Nano 2007- Part 18
Title- "Through the Gate"
Genre- Fantasy Erotica
Rating- PG-13 (concepts, and because Bryan is a potty mouth!)
Bryan looked up from what he was reading, hidden away in Faelan’s chambers, the sitting room to be most specific. He looked over to the balcony with its open doors, and watched for a moment as Kevin twirled around a metal bar that had the length and weight of a sword, but with a few nasty surprises that conventional metal weaponry didn’t have. He heard the zap as Kevin smacked the railing, shaking his head with a small, somewhat amused chuckle that came out as more of a snort, really. Last night had been one of much planning and minimal sleep, his mind too focused on the goal at hand to really rest easy.
He was ready to get Elaine back, and some covert surveillance from the many passageways that led hidden off of Faelan’s chambers had him convinced that he could easily pass for one of the palace slaves. It would just take some humbling, some concentration on his goal to get him into a collar, but it was all for Elaine. Faelan had described some of the training that went on, and Bryan had been horrified. Just because he had imagined being able to bring himself to do some of those things to her didn’t mean that he actually would. Jealousy surged hot in him, mixed with rage, at the thought of someone else doing that to his woman, and he felt the need to set the book aside and start pacing again.
Faelan had been out of the rooms on duties this morning, leaving Bryan and Kevin alone in a locked area, with only the corridors and training to keep them occupied. It was only the promise of Faelan coming back with what was needed that had Bryan not charging out in a mad rush to find Elaine. He needed to be patient, needed to think this through rather than making a bigger mess of things. Elaine’s life could depend on him showing restraint
now.
Kevin looked up from his training, and moved into the sitting room from the balcony, sweaty and grinning. He was enjoying this all a little too much, if anyone had cared to ask Bryan, but the leader in him had known for a while that Kevin was starting to get bored with not being able to fight things openly. This might actually have been just what his team’s hunter needed. A chance to prove his strength and his worth. “You all right?”
“Not really. I’ve got a lot on my mind, and I’m really worried about her. You heard what Faelan was telling us last night. She’s in so much trouble. I’m not sure how she’s going to be able to handle what he’s going to be doing to her. How I’m supposed to handle it.” He felt the rage and jealousy building up again inside of him, and he frowned. “I really hate this waiting game, waiting for Faelan to get back, for him to tell us what’s going on now. We’ve only got three days, you know. One, if you consider that we all have to be back in class on Monday.”
Kevin just laughed at that, settling into a chair in a lazy sprawl across the arms. Bryan was constantly amazed at his tracker’s ability to adapt so easily to any situation, to take everything in stride. “Right now, I kind of think that class the least of our worries. So we’ll miss some tests or something. Maybe some homework might not get turned in. But you know what? If we fail a class? We can take it over again. If we fail in what we’re doing right here, right now? Somebody dies or is trapped here forever as a slave.” Kevin sat forward then, tapping his temple with his fingertips as he looked at Bryan. “You need to get your head into the game, Bryan, and not worry about the what-ifs that don’t matter right now. Elaine is strong, stronger than you’ve always given her credit for. She’ll be all right. You have to have faith in her as much as you do in the rest of us. Maybe more so.”
A part of Bryan wanted to lash out and punch Kevin in the face for that lecture, but he took a deep breath, and then nodded slowly. “You’re probably right.” Bryan remembered having to protect Elaine, to take care of her. He had had to physically carry her to the hospital when she wouldn’t let go after her sister’s death, and he had tried to nurse her back into health. And all the while she had tried to reject him, saying that she didn’t need anyone to take care of her. He knew that she did, to a certain extent… but maybe he had overstepped his boundaries. And admitting that now… hurt as much as the thought of losing her all over again. He couldn’t afford to lose her, and couldn’t afford to make the same mistakes more than once.
He was saved from any further conversation on the subject by the sound of the door opening, the latch turning. He grabbed for the knife still sitting on the table from breakfast, and Kevin reached for the metal stick with the electrical jolt, sitting up straight and tense. They watched as Faelan came back into the room, carrying with him a gray bag, and both relaxed visibly.
“How’s the morning been?” Faelan started with pleasantries, setting the bag down on the table. Bryan couldn’t wait to see what their host had managed to gather that might be able to help them rescue Elaine.
