Handmaiden's Fury Read Online Free

chest.
    “Please.” I uttered that single word
in a mewled whisper, the epitome of helplessness. In actuality, my mind raced.
Hadn’t there been a second door—?
    “Quiet.” The whisper was sharp. “I am
not fooled, Handmaiden.” He stepped forward again. Now, in the flickering
candlelight, I could see the shadowed cowl of his cloak. “Silence now, and I
will send you to the painless blanket of death.” The metal of his long knife
gleamed in the candlelight.
    Finding no way around him, I made my
eyes hard.
    “No.” Power, pleasure, and pain sang
through my body.
    Sire Mattias had prepared me well.
I’d spent hours in his bed before I came to Orin. Sire Mattias played my desire
like a lute, sculpted my passions like an artisan. As a result, I come to Orin
with sigils full of my Lady’s desire.
    Inside me, Her Passion raged like a
river.
    Briefly, the Karas sigil
flashed with warm delight. Then, in answering call, the candles of the room all
flared as one, so bright as to be almost blinding.
    I saw his face.
    He was no man.
    Pale skin gleamed beneath the hood,
deathly white. Black veins ran beneath the surface, and his eyes gleamed a
hellish red in the light. The smug curve to his lip gave way as the candle
flames leapt upward.
    He was a horror.
    “No!” This time, I laced the word
with Rydia’s power. I released all control I held and focused on the Karas sigil. It burned, my Lady’s Fire singing within it.
    The candles grew brighter, hotter.
Orin’s drapes caught aflame. On the bookshelf, the flames grew so hot that a
sheaf of paper smoldered until fire burst forth, creating a plume of black
smoke.
    He leapt at me with a wordless snarl,
swinging his blade.
    I dodged backward, still holding my
clothing underneath my arm. I stumbled onto the bed, falling squarely against
Orin’s face. He mumbled and rolled away.
    “Fire, Orin! Wake up!” I slapped at
him, scrabbling across the bed to get away from the not-man. Now, the bed and
Orin lay between the two of us; and the room was quickly catching ablaze.
    “We’re not through, Handmaiden.” The
not-man whispered, still sibilant and bladed. “Not by a long stride. Your Sire
has been toying with things best left alone.” He stepped backward through the
door, out of the range of the firelight. “Stay inside. Burn.” He paused. “If
the flames do not claim you, I will. Fire will be a more pleasant death than
any I offer you now.” The shadows swallowed him whole, as if he were part of
them.
    “Keiri?” Orin coughed, glancing about
in confusion. The smoke must have roused him. “What—?”
    It was unfortunate. Much of our
problems might have been solved if the man had burned.
    Play the part.
    “We have to go, Orin! One of the
candles must have—!”
    He sat full up now.
    “Oh!” Fear leapt across his face. He
gave me one long, odd look. Then the fire flared, and he began to move. Orin
stood and began to grab at his clothing.
    “No time for that!” I dragged him
from the room. Orin stumbled toward the darkened doorway, coughing from the
smoke.
    No cloaked not-man awaited us in the
hall. We made our way into the open air without threat of whispering assailants
or glittering knives.
    No sight or sign, he had simply left.
    The night outside felt blessedly
cool. In the distance, I could hear the yelling of Orin’s bondsmen and the
clanging of a fire-bell. I collapsed onto the grass. The earth was soothing
underneath my bare skin, and the stars sang overhead.
    I could still imagine those hellish,
scarlet eyes, watching me.
    I needed to get back to the temple.
     
     

 
     
4
     
    Understandably, the fire distracted
Orin, creating the perfect opportunity to slip away. I dressed, then strode
from Orin’s garden house, mostly undetected in the chaos and madness, as his
bondsmen worked to keep the fires at bay.
    As a beautiful woman leaving this
home in the dead of night, no one found anything unusual at my presence.
    I stole my way through the