Sirens of Faldion: The Final Bond Read online

  Sirens of Faldion: The Final Bond

  By

  Anya Merchant

  Copyright © 2016 by Anya Merchant

  All rights reserved

  Kindle Edition

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons is entirely coincidental. This work is intended for adults only. It contains substantial sexually explicit language and scenes that may be considered offensive by some readers. None of the characters engaging in sexual conduct in this work of fiction are under the age of 18, legally unable to give consent, or related by blood.

  Contents

  Sirens of Faldion: The Final Bond

  WORLD MAP

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  INTERLUDE

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  EPILOGUE

  The

  Colonized

  Realm of Faldion

  PROLOGUE

  Keaton Margellis stood in the center of his father’s palace, in the heart of the city to which his family gave its name. The throne sat on a dais in front of him, an intimidating piece of twisted metal and blue crystal, currently occupied by a corpse. Blood dripped from multiple wounds in the body of Antenon Margellis, running freely and desecrating his fine clothes, a match for the blood that dripped from Keaton’s sword.

  “You’ve done the right thing, Keaton,” said a soft, feminine voice. “There was no other option. Your father would have done the same thing to you if we’d acted any later.”

  The palace’s central chamber was wide and made from cold stone, with heavy iron forged doors and zero windows, a reflection of the paranoia of its original builder, Keaton’s grandfather, Pragia Margellis. Seven pillars, one for each of the elements, reached from floor to the high ceilings overhead, each one set with torch scones casting flickering light across the space.

  Two more bodies lay on either side of the iron doors, entrails leaking from massive stomach wounds inflicted during start of the fight. A third, Antenon’s personal advisor and bodyguard, sat a few paces from the stairs leading up to the throne, sword only half unsheathed.

  “I… I didn’t want it to come to this,” whispered Keaton. “He was supposed to accept it, to just… step down.”

  “We both know that he never would have done that,” cooed the voice. “It wasn’t an option for you. For us.”

  From behind the shadow of one of the pillars stepped Ariexa, or as she was known in the realm of Faldion, the Metal Queen. Her skin was pale and flawless, lending an eerie quality to the seductive curves of her body and beautiful, sharp facial features.

  Her hair and eyes were both silver in color, the kind of silver that gleamed, but held secrets underneath its polished surface. She had killed before, many times before. It was second nature for her and she was good at it. Keaton had seen as much during the fight, as short and decisive as it had been.

  “I could have done something else,” said Keaton. “I could have taken him hostage. Held him until he changed his mind, or something.”

  “Do you think he would have changed his mind about how he felt about us?” asked Ariexa. She stepped in closer to him, pushing her chest out slightly and suggestively. She wore a tight black dress that was cut low in the front, one of the new styles in the city that only the more outgoing noblewomen had had the courage to attempt to pull off.

  “I… I don’t know,” said Keaton.

  “I served him before I served you,” said Ariexa. “And I served him faithfully, back when the decisions he made were sound and reasonable.”

  Keaton stared at Ariexa. She was beautiful and hadn’t aged a day in all the time he’d known her, which extended back to his very first memories as a child. She was a spirit siren, an entity of magic and mysticism, rumored to have been born into their realm from another. And she was a powerful one, at that.

  He’d heard the stories of the Metal Queen second hand, mostly from the other noble children, rather than anyone directly involved in the Margellis household. He’d heard of the way she was on the battlefield, using her magic to control metal as though it was an extension of her body, and of the horrors she’d inflicted on her enemies without so much as breaking a sweat.

  “But… you serve me now,” said Keaton.

  “I do more than just serve you, Keaton,” said Ariexa. “I love you. Deeply, and with all my heart.”

  She flicked her eyelashes at him, and a wave of lust and confusion washed over Keaton. He thought about the way she’d been there, a part of the family, no less, throughout his life. He thought of that night a few months ago when she’d entered his bedchamber and slipped under his sheets, the most intensely erotic experience of his young life.

  “What am I supposed to do now?” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve killed him. This is a crime. This is… insanity!”

  “Your father was the one that enforced the laws,” said Ariexa. “And now that responsibility falls to you. And to me, if you’ll allow me to advise you, my love.”

  Keaton shook his head, massaging his temples with his index fingers.

  “Right,” he muttered. “Of course.”

  “I’ll have a trusted group of servants take care of mess and ensure that they won’t say anything to anyone afterward,” said Ariexa. “And then, you can announce to the city that your father died from any number of causes, and they will accept it without question.”

  Keaton nodded, swallowing hard. He was past feeling anything, whether from emotional shock, or the dreamlike quality that hung in the air over the events of the past few days.

  “Keaton,” whispered Ariexa. “Now we can be together. We can do whatever we want, whenever we want.”

  Ariexa stepped in close to him, letting her breasts push into his shoulder. Arousal surged in Keaton’s loins, incongruous and somehow intensified by the gore surrounding him.