“It’s been all right.” Kevin answered, the more optimistic of the pair from Earth, the other world, and he eyed the bag as Faelan reached into it.
Bryan groaned as he watched two pairs of those pants come out of the bag. He knew that he could pull it off, but the fabric they used was so… indecent. He really didn’t have a better word for it, but he did have a feeling about it. He shuddered, and then reached for one of them as the silver-haired man continued to pull things out of the bag. “We have two pairs of slaves’ pants, two inactive collars, a working gateway device that I’m going to want back if you can manage it ever, a guard’s uniform in here somewhere if one of you can pull off military, some weapons that are small enough to be concealed, and the information that we might need to pull this off.”
Bryan found himself wondering if he could pull off the guard’s uniform, knowing that he really, really, really didn’t want to have to wear those pants. “What’s the information?”
“Elaine is going to be introduced at lunch as my brother’s new pet. I’m invited, of course, and I’m allowed to bring one of my pets if I care to do so. It’s no secret among the household that I prefer men, so… one of you can pretend in that capacity, if you’d like, and we’ll be able to get closer.” Faelan flushed just a little as though he didn’t want to have to admit that to the two warriors. “I know it might be… uncomfortable… but it could be the break that you need to get her back.”
Bryan exchanged a glance with Kevin, eyebrows raised. Hell no. There was no fucking way that he was going to be wearing the pants, pretending to be another man’s pet, no matter how androgynous, or how much he looked like a girl. There were some things that he would never be able to bring himself to do, not even to save Elaine. He was far too much a red-blooded American male.
Kevin smirked as though reading his mind, and then nodded. “I’ll do it. You’ll have to give me a crash course in protocol, of course, but I think I can pull it off.”
“I’ll try the military thing. As a son of this house, it’s not that uncommon for you to have an armed escort, right?” Bryan felt ashamed that he couldn’t manage to pull that thing off even for Elaine’s sake, and he would have to make it up to her and the others and himself somehow.
“It’s not that uncommon, no. You won’t be allowed into the room where we’re eating, but you would be just outside. I do have a better idea, though, a plan I just thought of.” Faelan went to the nearest bookshelf, and pulled down a couple of plastic tubes with things rolled up inside of them. He tossed one to Kevin, and then opened the other, clearing space on the table with one arm to unroll the map that was in his tube. Bryan grabbed things to help weight the corners down, and then stared at the map, lines in vivid sky blue highlighted on the paper. It took him a moment to find where they were, his eyes flickering over the map, and then he followed those blue lines, realizing that this was the network of secret passages. “There is a way to get to the room where my brother does all his ‘training’. It’s in the basement, and the passage opens up into a very high ceiling. But it is a way in, and a way out. Kevin and I will go to the lunch, and we will see what sort of condition Elaine is in. Meanwhile, I want you to make your way there, and be waiting for the right opportunity. We will join you when lunch is over, and make our move then.”
Bryan nodded, still scrutinizing the map. He frowned as a thought occurred to him, and looked up at Faelan. “And you’re certain that your brother knows nothing of these passageways?”
“Not a hundred percent certain, no, but he has always been far too concerned with other worlds to care to explore the intricacies of his own. I know he will not be expecting me to make a move in this manner. I think that this will work.” Faelan nodded, and then reached over to Kevin for the other tube.
“And you’re sure that he won’t recognize Kevin? I know that if I had killed someone, or thought that I had, I would remember that face for the rest of my life.” Bryan was falling into his element, into listing of the practical things to be considered that could make or break their mission to rescue Elaine from her life of slavery and bondage. He knew they would only have one shot at this, and he had to make it work.
“That’s a very good point… Maybe the two of us should make our way to the room while you keep your brother there at the lunch.” Kevin nodded calmly, his mind also starting to work the way that it should.
Faelan nodded, thoughtful for a moment, and then nodded again. “I think you may be right about that being the best plan. We’ll do that.” He didn’t bother unrolling the other tube and Bryan wondered what had been on it.
“Just one question.” Bryan stared still at the map, but he wasn’t really seeing it, his mind already racing forward, plotting for contingencies.
