Chapter 19

M'lar paced her bedroom floor throwing things in a travel bag and backpack she was infuriated and knew she needed to get her emotions under control that she had to be at Jade Silverswift's Studio in an hour. Hearing Kait come in her ] room dashed the tears from her eyes and sat down began to comb her hair and pinch her cheeks.

Kait stood holding Gillian's hands with her eyes bright and her manner excited she saw her mother and squealed out in glee and then charged towards her diving at her mother's legs. "Hello pumpkin! There is my girl. Ready to get dressed and go get our portrait done?"

Gillian was chattering away about dogs, cats, horses, rabbits, and turtles, big turtles and she tried in her way to explain about them but the language uniquely her very own. "My goodness Kait she must have been around you most the day, she is starting to sound like you."

Kait smiled, "Why yes she was around me and we have been talking about all the wonderful things we saw and there was the huge turtle by the lake and she got excited and wanted to go ride it but I told her no, later. . . "

M'lar still assuming her over brightness took a deep breath and said softly, "Kait breathe! Take a breath for the love of the gods so I can at least digest all of what you are saying!"

Kait had picked up Gillian moved to M'lar's bed and sat her down and pulled off her soiled dress she putting on her matching yellow dress like her mother's." Well I do breathe; I would like you to know I have great breath control. " M'lar watched Kait while she dressed her daughter then fixed her hair so that it lay in tight ringlets over her brow and down her neck.

Kait cooed with an Ooooh and an ahh as she looked at the little Princess. "Oh look at you my sweet little poppet! You look like your mommy in your pretty yellow dress, although I would have put you in pink, but this is your mother and that is her favorite color." Then Kait realized she was babbling and stopped and flushed. "Oh my I am doing it again aren't I?"

M'lar nodded, "Are you going to come with us to the studio? I think Glith gave her a place at the Inn to work out of for the sittings of portraits."

Kait nodded, "Oh yes if it is as good as many have said her paintings are then we shall be getting our portrait done." M'lar looked at her sister, "We?"

Kait smiled, "Why yes you and Shayla and myself of course we need a portrait of the three sisters you know."

M'lar chuckled, "Good luck getting Shayla to sit still long enough for the portrait to be sketched out before Jade paints it."

Kait preened, "I will have you know that she has already agreed to have the portrait done with the two of us."

"Well you must have babbled long and hard enough arguing your point for having the portrait done that you just plain wore her down and she gave in."

Kait proudly nodded, "of course I did, I told her that it was perfectly acceptable for three sisters as close as we are to have our images put down for posterity and that if she did not do the portrait that when you or I were dead and gone she would regret not having it to remember how special we all were to each other."

Again there was that rush of words that seemed to exhaust M'lar waiting for her to get to the point. "I see you used guilt."

Again she nodded and said softly, "Darn tootin', best way to get your way if you want something and nothing else works then you apply a thick coating of guilt and wella! You get what you want!"

M'lar did not question it, that had been one of the shortest sentences Kait had used to explain her point. "Well little missy if you want to join me on our run to the other side of the island you best get your things packed as soon as we get back to the Hoch, I plan on leaving before midnight.

M'lar did not mention that she was seriously considering staying on the other side of the island and not returning to this side until Gillian was grown and on her own. Instead she just kept herself busy while Gillian played with her stuff dolly.

Kait smiled knowingly, "Well I am packed and once we are ready to go, I will have my bags here and will be ready to go, do you think it is smart of us to leave so late? Going in the dark and not wait for daylight though I don't like to get up really early but I could be persuaded if you wanted to wait until first light that is."

M'lar thought about it and with the hypo spray she would be safe in not attacking a male that interested her she was not sure about the males once they smelled her pheromones that she would be secreting in stronger doses as the days went along until the ten day period had passed.

"We will see dear, lets just go now so Jade can start this portrait I paid for already. I swear I should not have let Glith talk me into this. I could have used the coin I paid for this for the temple. Well nothing for it but go and get this over with."

Setting out on foot, the three of them made quite the attraction moving down the street. The dress M'lar wore was a buttercup yellow with a slit up the side; it complimented her form and accented her curves.

The slit up the side showed a healthy portion of leg when she moved down the street towards the park and the pathway that lead to the Silver Fiend Inn. Kait was equally as lovely in her pale blue gown with accents of roses on the sleeves and rose-colored ribbons that adored the skirt and corset.

