by Marie Hall
“Worse.” He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. There was a darkness in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. She wondered if perhaps he might be worried about the dragon, but that’d been days ago.
The man was a warrior, or so she’d thought; they’d come out of that situation fairly unscathed. A win in her book, but for days he’d been giving her the silent treatment, which led her to believe that he did not share her sentiment.
Or maybe he was just responding to her subtle cues and his disgust at her had nothing at all to do with the dragon, after all… Gods, she hated playing devil’s advocate.
A squeaking chirp caught Lilith’s ear. Narrowing her eyes, she turned toward the slight shuffling of a holly berry bush to the side of them.
“What?” he growled, sounding irritated.
She rolled her eyes; she would not let him get to her. Rumpel had demanded she make this journey, but should Giles change his mind, she was more than happy to return home. In fact, it would be a relief from the constant and confusing emotions she felt in the demone’s presence.
Scenting the air, she caught the unmistakable odor of field mice.
“It is nothing, just a rodent. Are you okay to enter the pub, Giles? There is an unsavory element inside. Keep your head down, though, and they should leave us be.”
“I can handle myself just fine.”
Tossing up her hands, she shrugged, realizing she may have inadvertently insulted him. A wolf could never show any sign of weakness. To be weak was to be seen as powerless, and unless intentionally done for the purposes of foiling your enemy—as she now would be by appearing so frail and mortal—it was seen as cowardice.
“I apologize. I was just trying to be helpful.”
His jaw clicked.
She sensed he wished to say more, but whatever it was he never said.
Sighing, she beckoned to her tiny wellspring of magic. Compared to her mother, the Heartsong, Lilith’s magic was more of a parlor trick. Shifters could not shift with any article of clothing on them—it was why they so often walked around nude; constantly ripping clothes was no fun.
Lilith could not only shift with clothing and return to human form wearing the same, but she could also alter her “appearance.”
Sort of—it wasn’t a true alteration so much as an illusion of it.
Spinning an illusion of a dress from the song of breeze, she murmured beneath her breath the exact specifications that she’d require. Something well worn and thrifty. She did not want to be seen as wealthy; with the bandits that littered the area from here to Fyre Mountain, acting as though you had coin was the quickest way of bringing the degenerates out of hiding.
Her dress was dark cream with moth holes riddling the sleeves and hem that fell to her knees. Wolves, whether young or old, were slightly vain. So the next part of her alteration made her cringe, but it helped to think of her brothers’ mocking and scornful laughter at her hesitation to such a change.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she turned herself into the image of a crone. A withered frame with hunched shoulders and skin peppered with dark brown liver spots.
Lifting a thin hank of hair off her shoulder she frowned at the greasy, gray sight of it. Now only a powerful spell caster would be able to see through to the real woman beneath. Her form hadn’t truly changed, only the seer’s perception of her had.
If she rubbed a little dirt upon her cheeks and on her mother’s cloak she would now seem entirely harmless. Her shoes were sturdy sandals. Lilith hated wearing shoes; in fact, she wasn’t much fond of clothing, either.
But wearing the slippers would help solidify the image of the old, worn crone.
What must he think of my looks now?
The thought flashed quickly through her mind. Not that it was any concern of hers whether he now found her repulsive, of course, but the hard knot of anxiety twisting her stomach into knots made a mockery of her bravado. And she hated that she cared. Why couldn’t her bloody emotions understand that even entertaining any thoughts involving anyone outside of her species was a bad idea?
But the reminders were growing thin, and her weariness at pretending that what he thought of her was beginning to matter made the complication that was her life a daily source of irritation.
Squaring her shoulders, she turned to him.
His gaze traveled from head to toe before finally lingering on her face. She could read nothing behind his eyes. She wished she had enough magic to change him, too, but her magic did not extend beyond herself.
