I kept my head down, and as the man’s figure came into view, I almost stopped completely. But I imagined if I acted weak I would be considered prey to every man here. I felt several gazes on me as I made my way over.
This was a terrible idea, my mind screamed at me, but there wasn’t any way I could stop now.
I didn’t know the first thing about how to properly sit at a man’s table in a tavern, so I just sat down with the hope I wouldn’t become his next practice target. I relaxed as the man only sipped on his ale as if this was normal for him. I tried to work up the courage to say something, but he beat me to it.
“What brings a woman into a tavern?” His voice was deep, and like a physical presence, it slithered softly down my spine. I looked up, no longer having to conceal my face.
This disguise was a joke, anyway.
The man studied me with interest, and I studied him back. The first straight-on glance and I had the consuming urge to look away. No one could have convinced me that presence wasn’t a physical substance because it surrounded him as if he had sold his soul, and in exchange, it would ward off any man who entered it.
I felt like turning around and running back to Alger, straight through the Red Forest if I had to, but when I met his eyes, the emerald green calmed me as if they were familiar. Dark brown hair and short scruff covered his square jaw. He had strong features. Intelligent, mesmeric eyes that I could barely look away from and that I doubted missed much. My gaze lowered to his lips, which were full, yet unyielding.
When I saw the corners tip up in slight amusement, I became aware of how long I was staring, and I dropped my gaze. My eyes landed on his drink, and I felt like downing his entire cup of ale.
Then I remembered I was supposed to answer his question, and it took me a moment before I could remember what he had asked. I pulled my gaze up to his, my heartbeat picking up at the eye contact.
“I’m looking for an escort,” I said, trying not to appear as a helpless girl. And probably failing.
“What’s the destination?” he drawled as he leaned a little further back in his chair. How it could support all of his body and presence was beyond me. They didn’t make them like this in Alger, and I wondered where he was from. I felt apprehensive about telling him where I was going, but there was no way around it.
“Undaley City.”
His eyes lowered as he rolled the ale in his cup. “What purpose do you have there?”
“None of your business,” I retorted. I was tired of being a woman. If I were a man, he would have never asked me that. I might have been completely out of my element, but I wasn’t going to be pushed around. I had to have a strong front if anyone would take me seriously.
His heavy gaze flicked up to mine as if he was surprised at my brazen response.
“Every man in here noticed you were a woman when you walked in. You don’t disguise yourself well, and trouble has written itself on your forehead. Nobody wants a part of it.”
Why did everyone think I was trouble? I wouldn’t deny it because I was. But I couldn’t do this again. I needed this man to be my escort. Mainly because I didn’t see any brigands bothering him. I had to convince him.
I sighed. “Listen, I need to get to Undaley, and I will pay you handsomely.” I pulled out the pouch I had tied to my belt. Worry gnawed at me about showing it as he could have just grabbed it and left, but I didn’t have a choice. I dropped it on the table, but he didn’t even glance at it.
He stretched out, resting an arm on the chair next to him. “I’m not an escort, ma’am.”
I paused, and then my brows knitted in annoyance. He had led me on too long when he knew I needed an escort. It felt like the whole tavern was amused as I heard some chuckles from a few men at a nearby table. I snatched the pouch off the table. “Then why didn’t you say so when the first thing I said was ‘I need an escort?’” I snapped.
His gaze burned into mine. “Sometimes that’s what people say to be discreet. And then I escort them to somewhere private, and they tell me who they need to be killed.”
Oh, bloody hell.
I swallowed hard, now regretting shouting at him.
He was an assassin.
I had the urge to pull on the neck of my shirt because the room suddenly felt hot and cramped.
I looked around the tavern, no longer brave enough to keep eye contact with him. He might kill for money, but he still saved that child. He couldn’t be all that bad, could he? I’d shouted at him, and he hadn’t killed me. That had to count for something, right?
Maybe he was exactly what I needed in an escort. There was at least one inhuman rider after me, and if this man was skilled, surely I would fare better with him than alone.
The man was patient while I dealt with the news.
That’s another good quality . . .
I hesitated, but made a decision. Dragging my gaze back to his, I said, “I need an escort, and I don’t care if he’s an assassin.”
He watched me for a moment before taking a drink from his mug. I didn’t like the patience so much now that I had to wait for what he would say.
“It would take a month to get to Undaley in good conditions. I don’t have that kind of time. You’ll have to find someone else.”
I sighed in disappointment as I looked around the room. One man was reaching down to grab something before his chair tipped over and he laid sprawled out on the floor, intoxicated. The other men at the table threw back their heads and bellowed with laughter.
“I don’t think any of the other men here could find their way out of Cameron,” I muttered, looking back at the assassin. He appeared amused, but I couldn’t be sure; his face didn’t give much away.
An assassin trait, I was sure.
“Maybe not now, while they are in their cups. But try tomorrow morning.” He stood up and tossed some coins on the table. “You might find someone desperate enough,” he said while walking away.
