Best Kept Secrets

By D.B. Francais

Introducing a world of high adventure and dark secrets, where the days are filled with wonder and the nights are consumed by lust.

The last seaside town that they stopped at turned into a violent mob that they narrowly escaped. Now, Lorelei and Captain Vine find themselves back at sea with a new accidental crew member. To repay the two for her safe escape, the spirit mage Amarante turns her talents to healing Captain Vine’s living ship — and to keeping the two company when night falls, whether on deck or in bed.

But an unashamed witch isn’t the only surprise the two encountered during their last stop. Thanks to a mysterious letter which had been inexplicably waiting for her, Captain Vine withdraws into uncharacteristic anxiety. Lorelei, determined to help her Captain cheer up, insists they make landfall once again in a secluded seaside wood to take a walk and clear their heads. She soon discovers, however, that safety and solitude can be harder to find than she thought — and that Captain Vine is not the only one hiding troubling secrets.

D.B. Francais brings you the third story in a series of erotic lesbian fantasy adventures, where worlds collide and love blossoms in many unexpected places.

READER ADVISORY:

This story contains graphic sexual reference, mostly in the form of hot girl-on-girl(-on-girl) action, including scenes of surprise ravishment, drunken makeouts, domination, submission, seduction, group experimentation, aides d’amour, and many related things of a soft and nubile nature.

If the thought of two or more women getting steamy in various states of undress does not appeal to you, please direct your attentions elsewhere.

You have been warned.

• Language: English
• Publisher: D.B. Francais
• Release date: Aug 26, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370047000

D.B. Francais

D.B. Francais loves complex characters, easy banter, and kinky situations, and can be contacted at [e-mail] for those who wish to send fan mail or suggestions for later episodes, discuss possible writing commissions, or just say hi.If you like D.B. Francais, consider supporting them further through Patreon at patreon.com/queensrunner. Please feel free to leave an honest review on Smashwords or Goodreads. You can also visit them at Facebook.com/QueensRunner. And thanks for reading.

Book preview

The Queen’s Runner

A Swashbuckling Lesbian Erotica

Episode 3:

Best Kept Secrets

by

D.B. Francais

Best Kept Secrets Copyright © 2016 by D.B. Francais

Episode 3 of The Queen’s Runner

Proserpian Press

Smashwords Edition, ISBN: 9781370047000

Cover art attribution:

iStock.com/sundrawalex

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental. All sexually active characters in this work are 18 years of age or older, and all sex acts performed are consensual.

This book is for distribution to ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It contains substantial sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which may be considered offensive by some readers.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Best Kept Secrets

About the Author

Preview of Drawn and Cornered

Foreword From the Author

This story was written purely as escapist fun and by no means attempts to sneak a hidden message or cause into the reader’s mind. While it is almost guaranteed that someone can find a moral somewhere to extract from this story, doing so is not advised.

However, should the reader decide to go ahead and find one anyway, it is the sincere wish of the author that they at least pick one of the good ones and handle it lightly.

Best Kept Secrets

We have been on the sea for three days, and in that time, we have all said about as many full sentences to one another.

Captain Vine has taken to standing at the wheel of The Queen’s Runner for hours upon hours at a time, staring out over the water that I don’t think she even really sees. She keeps the shoreline always in sight to the left of the ship as we sail steadily eastward with, as far as I can tell, no real destination in mind. I have tried calling up to her, have tried climbing up beside her and speaking, but each time, she seems not to hear me at first. When she does hear, her response is more often a grunt or a shrug than a word.

Amarante, meanwhile, has largely disappeared. She keeps to the darkness of the hold, there tending to the strange tree growing out of the hull of our Captain’s ship — a tree that, it turns out, is the living heart of the ship itself. Its wilting had been a cause of concern for days before we met the spirit healer in Waterglade, and her attention to it has done wonders to restore the ship’s integrity. Or so she and Captain Vine say. I am not well-versed enough in ships or sailing to have noticed any problems, but apparently, they were not insubstantial.

