Steel and Shadow: An Epic Fantasy Read Online Free Page A

finding he enjoyed the feel of her soft, golden flesh that felt as hard and muscular as his own, he was loathe to release her.
                  “Do you not have any such friends even in the pens,” he asked her, finally dropping his hand, knowing he had little right to think in the direction his mind was going.
                  “I am Valdoran, warrior,” she told him quietly, looking up at him again.  “Even the other slaves hate, and despise me.  I have been fortunate not to be raped again.”
                  “Again?”
                  “I have been fortunate,” she said quietly.  “The only time I was so abused was by the slavers that took me and my mother.”
                  “When you were but a child,” he exclaimed in genuine disgust.
                  “I lived,” she said in a low, sad tone that suggested she would have rather died, but did not have the courage to manage it at the time.
                  “Yet you are still haunted by that dark day, I can see,” he told her.  “You have suffered much yourself for one so young, and lovely,” he remarked quietly as he looked down at her, meeting her gaze.
                  “I should return.  The master will be expecting me to help clean the kitchens ere I can rest,” she said in a forlorn tone.
                  He took her by the shoulders before she could walk away, and stared down into her oval visage that did not shy from his gaze.  “Are you the only Valdoran here?”
                  “Aye,” she nodded.  “There was an older man a few years back, but he was whipped to death for spitting in the young lord’s face.”
                  He gave a faint grumble at hearing that, but only shook his head.  “So,” he said, lifting his right hand, and gently plucking at her collar.  “You are the only Valdoran remaining here?”
                  “Aye.”
                  She gasped as she felt his hand tug at the leather band encircling her throat just before the locked collar fell away, and he tossed it aside to fall into the darkness beyond the wall where they stood. 
                  “Warrior!”
                  “Do not fret.  We are in Valdor’s service, lass.  We are here at the behest of its king, to protect, and serve his subjects.  That includes you, who are now free, and who I shall personally see returned to your homeland.  You have my word, none shall harm you again.”
                  “You….  You would do that for….me,” she murmured, staring up at him in genuine surprise.
                  “Aye,” he nodded solemnly.
                  “May I….know your name, warrior,” she asked, sniffing softly.  “That I may thank the true god for your arrival, and pray you find your own destiny in due time.”
                  He did not remark on her words which meant very little to him.  “I am called Koa Darke.”
                  “I am called….”
                  “Don’t give your slave name to me, lass.  If you would, honor me, and your family, by giving me your true name.  That which your family gave you at birth.”
                  She swallowed hard at that.  She had been forbidden her birth name me for so long that she had answered out of habit.  “Mother….called me…..Lia.  I cannot recall our family name,” she admitted.
                  “A good name for a lovely lass far from home,” he said, and his impassive expression started to yield to the faintest of smiles when a fellow mercenary climbed the ladder to the section of the wall where Koa stood.
                  “I’m here to relieve you, lad,” the older man still called him as he had that first night long ago.  “Yet here I find you dallying with a