  “There’s still so much we haven’t done yet,” whispered Ariexa. “Would you like me to show you?”

  She ran a soft hand across Keaton’s chest. He turned to meet her gaze and saw her tongue slowly gliding across her lips, flirtatious and utterly irresistible. He nodded again, and in an instant, Ariexa’s lips were against his.

  For all of the stories about the Metal Queen’s aptitude in battle, not a single bardic song or tavern rumor properly captured how capable she was when it came to raw, passionate engagement. Keaton felt himself melting into the spirit siren’s kiss, absorbed by the intensity of it even as a dozen thoughts screamed of the more important matters currently at hand.

  She lowered the two of them down to the floor, kissing Keaton’s lips and neck, her hand running across his crotch and massaging what lay underneath his trousers into excited hardness. Despite himself, Keaton let his fingers slide down her shoulders, onto her breasts, feeling the softness of them, still held tight by her dress.

  Ariexa pulled his pants down, smiling wickedly, her cheeks flushed slightly red. Keaton couldn’t think and couldn’t have sto
pped her even if he’d tried. It had been this same way with everything she’d wanted, since that first night in his chamber. He’d tried to push her away then, tried to maintain the lines between right and wrong, failing in the end to untangle betrayal and sexual ecstasy from one another.

  Keaton’s cock stood at attention for her, rock hard and filled with the enthusiasm of his young desire. Ariexa let out a slow, cooing breath against the tip of it, and then gave it a slow lick from the base of the shaft to the top of the head. Keaton moaned and leaned his head back.

  “You’re so eager,” whispered Ariexa. “Do you know how much fun that is for me?”

  Keaton looked up at her and fell short of giving an answer. Ariexa’s lips wrapped around the tip of his cock before he could, slowly sliding down, sending an overwhelming burst of erotic pleasure through the rest of him.

  He’d fooled around with some of the other teenage girls of the high families before, sure. None of them had ever taken things past kissing, and somehow Keaton knew that even if they had, it wouldn’t have compared to what Ariexa could offer him. There was magic in everything she did, whether it was killing men with dozens of years of battle experience, or giving them pleasure.

  Keaton reached his hand out, running it across her head. He noticed, as he had often in the recent weeks, the odd shape of her ears, usually covered up by her long, silver hair. She wasn’t human. He tried to remind himself of that fact and focus on it, understanding its importance and pushing it like a defensive wall against the pleasure she was inflicting on him.

  “Oh… by the heavens, Ariexa…” Keaton took a deep breath and found that he couldn’t keep himself from using the hand he had on her head to guide her, urging her to suck faster, to take his member deeper into her mouth. Ariexa seemed happy, eager, even, to comply. It felt incredible, and it was all that Keaton cared about.

  A heavy knock came from the barred iron doors leading to the outside hallway of the palace’s chamber. Keaton muttered a curse and leapt up. Ariexa seemed unwilling to allow him to get away from her lips and mouth, but gave up trying after a few seconds.

  “Uh… yes?” called Keaton, fumbling his trousers up as panic and fear took hold of him. If he opened that door, even a blind man would be able to find the bodies, the evidence of his crime, the worst crime a man or woman could commit.

  “Message for Lord Chosen Margellis,” said the voice. “The Meridian refugees are getting out of hand in the city’s central square again.”

  “I… I’ll give it to him,” said Keaton. The messenger on the other side of the door seemed to hesitate, not immediately responding or turning to leave.

  “The Lord Chosen is feeling a bit under the weather at the moment,” provided Ariexa. “I will make sure he receives the message and acts accordingly.”

  “Yes, milady,” said the messenger, recognizing Ariexa’s voice. He turned to leave, and Keaton listened to the sound of his footsteps dropping off.

  “The refugees,” muttered Keaton. “Ariexa… The city, what am I supposed to do? I’m going to be the one… to decide all of this now?”

  Ariexa reached her hand out and set it on top of his, smiling.

  “I’ll be here to help you,” she said, confidently. “And I know exactly what to do with them.”

  Keaton let out a sigh of relief.

  “You do?” he said.

  She nodded.

  “They’ll make excellent slaves.”

  CHAPTER 1

  TEN YEARS LATER

  “That was our opportunity.”

  Kai stared across the old wooden slave carriage at Selene, massaging the skin underneath his metal wrist cuffs as he spoke. The morning sun was unobstructed by clouds and shone through the openings between the slats of the carriage’s wooden cage in long, golden lines.

  “Our opportunity for what?” asked Selene. “To get ourselves killed?”

  Kai scowled and leaned in a little closer to her. It was just the two of them in the back, and the driver upfront was too busy with the horses and too far away to hear anything either of them said. Still, a decade of bondage had instilled in him a number of habits that had become second nature.

  “Amidious is dead,” said Kai. “If we’d taken flight on the night we found him, we would probably-”

  “Also be dead,” said Selene. “Or be on the run, hunted by mercenaries and beasts from the Pacter’s Guild.”