Unfortunately, Amarante’s ministrations to the living ship also keep her preoccupied and, when she finally takes a break, literally drained of spirit. She says that she has never turned her magic to flora before this, and that most of her work is just figuring out what to do through trial and error. As such, she empties a lot of her own energy into the ship while she attempts to redirect what energy is already there to healing itself. Each time that this happens means a long wait before she is in any condition to continue in her project.

The fact that she has not entirely gotten over losing almost everything of her old livelihood in Waterglade does not help, nor does the fact that, I suspect, she does not entirely believe that we were blameless in the matter.

As for myself, I unfortunately have no such project to keep me busy. One can only stare out over the constant and unchanging waves, or sit and watch the slow growth of a tree in the dark, for so long before it becomes tedious. At first, being new to everything above the water’s surface, simply the novelty of the view or the alienness of the strange new plant was enough to keep me at least marginally interested for a time. Now, however, the novelty has worn thin.

But the longer time wears on, the more I realize that the boredom or lack of conversation is not what bothers me most. No, instead, it is this constant, nagging, unabated need growing within me.

We have all been closed off from one another for three days. My Captain has not touched me — not really touched me — for the duration of those same three days. Ever since we absconded from Waterglade with the spirit healer Amarante in tow. Ever since my Captain read, and then burned, an anonymous letter left for her in town by a stranger who had passed through some weeks prior and set the whole population of the little fishing village against him.

I find that I no longer like to go for so long without her affection. By day three, I am wound as tight as my companions, though for entirely different reasons.

On the evening of the fourth day, I can stand it no longer.

Captain Vine is at the helm once more, holding the wheel still while the coast lazily slips by, all rocky cliffs covered in thick forests lush with trees stretching almost to the edge of the land and looking out over the water. Amarante is once more below deck, absorbed in her thoughts and work. And I’m leaning over the back rail behind the helm, watching the wake of The Queen’s Runner as the waves come back together and settle down. But for the wash of the tide and the creak of the ship in the wind, it has been silent for hours now.

Captain? I ask, unable to bear the quiet tedium for another moment. What was in that letter that you received? It is not the first time I have asked her this question.

Hm? Captain Vine responds, not bothering to look back at me. Nothing. It is not the first time she has given me this answer.

I take a deep breath and turn away from the railing. Captain, I say more firmly. You are lying to me.

She glances back at me, briefly, then forward once more. Nothing important, she amends.

Forgive me if I don’t believe you, I respond. It sure seems important if it still causes you to brood nearly a week later.

She turns the wheel just a couple of degrees, then holds it straight again. Nothing that concerns you, she says more curtly.

You’re wrong! I snap, nearly a shout, and it is only then that I realize my hands are trembling at my sides. Captain Vine turns to look at me, her eyes straying to my clenched hands. I clasp them to my chest to still them and turn away from her. Captain, it concerns me a great deal, I continue, willing my voice not to tremble like the rest of me and only half succeeding. I am unsure whether it is sadness or anger or simple frustration that is threatening to undo me. It has concerned you beyond anything I’ve seen so far, and your behavior worries me more and more the longer it continues. This isn’t like you. I wish you would at least give me a reason why you’ve grown so silent and distant.

Lorelei… Averted though my gaze is, I can feel her eyes on me. After a moment, she sighs and releases the wheel, letting the ship drift forward on its own course. While Amarante holds my Captain’s heartwood pendant, she cannot control the ship’s movement remotely, but the shore is a good distance away and the wind blows straight and parallel to it. Satisfied that The Queen’s Runner will get along without her a moment, Captain Vine steps up to me and wraps her arms around my shoulders, pulling me into her familiar embrace.

I could almost cry, I’ve missed her affection this much. For a moment I hold out due to sheer stubbornness, but I cannot make it last. Swallowing my pride, I wrap my arms around her in turn, burying my face in the comfortable softness of her chest.

