“You used us as bait?!” Astrid snarled, looking up at Ryouka defiantly, already sweating in the morning warmth. “Yes. And…should I feel bad about that? Because I won’t, not even a little,” Ryouka said, having a good, mocking laugh at Astrid’s expense. “That’s what dumb animals are good for, don’t you think?” The warrior could only snarl and glare, then jerked at the heavy chains that bound her...
Samira’s eyes opened slowly in the darkness of the chieftain’s bedchamber, though she was careful to keep her breathing slow and steady. Her ears twitched again, having awakened her moments before. Something subtle but distinct in the distance, echoing through the caverns. Shouting, the clash of steel on steel. So, it had begun. Still bound with the ropes after the orc chieftain had used her...
Was it over? There hadn’t been any fresh pain in a while, and the cavern too had been silent for several minutes. Astrid groaned, daring to try to move, and found the ropes were just as tight as ever, even those accursed bindings around her breasts. The heat of the sun overhead had faded, a coolness starting to settle in from above. Evening must have finally fallen in this hellish, gods forsaken...
“My luck has been absolute shit since getting dragged into this mess,” Bekksie thought, gnawing uselessly at the wooden bit between her teeth. The wood felt like it was hard as a rock! Her fingers ached from the way they’d been tied, as did her arms and legs, and she was basting in sweat inside the stout sack the bandits had stuffed her in. “What’s the big deal? One little cut and this guy has it...
“You need not keep your secret from me, my dear Astrid. I know what thoughts drive you, deep down. You are a woman, after all, beneath all of that warrior’s bravado. Why run from your true nature? Why continue to struggle against what you are?” Astrid shook her head, biting down on the thick ring that had been wedged between her teeth and secured there with a leather strap around her head. The...
“Wouldn’t it be better to travel at night, out of this accursed sun?” Astrid snarled as she settled the last of the wine casks into the wagon, having no trouble hefting them given her brutish nature. She stepped back and wiped sweat from her face, flung it off her hands onto the packed stones at her feet, just off the dock. Galvaera, beyond fed up with her situation as it was, had little patience...
The morning sun was still low over the width of the Su’Ra River, and dozens of vessels crowded the invisible and rarely obeyed lanes of travel as they moved in and out of Kifu’Nemhat, the steady winds blowing in from the Sobe’kaimun Sea making travel upriver a mostly painless affair. Usually. Already the shimmer of heat on the far horizon to the south formed, the day’s scorching heat already well...
Epilogue – Boredom and Boardings Shi instinctively tried to stretch as she awoke, but found that she was just as tightly restrained as she was the last time she had risen from her catnap. She opened her eyes, found only darkness once more, wiggled her ears, heard only the muted, faint hum of the ship’s power core and engines through the rubber plugs in her ears, then sighed around the big...
Chapter 10 – Warm Embrace Wiping sweat from her brow, feeling the Seal-Tech spreading upward over the curve of her breasts and downward over her pubic mound, Shi drew her big boy once again, thumbing the hammer to half-cock and rolled the cylinder. “This corridor…it’s straight above the lower decks’ central corridor, right? Nothing vital between here and the engineering level? Not that...
Chapter 9 – A Mad Dash for Freedom Shi heard the squeak of expanding rubber at the same time as something dark suddenly loomed behind Briar, shaped vaguely like a spacesuit. Instinctively, Shi modified the flow of her magic in her mind, pulling the flames from her left hand. Shi grabbed Briar’s recently cleared arm and pulled him behind her as Shi willed the remaining fire to erupt from...