Her beautiful blond hair had been plated down her back and lay in a heavy fall the pony tail dancing back and forth across her back and brushing her hips as she jauntily moved along chatting and nodding to those that she knew and knew her.

They nodded to M'lar but looked away quickly and if their husbands looked too long they politely pinched their arms to get their attention back to them. The women did find the small child lovely and made it a point to talk sweetly to the child but ignore M'lar.

Gillian loved the attention but deep down M'lar thought Gillian probably would have wished the people speaking to her would have been animals because she would growl or bark, meow and doing it rather realistically when she imitated the animals. This would send the women into a flutter of giggles or surprised looks with clapping hands.

They spoke to Kait about how talented and bright she was but did not acknowledge her mother. M'lar ignored it to a point that was until about the tenth woman from the town made it a point to turn her back on M'lar and look at Gillian now holding onto Kait's hand and spoke to Kait about M'lar's daughter.

M'lar sighed and brushed past them. "I am going on ahead Kait, bring Gillian when you are done visiting with your friends." Head held high and feeling the sting of a muttered, "harlot from the under breath of one of the women M'lar's face flushed deep red."

Pushing open the door to the studio she walked into a spacious place that had the walls filled with samples of Jade's work all beautifully displayed and showing she had talent. The tinkling of the bell sent an alert to jade. Coming from the back of the shop and she moved to M'lar's side wearing a paint covered smock.

M'lar smiled, "Hello Jade, we are here a little early because I plan on leaving the Capitol tonight and head to the other side of the island."

Jade frowned and then recovered. "Really? Are you going for pleasure or business?"

M'lar strolled around the studio looking at the various pieces of art work and the renditions from plant life to animals to people and streets with homes built closely together.

"I am going to see if they need a library on the other side of the island. My god wants me to educate so while I am there I will see what kind of school they have and if they have any teachers." She smiled warmly at the young lady that was always frowning or distracted or she was street harden.

"I see, so how long will you be gone?"

M'lar thought a moment, "Probably a fortnight. Traveling by horseback it takes three days to get there and we may catch a ship back on its way out and make port by the docks. I am hoping you can get the bulk of what you need done today if its possible and mind you I am not trying to rush you on anything it is that I may not be back for a while."

Jade looked down, "I see well it won't be a rush, so when you are ready we can get started."

M'lar smiled, "Kait it outside with Gillian and will be along shortly. I am not bumping anyone else am I?"

Jade began to set up her sketchbook. Setting up her easel she put a blank canvas on the holder then and looked around. "Oh no, I was hoping I could use your portrait for a few weeks so that I could show the towns people that I had you and Gillian here and did a portrait of you two."

M'lar's smile tightened and she looked around, "Well I am sure the towns people will find Gillian a delight as for me, well," she shrugged her delicate shoulders and then turned hearing the door opened watching Kait leading Gillian in to the room.

"Ahh the errant sister has arrived with the most important topic of our conversation." Kait had bent to picked up Gillian and carried her over to her mother setting her down. With great huge dark eyes she looked around at the light room filled with pictures.

Her smile and eyes brightened and when she smiled her whole face lit up. "Gilly come to mommy we need talk a moment." Gillian toddled to M'lar and stood with her hands locked behind her back and twisted and turned. "We are going to sit real still for Miss Jade and she is going to draw our picture then she is going to put it on that large canvass there and paint it pretty. Now can you sit still for her so she can draw our picture?"

The little one appeared to think real hard and then she nodded and smiled, "K" she said softly then peered around her mother to look at Jade. She turned and pointed to Kait, "Aunt Kati did! Aunt Kati did, picture too?"

Kait chuckled softly, "Not this time Poppet, next time."

M'lar pick up Gillian and moved to the settee that Jade had set up putting the light behind her so that it fell on her canvas bathing Gillian and M'lar in its warming glow. Jade sat down and with a stick of charcol she began to sketch out the outline of mother and daughter.

Gillian did real well for the first hour and then she began to shift and squirm and her eyes became heavy with boredom that is when she became sleepy. "I am so sorry Jade, she did real well, but she is a child and used to being active." M'lar apologized and Jade waved it off,

"It is all right M'lar I have most of her while she was sitting still it's a matter of filling in details which I made sketches of her while we were together in the park that day so I can use that."