She sighs again into my hair. I’m sorry, Lei, she says quietly. I’m out of practice thinking about other people’s feelings. I didn’t mean to worry you.

But you’re worried yourself, I say, turning my face so I’m not speaking into her breasts. Can’t you tell me why? Maybe I can help…

She runs her fingers through my hair, and I close my eyes and lean into her more, reveling in the attention after so long without it. You can’t, she says sadly. "I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be dismissive, but…it’s a long story, and the only person who can help me is me. I really would rather not talk about it, and I really don’t want you getting caught up in it. You’ve been through enough because of me already."

Captain, I say, my hold on her tightening, you’re kind of scaring me now…

I’m kind of scaring myself, she says, but I can hear her smile as she says it — her first one in days. Even if it is not a happy smile, I much prefer it over her gloomy isolation. She pulls back and plants a kiss on my forehead before releasing me, then smiles again. So let’s drop it. You’re right, I’ve been in a funk for too long, and I don’t think fixating on it any longer will make things better. Best to put it out of mind for now. She turns back to the wheel and spins it quickly and briefly, angling the ship’s pointy front bit (the prow? I think I’ve heard her call it a prow, once) more toward the open water. Can you go get Amarante? she asks me over her shoulder. It’s time we all took a break from our problems, and I know just how to do it. With that, she drops gracefully over the edge of the helm to the deck below. I hear the door to the cabin open, and then she is striding away into the ship.

I am slightly confused, not least because my Captain’s moods seem to me as quick and slippery as an eel to change so suddenly on a whim like this. But then, I am used to being slightly confused around my Captain, and whatever the case, it is a preferable situation than seeing her listless and depressed and distant. In significantly better spirits, I climb down after her to tell Amarante the good news.

***

The sun sets slowly behind the back of the ship (the stern. I’m pretty sure it’s called a stern), gradually painting the blue sky orange as it does and darkening the blue water beneath us. The Queen’s Runner has been brought to a standstill on the waves, far enough out that there is no threat of the tide washing us up against the cliffs. The three of us are seated in a rough circle on the deck between the mast and the cabin — the same space where I first learned to walk just a few weeks ago in another lifetime, chained to the mast by my new legs by my desperately lonely Captain. If I had been told then that I would one day soon be sitting unfettered in this same space with the same company of my own free will, actively avoiding going back home, I don’t know what my reaction would have been.

After another simple dinner of hearty fruits and a crusty light brown substance that I have learned is called bread, all of it eaten mostly in silence as per our usual routine these past few days, Captain Vine looks around at Amarante and I, a purposeful expression on her face. Alright, she says decisively, enough of this awkward tension crap. Lei, you’re right. It’s time we all snapped out of it. She reaches behind her back then, her hands returning with an opaque bottle of clouded, dark red glass which she thumps onto the deck boards between the three of us. There is a plunk as whatever liquid it contains sloshes against the trapped air inside. It’s time the three of us got officially drunk together.

Drunk? I repeat, looking to the healer for clarification.

Amarante eyes the bottle suspiciously. What is that and where did you get it, Captain? she asks, sounding as if she might try to escape depending on the answer.

What do ya think? Captain Vine replies, raising the bottle again and working at the stopper. It’s wine, and I got it in Waterglade while I was getting everything else that we could afford to resupply with. Not a decent fairy wine, of course, no surprise there, but I figured the human stuff couldn’t be completely without merit, right? She manages to pry the cork from the bottleneck with a pop, then tosses it aside. It bounces and rolls and disappears somewhere on the deck as she puts the bottle to her lips and takes a generous swig, head tilted back. Hmm, she says afterward, wiping her lips with the back of her hand. No, not completely. A bit unrefined, but then, so are we. She passes the bottle to Amarante, but her eyes fall on me. Well, those of us who aren’t princesses, anyway.

I learned early on in my introduction to the dry world that my title apparently carries no real weight, at least not where Vine and the humans we’ve met so far are concerned. Rather