Bound Fairy

By Lorain O'Neil

A world that’s mysteriously lost its females.
Vezerine society works. Sort of. Since burning a special fuel rock, the Vezerine's power needs have been met. But now Vezerine men can’t father daughters and even with cloning, extinction looms. Or as the fairies say, to err is mortal but to really foul up requires the Vezerine. Jozef is offered the last female who isn't what she appears to be and worse, is on a mission from those fairies: destroy the fuel rock mine. Whether she’s catastrophe or salvation, Jozef only knows she’s got to be his –regardless of what her feelings on the matter might be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lorain O'Neil
• Release date: Feb 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311908391

Book preview

Bound Fairy

by

Lorain O’Neil

Copyright 2017

All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Sample chapter from Firecrystal Deep [humorous romantic suspense]

Sample chapter from Angelique Rising [romance thriller]

Sample chapter from A Kiss From Moët [humorous magical romance]

Sample chapter from The Dangerous Path of Loving Jaesha [dark erotic romance]

Sample chapter from The Hilarious Dead Guy’s Last Chance Undies [humorous mystery]

Chapter One

"I am surprised to see a Boyette of your caliber so far from the Capital," the Viceraine said, motioning her to sit as he too sat, behind a desk the cost of which the Boyette knew could feed her family for a generation.

The Boyette folded her thin seven foot tall frame gracefully into the directed chair.

Yes, we do not travel easily, she nodded. In truth Sir, this is my first time out into the provinces.

I must presume your visit is motivated by something quite important, though what a Boyette of a Calming House would have to do with me I cannot imagine. This can’t have something to do with my application?

No Sir, not directly.

The Viceraine smiled. He had submitted his application to the Calming House years ago knowing his status would never win himself a female but nevertheless expected by the Royals to go through the motions of asking.

I understand the Calming House outside the Capital is to be closed soon. The last one to go, he said.

That is correct, Sir. All of the remaining females have been allocated. There are no more. Except... for one.

One?

The reason I am here, Sir. There is one female who has not been allocated. Not properly. May I elucidate?

Yes.

She is to be sent to a bordello, the one near here, in Baro City, a few streets from the Palace.

"A female? To a bordello? What in blazes for? No bordello could afford a female."

This female was not calmed, Sir. She has lived at the Calming House for almost a year and she was never calmed. May I speak freely? I must criticize the Duque, and I ask your pardon and permission.

You have it.

When females are captured in the hinterlands and brought to the Calming House, various methods are applied of course. These methods are fashioned to the girl, what works best. The most common is to simply accentuate how improved her life will be, how bounteous and comfortable it will be with her new owner if she submits. For other females, more is needed... coercion, Sir. Some females can be very noncompliant in the beginning.

I’ve heard rumors.

But the Calming House is well practiced, the females are trained.

Some say ‘broken.’

Yes. I do not like to see that Sir, I am a Boyette, I look after their welfare, my only goal is to see them well cared for and to learn what they need to know to please their new owner. I have always worked hard to make this transition for the females as easy as possible. There have been some difficulties, surely. But never a failure. Until this female.

What are you talking about?

This female did not break. She was never calmed. Her name is Volina though I suspect that is false.

I am thoroughly confused, Boyette. I think you’d better start at the beginning.

Thank you Sir. Volina was captured in a small southern province, in the forest of En, one of the last females ever found. She was brought to the Calming House and training was begun. And failed, in every way. Training was then intensified.

You mean she was tortured?

Yes Sir.

It is hard to believe anyone, let alone a female, could withstand a Disciplinarian’s torture at a Calming House. Duques are not known for their tolerance.

Volina withstood torture because she is not afraid of death. There was nothing we could do to her, nothing the Disciplinarian could do, to break her, not if she preferred death to submission.

And what does this have to do with me?

I watched, Sir. And I think I found her weakness. Oh she tried to hide it, but I saw.

And what is that?

