Hers to Choose (10 page)

He paused for a moment considering the absolute truth of that statement.
Well, for the moment she is safe, and she is, more or less, in my care.
At this writing, Lady DeLorion and I have found shelter at the Silver Grove garrison headquarters. Our intention is to rejoin you in Sylvan Mintoth. I will take what men the garrison commander can spare.

It appears from intelligence gathered
, that the Haarb intended to seize
Sh’r Un Kree
and capture Lady DeLorion as hostage. What their purpose was for her after that is unknown. It is my recommendation that aid be sent to
Sh’r Un Kree
with all haste. We were able to warn
Primus
G’hed of the imminent attack, but numbers are not in their favor. Sergeant Trecchio advised us that an
Oshtesh
courier preceded our arrival by several hours. At the time of this writing, we understand
Sh’r Un Kree
has been attacked and by order of
Primus
G’hed, his people scattered into the wastelands to hide.

I will escort Lady Sophillia
DeLorion to Sylvan Mintoth with as much speed and dispatch as is safe.

As I write these details,
two questions beg answers. How did the Haarb arrive, undetected, in such numbers at Avowatz Mountain? How did they know where and when to attack Lady DeLorion’s honor guard?

As always, I am in your service,

Eric DeStroia, Commander, Queen’s Royal Guard

He folded the message and handed it to the waiting courier.
Now, my bath.
A welcome sight met his eyes as he walked into the men’s bath house—a tub. A tub long and deep enough for him to stretch out in. A tub full of steaming hot water…and towels on a rack within reach, warmed by the fragrantly crackling fire on the hearth.
The Goddess be praised.
He stripped with quick efficiency.

Eric
eased down into the hot water, hissing as it met his groin. The mineral salts Sophi insisted on stung as they met raw flesh. A folded towel hung over the rim of the great tub cushioned his head as he lay back and let the heat seep into him.
I am not moving until it gets cold.

With a full stomach and warmth soaking into
a body abused in recent days by hard use, little food and no rest, he was asleep again in moments. Water cooling about him combined with a drop in temperature as night approached roused him before he slid completely under water. Rising carefully and stepping out, he briskly toweled off, re-bandaged his wound and dressed. As he walked back to Corporal Saunders’s quarters, he passed the door to Sophi’s room.
I should check to make sure she’s all right.

His
knuckles softly rapped at her door. “Sophi? I’m turning in. Is there anything you need?” A small noise from the interior caught his notice, but there was no response.

Rapping again,
Eric raised his voice slightly. “
Flight Leader
DeLorion?” When no response was forthcoming, he opened her door and entered hesitantly. “Sophi?” A movement in the far corner of the room caught his eye. She sat bent over, her gold-blond hair shining in the moonlight from the window, cascaded over her thighs in a luxurious fall. “Sophi?” As he walked closer, she raised her face to him. A silent, steady stream of tears rolled down her cheeks.

“Ah, sweetling
.” Eric knelt down and gently cupped her chin, wiping her cheeks with his thumbs. “You have been so strong, lovely Sophi. Why the tears, now?”

“
Please have sex with me.” Her luminous eyes revealed all the turmoil inside her.

“Sophi, sweet woman. You are so
...unexpected.” Eric held his fingers to her mouth when she would have spoken. “Shhh, listen. I have fought beside brave men—watched incredible displays of courage on the battlefield. But none, I think, greater than what just came from your mouth.”

“
They haunt me—the Haarb,” Sophi whispered. “When I returned, I fought fear every day, at first just to step out of my room.” She gestured vaguely. “To reach a place where I could be comfortable, alone, with a man not my brother.”

Her eyes met his
and the vulnerable trust they held pulled at his heart—while the words she left unspoken broke it.
What had the Haarb done to her?

“I am afraid. I am afraid creatures from the depths of the seven hells stalk the village of
Sh’r Un Kree
. I am afraid Mother Lyre and
Primus
G’hed are dead, or worse.” Sophi’s voice dropped to a whisper. “And I lied. I
am
afraid of what you want from me.”