  Kai’s scowl deepened, but despite feeling otherwise, he couldn’t bring himself to argue outright with Selene. He’d known her since the beginning, since before he and the other Meridians had been forced out of Margellis. His parents had trusted her back in the city to watch over him, serving as his sitter for countless numbers of afternoons and nights.

  By chance, they’d been bought by the same owner after being captured and auctioned up on the Margellian slave stage. It had taken Kai almost an entire day to recognize her, her normally long, curly locks cut short and boyish in an attempt to pass herself off as a native Faldion instead of a sand haired outlander with diminished legal rights.

  “We could just as easily end up dead at the hands of our new master,” muttered Kai. “I’m not sure about this, Selene.”

  “Amidious was a kind master,” said Selene. “Clearly, they do exist. I don’t think it’s outlandish to assume that the person he left his two favorite slaves to will be at least a bit like him.”

  Kai shrugged, feeling an anxious tickle run up his spine. He looked at Selene for a moment, frowning at the thought of anything happening to her. She’d grown into a woman in the time that he’d known her. She was twenty, two years older than him, a length of time that once had seemed insurmountable, right up until he’d hit his own growth spurt.

  Selene’s dark brown hair was full of curls, falling across her shoulders and framing her symmetrical oval face. Her eyes were dark violet, perking up in the light. Her skin held a natural medium tan to it, much like his, but a shade darker, as a full blooded Meridian.

  She was attractive. Even with as close of a friendship, practically having lived as brother and sister since Kai was first enslaved as a boy, he couldn’t help but notice. Her breasts were large and enticing, even when covered by a ratty slave’s tunic. Her waist was trim, but her buttocks and legs had interesting, eye catching curves.

  “You’re staring again, Kai,” said Selene. She smiled at him, and something flickered in one of her eyes that made Kai feel simultaneously excited and intimidated.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  He turned his attention to the opening in the slats of the carriage’s cage, looking out across the dry landscape of the southern grasslands of Faldion. There were few trees in sight, with only a boulder here and a hill there to break things up.

  Kai aimlessly watched the scene pass by for a couple of seconds, and then saw something that didn’t make sense. On top of one of the hills in the distance came a flash of bright white light, as though someone had pulled out a giant mirror and glinted it off the sun in his direction.

  He blinked as it happened, and his eyes opened to see a human form standing in place of the flash. Kai squinted at it, making out more detail. It was a girl, or a woman, with blonde hair, wearing a scandalously scant amount of clothing. Kai felt his mouth fall open slightly in surprise. She hadn’t been there a moment before, he was sure of it.

  “Look!” he said, gesturing to Selene. “There’s someone out there!”

  Selene shrugged and responded slowly, though given what Kai had given her to spark her enthusiasm, it seemed justified. She moved across the carriage and took up a spot next to him. Kai turned to find the girl again and point her out, but as his eyes settled on the hill where she’d been standing, the same mirror bright flash of light flared, and then there was nothing.

  “Where?” asked Selene.

  “She was… right there on the hill,” said Kai. “It was like she just appeared. And then disappeared. And there was a flash of light that went with her.”

  Selene r
olled her eyes.

  “Sure,” she said. “Just like that time in Amidious’s servant’s quarters when you told me that you’d seen a ghost in the middle of the night?”

  Kai felt his cheeks flush slightly, thought he shrugged and tried to play it off as disinterest. Selene’s opinion mattered to him, maybe more than it should have. But she was strong willed and down to earth, and convincing her of what he’d seen would be nearly impossible without evidence.

  And just what had he’d seen? He thought about it for a moment, suddenly uncertain of his own recollection and doubting his eyes.

  “I’m not sure what I saw,” he finally said. “But something about it… felt off.”

  Selene stared at him for a moment and then nodded, accepting his explanation. She took up a spot on the bench next to him, letting her body make amiable contact with his along one side. Kai felt her warmth and let himself relax.

  The two of them were still together. His most pressing fear after the death of his old master was that they’d be split up, doomed to live separate lives of slavery apart from each other. As long as they were together, he could always keep going, chin up and back straight.

  “It looks like we’re almost there,” whispered Selene. “We should get ready.”

  “For what?” asked Kai.

  “Anything.” She reached her hand over and gave his a squeeze.

  CHAPTER 2

  Through the openings in the slats in the front of the carriage’s cage, Kai could see their destination. A fast flowing river at least two dozen manspan wide ran from north to south, and next to it was a small workers’ camp of makeshift tents and huts. Kai could see a couple of men with weapons standing along the edge of it, along with a few in chains, wearing clothing that made his own tunic look like the finery of nobility. He looked over at Selene, who had also noticed.

  “Well,” he whispered. “That’s not exactly encouraging.”

  “Don’t draw judgements yet,” said Selene. “We don’t have the facts.”