by J. E. Keep
It was exquisite.
The battering of her puffy folds, the abuse of that needful quim by his brutish savaging. She was slammed to the counter again and again, her legs left as wobbly stems as his claws dug into her flesh and he pounded his climax into her with a thunderous bellow that reverberated through the halls with each spurt of virile seed.
She was left haggard and panting, feeling so full of him, of his cock, of his seed.
As they both came down from the high of their quickie, and before he even had a chance to pull out, she gave a soft moan. “So tell me of your plans for Marin’s present.”
Chapter 30 – The Front
Caslian’s face was bandaged up as she sat cross-legged behind the medical tents, facing those endless rows of supply crates, coffins, and makeshift structures. Yet despite the care she’d received in the clinic, her face still stung.
“The tainted rain got into it,” she recalled the medic on staff saying in his practiced voice. “The Kron must make those rockets special to do just that, because once that smoke gets into the rain clouds and the drops seep into a wound... it never quite heals right. Ask any number of men and they’ll tell you.” And he scratched a small, open sore on his own forehead, that she’d never noticed before beneath his bangs.
It had been dwarfed by her own new facial scar, however, which was deep, bright red, and promised to never heal. She had to dwell on that, alone, behind the tent. A permanent mark to remind her.
That, more than anything, was what she didn’t understand. She could rationalize their need, their carnal use of her, even if she would never forgive them for it.
But to harm her in such a malicious way, for no reason at all... She had to force her fingers to stay away from probing it, from touching it, but every time her face screwed up to cry, it burned the wound. Instead she simply stared ahead, reflecting on the cruelties of her own comrades, and fought the urge to end it all.
Caslian had never been a malicious girl. Her parents had always taught her to see the best in everyone, but there was nothing in them.
That was the only thing that kept her hanging on, though: the foreign need for revenge. To see them as hurt as they’d hurt her.
She was so lost in her own misery that she could’ve missed it, that sound of shuffling booted feet. The heft of a much larger man moving towards her on the well-trodden, dry dirt.
Her recent experience would never allow that to go unnoticed though.
As a medic and private, she was not given a pistol to carry. She had to make do with a personal knife that was given out to all conscripts as that dark silhouette rounded the corner, approaching her from a dozen meters away.
Her fingers wrapped around the butt of her knife and she was still surprised that her vision didn’t burn and blur over. It was the type of thing that might have made her lose it at one point, but no more. Tears were another weakness she couldn’t afford as she stood and steadied herself. “I’m armed!”
The man paused in the dark shadow of the afternoon sun that filtered through the slow-to-dissipate clouds.
He was hunched and uneven as he stared at her, a hobbled man? Not one of her attackers, no. Couldn’t be. The fates wouldn’t conspire to make such vile humans suffer so soon. They were not so kind.
He shuffled closer again, but before she could cry out a second time, the voice that carried out was so familiar. “Caslian?” So familiar, but so strained and weak compared to the last time she’d heard the man.
“No,” she whimpered, and her hand dropped to her side. There was nothing she could do to stop the tears as she struggled with her inner turmoil. She wanted to turn from him, to run, to never have him see what they’d done to her.
She wanted to spare him that pain.
And at the same time, she was drawn to him. She had lost hope for him, and it knitted her guts that she thought about ever giving up on Levek. Her kinder, more selfless instincts won, and she moved closer to him.
The swarthy man came to her out of the shadows and threw his arms around her, dropping the crude walking stick he carried to hold her. “Cas,” he breathed out into her hair as he clutched her delicate body to his. Even in the pain and excitement of the moment, she couldn’t help but notice how much gaunter he felt. He had been gone so long!
It felt like she was on fire, but it didn’t matter. Not then. Everything about her ached, but she pulled him into her, her delicate frame meeting his. It was almost uncomfortable with how thin they both were, but the fact that he was there outweighed everything.
She let the knife tumble to the ground as she squeezed him, and cruelly her wound pained as her face warped with joy. “Levek?”
The long-absent Sergeant clung to her no less tightly than she did to him. “I worried I’d never see you again,” he choked out, his voice so raw and harsh compared to how it had been. “My boys, Cas... all of ’em... but I held on, for you. I had to get back to you. Keep my word. All that mattered to me.” His sentences were so chopped and forced, and she realized his voice wasn’t weak, it was injured. His throat damaged by something that made talking hard.
“It’s okay,” she shushed him, hands running down his arms. “You don’t have to say anything.”
It was as if that rage and anger she’d been holding on to for so long just dripped out of her and in its place was simple relief. She felt like herself again, filled with warmth and affection for this man. Her fingers clung to him.
Levek disentangled from her just enough to be able to drop to one knee, bringing their faces closer together as he embraced her again. Though for that brief moment she got a glimpse of him, that smooth, dark face, gaunter, but unscarred. He’d made it back in some ways better than she’d survived staying behind.
“I heard, Cas. I heard and...” He squeezed her so tight. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”
The idea that people were talking about what happened to her made her stomach churn, and she pulled back away from him. The idea of thinking about it while being touched by him...
