Chapter 1 - The Call to Service

Sunlight crawled through the window and hit me square in the face. I squinted, my head pounding from last night’s wine. Felix was sprawled across my chest, still asleep and drooling on me. His breath tickled my neck, and despite feeling like I’d been trampled by a horse, I grinned.

The sheets were twisted around us like we’d been wrestling. Which, come to think of it, we had been.

“Morning,” Felix mumbled against my collarbone. His hand slid down and wrapped around my cock with zero hesitation.

I groaned. “Felix, I can barely feel my legs.”

“Liar.” His grip tightened, and damn him, he was right. I got hard for him anyway.

He hummed into my shoulder, and that hum always got me. “Besides, when has that ever stopped you?”

Before I could come up with a witty response, someone hammered on the door hard enough to rattle the hinges.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” I muttered, rolling out of bed. The cold air bit my naked ass.

Felix laughed. “Duty calls.”

I stumbled to the door. Whoever had knocked was already gone, but they’d shoved an envelope under it. I snatched it off the floor and dove back under the covers. The wax had the Guild’s seal pressed into it. I cracked it open.

New assignment. Report immediately. - M.B.

“Well?” Felix asked. I bet he could read it on my face already.

“Marcus wants to see me.” I crumpled the letter and tossed it aside. “Probably some noble’s lost their precious whatever and needs the famous Samuel Thornwood to find it.”

Felix pulled me closer. “You’ll come back.”

“Always do.” I kissed him, tasting sleep and last night’s wine. “Try not to burn the place down while I’m gone.”

“No promises.”

I dragged on my pants and shirt and strapped on my leather armor, checking the buckles twice out of habit. Felix watched from the bed with his blonde hair a mess, the sheet barely covering his hips.

“You could always stay,” he said, stretching his arms over his head so his stomach pulled tight. The little show-off was doing it on purpose.

“And miss Marcus lecturing me about responsibility? Tempting, but I’d rather keep my balls attached.” I grabbed my belt, trying not to stare at the morning light on Felix’s chest.

Felix smirked and let the sheet slip lower. “Your loss. I was planning to spend the day practicing my oral techniques.”

I nearly dropped the belt. “You’re evil.”

“You love it.” He threw a pillow at me. “Now get out of here before I change my mind about letting you leave.”

I caught the pillow with my free hand, tossed it back, and buckled the belt on. “Keep that thought warm for me.”

“Among other things,” he purred, and fuck me if that didn’t make me want to climb right back into bed with him.

I stepped out of the Crooked Nail, which leaned against the building next door like a drunk looking for support, and breathed in fresh bread and horse shit, Ashbourne’s signature morning perfume.

The lower tiers were already bustling. A woman waved at me from her bakery window. I blew her a kiss and kept walking, still thinking about Felix’s oral techniques.

A guy tried to sell me boots that looked suspiciously like mine. I declined with a laugh and a suggestion about where he could stick his merchandise.

I knew every shortcut in these streets and every place to hide when things went sideways. Lily called out from her shop, surrounded by bundles of wildflowers I could smell from down the block. I crossed the street to tell her Blackthorn had sent for me, and she kissed me hello. She tasted of sugar, and when she pulled back, those blue eyes of hers went straight to my waist.

“Come by when you get back,” she whispered, pressing a sprig of purple flowers into my hand. “I’ll have something sweet waiting for you. And don’t think I haven’t noticed that new belt. Stolen?”

“Gifted,” I corrected, tucking the sprig under it. “By someone with excellent taste.”

She laughed at me. “That’s what they all say. Go on, before Blackthorn sends someone less charming.”

As I climbed toward the upper levels, the air got cleaner and the people got stuffier. Rich folks up there had sticks up their asses and more money than sense. The buildings shifted from crooked timber to polished stone, every window scrubbed until it gleamed and shut with a latch I could have opened with a hairpin.

The Guild Hall was up there with the rich folks, all gray stone and noise. I swear the sword-and-quill emblem over the door was judging my life choices. Fair enough. I’d made some questionable ones.

Inside, the place stank of pipe smoke and sweat, and everybody was one bad word away from a fistfight. Adventurers clustered around boards full of bounties and contracts, arguing over who deserved what. Somebody was testing a blade on a practice dummy, and every clang went straight through my wine headache.

“Samuel!” Tom the blacksmith grabbed my shoulder with hands that could crush walnuts. Soot streaked his arms up to the elbows, and he smelled like hot iron and coal smoke. “Still breaking hearts and taking names?”

“You know it.” I clapped his shoulder back. “Forge treating you well?”

He grinned with a mouthful of crooked teeth. “Can’t complain. Made a set of throwing knives last week that’d make your eyes water. Stop by sometime, I’ll show you.”

I pushed through, trading nods with people I knew. Mara the half-elf rogue winked at me over the dagger she was oiling, and I would have happily stood there watching her hands work that blade if the crowd hadn’t swallowed her up a second later.

Marcus’s office was at the end of a hallway lined with maps of places I’d love to explore.

I stopped outside his door, wiped my palms on my pants, and knocked three times.

The office reeked of tobacco and old wood. Marcus Blackthorn sat behind his massive desk, packing his pipe one pinch at a time. The walls were lined with books that nobody had cracked open since the Guild was founded, and a fire crackled in the hearth, throwing shadows on the carpet.

He looked up when I came in, and even sitting down he was a mountain of a man. Gray streaked his black hair, and an ornate cane was propped by his desk. The thing had to be worth as much as a house, but I’d heard rumors it hid a blade that had ended more arguments than his words ever had. He rose with a limp as he gestured me toward the chair, then settled back into his seat so smoothly that I’d bet money the limp was an act.

