War-Torn

by J. E. Keep

  “Planning?” he said with some surprise. “I don’t plan. I do.” He thumped his chest a bit in amusement. “I run letters, packages, shipments. I scout. I got connections with some groups inside an’ out of this city, so I’m the go-to guy for a lot of go-between work. Earns me a decent livin’ without near so much danger as the raiders.”

  “Who do you deal with up there?” she asked skeptically. It sounded a little too good to be true.

  “All sorts,” he said with a shrug. “When traders are missin’ a caravan, they come ta me ta scout it out and see what happened. When someone needs ta get word ta family outside, I take care of it. I got connections with some wolven units, so I sometimes trade ’em contraband for a few of their things too. I got a thrivin’ lil’ business goin’ here. A lil’ too thrivin’ for one man. Even one wolf-man,” he joked.

  Her eyes narrowed as she stared at him, her head tilting to the side.

  “Did someone put you up to this or something?”

  “Put me up to it?” He stroked his chin. “No, but I was tipped off about ya, if that’s what you mean. Madam Thia herself,” he said, sounding like that was quite the ringing endorsement. “But even the word of the world’s favourite harlot don’t mean nothin’ if Faze don’t talk to the candidate himself. So here we are,” he said with a sheepish smile.

  She wasn’t sure if she should be touched or impressed, but she was. “So this was some type of... interview or something? Is that what it’s called?”

  He chuckled gruffly. “Somethin’ like that, yeah. I ain’t never worked beside no one before, so I’m a might particular over who I’m gonna choose, ya understand.”

  “Well, I’m glad I started in by insulting you and your people, then.”

  With another guffaw he slapped her back again.

  “Yer rough around the edges, I’ll give ya that. But I do need someone who can be serious and focussed. This job is a lonesome one mostly. The, uh, insult part though... we’ll have to work on that.”

  “I don’t mind being alone,” she reassured him, straightening her back against his constant roughhousing. “And I can be quite serious. And focussed. I can do this.”

  “Well, we’ll see, huh?” He smiled unevenly, though even the lighthearted beast’s merriment had a tinge of menace thanks to those fangs. “First things first though, I’ll have ta show ya the ropes. Take ya on some practice runs of my biggest job. That’s the one that’s most regular, also be easiest ta break ya in on, so you can run it yourself when I’m busy.”

  “Fine,” she agreed. “When do I start?”

  Chapter 35 – The Soldiers

  Major Hendrik Kelifron looked like a whole other man in the civilian clothes Liena’sa got for him. The brown vest and coarse cotton shirt didn’t fit him as snugly as his uniform, but it was both jarring and somehow fitting to see the man in the worn civilian clothes. He looked natural in them, yet she still couldn’t help but think of him as the stern, hard-nosed superior officer who dictated her fate.

  With both hands he vigorously mussed up his own hair, giving it a more natural look, in contrast to the usual. He let his eyes drift to hers in the office mirror. “I have something for you,” he said and pivoted about towards her.

  It was both excitement and apprehension as she watched him stare at her. Her own movements were still controlled, but she was trying to look more casual. It didn’t come easy to the woman, since she let her guard down almost as rarely as her commanding officer.

  “Oh?” She felt grungy and dirty in the simple clothes she wore, the dark brown making her appear more washed out and tired than she felt. It certainly wasn’t as flattering as the outfit he wore, though perhaps she was biased. She caught herself staring at his physique before her gaze returned to his. “Is it something that makes this outfit look good? A torch, maybe?”

  He reached into his new shirt and pulled an old cord from around his neck. It had been hidden, out of sight, though she’d noticed it on him before as he changed or the two had gotten naked on rare occasions.

  “Not quite,” he said, reaching into the tiny brown satchel attached to it. What he pulled out couldn’t have been more surprising to her. The tiny little ring was not extravagant and, despite its age and the secret source he pulled it from, could not have been very valuable in material terms. Not by the standards of anyone but the poor, that was.

  “Lien,” he said softly, reaching out and taking her hand, “you will be my wife.” He slid the ring onto her finger, and it was only her own daintiness that allowed it to fit.

  She wanted to blow it off, to accept it as part of her cover. Their cover.

  Yet the way he spoke to her make her heart pound and her breath hitch. She tried to swallow, but her throat felt constricted, and the softest of smiles flirted with the corner of her lips. Even her unflattering clothes couldn’t make that gaze she gave him seem like anything but meaningful.

  “Gladly,” she managed before clearing her throat, embarrassed.

  It was human custom in the capital to give a ring, but then she was half human. He smiled to her in return, surprising her yet again as he cupped her cheek and leaned in, kissing her lips softly.

  He had a way of making her head spin, and that gentle, tender kiss managed it more than anything else.

  “We’re on the run,” he said to her softly, explaining their cover carefully. “We fell in love against our families’ wishes, and as punishment, I was expelled from their home. With nowhere to live, I lost my factory job, and so was eligible for conscription. But I can’t live without you, so we are making a run for shelter somewhere.”

  “I buy it,” she whispered, hungering for more. She didn’t know when this thing with him changed from being a habit of survival to something more honest, and that scared her. She didn’t realize how hard she’d fallen for him until that moment, and she wanted to throw everything aside. To revel in the feeling.

