Page 23

CHAPTER 23

I t was a sound that woke her, soft and hard.

The sound of steel sliding against stone, over and over again.

Rona yawned and stretched beneath the covers.

She could not remember the last time she had woken feeling so refreshed.

Sore, to be sure, and dirty too.

The scent of sex still clung to her skin, and the taste of three men still lingered on her tongue.

They had passed her around for hours, sharing her body for their common pleasure.

By the end of it, she’d been little more than a ragdoll, a limp and lifeless toy for the Mercs to use however they saw fit.

And use her, they had.

Oh God, how they had used her.

It must have been close to midnight when Rona had finally fallen asleep, and it was the deepest and most satisfying sleep she had ever experienced in her life.

It should not have been that way.

She should have been up all night, wide awake with anxiety about what had happened, and what the consequences would be.

The Mercs had impregnated her.

Of that, Rona had no doubt.

She was knocked up, and her life was never going to be the same.

And yet…

She didn’t feel anxious about it.

At least, she hadn’t felt anxious last night when she had drifted off to sleep.

On the contrary, she’d felt totally safe and secure, surrounded by the three deadliest men she had ever met, her body stained and dripping with their seed.

But where were those men now, she wondered.

When she reached out her hands to touch them, her fingers only found an empty bed.

That sound again. Steel and stone.

Stone and steel.

Shhhk…

Shhhk… Shhhk…

Rona threw back the covers and sat up, not caring that she was naked.

Her eyes went to the corner of the room, where a massive figure was kneeling in front of a table.

He was fully dressed in his tactical vest and pants, and his long golden locks were pulled back in a neat ponytail.

Before him on the table stood a small, ornate diptych representing the Pantokrator and Theotokos, and a single tealight candle.

“Zeth?”

“Don’t bother him,” a voice said from the other side of the room.

“He’s praying.”

It was Murdok.

The big Merc was sitting at a table by the window, working.

His back was to Rona, so she couldn’t see what he was doing, but she knew he was the source of the sound.

Shhhk… Shhhk… Shhhk…

Rona wrapped the sheets around her body and climbed off the bed, pulling the excess fabric behind her like the train of a royal gown.

She walked over to where Murdok was sitting.

His shirt was off, and Rona was able to see his back for the first time.

His bulging muscles were covered in scars.

Some of them looked like battle wounds, but most of them seemed to be deliberate patterns, like the ones on his cock.

Rona’s pussy clenched as she remembered how good he had felt moving inside her, how his monstrous, scarred member had made her come over and over again.

Instinctively, she reached a hand out to touch him, but she pulled it back at the last moment.

“It’s alright,” Murdok said without turning around.

“You can touch ’em.”

Rona froze.

“How… how did you know?”

“I’ve got eyes in the back of my head,” he answered.

“And I’m keepin’ ’em wide open around your stabby little ass.”

Rona almost scowled at that, but she realized with a touch of surprise that she didn’t really feel like scowling.

Instead, she reached out and ran her fingers over the thick muscles of Murdok’s back.

She used to think she’d had a hard life.

Now, feeling all those hard, deep scars, she wasn’t so sure.

Shhhk… Shhhk… Shhhk…

“What are you working on?”

She leaned forward and peered over the Merc’s brawny shoulder.

A dirty rag had been spread across the surface of the table, and on top of the rag sat an assortment of whetstones and a small bottle of honing oil.

Murdok was using the finest of the stones to put the finishing touches on the blade of a knife.

Her knife.

She watched as Murdok gave the blade a few final strokes, then he held it up to the light and tested the edge with his thumb.

“Not quite as good as new,” he said.

“Had to grind the blade down to bring the point back.”

He tossed the knife and caught it deftly by the blade.

Then he offered it to Rona, handle first. She took it and studied the blade.

The last time she’d seen it, the tip had been broken off from when she’d tried to stab Zeth.

Now, the point had been restored.

The overall length of the blade was slightly shorter than before, but the difference was barely noticeable.

She felt the dull throb of tears behind her eyes, and it took all of her willpower to hold them back.

“You did this… for me?” she asked.

Murdok nodded.

“Why?”

“Because you’re a crazy little bitch who likes to start shit, and you need a good knife to protect yourself.”

“I ought to stab you for that,” she said with a smile.

Murdok smiled back. “Make my day.”

At the other side of the room, Zeth murmured something under his breath, blew out the tealight, and stood up.

He folded the diptych and placed it inside one of the pockets of his vest. When he saw Rona and Murdok, he smiled.

“Good morning.”

“Morning,” Rona replied.

“I didn’t realize you were so religious.”

Beside her, Murdok snorted.

“You kiddin’? He’s an Almalexian. They’re all superstitious as hell.”

“I take it you don’t pray,” Rona said.

