Part 2 (1/2)

Dishonored Brenna Lyons 65340K 2022-07-22

She pa.s.sed one home after another without slowing, her head bowed. Jurel looked around in confusion as they pa.s.sed the last hut. He looked to the stables in volcanic fury.

”Where are we going?” he growled.

”My bed,” she whispered. ”It is not much further.”

”They stabled you with the animals?”

Veltina laughed harshly. ”No. The rooms above the stables were for older, unmated males. That would be the last place I would be permitted to lay my head.”

He winced at the note of bitterness in her voice, looking to the stables as she turned onto a path into the woods below the cliff face. Was her bitterness in the fact that none of the males would have her or was the place she led him even worse? He shook his head. What could be worse than living with animals?

The trees thickened. Jurel considered turning back; he imagined an ambush waiting at the cliff face. That was a ridiculous thought. How could anyone foresee that he would ask this of her? That certainty and a deep curiosity made him go on.

She stopped at the wall of rock, swallowing hard, then stepped into a ragged cave.

Her gait was uneven on the scattered stone beneath her bare feet. She stopped, her back to him, waiting for his reaction to what she was showing him.

Jurel peered around the cramped s.p.a.ce in dismay. Her ”bed” consisted of a few stained quilts set on dried Eir branches in case of rain. There was a small wash tub, large enough to soak the quilts but too small to bathe properly. A natural shelf in the corner housed broken bits of pottery and an abinatine that had been snapped in half. Reminders of her failure, he surmised. A few mended tunics and pairs of trousers hung on a peg hammered into a crack in the wall. A blackened fire ring and a quilt draped beside the doorway explained how she survived cold weather. The place was settled, not a short-term living arrangement.

”How long?” he asked.

”Since high spring... More than a year.” She stifled a sob. ”You see? I am not unaccustomed to the life of a slave, to being less than those around me. You are the kindest Master I have known.”

”Get out,” he managed, his voice shaking in anger. ”Wait for me outside.”

Veltina slid and scurried away.

For a moment, he fisted the torch in impotent rage. Then he moved, tearing the quilt and clothing from the wall and throwing them onto the bed with a sound of disgust. He grasped the wash tub and swept the broken mementos into it, pausing for a moment with the sheath in his hand.

”A first daughter,” he whispered. ”A commander's heir.” Veltina had been n.o.bility, what the witches considered n.o.ble. They'd abandoned a woman worthy to be their queen for the crime of pa.s.sion. ”Heathens!”

He dropped the sheath into the tub and lobbed the whole thing at the bed, throwing the few remaining articles after it-a single dining set and some rough tools. Jurel wedged the torch beneath it all. The Eir wood was dangerously dry; it caught immediately, and before he'd cleared the mouth of the cave, it was all burning.

Tears streaked down Veltina's face, though her expression verged on giddy disbelief. He brushed them away and led her back to her tower bed without a word. She looked stricken when he took the veltian away. Again, he soothed her.

”Tomorrow,” he vowed. ”I will bring it back tomorrow.” He locked the chain to her wrist, stroking the pulse point in a show of affection.

”Thank you, Master.”

Jurel swallowed a sour wave at her concept of a slave's life. He wasn't a barbaric Fion' s male who would deny her true nature as defined by the G.o.ds. He would never have made her live in solitude when her soul was made for companions.h.i.+p. He wouldn't allow her to think of him that way.

”You will learn to use my name,” he ordered. ”In private.” For now. It would not do to appear too familiar with her at this time.

She met his eyes in surprise. ”As you wish, Jurel.”

Chapter Four.

Wos 20th, Ti 10-449.

*urel stared at the missive, reading it for the third time that morning. His mind argued that he should feel something, but he couldn't. J His father was dead, killed in battle by the head witch, Leiana. That should have made him angry, but every time he tried to envision his father's fall, Veltina filled his mind, and he ached for her, for all the time she spent at the mercy of such a leader.