I watched the other men step out of his way, and he easily exceeded them in height by a head. His leather jerkin was of the best quality, and fitted his toned body with precision. He obviously had money; he didn’t need to take on jobs like mine. I would just have to come back in the morning and find someone who would.
CHAPTER FOUR
ASSASSINS AND SONGS
I stripped down to my linen shirt and crawled into bed. The inn mattress was lumpy and more uncomfortable than my pallet in Alger, but I was so tired that I fell into a sound sleep.
Until a beautiful voice invaded my dreams.
It sent shivers down my spine and goose bumps up my arms. It sang a song of such perfect rhythm, it wrapped my body in a harmonious blanket. It was warm and soft against my skin as it spun me in its web. My eyes fluttered open of their own volition. A draft hit my bare legs, and the wooden floor was rough against my feet as the song pushed me out the door.
A tiny voice in the back of my head screamed at me, but I couldn’t listen to it. The song was too warm. Too perfect.
The rhythm carried me down the hallway and stairs. I ran into something hard and warm, but not as warm as the song. A deep voice interrupted the rhythm. I tried to walk around the obstacle. I didn’t want to hear anything else but the song. I couldn’t.
My chest tightened in fear that it would leave me, and when I was held back by strong arms, I shoved them away.
The song waned, and it left me shivering and hollow. A fearful sweat covered my body as an intense ache began in my chest. When an arm wrapped around my waist again, I fought the hold. I was saying something unintelligible and scratching at the arm keeping me from the song. But the grip was too tight.
The song? It was leaving me. So empty.
I shivered from the cold and felt the wetness of tears run down my cheeks. My heart was being ripped open, the pain of it overwhelming. I clutched my chest while I futilely fought the hold.
My face was soaked with tears when I became aware that the song had gone. Clarity slowly returned to me as the pai
n diminished.
An arm was tight around my waist, holding me upright as my toes only skimmed the floor. My chest pounded with confusion and uncertainty.
“What have you got yourself into?” a newly familiar voice asked from behind me. It took me a moment to place it.
The voice of an assassin.
“What did you do to me?” I breathed. My legs felt weak, and I didn’t know if I would be able to stand if he weren’t supporting me. I looked around, trying to understand where I was. The stairwell of the inn was dark as only one wall sconce lit it. The perfect place to be murdered . . .
“It seems you have made an enemy of a Saccar. I would pack up and leave as soon as you can,” he said, his grip still tight and his voice so close to my neck that it sent shivers down my spine.
His front was pressed against me, and I couldn’t even understand what he was saying as I recognized the close contact. I didn’t think there was an inch of my back that wasn’t touching him. I let out a breath as he shifted and every one of my nerve-endings was hyper aware of the movement.
A flush already covered my skin, but it became warmer with irritation when I remembered I had been walking to my death or Alyria’s, and I was more concerned with an assassin’s body heat. I needed him to put me down, so I could maybe form some thoughts.
I was confused and now irritated with myself, and I had no idea where I got the fortitude to take it out on an assassin. “Am I your next victim then?” I asked brazenly.
His arm tightened around me, and I sucked in a breath. “If I was going to kill you, you’d be dead already,” he said harshly.
I swallowed hard. “Then put me down.”
He pulled his arm away, and I dropped to my feet; and thankfully, I could stand. I steadied myself on the wall when a man started to walk up the steps, singing a tune. He was swaying, and when he looked at me, his eyes lit up.
“Well, if you aren’t an angel, then I’m the King!” he slurred cheerfully. “How much for the night, deary?”
My mouth dropped open. He thought I was a prostitute? I’d never been accused of that before. But neither had I stood alone in the stairwell of an inn with an assassin. I looked the drunk man over from his bloodshot eyes to his unsteady feet and suddenly wondered how my mother could stomach it. Or why she had chosen it.
I was about to tell the man off when the assassin spoke, “She’s taken for the night.”
What?
I didn’t even have time to disagree before he grabbed my wrist and dragged me up the stairs. “What the hell are you doing!” I hissed, trying to pull my wrist out of his grasp.
“Which one is yours?” he asked as he pointed to the doors on each side of the hallway.
I grabbed a door handle of one room to keep him from pulling me down the hall. “I’m not sleeping with you!” The handle slipped out of my hand from a yank on my other wrist. “I’m sure there are many prostitutes available. You only need to walk down the street!” I planted my feet on the floor, but I only got a dull pain from a splinter as he dragged me across the wooden floorboards.
He opened one door, and I heard a feminine shout before he shut it. When he opened my door, my heart was pounding so hard it was hard to hear his words.
“Yours?” he asked.
“No!” I lied.
He gave me a push, and I stumbled into my room. I spun around, ready to start fighting and screaming for help. Why I hadn’t started that before he got me to my room was beyond me. Panic wasn’t reliable.
He stared at me for a moment with his hand on the doorknob, his heavy gaze meeting mine as my breaths shallowed in unease.
He glanced around the small room before saying, “I’d get out of Cameron if I were you.” He then walked out and slammed the door behind him.
It felt like the lid of a coffin shutting on me.