Murdok looked genuinely hurt.

“Course I do. But I pray to my dead ancestors like a normal fucking person.”

Zeth chuckled softly.

“The problem with that,” he said, “is that my ancestors aren’t particularly forgiving. And after what I did last night, I am in dire need of forgiveness.”

“Why?” Rona asked.

“You think what we did was a sin?”

Zeth smiled mysteriously.

“I wasn’t talking about that.”

He walked over to where Rona was standing and kissed her deeply on the mouth.

It felt so good, she almost dropped the sheets she had bundled around her body.

“Better be careful,” Murdok said.

“She’s got her knife back.”

“I see that,” said Zeth.

“Which reminds me… I also have a gift for you, Rona.”

He took the knife out of her hand and set it back down on the table.

Then he took something out of his pocket and pressed it into her palm.

Something small, hard, and smooth.

“What’s this?” Rona asked.

“Take a look,” said Zeth.

Rona looked.

And screamed.

She dropped the thing and jumped back, shaking her hand as if to rid it of some nonexistent slime.

The thing landed on the carpet and lay there, staring up at her.

“Zeth, that’s a fucking eye!”

“Well,” he said, “an artificial eye.” He picked it up off the carpet and held it up in front of his own eye.

“Look familiar?”

“No,” Rona said.

“Why would it look familiar? I don’t know anyone with an artificial—”

She stopped.

And looked closer.

The blood went cold in her veins.

Whoever the artisan had been, they’d done an amazing job.

Not only had they gotten the color right—a dark, dirty shade of green—but they’d captured something of the man’s soul as well.

The greed. The violence.

The utter lack of concern for any human being besides himself.

“Tulliver,” Rona breathed.

Still holding the false eye up in front of his real one, Zeth beamed a smile.

“The one and only,” he said.

“You stole Tulliver’s glass eye?”

“Among other things,” the Merc said with a shrug.

“I could have brought you a different souvenir, but I feared you might find it a little disturbing. Based on your reaction to the eye, I think I made the right decision.”

“A different souve—” Rona stopped.

“No. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.” She looked at Zeth hard and deep.

“You killed him, didn’t you?”

“I did.”

“You fucking killed Tulliver.”

“I fucking killed Tulliver.”

She started to ask how the hell Zeth had even found the man, but she already knew the answer to that.

Tulliver’s name was known all over Jeriko.

He wouldn’t be hard to find, especially for a trained killer like Zeth.

She pushed past him and started to pace up and down the room, still clutching the sheets around her naked body.

“Is something wrong, Rona?”

“Wrong? Wrong? I’ve barely known you guys for one day. Last night, I mentioned something in passing about a man who tried to assault me. Then, a few hours later, you tracked him down, murdered him, and cut his eyeball out… as a gift?”

Zeth and Murdok looked at each other for a moment, then nodded.

Rona stared in disbelief.

“You’re insane,” she whispered.

“Completely fucking insane.”

“Well, what do you expect?” said a voice from the other side of the room.

“We kill people for a living. Of course we’re insane.”

It was Aeron.

The lead Merc was leaning in the bathroom door, drying his hair with a towel and looking like pure sex on a stick.

He was making no attempt to hide his nakedness, nor did he have any reason to.

Even when flaccid, his cock was still longer and thicker than most men’s erections.

Rona’s whole body throbbed at the sight of him.

He was right, of course.

It all made perfect sense.

These three men were killers, born and bred.

They ended people’s lives for a living, and they were good at it.

Maybe even the best. It was only logical that they would be crazy, at least by everyone else’s standards.

And apparently some of that crazy had started to rub off on Rona, because the more she thought about it, the more she realized she loved the Mercs’ gifts.

Murdok’s gift of steel, and Zeth’s gift of murder.

Maybe they’d shot so much of their DNA inside her that it had permanently scrambled her brain or something.

Or maybe what she was feeling now had been there all along, just waiting for one night of brutal affection to jar it loose.

“So,” Rona said, “what about you?”

Aeron finished drying his hair and tossed his towel over the arm of a chair.

“What about me?” he asked.

“Well, Murdok and Zeth both gave me gifts this morning. Aren’t you going to give me something too?”

Aeron smirked.

“I seem to recall giving you a few free shares of stock.”

“That was yesterday,” Rona said.

“I’m talking about right now.”

She let go of the sheets she’d been using to cover herself, and the smooth satin whispered to the floor, exposing her body for all three men to see.

In front of her, Aeron’s naked cock went from hanging to hard in the space of two heartbeats.

Rona sat back onto the bed and opened her legs as wide as she could spread them, letting him see how ready she was—how wet, how open.

“Now, I’m going to ask you again,” she said sweetly.

“What gift do you have for me this morning?”