Handmaiden's Fury (2 page)

He’s so strong. His chest
—

No. Breathe.

“Is that what you needed?” His voice
rumbled against my skin.

“Oh yes.” I fought to remain focused
as the storms of my Lady’s magic tore through me.

His fingers curled into my hair, and
he held me. “You know, I saw you the other day at the Vance’s manse.”

I grinned, thinking about the lovely
party, a party where social graces mattered.

“What—?” I gasped again. “What did
you see?”

He couldn’t speak for a moment as his
mouth devoured me.

I bit my lip, stifling a moan.

“You know what I saw.” His mouth
found its way up my neck. “You were wearing that stunning red dress, all silk
and lace. You stood up by the balcony with your eyes on me all night.”

He was right; I had. Sire Mattias had
me following Orin for some time now. I leaned forward, my lips up to his ear.
“I didn’t watch you all night. I slipped away after a time. I needed some
solitude so I could think about you.”

“I can imagine why.” His voice was
like the night wind in my ear. “What did you do in your solitude, Keiri? What
did you think about?”

I whimpered. “I think you know what I
thought about, my lord.” I clutched at him, my expression positively sultry. “I
think you know what I needed.”

Men love lies.

I caught his eyes, my fingers digging
into him. Like a sweet blossom of fire and roses, pleasure unfurled itself in
my depths.

Ouigiin
. I focused on the strangely
spiraling sigil, pulsing and hot and alive. I felt it awaken to my mind, felt
the power within it.

The power of the bond.

My eyes drifted closed as I became
lost in it. Awash in the waves of sharp, red flame deep within my body, my red
nails dug their way into his back, and I bit his chest.

“Keiri,” his voice was low, grumbling
with warning. He was on his edge.

Then everything became glorious, like
brilliant lightning.

For a moment, all was primal. Nothing
else mattered but this one shining moment. In the back of my mind,
Ouigiin
gleamed, beckoned, sang.

The power of my Goddess unfurled
within me. I bit my lip and gasped, trying to hold Her strength back. I
couldn’t let myself be overtaken by Her; I only needed a measure of the magic
She brought.

And only at the correct moment.

Breathe.

Orin crested like a summer storm.
Lost, wrapped in his own sensation, he wasn’t
with
me, not really.

As I clutched to him, I watched his
control slip.

“Orin.” I panted. “Please.”

“Yes.” He kissed me as he started to
tremble.

Now.

Fire and infinite light.

Orin growled.

Quitting my fight, I relaxed my focus
and felt Rydia’s Flame deep in my body, burning in the shape of
Ouigiin
.

I allowed it free reign, and Her
power, Her desire, spiraled up in tendrils of pleasure, of red ecstasy, of life
itself.

The Goddess leapt from me, screaming
forth from my mouth. She was in my nails, clawing blood from him.

I trembled, my body heaving as if a
thunderstorm grew inside.

My passion mounted, starving and mad.

Then and there, in that moment when
he completely surrendered, lost in my body, I won.

The moment that a man released
himself was only that, a moment, an instant in time where all thought, all
plans and hopes and dreams are lost. In that brilliant, shining moment, he
became open, wild, and free.

In that moment he had no secrets.

As Orin trembled, I let
Ouigiin
’s
strength ebb into him. I devoured his mouth with my own, my tongue delving into
him as the sigil’s passion leapt from my body to his. He tightened suddenly and
then began to scream, convulsing in mind-rending pleasure.

The bond formed between us, a link
woven of silver and red, pleasure and blood.

Everything burned.

In that moment, I saw him, everything
he was, everything he had ever been, everything he had ever done. Orin Devariis
flashed into my mind: Orin the child, Orin the merchant, and yes…

Orin the sorcerer.

Blood dripped from his hands, black
in the candlelight. He read from a yellowed scroll, then took up a knife, and
carved the blasphemous symbol into the woman’s flesh.

She screamed.

“Y Noi! Teh kirim Noi!”

He smiled at her, hard and cruel.
Slowly, he licked the blood from her stomach.

Then, he met my gaze in slow-dawning
realization.

Impossible.

I broke from that moment, my heart
thundering in my chest.

I cast about in his memories, looking
with my mind’s eye. In this moment that stretched back to his birth, I could
learn anything about him, but I wanted to witness only one thing:
further proof of his corruption. How
far did the contagion go? Orin couldn’t be working alone. Impossible. He had
collaborators. I needed proof;
I needed names.

There.

Everything turned brilliant white,
ablaze with flame. Next to a ship,
Moon-keeper,
Orin stood on the docks with two large men.
They loaded their cargo, two score of young women bound in chains and little
else, obscured in the dark of night.

Most were the graceful barbarian
human-kin of the northern wood with their wide, strangely-colored eyes and
delicate ears.

When one of his men leered and
caressed the backside of one of the slave girls, Orin laughed.

“You’ll get enough of her on the
trip, Piotyr.”

The man laughed back and said
something, but I couldn’t make it out.