Lifting a brow, she said in a voice that rattled like dry, dusty bones, “Perhaps you could rub a little dirt on yourself and—”
“I’m fine. Thank you. But there isn’t much that can hide who I am.” His tone was cordial—in fact it was extremely polite—so why then did it make her want to growl at him?
She almost told him that with his dark skin and burning, ruby-colored eyes, their ability to remain inconspicuous would be for naught. There was no one in all the lands of Kingdom that looked quite like a demone. Superstitions in this part of the country ran rife. Because Lilith already knew of the demone, she’d known exactly what he was. But there were few in these parts who would believe him to be a demon. A monster capable of all manner of vile, devilish things, and that could be a problem for them.
But he was already walking through the door.
He was right, though. Even rubbing a little dirt on his face couldn’t hide his true nature. Giles would stick out like a sore thumb no matter what they did. Shaking her head with resignation, Lilith followed him inside the rounded, wooden entrance to Kingdom’s most notorious and infamous pub, the Skull and Crossbones brewery and eatery.
A mouse dashed across her sandaled foot. Frowning, she watched the white-haired animal scamper off. A nagging brew of something being not quite right chewed at her gut as she tentatively pushed the door open.
Lively music blasted her ears the moment she stepped through. Panpipes and flutes and a bodhran all mixed to make a melodious and cacophonous wash of sound.
Serving wenches giggled, ale flowed, and revelers sang an off-key melody.
But the moment the eyes spotted Giles, all the noise stopped. Just…ended. And every set of eyes turned in their direction.
Nibbling on a corner of her lip, realizing it would be up to her to put the inhabitants at ease, she tiptoed to Giles’s side and rubbed her arm up and down his sleeve. “This man belongs to me,” she muttered in a voice that sounded as weary and scratchy as the body she now appeared to have.
It helped that she’d chosen a crone as her guise; it would be nothing for those inside to assume she was a witch who’d called the demon to her side.
Maybe it was her imagination, but it did seem as though a few of the eyes seemed less hostile after she’d said it. The best she could hope for would be that they would assume she was in control of the monster and they’d be left in peace.
A couple of the eyes began to slowly turn aside, but a few of the more cutthroat-looking patrons didn’t seem to care that she’d just claimed a demon as her own.
Seated toward the back of the pub were two large, bald-headed, green-skinned orcs. Their golden teeth flashed as they whispered a heated exchange back and forth.
orcs could spell trouble. They were notorious bandits, looters interested only in gold or other precious metals. But she’d taken care to not wear anything that could attract their ilk, and Giles himself wore only the clothes on his back. The orcs shouldn’t be a problem for them.
Seated beside the orcs were a gaggle of thick-chested dwarves with long, bushy beards and leathers of soft umber and forest-green tones. The gaggle of thirteen men was devouring a whole roasted pig, laughing and drinking, very few of them paying any attention to Giles or Lilith.
Stone dwarves were notorious in Kingdom as being cannibals, but these appeared to be their slightly less hostile cousins, the earth dwarves. So long as they had food and drink before them, they would be content.
At the ta
ble over were sprites. Water sprites were known to be tricksters more than truly dangerous. Their skin and hair was the pale blue of their lagoons. They were shapely, buxom maidens with voices that beguiled the unsuspecting and thirsty traveler.
So long as one didn’t make eye contact with them, one would survive their charms. Mingled around the obvious creatures were humans. Mostly hunters, dressed in garbs of green and brown. They had grizzled appearances, as though they’d been camping in the forest for weeks, if not months, and each of them carried some form of weaponry strapped to their backs.
And at the very center of the pub sat a man dressed entirely in green, with bushy blond hair and piercing blue eyes and a jaunty green cap perched on the top of his head. Poking over his shoulder was the tip of a broad bow. He studied Lilith so hard that she wondered whether he were capable of seeing beneath her disguise.
She knew exactly who he was—around these parts the man was legend for his ferocity and willingness to exact justice even against those who’d make a lesser man tremble to think it.
But finally he slammed his tankard of brew onto the chipped table and cried out, “Huzzah! To a job well done, men!”