M'lar relaxed, "I am so glad you are so reasonable not many artists would appreciate a squirming child let alone a sleepy one."

Jade smiled as she noticed Gillian lying in Kait's arms starting to fall asleep. "Why not take her home Lady Kaitlin and then you could come back and wait for M'lar. I am going to be another hour with her and the child should be comfortable in her own bed."

Kait looked to M'lar with a hopeful look. "Yes, you can take her home, and then you can get your things together and I will meet you back at Temple."

The sound of a bell tingling at the entrance all eyes turned to the new arrival and M'lar shifted her gaze and smiled delighted to see her dear sweet friends Yielder. "Hail and well met friend Yielder!"

The handsome dwarf moved in and smiled and bowed to the ladies. "My ladies, your son sent me to escort you all back to the Hock, the town seems to be having some issues with a series of attacks and robberies.

He wanted to make sure you were safe." M'lar frowned she was not so quick to want to accommodate Marstoq since she was hurt and still mad at him.

"Why not take Kait back and then you can return to get me." Yielder smiled broadly, M'lar knew he was in love with her but a dwarf and elf were not a likely pair and she did not have any other feelings for him other than friendship. She was lucky that he accepted her friendship and if she stayed on the other side of the island she would miss his company and friendship.

The carriage drew up in front of the studio, M'lar stood to stretch then went to kiss her daughter bye and watched them move to the carriage. M'lar sighed and then turned to move and reseat herself. From the back of the studio there was movement.

M'lar looked up and saw Darrin Summerset move into the room with a cocky grin on his face and a superior attitude to his demeanor. "Well, well, what have we here?"

M'lar felt uncomfortable around him and looked at Jade. "I see you have company now Jade, I will leave you with Mr. Summerset."

She moved to the door and felt a hand lock down over her wrist. "No you don't you and I are going to have a conversation and we are not going to be interrupted."

M'lar was growing hot with her anger as she looked at the hand on her wrist and into his face. All she could see at that moment was Kait lying under him being molested. "You sir will remove your hand or loose it."

From her back she felt the sharp prick of a knife as it dug into her dress and her ribs. "No I think not, you will be coming with me and not make one sound, do you understand?"

M'lar felt the bite of the knife and sucked in her breath. "You could be charged with what you are doing Mr. Summerset its called Kidnapping. You are also accosting a member of this town's counsel."

Darrin turned and glared at Jade. "Not a word of this Jade to anyone do you understand?"

Jade swallowed hard and nodded she did not want her past to catch up with her and ruin her chances here. "Now for you," he withdrew a soft cloth bag placing it over her head and a piece of rope and snagged her wrists together binding them.

He led her out the back door into the night and the shadows of the ally. He rushed her headlong and blindly down the ally and then she felt they were away from the city and closer to the woods. He had rushed her so fast that she found she was hard pressed to call out for help. If she tried to raise her voice she would feel the rude intrusion of that sharp knife in her ribs. "Silence not a word."

He led her to the entrance of what she thought was a cave and then drug her into the cave and down a network of tunnels and then stopped. His voice was threatening and hissed around her in the cavernous opening. "Where we are now, are several traps and if you move the wrong way you will plummet to your death down a shaft and no one will find you. Your child will be motherless and you will be forgotten."

He put his hand on her ankle and placed her feet so that she was now stretched almost into a split and then he was gone. She moved her bound wrists up and took the bag off and she noted it was pitch black. Shifting her vision to infravision she looked around seeking his heat form.

With the shift to infravision, her eyes glowed red in the pitch-black tunnel of the cave. From the left there was a shaft of sudden light that sent a shard of pain through her and she felt the searing pain of the light blind her totally to her surroundings.

Crying out in pain she heard him laugh and she was angry. "Come down here you bastard, come down here and I swear for what you did to Kait I will gut you where you stand."

The laughter stopped, "So the little mouse told you about our adventure?" M'lar wanted to rub her eyes and make the pain go away and she felt her legs begin to tremble from being stretched and she dared to step back.

"Careful you are a step away from falling to your death." M'lar shouted, "You think I care if I fall? If I fall my son will hunt you down. He will find out you were the one that took me and brought me here and I died because of you!"

He laughed again. "Will he? I don't think so. M'lar stepped forward, the whipping sound of an arrow shaft being released and she felt it sink into the edge of her dress and pin it to the ground. "Understand I am doing this to tell you what could happen to you if you stand in my way and Shayla's affections."

