Aveline Read Online Free PDF Page B

she waited, the less convinced
she became about the masked stranger’s ability to follow through.
Aveline returned to testing her body. She was mobile from the waist
up and leaned down to rub her legs, uncertain what else to do to
encourage them to wake up from the drug.
    Eager to be away from the brothel, she
waited and prayed to the spirits of those who had come before her.
The sun was fully in the sky and lining the wall in front of her
when the door opened again. With one leg awake and the other
useless, she was at least able to stand.
    Turning warily from her position leaning
against a wall, she eyed the two men in Shield clothing in the
doorway. Her nose wrinkled at the scent of metal polish, and she
sought to place the significance of the green sashes they wore
across their normal scarlet uniforms.
    “We have been ordered to escort you to your
new position,” one said and looked her up and down critically.
    The same enunciation and cultured lilt
shaped his tone, and she realized what the sash signified. These
men were part of the personal guard for the elite living in the
outer city.
    Her benefactor, whomever he was, was as
wealthy as he claimed. She had never ventured once into the outer
city; she would not know the city’s leader from a privileged
servant or citizen, so why had he hidden his face?
    The two soldiers stepped aside.
    Aveline limped forward, dragging her
sleeping leg with a curse.
    She trailed one of the soldiers while the
second followed her. As she walked through the brothel, she made an
effort to memorize the features of every worker who crossed her
path. When this mission was over, she was returning and driving a
bone knife through the right eye of everyone enslaving the boys and
girls. When she was done with the workers, she would track down
those making meat out of children, slaughter them all, and feed the
inner city.
    She breathed a sigh of relief when she
stepped into the cold winter day. The gray sky had never been so
welcome to her.
    The soldier led her to an enclosed carriage
led by four bay horses and opened the door for her.
    Aveline climbed in, ready to fight anyone
who tried to attack her as she did. The inside of the carriage was
built more for practicality than luxury with bench seats and blinds
across the windows.
    She sat down, uncertain what to expect. She
pitched back as the carriage jolted forward and caught herself on
the seat. Straightening, she sat back against the wall, tense and
leery of the stranger who bought her freedom in exchange for her
not being what she was. Beyond puzzled, and concerned she would be
at the mercy of his true intentions, she pulled the envelope
containing her father’s treasure out of the pocket of her gown.
    Her father never offered to show her its
contents, and she had never requested to do so. In hindsight, she
wished she had asked him if she were permitted to see it, or if she
were supposed to protect it without ever knowing what the envelope
contained.
    She had lost it once and had it returned by
a man she dared not trust. His offering was not lost on her,
though, either. The stranger did not have to return anything to her
after what he had to have paid to free her.
    As curious as she was about what the
envelope contained, she feared dishonoring her father. Aveline
returned the treasure to her pocket and started to sink into the
memory of hearing her father’s last breath and feeling the warmth
of his skin fade away. Her night had kept her from such a thought.
But alone, uncertain and reeling from her experience at the
brothel, her emotions were far more raw than she wanted, and her
father was forefront on her mind, along with uncertainty about what
she had involved herself in a mere ten hours after his death.
    The jarring ride in the carriage left her
wishing she could walk. She massaged the thigh of her numbed leg. A
tap came from one of the doors. Certain she had misheard, she
ignored the sound.
    It came again, and she leaned forward