Eden's Embers Read online

  Table of Contents

  Legal Page

  Title Page

  Book Description

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Epilogue

  New Excerpt

  About the Author

  Publisher Page

  A Totally Bound Publication

  Eden’s Embers

  ISBN # 978-1-78430-035-7

  ©Copyright Helena Maeve 2014

  Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright May 2014

  Edited by Sue Meadows

  Totally Bound Publishing

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Totally Bound Publishing.

  Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Totally Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.

  The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.

  Published in 2014 by Totally Bound Publishing, Newland House, The Point, Weaver Road, Lincoln, LN6 3QN

  Warning:

  This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has a heat rating of Totally Burning and a Sexometer of 2.

  EDEN’S EMBERS

  Helena Maeve

  Alana expected salvation to come at a steep price, she just didn’t think it would involve a collar.

  A single woman at the end of the world can be no stranger to rough times, but the odd brush with the law is preferable to taking on mutant beasts and walking corpses in the badlands. Such is Alana Burke’s deep-seated conviction, until a town council decision orders her into wedlock to a man she does not love.

  Her only choice is compliance—at least until a mysterious traveler sets fire to the town, forcing Alana to make an even tougher call—stay and be married to a man she does not love or flee with the one responsible for the destruction that has consumed her world?

  Jackson Idaho is a drifter, a man whose people are notorious for pillaging and raping all across the western seaboard. His way of life runs counter to everything Alana holds dear, but he can save her. If she consents to becoming his thrall.

  Free of her oppressors but delivered to the underground fief of Jackson’s fellow drifters, Alana wrestles with her new situation and the gnawing suspicion that there may be more to her protector than meets the eye.

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Easy-Bake Oven: Hasbro.

  Wonder Woman: DC Comics, Inc.

  Moby Dick: Herman Melville (public domain)

  Chapter One

  The law in New Eden punished nothing more severely than theft. ‘If you couldn’t trust your neighbor with an open coin purse, how could you trust him around your sow’, the saying went, ‘or with your wife?’ And yet to this law, like all lesser laws, a special clause had been penciled in, absolving those godlier than godly of any misdeed. It held true of the younger generation, as well, and their red-faced snooping through someone else’s wares.

  “Can I help you, ladies?” Alana offered as she tore a frayed ribbon off the shelf and wound it tightly around a slender fistful of dried thyme.

  “Is it true those red berries are for a man’s…you know?” asked the youngest, giggling all the while. She might’ve been sixteen.

  “They are not.”

  “Oh. What about this?” She held up a gnarled ginger root as though it might sting her.

  “Only if the man is into that sort of thing,” Alana shot back, at the end of her tether. “Ladies, do your parents know you’re here?” She had never run a patron out of her shop before, but the girls’ pockets were fattening with every minute and if they kept up the sport, Alana would soon be out of business.

  “I… We. Well, no,” said the youngest, thrusting out her pointy chin. “Father says you’re a bad influence.”

  “That’s his right.” Alana laughed dryly. “Leave the ginger, will you?”

  It wasn’t an indictment, but it wasn’t far off, either, and the girls snapped to attention, huffing as they took their leave. Alana had never been happier to see the back of a respectable patron. “I do hope their father knows about those sticky fingers,” she mused, turning back to her paying customer. “No more than a teaspoon, and let it sit for ten good minutes before you stir. It won’t taste pleasant, but it will do the trick.”

  Grim and dour-faced Elnora Lewis took the wrapped bundle and set it gingerly into bottom of her basket. She knew better than to join in ridiculing the Kralls. “Should I strain it before I drink?”

  “Only if you don’t want to be picking at your teeth all night.” Alana bit back the petty urge to propose that it might be one way to keep an amorous husband at arm’s length. It came from a place of frustration.

  Her customers deserved the benefit of discretion. They did not confide in her looking for judgment, and she didn’t offer counsel looking to break up marriages. Someone must’ve misunderstood, for the elders to call her in like a disobedient pup.

  Alana sighed, chastened. “I’m sorry. That was unkind.” However much she resented the tight, smothering grip of jurisdiction, being a citizen of New Eden was still preferable to being out there in the badlands, with only mutts and walkers for company.

  “Feeling lippy today?” Mrs Lewis sneered. She was maybe a year or two older than Alana, but she wasn’t from these parts. She looked much older, the wrinkles on the blank canvas of her face etched as deep as welts. She wore her hair in a neat bun, but the wispy tendrils that escaped its confines were already shot with gray.

  Her husband was Fredrick Lewis, son of the town sheriff and notorious aficionado of every card table known to man. An upset stomach was likely the least of Mrs Lewis’ troubles, yet she had never come to Alana for anything more substantial.

