Barbarian Outcast (Princesses of the Ironbound Book 1)

by Aaron Crash

He slapped the mop onto the floor. “Sure, Bud. I get it.”

  Bully Bud laughed, unlocked the door, and went out into the night.

  Tessa returned to cleaning. Steven made his way across the floor, hating himself for being such a punk. The fact was, he didn’t feel like a servant. He didn’t think he’d be smelling like disinfectant when he was in his fifties, unlike his mom, who worked as a cleaner at the Denver airport. He knew that at some point, things would change. But when?

  He had the floor shining when he reached Tessa, who sat on the counter, so he could get to the coffee stains and cast-off grounds on the tile floor.

  He glanced up and saw she was watching him.

  “He’s wrong,” Steven said suddenly. Well, that was certainly off script. He always let Tessa talk first. He didn’t want to be the douche who talked her ears off.

  “I know he is,” Tessa said. “But come on, at some point, you are going to have to stand up to him. He messes with you because he can get away with it.”

  Steven leaned on his mop and dared to look into her face. She had a nose piercing and hazel eyes that changed color. Sometimes they were greener, and sometimes they were bluer, and sometimes they were even a brownish color. She obviously dyed her hair black, and he liked the combination. Always had. Dark hair with blue or green eyes was striking. There was a foreign exchange student at Metro University from India named Aria who had similar features. Steven thought Aria might be a model because she was kill-me-slow gorgeous. She sometimes studied in the coffee shop. She loved the caramel lattes there.

  Yeah, the caramel lattes were good. Behind Tessa, the specials of the day, latte this, frap that, were written in her distinctive handwriting, full of loops and character. She’d also added little flourishes—cartoons of happy cups of coffee promising sweetness and caffeine.

  “Guys like Bud don’t matter in the long run,” Steven said. “So what if he bullies me? I have a ton of stuff I want to do in this life, and I’m not going to let dicks like that get to me.”

  Tessa grinned at him. It was warm and welcoming. “What kind of stuff are you going to do?”

  Steven felt a blush warm his face. “I have no idea. But ... can I be honest with you?”

  Tessa glanced at one of the many watches on her left wrist along with a bunch of brass bangles and plastic bracelets. “It’s after midnight, early on a Thursday morning. If you can’t be honest with me now, then when?”

  Steven felt the fear in his belly like cold water. But he wasn’t going to let that stop him. He was going to push forward and tell her something he’d never told anyone before in his entire life. And yet, every second of every moment he had felt it. “Tessa, this is going to sound stupid, but I feel like I’m going to do something great. It’s just a feeling ... I mean, I have no evidence to support it. I grew up in Thornton, I got Bs in school, and I knew I wasn’t going to go to any big university. Hell, I’m lucky to be going to Metro. But at some point, something is going to happen, and it’s going to make my entire life make sense.”

  He watched as the smile dimmed on her face. Her eyes went far away, and a hush filled the coffee shop. A car outside honked a horn and another car roared past on the street.

  What was that look about? Why wasn’t she saying anything? Steven had no idea. There was no way he could ask. He got the mop wet, swirled it into the wringer, drove the handle hard to wring it out, and then started on the floor behind the coffee bar. He’d been so stupid to open up like that. She must think he was such a moron.

  He concentrated on wiping away the coffee grime and footprints from the day. In a few short hours he’d be twenty years old officially. According to his mom, he’d been born at exactly 6:16 a.m. But then, sometimes his mom said she’d brought him home at 6:16 a.m. His mom was a bit spacy even on her best days, so he had no idea what time he’d been born. And it was odd how she talked about it. Spacy and odd, that was his mother.

  Why wasn’t Tessa saying anything? Finally, he had to break the silence. “You know, today is my birthday. And maybe the big grand something that is going to happen will happen because of my superior mopping skills.”

  “You do mop well,” Tessa finally said.

  He risked glancing at her face. Instead of a smirk or sneer or any kind of disgust, he saw tears sparkling in her eyes.

  Damn. Her silence was one thing, but tears were a whole other animal, a species he had no idea how to handle. It was time to try and back out of the trouble he’d got himself into. “Well, Tessa, you know, I bet most people think that they’re special. Isn’t that the point of humanitarianism? We’re all special humans living special lives, when in fact we’re just ants.”

  Tessa jumped off the counter, landing her trendy knee-high boots squarely onto the area he’d just mopped.

  “Don’t,” she said viciously. “Don’t do that.” She grabbed his arm.

  He found himself staring into her face. “Don’t mop? You know, Mr. Slocum pays the Broadway Cleaners Incorporated like five hundred dollars a week to keep his coffee shop. Not to brag, but I get like five percent of that. A night. Cha-ching.”

  Tessa didn’t smile, and those tears never left her eyes. “Don’t do that either,” she said. “Don’t shit on your truth by avoiding it or by trying to be funny.”

