. A month ago, it was the third wars on Niall. Three months ago, it was the flighty society of Whahthine, and how he might convince a Whahthinian to stay in his bed. Before we came here, the forged secrets of imperial Feldor.” She gestured to a weapon rack by the far window, glinting with impressive swords and pikes.
“And now?” I pressed, turning my attention back to her.
“The Helegnaur.” Growl gestured his book toward me. It was in my language, titled Mystery of Multitude.
“Could it be that the Helegnaur was in the university that I was… rescued from?”
Growl shook his head. “No, Karne has explored all bastions of learning in your world first and foremost.”
“Where does Karne find these?” I asked, running my fingers over the cover.
Growl gave a careless shrug. “Libraries. Castles. Temples. He does not explain the how or why. He brings them. He says what he wishes of us, and he leaves.”
I frowned at the tome before Growl removed it from my sight, tucking it under his arm. “Have you been given a task yet?” He asked.
The other two occupants of the room looked up at me.
“No, I’m not staying. I’m leaving to find my mate and get this thing out of my shoulder.”
“Dark power dances around it,” Growl said, glancing at my shard.
K’cine said, “If he rescued you and you’re wearing the staff attire, I’m thinking he doesn’t know you plan to leave.”
Oops. “I…”
K’cine waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “You’ll be back.”
Zraine said, “She would excel at entertaining Karne’s guests, yes? I am betting she could make even the most tight-lipped dignitaries spill their secrets between the sheets.”
K’cine snorted. “Your mind never wanders far, Zraine.”
“Definitely not going to happen,” I said.
“Well it is true,” Zraine said with a wistful smile. “Karne is selective in his staff. We serve a purpose, or we leave. Some purposes are more… risqué than others, to be sure.”
Growl gave a laugh. “And some payments are more risqué than others.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, looking up at Growl.
“Sex is currency here,” K’cine said. “If we wanted to extend our debt to Karne we could bed anyone willing. Growl won’t partake cause he’s afraid of breaking someone.”
I said, “Well yes, Kraw tastes are rougher than most.”
Zraine smiled. “Speaking from experience, are we?”
K’cine’s eyebrows shot up. “Yes, she is. Wow.”
I frowned. “How can you—"
“There’s no way you could know,” Growl murmured, frowning at me with thought.
“Maybe you can pester her about it when we’re not here to gag,” K’cine’s voice cut through the room.
My face heated as I turned away. “I’m mated to a Kraw warrior.”
“Divine,” Zraine said. “I’d give myself a nosebleed to see what these warriors are capable of.”
Growl said, “I would know the name of your mate.”
I quirked my mouth up in half a smile. “I will not give you the same power over him that you seem to think you have over me.” I turned away from Growl and went to join K’cine, who was twisted in her chair to watch.
“What do you study?” I asked. This close I was unsettled to notice that her eyes were not deep brown at all, but completely black all the way through, no irises to be seen.
“The eyes, they’re bothersome to your species,” she said at last.
“I; no. Well, yes. It was unexpected.”
K’cine smirked at me, then turned back to her work. I sucked in a breath as her voice intruded into my thoughts.
Be careful in here. Growl hasn’t had a woman in years, he’s clueless.
I frowned at the top of K’cine’s head, but she made no move to look at me or acknowledge the voice that I heard.
Yeah, books aren’t the only thing I read. Stop looking so obvious.
I blinked. “You’re not Nialae, how do you...?”
“Paxol. There are only two of us in Karne’s house.”
I returned my attention to the book in front of her. “This too is in my language,” I said, touching a finger to the book.
K’cine thumped her arms on the table around the book. “Oh thank the nothingness, I was having a time trying to translate this. Apparently only Growl can learn languages fast enough to decipher this and he’s slooooooow.”
I laughed. “Yes, I’ve seen Kraw master a written language in less than twenty minutes. Tell me, how is it that you speak my language but do not comprehend the written form?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Zraine said, pulling his nose out of a roll of parchment.
I raised my head to him. “No?”
He continued with a smile. “Nialae gifts, ah, the sweet seduction of them. Terrible price they carry, yes, but what music all language is to my ears.”
“Everyone in here traded something for language?” I asked.
“Not Growl, he just learns fast,” K’cine said. “And it was only the ability to speak languages. The writing… not so much. But since I have years and years to work off my debt, of which we’ll not speak, there’s time.”
“Years?” I whispered.
K’cine didn’t look up from the children’s book about bumble bees. “Decades.”
“I have to go,” I said, stepping toward the door.
“Your presence has been lovely, do stop by again,” Zraine said.
“Yeah, don’t leave me with these two forever,” K’cine said.
Growl’s brown eyes met mine with regret, and then he gave me a single nod. I nodded back, closing the door behind me.
My fate would not wither into decades of servitude at the feet of these Nialae.
Chapter 17
Taken
The next morning, rested and fed, I slipped out of my room before Yasmil could collect me.