I took note of Piotyr. The man had
Caed features: blond hair and light eyes. He wore a small, falcon insignia on
his lapel. Unfamiliar with the noble houses in Caedrun, a falcon insignia meant
as much to me as a bear insignia.

What was a noble of Caedrun doing
here? Their country lay far from ours, accessible only by months of hard
travel.

Of course tall-masted Caed ships
docked here regularly, full of tow-headed seamen and traders, but the nobles?

Never.

Most nobles wouldn’t risk an evening
to boredom. Travelers often got injured or caught sick over the route from
Caedrun to Stormhaven. Many a man met his fate on the open waters. No, nobles
didn’t risk the journey.

Still, the man took no offense at
being addressed by his given name, not by his title, thus Piotyr was not such a
high-ranking noble.

He must have been sent by his betters
to oversee this sensitive project. If all went well, he gained favor. If not,
well, his house could stand to lose one minor noble, whose ambition rose above
his ability, with no ill effects.

Yes. This made sense. It explained
how Devariis suddenly had such an influx of gold. He had been selling slave
girls, slipping underneath the guild’s watchdogs. Even the barbarian girls were
human-kin, thus selling them was illegal in all civilized lands.

He used the barbarian girls as
sacrifices, reagents for his sorceries, since no one sought for them here and
escape would mean little for them in an unknown land with a foreign tongue.
This left little doubt.

Sire Mattias had been right.

There were more girls in the ship. He
probably had a small fortune just in this shipment.

Another person, a woman, wore an iron
and obsidian mask…

I pulled myself back. That was
enough.

Orin continued quivering and
trembling as his pleasure swept over him, again and again. His voice had gone
hoarse, and he rambled nonsense. Lost in passion, he had become less man now,
more animal. ‘Lost’ was a good word for it. He had lost his senses, lost
his control. His loving was a mad, crazed thing, never finished. He would never
stop until I released him.

Breathe.

Ouigiin
practically screamed. It was hungry
and had scarcely fed. I hadn’t given Orin all of my Lady’s strength, and I
called on Her now.

Focus. Control.

Sire Mattias and I had
planned on this minor blood bond.
Ouigiin
could create something far
more permanent if required, but I would never want that with Orin. Already,
we would share this
slight bond the rest of our lives. Always I would feel just the slightest
breath of his presence, as if he were just in the other room. His most intense
emotions would color mine; his temperament would provide a unique flavor to my
own.

I would never be just
myself again, but my job was done. I had all I needed.

I again forced myself to
focus and successfully pulled the strength of my
Goddess back.

My body thrashed, humming with
pleasure and power.
Ouigiin
burned with sweetness. The pleasure did not
want to be harnessed, it wanted to course through me, to make me moan and beg
and scream.

No. Not now.

Orin collapsed onto me, breathing
heavily.

“Keiri, I…” His eyes grew wide with amazement.
“I saw…” He was rambling, unknowing of what had happened.

“Sleep, Orin.” I caressed his chest.

“You are wondrous.” He kissed me
again, not the hungry kisses of before, but sweet, tender things. They were the
kind of kisses that a man saves for a woman who is more than a quick roll. They
were kisses that were supposed to tell a woman that she meant something to him.

Orin Devariis would never mean
anything to me, but men often fell in love with Handmaidens.

“Shush now.” I ran my fingers through
his hair. It’s not uncommon for a man to fall for a Handmaiden.

He had no idea of what had happened.

I hoped.

No need for concern. As far as Orin
knew, he’d simply taken an amazingly skilled lover. He laid his head against my
breast, exhausted. His eyes drifted closed.

I held him there as he murmured sweet
lies, of a life that would never be. He nuzzled into me, telling me that my
scent intoxicated, that I was a unique flower in a garden of thorns. He needed
me. He understood that now. Life wouldn’t be complete until I was his.

Yet I had only one thought. After
all, my work here was done.

Now, I must make my escape.

Now to make away.

It should be simple.

Orin soon fell asleep. The touch of
Rydia’s Flame left most men completely exhausted. Even though he hadn’t tasted
Her full fury, he would be difficult to rouse.
He
would sleep longer than normal and awaken ravenous, but most of all he
would remember our loving, a pleasure he would remember for the rest of his
life, an ecstasy he would always yearn for. He would always compare his other
women to me and find them lacking.

And I would never give him that
delight again now that I knew Orin Devariis was a sorcerer. His magic had been
illegal for almost seven centuries. The foul rites he used earned the penalty
of death in all civilized lands.

It was almost impossible to believe.

Lithia, the Headmaiden of our order,
had scoffed at the idea of sorcery within Stormhaven.

“Sorcery was abolished
six-hundred-fifty-nine years ago,” she’d recited as she ran a delicate hand
over the small bookshelf next to her office window. “The Paladins of Michael
scoured the last practitioner from our land and burned all of their manuals:
every grimoire, every tome, down to the last scroll. All destroyed. Even if
heretics wanted to follow the once ways
…
” She
gave a faint shudder. “They could not.”

Lithia had been wrong.

