Strife & Valor: Book II of The Rorke Burningsoul Saga by Regina Watts (red queen ebook .TXT) 📕

that battle. I only lifted my head when Odile dusted off her hands and assessed her work with a sigh. As my gaze lifted toward her, I happened to note Branwen’s unbroken stare of astonishment—and the slightest hint of an embarrassed but fascinated scowl.

“There,” announced Odile, hands on her hips. Indra, grimacing, shoved a misshapen corpse into the same nook as the rest of the bodies, then looked down at the ichor on her palms with disgust. Odile, meanwhile, had gone on, “Seems to us that this is good a place as any to wait out the dark…will the elf be staying with us?”

“What do you think, Branwen?” I looked hopefully at her, Valeria’s body in my arm pressing all the closer to mine as I addressed my former lover. “Would you care to stay with us, at least until we reach the surface? I would appreciate any information you could give that might ease our pursuit of the traitors.”

Her rigid posture relaxing at the invitation, Branwen folded both dainty hands upon her heart and swore, “I’ll tell you everything I know, Rorke. Thank you—thank you for saving me.”

“Saving you was nothing,” I told her, turning to help the ladies bar the den’s main door. “Forgiveness, now that’s the hard part…and the most important.”

JOYOUS REUNIONS

BLUE WISP FIRE burned in the hearth near the back of the den, the smokeless flames dancing together while we huddled around its magic warmth.

We had plundered the chambers of the bandits to great reward. In addition to a vast sum of gold and silver that had surely been raided from the coffers of waylaid merchants, we uncovered many wares. Thick furs from aboveground animals I recognized—dogs of Weltyr, to my sorrow, among the pelts of plains-kings and unmentionable ones—had served as the beddings of the various bandits. Now they made up our own. A larder turned up bread, salted fish (a hideous, blind breed known only to the Nightlands, with hateful fangs and a thirst for blood), and, most importantly, ale. All this alongside other stores of staples and ingredients that would have required more processing than any of us had interest or experience for. We ate together in happy relief, glad to have a place to wait out the dark in relative safety.

Maybe even in comfort. When the meal had been eaten it occurred to me that Branwen had been really very quiet throughout most of the conversation. I nudged her, drawing her attention from the bottom of her ale mug, and said merrily, “Now, Branwen, there’s no need to look sour—I’m working on forgiving you, remember?”

“And I’m glad. It’s only—I suppose I’m just a bit confused about a few things.”

While I lifted my eyebrows, Branwen looked between all four of us. Her face soon glowed with blushing contemplation and she said then after a few seconds, “Perhaps I’d ought not to ask.”

“Ask away,” enthused Odile, swinging her mug in the direction of the high elf. “There’d ought to be no secrets between those who travel together! Especially after what happened between you two before.” While Indra softly admonished her friend, Odile laughed and went on, “Well? It’s true—she betrayed him. And now, if she betrays him, she’s betraying us, too…so it’s in everyone’s interest that we’re all transparent with each other.”

Scoffing lightly, Branwen muttered, “As if durrow have any place to talk of morals,” before going on. “It’s nothing, really, I was just wondering—well, it’s very odd, what you said before. Perhaps you didn’t understand what I was asking, Rorke, but I think it was settled for me when I saw you kiss Valeria. You two are—companions, yes?”

I glanced between the three dark faces to my right, then Branwen’s bright one on my left. “Well,” I told her, “I have a great, specific fondness for Valeria, but all three are my companions.”

While the durrow made noises of agreement, Branwen rolled her eyes. “You’re not understanding what I’m saying,” the high elf said—a fine one to talk about patronizing! “When I say ‘companions,’ I don’t mean companions in adventure or travel. I mean—”

“Like this, right?”

With a cheeky grin, Odile set her mug down, leaned across Valeria’s lap, and pressed her lips to mine in an eager kiss. I gasped slightly, surprised but far from displeased, and leaned into her affection while the closest servant of Roserpine smiled at shocked Branwen.

“We have what some from the surface would think of as a different way of life, and Rorke here was quite shocked at first…but no man interested in experiencing all that life may hand him minds a bit of well-mannered sharing now and again.” While Odile leaned back from me with a wicked grin—then, seeing sweet Indra’s lustful look, turned to passionately kiss her friend—Valeria smiled and slid her hand into my lap. “At any rate, he’s no more a slave of mine…who could dare call so valiant and bold a paladin as Rorke Burningsoul a slave?”

“None but a god,” I assured her, praising Weltyr for the gift of the soft mouth that tipped toward mine. While I embraced Valeria, the scent of her richly floral even after the long bloom and dark of our journey, Branwen observed the proceedings with an amazed expression. Her face was bright red, those eyes of hers wild. Her lips parted softly: pink petals that revealed a glimmer of tongue just beyond.

At last, drawing away from my mouth but staying close against my chest, Valeria turned her head to gaze through lightly tousled hair at my former lover. “Were we to share him with one more, I don’t think any of us would be adverse.”

Branwen tended to keep a perfectly crafted visage, but just then she was difficult to read for other reasons. It seemed she cycled through several emotions, all of them variations on shock. Desire settled there, but all the same, as Odile and Indra moaned softly beneath one another’s caresses, she stood up and cleared her throat.

“Well! Well, since he and I