Page 61 of Rage

Blood and Pleasure

By: Rianne Burnett

Chapter One

Sweat dripped into her eyes and Batya blinked it away quickly. She’d taught herself to ignore the sting. Inside, she cursed her teacher for confiscating her headband.

He claimed there were no headbands in the war. She knew he was wrong. She’d seen the videos that the government often tried to hide. The blurry, gruesome, bloody ones that lurked on the Dark Web.

She bobbed and parried with ease, nicking her opponent’s shoulder. A thin but steady trickle of blood ran down his arm. To his credit, Slade grimaced but barely slowed his pace.

‘Batya the Bloody’ – that was the nickname she’d earned from consistently drawing the blood of her opponents. Of course, other women had joined their ranks since, but none were as feared or savage as her.

Slade pushed forward, his blade singing as he aimed for her stomach. Batya shifted easily to the side and slammed it away with her energy shield. When he lost his balance, she brought her blade to his throat.

Everyone went quiet as she pressed the blade into his copper-hued skin. Batya could almost hear her classmates’ hearts thundering. They expected her to live up to her name.

Not this time.

When she withdrew her blade, Slade finally swallowed the flood of spit that had filled his mouth. His lips parted but she didn’t give him a chance to speak. It would have been nothing but inane platitudes, anyway. He wouldn’t mean any of it.

Instead, Batya sheathed her sword and re-joined her waiting classmates. The teacher nodded at her before addressing the class.

“Well done, Batya. You will all do well to train as hard as she does. Otherwise, you’ll never get to fight for your country.”

Batya returned his nod with a tight smile. He was right about how hard she trained but she didn’t just want to fight for her country. She wanted to fight with Castille the Butcher.

The government denied he existed but Batya knew better. His name was spoken in whispers like the bogeyman. She had done her research - fact, fiction, and fairy tales.

Everything said that soldiers didn’t join Castille’s squadron – they were chosen right from this very school. But only if they stood out. And even in the sweltering heat, clad in the same ebony black uniform as everyone else, Batya always stood out.

If what she’d read was right, she’d be approached just after graduation. It was the ideal time. It was after her teachers stopped caring about what she was doing with her life and before she signed up for the government militia.

Three days. That’s what her time had been whittled down to. After as many years in military training, it wasn’t that long. And yet, somehow, it felt like forever.

Chapter Two

Her mobile phone pinged and she checked the message.

Are we still on for tonight?

Batya rolled her eyes. Sebastian knew she would have let him know if she was interested in having sex tonight and yet he insisted on checking in. Fortunately for him, he’d caught her in the right mood.

Yes. You have an hour. Be on time.

She was far from sex-crazed but she recognized that the act was a necessary part of her life. It gave her a way to release the pent up energy that training didn’t handle. Orgasms could be just as addictive as a good fight.

An hour later, Sebastian was in her room – a broad smile lighting up his dark brown eyes. It was by far his best feature and he knew it, too. Batya had never known anyone to be so happy to see her and it was exactly what she was trying to avoid by having a changing roster of lovers.

They’d talked about how nobody was supposed to get attached but Sebastian was clearly having trouble keeping that promise. Didn’t he know that relationships didn’t survive once school was over? In some cases, former school mates didn’t see each other again for decades.

The galaxy was too vast for those kinds of constraints.

“So how were your classes today?” he asked as he shrugged his jacket off.

“No, we’re not doing that.”

Batya stripped off her shirt and bra. The sight of her bare, full breasts silenced Sebastian. Nodding, he pulled his shirt off and made quick work of all his other clothes.

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