Siege (The Warrior Chronicles, #5) - K.F. Breene Page 0,68

mopper was moving out of the way, the two women stepped into the entryway and embraced.

“What the hell is happening?” Maggie asked with a slack jaw.

The mopper ducked out of sight, leaving behind her a floor slick with red-tinted water. As other women knelt with towels and rags, the lips of the two women in the middle met. One of their tongues came out, then the next, and they engaged in the raunchiest form of kissing Ruisa had ever seen.

The head woman opened the door, out of breath. Two men waited there, their faces painted with impatience. The woman said something in an apologetic tone, and then swept her hand toward the kissing women. As if on cue, one of them slid the palm of her hand over the breast of the other, and then on down, over her stomach and dipping in.

Ruisa’s face started burning again. In a trance, she watched fingers dip in, and then start to pump in and out. The other woman gyrated her hips and moaned as their kissing became more impassioned.

The men’s faces went slack before they walked into the room on uncertain legs. They didn’t notice the blood-tinged puddles on the floor, nor the smear of red on the head woman’s face, nor even that a few of the girls were wiping themselves down and getting dressed. They only had eyes for the show of female flesh going on in front of them.

The head woman spoke again. The kissers stopped what they were doing and grabbed hands. Ruisa ducked out of the way, allowing the women to lead the men up the stairs.

“I am way too naive for any of this,” Ruisa admitted, feeling heat where she probably shouldn’t.

“Me too, and I’m not naive.” Maggie wiped her forehead.

“Come with me, you two.” The head woman stepped around the standing water and through the rear door.

The dead man lay next to a tub, bleeding onto the thick fabric. Around him, stacked neatly against the back wall, were other barrels. A worktable crouched in front of those, with paper spread over it in messy stacks.

The woman led them around the body to a table and chairs. She barked orders to a scantily clad woman, then reached down and snatched the knife from the man’s neck. Without so much as a grimace, she settled her girth into one of the chairs and tossed the dripping knife onto the table. “Who are you, eh? And no lie to me. I cannot help you if I get lies.”

Ruisa looked at Maggie. “She wants to know who we are. She said she can’t help if we lie.”

For the first time Ruisa could remember in her entire life of knowing Maggie, the woman looked utterly and completely lost. She shook her head and shrugged at the same time.

The memory of prostitutes helping them in the Shadow Lands flicked through Ruisa’s head. Then of those in the old Mugdock city. This woman’s words, and her lack of concern regarding the dead man, struck a chord.

She leaned back in her chair. This could be a really, really bad idea. “We travel with the Chosen.”

The woman surveyed Ruisa for a long moment before nodding once. “I heard of Chosen. Some man, yeah? What you do for this Chosen?”

“No, he’s… It’s two people. The Chosen. It started as one woman, but in the Shadow Lands—”

The woman sat forward suddenly. Elbow braced on the table, she put her hand out to stall the conversation. Gaze pinned to Ruisa, she said, very slowly, “Tell me about this woman.”

Something flashed in the woman’s eyes. It wasn’t just hope. This was familiarity. Almost. A knowing gleam. With S’am, that could be a very bad thing.

“Why?” Ruisa asked. Her eyes briefly dipped to the knife. “What do you know about that woman?”

“What’s happening?” Maggie whispered as her hand dropped to her knife.

“Look.” The woman put her hands up and tilted her head. “You kill man, yes?” She stuck a hand out to the dead man. “In this town, you get hanged for that. Maybe worse. Maybe they let officers relieve themselves with you first, eh? Maybe you get picked for top officers. They like young, pretty girls. Could be worse. But…” She jerked her hands up and tilted her head again. “I try tell on you, you kill me. I know you have more knife, eh?” She made a circle in the air as she pointed at Ruisa. “And I know this one is dangerous.” She swung the hand