“Samuel,” he said, in that fancy, courtly way he said everything. “I appreciate you answering the summons so promptly.”

I dropped into the chair across from him.

Marcus slid a parchment across the desk. “I have a contract that requires a particular set of skills. Your particular set of skills, as it happens.”

I picked it up and skimmed the curly script: a warlock named Malkor, blood magic rituals, girls going missing near Blackrock Hold, and whole villages too scared to sleep with their doors unlocked. A separate recovery clause named Malkor’s grimoire, and the bonus beside that line was almost respectable.

“A blood warlock,” I said, reading it again. “Kidnapping girls for rituals.”

Marcus tapped his pipe on the desk. “Malkor has been collecting young women from the surrounding villages. Oakhaven, Millcross, others. The families petition the Guild every week, and the local militia won’t go near Blackrock Hold. Someone needs to put a stop to it.” He drew on the pipe and let the smoke curl. “How you stop him is your business. I don’t need to know the details.”

He leaned over and put a finger on the recovery clause on the page in my hands. “The Guild also wants his grimoire. Mistress Ashara was unusually specific about its condition. Bring it here unopened and intact.”

I stared at the page. Those girls were real people with real families, gone because some twisted fuck needed ingredients for his spells.

I thought about Felix, warm and safe back at the Crooked Nail, and I went cold picturing somebody dragging him out of that bed in the dark.

“The pay listed here is shit,” I said, because I had to say something that wasn’t about the knot in my throat.

Marcus leaned forward on his elbows. “Consider it an investment. There’s a parable the old guild masters used to tell: the thief who chases the coin purse misses the vault door standing open behind him. Stop Malkor, bring those girls home, and the Guild will remember. Generously.”

I stood up, the chair scraping on the floor. “Alright. I’m in.”

Marcus set his pipe down. “Samuel, I will be direct. Malkor is not some hedge wizard brewing potions in a basement. He kills without hesitation, and his keep is a fortress.” He fixed me with a look I’d seen send seasoned adventurers hurrying off to appointments elsewhere. “Keep your wits about you and your focus sharp. I don’t need to remind you that your... appetites have complicated past assignments.”

I grinned. “You wound me, Marcus. When have I ever let distractions get in the way?”

“Do you want the list alphabetically or chronologically?”

He had me there. “Message received. Stop the warlock, save the girls, keep my dick in my pants.”

“See that it stays that way.” He leaned back, fingers curling around the head of his cane. “Blackrock Hold has swallowed better rogues than you. Come back with your head still attached, and we’ll discuss your future prospects over something expensive.”

I tucked the contract into my pocket and headed for the door.

I spent the rest of the day packing. I could have waited for morning, but I kept picturing those girls. The streets were busy in the late afternoon when I walked to the stables. Vendors called out final sales, and the smell of roasting meat from a cart made my stomach growl. I kept chewing on Marcus’s warning, and on that grimoire clause, and on why Ashara cared so much whether I peeked inside the damn thing.

The stables were at the city’s edge, where the stone gave way to mountain paths and the air smelled like honest sweat instead of perfumed bullshit. Bertha was waiting in her stall, probably plotting new ways to make my life difficult. She was a good mule, which meant she was stubborn and smarter than half the people in the Guild Hall.

As I walked up to Bertha, the hair on my arms stood up. I turned, and there she was, Mistress Ashara, stepping out of a shadow I would have sworn was empty. Her silver-and-black fur shone in what little light filtered through the stable windows, and I’d bet she knew exactly where to stand to make it do that. Those golden eyes fixed on me, and I froze on instinct.

“Leaving without a word, Samuel?” she purred, her voice carrying that razor edge that made my spine straighten and my cock straighten right along with it.

She held the riding crop down by her thigh. My eyes went straight to her leather outfit, which was mostly straps and buckles, and how little of her it hid, and right after that to the fact that she could kill me six different ways before I finished this thought.

“I was going to send a note,” I started.

“Save it.” The riding crop cracked across my ass before I even saw her arm move, and I yelped loud enough to make Bertha stamp in her stall. “Blackthorn doesn’t sneeze without me knowing.”

She stepped close enough that her breath hit my neck and I could smell her, cedar bark and hot metal, and my pulse kicked. “Blackrock Hold isn’t a place for mistakes.”

The tip of her crop caught the contract where it stuck out of my pocket, and I held my breath. “Do not open that grimoire, Samuel.”

Her lips brushed my ear. “Try not to get yourself killed before we have a chance to properly celebrate your success.”

I opened my mouth to answer, and the shadow beside me was empty again. She’d left me flushed, with my ass still stinging, and I couldn’t tell if she’d just threatened me or offered to fuck me. Knowing Ashara, probably both.

I shook it off and went back to Bertha. She stared at me with those big, unimpressed eyes.

“Don’t give me that look,” I muttered, checking her saddle. “We’ve got a long, cold ride ahead of us. Try to contain your excitement.”

She snorted in my face.

I led her out into the fading daylight, the mountain air sharp in my lungs. The city stretched behind us with its lamps coming on. Somewhere up in the peaks ahead was a mad warlock, and a bunch of kidnapped girls counting on someone who hopefully wasn’t as stupid as he looked.

“Alright, girl,” I said, patting Bertha’s neck as I swung into the saddle. “Stop the warlock, save the girls, steal the book, try not to die. Sound like a plan?”

She flicked an ear, which I chose to interpret as confidence in my abilities to not fuck this up too badly.