  “Trying and failing,” Steven murmured. “Obviously.”

  Tessa must’ve realized she had lost control of herself because she let go of his arm and stepped back. “Maybe we’re all ants. Maybe nothing matters. But Steven, you work your ass off. You’ll get home around two, but you have your cafeteria job at nine. You do that, then ace your classes, before you go to the library.”

  It was a shock that she knew his schedule as well as she did. Steven wisely stayed quiet.

  She kept on talking, passion in her voice. “You’re at least trying to make something of yourself. Me? I have this crappy job, and I write my crappy poetry and practice my crappy calligraphy, and that’s my life. That’s probably going to be my life for the duration. And yet ...” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ve felt it too. On some nights, when I’m alone in my room, I know that someday, I’m going to rise above all this. For me, though, it’s wishful thinking ... For you ...”

  Steven couldn’t stare into her eyes. They were too intense, too pretty. He slopped the mop back into the bucket.

  “You’re doing stuff to make your dreams come true,” Tessa finished. “Unlike me.”

  “Give me a break, Tessa. You go out. You have boyfriends and girlfriends and you go dancing and you take care of your brother and you do stuff too. Yeah, I’m going to college, but you could too. I could help—”

  Tessa flung out a hand. “It’s all so empty, all that sex, and the newness wears off, and I’m with some hipster and his beard and there’s nothing there. Yes, I have friends, and I love my family, especially my brother, but if some great thing is going to happen to us, we’re going to have to work for it. You’re doing that.” She paused. “I’m not.”

  For a second, Steven thought about trying to argue against everything she’d just said. He thought about telling her he’d been in love with her for months. But then, he knew the friend zone well. And with someone like Tessa? It wasn’t just a zone, it was a dungeon, and she’d thrown him into the friend dungeon long ago and thrown away the key. No way would she ever go for him.

  Yet, she knew his schedule. She admired him for some strange reason even though he let Bud walk all over him. Could he escape the dungeon and into her heart?

  He was about to say something when a guy in a lizard mask covering his entire head charged through the front door. In his hand was a black pistol.

  Fuck! Bud hadn’t locked the front door on his way out.

  “Take the cash!” Tessa yelped in fear.

  No, this guy hadn’t just busted in to rob the place. Something about him, something about the way he moved, how he held the gun, and how his weird red eyes fixed on Steven said that he hadn’t come for the money.


  He raised the gun. He didn’t aim for Steven, though. He fired at Tessa.

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  War God’s Mantle: Ascension (Book 1)

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  Cheyenne Magic: American Dragons (Book 2)

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  California Imperium: American Dragons (Book 5)

  Dodge City Knights: American Dragons (Book 6)

  Leadville Crucible: American Dragons (Book 7)

  Alaska Kingdom: American Dragons (Book 8)

  Alamosa Arena: American Dragons (Book 9)

  Barbarian Outcast (Princesses of the Ironbound Book 1)

  Dungeon Bringer 1

  Dungeon Bringer 2

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  Robot Bangarang: Full Frontal Galaxy (Book 1)

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  Dedication

  THIS BOOK IS FOR THE master of monster harem, Cebelius, who is a friend and a battle brother.

  Acknowledgements

  I DEDICATED THE BOOK to Cebelius, but I have to acknowledge the hours we spent outlining the basic bones of the book. The Lonely Man? Ymir's wounded heart? The conniving princesses? That was all Cebelius. Thanks so much, my friend.

  As for the rest? It was all Don Bauman. We spent days on end in North Carolina building the world, building the races, and laughing a lot. Don Bauman is a genius, and I so appreciate his willingness to build worlds with me. The name Ymir was Don's idea, a little wink at Robert E. Howard. And ironbound? That was also from Donny Boy. He's a guy who likes a good Conan story.

  Finally, here's a shout out to Lou J. Berger, who helped come up with the idea of the Coruscation Shelves. Yes, electrical current can help defend iron against rust.

  Finally, thanks to Black Forge Books. I really loved writing Ymir’s story.

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  Copyright

  Barbarian Outcast is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Aaron Crash and Black Forge Books.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email the publisher, subject line “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the email address below.

  JStrode@ShadowAlleyPress.com

  About the Author

  Aaron Crash writes adrenaline-fueled odysseys into the extreme regions of speculative fiction. If you're looking for cyborg vampires or jellyfish centaurs, you've come to the right place. He is the co-author of the War God’s Mantle series (Shadow Alley Press) and other over-the-top sci-fi/fantasy novels. He’s been an Amazon All-Star and his books have broken into Amazon’s Top 100. When he’s not wrestling the word dragons, he mountain bikes, kills pixels dead, and has been known to watch a movie or three. He lives in Colorado where he does devilish things.