Callum was trudging forlornly through the grimy streets, head bowed, when he was stopped short by a stunning pair of legs. They were firmly toned and looked silky-smooth, beginning with a pair of open-toed, high-heeled sandals and ending - well, they didn't end at all, only flowed into slender hips and upward into an outthrust bosom, barely contained by a red-and-black silk corset. A delicate neck and finely-boned face, heavily made-up and crowned with flowing dark hair, topped off the vision.
Callum gulped, forgetting his misery for the moment. There were no women like this in the highlands!
Then the vision spoke. "Welcome to Zatakia, mighty warrior. We have been watching you."
"We?" Callum managed.
The vision made a gesture, and Callum turned. The second woman was equally gorgeous, though different. Where the first was all slender splendour, the second was all carnal curves, crowned in flaming red tresses.
"We heard you trying to enlist at the barracks," the second vision said.
"What a waste," the first vision said, causing Callum to turn again. "Your skills would be wasted on them. The soldiers do nothing but -"
"Make trouble," her companion finished. "Now that there is no war. They fill the taverns with their drunkenness and the streets with their discontent. No, there is -"
"No place for you there. Come with us instead. We have -"
"A proposition for you."
Callum was feeling slightly dizzy at this point, no doubt due both to the women's beauty as well as the constant turning back and forth he was having to do in order to keep up with the conversation. "What proposition?"
The redheaded vision licked her plump, plum-coloured lips. "We work for a... pleasurehouse, here in Zatakia. And -"
"We find ourselves in need of... protection. That is where you would come in. No doubt someone as strong and powerful as you would be able to take care of us poor folk -"
"And you would be very well rewarded..." |