Spirits of the Earth: The Complete Series: (A Post-Apocalyptic Series Box Set: Books 1-3) by Milo Fowler (paper ebook reader .TXT) 📕

atop the sheets, her legs closed for now. Her abdomen swells outward, carrying my child. Her clothing has been discarded across what once was the ceiling of this room. “Did you miss me?” She gives me a broad smile and a wink.

“You dare to mock me in this moment?” Both of my hands have tightened into fists. My eyes dart from the youth to my wife, sizing up the situation as best as I can. So young, both of them. Young and foolish. I should have expected as much. “If it were not for my unborn child within you, I would break your neck without a thought, woman.”

“That’s likely so.” She sighs, rubbing the palm of her hand across her belly. “Lucky for me then, isn’t it?”

“You—” I face Lemuel. “Speak up! Whatever words you say will be your last.”

He shudders mutely, staring at Victoria for help.

“Oh, let him be. My back aches all the time now, and he has such strong hands.” She slides her thighs against each other and gives me a direct look. “I have needs. And Lemuel is here for me when you are not.”

“So this has happened before.” I take a step toward the boy and watch him cower. There will soon be nothing left of you but blood and broken bones!

“No—Lord Cain—I didn’t—!”

“Stop your babbling!” I roar.

Victoria laughs, tossing back her head.

I turn my seething gaze on her. “You disgust me. This many months with child, yet you cavort like a common whore.”

“Didn’t seem to bother you before you made me your wife.”

My arm swoops down and strikes her hard across the mouth. Her head whips to the side, golden tresses flying. Fury kindles in her eyes, even as a thick line of blood trails from her broken lip.

“Hold your tongue, or I will cut it out,” I whisper into her ear, clutching a handful of her hair at the scalp. “You don’t have to be entirely in one piece when you birth my son. You just have to be alive.” I throw her back onto the bed and bear down on the lad, cornering him. “Which is more than I can say for you.”

Lemuel doesn’t seem to know whether to cover himself or fend off the impending blows. More than likely, there will be only one. I will lay him out with a fist to the face, breaking his nose and shoving the fragments of it up into his brain. Or I will tear the youth’s head from his shoulders and mount it on the gate outside. Or rip his limbs off, one at a time.

I have so many options.

“Please, Lord Cain—please, listen to me—” he begs.

“There is nothing I want to hear but your screams. I have been patient with you, no matter what others have said. Justus and the chieftains see you as a worthless pup, but I fed you at my table. And this is the thanks I get? You go behind my back to bed my pregnant wife?” I grimace, cursing. “It is obscene!”

I lunge for Lemuel then, pinning him easily by the throat and squeezing, lifting him up along the wall, raising him to eye level. He claws at my grip in vain, his legs dangling.

“You won’t be needing these again.” I grin, seizing hold of the lad’s scrotum.

“Cain!” Victoria’s cry rings out.

“I thought I told you—”

My voice dies in my throat. For there sits my wife upright on the bed, holding a blade to her own throat, the same weapon she once used to slay almost as many goblyns as any warrior. “What are you doing?”

My voice trembles as all the blood drains from my face. I release Lemuel’s balls but maintain a choke-hold on his throat. He continues to grimace, but he’s given up struggling. He too stares at Lady Victoria.

“Let him go.” Is she holding herself hostage?

I release an uncertain chuckle. “Or what?”

“I said let him go.” She presses the blade into her flesh. A thin trickle of crimson dribbles down onto her collarbone. “It was my doing. I forced myself upon him.” The mirth has left her eyes. “Do not maim him.”

“Maim him? I’m going to kill him!” I watch her. “Eventually.”

Lemuel whimpers.

“Do it, and you’ll lose the child within me as well.” More blood trickles.

“You’re insane. You would end your life for this worthless runt?” I shake Lemuel by the throat. It wouldn’t take much to snap his neck and be done with him. “I don’t believe it. Your life is too precious to you.”

“Why should it be? You’ll end it once the child is born. You’ve said as much already.” She takes the hilt in both hands and hovers the point of the knife over her protruding belly. “Or would you rather—?”

“Stop this,” I growl. “Right now.”

“Let him go.” She punctures the taut skin. Blood runs freely in rivulets from the apex.

“What the hell has gotten into you, woman?” With a curse, I hurl the lad to the floor where he lies choking, doubled over as he draws breath. “Put that weapon away!”

“When he is far away from here.” She glances at Lemuel. She makes no movement to lower the blade.

“You ask me to banish him? That is his only punishment for making a cuckold of me?”

“You promised his mother you would guard his life. You granted her dying wish, Cain. Would you go back on your word?”

“Had I known he would become such an impudent libertine—”

“I told you it was not his doing.” She gives the boy a direct look. “Leave us. Take what you need and be gone. He will not stop you.”

Lemuel glances up at me. “I will die…out there.”

“Or I can end you now.” I reach for him.

“Go!” Victoria’s eyes bulge as she shouts, drawing my attention. “Now!” She watches Lemuel scramble to gather his clothing, covering himself as he dashes out of the room.

I have yet to relax my fists. “You try my patience.”

She brings the blade back to her throat, toying with it. “We’ll give him