And like he’d cast a spell, instantly the crowd resumed what they’d been doing. The music began, the dwarves continued their wild chomping on the last vittles of the pig, and the orcs turned their backs to them.
Releasing the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, she clutched Giles’s shirt far longer than normal. Even a wolf was no match for an army such as this.
“We should go find us a table.” Giles whispered into her ear while leaning into her side, making her shiver from the contact. “Hidden in the back corner somewhere. I do not trust these men.”
It’d been days since she’d entered heat and she thought she was learning how to control her riotous emotions, but the heated whisper of his words had shivered down her spine like a lover’s caress and made her ache down low.
And even reminding herself that she danced with fire by allowing herself to wish for more than just a mere whisper in her ear didn’t seem to quench her hunger. No male had ever made her feel this crazy riot of emotions before. It was unnerving, exhilarating, and terrifying all at the same time.
Taking a deep breath, she willed her traitorous body under control and nodded her head. “As you say, knight.”
They meandered through the tight space, bumping into a few bodies too drunk to do more other than to grouse at being disturbed before finding a small, round table tucked against the leftmost wall and hidden partly in shadow.
Taking a seat, Lilith was just about to give him a weak smile when an uneasy and strange feeling overcame her. The table next to theirs had three figures seated at it. The bodies were draped in black cloaks, and, with their heads bent, they seemed to be in a furious discussion of some sort.
Though she couldn’t make out the faces, that horrible nagging feeling she’d been having for the past few minutes seemed to ratchet up in their presence.
“What ye’ll have?” a merry voice interrupted her thoughts.
Turning, Lilith’s eyes widened as she came face to face with a divine-looking creature. She was pale-skinned with arresting brown eyes. Her hair fell only to her chin and was a riotous mass of deep purple curls. She wore a tank top that revealed impressive musculature for a female. But that was not the most interesting part about their serving wench.
“Yeah, I get those looks all the time.” She grinned, a wide-open and friendly smile. Not at all what one would typically expect in a pub known to cater to the dregs of Kingdom. “Name’s Kym.” She held out her hand. “Bitch on wheels,” she said, pointing to her white t-shirt emblazoned with the chunky black lettering of the very same words. “But I’m not a bar wench—this here’s my pub, and that there,” she said, hooking her finger over her shoulder to a freakishly massive wall of centaur muscle Lilith had completely overlooked standing guard at the exit, “is my boy toy, Chestnut.”
She laughed and leaned in as though to whisper something in confidence. “Though round here we just call him Chest—Chestnut tends to make my bronco a little testy. So…” She righted herself, tapping her long manicured purple nails on the wheelchair armrests. “What’ll you have?”
“Umm?” Lilith turned to Giles who merely shrugged, wearing a similar look of confusion on his own face. “What happened to Mortimor? Thought he was the proprietor of the Skull.”
“Oh, Mort,” Kym snickered, sounding a little like a braying horse. “Well, he kicked the bucket about a year ago. Me and Chest grabbed up this place quick like.” She snapped her fingers. “Kind of fits my style. And don’t,” she said, lifting a finger, “let the chair fool you. I’m a tough broad.” Hiking up her shirt, she revealed the carved wooden handle of a dirk tucked into her pants. “There will be no thieving, no cheating, and no killing in my pub. Got it?”
“You’ve no worries there, madam.” Giles inclined his head. “We wish only to dine and perhaps rent a room for the night.”
“Food, I can do.” The pixie-faced beauty grinned. “But no can do with the rooms. I don’t run no bordello, mister.”
“Indeed.” He chuckled. “Then an ale and a mincemeat pie, if you have it.”
“Sure do.”
“I’ll just have an ale, some bread, and whatever cheese you’ve got.” Lilith nodded. “And Kym?”
The barkeep had already turned her chair about, but stopped and glanced back. “Yes?”
“I’ve always been fascinated by accents, but yours is strange. Where are you from?”
