Renegade Heart Read Online Free Page B

girl as a servant, to wash and clean and sew for the household, but for the time being, she would allow no man to touch her.

Across the city at the cadet quarters, Alganoor locked the distraught boy in an empty cell and summoned two troopers to help him. They arrived grumbling, unhappy at being called upon for what they deemed baby-sitting duty. They soon altered their opinion when Alganoor unlocked the door and showed them the wild animal within.
    Wolf rampaged around the small cell, throwing himself against the walls, his forehead and knuckles bloodied from striking the unforgiving stone. The three men watched silently from the doorway until the boy collapsed in a corner, his back to the wall.
    “Is he crazy?” One of the troopers asked.
    “No, just scared,” Alganoor replied, as Wolf glowered at them through his thick fringe.
    “That hair will have to go,” the second trooper observed.
    “One step at a time.”
    Alganoor was worried, wondering how he could be expected to turn the boy into a soldier in the space of two turns. Even if he had ten, he strongly doubted Wolf could be tamed enough to lead the regimented lifestyle of a trooper.
    “I want you to stay with him, but don’t try and approach him,” he said as he turned to leave. There was a quiet murmur from behind him and he turned back, surprised the boy had actually spoken. He walked further into the cell and asked Wolf to repeat himself.
    “Enola.”
    It had to be the girl, Alganoor decided. He was loathe to be cruel, but he thought it owed to the boy to give him the truth.
    “She may as well be dead,” he said. “You have to forget her.”
    Wolf lowered his head and said nothing more.

.4.
     
    M en often asked for, and were refused the pleasure of Enola’s company. Magnosa was fiercely protective of her young ward. The girl had turned out to be a good cook and an even better seamstress. The whores loved her like a little sister. At fourteen turns, she was stunning in appearance with long golden hair and liquid brown eyes. Wondrously, despite her surroundings, she managed to retain her air of innocence. She was not stupid. She knew what it was the other girls did with the men who came to the house, and she understood now what the Orphan Master and Fadiosa had been doing the day they beat Wolf so badly.
    One morning, Magnosa came across her in the kitchen, kneading the dough for that day’s bread with silent tears rolling down her cheeks. The girl was often prone to fits of melancholy, and everyone knew it was because she still missed her childhood companion. Seeing Magnosa in the doorway, Enola quickly wiped her eyes leaving a wet, floury smudge across her face.
    “Why so sad?” Magnosa asked.
    “It’s nothing really,” Enola sniffed. “Only the girls were talking about the renegades and how they’ve stepped up their raids. They said the King is to send more troops after them.”
    “Child, you know how gossip seems to elude the truth in this place. One man tells one story and a second man tells another. The girls knit the two together and come up with a completely different story altogether. You must learn not to take them so seriously.”
    Enola nodded, but the way she chewed nervously on her bottom lip would imply she was unconvinced.
    “Surely the renegades don’t worry you? They would not dare to attack the city.”
    “It’s not the renegades,” Enola replied hesitantly. “But Taola said the cadets are sent to join the troops when they are fourteen turns. Wolf is fourteen now. What if they send him after the renegades and he is killed?”
    If Enola had but one flaw, it was her obsession with the boy. Although she had not seen or heard from him since the night they had been taken from the orphanage, not a day went by without her mentioning his name. Magnosa had heard from more than one source that Wolf was a wild one and no mistake, fighting with the other cadets, shirking his chores, and refusing to recite the King’s Prayer. She