The Web Read online

  Contents

  Copyright

  Trouble in Purgatory

  The Traitor Princess

  I Hope It Was Good

  No Man's Land

  Who Are You?

  It Goes Too Deep

  What Is Your Move?

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Eva Natsumi on Smashwords

  The Web by Eva Natsumi

  Copyright © 2014 by Eva Natsumi

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  Trouble in Purgatory

  “I take no pleasure in your torment.” Said a man with glistening, sun gold skin and a wide muscular chest. He stood below a woman suspended on a silver spider web that glowed from the moon light. Her jet black hair fell across her dazzling ruby eyes. She was on display for the man and his men.

  “Is that why you smile so fiercely?” Asked the woman, her red eyes glowing. “I am your Princess, and you will pay for this dearly.” She spat in his face, her hair undulating with the movement.

  The rogue wiped the spit from his brow and inched his face so they were only a breath apart. “Do not mistake yourself. You are not my Princess. I harbor no auspice toward you. The only reason you are not being beat this very moment is because some of us still respect the rules of Hostage.” He stepped back from her, smiling, and rubbed his hands together thoughtfully. Though still spring, the months had been especially chilly and were growing chiller. The air smelled of damp soil and the cool night breeze made the leaves whisper with haunting grace.

  “I will giggle gleefully as they stick your head on a pike,” said the Princess, as though the rogue had not just threatened her seconds ago.

  “Oh, my dear, sweet Saye. You are so mistaken.”

  “You dare address me?” The princess Saye exclaimed.

  “Forgive me my Majesty,” the rogue bent to his knee with sarcastic grace, “great Whore of the United Kingdom of Shit.” He flourished his hands wildly before resting them on the forest floor.

  Saye went silent. A pale, moonlit fog crept over the deep roots and dew damp flowers of the forest; it covered the legs of the Rogue and blanketed The Princess.

  “Oh, no words now? She who wouldn’t shut up a minute ago.” The rogue stood to his knees, brushing off mud as his gang laughed around him. Clouds were clearing overhead and the moon shone through. The Rogue’s shaggy mess of fire red hair was illumined by the moonlight and he looked like the day come in night.

  Saye merely shook her head. Even strung up on the webbing she looked beautiful. Her clothes were dirtied and her hair messy, but her ruby red eyes of the Aranean royalty shone brighter than the night stars.

  The Rogue sighed, an exasperated and contemplative breath. “I am not a man who tortures. It is not in my nature, but with you…”

  Saye laughed so uproariously that it rang through the forest and stopped the rogue’s speech in its tracks. “A rogue with morals,” Saye mocked. “You’re dead either way, rogue, so stop pretending you’re anything but dirt.” The rogue opened his mouth to protest but was interrupted by a scream somewhere in the moonlit forest. Soon followed the sound of clanking steel on steel, muffled voices, and a thud. Saye raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh dear, that sounded mismanaged.” At her words someone burst through the bushes. Upon seeing the strung up Princess he slowed his run to a walk and attempted to look put together, however his hair was disheveled and his eyes revealed disconcert. The man approached the Rogue and whispered something in his ear. The Rogue revealed nothing.

  “Trouble in purgatory?”

  “Nothing escapes the eyes of the government,” the Rogue laughed, clapping a hand on the back of the disheveled man. The two walked from Saye and out of clearing, toward the thick of the woods.

  “Where are you going?” Saye demanded. She eyed the rest of the gang, their eyes hungry. None of them were leaving with the rogue and without their leader to keep them in check there was no telling what they would do to her.

  “Away. Think you can hang in there for awhile?”

  It was quiet. No one had said anything or moved a muscle since the rogue had left. Though Saye had had quite a mouth on her earlier, she knew how to survive, and that meant not drawing attention to oneself when there was a clear imbalance of power. Sure, being suspended in the air and stuck to a shining spiderweb wasn’t the best position to be in when trying to stay under the radar, but that doesn’t mean you have to make the situation worse.

  This was the most exposed Saye had felt since being taken. She had been on the road to Araneis back from her country house when they were ambushed. She’d thought (hoped) it was only a burglary. The roads were known for highwaymen. Most highwaymen aren’t advantageous enough to attack a royal embassy, though. Saye had guards, but these guys took them out easily. Saye stayed low. She wasn’t stupid. She hid under the cart, hoping they’d take whatever silk, webbing, and precious metals they wanted and leave. If they didn’t see Princess then they wouldn’t get the idea to ransom her.

  It was quiet under the cart, almost as quiet as now in the webbing. All Saye could hear was her breathing. Then she saw him: the rogue. His bright, sun-colored hair invaded her vision and his dark black eyes were piercing her soul. He tore her from under the cart, threw a bag over her head, and next thing Saye knew, she was strung up on a spiderweb.

  Saye looked around now at the gang that captured her. The air seemed to have changed. Still utterly quiet, it was tenser. Saye found herself wishing she could step backward.

  One of the men moved forward. Saye’s eyes bulged out of her head. Her tongue caught in her throat. She wanted to scream at the man to get back in line but felt that would only harm things. This wasn’t Araneis. She wasn’t a Princess. She was a prisoner. This was her life on the line.

