“Well, hello there,” she said in a voice that tried for languid sensuality and, if he was being honest, mostly made it.
“Hi.”
“I know a lot of those who come in here,” the woman said, easing down into the seat across from him, and, by some woman’s magic he’d never understood, managed to make the movement alluring and evocative at the same time, “but I don’t know you.” She sat the two mugs of ale down on the table and leaned back, studying him.
“No,” he said, trying—and not completely succeeding—in keeping his eyes off of the fair amount of cleavage her shirt displayed as she leaned over the table, “I’m not from around here.”
“Oh, I didn’t think you were,” the woman said, smiling as if she’d scored a point. “Tell me,” she said, leaning forward more and producing an even more irresistible view, “Why do you wear your hood? You’re inside, after all.”
You know, Co said, anger clear in her tone, it is considered polite, when speaking with someone, to look at their face.
Aaron shrugged, forcing his eyes off the woman’s chest and meeting her stare, “I guess I’m shy.”
Co made a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a snort, but Aaron ignored it.
She grinned, “Shy, is it? You don’t strike me as shy.” She leaned closer still, her hands reaching for his hood. He let her and, in another moment, she was sliding it back, her grin growing wider as she did. “My, but aren’t you handsome. It’s absolutely criminal of you to cover such a handsome face.”
Aaron smiled, “Not the worst thing I’m guilty of,” he said, then took another drink of his ale, emptying the mug.
“No,” she said, her eyes dancing, “I doubt that it is.” She ran a hand across his shoulder and his arm, making appreciative sounds in her throat, “I’d like to hear more about what you’re guilty of, I think.” She glanced down at his mug and noticed that it was empty, “It seems that you’re out of drink,” she said, smiling coyly. “Luckily for you, I brought an extra.” She slid the mug of ale toward him, and he grabbed it.
“Ah,” he said, “I’m thinking normally men are the ones buying drinks for you.”
She shrugged as if it didn’t matter, a motion that did some interesting things with her shirt. “Perhaps. But, then, I know what I want and what I like and, right now, I like you.”
“Lucky me.”
“You have no idea.”
Aaron met her sultry grin and smiled back. He decided that, objectively, the woman really wasn’t bad looking at all. Quite good looking, in fact. “I’m thinking maybe there’s some men in this room that would be a bit jealous at that.”
She shrugged again, “Let them.” She winked, slipping a hand beneath the table and placing it on the inside of his thigh, “It makes it more fun, doesn’t it?”
He nodded, not having to try very hard to seem interested. Not hard at all. “I guess it does.”
She smiled at that and her hand moved further up his thigh. “I wonder, would you be so kind as to see a lady to her room?”
Co snorted, Where’s the lady?
“Well,” Aaron said, swallowing hard as the woman’s hand traveled further up, “I think I could manage that.”
“Oh, I’m sure I’ll be amazed at all that you can manage,” she said. She gave a squeeze hard enough that Aaron winced, then smiled and rose. “I’ll be right back—you finish your drink.”
Aaron grunted, “Okay.” He watched her walk away, her hips swaying back and forth in a motion that was—he had to admit—more than a little distracting.
Surely you don’t mean to … to bed this harlot? Co asked, her voice angry and shocked.
Relax, firefly, he said, forcing his eyes away from the woman as she made her way to the bar and began speaking with the innkeeper, her back to him. Aaron rose, grabbing the drink the woman had brought him, and started toward the bar. “Lucky bastard,” someone muttered from a table as he passed, and Aaron paused, turning to look.
There were three of them, the man who’d spoken and two of his companions, all in their early twenties, each obviously drunk and looking for someone to take it out on. Sometimes, he thought, it really is just too easy. “Ah, well, sorry for that, friend. Here, a drink on me.” He sat the beer down on the man’s table then grabbed one of the empty ones. “I’ll take this back for ya. Oh, and I’d go easy on that ale—it’ll knock you on your ass, you’re not careful.” The man was frowning at the full glass of ale when Aaron resumed his walk to the bar.