Sorcery had a long and twisted
history in the northern empire. Once, sorcerers of ancient and fell power
enslaved entire races of eldritch peoples, drawing off their natural magics
with rites of torture, pleasure, and pain. These sorcerers had ruled over a
dynasty of a thousand generations before they were finally overthrown.

They had created an aeon of horror
and darkness.

Orin, no doubt, wished to emulate
that legacy.

Tonight’s seduction unveiled the
final piece of the puzzle for Sire Mattias. The formation of a Handmaiden’s
bond was sacrosanct to the temple. No one, not even the Headmaiden, would doubt
any claims I leveled against Orin.

We had everything we needed.

Orin proved the source of human-kin
slaves in Stormhaven. He also used them for his foul rites.

I had evidence enough for the Rydians
to move against Orin, to stop his blasphemy once and for all.

He would be excommunicated from the
House of Pleasure. He would lose his fortune; his name would be purged from all
records and ledgers.

The temple might even execute him.

As he snored, I slowly slipped from
the bed. I gathered my casually tossed clothing as quickly as I could. Naked, I
moved quietly, graceful like a hart.

“You’re not leaving, little whore.”

I froze in place at the words. They
were strangely sibilant, a whisper in the shadows of Orin’s room.

Play the part. Be what they expect.

I stammered just the smallest bit.
“I—I need to make water.” I peered through the shadows, trying to see the
speaker. “You don’t think I’m—”

“Your lies will do no good, Keiri. I
know who you are. I know why you are here.”

There. I caught the slightest motion
in the doorway.

“I’m here for Orin.” I stepped
backward, toward the bed.

“Orin will be the last fool you
cozen.”

I heard the whisper of drawing steel
as the shadowed figure stepped forward. The candles in the room flared slightly
as my heart pounded in my chest.

“Please.” I uttered that single word
in a mewled whisper, the epitome of helplessness. In actuality, my mind raced.
Hadn’t there been a second door—?

“Quiet.” The whisper was sharp. “I am
not fooled, Handmaiden.” He stepped forward again. Now, in the flickering
candlelight, I could see the shadowed cowl of his cloak. “Silence now, and I
will send you to the painless blanket of death.” The metal of his long knife
gleamed in the candlelight.

Finding no way around him, I made my
eyes hard.

“No.” Power, pleasure, and pain sang
through my body.

Sire Mattias had prepared me well.
I’d spent hours in his bed before I came to Orin. Sire Mattias played my desire
like a lute, sculpted my passions like an artisan. As a result, I come to Orin
with sigils full of my Lady’s desire.

Inside me, Her Passion raged like a
river.

Briefly, the
Karas
sigil
flashed with warm delight. Then, in answering call, the candles of the room all
flared as one, so bright as to be almost blinding.

I saw his face.

He was no man.

Pale skin gleamed beneath the hood,
deathly white. Black veins ran beneath the surface, and his eyes gleamed a
hellish red in the light. The smug curve to his lip gave way as the candle
flames leapt upward.

He was a horror.

“No!” This time, I laced the word
with Rydia’s power. I released all control I held and focused on the
Karas
sigil. It burned, my Lady’s Fire singing within it.

The candles grew brighter, hotter.
Orin’s drapes caught aflame. On the bookshelf, the flames grew so hot that a
sheaf of paper smoldered until fire burst forth, creating a plume of black
smoke.

He leapt at me with a wordless snarl,
swinging his blade.

I dodged backward, still holding my
clothing underneath my arm. I stumbled onto the bed, falling squarely against
Orin’s face. He mumbled and rolled away.

“Fire, Orin! Wake up!” I slapped at
him, scrabbling across the bed to get away from the not-man. Now, the bed and
Orin lay between the two of us; and the room was quickly catching ablaze.

“We’re not through, Handmaiden.” The
not-man whispered, still sibilant and bladed. “Not by a long stride. Your Sire
has been toying with things best left alone.” He stepped backward through the
door, out of the range of the firelight. “Stay inside. Burn.” He paused. “If
the flames do not claim you, I will. Fire will be a more pleasant death than
any I offer you now.” The shadows swallowed him whole, as if he were part of
them.

“Keiri?” Orin coughed, glancing about
in confusion. The smoke must have roused him. “What—?”

It was unfortunate. Much of our
problems might have been solved if the man had burned.

Play the part.

“We have to go, Orin! One of the
candles must have—!”

He sat full up now.

“Oh!” Fear leapt across his face. He
gave me one long, odd look. Then the fire flared, and he began to move. Orin
stood and began to grab at his clothing.

“No time for that!” I dragged him
from the room. Orin stumbled toward the darkened doorway, coughing from the
smoke.

No cloaked not-man awaited us in the
hall. We made our way into the open air without threat of whispering assailants
or glittering knives.

No sight or sign, he had simply left.

The night outside felt blessedly
cool. In the distance, I could hear the yelling of Orin’s bondsmen and the
clanging of a fire-bell. I collapsed onto the grass. The earth was soothing
underneath my bare skin, and the stars sang overhead.

I could still imagine those hellish,
scarlet eyes, watching me.

I needed to get back to the temple.