I swallowed hard and tried to get my heart rate under control. Clearly, the man had some issues, but he knew about the song and what happened to me, and I needed to find out more so I could prevent it from happening again. I paced back and forth in front of the door for a few minutes before I worked up enough courage.
I slammed my door on the way out and opened the one door in the hall he had skipped over when he was probably amusing himself with my panic.
I almost spun around and walked out because he wasn’t wearing a shirt—but I couldn’t, because I was enthralled. The most exquisite brand I had ever seen was on his back. A wolf’s head howling at the moon took up the area between his shoulder blades. The fur around its neck bristled and moved as though it were alive.
It was magic. And I had only seen magic a few times when shows came through Alger. Grandmother could do simple enchantments, but nothing like this.
I noticed a scar the width of a blade on his side as he turned around. The brand consisting of three black rings around his forearm made me pause. It looked like the brand of the Titans, but I couldn’t be sure. He didn’t dress like a Titan, and his hair was too long, nearly reaching his shoulders.
But he surely had the build.
My eyes took on a mind of their own and roamed over his body. From his broad shoulders down to his muscled arms and washboard stomach. My face flushed as I followed the trail of hair on his lower stomach until it disappeared into the waistband of his pants.
My heartbeat quickened as I realized how out of place I was. The thought that he could crush my skull with one of his hands had me swallowing nervously.
What the hell am I doing in here?
“I guess you expect me to pay you?” he asked. And I was glad for the distraction, even if I didn’t understand what he was asking.
My brows knitted. “What?”
“I ruined your night with the drunk so I might as well pay you.”
My grandmother always told me I was hotheaded and that I needed to learn how to control it. I’d always pushed her comments aside. Maybe if I had learned what she suggested, I wouldn’t have narrowed my eyes, and I wouldn’t have snapped, “Do I look like a prostitute?”
Apparently, it took only two times of being mistaken for a whore to make me angry enough to forget everything Grandmother taught me. And now I realized why she did . . .
I expected a quick death by knife after that, because who in their right mind talks to an assassin like he’s stupid? But he only dropped his gaze to my body. I looked down as well while realizing I had lost all my sense. I’d forgotten I only wore my long-sleeve shirt that came to the top of my thighs. I chewed on my lip, feeling heat rush to my cheeks. I didn’t have the sense to dress before I barged into his room? He’d pretended he was going to ‘use my services’ only minutes ago while ignoring all my protests as if it were just a game all prostitutes played.
The fact was, I had been more concerned about the song and when it would begin again than what I was wearing.
At the very least, the sleeves covered my cuffs.
I pushed the vulnerability rushing me aside and leveled my gaze on him. “Look, I need to know what happened. I won’t make it out of the city if I don’t even know what’s after me.”
He crossed his arms, and I tried not to stare at his body, I really did, but I blamed the issue on him. A gentleman would have put a shirt on by now. But I guessed that assassins didn’t follow those rules, and I was sort of being a hypocrite.
“Saccars sing their song into any mind they wish. It sings you to them or to do certain things. When the connection is broken, the pain is intense physically and emotionally. It takes days for some to get over. Now, what I want to know is why they wanted you. They are usually quiet people and don’t bother anyone unless provoked.”
“I don’t know,” I said vaguely as I looked around the room. I was sure that was the classic ‘I’m lying’ tell, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself from looking dishonest.
“I’m sure you don’t.” He tilted his head and looked me over meticulously, as though he knew what I was all about. When he was done, I was sure he saw into my soul and the ti
ny scar on my knee from running through a rose bush as a child.
I shifted to my other foot, trying to gain some ground here. “How do I stop them from getting into my head?”
“Time and practice. Which you don’t have.”
I tensed. Could he have at least acted like he cared? It was common courtesy not to be indifferent about someone’s imminent death. But he did save me. Maybe he was only acting indifferent . . .?
“You could help me,” I supplied.
“I could. But I won’t.”
Okay . . . probably not acting then.
“Why did you save me, then?”
“You ran into me. It was an easy save. I’ll count it as my good deed for the year.” He said it as if it had been an inconvenience to him.
The thought that I could literally walk to my demise was gut wrenching. I was waiting in anticipation for the song to begin again. But I wouldn’t beg someone who didn’t want anything to do with me. Was it so hard to give advice to someone who needed it? The assassin was insufferable, and I was tired of all men.
“I’ll take the money,” I blurted before I could stop myself. He narrowed his eyes, grabbed a coin off the small table against the wall and tossed it to me. I caught the copper coin and looked at it with a frown. “This is all I’m worth?”
His smile was wicked. “Care to prove your worth?”
I couldn’t have left faster.
CHAPTER FIVE
TWO TYPES OF TAILS
The first thought I had as I awoke was of relief when I realized I didn’t get sung anywhere again. I was also itching to leave the city; the rider could have caught up with me by now. I needed to find an escort this morning, and if I couldn’t then I would be traveling alone. The thought left a nervous pit in my stomach, but I couldn’t stay here much longer.
A Girl Named Calamity (Alyria Book 1) Page 4