The woman turned as he walked up beside her, cutting off her conversation with the innkeeper. She glanced at him, then at his empty drink, smiling wickedly. “Oh, but you are an impatient one, aren’t you?”
“I’ve been called worse.”
She smiled at that and turned back to take the key the tavern owner was holding out. She turned back to Aaron and winked. “Follow me.”
Aaron was following the woman to the stairs when something crashed behind him, and they both turned to see the man he’d given the ale to lying collapsed on the floor from where he’d fallen backward out of his chair. I told him to take it easy, he thought. He glanced back at the woman and shrugged, “I guess the man can’t handle his drink.”
She smiled, “I guess not,” then she turned and led him up the stairs to the last room at the end of the hall. As soon as they were inside, she slammed the door closed and pressed into him until his back was against the wall. Then she began kissing him, her hands roaming over his chest and stomach in the dark of the room. In another moment, she’d stripped his shirt off and tossed it on the floor along with his sword and cloak. “Gods, but I bet you’re a strong one,” she said, breathless, “show me.”
Aaron hooked his hands under her and lifted her up. She gasped in pleasure at that, kissing him hard enough that his lips ached from it and wrapping her arms around him. He walked to where he saw the shadow of the bed in the dark room swaying slightly and laid her down. She smiled at him as she pulled her shirt off, displaying a pair of breasts that were just about as good as he’d thought they’d be. She pulled him down after her, and he paused, yawning.
“Oh, come now,” she said, grabbing him, “don’t tell me you’re too tired.”
“Of course not.” He paused, yawning again, blinking his eyes in an effort to keep them open, “I just ha—”
She pulled on his arm, flipping him onto his back and straddling him. “You just what?” She asked, pinning his arms on the bed and moving back and forth in a slow, rhythmic motion that made him realize with painful clarity just how long it had been.
“N…nothing,” he said, letting his eyelids blink wearily, “I just … so tired….” He cut off, letting his eyes close completely, his breathing go slow. The steady, easy breaths of a man sleeping. Considering that he’d spent the night before running and fighting for his life, it wasn’t a particularly hard thing to do.
“Wait a minute, you’re not sleeping are you?” The woman asked, whispering in his ear, “and here I thought we were going to have some fun.”
He didn’t answer, and she spoke again, this time her tone business-like, “Hello? Stranger?” He remained silent, keeping his body relaxed, his breathing even. A silent moment passed, then another, and the woman made a satisfied sound in her throat before climbing off of him, no sensuality to her movements now, only efficiency.
Aaron risked opening his eye a fraction and could just make out the shadowed form of her—still shirtless—as she pawed through his tunic. He took a moment, appreciating the silhouette she cut in the near dark then, reluctantly—damn if he wasn’t so tired he really could fall asleep—rose to a sitting position in the bed.
For her part, the woman was too engrossed in going through the pockets of his tunic and removing what coins he’d secreted there to notice. He watched the shape of her moving in the darkness for several moments—maybe a bit longer than was absolutely necessary. Then Co spoke in his mind, Aaron, she said, do you think it’s really necessary to—
/> Aaron cleared his throat loudly and the woman spun, her eyes wide and shining in the dark. “And here I thought I wasn’t supposed to pay until after.”
Either the woman took issue with him being awake when he was supposed to be lying drugged and unconscious, or she had a problem with the implication that she was a whore. Either way, her eyes blazed with anger, and she made a furious sound in her throat—something similar to what a cat might make if a cat was a hundred pounds heavier and pissed off enough to kill—then drew something thin and sharp from the waistband of her pants that shone in the poor light with a familiar, metallic gleam. Aaron was just about to ask where exactly she’d been hiding that when she rushed at him like some she-devil, swinging the blade in furious, if unpracticed arcs.