  Another one and another one took a step forward. Soon they were all advancing on her. Saye dug her fingernails in to her palm. There were too many of them. At least with the rogue she could attempt to figure him out, beg, plea, anything. There were too many of them. Mob mentality would take over and her pleas would get lost in their pitchforks.

  Before she could scream someone ripped her from the webbing. It’s beautiful silver silk hung like ghostly, moth eaten curtains. Saye was thrown to the forest floor. Like a wave crashing against the surf she found her voice and screamed as ten or more men descended upon her, ripping at her clothes. She thrashed and scratched at their faces, but there were too many of them.

  Is this what her life had become? She had gone from Princess to… to rag doll in a matter of hours. It was too early for anyone in Araneis to even know she was missing yet as she screamed and cried and bloodied herself against the onslaught of men more was happening now than had happened in her entire life.

  “Enough!” A voice as hard as stone broke through the massive pile forming on her. Sunlight streamed through and Saye could breathe again. Her clothes were shreds and bruises covered her body but she felt warmth. Saye took a deep breath and before she passed out she could see clearly the rogue peering down at her.

  The princess was asleep now. His men had gotten out of control. After spending the better part of the night kicking himself for leaving her alone with a pack of rowdy, hormonal, and under-sexed men, Soul had gotten over it. He had to get over it. He was the leader and if he let himself cry over every mishap he’d have been in a whorehouse drunk of his ass and crying to any miss who’d listen years ago.

 
Soul decided to let her sleep in his tent after giving her some of his clothes, an act she probably didn’t remember. It went against the plan of ransom and get out of here, but he couldn’t exactly ransom damaged goods, either. She looked so peaceful. Soul had only ever seen the princess on currency, and the coins did not do her justice. They didn’t capture her ruby red lips or olive skin and they definitely didn’t capture her eyes. Though her lids were closed now Soul could still picture the fires beneath them.

  A lock of hair fell across her cheek and instinctually Soul moved it away. Saye’s eyelids fluttered open sleepily. At first she looked shocked and frightened to see Soul, then she calmed.

  “Why did you save me?” Saye asked, her head nestled in to his pillow and her voice laced with sleep. She was looking at him as if she were searching for some hint of humanity. Good luck, Soul thought.

  “Because when I have you,” Soul said, inching close to her face. “You’ll be mine and only mine.” Saye gasped and pulled his blanket up to her nose. She closed her eyes tightly, as if she could pretend what he had said was only a dream. Soul laughed mockingly and went back to work.

  The Traitor Princess

  The Rogue shoved Saye awake, pulled the blanket off, and said “we’re moving.” They walked to the direction of the rising sun with no further words. Well, there’d been some words of course. Saye had practically created a literary canon with just her protestations. Nothing came from it. They’d walked for hours in an area entirely foreign to Saye and in that time the Rogue had said less than four words. Dawn was coming, it was just the two of them, and his troop was nowhere to be seen.

  Saye vaguely remembered their conversation last night. That was a lie. She remembered it all in perfect clarity. She had every detail memorized down to his orange-red five o’clock shadow. It was one of the reasons she protested so loudly and vigorously. The idea of being alone with him was much too thrilling. No—it was too terrifying, that was what it was supposed to be.

  The sound of clanking steel, not knives or swords, but like the days Saye remembered of the metal quarries echoed through the forest. When her father, the King, was still alive, he would take her down to the quarry and make her cut big slabs of tin and copper to “toughen her up.” She would complain the whole time. Later she would discover the slabs were precut.

  The trees cleared and it was visible that they were walking alongside a hillside precipice. The sun was almost risen and it shone over a plowed and dug out field below. Saye stopped. Below men and women grunted and snapped whips. There was a small, shoddy wood shack where three stood watching. A man dragged a limp, eight-legged body in to a ditch. Its skin was blue and shimmered like the surface of a lake. It had eight, orb like golden eyes that formed one diamond across the face. The man tossed it on a pile of other similar bodies.

  “What is going on down there?”

  “Nothing,” the rogue said, following Saye’s gaze.

  “They look like spiders…”

  “How do you think your beautiful silken cities are built?” The rogue laughed causticly and continued walking. Saye contorted her brow. “Come along, princess,” the rogue continued, “Your furlough is nearly finished.”

  Saye took one last pained glance at the pile of bodies and followed the rogue.

  “Well, here she is.” Soul knew better than to ransom the princess directly to Araneis. The UKA didn’t negotiate with rogues. He would ransom her off to a lower level peon that worked directly with the UKA so the UKA could keep pretending that they didn’t negotiate with rogues, and he would get his money. In this case the lower level peon was an overseer. It wasn’t ideal, because who wants to deal with a glorified slave driver? But it was what it was.

  “’N who’re you?” The peon asked Soul, resting his whip between his paws. Before Soul could respond Saye opened up her big mouth.

  “I am Princess Aranea IV of the United Kingdom of Araneis, Seraph of the Spiders.” Soul slapped a palm to his face. When dealing with these types of transactions you never reveal who you’re trading. You say “I have someone of importance to the kingdom, what’s it worth to you?” And then decide on a number. Fucking royalty ruins everything.