Kindness, Sir. She has a difficult time making herself not respond to it, an inherent trait I think. True hatred seems to be quite foreign to her so she has to work very hard to keep her hatred of the Vezerine and boyette up when faced with even the smallest of kindnesses from either. That is the key with her but naturally I had no say in this, she was treated as the Duque thought appropriate.

And the Duque failed.

Yes. So now the Calming House is to be closed, Volina has no place to go. The Duque will not sell her to a Royal Dwelling, she would be an embarrassment and black mark against him, he would live in constant dread of retribution when she displeased her owner. The Duque would never risk the wrath of a Royal, not even for the cost of a female. So where is Volina to go?

To a bordello, Jozef answered standing and pacing. It was incredible: a female had defeated the Duque of a Calming House. And its torturer! She must be extraordinary. And she was to be sold to a bordello? No matter how extraordinary she was, she wouldn’t last long there, they would tear her flesh from her. He’d heard that the torturers of the Calming Houses left the females physically unspoilt –that would not be so at a bordello.

"And what, Boyette, do you wish me to do about this?"

I would like you to buy her, Sir. For your Dwelling.

But you said she is not calmed.

"No Sir, she is not. She would not obey you. She would not come to your bed voluntarily. She would do nothing but defy you, hate you. The most egregious of transgressions may have to be ignored at first. But I believe, Sir, if you bestow only kindness... it might work. There is no guarantee. But again, if I may speak plainly: in spite of your eminent wealth as Viceraine of the largest and richest of the provinces, you are not Royal so your name would never have been reached on the list of Vezerine men wanting females. Never. But this female –I think the Duque might be willing to sell her to you because you aren’t Royal. It is doubtful you could do anything to him if you are unhappy with her, and he will want the money, Sir, if you offer enough. And he knows if he sells her to a Viceraine he might also be able to sell you her wardrobe, whereas he has no chance of that if he sells her to a bordello."

As you say, I am wealthy so he would charge me a fortune for her, a female who would hate and resist me? Not bear me children? Not willingly at least. This does not seem something I should perhaps become involved in, Boyette.

The Boyette stood complacently.

I understand, Sir. I am sorry to have prevailed upon you and will importune you no further.

Why do you think it could be done? If no one at the Calming House tamed her, why do you think I could?

"I think it would be a possibility –if you had the proper help."

A Boyette?

Yes.

Is there one who could do this?

There was a Boyette at the Calming House, in fact it was she who trained me. Amongst my kind she is held in great approbation.

She’s retired?

The Boyette wilted. No Sir, she was arrested.

Why?

It happened the week before Volina arrived at the Calming House. This Boyette complained to the Duque about what she felt was a fondling of one of the about-to-depart Feminas.

A fondling by whom?

The Disciplinarian employed at the House, Sir.

Viceraine Jozef sucked in his breath. A Boyette made criticism of a Disciplinarian? That was improvident of her.

Yes Sir. The Disciplinarian filed a Charge of Complaint against her and she was of course convicted. But she fled near here, Sir, to Baro City.

Why here?

Your courts, Sir. I know you ostensibly have no say in what goes on in the City, outside of your province, but Baro City’s courts are reputed to have some fairness for boyettes and that that is your doing. I knew your birthing boyette before she died, I know how you paid her a generous pension even before you became Viceraine, how you even offered her shelter in your Dwelling when she fell ill. You are known to be one of the few Vezerine who makes himself accessible to us. So perhaps you and this dismissed Boyette I speak of could benefit each other –she could help you with Volina and you could help her with her appeal to the Court.

Her appeal will find no relief here, not if the Complaint was filed against her by a Disciplinarian. All she will get is some delay, the court is slow, especially in summer. Does this Boyette work now? At one of the Royal Dwellings in the City? With a female?

No Sir. She finds work where she can, in the fields mostly. As I will do now that the House is closing. There is little available for boyettes of our years, she said in poignant dignity. But this Boyette’s skills, Sir... if there is a way with Volina, she would find it. And I know how much the bordello is offering for Volina. So if you were to exceed that amount—

A Duque would be sorely tempted.

