Page 65 of Joy Guardian

“Hey!” Malis jumped on my back, pressing a blade to my neck. “Get off him or I’ll cut you!”

It was hardly a warning because her weapon had already pierced my skin just under my gold collar. Blood splashed on my chest. Releasing Gefred, I grabbed Malis and dragged her off my back.

She hissed, like a venomous snake, trying to bite me while wielding a sharpened strip of some cheap metal she used as a weapon. Lucky for me, Malis’s makeshift knife was not made from iron. The cut on my neck stung but wasn’t lethal.

Spitting out sand, Gefred rolled aside, then climbed to his feet. Malis slinked out of my grip and joined him. Both glared at me.

“Why would I take your fucking woman when I have my own?” Gefred spat at me, then wrapped an arm around Malis proudly, pulling her into a side hug. “Thanks for helping, my stinger.”

“Sure.” She shrugged.

I wiped off the blood dripping from the cut on my neck. The wound wasn’t serious, but the fight, as short as it’d been, had taken a toll on my diminished strength. With my hands on my knees, I bent over, trying to catch my breath.

Malis elbowed Gefred. “Let’s get his bag and run.”

“Wait,” I spoke through the pain that zigzagged through me like lightning from every open wound where my tendrils used to be. “I have to know… Who are the people who took her? I need to get her back. I…I love her,” I finally named the feeling that had been consuming me all this time. It had elated me when Ciana was with me, but now threatened to crush and devastate me with the loss of her. “I can’t lose her, or I’ll lose everything.”

“The poor fellow is in love.” Malis gazed at me with compassion.

Gefred grunted, scratching behind his ear. “Are Joy Guardians even allowed to fall in love?”

“Does one ever plan for it? Or need permission?” I asked.

“True. Well… How are we supposed to know who took your woman? We just got here. Was she not with you when it happened?”

“Could they be that guy’s buddies who did it?” Malis pointed at a bump in the sand in the distance.

I recognized the bump as the body of the man whose throat I’d slit. With the sun now setting and the storm gone, I could see a steady stream of shadows rising into the air as the corpse had begun to decompose.

“I believe so, yes.” I nodded.

Gefred spat into the sand at his feet. “If that is so, I don’t envy you, Joy Guardian. Those men are a brutal bunch.”

“What do you mean? Who are they?”

Malis made a face of disgust. “Thieves, vagabonds, murderers, and such. People who don’t belong to any place and don’t follow any laws. But why would they take your woman?”

Gefred squinted at me suspiciously. “Yeah, what do they need a woman for? She’d just be another mouth to feed. They wouldn’t bother stealing anyone unless they can benefit from it somehow.”

I trusted no one. I certainly wasn’t going to tell these two desert thugs all about Ciana.

“I don’t care why they took her,” I said. “I just want her back.”

“Well, unless you have an army, you’ll be killed if you go after them. I’m surprised they haven’t killed you already,” Malis dismissed.

“How many of them are there?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Who knows?”

“A lot,” Gefred said. “And more are joining them, now that they’ve got Joy Vessels.”

“They have Joy Vessels?” I remembered what Oria told me about the humans stolen from Prince Rha’ssarai.

“Yeah, didn’t you know?” Gefred asked. “A bunch of humans escaped thesaraiin Teneris, thinking they’d just go back home, but pleasure traders caught them.”

“Pleasure traders?” I repeated, confused.

“That’s what they are,” Malis pointed out, “since they want to sell the pleasure of the Joy Vessels to anyone who pays.”

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