Chapter 14 The Myth Of Innocence
The Myth Of Innocence
One dawn, winter surrendered its grip on the Lattaya range.
Sheba knifed up in bed and stared at the scene through the window next to the couple’s bed.
‘We can see the trees again, and I swear there’s a flower coming up through the frost.’
‘The first snow drop,’ Idan suggested as he nibbled at her ear.
Sheba clapped her hands together in delight.
‘You know that means,’ he rumbled, his voice vibrating through her spine.
‘What?’
‘It’s time for some wild fokkin’ to celebrate the start of spring.’
Sheba huffed. ‘Is that right? Or is that a new Sacran ritual you just dreamed up, warrior god?
‘You know you want to,’ he growled into her nape, his hand cupping her breast and tweaking her nipple.
‘Nada, no way.’
He leaned down, his lips brushing the curve of her neck, his sigils pulsing a warm gold. ‘Yes, way, I can sense your pulse accelerating. It’s a very specific frequency.’
Sheba felt a shiver race down her spine, but kept her tone flat. ‘That’s just kaffeine, godling. Don’t get an ego.’
‘Funny,’ he whispered, his hand sliding slowly over her stomach, moving lower to part her thighs, chuckling at her moan. ‘I don’t remember you drinking kahawa, fokk, we haven’t broken our fast yet.’
‘Then hurry, handsome, I’m hungry.’
‘Your fantasy is my bidding.’
He reached forward and kissed her lips, then her nape, then trailed his lips down to her nipple, which he took into his mouth and suckled, then bit.
She moaned, pushing more of it into his heated tonguing.
Minutes later, he was slicking in and out of her, his cock slamming into her wet slit, her moans driving him to the edge of ecstasy.
He blew with a lengthy groan, throwing his head and flowing hair back, bucking so hard his thighs almost cramped.
Fokk, what you do to me, he growled into her mind moments later, still gasping into her nape. Suna xore ni saji, you drive me wild.
She kept trembling through her climax, her lips parted as she panted through orgasm after orgasm.
When she finally stilled, it took all his everlovin’ will to untangle from her.
She moaned when his cock eased from her.
‘We’ve work to do, beautiful, we need to set the sheep free to roam again,’ he told the woman lying on her side. ‘Get up, woman.’
Sheba groaned as Idan slapped her ass and rose from the nest of furs with a grin.
His eyes lit with a glow from their shared intimacy and the profound heat of their connection.
He rustled up breakfast as she bathed.
When she emerged, he took her place in the bathhouse, then helped her into her gear.
Grabbing Sheba’s ever-present med kit and Idan’s food and tools pack, they stepped out of the hut into a landscape of diamond-bright snow and absolute silence.
They trekked to the barn and deeper into the limestone cavern, the snow crunching beneath their heavy-soled boots.
When Idan rolled the granite sphere aside, the ewes erupted from the dark in a frantic surge of wool, excitement, and panic.
A dozen of the younger sheep, intoxicated by the sudden light, escaped.
Dashing through the open barn doors, they headed for the high ridges where the wind whipped away the last vestiges of snow.
Idan shook his head, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. ‘I’m going to check the pastures and fences,’ he told his woman. ‘With me?’
She nodded, and they laced hands together, their breath blooming in the crisp air as they moved over untouched drifts to check on the grass paddocks.
As they crested a rock-spur, a prickle of static crawled up Idan’s spine.
He sensed a signature; someone was tracking them.
With the raw power of the stars coiled in his veins, he was confident in his ability to defend them from any threat from the shadows.
Yet, this presence wasn’t aggressive; it was meek, scared almost.
He sent out a subtle psionic sweep and paused as the feedback hit him.
It was a young girl.
He slowed his pace and gathered Sheba close.
‘What’s wrong?’ his woman asked in a whisper.
Idan held a finger to his lips. ‘We’re being followed. It’s a child.’
Crouching to minimize his massive form, he gazed toward a cluster of frost-heavy pines and sent a comforting extrasensory tap.
‘Come out, we won’t hurt you,’ he called out, giving Sheba a reassuring glance, asking his woman to trust him.
A moment later, a small, quivering, dark-haired figure emerged.
Her clothes were threadbare, stained with grime and dirt, and her eyes dilated in a blend of terror and desperate hope.
‘Please,’ the girl rasped, her voice cracking in the cold, taking a staggering step toward them. ‘Help me.’
Sheba rushed forward, shrugging her cloak to drape it over the child’s shivering shoulders. ‘Oh my, what’s your name?’
‘Nirana.’
‘Are you from Lattaya?’ Sheba asked.