Unpracticed or not, the blade was near impossible to follow in the darkness, and he took a cut on his forearm as she bore him back on the bed. In a moment, she was straddling him again, but a woman trying to kill you will take a lot of the fun out of such things. She raised the hand wielding the stiletto, intending to bring it down and ruin what had already been a pretty shitty day, but Aaron managed to catch her wrist before she did. He shook it, hard, and the knife went clattering to the floor somewhere beside the bed. The woman hissed and spat, biting at him, and he flipped her over so that he was on top, pinning her arms to either side of her in an effort to keep from being scratched. It was then that he heard the sound of the door opening.
Damn it all, too soon, he thought. He’d expected the men, of course, but not yet. Not so quickly. He wanted to let the girl go, needed to be able to, but she was struggling viciously beneath him even then, and he knew that if he did, those teeth and nails would go to work, so he turned to look from his place atop her, wincing as his eyes, accustomed to the darkness, narrowed and pained him at the orange glow of the lantern the figure carried.
The figure let out a gasp, and he was surprised to find that it was a woman’s voice. Not who he’d been expecting then. “A-Aaron?” The figure asked in a voice that was very familiar. A voice that would have been a pleasure to hear on almost any occasion. The exception, of course, being while he was shirtless, lying in a bed atop a woman who was equally shirtless.
Gods be good, “Adina? What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing?” She demanded and such was her tone that Aaron was glad she didn’t have a blade handy. Otherwise, he’d have had a second woman running at him with a knife in as many minutes. “You ask me what I’m doing?”
His eyes had finally adjusted to the light, and he saw that she stood in the doorway with her mouth open, a tear running down her cheek. She’d dropped the lantern in her surprise and it lay on its side on the floor. “Look, he said it’s not—” he cut off as the woman beneath him renewed her struggles, and he had to force her arms down on the bed again. “It’s not what you think,” he finished to Adina, out of breath from the struggle.
“Isn’t it?”
Idiot, he thought to himself, how do you get yourself into these kinds of situations?
Practice, I’d say, the Virtue responded, a smug satisfaction in her tone, and he chose to ignore her.
“Look, Adina, it’s not what it looks like. This woman—she was going to take all of my coin and more. She intended—”
“Oh, I think I know well enough what she intended,” Adina said in a tone that dripped acid, “and all of your coin, was it? Well,” she sniffed, “it seems excessive to me, but I suppose I’m not well acquainted with the price of such things.”
“No, damnit,” he said, “it’s not like that, don’t you get it? And she isn’t alone there’s—”
“Not alone either?” Adina said in a tone that promised deadly retribution, “Well, I suppose her friend is around here somewhere then. Under the bed, is she? Or do they take turns? I confess I’m not sure how it all works.”
“Adina, listen to me,” he said, knowing that they were running out of time. Knowing that, any minute now, the woman’s friends would come through that door to check on her and the fool who was supposed to be lying in the bed, drugged. In his need to make her understand, though, he’d let his grip on the woman’s wrists slip, and he discovered his error as one of her arms broke free and her fingernails raked hot pain across his chest.
He cursed, managing to catch the woman’s wrist again, slamming it back down on the bed. For her part, the woman laughed, “And this is what a princess looks like, is it? Cute enough, I guess, but probably not after my friends get done with her. Of course, I don’t think Belgarin will care much, do you, your highness?”
Aaron knew he should question the woman, figure out how many were coming, but just then he was too angry. Instead, he let out a growl, grabbed the woman by the head and slammed it into the wall hard. Her eyes rolled back in their sockets, and she went limp beneath him. Satisfied that there’d be no more problems from her, Aaron rose and crossed the room to where Adina stood, trembling with anger. “See, Adina? You heard her, it wasn’t—”
She slapped his arms away then slapped him in the face hard enough to make his ears ring. “That doesn’t explain why you’re both half naked, Aaron.”
“Damnit, woman, just wait,” he said, the side of his face hot where she’d struck him, “there’s no time for this now. Whatever you may think, that woman intended to turn me in to Belgarin, and she’s not alone—her friends won’t be far behind her.” He sighed in frustration, “Salen take it, but you’ve the worst timing in the world, showing up now.” He glanced around the room, and saw that there was a wooden closet near the bed. It was of plain build, unadorned, with an eye toward functionality not beauty, but it would serve well enough.