The day before, I had located a room with bundles of fabric and fashioned knotted clothing in preparation for the journey. I’d also made a sack to hold food, water, and a few other travel-worthy items. I’m not ashamed to admit that I packed some of Karne’s sparkling dust collectors from the halls for trade as I located a discreet exit.
When I tiptoed out into the chill morning air, nostalgia clenched tight in my chest as the birds called a familiar tune and the smell of my childhood filled my nose. I shook it off. Lambston died with my family.
I went to the stables and picked out a horse. She was a sweet thing of chestnut brown with a white streak in her mane, ears perked forward with curiosity. I only hoped she was fast.
“She’s not fer you,” a man said nearby.
“Then who is she for?” I asked, turning to the man. He was portly, the yellowing of his shirt and the lank grease in his hair leaving nothing to the imagination in regard to his hygien
e.
“Butcher’s work,” the man grunted.
“May I ride her?” I asked.
The man frowned at me. “Dressed like that? With that thing stickin out yer shoulder? Yer Karne’s house, you are. He don’t let his staff out to ride.”
“I’m different,” I said, giving the man a sweet smile, shifting my bag behind me.
His eyes roved over my body. “Yeah, ye are.”
“Just a ride,” I purred, stroking the horse’s neck. “It’s been so long since I’ve had a good ride.”
The man’s beady eyes darted over my face as he scratched at his beard stubble.
“Sometimes… a woman just needs to feel power between her legs,” I said. “You know what I mean, don’t you?”
“Oh aye. Ye want power, do ya, well come here then,” he said, reaching for his trousers.
Panic smacked me in the head. “What are you doing?” I asked quickly. I was terrible at this.
“Giving ye what yer askin’ for,” he said in a huff.
“No, no. I’m…” What? Wrapped like a gift, that’s what I was. “I am only for Karne.”
The man’s hands stilled. “For Karne, are ye?”
I nodded. “Before I was captured, I loved to ride horses. He let me come out here to ride.”
“Ye can tell Karne to sod off after sending his whore at me like this,” the man said with an ugly snarl. “And get away from the horses.”
I licked my lips in thought, and his gaze followed. “How about… a kiss? For your kindness?” I said.
“You belong to Karne, you do, said so yerself,” he said, suspicion edging into his tone.
“He doesn’t have to know. It’s just a kiss,” I said, batting my eyelashes like an idiot. “I want so much to ride again. A kiss for a ride, it will be our secret.”
The ugly fellow pondered this for a while, glancing between me and the horse. She snorted and stomped, as if impatient for us to get on with it.
Then the man grinned. “I get me a taste of what’s Karne’s, and no one has to know,” he said. “Commere, darlin’.”
Oh, how I forced my recoil down as he advanced on me with a brown-toothed grin. But the horse was my ticket to freedom. To Dal. I did my best to plaster on an excited face and stepped toward the man. He pawed at me, tongue out before my lips even met his. Seven hells, his breath reeked and his tongue was in my mouth infecting me.
I could only take so much before the urge to retch rose up. I tried to pull away, but the man was driven by other ideas, shoving me against a stall door and pressing his thick body into mine. I cried out into his stinking mouth as the shard in my shoulder exploded pain through me. He mistook it for pleasure and groaned.
Panic rose up as I realized that I’d made a colossal mistake. Was that a hand on my breast or just his girthy gut pressing up on me? I shoved at him as the first gag came. He didn’t budge, and I was going to have to hurt him and find another way to get the horse.
Then a shrill whinny sliced the air and the man jumped away from me with a muffled curse.
The lovely chestnut was tossing her head, reaching toward the man with her velvety lip. I sagged against the wood as waves of nausea came and went. I didn’t think his stench would ever leave me.
“Right then,” the man said, casting the horse a foul look. “That’s that, I guess. I’ll get the saddle.” He reached into his pocket and gave the horse the sugar lump she wanted, then went to get her gear.
I sucked in a glorious breath of barn air, then wiped at my face, spitting into the hay to rid myself of him. After getting my nausea under control, I pushed onto my feet and limped to the horse who saved me, resting my forehead against her muzzle.
“You sweet, wonderful thing,” I murmured on a sigh.
The man returned, putting the saddle on the mare and pulling her out for me. “Just a quick ride now, no funny business. Can’t have the butcher’s horse gone lame in some damned gopher hole.”
“Thank you, kind sir, for allowing me to ride today.” I hiked my bag over my shoulder, trying to be discreet about its presence as I mounted the mare. His gaze wasn’t on my belongings. The sweet mare responded easily to my cues, taking us out into the pasture.
“Not too far now,” the disgusting man called over her hoofbeats.
“No, of course not!” I called with a wave. Then I clicked my tongue at the mare and she tossed her spritely head, loping toward the pasture fence.
“Hey now, that’s too far!” The man bellowed.