She threw her head back and held his gaze steadily. “I am so very, very tired of being afraid.
I can do nothing but pray for
Sh’r Un Kree,
Mother Lyre and Primus G’hed. But the other? I don’t want to fear it any more. I think you could change that for me.”

He stood and gently pulled her up against him. Tucking her head under his chin,
Eric wrapped his arms around her. Her body molded itself to his and her arms wrapped his back, holding him loosely. He stood quiet for a few moments, allowing her to absorb the feeling of being held without demand, of simply being close. Pleasure at her ease in his embrace gratified a longing he’d had since their flight from
L’ago Mistero.

He pulled away just enough to catch her eyes.
“You are exhausted and fatigue magnifies fears. It conjures flesh-eating monsters out of mice and unholy specters from naught but night air. Your fears will fade with the rising of the sun and the passing of time. I want you, Sophi, and I plan to make love to you until neither of us can stand—but not now and not here.”

It pleased him her eyes held disappointment
—not fear.

He le
d her to the bed and pulled back the covers. “I would hold you in my arms tonight—but that is all I’ll do, sweetling. Perhaps I can keep your worst imaginings away.”

His discarded pants
and shirt fell to the floor as he crawled into the bed. He held out an arm in invitation. “Come. My body is no mystery to you. Come lie with me and let’s get some rest.”

Wit
h a soft sigh, Sophi slipped under the covers and spooned herself to his chest. He heard her soft snort. “Until I can’t stand, Commander?”

“Ummhmm.
” He felt her soft hands adjust his arms to wrap her chest, then fold on top of his hands.

“From pleasure or fatigue?”
Sophi murmured.

H
e admired her brave teasing and placed a soft kiss on her shoulder. “Pleasure,
Flight Leader
. A surfeit of pleasure.”

“Braggart.”

“Mmm. No brag. Truth.”

* * *

Sophi snuggled her cheek into the pillow, reluctant to open her eyes and begin what the light streaming in the small window announced as a new day.
Wait. Not a pillow. Flesh!
The prior evening’s events flashed through her mind.
I am in bed with Eric.
A joyous smile crossed her face.
I slept, through the night, with a man! Me, Sophi!

Gently turning in his arms, she examined his
now-familiar face.
Such a handsome man. Such a
good
man. Blessings on you for sending him, brother.
Buoyed by a delighted sense of accomplishment, she touched her lips to his.
Warm, soft.
She pulled back and placed gentle kisses at the corners of his generous mouth and then on his squared chin, rough with the dark bristles of his unshaven beard. She felt his arms close on her ribs and hold her to him. The lips she had just kissed quirked up in a smile.

“Good morning,
Flight Leader
.” Eric studied her face with sleepy, half-lidded eyes.

No man should have such outrageously long eyelashes.

“No more night fears?”

She
smiled back and shook her head, her blond hair a silky wave around her shoulders. “It is as you said. The sunlight and rest silenced them.” She snuggled her head on his chest. “I am quite content at the moment.” She wiggled, trying to find a better position, then huffed in mock protest. “Though my mattress has developed a lump.” His erection hardened further against her inner thigh. Against her cheek, his chest vibrated with his chuckle.

“Um, yes. This mattress
reliably develops lumps around a certain
Flight Leader
.”

Sophi
propped her chin on his chest and regarded him. “I know of ways to fix that lump,” she offered in a halting voice.

He laughed a
loud. “Sophi.” His arms tightened around her, then released. “Another time and place, when I can return the favor properly.” He pushed himself upright. “Up with you, woman.”

Quite happy to accede to his wishes, she pushed
the covers away and stood. He swung his legs over the side of the narrow bed and sat rubbing sleep from his eyes. She moved to the small cabinet where she had placed her meager toiletries and started to work the tangles from her hair.

She watched in the mirror as he pulled
on his leathers.
You are most pleasing to the eye, Commander DeStroia.