“What’s that?” Faelan paused on the way back over to the bookshelf to put the other tube away, and Bryan lifted his gaze to meet the silver-haired man’s gaze squarely.
“Why are you helping us? What do you stand to gain by letting us come in and cause chaos, stealing your brother’s favorite slave away?” His hand rested casually on the knife on the table, ready to fight his way out of here if necessary. For all he knew, their silver-haired ‘savior’ was looking for pets of his own, only using a different method than the Hunter.
Faelan grinned then, the look in his eyes feral and cold. “Revenge for my favorite pet, murdered by my brother in a fit of rage almost two years ago. He said he was sorry, although I never believed it. It was his apparent regret that saved him from punishment, but I have never forgotten.” He put the tube away and then moved back to where the map was laid out on the table. “I’ve been waiting for a chance like this, waiting for him to choose the one that he would claim as exclusively his, his bride of sorts. I had planned on simply killing her when the time came and she appeared, but having her stolen back seems like it would be so much more humiliating for my father’s great Hunter.”
Bryan just nodded. “As long as you don’t get any ideas in your head about killing her if this fails.” He hadn’t moved his hand from the knife, and he could see Kevin looking over at him as though wondering if his leader had gone nuts. Threaten the only hope they had of saving Elaine and getting home? Oh yeah, that was a brilliant plan.
“If this fails, then you are already too dead to care.” Faelan’s grin was cold, animal almost, but it soon faded into something else more friendly again. “I do not think it will fail, though. I have faith in your abilities as warriors to use your brains and the resources presented to you, and in Elaine’s ability to recognize her chance to escape. All will be well, my friend. And then perhaps when things are more peaceful, we can train together.”
Kevin just nodded at that. “I think that would be fun. There’s a lot that we don’t know, a lot that we could learn.” The fight with the Hunter had made that much painfully obvious. Bryan knew that his brother-in-arms was thinking of the way that they had been crushed and burned and sliced, all of them nearly killed if not for Faelan’s healing.
“It would be an honor to work with you all.” Faelan bowed slightly, seeming a little uncomfortable with the conversation, and then pulled a pen from one of his pockets and started tracing a line on the map in red. “This is the route you will want to take…”
Genre- Fantasy Erotica
Rating- PG-13 (concepts, and because Bryan is a potty mouth!)
Bryan looked up from what he was reading, hidden away in Faelan’s chambers, the sitting room to be most specific. He looked over to the balcony with its open doors, and watched for a moment as Kevin twirled around a metal bar that had the length and weight of a sword, but with a few nasty surprises that conventional metal weaponry didn’t have. He heard the zap as Kevin smacked the railing, shaking his head with a small, somewhat amused chuckle that came out as more of a snort, really. Last night had been one of much planning and minimal sleep, his mind too focused on the goal at hand to really rest easy.
He was ready to get Elaine back, and some covert surveillance from the many passageways that led hidden off of Faelan’s chambers had him convinced that he could easily pass for one of the palace slaves. It would just take some humbling, some concentration on his goal to get him into a collar, but it was all for Elaine. Faelan had described some of the training that went on, and Bryan had been horrified. Just because he had imagined being able to bring himself to do some of those things to her didn’t mean that he actually would. Jealousy surged hot in him, mixed with rage, at the thought of someone else doing that to his woman, and he felt the need to set the book aside and start pacing again.
Faelan had been out of the rooms on duties this morning, leaving Bryan and Kevin alone in a locked area, with only the corridors and training to keep them occupied. It was only the promise of Faelan coming back with what was needed that had Bryan not charging out in a mad rush to find Elaine. He needed to be patient, needed to think this through rather than making a bigger mess of things. Elaine’s life could depend on him showing restraint
now.
Kevin looked up from his training, and moved into the sitting room from the balcony, sweaty and grinning. He was enjoying this all a little too much, if anyone had cared to ask Bryan, but the leader in him had known for a while that Kevin was starting to get bored with not being able to fight things openly. This might actually have been just what his team’s hunter needed. A chance to prove his strength and his worth. “You all right?”