The mare nearly unseated me in her enthusiasm to leap, and then we were free as I kicked into her sides and lurched forward with her sprint. The ugly man’s panicked yells faded in the free air that whipped through my hair. I pushed her to the east road, and I didn’t look back.
Dal would be searching for me, too. His eyes had widened at Karne behind me during the vault explosion, and that meant that he would seek me out where the Nialae were. Boris, Sunwold, or even Elanthia. Lambston was a western midland village, and so I had weeks of eastern travel ahead of me. I had made the journey before, but this time I wasn’t victim to months of starvation and fear in the back of a Kraw bone cart.
Now, on my own, I rode without fear as my gift flooded my veins and hope filled my heart. I pushed Mint, named after the sweet mint bread we used to bake before my town was destroyed, to her limits. I donned the awkward sack clothing I’d made on top of Karne’s ugly house garb – mostly because I still couldn’t get it off. It was loose enough to cover my shard, which was paining me less and less every day. A dark worry that it was becoming part of me began to fester, unlike my flesh which remained infection-free.
I spent nights asleep in hidden places. Fallen trees, large rocks, abandoned buildings. Karne was truthful when he said I was free to go; he didn’t come for me. K’cine was wrong, I wouldn’t be back. Some nights, I would lay by the fire clutching my seashell in my left hand, looking upon the markings on my right arm. I savored the memory of each poke of color Dal injected into my skin. Pleasure suffused me at the memory of the pain. I could feel his large, rough hands on my arm, holding me still as he pricked me again and again, and lust stirred me to frustration.
I tormented myself with memories of Dal. The roughness of his hands on my body, the deep tumble of his voice in the night, the smell of his skin. The way his gaze traveled over new wonders in our journeys, decoding them with a deftness that gave me such joy to behold. Hope and anticipation became a thief in the night, robbing me of sleep.
On the sixth day, I stilled Mint to try and make sense of a strange noise. It was a fast and constant rumble, punctuated by squeaks and cracks. A cart? I urged her off the road, tying her in the shadows while I crouched low behind a tree.
Soon, a pale white chariot came into view, and that’s when the lust hit me. I doubled over with a gasp, fighting the roar of desire in my ears. The creaking became louder, the raucous voices of the drivers in the strange masks laughing and chatting with joy. I writhed as my heated blood pounded in all the most intimate places. They would pass. They would move on to other prey and I would find relief. Patience.
But they didn’t pass. They stopped, and a pitiful little moan escaped my lips as I fought for stillness.
“Listen, gentlemen, do you hear that?”
“Well I haven’t the impeccable sense of hearing you do, now do I?”
“That may be so, but according to the last toy you have more than an impeccable cock, so really that’s what matters in life.”
“Gentlemen, it would appear that we have our next toy.”
“Oh piff off, Plemor, my manhood is still wet from the last one.”
“But mine is not, I had to sit that one out.”
“Well it’s not our fault she only had three holes, now is it?” Laughter followed.
Horror almost blossomed in my stomach, but it wouldn’t move past the urgent need in my blood.
“Come, perhaps we can save this one for later?”
Creaking and jostling. Bo
ots hit the dirt. More boots followed. A snort of laughter. I let off a soft whimper, jamming my thumb into my teeth and biting it.
Damn these Nialae!
I sat still for a while as boots crunched about, hoping and praying to the stars above that the predators would not find me. They would pass and leave me be. But my body was begging for them to find me. Begging for release brought on by three men. The thought alone nearly sent me over the edge. The idea of three at once, in my sane hours, would have repulsed me.
A smooth voice purred into my ear. “Hello beautiful.”
I started with a gasp and turned to it. One of the Nialae men, horrid white mask in place, was leaning around my tree, white teeth gleaming at me from below the mask. Pleasure threatened to overwhelm me, and I moaned, leaning my head back against the tree, watching the man, all too aware of my swollen lips and heated cheeks.
“Come out from there, we’re here to play.”
“Leave me be,” I whispered in a throaty voice.
They laughed in unison. The one nearby reached for me.
“Do not!” I snarled.
He stilled for a moment, then cut me a nasty grin and reached down, grabbing the ring around my neck. With a gasp, I followed as he pulled me out of my hiding place for all to see. I stepped carefully, trying to avoid rubbing anything that would set me off.
“My, what a nice find,” one said.
“Haven’t seen hair like that before. You think she likes it pulled?” One laughed.
I closed my eyes. Yes, I loved the rare occasions when Dal would wrap his fist in my hair and handle me roughly.
“Hideous clothing, though. Like a child made it. Think she’s naked under there?”
“Well she must be hiding something besides that awkward limp, let’s have a look.” The man holding the ring at my throat tore at my makeshift clothes, revealing the hideous house garb underneath. I didn’t even feel the cold through the pounding lust.
“Well well,” another of them said. “This day is full of surprises. This one is already wrapped for our enjoyment.”
“That thing in her shoulder though, nasty that is. Think it feels good?”
“Gents, I’m not sure I want to share this one.”