Beset with vague misgivings, Jozef began pacing before his large window looking out at his vast lawn. It was inconceivable: him having a female. Oh how the Royals with no females would burn! But she would be untrustworthy and such an expense. He’d have to provide a Boyette for her, and all the clothes, the jewels, the security tether...

But, a female. The stories he had heard from the Royals! If they were even partially true, unimaginable for him to actually touch the softness of a female, smell her scent –he felt himself stir. And he would go through life... not alone.

The continent of his people, the Vezerine, had few females. Not anymore, not since their Collegium of Exploration, Discovery and Invention had discovered a special place, a place with an azoic rock buried deep underground. The Collegium had found it and the Vezerine mined it, for its incredible energy when burned. And unseen, the airborne dust of the burned rock had spread throughout the continent and slowly Vezerine men had lost their ability to father daughters, at least in the cities and adjacent provinces. Far out in the forests and mountains, females had still been born, but even that had finally stopped. As the Vezerine had made no connection between the fuel rocks and loss of female births, in desperation they had launched ships to cross the oceans in search of females, but just as throughout Vezerine history, none had ever returned.

How old is this female?

Sir, you must understand that Volina feels quite comfortable lying to any Vezerine, or Boyette for that matter. So we don’t know her true age. I am guessing eighteen. I know that you are twelve years older, but that is not uncommon for a femaled Dwelling. Many of the Royals who obtained females were far older than that and many of the females far younger. And I will tell you something else if I may. Volina is the most beautiful female I have ever seen, Sir. Unequaled. She has almost fairy beauty, I have seen nonesuch like at the Calming House. You would be the envy of all.

Until she slit my throat.

"In my judgment she would never do that. Oh not for you, but because of herself. She is religious, a strange one I do not know of. The other females would not talk of it, always professing ignorance. But I saw the way they treated her, Volina is special. There were many times when Volina could have killed, but she did not. I asked her why not, why she had not tried to kill a torturer who had well-nigh killed her and she said that no Vezerine man would ever steal her soul, that is how she views murder. No, death would not be what you would have to fear from her."

Jozef’s mind floated over the females he had seen. The Royals who had females flaunted them, and he’d always just had to watch. A female would sashay down a street in the city, stroll into a shop, and the men would stop, virtually hold their breath, all wanting her, himself included. Just... to touch. To hold... But they did not: Pesterment of a Femina was a criminal offense in the Vezerine world. True, being rich Jozef had been able to speak to the Royals’ females on rare occasions, their voices so different, so soothing... melodious. But that he might be able to in fact have one? And children, he could have children!

Jozef was nearing the age of mandatory cloning, something he was not looking forward to. He glanced at the Boyette, again feeling guilt for the treatment of her kind from his, they who had saved his race, kept them from shriveling to extinction. And were paid so callously in return.

The boyette were a gentle humanoid species, but incapable of the cruelties of men. They were bigger, stronger, but they could not fight back, not in any kind of unified way at least, and so they were subjugated. In servile limitation they worked for the Vezerine, maintained the roads, picked up the trash, lived subsistence lives mostly in ghettos near cities. But their kindness and their physical strength had proved advantageous in the taming of the last of the females found on the continent, and the method of the boyettes’ own reproduction had been utter salvation for the Vezerine.

All boyettes were female, all had eggs, and when one boyette implanted her egg into another, the two eggs together created a new boyette. But the Vezerine had discovered something else that could be done with the boyettes’ reproductive system: place a man’s blood to that egg and the egg would still reproduce but, missing half the genetic material it needed to create a new boyette, it instead took all of the genetic material it needed from the man’s blood. And the boyette would give birth to the man’s clone. Being unnatural, it was an iffy procedure that only worked one time in ten, and not with all boyettes, but it had kept the population of men, though greatly reduced, from quick eradication. Instead the Vezerine were simply being whittled away, generation to generation, as the boyettes were grudgingly given what was for them their major source of income.

Being a clone or a naturally conceived child should have been treated the same amongst the Vezerine people, but it wasn’t. Jozef was a clone from a long line of clones, but the Royals were real children. Having a child –a Royal– was not something Jozef had ever even fantasized attaining. But with his own female, it was a prospect. He let his mind roam, exploring the possibilities.

