The Hunter

Chapter 4 - Rushed Nightmare

”Sorry love.”

Lola awoke with a start, gasping for breath. She frantically looked around her large bedroom for demons and felt sweat drip off of her eyelashes as her head snapped from side to side.

It was just a nightmare...

Shuddering, she tried to slow her breathing but her chest kept heaving.

Just a nightmare…A

And then she moaned. Not only was her head pounding from the hangover but also the side effects of the Rush she had taken at the club were kicking in.

“That’s the last time I ever drink,” she muttered aloud for the third time that week.

The sound of drapes being pulled back sent Lola’s head reeling. Afternoon sunlight sent welting rays of light into her room, pushing the blissful darkness into submission.

“Put those back you worthless incompetent!” she snapped.

The slave girl hesitated.

Raising her hand to shield her eyes from the burning light, she almost screamed, “Did I stutter?”

Looking wide-eyed at the floor, the girl stammered, “Master Victor said you have to get up.”

Growling, she tossed aside the soaked sheets and fumbled for the robe that hung next to her bedpost. With her head still throbbing, she staggered to her feet. Immediately she had to lash out and grab for the bedpost before she tumbled to the ground. Lola’s small addiction left her short tempered and disoriented for the better part of the next day.

Grinning, she thought, But that was one helluva night.

After being bathed and dressed by her three other incompetent slaves, she stumbled out of her room feeling miserable.

Halfway through a yawn, she stopped in surprised. Two lapdogs were standing at attention to either side of her--one of them was dressed in a peculiar Caprian long coat.

“What are you two doing here?” she demanded.

The long coat one grinned at her suggestively. “Guard duty.”

Shocked by his rudeness, she stormed away. When the two lapdogs started to follow her, she stopped. They stopped.

What the hell?

“Where is the Lieutenant?”

Again the long coat spoke. “Looking for another job, I’d imagine.”

Annoyed, she motioned with her hand. “Who has taken his place?”

What an imbecile.

The stupid lopsided grin he’d been using on her faltered. Looking at the other man, he shrugged. “I suppose Lieutenant Kyle.”

She had finally had enough of his disrespect and added for him, “My Lady.”

Confused, he shook his head. “Why, I’m not a Lady.”

Head pounding, and still slightly disoriented, she let out a frustrating yell. “My father has hired complete idiots!”

Kyle… wasn’t that the man in my dream?

Shaking her head from the odd feeling, Lola started for the Lieutenant’s quarters. Halfway to the barrack side of the mansion she ran into Terry, her long time best friend from the House of Trake.

“There you are!” she cried in greeting.

“Speak for yourself,” Lola replied smiling.

Terry feigned innocence. “Me? I swear father, I was only having dinner with Lord Ciron.”

“You whore!” she said with a laugh.

Her friend gave a mock gasp. “And what of our unbroken flirt? Where did you disappear off to last night? One moment I saw you dancing with Jared, and the next you were gone.”

Lola hesitated. From the Rush she had been on, she didn’t remember a whole lot. Just the dancing and parts of the nightmarish dream she had.

At her expression, Terry smiled knowingly. “Playing dumb with me now? Go ahead. I’ll find out sooner or later.” And then she gasped scandalously. “Did you hear?”

Lola shook her head and then regretted it. She gripped her head as the pounding momentarily increased.

Ignoring her, Terry cautiously looked both ways down the hallway. She had always been the gossiper.

“Lord Duncan was found in a pool of his own blood. They say a gang of footpads jumped him in one of his own warehouses. Can you believe that? The asshole is dead!”

As the words slowly sunk through Lola’s throbbing headache, she felt her stomach clench. The nightmare she had thought she had came back to her, but this time she remembered being dragged out of the club. Her stomach heaved and pile threatened to overtake her throat. She reached for her mouth.

“Lola? Are you okay? I told you to stop taking that stuff,” her friend said worriedly, just before Lola sent the contents of her stomach out onto the mansion’s floor. Pulling her long brunette hair back over her shoulder, she heaved again.

“My Lady. Now might not be the best of times.” Lola heard the long coat man say to Terry as she dropped to her knees and heaved again.

From her position, she watched Terry’s feet shuffle back away from her and her growing pool of bodily fluids.

“Y-Yes.” Terry said hesitantly. “I will come by later, okay?”

Lola groaned as her friend’s footsteps started to retreat.

“It would be wise not to speak of last night.”

She turned her head from the nauseating puddle to the long coat. Vaguely she remembered a woman dressed in a long coat from her nightmare--

No, last night.

She shuddered.

“What is your name?”

“Jack.”

She’d never asked for any of their names before but it kept her mind off of what was trying to make its way into her conscious.

As if her asking for his name had suddenly given him special privileges, he grabbed her arm and pulled her up. She wanted to reprimand him for touching her but the human contact made the shuddering subside.

“If you are trying to find Kyle, he is in the Yard,” Jack whispered. The sudden wave of nausea that had overcome her threatened to overwhelm her again. Nodding absently, she let him guide her to the Yard.

Like the name implied, the Yard was one large grassy area built in the back of the mansion. It was where the soldier’s trained and where a few of their House’s larger festivals were held.

When they came upon the Yard--by the covered walkway that stretched the length of the mansion’s backside--Lola found a growing crowd.