  But they had a job to do, and her palm glided up along his hand. “Lead the way, husband.”

  He smiled genuinely. It had to be genuine. She’d never seen such warmth in his expression, and it was as if every ounce of the harsh officer in him had melted away as he gazed at her with his steely eyes, filled with emotion.

  “I’m Roland Malik, you’re Lura Malik.” He leaned in, kissed her lips again, slow and longingly, suckling her upper lip awhile before moving to kiss her forehead then embrace her. “And I love you madly, my wife,” he added in a low murmur, almost too soft to hear.

  There was no purpose to him lying to her. To slipping into his role so readily in the privacy of the room, and her hands went to his back and squeezed.

  They were both so stern, so matter of fact. Even their trysts had been harsh.

  Maybe that was what they both liked.

  “I love you,” she murmured back.

  “C’mon,” he said, still talking so casually, so unlike him. “Need to find someone who can lead us to refuge.”

  Chapter 36 – The Nobles

  The servants had prepared a lovely meal for dinner, the candles lit as the weather outside remained dreary and dark as it had in recent days. Though the most priceless part of it was when Caprice saw the Viscount enter the room and pause with surprise at seeing her there for the first time since their joint housing.

  It was odd to see the dashing noble caught so off guard, but he recouped and made his way to the head of the table as usual. “How curious,” he remarked simply, unfolding a napkin and draping it over his lap as he pointedly looked at the food rather than her.

  She was done up in the same overzealous manner that she always seemed to be. She hated to be seen—even by him—looking less than her best, and the teal corset nipped in her waist and emphasized her breasts, as usual. She gave him a smile, but it was the look of noble restraint.

  Her glass was already filled with a dark, red liquor, but she hadn’t drank any of it, instead waiting patiently for him.

  “You look well rested.”

  �
��I am,” he remarked, serving himself from the generous setting of food before them rather than having one of the servants do it for him. “It’s my first time in so cozy and lavish a setting in quite some time,” he stated, beginning to eat and sparing her nary a glance. “Along the front even the officers don’t get much in the way of luxury.”

  “I had assumed you just liked the fashion,” she admitted as she began to cut into her already served food. “It suits you.” Her stomach clenched, but she fought the urge to take a sip of her drink, to ruin this so soon.

  “That it does,” he responded, and truth be told, he fit the style well. His trim figure cut an impressive image. With his hair and severe looks, he looked every bit the image of the ideal officer, portrayed on war posters and murals across the well-to-do sections of the city. Most members of the court would’ve found it too gauche to imitate the style so closely—an obvious grab for respectability—but it simply suited him so well, it seemed the style was made for him.

  “You would know all about that though,” he retorted, his eyes on the window as he ate. “You never seem to wear anything that isn’t well fitted.”

  “I’m surrounded by beautiful things. I’d rather not stick out like a sore thumb.” She ate slowly, trying to draw out the pleasantness. To see if she could do it.

  It was hard.

  His gaze slid to her, the steel grey so cold as he watched her across the table. “Somehow I doubt that’s what it’s about,” he remarked, cutting off another piece of his steak fillet and eating it in quiet enjoyment.

  “Taking pride in your looks isn’t a bad thing,” she said, her voice going as cool as his eyes. “I like to look nice.”

  He nodded his head in quiet acceptance of that.

  “Would you take such pride in them were yours not so naturally beautiful to begin with though, I wonder,” he mused aloud as he watched her, his expression softened just a hair.

  “I imagine I’d have to work harder, in that case.” Her eyes fluttered to him, her arched brow raising slightly. She reached her hand for her wine, quickly noting that it trembled, and she instead laid it on the table.

  “Mm,” he responded simply as he ate, watching nothing but her now. “Is this your new effort then?” he asked across the table. “Are you trying to climb your way out of the hole you’re in at long last?” The question was not even malicious. Oddly enough he sounded simply curious, in his own way.

  “I’m trying to make this more pleasant.” She cursed her fair flesh and the fact that she knew she was blushing. Grabbing the stem of the glass, she brought it to her lips and felt more secure having drunk something. It soothed her rankled nerves, just the act of it.

  He didn’t respond right away, but after wiping his mouth, he very casually said to her, “The meal would be exponentially more pleasant if you opened that corset another inch or two down the middle.” It was amazing how he could say something so vulgar with a straight face, watching her so placidly as he took his own wineglass and sipped. “Do it for me.” And those words sounded like a military order by comparison.

  She gasped and nearly dropped her drink, her dark eyes going to his. She looked like a deer in headlights, as if that were the least expected thing he could have said.

  “You’re not... serious?” she asked, a bit of that stern hardness coming back to her own voice. “I’m not a whore, despite your assertion, so if you’re trying to prove something to yourself, well, you’re wrong.”

  With a slow, meticulous movement, he lowered his wineglass and placed it back upon the table, dabbing his lips with the napkin again.

  “It would improve my disposition,” he remarked. Then in his ominously low voice he added, “I said, do it for me.” The words were a command, and with the way he gazed at her, he seemed intent that she would not disobey him.