“Not really. I’ve got a lot on my mind, and I’m really worried about her. You heard what Faelan was telling us last night. She’s in so much trouble. I’m not sure how she’s going to be able to handle what he’s going to be doing to her. How I’m supposed to handle it.” He felt the rage and jealousy building up again inside of him, and he frowned. “I really hate this waiting game, waiting for Faelan to get back, for him to tell us what’s going on now. We’ve only got three days, you know. One, if you consider that we all have to be back in class on Monday.”
Kevin just laughed at that, settling into a chair in a lazy sprawl across the arms. Bryan was constantly amazed at his tracker’s ability to adapt so easily to any situation, to take everything in stride. “Right now, I kind of think that class the least of our worries. So we’ll miss some tests or something. Maybe some homework might not get turned in. But you know what? If we fail a class? We can take it over again. If we fail in what we’re doing right here, right now? Somebody dies or is trapped here forever as a slave.” Kevin sat forward then, tapping his temple with his fingertips as he looked at Bryan. “You need to get your head into the game, Bryan, and not worry about the what-ifs that don’t matter right now. Elaine is strong, stronger than you’ve always given her credit for. She’ll be all right. You have to have faith in her as much as you do in the rest of us. Maybe more so.”
A part of Bryan wanted to lash out and punch Kevin in the face for that lecture, but he took a deep breath, and then nodded slowly. “You’re probably right.” Bryan remembered having to protect Elaine, to take care of her. He had had to physically carry her to the hospital when she wouldn’t let go after her sister’s death, and he had tried to nurse her back into health. And all the while she had tried to reject him, saying that she didn’t need anyone to take care of her. He knew that she did, to a certain extent… but maybe he had overstepped his boundaries. And admitting that now… hurt as much as the thought of losing her all over again. He couldn’t afford to lose her, and couldn’t afford to make the same mistakes more than once.
He was saved from any further conversation on the subject by the sound of the door opening, the latch turning. He grabbed for the knife still sitting on the table from breakfast, and Kevin reached for the metal stick with the electrical jolt, sitting up straight and tense. They watched as Faelan came back into the room, carrying with him a gray bag, and both relaxed visibly.
“How’s the morning been?” Faelan started with pleasantries, setting the bag down on the table. Bryan couldn’t wait to see what their host had managed to gather that might be able to help them rescue Elaine.
“It’s been all right.” Kevin answered, the more optimistic of the pair from Earth, the other world, and he eyed the bag as Faelan reached into it.
Bryan groaned as he watched two pairs of those pants come out of the bag. He knew that he could pull it off, but the fabric they used was so… indecent. He really didn’t have a better word for it, but he did have a feeling about it. He shuddered, and then reached for one of them as the silver-haired man continued to pull things out of the bag. “We have two pairs of slaves’ pants, two inactive collars, a working gateway device that I’m going to want back if you can manage it ever, a guard’s uniform in here somewhere if one of you can pull off military, some weapons that are small enough to be concealed, and the information that we might need to pull this off.”
Bryan found himself wondering if he could pull off the guard’s uniform, knowing that he really, really, really didn’t want to have to wear those pants. “What’s the information?”
“Elaine is going to be introduced at lunch as my brother’s new pet. I’m invited, of course, and I’m allowed to bring one of my pets if I care to do so. It’s no secret among the household that I prefer men, so… one of you can pretend in that capacity, if you’d like, and we’ll be able to get closer.” Faelan flushed just a little as though he didn’t want to have to admit that to the two warriors. “I know it might be… uncomfortable… but it could be the break that you need to get her back.”
Bryan exchanged a glance with Kevin, eyebrows raised. Hell no. There was no fucking way that he was going to be wearing the pants, pretending to be another man’s pet, no matter how androgynous, or how much he looked like a girl. There were some things that he would never be able to bring himself to do, not even to save Elaine. He was far too much a red-blooded American male.
Kevin smirked as though reading his mind, and then nodded. “I’ll do it. You’ll have to give me a crash course in protocol, of course, but I think I can pull it off.”
“I’ll try the military thing. As a son of this house, it’s not that uncommon for you to have an armed escort, right?” Bryan felt ashamed that he couldn’t manage to pull that thing off even for Elaine’s sake, and he would have to make it up to her and the others and himself somehow.
