Keeper's Justice
Copyright© 2025 by Charly Young
Chapter 28
L’eena
L’eena, the Asrai, Mistress of the Fighting Pits, sat on a high-backed, gilded chair. Her pale green skin was flawless, taut—a testament to her Asrai heritage. Her figure, lusher than was common for her kind, still held a captivating allure despite her age. She had a beauty that could still command a fortune from the merchants she had once serviced but now preyed upon. Her long, black hair, intricately braided with silver wire, cascaded over one shoulder, almost brushing the hilt of the gem-encrusted blade scabbarded at her waist.
But it was her eyes that drew your gaze. The pleasure houses of Eastmarket, the endless parade of wealthy merchants and guild masters, had burned away any trace of softness. Now, her violet eyes were the focal point of her being, not merely seeing but calculating, assessing. The only desires that animated them now were an insatiable lust for wealth and its inseparable twin, power.
L’eena and her brother had grown up playing pleasure girls’ usual games, the bait and switch and the Murphy, fleecing their clients mercilessly. They soon graduated to the more lucrative and safer crime of crimping. They’d had a good thing going until her idiot brother got greedy and started dealing drugs. When he shorted the Leprechaun and got caught, he barely escaped to the human world with his life.
L’eena’s next venture was slaves. Soon she was an up-and-coming operator in the Leprechaun’s organization, so much so that when he was topped, she stepped into the leadership vacuum.
This day, she had a delicate problem. Two Dökkálfar Sidhe had arrived unexpectedly, asking for their goods. The two, clad in finely tailored cloaks, didn’t bother to hide their disdain for her. They calmly and smugly reneged on the deal that she and Crown Prince Erendriel had worked out seasons ago: drugs for slaves. They wanted the slaves she had gathered.
Helen, her newest partner, lounged off to the side, occasionally dipping to feed on one or the other of the two entranced human males kneeling at her side.
Leena simmered with frustration. Too many things had gone wrong in the last few days. First, the supply of slaves from the Eastmarket district had suddenly stopped against all reason. The agents she sent to investigate disappeared, never to be heard from again. Next came the rumors of the Shadow Walker appearing in Oldtown—rumors she had discounted because she had always thought the Shadow Walker was a myth meant to scare disobedient children. Although Helen, her new ally, had warned that the creature was no myth. If he was real, he had never ventured this far south.
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