He tried to concentrate on the many duties that fell to him as king, but only one duty burned in him-the duty to mate and produce heirs to the crown. That brought him back to Veltina. His heirs would be of her body. He would stand for no less, and the evidence of who she was in her former life proved her a most worthy vessel for those heirs.

She was in his soul, and he had no idea why she was. She was a delightful package of contrasts: a deadly warrior who feared his slightest displeasure, a s.e.xual innocent with knowledge and training better than the most experienced camp follower or bed slave he 'd encountered, a born leader who wished to be his possession.

He set the missive aside, fingering the rings on the veltian. ”Gold,” he murmured.

Yes. Now that his father was dead, there was no reason not to make her his bride. He' d intended to fill her belly with sons either way; this way, his advisors wouldn't try to saddle him with a political wife.

He smiled. She was a political wife, in her own manner. She was born and raised a n.o.ble. Once Fion's witches were no more, Veltina's land by right of succession would be his. He chuckled at that. What a glorious way to justify holding their lands to the Magden.

Jurel looked at the veltian again. He was certain that Veltina would willingly submit. Even if she didn't, she wouldn't be the first slave-bride in Lengar history. There were advantages, even to that.

Veltina- She sighed. It had been difficult to start thinking of herself as the name Jurel gave her, though he a.s.sured her that the name was equal to her pa.s.sion.

It was a pretty name, and she was proud that he'd seen fit to gift her with it. And when he said it while he claimed her s.e.xually... She purred in arousal, her body responding to the memories.

Jurel was an amazing man, and the Lengar culture was nothing like she'd been taught. They weren't oath breakers and rogues. They had a strict code of honor that demanded harsh penalties for slights. Thus Len oversaw his dungeons, not to house all of his followers, but only those who failed to live honorably-or perhaps honestly.

They believed in expressing the G.o.ds' given talents and ident.i.ty of the individual. They reveled in their differences, a fact that Veltina found wonderful and exciting. Jurel had made it clear that he believed it sacrilege to repress what the G.o.ds made you, and for that, he vowed to avenge her treatment, as Len demanded.

She learned that the atrocities she'd always heard word of were not commonplace practice for Lengar soldiers but rather reserved for Fion's Children. The Lengar found her culture odious, and having tasted theirs, Veltina found that she agreed more than she ever had. Her dishonor had opened her eyes, but she never had an ideology to express what she found wrong until she met Jurel. For that alone, she owed him much.

Though he seemed to feel discussing politics tedious, she'd managed to piece together a few startling facts. Chief among them was that the Lengar had not attacked unprovoked. Sometime in the annals of their long history, Fion's Children and the Magden had grievously injured the Lengar.

Lengar never forget! Until both races bowed before them, the war would continue unabated.

The door opened, and Jurel strode in, the strange cus.h.i.+on with the rings attached in his hand as he'd vowed it would be. He smiled, raking his eyes over the signs of her arousal, his c.o.c.k thickening behind his trousers. He set the cus.h.i.+on on the table and stripped off his weapons and clothing.

”I see you grew impatient,” he noted. ”Did you reach climax?”

Veltina tried unsuccessfully to hold in her smile. ”Not this time,” she offered in a seductive voice.

”Did you while I was gone from you?” he persisted. He pulled a vial of oil from the pocket of his trousers and anointed his c.o.c.k with it.

She wondered what it was, but he was too far away to attempt to discover it. ”Twice,” she admitted.

”Since I have seen you last?”

”Yes.” Her cheeks heated, but she said it proudly, knowing he delighted in her s.e.xual appet.i.te. The more wanton she was, the more aroused he was.

He ranged hot eyes over her. ”By Len! I will have to feed your appet.i.te for my c.o.c.k more often.”

She gulped in air, dizzy at the thought of his c.o.c.k more than the two or three times a day he already brought her to bliss in completion.

”You like that idea.”