“I can’t,” she whispered, and her open wound tingled with painful sensations. “It doesn’t matter.”
He didn’t hold her there, but he didn’t want to let her go, she could tell that much. The tears in his eyes said more. “If we stay any longer, this place’ll destroy us both, Cas,” he pleaded with her in his strained voice. “It’ll crush our souls if it doesn’t kill us first.”
“That’s what the front lines do to people.” Even she was surprised by the hardness in her tone. “You should have just left me, Levek. Got yourself out of here.”
He took her hands in his, and she felt the strange feeling of broken or missing fingernails. “Come with me,” he pleaded. “Come with me now, while there’s still time. While there’s still some of us left worth saving, Cas. Please.” His eyes were so wide. So pleading.
She didn’t feel like there was anything worth saving, and her head dropped. Her flaxen hair brushed her cheek and it made her itch. “They’ll just do it to someone else. Unless I get them back.”
Levek’s hands nearly slipped from hers, and he stared in quiet bafflement. The depth of his shock and sorrow written in that mourning gaze.
“There’ll always be men like them, Cas. There... there is nothing for us to do to stem the flow of their cruelty,” he said with some shred of weak hope to his gravelly voice.
“I don’t care about men like them. I care about them!” She could feel her temper begin to rise again, the force of it making her knees tremble. She’d always been such a calm and optimistic person, but they’d taken what she was and twisted her. “They didn’t have to cut me! Or throw away my clothes! They told me not to tell anyone, but they took away everything I had that could have kept their secrets ’cause they don’t care. They know everyone knows, and they don’t care.”
There were tears in his eyes, and his hands shook. “Cas...” He tried to speak, his voice failing him then. “Don’t let them take your innocence from you.” And she rea
lized he didn’t mean the innocence that most meant when they spoke of young women like her. “Don’t let them rob you of your goodness... taking a life, any life is—” He broke off with the strain.
Her jaw tightened and she felt like her throat was being choked off. Even still, the idea of disappointing Levek cut through her. She hated those men with such passion, but to know that it was hurting the man she adored was even worse. Her body trembled and she took a step back away from him, because she couldn’t bear to be near to him. For a moment, a brief, fleeting moment, she hated him.
Hated the fact that he was back, that there was someone who cared about her. Someone she could disappoint.
She loved him, she realized. She’d thought him dead, and now he was here in front of her and all she could think of was how much she hated to make him upset.
Chapter 31 – The Matron
Aleena didn’t know what to make of the band of raiders. They were not what she expected. They did not look scruffy and world weary as the ones at the cabin had. At least... they hadn’t when she first arrived, but after the buzz of their initial arrival with the Chief, it started to seem to her as if more and more of them were looking as she would’ve expected: hairy and wind blasted.
Was it just the few oddly ethereal ones that stuck out at first, pushing the others out of notice?
It was hard to say.
Though one thing was for sure, the look they were giving her and her two Kron was mixed, but almost all amazement.
“We were betrayed yet again by those Kaliak dogs!” bellowed their leader, who had not so long ago tried to kill Aleena.
One of the raiders called back, “Is there no depths of shame to which we won’t subject ourselves beneath these usurpers?”
Disquiet rippled through them all in their assortment of furs, though still she noticed a great deal of eyes upon her as they conducted their little gathering.
“No!” replied their leader. “I say we are done being conned by them! They drove us out of our lands long eons ago, and now have the nerve to cheat us out of trade deals for the fruits of our own heritage! I am done being the voice of reason and calm with them!”
He was worked into a fury, she could see, but from out of the crowd—damn, she could almost not make out a single smooth, beautiful face anymore!—a voice arose. “What of the woman and those... Kron you brought back? You bring outsiders in unannounced?”
The uproar to that was confused, curious, not entirely angry.
“She and her minions spared me. They were tricked by the Kaliak same as we. And revenge is to be theirs as much as ours.”
“But she’s not of our kind!” came the voice again, though she couldn’t see what one exactly.
“You know in ancient times we worked side by side with the elves!” retorted the leader.
“Until they betrayed us too!” came the response from out of the crowd as the source emerged. A young, almost fae man, the sole beautiful one of the lot, with skin fair, eyes black, and long, wavy hair of white. He didn’t hide himself. Not at all. And that was enough for her to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
Aleena had always been obsessed with the past of her people. As heir to a noble lineage that was all but wiped out, she had long dreamed of reclaiming what was hers. But more than that, she had studied the dead histories, even beyond the beginning of the eternal war.
It was said in the ages past, when the elven throne still reigned in its northwestern corner, that they had allies of their own. One was a mystical race of shifters. They were spies and even assassins for the elven court, because they could change their appearance without aid of magic—not that magic existed, of course—and she realized she was now looking upon one of them. A whole hidden clan of them in fact!
“Not betrayed,” she had to say. “We were victims of betrayal then, as I am now. And with the elven throne crushed, our empire fell beneath the boot heel of the humans.”
The pale elf was short for her kind, but the way she stood—she hoped—made her seem larger and more powerful. She had a practiced way about her graceful motions, and she took a step forward. “They hoped your leader would kill me, or I kill him. Either way, they would have one fewer problem in this world. I’d say that’s enough for a temporary truce.”
