Hey everyone. So glad it's mine again. I'm not looking for anything--just putting it back where it belongs. Say hey if you'd like. -H
Music:
Break My Baby by Kaleo
THE VANATA AND THE MAESER
A Vanata Series Erotic Novel
Book One
Harp Strathe
CHAPTER ONE
Shep strode through the smoke and rubble. He passed a jeep on its side. Its contents had spilled. A slumped usur guard was in the seat. There was a red-rimmed and still-smoking hole in his side.
Patrick, Shep's second, was walking fast to keep up with the maeser's longer strides.
"You're hit," Patrick said, leaning to look at the blood on Shep's shoulder.
"Shrapnel," Shep said. "Where have we looked?"
"Where haven't we looked?" Patrick gestured around himself at the remains of the enemy convoy. "We've searched the vehicles. She can't have gotten to the tree line. We've got drones all up and down the ridge."
"Any chance she slipped our net?"
"No way, Shep. Not unless she can make herself invisible to heat sensors."
"We don't know what that vanata bitch can do. Expand the radius of the search. We have a camp?"
"Twenty-six helos southeast. We've thrown a shield around it. They won't know we're there, not unless they try to land on top of us."
Shep stopped, turning to his second and leaning in. They'd been in this together a long time. Since the beginning. "We have to find her, Patrick, or our people died here for nothing. Search it all again. Look for a body." They could not linger. The usur's forces were on their way, never doubt it.
"You got it, Shep," Patrick said, heading out.
Shep strode toward the worst of it. Fires were still burning. It was the stench of hot metal and burned flesh. The mission had been to capture the vanata. If they couldn't find her alive, maybe they would find her body in the twisted wreckage around him. That would be an outcome he could live with. But they needed a confirmed kill.
Mud sucked at his boots. At least it wasn't raining anymore. His men straightened as he passed. They made the hand signal for his rank. It had been a big operation. The ambush had ripped through the Usur Guard. The convoy had been well defended. But those fuckers had been far too confident. They hadn't imagined the resistance would be so bold as to try to take her in daylight in a location not far from the capital and out in the open.
The vanata almost never left the Manse. But her presence had to be recorded at the Council of Lords in the capital every three years. It would be worth it if he could get his hands on her. And Shep wanted her. He wanted her so bad.
The resistance hadn't taken as many casualties as he'd feared. Still, sixteen dead, and he'd lost Vick. Shep's mind flashed on his friend on the ground with his chest crushed. They'd known each other since before the war. Vick and his stupid laugh, his jokes. Sixteen good men dead to capture that woman.
And now they couldn't find her. Shep released his breath. He shook his hands, rolling his shoulders. Wincing at the right one, he tried to release his tension as he walked.
They'd gotten a picture of her. It had been a drone shot when the convoy had left the Manse. It had only shown dark hair and the upper part of her face. Not enough to really know what she fucking looked like, of course. But she'd been here when the battle started. There was no way she wasn't here now.
Maeva, the usur's daughter. Key to winning the war.
The resistance had been trying to get to her for years. The usur knew his daughter's value. Maeva was a vanata like her golden-eyed mother Shal had been. Being mated to Shal had put the Sashta Usur's ass on the throne to rule what had once been a free colony world that had enjoyed generations of self-governance.
Free until a minor Sashta lord had found a last remaining vanata, that was. Mating her meant he could take the Sigel and all its defensive capacities. The Sashta lord had then declared himself the new usur and disbanded the senate. He'd murdered a portion of its members and threatened the others. When that was done, he'd brought back the slave malls and the executioner fields dotted with bodies.
There weren't even supposed to be any more vanatas. They were supposed to be extinct. But the usur had found Shal, mated her, taken the throne and sired his daughter, Maeva. When that bitch mated, it would start the cycle all over again, another lifetime of oppression.
They needed the vanata neutralized.
Hearing laughter, Shep stopped, backing up and looking to his right. His men were gathered in a clear area past the trucks. He turned and went that way. The men were concentrating on a group of women in veils who were huddled together.
As Shep approached, one of his men grabbed a woman's arm and pulled her out of the group and against himself. His hand ran down her back and over her ass.
"Baker," Shep barked.
The men stopped laughing. All them turned to look at Shep. They made the hand sign for his rank and straightened. Baker saw Shep's face and released the veiled woman so abruptly that she stumbled, falling to one knee. Her hands went into the mud. The silky blue skirt she was wearing pooled around her, getting filthy. The woman got to her feet and stumbled into the arms of one of the other veiled figures.
Baker straightened, making the hand sign.
Shep slowed. Arriving, he got in the man's face. "What the fuck are you doing, Baker?"
"Securing the prisoners, Maeser."
"Do you often hump people you've just met? Are you desperate? Should I warn the other men you're horny?"
"Only when they're captured pleasure slaves, Maeser," the man answered.
Another man to Baker's right fought a smile. Baker's mouth twitched.
"Do you remember how these women got to be pleasure slaves?" Shep said.
Baker erased the smile. "They were civilians chosen by the Usur Guard, Maeser."
"Do they look like happy slaves to you? Did they choose this misery?"
Baker looked uncomfortable, glancing at the women. "No, Maeser."
What a prick