M'lar pulled out the arrow and felt two more arrows fly and hit the end of her dress pinning it to the ground. Again she pulled out the arrows and waved them around at the darkness. "I am not going to say anything to Shayla about you because I promised Kait that I would keep her shame a secret but that does not mean the first chance I get I will kill you myself you pathetic excuse for a slime."

From behind he hit her and she fell down hitting the ground hard and was now pinned beneath him. She felt the bite of the knife as he moved it over her breasts cutting away the bodice so that her breasts were partially exposed. "You are nothing but an ugly half breed. I should end your life. That would make me a hero to the elven nation."

M'lar tried to squirm under him to get out from the hold he held on her body. He grabbed her arms and held them over her head and felt him secure the rope to something he obviously had put there for this exact purpose. "No male would want someone as ugly and hideous as you. The only gratification they would receive from you would be watching you choke on them as they fed their male members to you for their pleasure."

M'lar had never felt so much fear as she did at this moment, this man truly hated her and she knew he was capable of murder. His words did not matter to her with him continuing to spew out horrid mean tempered ideas of what she was or who.

She felt him move his hand up her dress and part her legs and then he held his knife to her sensitive parts of her female sex and she shuddered wondering what he planned to do.

The stimulation he was creating by making her squirm she pleaded, "Please do not do this! Just let me go and I won't say a word to anyone. I will take this encounter to my grave." Darrin felt her capitulation but something in him wanted to totally degrade her to make sure he could secure her silence. Using his knife's hilt he began to brutalize her with it, shoving it deep into her and then listened to her whimper and felt her tears. He finished and rolled off of her cutting her bonds. "That is the closest that you will ever get to being pleasured by anyone other than one of your own kind"

He threw a small towel down to her and ordered her to clean up. Crawling into a kneeling position she made quick work of cleaning herself and knew he had hurt her horribly, she was bleeding and if she chanted to cure the wounds he had made he would surely think she was casting on him.

Feeling him drag her up by her hair he covered her head again and then led her in silence out of the cave and the tunnels and found they were close to the Lady of Mysteries Inn. "Come on the least I can do for pleasuring you is to buy you a drink."

M'lar followed him to the inn and once they were in the light she looked down and in horror and shock saw she was bleeding heavily from her crotch. She wanted to run. He frowned and looked away, "Go down that hall and clean up." M'lar went down the hallway and then out the back door and began to run until she was to the wood line and stopped.

Choking on her fear and her tears she placed trembling fingertips to her injured area and began to chant softly, "Oghma grant thy unworthy servant thy healing powers and cure serious." She felt the surge of heat run through her body and the pain eased as the wound that had been caused by his brutalizing her was healed.

Though her wounds were healed, the part of her that was she was damaged. Moving quickly towards the Hoch, she snuck up the outside steps and prayed that the door to the outside had not been locked. She tried the knob to her relief opened.

Moving into the hallway she was surprised to see the Ranger Olorian. Rushing past him she headed to the bathing chamber and darted in the door. Locking it securely behind her she stripped out of the dress and ran the tub full of water and slid into the tub and began to scrub her body.

Scrubbing it so hard it had turned red and braised from her actions. Biting back the tears of shame and humiliation she laid back in the tub and closed her eyes and cried, she felt her body wracked with silent sobs as she cried hard and bit her lip so that it bled.

Hearing a soft knock on the door she controlled herself and called with an emotion filled voice. "I won't be much longer" the soft voice of Olorian called through the door.

'M'lar? It is Olorian, I was concerned you appeared injured when you came in do you need any help?"

M'lar flushed with humiliation, "No, no I healed myself. I am physically ok. I just needed to clean myself up." She knew that was not a lie, she had healed the wound that had caused the bleeding but she had no way of knowing how to heal the wound of being savagely and brutally raped with a knife.

Olorian had leaned against the door and knew there was much more to this than she was admitting. "M'lar please let me in. I promise to not hurt or harm you in any way. I just want to be reassured that you are not injured."

M'lar pulled her self from the copper tub, grabbing a towel she pulled it around her form and limped to the door and opened it slightly. "I am not dressed Olorian." He pushed the door and stepped in and locked it behind him and immediately he saw the look in her eyes and mistook it for what had happened earlier. She stepped back holding the towel close to her body. Her eyes filled with uncertainty.