Fortune

It was a small fortune that lay there in the middle of the bed. A lucrative week at Deje's Red Moon House, and an even more lucrative contract performed to the client's satisfaction. My fingers sifted through the gold, watching coins trickle through my fingers. They sparkled against even the warmth of my skin as I sat next to them, running them through my hands again and again. The price of skin. The price of blood. The price of sex. The price of death.

Everything has a price.

I was worth a fortune, in the bedroom and out. I could command any price I wished for my services. A fortune.

I sold my talents and as I studied the gold I wondered if that was what I was worth. Golden skin, golden coins. Cold against skin, like a blade, and just as deadly in their own way.

Everything has a price. Even me. I hated those coins, but I scooped them up and vanished them to join the rest of my small fortune. I could quit. I could retire to a small house in a small town somewhere. Get a cat. Maybe a dog. No more nights on my back. No more days with a blade in my hand.

But the blade was the joy and the men between my thighs were the price I paid for it. The gold piled up. I bought what I needed, though truly most of my wardrobe had been provided by grateful clients, and what I took away from a house was mine to keep. I saved for that day when I could walk away. When the debt had been extracted. When I could rejoice in that fortune. Revenge was better than gold.

There was a debt to be paid that the largest fortune in the world would not satisfy. A debt that the blood that stained my hands would not erase.

Once it was paid to my satisfaction, in screams and pleas for mercy not given, then I could retire. Then I could rest.

But until then, I'd continue to pay the price and earn the fortune and make each slice of the blade a promise for what was to come.

AU/non-TM

Surreal wandered downstairs in search of breakfast, casually dressed in trousers and a sweater. She wasn't sure where Rainier was, as he'd been gone when she woke, but it seemed a good time to explore the house a bit more on her own. Her things had been delivered from the family townhouse, what few of them there were. Mostly clothes. A few books. The majority of what she'd collected in her life had been left behind in Terreille. Not that she regretted the loss, not really, but it was so much of her past that looking around she couldn't help feeling that she was back to that rootless existence.

Except that he wanted to buy a cabinet for weapons for her to practice with. Put up targets for her to practice throwing at, in his beautiful dance studio no less. And he'd told her she could redecorate if things didn't please her.

She still couldn't imagine that. The same impulse that had kept her from redecorating Daemon and Jaenelle's townhouse kept her from considering that here, even if it was different.

And it was different. Everything was different.

She flushed a little under what she was sure were the servant's knowing eyes as she helped herself to the rather bountiful breakfast they'd laid out on the sideboard.

He loved her. He'd said so.

She flushed more, mumbling her thanks, then focusing her attention on buttering her roll as the maid poured her some coffee before retreating. It wasn't like her to blush like this, damn the man. She'd been the highest paid whore in the history of Terreille. She'd seen it all and done most of it. She wasn't supposed to blush at the memory of three little words that had turned her world upside down.

There was guilt there, niggling. She wasn't supposed to love him, she was fairly sure. She'd made promises, rash ones. No vows of celibacy--she wasn't an idiot, and she knew herself--but promises nonetheless. Even if only to herself and he'd never asked for them and wouldn't be upset. No right to be.

They'd made their choices and they were the right ones and they were both happy with them and he'd be happy for her and want her to be happy the same way she wanted him to be happy. All she'd ever wanted was for him to be happy, so why did she feel like...why the guilt for taking a chance on her own happiness?

She left her food mostly untouched, sipping at her coffee as she got up and wandered to perch in the window seat, looking out at the street.

She loved him. A wry smile flitted across her lips. Both hims. Because of honor, family, and love itself, she'd walked away from one of them. She had a chance with Rainier, though, for something new. Something unprecedented in her life. Something she'd never really dared to hope to have for herself. And she'd taken that chance, agreeing to stay with him here. To make his home hers. But now there was a new layer to that. She should have known how he felt. He made it clear enough in every glance, every touch. But somehow it seemed too...improbable that anyone so...so something she couldn't put a word to, but someone like him...improbable that someone like him could love someone like her.

But he did. She could feel the truth behind the words. He wanted her here. He loved her. He wanted her in his life.

She glanced back around the room. This could be her home. He could be her home. Was...her home, maybe, already, without her consciously deciding that. She had a chance at happiness that she hadn't had before.

All she had to do was take it.

(no subject)

This Quiz is broken.

I have, by turns, based on what I like to drink and what I think of the quiz gotten: Lucivar (more times than I can count), Daemon, Saetan, Jaenelle, and Karla.

Clearly, as it has choices about Dea al Mon, Gray Jewels and allows someone to be described as "prickly" I should be able to get myself as a result.

But I can't.

I know who I am. I know what I like. And when I answer instinctually, I get Lucivar.

Bah.

Broken.

Clearly.

ANOUNCEMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sam and I have decided to have a BABY!!!!