Eric caught her watching and winked. “I’ll see about getting us some breakfast, then we must be away, Sophi.”

“I’ll join you
in a few minutes, Commander.” The door clunked softly shut behind him.

She grew pensive as she worked through her hair
, then began a tidy braid.
Perhaps he can give me what I thought never to have—a home, a husband, children.
The one bright spot in her time living in the palace was playing with the children of her brother and the High Lord. The twins, Lilly and Riccio were adorable little monsters.
Perhaps some of my own aren’t too much to hope for.

With a rueful flip of her braid, she
collected her belongings and stuffed them into her pack. Her eyes scanned the room for anything left behind. The rumpled covers of the bed drew her gaze and a frisson of happiness ran through her.
Perhaps it isn’t too much to hope for after all.
She closed the door behind her and went to join the commander.

S
ylvester Contradina loathed his aunt with unrelenting thoroughness. He feared her in equal measure. Today, thankfully, the hood of a coarsely woven cloak obscured the gruesome, twisted wreck of her once-beautiful face.

“Get off your
kneess, Ssylvesster. Your phony obeissance failss to impress me.”

He fought to conceal a shudder at t
he hoarse sibilance of her speech. It reminded him of the ruination of her once-luscious mouth, now a blackened, gaping maw of rotting teeth and receding gums.

“I hold nothing but love for you, dear aunt. I am wounded that you doubt
the affection I hold for you.” Rising, he bowed and risked a glance toward her face.

The green phosphorescence of her artificial eyes flashed from the
depths of her hood and a skeletal hand stretched out, palm up. “Liar. Give me the report.”

He pulled opened the royal dispatch pouch and handed her the sealed packet.

Again, green flared from the shadows of the hood. “And the courier?”

“Dead. As you ordered, dear aunt.”

“What have you done with the other? The
Osshtessh
woman?”

“She awaits your pleasure in the lower room
.” He thought the green burned a little brighter in the gloom of her hood. He could not prevent an inward shudder. “I have laid out the instruments you asked for. I’ll be at the Half-Cross Tavern if you need me.”

Her hoarse laugh chilled him. “
Sspineless worm. Nothing like Hugo. My brother wass a man. A few sscreams never bothered him.”

“Yes, Aunt.” He bowed and fled.

Allegra descended to the soundproofed lower room and entered, throwing back her hood. The slender, sun-browned woman chained nude to the far wall gasped in reaction.

“
Yess. Not sso pretty, am I?” She laughed hoarsely at the horrified revulsion on the face of her prisoner. She selected a razor-sharp scalpel from the assemblage of instruments arrayed on a low table.

“Hmm. Eudora?
That’ss your name isn’t it? Eudora? What message do you carry to Doral DeLorion, Eudora? More important, where iss hiss ssister?” She snaked the gleaming blade tip between the woman’s breasts. Blood welled in a horizontal figure 8. Her victim choked back a sob of pain but did
not speak.

She
shrugged. “How deliciouss. You resisst. I love a challenge. Ssuch a dissappointment not to usse thesse lovely toolss.”

* * *

Sylvester debated having the sixth brew. His legs seemed a tad wobbly and the room had a distressing tendency to tilt.
Can’t deal sober. Need to piss.
He rose and staggered toward the ‘necessary’ but a hand on his shoulder intercepted him.

“My Lord. She wants you.”

He turned and blinked blearily at his aunt’s servant, who seemed to have materialized out of the smoky murk hanging in the air of the seedy establishment. “Gotta piss.” He giggled. “Piss on ‘er.”

He stumbled up the steps to the
tenement townhome his aunt kept in a poorer section of Sylvan Mintoth.
Not what the bitch’s used to, but she can’t risk discovery by the Tetriarch.
He wagged his finger back and forth. “No, no, can’t have that.”
Should get a message to DeLorion ‘bout her. Anon, anon—y—mouse Moues. Yeah.
He belched loudly.
That’s the word. Anonymous.

