Chains of Revenge by Keziah Hill Page A

wasn’t he? Her first love, the man she’d never forgotten. So much so, she’d never let another man touch her. Now her people saw her as their mother, sexless and dedicated, not wanting the distraction of a man.
    Only this man knew that wasn’t the truth. She was far from sexless, capable of night after night of hard, sweaty sex, of greediness for his body and for her own release.
    He stood there, in her most cherished space and Lissa wanted him. Her cunt pulsed as if coming alive after years of denial. She turned away as Ris bustled in, not wanting the older woman to see the naked lust on her face.
    Ris laid out food on the table that Lissa used as her workspace, glared again at Devadas and left.
    ‘She doesn’t like me,’ he said.
    ‘And this surprises you?’
    ‘Lots of women do like me.’
    ‘Maybe those who haven’t watched you pull their friend around on a lead.’
    ‘Friend? Is that what she is? Not a glorified slave?’
    Lissa opened her mouth to protest but stopped, turning away to stare at the table.
    She planned and dreamed at this table, toting up accounts and calculating how much wheat needed to be planted to sell and how much they would need to keep. Sometimes Ris and the other women of the household would join her for ale and sweet biscuits as they talked through the events of the day and what needed to be done. They were good times where she’d felt useful with her family around her.
    Now a dark, tormented man sat at her table and gazed ruefully at what Ris had provided, unable to believe that Lissa had changed and Horvald with her.
    ‘Ris is my friend, my mother and my helper. You’re right in that I couldn’t do what I need to without her. Does that make her a slave? You’d have to ask her that.’
    He grunted and sat, motioning her to do the same. He filled a plate with food and ate as if starving.
    ‘When was the last time you had anything to eat?’ she asked.
    ‘Yesterday. Battle was upon us. We had no time for anything else.’
    She looked more closely and saw he was tired and grimy.
    ‘You need a bath and some sleep. I’ll organise both.’
    She rose to do so and found her wrist caught in a vice.
    ‘You don’t want to fuck with a dirty, death-filled master?’
    She wrenched her wrist free and stepped back from the mockery in his eyes.
    ‘Not if I have a choice. I’ve told you I’ll do what you want. You don’t have to behave like a child.’
    He laughed at her. ‘I’m nothing like a child.’
    She snorted. ‘That’s exactly what you are. A child who can’t get the toy he wants so has a tantrum.’ She crossed to the doorway and called down the stairs.
    ‘Ris? Ris, could you bring some water for washing? And see if there are any clothes for the Warlord Death to wear. Just a shirt and some breeches. There should be some of my father’s clothes in the mending basket that would do.’
    ‘Don’t let her do all the work,’ he said when she came back into the room.
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘I mean I want to see if you are telling the truth about not using slaves.’
    She stood in the centre of the room and regarded him gravely. Then she nodded and made for stairs again, hearing Ris. The older woman was half way up, carrying an empty bath. It was just big enough for a person to stand in while sluicing with a cloth.
    When the house was built, one of Lissa’s ideas was to build a water room onto the house where everyone could immerse themselves in big baths once a week. She’d asked the builders to set up a system of pipes that took the used water out of the house and onto the flower and kitchens gardens. She could insist that Devadas use the room rather than have Ris and the other household members cart water up the stairs, but she didn’t want Devadas out in the rest of the house. There was something about him she wanted to keep to herself. Some element of rage she wanted to protect others from.
    She hurried down the stairs and pulled the awkward bath from Ris.