  Despite her daring outfits, and her good looks, not another man had gazed upon her breasts. Besides her father, that was. She shifted in her seat, growing more flushed under his constant stare, and her breath quickened, those heavy mounds rising under the press of her corset. “Look, I just want to try being friendly.”

  He resumed eating, his casual demeanor a bit unnerving with what he was demanding. “Undoing the strings on that corset an inch or two would go a long way towards making me a friendly, amicable man. Now do it. I won’t say it again.” He raised his brows and peered across at her as he popped another bit of his steak into his mouth, waiting expectantly as if for some fascinating reveal.

  Instead, she moved out of her chair. “I’m not going to degenerate myself in front of you, obeying you simply because you think my refusal is weak.” Her hand went to the glass of wine and she drank it back, her meal hardly touched. “A weak woman would have said yes to you, and begged you for a place in this manor as your lapdog.”

  “Convince yourself of that all you like,” he remarked to her, flippantly. “But we both know at heart, this is the coward’s way out.” He looked to her and said as if it were the simplest thing ever, “All I asked for was a bit of breast on display for my enjoyment. Not even a teat. A simple sign of willingness to try”—he gestured to her chair—“because the chitchat certainly wasn’t enough of a try. I’ve done worse than chitchat with those I’ve barely been able to resist strangling for their crimes.”

  Her eyes narrowed, her fingertips running the length of her chest, from left to right before she put the empty glass back on the table.

  “I’ve committed no crimes,” she said, and she was convinced it was the truth. That old man deserved what her father did to him, and she would have done it again, even knowing she’d gain nothing from it. “I’ll be in my room.” She could feel the anger rising in her, and she began to breeze past him when he grabbed her, yanking her body so hard she went toppling into his lap, as he had planned it.

  Her hand jostled the table as she held on to it, trying to get off of him, but he squeezed her wrist so tight in his grasp, there was no escape as he stared into her eyes.

  “Here I was hoping your appearance here was a sign you’d found some fire for life inside yourself,” he remarked, letting his eyes roll down from her face to her chest. He reached for the front of her corset, and tugged the strings there, doing for himself what she had refused to obey.

  “You know nothing about what I have a fire for.” Her words were filled with fury as she tried to hold that thick, teal fabric together and failed. It had been done up so tight that it was an impossible fight without both hands and a lot of concentration.

  She was so exposed to him as the corset began to peel away and she squirmed in his lap, desperately trying to free herself.

  For the first time since she’d met the unpleasant young Viscount, she watched as his face broke into a genuine smile as she struggled upon him. He enjoyed it. He liked watching her resist him, and he kept her there as she felt his loins stir beneath her.

  “Maybe you do have some fire in you after all,” he remarked, keeping a tight hold on her one arm, refusing to give it back. “And for that, I’ll let you spend the remainder of the evening with me in the study, being friendly as can be. We can even discuss the news,” he remarked with some slight amusement.

  “Screw you,” she hissed as she continued to squirm, but it was only causing that fabric to move further away from her body. It threatened to expose her, and she was fighting one measure of lewdness with another. Her head pounded with the frustration, and even the liquor couldn’t calm her nerves from this outrage.

  The throb of his male excitement beneath her had grown as she tried and failed to fight him off.

  “Such a saucy mouth,” he remarked with a smile. Then, abruptly before it all fell apart on her, he said, “If you come to my study tonight, I’ll be very friendly. Promise,” and he let her go, no longer holding her in place atop him.

  She scrambled up, holding her corset closed, but it already showed so much of her to him. Her pale flesh along her midsection, her belly button, those inner clefts of her breasts, it w
as all revealed as she looked to him in astonishment.

  It felt like she was walking into a trap, and she tried not to stare at his lap, but she couldn’t help it. His uncle had made life hell for her, but never had he done something like that. Caprice was, for the first time in a long while, stunned into silence.

  Without covering his lap or attempting to hide the rather large bulge in his black, pressed pants, he resumed eating, as if nothing untoward had just occurred.

  “Come to my study later,” he said again. “We’ll put those lips of yours to use. And talk,” he remarked without a hint of a smirk or wryness. There was something there, something familiar as she watched him. It took her a while, but it occurred to her: her father. The officer’s fashion, the calm control. The fire of anger when incited just right. He was similar in so many respects to her father. Not the least of which, his good looks.

  She took a step back, feeling dishevelled even though her brown hair was still in place, and the rest of her outfit was properly fitting. Her dark eyes went a bit glossy as she moved past him, fumbling with the strings at the front of her corset.

  From one torturer to another.

  Chapter 37 – The Front

  The food at the frontline camps was far from enjoyable, yet compared to the rations they gave those down in the trenches, it was near palatable. Levek at least enjoyed the warmth of it, having snuck off with his tray to go sit in the private little area Caslian and him had frequented. He had to get his health back up and store some food for the getaway, all of which meant somehow weaselling more food out of the system than they ever conceivably allowed.

  The warm beans and ham, however, he ate then and there. He couldn’t even make himself wait for Caslian’s arrival. The two had to split up on their way to the hiding spot, so nobody would suspect their plans.