Rapture. Jacquelyn Frank
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Название: Rapture
Автор: Jacquelyn Frank
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Эротическая литература
Серия: Shadowdwellers
isbn: 9781420110494
isbn:
She walked to a glass display cabinet that seemed reserved for throwing weapons. Sharp metal gleamed in everything from the plain to the intricate. Shurikens, saw-stars, bolos, glaves, arrow-stars, clockers, and about a dozen she couldn’t even identify. There was even a boomerang, the inside edges of which had been made blade sharp, which meant you could only catch it on the outside edge or you’d lose a hand. Dangerous stuff. Deadly stuff.
She realized this meant Magnus probably knew how to use every single killing blade there. Light, there was even a case of handguns. The human weapons were deadly dangerous to use for their breed. The muzzle flash alone burned their retinas and blinded them, limiting how many shots they could get off with accuracy. It also burned if you didn’t wear gloves, she’d heard. It was why blades were the weapon of choice for Shadowdwellers, even in this technological age. A decade after the end of the war, however, swords seemed to be mostly a show of fashion. For the common man, at least. For men like Magnus, it was a calling.
Dae moved to a velvet-covered tray and couldn’t resist peeking under the cloth.
“Holy Light,” she gasped, folding back the fabric and displaying the silver tray and the wicked set of sai and daggers on it. They were breathtaking and just about the most beautiful weapons she’d ever seen—and growing up a bar rat in the middle of a war, she’d seen a heck of a lot. Licking her lips, she picked up the heavy steel with a sense of reverence. The leather-wrapped hilts were brand new, showing no wear whatsoever. The counterweights in the pommels were round and just heavy enough to perfectly balance the triple-pronged weapons. The long center prongs weren’t sharpened, although they weren’t usually meant to be. The two shorter ones, however, were frighteningly sharp points. That was odd, considering they were meant for guarding or to catch a longer blade. She’d always been told they were a weapon of defense more than anything, but certain masters could do anything with them they set their minds to.
Dae turned one in her hand, her fingers fumbling a little since it had been so long. However, after a minute she was twirling the weight back and forth in a nimble touch, just the way Crazy Conrad had taught her day after day as he had played around with her through several beers. She actually smiled when she remembered him laughing at her when she’d been seven years old trying to manipulate steel weighing more than her whole arm. But she had grown. Fast. And because she had played with sai and other sharp toys to the amusement of the warriors kicking back around her, she’d grown strong.
“You need a lighter weight.”
The sai dropped onto the tray with a crash and she whirled around to face the priest. Gods! He hadn’t made a single sound! It was astounding someone so big could move that quietly.
And then she remembered to be insulted.
“I do not,” she snapped. Then a bit primly, “I just need some practice.”
Drenna, she was a proud little thing, Magnus thought as her stubborn chin rose and she tried to look down her nose and meet his eyes at the same time. Interesting trick, he mused, considering he was a fair eight inches taller than she was.
And he wasn’t about to let her think she could get away with being stubborn unless she was right. She was going to need to defend herself in a great many ways in the future, and it was best she learned how to choose the best battles.
“A pound, at least,” he corrected her as he reached past her to neatly rearrange the tray she had disturbed and then cover it back up. “Heavy enough to guard, but a bit lighter so you don’t limit what you can do with it. You can use heavier ones to practice with to build your strength in your fingers and wrists, but for application, you will need custom made.”
“Custom made,” she echoed. She burst out in that snorty giggle and Magnus resisted the need to smile at the sound of it. “Yeah, I’ll run right out and order that.”
Sarcastic little thing, he thought.
“I will make them for you.”
That seemed to shut her up. She gaped at him, open mouthed and silent as she tried to find a comeback. He was beginning to think her mouth was going to be her best weapon. He watched as she looked back at all the arsenal around her and then set wide eyes back on him.
“You made all of these?” she demanded.
Not asked, demanded. She was damn bold for a supposed slave. He dreaded to think of the kind of trouble she had caused herself because of it. Although all he had to do was look at the collar around her throat that he had mistaken for common jewelry to know the answer. He supposed, though, that was the point of the thing. If it looked like a necklace, no one would question seeing it on her. No one would realize they were walking past someone suffering under bondage. Magnus had since noticed the red chafing around her wrists, and he realized she had probably been chained up during daylight sleeping hours.
“Yes. There is a forge beneath the school. I will show you sometime.”
“Yeah. About that…” She cleared her throat and wiped her hands nervously on the pitiful rag she was wearing as a sari. He’d never realized such a traditionally beautiful fashion could ever manage to look so ugly until he had seen this one. This city had its less fortunate souls, just as all cities did, but even their most impoverished people were finely dressed compared to this outfit. “Look, not that I want to go back where I was, but there’s been some kind of mistake. I mean, surely you can see I’m not handmaiden material.”
He folded his arms over his chest, leaning a hip against the weapons ledge next to him, and took his time perusing her tall, shapely young figure. She was lean and strong, her arms especially well developed for a woman, probably from some kind of hard labor. Her callused, rough hands supported that. She clearly hadn’t owned shoes in years, her feet coarse and dirty, and he’d glimpsed knees just as toughened. He was willing to bet she was sporting a few bruises as well, and not just from her tussle with the guards earlier.
The thought made him frown with dark anger. He owed that guard for hitting her. Oh yes, there’d be penance to pay for that. And if he found out that either of them had tried to mess with her sexually, he was going to have them castrated. He might even let her do it, since she seemed to have a taste for it. He grinned when he thought of the way she had made him aware of just how vulnerable he had left himself to her with the nudge of her foot.
“I see nothing of the kind,” he responded easily, moving away from her in order to search his maintenance drawer for something to cut that damn collar off. Just looking at the thing made him feel surly and jaded toward his own people. He had already sent guards to fetch her miserable relations, though he fully expected they had hightailed it by now. Still, it was daylight for the next few hours, and there was nowhere they could go outside of the city. He would find them. And when he did, they would suffer just as she had.
He’d bet they had been damned shocked when the guards had come to the door offering a bride price for a girl they weren’t supposed to have. Thank Drenna they had persisted. If they had left, he’d hate to СКАЧАТЬ