My sons would be Royals.

True, almost certainly there would be no females for them, but still, as Royals they would rule, and there was so much on the continent that needed changing that he, as a clone, was shut out of. Clones could work, amass fortunes, control commerce, but to them the world of politics was impenetrable. But he would have a female! So would that change? Decades previously there had been some clones, Viceraines like him, who had used their wealth to acquire females and with the birth of their sons had been empowered into the body politic of sorts. But in recent memory? No, no Viceraine he had ever known had received a female. But oh if he got one, joined the ruling class, so much he would do! First, protect the boyettes. In his province he was able to do that somewhat, but outside of his province, boyettes were terribly mistreated. And so much else, especially the discovery –at last– of what lay across the ocean. He would turn the entire continent to the solution of that riddle if he could get himself into a ruling position. And he would solve The Problem, the loss of female births, not like the Vezerine’s leader, the Gran Prens, who’d been promising results for years with nothing to show for it.

But all of that first required that he have real children. Royals. But with a female who was not tamed? Still, if the Boyette was right, if she could be tamed, brought to his will... I could change everything!

And what would this female think about coming here, Boyette?

Sir, you know that is irrelevant.

Jozef paused, calculating how to come to terms with it all. His life had become so melancholy since he’d had to give up his dreams and become Viceraine of Baro Province. A female in his Dwelling would more than remedy that!

He permitted himself a bit of raw hopeful lust.

His lips quirked up slightly and he nodded. I shall travel to the Capital, Boyette, to the Calming House. I shall speak with the Duque. If I am able to arrange the purchase of this female –Volina– I will do so. Have you spoken of this to any other?

No, Viceraine. Taming Volina shall take much... forbearance. You are well known amongst my people, your broad-mindedness, your charity, your justice. I deem all those traits imperative with Volina and I have heard of no other man, clone or Royal, who is said to possess them as you. I think you are Volina’s only chance.

I shall pay you a finder’s fee for bringing this to me. How much time do I have?

The House closes in a month.

I shall go now. Do you need transportation back? You may accompany me.

That would not be wise, Viceraine. You should not be seen with me. Tongues would wag, questions raised.

Then I shall give you sufficient funds to ensure your return trip is comfortable. Now, how much did the Duque agree to sell this female to the bordello for?

❃❃❃

Urre sat on the beach feeling the heat saturating up into her from the sand. She wanted to walk to the water, dip her body in to refresh, but knew it would do no good, the water would be warm, hot even. She gazed down to the end of the beach and saw that the wall of flames was getting closer. She did not know how much longer she could last, what little was left of her strength was ebbing away. Why hadn’t death claimed her yet? Surely it had been days. Ah, this torturer was a clever one, he knew how to keep her alive. A flash, a fissure –and she saw it, but thankfully did not feel it– yet.

She was still in the cellar, trussed up hanging upside down over the coals. Urre didn’t see the torturer in the semidarkness but assumed he was nearby. Frantically she redoubled her concentration and sealed the fissure shut, but that it had happened at all signaled she was getting to the end of her capability. Eventually the hellish flames would get to her and she would burn, the excruciating pain would... what? Would she yield? Oh Liothēca, let me die before the flames reach me!

Urre wondered if she should have constructed her diversionary image to have been that of a cool green forest –home– but that would have taken so much more effort and the flames would have closed in on her by now. No, the hot beach had been the best choice... maybe. She could keep the coals, the pain, the torturer, shut out for the longest period of time this way. And, if she was lucky, her physical body would die before her mind lost the capacity to create her meager beach-world. And that would be that. Death. Failure. But it would be with honor.

The flames suddenly flickered, then receded. What was this? Should she look? That would be so risky, she might open herself up to an avalanche of pain, so much she could not get back into her hallucination properly. But the flames were still receding... he was taking her down! That had to be it, the torturer had taken her off the coals, she’d roasted enough, she’d won! And then she heard something slosh and it started to snow. The shock caused her to lose her concentration so completely that her eyes fluttered open.