“Look,” he said, turning back to Adina, “I’m going to need you to get in that closet. Just for a mi—”
“I most certainly will not,” Adina interrupted. “I don’t know what game you’re playing, Aaron, but—”
Aaron heard what sounded like footsteps in the hallway, and he clamped his hand over her mouth to silence her. “Five minutes,” he hissed, “that’s all I ask. Then I promise I’ll explain everything.”
She scowled at him, and knowing that they were running out of time, Aaron grabbed her and carried her across the room to the closet. He slung the door open and stuffed her inside. “Don’t make a sound,” he said, “please.” She stared at him angrily, Thank the Gods she doesn’t have a blade on her, he thought, then he closed the closet door. That done, he strode across the room and put out the lantern so that it was dark in the room once more.
The footsteps were closer now, only a few seconds before the men were inside. He bent and grabbed his sword from where the woman had tossed it and his cloak on the ground, retrieved also the stiletto the she’d carried, then stood behind the door so that he’d be covered by it when it was opened.
He’d just made it behind the door when it was eased open and three figures filed inside the room. They glanced around, noting his shirt lying on the floor and the disheveled state of the bed’s covers as well as the woman’s figure lying there in the near darkness. “Well?” The one in front asked, “Is it done, Janet?”
She didn’t answer, of course—being knocked unconscious had a way of killing any conversation before it really began—and the man took a step closer. “Janet? Where is he?”
The three men had their backs to Aaron, and he decided that he wasn’t going to get a better chance than this. It would have been an easy enough thing to cut them down before they were aware of his presence, but he thought of Adina in the closet, knowing what he was but not having seen it before, not really. So, cursing himself silently for a fool, he stepped forward and slammed the handle of the stiletto into the back of the nearest man’s head. The blade was simple, but the handle was made of solid wood and, when it met the man’s skull, it was not the wood that gave. The man let out a sound somewhere between a grunt and a gasp then crumpled to the ground.
Aaron was already moving to the second man before the first one fell, but he tur
ned quicker than Aaron anticipated, swinging the two-foot long club he carried in a wild arc. It struck Aaron in the arm, and he stumbled, cursing, his sword dropping out of fingers numb with pain. His attacker brought the club back to swing again, but before he could, Aaron lunged forward, his forehead slamming into the man’s nose, and he felt more than heard it break. The man screamed, dropping the club he carried, his hands going to his face. Aaron reached down and scooped up the club, swinging it before the man could recover.
There was a meaty thwack as the stout length of wood struck the man in the temple, and he collapsed to the floor near his companion. Aaron was just turning to look for the third man when a length of rope was jerked around his neck from behind, making him stumble backward and nearly lose his feet. “Bastard,” the man spat from behind him, his breath sour and rank. “Damn bringing you in alive—the prince will just have to be satisfied in torturing a corpse.”
Aaron gasped, struggling at the rope around his neck, but the man was strong and had all the leverage, and he couldn’t get a breath. He felt himself weakening with each passing moment, knew that in seconds it would be over. He stomped on the man’s foot, and his attacker cursed but only tightened his grip, pulling harder, and the rope sawed across Aaron’s throat even as he pulled at it with his hands. Should have killed the bastards, he thought. Then, just when he felt the darkness overcoming his vision, the man choking him cried out in pain and his grip on the rope fell away.
Aaron fell, too, landing on his hands and knees, hacking and gasping for air. It was an effort to turn his head, but when he did he saw that Adina was facing off against the man, Aaron’s dropped sword held in front of her. The man was bleeding from a deep gash in his left arm, and he’d drawn a knife from somewhere. An ugly, crude looking blade that was at least a foot and a half long. “You’ll die for that, bitch,” he said. He swung the blade at her, but Adina knocked it aside with more skill than Aaron would have credited her. There was an opening then, where it would have been an easy enough thing for her to slide the length of steel through the man’s chest, but she hesitated, glancing at Aaron, an uncertain look on her face.
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