Faith

By Angelique Voisen

In a society where a common servant girl doesn’t have much in the way of prospects, Faith’s plain appearance and sharp tongue make a good match even more unlikely. But finding a husband is the least of Faith’s worries when she finds herself caught between a beautiful swordswoman and her grotesque, monstrous prey.

Given as a reward to the huntress, Faith is beyond terrified. According to rumors, these less-than-human slayers share too many qualities with the creatures they kill for a living, but Faith can’t deny the strange spark between Valac and her.

Val used to think cutting away parts of her humanity was a worthwhile exchange for wreaking vengeance on the monsters who threaten her people, but lately she’s gotten tired of her profession. Val believes her assignment in a remote city in the mountains is simple until a servant girl’s arrival stirs emotions Val thought she’d abandoned long ago. If Faith is capable of invoking unbridled passion then the best thing Val could do is stay away, but when Faith’s life hangs on the balance, can Val risk all to save her?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Decadent Publishing
• Release date: Jan 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781613337813

Angelique Voisen

Angelique Voisen writes LGBTQ erotic romances and likes experimenting with different sub-genres. Her stories are often set in exotic settings and may include blades, fangs, kinky magic systems, and happily-ever-afters. Visit Angelique at www.angelvoisen.blogspot.com

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Faith

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2015 by Angelique Voisen

ISBN: 978-1-61333-781-3

Cover art by Fiona Jayde

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC

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Faith

By

Angelique Voisen

Dedication

To Ced, for always believing in me.

Chapter One

Faith was there when the city guard found the body. They threw an unremarkable gray sheet over it. The sheet was meant to disguise its grisly contents, but it only made it worse. Faith couldn’t disguise her interest in the corpse. Noticeable stains formed on the fabric. She could almost hear the shifting gears and wheels in her head as her imagination ran wild.

Mila often said her inquisitive nature and her sharp tongue were undesirable traits in a maid. Also the main reason why Faith, at eighteen, had no suitors knocking at her door. Faith would counter by saying her plain appearance and her low station didn’t give her many options other than a quick fumble. Mila couldn’t do better, either. She might’ve been gifted with beauty, but looks alone couldn’t guarantee a serving girl a comfortable life.

The sun hadn’t risen yet, but Faith longed for the warm rays capable of stabbing through the thick canopy of maple and soldier trees above her. The sun could chase away the mist rolling around her ankles. She kept imagining a withered brown hand snaking its way out of the ground. It would clasp one of her ankles and yank her down into the earth to join it.

Stop it, Faith. You’re no longer a child. The reprimand did little to calm her nerves. The back of her neck prickled, as if laden with the weight of unknown eyes watching her from a hundred hiding places.

Just my overworked imagination. Although it was still early morning, her basket was already half-filled. She had sharp eyes and small hands, the right combination for mushroom combing. Browns, the rare spotted mushrooms, fetched a high price in the markets and only bloomed during this time of the day. Faith always went with outside the city walls with Mila, the cook’s assistant, and a few other servants once or twice a week during mushroom season.

She had been anticipating the excursion with pleasure. Faith liked the woods. She liked the chirp of the woodland sparrows, the crunch of yellow ochre and rust autumn leaves beneath her shoes, and the damp smell of moss stirred by the fresh mountain wind.

Qbic, one of the guards, noticed Faith gawking with the other servants.

Move along. Nothing to see here. Back to the city, you lot, he said, unsmiling.

Faith had a sassy reply on the tip of her tongue, but it died when the wind lifted the edge of the cloth covering the body, giving the witnesses a hint of what lay underneath. Qbic pulled the cloth down again, but too late. A chill different from that of autumn slid down her neck. Her cold hands shook. Faith’s rare prized mushroom bounced from her fingers, and she desperately reached for it, but it disappeared into the thin layer of mist covering the moist forest ground.

With the woods unsafe, the women always dragged a reluctant stable boy or two along. They’d heard of cases of careless hunters who fell prey to the creatures they hunted, but the marks on the body told Faith differently, despite the insistence of the guards. Her master had hunted often in these woods, and some of the lordlings in his party had brushes with death, surviving scarred with teeth and claw marks. It fell to Faith and the other servants to clean and tend the wounds of these whimpering lords. The wounds on this body, though….

Faith shook her head. The corpse had nothing to do with the likes of her. Besides, the chance of imminent danger seemed small, and their party hadn’t ventured far.

Faith could still see Leer’s familiar walls above the ring of trees. Her city gave her a measure of comfort she didn’t hadn’t