"You stupid fool," she heard bleated, she recognized the bellicose voice. Who, who? The Duque, that was it. Bungler!

I thought—

That you could do it. You wanted that success. After all this time. Confound and curse you, Disciplinarian! You’ve damn well nearly killed her.

How long has she been suspended? an unfamiliar voice asked in brittle disdain. Though Urre didn’t know it, it was Jozef, livid at the grisly scene he’d arrived to, knowing it would haunt him for a long time as he tried –and failed– not to cough in the sickly stinking air.

Three days, the torturer fessed up reluctantly. But I saw to it she got hydrated, I—

Look at her skin! I assure you, Sir, her skin is normally of the most milky white, a treasure, silken and—

It is none of those things now so save your boasts, Jozef sniffed brusquely, a notice of proviso that her price just went way down.

The cooling bath will restore her, Sir, ah for you to see her as she truly looks, not marred by all this blistering, redness and soot. The Duque shot Jozef a vacuous smile and the torturer a censorious glare.

That was it, Urre realized groggily as she groped mentally for true awareness –she was bobbing in a bathtub filled with ice! Her eyes were nearly swollen shut but she could peep out of one and saw a glimpse of the darkly battered face of her torturer. But then she saw fairly clearly, or much clearer than she’d seen anything else, a man, a man she did not recollect. He was standing above her and looking down with an oddly pinched expression on his face –pained, until he discerned she was actually seeing him and shutters came down.

He looked generally coarsened though not by evil or drink, but maybe from hard work. Weathered. He was tall and lordly in his distinctive burgundy cloak but then all of the Vezerine men who came to the House tried to look that way. He, however, had achieved it and with an ambience of iron willed self-assurance to boot. His shoulders were broad, his hair brown or black, she couldn’t tell which in the cellar light. He’s from the bordello Urre thought wishing she had died over the coals. If she could take no more, she would have to do it herself. I hope you pay a treasure for me you handsome detestable slime, and receive nothing but a withered moldy corpse for your purse. But then her poor frazzled mind remembered: she was supposed to go to the bordello.

Urre’s torturer also assumed Jozef was from the bordello, though he didn’t look, dress or act the way bordello owners did –people the torturer was well acquainted with. And something about the man was vaguely familiar too. The torturer turned his attention away, back to the girl, his teeth grinding. This girl was his only failure, a blemish on his record, how much would this dratted pintsize flea cost his reputation? The Calming Houses that hired him were gone now but the bordello owners would still find his services indispensable. But after this fiasco, being defeated by a female? He was a First Rank Disciplinarian but now he would be the subject of titillation throughout every city on the continent. Oh how he itched to have more time with her!

Ah well, things will be different soon. Maybe he would look her up, finish what he’d started...

I am sure, Sir, that we can come to an accommodation, the Duque said, all obliging courtesy.

What a stroke of luck this was! The Calming House Duque had resigned himself to the financial loss of selling Volina to a bordello but now the richest Viceraine of the provinces had shown up and wanted her! It had never occurred to the Duque to offer the girl to a Viceraine, but then this Viceraine obviously had no knowledge of what Volina was like, the outlook of ever taming her. But so what? By the time Viceraine Jozef figured that out the Duque would have his money and what could the Viceraine do then? Ha! As long as the Duque stayed out of the Viceraine’s province, nothing.

I want the Disciplinarian removed from here, Jozef barked, his tone impassioned. Only her Boyette attends her until she is ready to travel –assuming we concur on the price.

Without fail Sir, but that is expensive and—

I will pay for her Boyette while she remains in your House, but I shall provide her Boyette at my Dwelling myself.

The Duque cocked an eyebrow at that but recovered quickly.

She will need appropriate wardrobe, I have the best—

I will attend to that also, you need not trouble yourself.

Bedamn and botheration! The Viceraine was leaving him with no way to pad the sales price.

"Very good, Sir. If you will come with me to my office I am