“It’s not that uncommon, no. You won’t be allowed into the room where we’re eating, but you would be just outside. I do have a better idea, though, a plan I just thought of.” Faelan went to the nearest bookshelf, and pulled down a couple of plastic tubes with things rolled up inside of them. He tossed one to Kevin, and then opened the other, clearing space on the table with one arm to unroll the map that was in his tube. Bryan grabbed things to help weight the corners down, and then stared at the map, lines in vivid sky blue highlighted on the paper. It took him a moment to find where they were, his eyes flickering over the map, and then he followed those blue lines, realizing that this was the network of secret passages. “There is a way to get to the room where my brother does all his ‘training’. It’s in the basement, and the passage opens up into a very high ceiling. But it is a way in, and a way out. Kevin and I will go to the lunch, and we will see what sort of condition Elaine is in. Meanwhile, I want you to make your way there, and be waiting for the right opportunity. We will join you when lunch is over, and make our move then.”
Bryan nodded, still scrutinizing the map. He frowned as a thought occurred to him, and looked up at Faelan. “And you’re certain that your brother knows nothing of these passageways?”
“Not a hundred percent certain, no, but he has always been far too concerned with other worlds to care to explore the intricacies of his own. I know he will not be expecting me to make a move in this manner. I think that this will work.” Faelan nodded, and then reached over to Kevin for the other tube.
“And you’re sure that he won’t recognize Kevin? I know that if I had killed someone, or thought that I had, I would remember that face for the rest of my life.” Bryan was falling into his element, into listing of the practical things to be considered that could make or break their mission to rescue Elaine from her life of slavery and bondage. He knew they would only have one shot at this, and he had to make it work.
“That’s a very good point… Maybe the two of us should make our way to the room while you keep your brother there at the lunch.” Kevin nodded calmly, his mind also starting to work the way that it should.
Faelan nodded, thoughtful for a moment, and then nodded again. “I think you may be right about that being the best plan. We’ll do that.” He didn’t bother unrolling the other tube and Bryan wondered what had been on it.
“Just one question.” Bryan stared still at the map, but he wasn’t really seeing it, his mind already racing forward, plotting for contingencies.
“What’s that?” Faelan paused on the way back over to the bookshelf to put the other tube away, and Bryan lifted his gaze to meet the silver-haired man’s gaze squarely.
“Why are you helping us? What do you stand to gain by letting us come in and cause chaos, stealing your brother’s favorite slave away?” His hand rested casually on the knife on the table, ready to fight his way out of here if necessary. For all he knew, their silver-haired ‘savior’ was looking for pets of his own, only using a different method than the Hunter.
Faelan grinned then, the look in his eyes feral and cold. “Revenge for my favorite pet, murdered by my brother in a fit of rage almost two years ago. He said he was sorry, although I never believed it. It was his apparent regret that saved him from punishment, but I have never forgotten.” He put the tube away and then moved back to where the map was laid out on the table. “I’ve been waiting for a chance like this, waiting for him to choose the one that he would claim as exclusively his, his bride of sorts. I had planned on simply killing her when the time came and she appeared, but having her stolen back seems like it would be so much more humiliating for my father’s great Hunter.”
Bryan just nodded. “As long as you don’t get any ideas in your head about killing her if this fails.” He hadn’t moved his hand from the knife, and he could see Kevin looking over at him as though wondering if his leader had gone nuts. Threaten the only hope they had of saving Elaine and getting home? Oh yeah, that was a brilliant plan.
“If this fails, then you are already too dead to care.” Faelan’s grin was cold, animal almost, but it soon faded into something else more friendly again. “I do not think it will fail, though. I have faith in your abilities as warriors to use your brains and the resources presented to you, and in Elaine’s ability to recognize her chance to escape. All will be well, my friend. And then perhaps when things are more peaceful, we can train together.”
Kevin just nodded at that. “I think that would be fun. There’s a lot that we don’t know, a lot that we could learn.” The fight with the Hunter had made that much painfully obvious. Bryan knew that his brother-in-arms was thinking of the way that they had been crushed and burned and sliced, all of them nearly killed if not for Faelan’s healing.
“It would be an honor to work with you all.” Faelan bowed slightly, seeming a little uncomfortable with the conversation, and then pulled a pen from one of his pockets and started tracing a line on the map in red. “This is the route you will want to take…”