Page 33 of Warrioress

“Well, Laro was obviously torn up, and Kam was struck whenever opportunity presented itself. How were you punished?”

Vrin swallowed thickly. “I was struck and suffered from her bites and claws like Laro did, but with less frequency and less intent to do permanent damage. But her favorite way to punish me was to make sure that I felt no pleasure. She inflicted pain on me while forcing me to give her pleasure until I could no longer find any pleasure at all without that pain. It made me sick inside because I hated her for wanting to hurt me even as I came to need that pain.”

“Fuck, I’m sorry I asked,” Uma groaned.

Her arms came around him and he startled as they tightened in a hug. She was... reassuring him! Vrin buried his muzzle against her hair and breathed her in, relishing the moment. Laro had been right. They had needed this more than he realized.

“Now you bare your scars,” he rasped. He felt her hand go up to her face, but he caught it in his and leaned his head in closer to brush the soft fur of his muzzle against the scars on her face. “The scars in your heart, though I am sure they are linked.”

She took a shuddering breath and nodded. “They are. It is not a pretty story, one I try not to think about, but I suppose fair is fair.”

His ears pricked attentively but he never loosened his grip nor lifted his head. He wanted her to be surrounded by comfort while she opened her heart to them. He had a feeling that what she had born had left scars far deeper than her flesh.

Chapter 24

They wanted her to bare everything. Uma’s stomach clenched. Unlike the Ragoru, her scars were a result of her own stupidity. Everything that had happened had been her fault. The death of her family had been her fault. She knew that, and her sole surviving brother knew that.

If the gods had been just at all, she would have died with them. It had been Renny who had found her and dragged her home to nurse her back to health. It had been Renny who had given her something to live for again by giving her a focus for her anger and need for both retribution and pay back her debts to the dead.

She had been stupid. Young and in love, and far too trusting despite her father’s warnings about many of the huntsmen. He had become suspicious of the order in later years and the cruelty that he saw and heard of from her two brothers enlisted with them.

“I suppose you didn’t miss the fact that my family has a long relationship with the Order of Huntsmen,” she said at last, and three shifts in the shadows that she could make out looked enough like nods that she decided to take it as that. “It’s true. The hereditary trade of my family is that of blacksmiths along my mother’s line. My mother, who was the last of her line due to a fire in the citadel when she was a child that took most of her family from her aside from her father who managed to carry her to safety, was a blacksmith. She then trained my father when he married into the family.”

She smiled in spite herself at recollecting the way her father had told this story, the way he had smiled as if it had all been an amusing thing orchestrated by the gods. He had never been ashamed of breaking tradition. Unfortunately, that didn’t keep his sons from succumbing to their pressure and returning to it. Her smile slipped and fell away as the faces of her brothers rose in her mind’s eye. Frank and Will. Gods, how she missed them.

“His family was closely linked to the Order, and most men were expected to become huntsmen. As the only male born to his father, he was expected to join upon reaching age of maturity, but he defied them to become a blacksmith.” Her smile faintly returned for a moment. “He said that he couldn’t bear to be parted from my mother for weeks or months at a time in service to the Order, but his family never quite forgave him for it. As children we never quite understood why, since the Order was made out to be a glamorous life. My two oldest brothers, with the pressure and encouragement of my father’s family, signed on as soon as they were old enough. I almost signed on myself except that I saw that I would not enjoy the sort of career that they would and declined. But there was a huntsman... Huntsman Drake.”

Vrin grunted sourly, his breath huffing into her hair. She bit back a smile. Someone sounded a little jealous.

“This huntsman was desirable?” Kam asked in tone dripping with disbelief. “A huntsman? A filthy huntsman?” He shuddered and made a sound of disgust. “Every huntsman we ever encountered had reeked of filth, breeding, and numerous different scents entwined with his of the females he rutted.”

Kam proceeded to make a retching sound that brought a chuckle to Uma’s lips.

“That actually sounds like a fair description of many of them when they return to the citadel, though I didn’t know about the women part.” She made a face. How revolting! She was never so glad that she had never actually caved to the pressure from Drake to sleep with him. “But yes, Drake was considered a very good catch among the huntsmen. He was an elite huntsman, highly skilled and considered something of a hero in the citadel. I don’t recall ever hearing him defeating Ragoru, and in retrospect I am sure that he wouldn’t have gone through the sort of trouble to hunt one, but he was well known for clearing out dangerous predators afflicting different regions of the Western Continent. He was a bit of a celebrity, especially with his good looks. Tall, muscular, and possessing both a handsome face and a deep voice, he could have easily had any woman he wanted.”

“And he wanted you,” Vrin growled, guessing correctly.

She nodded and shifted forward to rest her head against his chest. His cheek and muzzle were no longer brushing the top of her head, and she stilled for a moment, surprised at how much she noticed their absence. She was tempted to shift back but the steady, powerful beat of his heart beneath her ear was so soothing. As was the heat of his body enveloping her further. She only had to wait a few heartbeats, however, and somehow he had bent his head to brush his muzzle against the top of her head once more. Uma smiled against his chest. She wasn’t sure how he was holding his neck at that angle without developing a crick but at that moment she just appreciated it.

“He did,” she agreed. “At first I thought it was because he was within the same ranks as my older brother Frank. They had studied and trained together and worked their way through the ranks at the same time. I didn’t realize at that time that his reasoning was a lot more tactical.”

Kam stiffened behind her, his claws settling to grip urgently on her thigh. It was as if he were holding onto her desperately in order to control his anger. “He pursued mating with you for false reasons?”

Uma turned her head to peer in his direction. Was that a threatening tone she heard in his voice? If she wasn’t mistaken, he sounded genuinely affronted by the idea.

“He pursued me because he was ordered to,” she replied bluntly, her stomach souring with anger. She had thought time would have dissipated it some, but it was still a fresh wound on her heart. “His superior put it in motion, but Drake arranged to meet me through his connection with my brother. He played the charming suitor in order to keep an eye on my parents who were commissioned to handle a lot of custom, and often secret, work for the Order.”

“They believed your sire betrayed them,” Laro rumbled.

A faint smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “My parents were honorable, so their ‘betrayal’ of the huntsmen only demonstrated how corrupt and vile they had become. My parents received instructions to engineer a weapon that would be capable of killing a Ragoru with one blow based off some of the research designs that Drake had found in their workshop.”

She shook her head, still unable to believe that he managed that without anyone knowing. “The Order had believed for some time that my parents were withholding their research and only giving them what they decided to offer. This was why they sent in Drake—and he delivered, although we hadn’t realized it at the time. When the new orders came in, my father refused. That refusal signed his death warrant. My brother Will had overheard and sent me a secret message to get our family out of the citadel. It was smuggled to me by an old family friend in a public place in the old town sector where I was attending class. He had it delivered to me there intentionally since he knew that our parents were being watched. He had depended on me to follow through. He had arranged for us to meet him at a disclosed place. He had intended to take us to the primitive landscape of the southern continent where the Order wouldn’t track us.”

“And the Order found out.” Laro’s large hand reached around Kam to grip her shoulder and squeeze with sympathy.

Uma swallowed back the tears she felt welling up and nodded. “I was stupid,” she choked. “I never guessed that Drake was the one who had betrayed them. I trusted him with my heart and my life. And I was afraid of falling into the Order’s hands before we made it out. Drake was the only one I trusted. I immediately went to him and asked him to help me get my family out to the meeting place. I told him everything and showed him Will’s letter.”

“He betrayed you,” Vrin cut in with a snarl. “I will skin him alive and pull out his bowels while he watches.”

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