Perhaps a little blunt, but then her mother had gotten a chance to travel not only all of Kingdom but Earth, too, and Lilith suspected this strange creature had not been born here.
Kym glanced at the centaur and her brown eyes softened. “Chest saved me from a hellhole in Kentucky.” Blinking, she looked back at Lilith. “Earth.”
And with those words she rolled her wheels back toward the front of the bar.
“How in the world did a centaur enter into Earth? Could you imagine the sight of him amongst the mortals?” Lilith turned to Giles, forgetting for a moment the attraction she fought so hard when she was near him. “And that Kym would willingly leave with him?”
He shrugged, but his lips twitched. “The universe is a strange place.”
“No stranger than a shifter and a demone working together, I’d imagine.”
His gaze was soft as his eyes looked upon her. And though she knew she looked nothing like she normally did, for a moment her wolf reveled in the exotic beauty of the man looking at her as though he saw not the crone but the woman.
It was the first time in days he’d not looked at her with scorn or censure and though she hated to admit that it made her weak in the knees to see it, it was the absolute truth. And on the heel of that thought came another…
For two weeks she’d clammed up around him, hoping their minimal interaction would lessen her awareness of him, but it hadn’t. In fact, it had seemed to have the opposite effect. So maybe if she just relaxed a little and opened up, maybe then she could get to know him and perhaps then she could see that they were better suited to being friends than lovers.
Nibbling on the corner of her lip as she decided to give it a go, she gave him a soft smile. The moment she did it she could have sworn his irises dilated and he inhaled a sharp breath, but rather than lean away from her, it seemed to her that he drew just a little bit closer.
“Bloody hell,” he murmured a second later and then tapped his fingers on the table. A vein on the side of his neck throbbed.
And Lilith couldn’t understand whether he referred to Kym or their situation, but suddenly it all seemed so ridiculous and yet at the same time not at all, and the only thing left to do was laugh about it.
Which they did, and that more than anything broke the ice of the past two weeks.
For a while they talked of random nonsense like the weather and what their favorite colors were. It came as no surpri
se to Lilith that Giles enjoyed the darker tones. And he’d chuckled when she’d told him pink was her color of choice.
“Pink?” He snorted. “I don’t believe it. You’re teasing me.”
She gave a short burst of laughter. “No, I’m not. And the pinker the better. You may not believe it, knight, but I am a total girly-girl.”
His soft gaze roamed the length of her face. “Maybe you are, little wolf.”
The endearment slid off his tongue so easily that for a moment she lost her words and could only swallow back at him. He cleared his throat as her cheeks blossomed with heat.
Shifting uncomfortably, she quickly changed subjects. “But honestly,” she said, shaking her head, “don’t you ever get bored living in the clouds?”
His smile was broad and caused her heart to thump so loudly she was surprised he couldn’t hear it. She clutched her cold apple ale and chugged it down just to give herself the pretense of doing something.
“No, it’s lovely up there. The sky can become whatever you want it to be.”
“Whatever you want it to be?” She narrowed her eyes, tapping her long nail on the rim of her mug. “So if I asked that it transform into a den of fiery opals?”
“It would.” He lifted his palm and made an arching motion, mimicking the size of a massive jewel. “And it would be the most brilliant opal that you’d ever seen, enough to make even a dragon jealous.”
She almost laughed until she realized he’d grown completely quiet. She quickly changed the subject, but the ease of their conversation after that definitely changed.
A mincemeat pie, cheese, bread, and four tankards of ale later, Lilith and Giles were officially spent. Shoulder-bumping Giles, she jerked her head in the direction of the exit. “You ready?”
Brushing fingers through his thick, wavy hair, he nodded. “If you are.”
Wishing things could go back to the casual ease of earlier, she sighed and nodded. But now she was more determined than ever that they get over whatever issues he was having. They still had weeks together and she’d rather it not be tense the whole time. Also, the entire time they’d been chatting, she’d not once thought of her attraction to him.