Fumbling drunkenly with his key,
he finally managed to work the lock’s tumblers and he fell into the dark hallway.

“
Dissgussting.”

He looked up at her menacing figure. She had not even changed clothes. Dark red stains
spread across the front of her gown and spattered her grotesque face. Blood. He knew it was not hers. “I’m going to be sick.”

“Later. I have work for you. Follow me.”

He staggered after her as she descended into the lower room.

“Clean this place and
disspose of that.”

His eyes followed her
gesture then she turned and left him alone in the room.
Didn’t drink nearly enough.

The remains of a human figure hung from chains on the wall. He knew it to be human only because he had chained the girl there himself
. Ahhh, shite! She has skinned the woman!
The smell wafting into his nostrils proved too much for his rebellious stomach.

He remained bent over for many minutes
, vomiting the contents of his stomach onto the floor until there was naught left but bile, and at last only dry heaves. Wiping the strands of drool and he dared not wonder what slimy stuff from his mouth, he finally straightened and staggered to the bloody hunk of raw meat suspended in front of him. As he reached to release the metal cuffs, the mass moved.
Oh, fuck, the woman’s still alive.
It seemed there was a bit left in his stomach after all.

* * *

Sylvester whimpered in self-pity as he shoveled dirt over the bundled form at the bottom of the shallow grave. He would take to his own grave the sick, sucking gargle of sound as his blade severed the windpipe of the
Oshtesh
woman; the precursor to more nausea, saliva welled in his mouth as his stomach lurched at the very memory of that sound
.
He wiped his tears on the arms of his jacket and kept shoveling doggedly as he mentally composed the message to Doral DeLorion.
I’ll have to wait until the bitch is well and truly gone from Sylvan Mintoth.

* * *

Sophi rode quietly beside Eric. The soft dirt of the road winding away from the garrison at Silver Grove Gate muffled the rhythmic “clopp-clopp” of their horses’ hooves. On either side, knee-high grass dotted with purple and yellow wild flowers formed a garland skirting the travelers’ path. A light breeze swirled the treetops, rustling through the bright green leaves high overhead and further covering the sounds of the four cavalrymen behind them. Golden columns of sparkling sunlight speared through the green canopy. A smell of rich loam and fragrant flowers perfumed the air. Through the silvery trunks of trees, she could see a narrow, fast-flowing creek, burbling happily over rocks in a laughter of white foam.

“You are quiet.”
Eric’s green eyes caught hers in a questioning glance.

“Mmm.” S
he smiled. “I didn’t remember this land being so lovely. Everywhere you look it is lush, green paradise.”

“Verdantian blood nourishes this soil. Your brother and High Lord
DeTano defeated platoons of Haarb mercenaries to re-take this region—a tactically brilliant battle, though they were outnumbered three to one. Staggering numbers of Verdantians died here.”

Even paradise comes with a cost.
She let her horse amble along easily on a loose rein, lost in her thoughts. “Were you there?” Sophi asked.

“Yes.”

Her heart hurt for everything not said in his clipped response. Much like the vast, severe splendor of the desert, the verdant beauty of the peaceful forest wove together the tattered blanket of her soul. For the first time since her capture by the Haarb, she found the strength to speak to someone other than Mother Lyre of her time as a slave.

“The Haarb overran the estates of House
DeLorion in the beginning days of the invasion. Krakoll immediately transported Mother and me off-world as pleasure slaves for his lizard men. We spent four years on a hyper-light battle cruiser.” She straightened in the saddle.

“I know very little about how we won the war and even less about the astonishing fact my brother is now part of a
Tetriarch
on the Verdantian throne. Poor Doral. Poor Mother. I don’t think I spoke more than ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ that first year after I returned. The Haarb forbade us to speak. They feared we would
magick
them. Our keeper enforced that dictate ruthlessly. I watched from an arm’s length away as he tore the tongue out of Lady Cyril deKappo because she asked for water. We were
never
to speak—never. Silence became ingrained habit.”