  “I’ve been summoned,” Alana said by way of explanation and let the rest be understood. Everyone knew that council summons came at a price.

  “Oh… Again?”

  “It’s all right,” Alana said, unused to reassuring strangers about her own private hardships. “I’m sure it’s just another slap on the wrist. They must be seen to take grievances seriously.” She shrugged. “It’s easier to do with my trade than, say, Michelson’s bakery… I’m really more annoyed than worried. I have to close the shop for the whole afternoon.”

  “Oh, if it’s merely that…” Mrs Lewis didn’t seem convinced. Alana wondered what she’d heard from her husband, what she knew. It was no secret that the elders held firm opinions about Alana’s trade, but their wives were as frequent visitors in her shop as the whores from the pleasure house.

  “I’m sure it is. Do you need anything else?” Perhaps some salve for the bruises you’re not showing me? She had seen them before, early in Mrs Lew
is’ marriage, when the poor woman still thought there was recourse for her situation. Now she made do with silence, like most everyone else.

  There was nothing else. Mrs Lewis covered her basket with a cloth and settled the expense with a round, slightly rusty tin coin. Alana refrained from saying anything. Michelson would grumble, but he would take it when she went to buy her bread. He liked her well enough to suffer the indignity of tainted money.

  Mrs Lewis was barely gone five minutes before the chime above the door jangled anew.

  “We’re closed,” Alana called out from the back of the shop. “You’ll have to come back later.” No one answered. Alana nudged her spice drawer closed, creeping discomfort skidding down her spine like the icy brush of fingertips. “Hello?”

  No answer this time, either. Alana crouched and retrieved her broomstick. It was the closest thing to a weapon she had lying around and, though she was sure it wouldn’t do much good against the likes of Fred Lewis, it could serve as a deterrent against the kids bent on pilfering her wares.

  This is my shop. Alana sucked in a deep, fortifying breath for courage. She stomped out of the storeroom with a decided step. “I told you, we’re…” The breath promptly evaporated from her lungs. “I don’t know you.”

  The tall stranger in her shop arched a brow. “You don’t.” He was decked out in green and black, his clothes as unkempt as his hair, but it was the breastplate he wore over his patched shirt that tipped Alana off as to his allegiance.

  She knew just as quickly that the broomstick would be no help against such a man.

  “C-can I help you?” Alana asked. Her voice wavered. She couldn’t help it. As it happened, she didn’t often come face to face with transients. How had this one even made it past the wall?

  She thought briefly of sounding the alarm, but while that might help, it would take getting out of the shop before she could make herself heard.

  The man smiled, the corner of his lips tipping up to reveal a flash of white teeth. His bulging biceps and thick, veined forearms were the real threat here, but his teeth caught the eye like fangs. They weren’t serrated, at least, the stories were wrong about that. “They say you are the medicine woman around here. They didn’t mention you are also a witch.”

  Alana balked. He had stopped to ask for directions? Most people in town wouldn’t deign to call her a healer, let alone a medicine woman, but it was by far more surprising to imagine the likes of Mrs Lewis conversing with a drifter. “What—? Oh!” She realized only belatedly that she was still holding the broomstick clutched tightly in one fist. “Like I said,” Alana reiterated, struggling to keep her calm, “we’re closed.”

  “I won’t keep you long. Any chance you have any sagewort or pennyroyal leaves you could spare?”

  Suspicion was Alana’s first recourse. “Who sent you?” She brought the broomstick between them like a staff. “Do you work for the elders?”

  “The what?” Her visitor again arched a brow. “Are you going to attack me with that thing?”

  It seemed impossible for a drifter to be in the employ of the town council, but stranger things had happened. He certainly wasn’t here with an escort. And if he had somehow penetrated their defenses on the sly, he was defying expectation by asking for Alana’s help.

  “I thought your kind were supposed to strike first,” she shot back. Her bluster was a thin, tremulous thing. She didn’t trust herself to keep it up for long. “You have a name, pilgrim?”

  “Jackson.” It was the way of nomads to keep one name for the world and another for themselves. Jackson wouldn’t reveal his clan under pain of torture. She had seen it happen before, in the Dark Days.

  “And do you have coin, Jackson?”

  He grinned, his green eyes crinkling at the corners. “If I reach into my pocket, do you promise not to take advantage and whack me over the head?”

  Alana huffed out something akin to a laugh. “Depends how much coin you’ve got. I don’t do charity.” She had, in the past, but that was service rendered to those who needed her help and could not afford the expense. Honest folk always made it up to her in the end, much to the aggravation of those who would sooner have seen her lose her business and take up a less contentious trade.

  Jackson spread a handful of coins across her counter. They landed with the metallic clink of church bells, of rainwater striking the roof of the mission house. “Will this do?”

