The prefect of the 'Eh' family Paol Dore was watching all the people in their combat family practice their arts while sitting on the balcony of the main building. A woman wearing the 'Eh' family mandated uniform silently walked out and put a cup of hot tea on the small tea table along with some biscuits on a tray.
The uniform was a loose fitting unstitched piece woven garment which is used to drape around her entire body while keeping the top half of chest visible and it went down up to the knees keeping her legs exposed. The 'Eh' family also trained men and women in the arts of servitude for other different families and notable houses and liked to employ many such people for themselves.
These people after being trained were sent to different rich households. In exchange for their services, the 'Eh' family charged sums of Rais and generated a healthy stream of income for themselves.
The current prefect was an accomplished man but had also had one well known vice. He preferred to employ mature women to serve him personally. After placing the tray down, the woman went back inside the house as Paol watched her swaying ass to his heart content.
His gaze was interrupted by another woman who was walking towards him with purpose. He picked up the tea and started sipping.
"Prefect Paol! Have you seen this!" She asked while slamming a thick bunch of papers on the tea table with anger.
Paol didn't react and took a sip from his tea before answering her, "Yes".
"He called us… a finished house!! Finished!" The woman shrieked. She sat down beside him, her face red with anger as her hands were shaking.
She turned her gaze towards Paol and said, "This cannot be left unanswered. We should immediately say something against this filth!".
"And what do you recommend we should say, Natliya? Should we thump our chests and proclaim that we still are the best? Should we issue threats to the champion?" Paolo asked the woman named Natliya.
Natliya looked at him with her eyes wide and answered with "Yes!" incredulously.
"Yes we should absolutely do whatever we can to stop these vile lies from spreading!!" She damn near shouted the last of the words that came from her mouth.
"Calm down Natliya. That won't achieve anything for us, instead it would stoke the fire even more" Paolo reasoned with Natliya, who was a high ranking member of the 'Eh' family's administration.
She was a former fighter herself, retiring just a few years back due to a back injury. She was nicknamed 'The Flaming Bitch' due to her bad temper during her active fighting days. Natliya had five tournament wins under her belts as accolades, the highest among the history of women fighters of Raison. Many say she was the best women fighter in the history of Raison. She was also the current wife of Paolo, his third in his fifty years of existence.
"Fine by me. I'm not going to sit around and be humble. How dare he look down on us!! And called us finished!! We are definitely not finished!!" Natliya raged on, unable to control her temper.
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
Servants feared to approach her while she's angry. There were many instances where she actively punished the servants who dared to show their faces to her when she was in one of her famous tirades. In one instance, she damn nearly beat a woman, one of Paolo's favourite servants to near death. City Guards had to get involved and was finally released on the condition that she check her temper in the future along with paying a large sum of Rais to the poor woman.
"Yes we are, Natliya" Paolo didn't take his eyes off from the view of fighters training.
"What!!!" Natliya nearly jumped out of her seat and exclaimed.
"Before you lose your damn head, think about it for a minute.
Our family member lost the championship recently and is nowhere near in a state to reclaim it back. We currently have no other mainstream fighter in our family who could stake a claim to a championship title fight right now.
Our latest fighters are yet to win any major tournaments and some don't even have experience fighting in one yet.
Honestly, I do believe Jann when he said we don't have any elite level fighters among our family. We had been so focused on pushing Ray during his championship reign that we forgot to train other fighters to take his place should he lose it.
We had our ups in these past two years. Now it's time for us to rebuild and start pushing for our fighters to win some major tournaments and hopefully find someone within these lot who can challenge the champion" Paolo voiced his thoughts on the matter.
"Except we do have someone now. Did you forget Paolo?" Her voice filled with venom, barely hanging on to her sanity.
Paolo sighed and looked towards his wife.
"We are now going to back a fighter who previously lost to the current champion in four different bouts. He is not going to be winning anything anytime soon". He replied to his wife.
He cupped her face with one hand and gave her a small smile. In an instant, her anger dissipated and she kept gazing at Paolo's eyes.
"Years gone by yet the flaming bitch hasn't gone away" he teased her.
"Never" she replied while pulling Paolo close to her.
"We will get back to our rightful place Natliya I promise you… just not now" he whispered it into her ears while hugging her tightly.
"We better or else I'll punch that fucker Jann's head off " she threatened which made Paolo laugh. The two of them shared the moment in silence.
“Don’t think I didn’t see you eyeing that servant” She said while still hugging him.
He smiled after hearing her and refuted her claim, “I did no such thing”.
She looked up and smiled after their eyes met and said to him “You're lucky I’m more worried about our future, Paolo”.
Paolo answered back with “We will be fine Natliya. We just need to ride the coming turbulent times with resolve. The ‘Eh’ family will reign supreme again, I promise you”.
After spending some alone time together, Natliya went inside the house leaving Paolo on the balcony, alone to ponder about the future.
Before Natliya went back to her room, she ordered a cup of tea to be delivered to her. The same servant whom Paolo was eyeing before had brought the tea to her doorstep and knocked on the door.
“Come in” Natliya ordered.
The servant opened the door and silently walked inside. She placed the silver tray on a table beside the bed when she heard the door being closed. The servant turned around alarmed and saw Natliya slowly walking towards her.
Fear gripped the woman and she lost her voice. Dread was building up inside her and when Natliya stood just in front of her, her dread reached its peak. She started sweating profusely while her hands and lips trembled. Every one of the servants knew of the flaming bitch’s reputation and all have heard the horror stories while some have seen it as well.
Natliya spent a few moments measuring the woman up thoroughly. She suddenly whipped her left arm around and grabbed hold of a load of the servant’s hair tightly. Tears started to run down from the servant’s eyes as she stood and counted her final moments.
“I have seen you around… doing your work and I noticed a peculiar thing. You walk straight with no usual gait to your walk. Day in and day out, you come and go from room to room and I have never seen you sway your hips while you walk.
And yet, whenever I have watched you serve our Prefect, you seem to suddenly develop a sway in your hips when walking. That got me curious and I was wondering just why is that? Care to explain?” Natliya asked while her eyes were glaring at the servant woman.
Upon hearing the question, the servant tried to say something but nothing came out of her throat. She was utterly in a state of shock as her plan to seduce the Prefect was thoroughly exposed.
“Don’t worry, I won’t punish you. I understand why you did what you did. Men are weak and pathetic, especially men with authority. Consider this my final warning, next time I catch you even looking at our Prefect, I will smash your face and fuck you up.
Remember my words and now get out!” Natliya released her hair and stepped aside.
The servant gave a slight nod before running out of the room hurriedly.
Natliya released a long sigh before picking up the cup of tea from the table.