Vassal by Sterling D'Este (ebook reader computer TXT) 📕

Her lips parted in a cunning smile, eyes bright as they came back to Va'al. “I see your annoying lover isn’t here… Perhaps you’d like to choose another?” Her meaning was clear. Seduce Moaz’s human, enrage the beast.

Have some fun.

⚀

Va'al followed Enyo’s gaze, his eyebrows lifting. Maoz wove through the crowd with his little lover trailing behind. As if he thought her some great trophy rather than just another mortal, easy to seduce.

Moaz was ever so protective of his little mortal propagators.

He’d been thinking too small.

Va'al smiled in appreciation at the nature Goddess. “Enyo, you do have the most delightful ideas. I was feeling rather like some mortal flesh now that I think of it.”

The girl would be no issue. The swell of her belly already proved that she had a weakness for divine lovers.

And really, what mortal didn’t?

Va'al’s face creased in a malicious grin. “Will you do me the honor of distracting our beastly friend?”

❂

“Must I do everything?” She complained, turning on her heel to weave through the crowds. Quickly Enyo found herself before Maoz, who was gulping down a massive tankard of wine.

“Maoz,” she greeted. He turned yellow eyes on her and nodded. Such a poet, that Hunter God.

Enyo suppressed an exasperated sigh. He really wasn’t going to make this easy. Her gaze flickered over to his pregnant human. He held her tightly by the wrist. Possessive, not ‘loving,’ though she doubted the human understood.

“I was wondering if you had any suggestions for today’s sacrifice. I see you brought a human of your own…” He bristled and shoved the female behind himself, creating a shield of flesh between Enyo and his lover.

As if that’d stop her if she really wanted the woman. Pregnant females had such rich blood too…

“I do not,” he replied.

How did he get so many females, when he could barely string three words together?!

“None at all? What about a wildman from the mountain tribes? Or one of the children born in the whispering meadows? I do love how they cry… Their tears are like starlight, are they not?”

⚀

Va'al slipped in beside Moaz’s mortal lover just as he pushed her behind him. Always so rough, Moaz. The brute.

By contrast, Va'al laid his open palm gently against her shoulder, resting a finger across his lips to indicate silence. He leaned in close, his mouth beside her ear. “Come, sweet one. I have a gift for you.” He smiled warmly and beckoned to her even as he stepped back.

The girl seemed mesmerized, possibly because of the wild nature of the festival. Her eyes followed Va'al, though, still she hesitated, glancing back at Moaz speaking to Enyo.

“Look at how easily he forgets about you,” Va'al crooned. “Already, he fawns over the nature Goddess.”

The girl looked back, forlorn. Silly woman. Maoz would leave as soon as the halfbreed was born anyway.

“Come, lovely.” Va'al kept up his sing-song whisper, careful to keep it away from the Hunter’s ears. “I have something for you, something only you deserve.”

Gradually, she stepped towards him, her mind echoing with the thoughts Va'al put there. She was special. Moaz did not deserve her. She wanted Va'al and his gifts.

They wended away from the party and into the shadows.

Chapter XXVI

Eighth Moon, Waxing Crescent: Thloegr

The first night away from the others, Etienne was plagued with beautiful dreams. They weren’t especially grand; no gold or silver or stunning mountain vistas. He did not visit a palace or fall in love.

Instead, Etienne dreamed of his own past.

He fell asleep to quiet images of studying with Alphonse or talking in the Moxous garden or just looking up from a dusty tome to find a cup of tea steaming quietly at his elbow.

And in the morning, he awoke alone.

The entire first day heading down the mountain, Etienne’s own arguments had repeated themselves in his head. He was physically hot from anger, his skin flushed despite the cold. The farther he went, the less articulate his internal monologue became until he was repeating the same phrase again and again.

Alphonse is dead. Alphonse is dead. Alphonse is dead… 

Now, with the dawn, he had cooled. There seemed to be more air away from the others. He could breathe. He could think.

And he almost wished that he could go back to the blind heat of the day before.

There was a blade poised just above his heart so that with every bulging pump, the muscle kissed the razor edge. He named the knife Guilt and walked rather than touch it, fearing the accountability behind the steel.

Alphonse was dead. There was nothing he could do.

Even if it was his fault.

Still, Etienne had never felt more a coward. His back was turned to the danger in Thlonandras, to the likelihood of Enyo being unleashed on an unsuspecting world.

To the final destruction of his oldest friend.

While he, the one who had started this by summoning Enyo in the first place, could just turn away. Save himself. The others were lost anyway.

He crossed his arms over his chest—more for comfort than for anything else. He hardly felt the cold. No amount of reasoning would stay his heart, would keep it from spilling its own blood on the blade he’d placed above it. Maybe with time, it would form a callus, grow thick and hard beneath the cutting edge, but Etienne thought it just as likely that it would bleed forever, coating his lungs and ribs and tissue and bone in the red that belonged to veins.

He would never be able to live with this, the knowledge that he had left his friend in her darkest moment. Even if all was lost. Even if there was nothing to do to save her.

Because if there was something to be done to stop this, no one else could do it. He alone had read the book of summoning. He alone knew how to bind Enyo.

And if that could not be done, then he should pay the consequences, not Alphonse.

This was his mistake.

No one had ever cared