  “It’s her!” The dirtied and labored overseer grabbed Saye. “It’s the traitor Princess!” Overseers that were previously inexistent, or at least were not visible from the hill, sprouted like weeds. Upon espying Saye, they ran for her.

  “I am not a traitor you muddied turnip! I was kidnapped and taken hostage. Unhand me!” More hands covered and groped Saye. They pulled her from the silk quarry and inside a ramshackle hut.

  Traitor? Soul had not been expecting this. He had been expecting an impossible negotiation when Saye spilled the beans, not treason. As the overseers grabbed Saye and forced her in to the hut, Soul quietly slipped away.

  The trapdoor flung open above Saye. The light burned her eyes. A man appeared with hair red like the sunset and skin like gold. The rogue.

  “What?” Saye squinted at him incredulously, inching her head back slightly. The overseers had stuck her not only in the ramshackle hut, but in the floor of the ramshackle hut. It had felt like hours since she’d been stuck there and there wasn’t exactly space to move. Her joints ached fiercely. Upon seeing the rogue she assumed it was a trap. He was, after all, the person that had brought her here.

  “Come!” He lifted her from her prison as easily as one lifts a dove. “We have no time for this.” Above Saye saw night had come again. Her captors were no where to be seen. The man she assumed had been her guard lie unconscious on the ground.

  Saye shook her head slowly. “No, no. I don’t think I will.”

  “I took you under my hostage. I’d look like a terrible host if I let you get beheaded.”

  “I know what you’re doing. These men could’ve helped me.” The rogue burst in to laughter. Uncontainable and more contemptuous than mirthful, he held his abdomen as though in pain. Saye moved away from the rogue. She walked to the guard’s unconscious body so that her feet were parallel to his head. With her back against the wall, she slid down. She lifted the guard’s limp arm and placed it across her lap.

  “You kidnappers are all the same,” she said, playing with the guard’s fingers. “You think of people as objects for your amusement. I preferred the dark hole with chance of decapitation.” Saye snapped the guard’s finger back. A thin, white bone poked through his flesh. Warm blood trickled down his flesh and stained her own. She dropped the hand to her lap. “You killed him,” Saye mused as the guards still warm arm rested gently in her lap.

  “I don’t think of you as my object, Princess,” the rogue said. The rogue pulled Saye up by the waist and she caught her breath. The silk of her dress played like liquid beneath the fingertips that he buried in to her skin. Her chest pushed against his; his sturdy breathing juxtaposed to her sharp, uncertain breaths. He whispered in to her ear, “I will gladly throw you back down there.”

  She pushed him off. “Good.” She adjusted her dress, smoothing down the spots where the Rogue had touched her. “Anyway, you can stop playing the part of the honorable abductor. Had I gone back to Araneis I would be safe and you would be dead.” Saye paused, eyeing the man in the corner.

  “Right,” He said, smiling.

  “I’m not about to take the word of a few deranged croppers. Clearly, I’m no traitor.”

  “They bore the royal seal.”

  “I’ve seen parliament do much worse than them.”

  “Ah, you run a very tight ship, your Majesty.”

  Saye sighed. “I wouldn’t expect a rogue to understand politics.”

  The Rogue laughed. “No, you wouldn’t.”

  The door to the shack opened. Three overseers stood in the doorway and they were entirely surprised to find Saye out of her hole. “I told you we didn’t have time for this.”

  I Hope It Was Good

  “You know what surprised me most about all of this?” Saye shook her head at the rogue’s question. “How ea
sily you ran in that dress.” The rogue had shoved Saye back in to the hole. She had muttered, nay yelled her protestations, but he covered her mouth and shut the trap door. The overseers scratched and pulled furiously at the door above. Yelling obscure obscenities as it was all in vain. The rogue held fast against them. Saye had a calloused, salty hand covering her mouth and an indiscriminate amount of men scraping to get in to her prison. The Rogue pulled her backward and they fell in to the night.

  Her eyes filled with starlight and spiders’ blood. The quarry was empty save for possibly dead bodies and abandoned whips. It was entirely plausible that all the overseers were inside scratching at the area that Saye had just escaped. Broken wood littered the dirt beneath the foundation of the hut. The rogue had found a weakness in her prison. When he had found the time to do that, she did not know. She didn’t have time to know. They were running up the hillside before she had time to think.

  “It doesn’t look like it gives much,” Saye contemplated, feeling the silk of her dress. It covered her like water. The hem was torn and dirtied some from the getaway, but the pale silver-blue still shimmered in the moonlight. They had been able to get away pretty easily. At least that’s what they pretended. They both saw the spider slaves “unconscious;” lying dead from a day of brutal and bloody work. This was the first they’d spoken.

  “You won’t be able to wear it anymore.” That was the truth. Everything Saye knew was made from spider’s silk. She wore slave clothes, she outfitted herself in blood… The rogue had given her clothes before. He had dressed her in his own clothes. But earlier that morning she had made a point of changing in to her own clothing. The rogue and his crew had stolen enough of her things. He didn’t have to dress her in his clothes. So why did he? Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter. She had made a point of outfitting herself in blood.