  Alana felt her jaw go slack. There must have been enough coin there to purchase three bags of wheat. He probably stole it, she thought, bitterness catching up fast on her awe.

  “You’ll want vervain too,” she said, “to help ease the pain.”

  “Whatever you think is best.”

  It took effort to turn her back on the stranger. She knew it was unwise, but it couldn’t be helped. Alana didn’t keep such herbs where just anyone could see them. The council would have a fit if they knew she sold them at all. Not that they lacked motive to make her life difficult, but there was a fine line between what the hardliners detested and what even the more moderate voices of the preacher and Teacher Connor could stand. Alana was keen not to cross it. Maybe once Connor retired and his wife took over his position there would be hope for a change in mindset, but not yet. The town was not ready.

  “You know how to brew them?” she asked, returning to the front of the shop with a sprig of sagewort and a handful of rue. The pennyroyal she got from the planter by the window.

  Jackson shook his head.

  “No surprise there…” He’d had his fun with no thought for the consequences. He wouldn’t be the first man to get a girl in trouble. Alana fished out a tattered notepad and a pencil and set to scribbling down the recipe. “Follow the instructions to the letter, understand? You overdo it and that stuff can kill.”

  “Will it taste foul?”

  “Will it—? What do you think this is?” Alana asked, glancing up. “A tonic to improve the humors?”

  Jackson held her gaze, barely a flinch in his broad shoulders. For a brief, reckless moment, Alana had forgotten who she was addressing. She pursed her lips tight, straightening. “You can improve the taste with peppermint or cinnamon.”

  “I’ll take both,” Jackson said.

  A little late to be making amends. Alana bit her tongue against saying as much. He was trying. That was worth appreciating. How many women came to see her, afraid their husbands would find out? Scared their fathers would beat them for debasing themselves?

  She slid a handful of peppermint and two cinnamon sticks across the counter. “On the house.” The surprise that flashed across Jackson’s wind-coarsened face made her feel inexplicably guilty. She looked away as she folded and ripped off the prescription she had jotted down. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

  “No,” said Jackson. “And I can pay—”

  “No need.”

  “I thought you didn’t do charity?”

  Alana shook her head. “Save your coin. They’re selling some lovely shark fin combs at the market. You should spend it there… Buy your woman something nice.” The herbs she was wrapping up wouldn’t make much of a gift.

  She looked up to find Jackson watching her with a mild smile, almost as though he found something amusing in the proceedings.

  “Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind… You didn’t give me your name.”

  “Alana,” she said. “Alana Burke.” It was an ill-fitting name, chosen by the father she had never known after the city he had vacated as a boy to escape the deluge.

  “And do you live here, Alana?” His keen eyes were watching her steadily, scrutinizing her every movement. Was he afraid she’d cheat him?

  A ripple of discomfort skittered down Alana’s spine. “No. I share a house with my family in the foothills. Not many of us live in the Deep End.” It wasn’t precisely a lie. This part of town was good for trade, but if you were counting on sleep the trades borough was the wrong place to be after sundown. That Alana’s only family had died years a
go was none of Jackson’s concern.

  Jackson took the bundle, their fingers brushing in the exchange. “Maybe I’ll see you around, Alana Burke.”

  No matter how quickly she retrieved her hands, a zing of electricity still sparked in her veins thanks to that small, innocuous touch. Alana could instantly feel her cheeks flush warm. “I doubt it,” she said, striving to sound forceful and final. Jackson was a nomad, sure to be leaving as soon as his business in town was over and done with. Being seen with him could only compromise her further.

  Her mother had warned her to keep her head down and mind her own affairs. She had also told Alana to steer clear of drifters, but Alana couldn’t help the quiver of excitement thrumming in her belly as she watched Jackson pass through the door and out of the shop. A sigh perched on her lips. He moved with feline grace, as the jungle cats of stories, trawling through the tall grass in search of prey.

  A man like that would never think he’s anything less than the top predator.

  Even unarmed—Alana knew that if the city guard had allowed him past the wall for trade, then they must have confiscated his weapons—he didn’t look the least bit anxious. He strutted away unhurriedly, his cloth-wrapped bundle thrust under one arm like a roll of cheese.

  It’s perfectly innocent, Alana told herself. No harm in looking.

  She steadied herself with both hands against the counter and felt something flat and cold cling to her clammy palm. The coin came unstuck the moment she moved her hand, rolling across the counter before falling sullenly onto its side. It had to be one of Jackson’s. Alana was not in the habit of leaving money lying around where it could tempt even her more honest customers.

  The thought leached the warm blush of mortification from her face. She should have known better. A drifter wouldn’t know compassion if it bit him in the ass.