"Everyone has been most kind to me. I feel much better now." Jasmina said.

Salliniari's smile turned into the sort of disapproving frown that was appropriate to reflect his concern and the gravity of the situation after she reassured him she was ok and he was on to the grim task of dispensing ...

"I can feel the child. Mhmm... It is quite helathy. Good, good..." muttered the healer to Jasmina. From his bag he withdrew a small bushel of leafy green twigs wrapped together by a piece of string. Daintily tugging one of them free, he held it up between to fingers in offering to her. "Chew on this ...

The cold stone felt good against his bruises. In order to keep it pressed against the swollen half of his face, Cervantes remained laying down on the floor. It wasn't clean by any stretch of the imagination. Covered in a thin layer of soggy, gritty dirt, it smelled like urine and old shit, but that ...

Jasmina didn't look good, but it didn't take outward physical appearances to tip Guido off. He withdrew his notepad and begin to scratch something down onto it with his pen, while the goon dawdled where he was. He oscillated between following Guido's orders, and greeting Jasmina, as though he didn't ...

Cervantes' mind was spinning. He was not completely unconscious for very long. The blows to his head had sent him to a dark place full of blue and purple stars. It was a comfortable place where he didn't remember who he was or how he got there, but by the time the bodyguard had pulled him out of the ...

Guido nodded in agreement when she suggested that they wouldn't send anyone else. They wouldn't. Not in Keltaris, so far away from their homeland. This boy was a nobody; a tool sent from out west on a suicide run at the whim of his superiors. He likely would have made a lot of bishani had he ...

Cervantes was hauled out of sight by the bodyguard without further incident. The man had no trouble carrying him - Cervantes was not particularly big. Certainly not by comparison.

There were others in the hallway then, moving in to find out what caused all the noise. One of them, one of the ...

Jasmina pleaded from behind the bodyguard, but not before the bodyguard's fist connected again with the already unconscious Cervantes and split his lip, sending an arc of blood through the air and across the wall and fine drapery. The huge man had virtually no concern for the life of the murderous ...

Naivete was not a flaw one could easily ascribe to Cervantes, and yet there he was, naive enough to believe that the woman whose life he had just spared would take mercy upon him.

She didn't. Instead, she screamed, and when she screamed he freaked out. Trying to cover her mouth again to stifle the ...

Things were going to hell and it was all Cervantes' fault. He had physical control over her. Why wasn't that enough? It was all he had ever needed in the past.

It wasn't enough because he was a failure. An abject failure. A thousand miles across land, leaving behind everything and everyone he knew ...

Cervantes was too used to dealing with people who were all too easy to frighten, and none too intelligent. His attempt at intimidation was backfiring. Badly. She knew he wasn't going to cut her throat and that gave her all the confidence in the world to stand up to him.

It was a risky move that ...

The sudden resistance by Jasmina when she reached the window came as a surprise to Cervantes, who expected a young woman who looked like her to be far more docile and just go without a fight. He tried to push her but she wasn't going to budge. He didn't have it in him to hit her.

Damn her. Damn her ...

The frustration he felt at his own inability to overcome senseless emotions just because she had a pretty face and eyes that reminded him of someone a thousand miles away blocked out any gratitude he might have felt for her cooperation. Deep inside, he was fuming, in utter turmoil.

Her talking ...

Cervantes worked hard to keep her from reaching that cord. He pressed his body firmly up against hers, shifting around to stop any opportunity she might have to knee him or claw him with her free hand. She was no weakling. If she really wanted to, she could make things very difficult for him, even ...

Cervantes sneered when she awoke and screamed. The sudden loudness of her voice jolted him out of the studious calm he possessed and put him right on edge. It was nobody's fault but his that things were now botched, that he couldn't kill her cleanly and silently, in a way that befit him and the ...