S
ophi dared a sideways glance at Eric. His grim gaze remained forward. “There’s more, isn’t there?” he prompted.

“
Yes. When I finally escaped that existence and returned home, life at the royal court of Verdantia presented a—challenge—for me. There were so many people – so many men. I could hardly summon the courage to leave my bedroom. I suppose you will think me pathetic but for the first month or so upon my return, I was most comfortable in my closet. And, well . . . the social obligations were completely beyond me. I developed sick headaches anytime I had to appear in public. Doral tried so hard. We both tried so hard. But I was getting worse, not better.

So, m
y brother took me to the
Oshtesh
. I lived in the single women’s encampment. They required nothing from me—just handed me a bow and a quiver of arrows and instructed me to practice. For two years, from day’s dawning to sun’s setting, I sent arrows into a target in every conceivable fashion, and I began to talk.” Sophi again glanced at Eric. His grim expression remained the same.

“
As my willingness to speak returned, my desire to be in the company of others came back with it, and each day became better and better. I moved into the household of
Primus
G’hed. Mother Lyre,
Primus
G’hed and my
flight
sisters healed me.”

She listened to the birdcalls, the scolding of a squirrel and the running babble of the creek.

“Would you like a greatly abbreviated version of events while you were gone?” Eric said.

She studied his classically handsome profile as he rode beside her
, his eyes straight ahead. “Yes. Yes, I would.”

He cleared his throat. “How much education have you had in the
Lesser
and
Greater Rites
?”

“
Book learning only,” she replied. “I suppose because they are sexual rites, Mother delayed my
magickal
education until I turned sixteen, so I had not begun the practical studies when the Haarb took me. I can recite some of the
Lesser Rites
. I know the power activating our planetary shield comes from sexual intercourse between a Seventh Level
magister
and a Seventh Level
magistra
during the
Great Rite
.”

Eric nodded. “Yes. The invasion began with the fall of
our sigil towers. Certain Seventh Levels failed to perform their sacred duty to renew the energy within the
diamantorre
. The Haarb brutally tortured them to reveal the secrets powering the energy shield
and with that knowledge,
breached our defenses. Then began the wholesale butchery of our noble houses, our
magisters
and
magistras
. The slaughter was extremely thorough.”

His solemn voice moved her to glance at him again. He locked eyes with her. “As horrific as your slavery was
, Sophi, you escaped an even worse fate. At war’s end, we found mass graves holding hundreds upon hundreds of bodies.”

“You think death was worse than
what I suffered? Some women sought out death rather than remain alive in that hell-hole.”

The
haunted pain in Sophi’s eyes struck Eric as deeply as an enemy’s blade and he wondered, again,
what had happened to her
. They rode in uncomfortable silence for a few moments before he cleared his throat and continued.

“
Our energy wall shrank to that encompassing the sigil tower of Sylvan Mintoth. Almost the entire might of the Haarb forces besieged our capital and waited for the sigil tower to fail. It took three years, but their patience met with reward. The
diamantorre
began to flicker out. A dark time for Verdantia.

“
Elder
Patricio summoned High Lord DeTano from the battlefield to the High Enclave in Sylvan Mintoth. Patricio ordered DeTano to perform the
Great Rite
with our last remaining
magistra,
Fleur Constante, our Principessa Royale. They neglected to tell him she was a Fifth Level novice.”

Sophi gasped. “A
Fifth Level! It’s a wonder she didn’t die. How could they ask that of her!”

“She did what she was born to do.” A faraway look filled Eric’s eyes. “I’ll never forget that day. One moment a swarm of enemy host and the next minute…” He shook his head. “Empty tents and riderless horses stretched for miles around Sylvan Mintoth. It took weeks to search their encampment but the results were unequivocal. The mercenary forces had vanished.”

“How did the
Elders of the
L’anziano
and the
docenti
explain that?”