‘Nada, Seikoyya, two days’ walk from here. A few weeks ago, the bad men came and forced my family and many from our village to the work camps at the quarry. I escaped to get help for my parents and sisters.’
Her gaze darted between Sheba’s shocked face and Idan’s glowing sigils. ‘Please, you have to help them.’
Sheba crouched beside the girl and shifted her backpack around, pulling out a canteen of water and a protein bar she had baked the night before.
Nirana snatched the sustenance with trembling fingers, drinking the liquid in heavy, desperate gulps before tearing into the snack.
She ate with a frantic intensity that made Sheba’s heart ache, as the child’s hunger only came from hours of running on nothing but fear.
Standing over them, Idan’s expression hardened into a mask of cold intent as he studied the girl and slid his own cloak over his woman’s shoulders.
‘Show us where they are,’ he growled.
Nirana flicked her eyes between the couple and, choosing to trust them, rose to her feet and began moving west. ‘Come with me.’
Idan and Sheba exchanged glances, then followed Nirana as she guided them towards a set of distant peaks.
It took a few hours of hard going, during which Idan helped both females across alpine cold rivers and extreme gullies.
At one point, he glimmered them over a field of nascent grass and cut glass rocks, which got Nirana blinking at him in shock.
However, she soon recovered, keen to return to her kin.
The descent led them into a deep valley where the chemical sting of sulfur and burnt metal choked the crisp mountain air.
Nirana slowed, then, holding a finger to her lips, she indicated that their destination was ahead.
They halted and hunched over to obscure themselves behind a rock, at the edge of a massive, hidden scar carved into the mountain’s flank.
Below, a rusted sign above a steel gate identified the operation as a Rhixon Corp site.
The quarry below was a nightmare of groaning steam-pistons and heavy iron pulleys.
Sheba gasped, her hand flying to her mouth as she took in the scale of the horror.
Thin, shackled miners moved in a rhythmic, lethargic agony, their skin caked in gray xentium dust.
Their necks were tethered to the machinery by bulky ferrous collars, their eyes hollowed out by pure exhaustion.
‘Help them!’ Nirana begged in a hissed whisper.
Idan pulled Sheba back into the shadow of a granite overhang, his eyes flaming with fury.
‘You two stay here hidden. This is a hornet’s nest. I’ll scout the perimeter, but the last thing I need is you caught in any crossfire.’
‘I’m a nurse, Idan,’ Sheba countered, her eyes burning with outrage. ‘I’ve got a small med kit on me, I can at least assist a few of them.’
Idan arched a brow at her unwavering defiance and sighed.
‘Will you at least let me take out the guards first?’
She gave him a tight nod.
He closed his eyes, drawing the Ssignakht power from his core.
He projected his consciousness over the camp, his vision shifting into a thermal map of synaptic energy.
He tagged the sentinels and overseers as flickering pulses of hostile intent, no different from the threats he’d deleted eons ago on the celestial battlefields of Sacra.
He unleashed a targeted massive psionic wave, a noiseless, targeted routing of mental force that rippled through the valley.
The guards buckled where they stood, their nervous systems short-circuited by the psychic surge.
They slumped into the snow, their minds plunged into a deep void that would last for hours.
‘Honey, remind me never to be on your bad side,’ Sheba whispered, her voice trembling as the entire security detail collapsed in a single heartbeat.
Idan huffed in response, scanned the area once more, then nodded. ‘We’re clear. Follow me.’
Stepping into his protective shadow, Sheba and Nirana followed Idan.
He tore the heavy gate off its hinges with ease.
Up close, the reality was even grimmer.
Scores of miners stood about, thin, malnourished, and in shock as the trio burst through the entrance.
Nirana sprinted toward an older man and woman, and two girls shackled together near an outdoor kiln, who welcomed her with cries of joy at their reunion.
At the sight, the indentured workers rushed Idan, their lamentations and groans of the indentured, imprisoned workers piercing the air as they implored the couple to free them.
The bonded miners stood in filth, the skin on their bare feet decaying from the chemical runoff from the xentium drills.
‘Idan, their hands and legs,’ Sheba gritted in despair. ‘The shackles and poison have led to the freakin’ sepsis and open sores.’
Idan tracked first to Nirana’s relatives, jaw clenching as his fingers glowed and touched their iron locks.
The metal became brittle under the heat and shattered like glass.
The family let out cries of joy as they shook free their restraints.
With a nod, a squeeze of the older man’s shoulder, Idan moved on, eyes blazing as the prowled through the ranks of the shackled, freeing more of them.
Those he released headed for the gate, including Nirana and her family.
‘Sante,’ the child’s father croaked, the sound a dry rattle that drifted up the ridge as he hurried and disappeared into the forest with his kin.