“What is going on?” she asked absently.

“Tryouts,” Jack said as he scanned the crowd in front of them.

When she turned a questioning eye to him, he pointing with his chin to the crowd, “Tryouts.”

“I heard you the first time.”

Again the man gave her a lopsided grin. “I’m not at liberty to say much more.”

She felt her eyebrows climb. “Not. At. Liberty?”

Her other lapdog shuffled his feet uncomfortably. Turning to him, the man’s eyes lowered instantly.

Finally a man who knows his place.

“What is your name?” she demanded.

“Chad, my Lady.”

“What is he talking about?”

Chad looked at Jack hesitantly. “I’m sorry my Lady.”

“You are sorry?” When he lowered his eyes further, she said it even louder. “You are sorry?!”

“My Lady. Is there a problem?”

Turning, she found Lieutenant Kyle and a woman. The later surprised her into silence. She was Caprian and wore weapons. Lola had never seen such a thing before. She had heard of such soldiers in the Empire but had never really believed the stories.

A Caprian?

“My Lady?”

Kyle’s question snapped her back to the situation and she pointed at Chad and Jack. “I want these two men on the streets immediately.”

Kyle raised his eyes a hair and looked at both of the lapdogs that stood next to her. “Why would you want that, my Lady?”

“Because,” she said, pointing to Jack. “He is disrespectful and the both insist on following me. And they refuse to tell me what is going on here.”

“Is that all?” the woman asked sarcastically.

“What did you say?” Lola demanded.

“Childish and deaf? By the Gods, Top can sure pick them. I’ve got work to do. Fix this Kyle.”

To Lola’s shock, the woman turned her back to her and started walking back toward the growing crowd. She heard the woman streaming out orders but the words were lost to the general buzz of the men around her.

And they listen to her?

Realizing her mouth was still hanging open, she closed it with an audible snap. “And I want her whipped before she is thrown out.”

Jack laughed next to her but, after a glare from Kyle, silenced himself.

“My Lady, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“Why?” she demanded.

“Because she is my Captain.”

Lola blinked. “She is the Captain now? What in the seven sins is going on?!”

“Captain Turner is still with us, my Lady. But there have been some changes. You will be guarded at all times now.”

She glared at the man and--of all things--he raised his eyes to her and glared right back. Letting out a frustrated scream, she suddenly realized something. Turning to Jack she noticed the obvious difference in his uniform to Chad’s. She turned to look at the Caprian woman who had made her way back up to the front of the crowd.

Mercenaries?

“Where is my father?”

Kyle lowered his eyes to the floor and muttered, “With Maiden Livia.”

Her mood darkened at the mention of the slave’s name and all thoughts of the night before vanished.

Great, the flavor of the moon.

Using that anger, and a gut feeling, she stormed down the hallway toward her father’s room. Upon finding his room, Jack made to stop her from entering but--surprisingly--he opened the door for her.

Pushing past him, she rushed passed a slave girl who’d been slouching against the wall of the waiting room. Ignoring the fumbling girl, Lola pushed the bedroom door hard enough to make its hinges protest. As expected, Maiden Livia was riding her father.

“How wonderful of you to wake up today,” her father drawled over the slave’s thigh.

“Out!” she screamed at the Maiden.

Livia looked over her shoulder and gave Lola a sultry smile. It was no wonder her mother had stayed back home. A Roof Mistress who couldn’t control her husband--even an Imperialistic husband--was better off spending his money.

“It’s okay Livia. We can continue this later,” he said with a light pat to her buckled knee.

The Maiden, who could have been her own sister, flashed a pout at her father before sliding off of him. Thankfully, she had her robe around her waist and didn’t need to take the sheets with her.

When the slave left, he sighed. “What is it?”

“You hired mercenaries?” she asked, pointing to Jack who had been trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. She didn’t blame him--he wasn’t part of their House.

Her father frowned. “Since when did you care about who I hired?”

“How much did that cost you?”

“After spending a couple hundred crowns at that club last moon, you should be the last person to question me on how I should spend my money.”

She didn’t have many more cards left to play and her father seemed to know what game she was playing.

“That’s right,” he said. “You aren’t going to Boco Bay.”

Growling, she pointed a finger at Jack, “They are more than capable at protecting me.”

Rolling his eyes he said, “Oh? Now we want the mercs?”

“You can’t do this to me! I’ve been waiting for this since last year!” An old anger started to rise up in her. He had promised her.

“I distinctly remember you saying you’d go clean too.”

“What are you talking about?” she demanded defensively.

He sighed again, but this time there was something more to it. “You have been on that Rush again, haven’t you?”

When her eyes faltered from his, he shook his head disappointingly. “I was afraid of this.” He motioned for one of the slaves that stood against the wall. Immediately, a girl came forward. “Starting from now on, until you clean up your act, I won’t be giving you a penny.” To the slave he said, “Make sure her Backer account is frozen.”

Lola's eyes widened in shock and she opened her mouth to protest but he overrode her. “And you will be tutored every day for the next moon or until I see you fit. It is time you started earning your keep. Now leave me. I don’t want to hear your whining. Lieutenant Jack. Make sure she doesn’t do anything else to shame this House.”

Close to tears, Lola turned and ran.