Shifters such as these had once bowed before the elven throne, having no rulership of their own. She could see some glimmer of the past in their eyes as they stared at her, the anger mostly diminished, even in the black eyes of that one fiery upstart.
He turned his gaze upon their Chief. “And what then? There are too many of the Kaliak for us to conquer or claim all their lands for our own. So we strike back for our revenge and... what?”
“Revenge shall have to be enough... for now,” replied their leader, and that seemed to be enough for most of them as they cheered and picked up their weapons.
Aleena couldn’t help but smile.
This was turning out better than she could have hoped. They’d be thirsty for more after this, and if she played her hand just so...
Aleena spoke quietly to the leader, “I know the one that set us up, but only just, and he has no love for me. I can take him though, should you provide enough distraction by killing his men.”
The dark-haired Chief gave her a firm nod. “It’ll be done.”
Chapter 32 – The Nobles
Perhaps most grating of the realities of her imprisonment was seeing the young Viscount actually socialize with the guards. The shameless nerve of the man, to consort with the lowborn so brazenly, currying their favour with some offerings of comfort and treats. Smiling and sharing jokes with them.
She spied as he shook one of their hands before they returned to their duty post. He turned about and caught sight of her, a wry smile on his face as the door shut behind them, leaving them alone.
“Ah, good morning, young miss Ellefor.” He purposely used her old family name, striding down the hall towards her slowly.
“Good morning, child Rensford,” she bit back before she remembered her plan. Well, the one that required her to be, at the very least, marginally kind to him. Though as she looked over him with her skeptical gaze, she even wondered at that. It was a long shot, no matter how she treated him, she decided, but that wouldn’t deter her.
“I see you’re making good friends with those you’ll...” Her teeth grabbed her tongue. Play nice, Caprice, she chided herself. Her entire life had been filled with nothing but scorn for those not of her circle, however, and it was proving more difficult than she’d initially thought. “I presume you want something of me?”
The stately-looking Viscount in his velvet vest with silk shirt beneath gave her a mildly amused look. “Me? Of you?” he remarked in exchange, lifting a hand to idly stroke over his cravat as he looked her over in turn. “Well, I suppose some pleasantries are in order. Being family and all in the technical sense... for now, that is.” He smiled to her. “I trust your evening was pleasant then?” he said in a questioning voice.
She’d spent most of her night primping herself and bathing, finding the entire thing to be even more dull than usual as the hours dragged on. The fine gown she wore was as scandalous as ever—she would not let him make her ashamed of her body—and the tight, black corset pressed her breasts up and made her emerald necklace slip into the crevice.
“I must say, being a prisoner of someone who despises me has never been more fun.”
“Mm,” he began, showing no sign of being afflicted by the same disposition that he inferred his uncle had as he took an eyeful of her bust. “I imagine it’s quite a step above your last period of captivity. However brief it might have been,” he said to her. “Though until the time is up or you simply give in and admit you’ll never bear the offspring of that wretched old monster, we’re both stuck here.”
“I’m told patience is one of my many virtues.” Caprice smiled at the man, but even that couldn’t disguise her tempered rage. She wanted to be free of all of this, to be able to live
like a Queen. To go to balls, and drink of the finest wines. “And what are your plans today? To torture me with your disbelief?”
It was strange how fast it happened, he leaned in towards her, his one palm slamming to the wall over her shoulder as he spoke to her quietly in a low voice. “Knock off the pretense, little princess. We both know the truth, so save your theatrics for those who might have a shot at buying it. Alright?” Though the way he said that in his dark, ominous voice as he towered over her so menacingly made it sound like a command. Not a question.
Her dark eyes widened as she stared up at him, mouth agape. She managed to recover quickly, tearing her gaze from him and looking, instead, under his arm. She felt her body tremble with fright, and she cursed how much that old bastard had shattered her nerves. Her neck and back were so tense, but still she refused to cry.
She was still prideful.
Looming over and around her, so tall and powerful, he spoke to her casually in that low voice. “What makes you so stubborn, hm?” He brought a hand up, the backs of his knuckles grazing her cheek brazenly. “Do you think that when this is all through, that the Queen will still give you some portion of the Rensford estate and it’ll still be worth it?” He gave a cold smile. “That won’t happen, child.” And that word so echoed her father. “The Queen won’t see a sliver more of power go to your family. Not now.”
“And what, you wish for me to admit a falsehood and have you evict me like some common... whore?” She crinkled her nose, using his own word. “And I told you not to touch me,” she added on, her voice hard. “You only wish to try to run me out of here.”
The cold young man didn’t heed her words. “Oh, I expect you to resist. You’d disappoint me if you didn’t,” he said with a smile, those knuckles of his brushing over her flawless cheek some more, back towards her dark hair. “A struggle just makes the victory that much more satisfying to savour. You just don’t seem to know what you’re doing. Holding on a prayer perhaps?” he remarked with an uneven smile. “Shame, you’re a pretty one. Especially as far as eligible princesses go,” he remarked with amusement.