I jumped with a frightened squeak when Draper pulled his hand back and gave the man’s butt a hard whack. A few men at nearby tables got up and ran out the door, afraid of being caught in the prince’s and princess’ ill graces. The bartender was stuck, and the scared look on his face told us he knew it. “Look, no one knew the Avalon Rose was in the bar. Why would you bring your sister to a place like this?”
“She’s come to collect her Guardien, and I’ve come to shut you down. Places like these belong in the Lost Village. If you want to open one, that’s the place you should go. A bar is one thing, but a brothel? You waited until Duchess Lane left, and then you turned that top floor into beds for rent.”
I could tell by the prolonged silence before his response that Gustav was weighing out his limited options. “Is it a tax you want? Because I’m not above paying handsomely whatever the throne requires. You’re welcome to any of my girls, your grace. No charge.”
Draper’s eyes turned evil with anticipation that was altogether sinister, and made the hairs on my arms stand up in alarm. I could tell he was well-versed in dealing with scumbags. “Offer my sister a job as one of your whores again.”
Gustav’s eyes fell to me in horror. “I meant no disrespect, your grace. How was I supposed to know it was the Avalon Rose behind that hood?”
“You weren’t supposed to offer a girl fresh off the street a job hooking, that’s for sure. We don’t need people like you in Province 9. I’m sure Morgan’s got tons of room for you.”
Gustav’s face paled yet further. “No, your highness! Please don’t send me back there. The soldiers were too rough. The girls barely lasted a few weeks before they either killed themselves to escape the rough way of the soldiers, or before they were murdered in the throes.”
I used my hands on the bar to hoist myself up, shocking him when I threw my legs over the bar and landed with a wince in the small space with him. I recovered my stumble as my thighs groaned; they really weren’t up for this kind of abuse. I grabbed a fistful of Gustav’s shirt and yanked him down so he was on my level. “Tell me what I should do with you. Tell me how you’re making this new province better. Tell me how you’re not trying to tear down the new start we’re building for Avalon.”
Gustav swallowed, as if my slight stature and less than impressive musculature was Andre the Giant level of spectacular. “I’m… I’m going to send the girls back to their families. I’m… This is going to be a pub only.”
I growled at him. “I think we’re way past that. You can do better, Gustav. I think you have to do better, or you don’t want to know the fury I’m bringing down on your head.” I kept my back to Draper, who was setting down a series of hard spanks on the drunk dude’s saggy britches, no doubt taking out a lot of his pent-up aggression on the man’s hindquarters.
“A pub that gives out free bread to anyone who has need of it!” Gustav declared, coming up with a plan on the fly.
I considered his offer. “And if you’re caught renting out girls to the highest bidder?”
“I’ll be hanged,” he said, his chin lowering in defeat.
“I think that’s fitting. I think that’s exactly perfect. In fact, I think I’ll post a little sign out front so that everyone knows where the free bread is, and where the girls for rent are not.”
His head hung lower. “Yes, your majesty. As you see fit.”
“Now please go get me my Guardien. And I want a little pep in your step, now that you get to keep your head on loan. That is, until you see to screwing up this province again.” I shook my head at him as he all but ran toward the steps that climbed up the side wall. My voice carried to the johns and the girls who were finishing up and dressing when they’d each taken in my shouts of indignation. “To think, we went through all this trouble, marching out of Morgan’s province to build our own nation, and this is what you all do with the freedom you’ve been given. This is the toilet you want to stick your head into. Lane’s gift was wasted on you!”
Draper finally finished spanking the drunken man for the bad boy he was. Then my brother dragged him sobbing like a baby and threw him out the door, not caring where he landed. Draper sneered at the other men who came stumbling down the steps. “Does anyone else want a go at my sister? Does anyone else want to pay two coins for an evening with your princess?”
The humble “No, your grace” replies, coupled with frightened bows, showed me just how much they were scared of the throne. It was a good thing, really. My legs weren’t all that steady, and Draper was my only backup. If they’d revolted, there wasn’t much I could do about it.
I moved to the door and spread my body like an X to block the way. “Tomorrow morning after you’ve slept all this off and bathed until your skin is sparkling clean, you’ll come to the mansion and present yourselves to me in the daylight. Since all of you clearly have too much time on your hands and nothing productive to do with it, you’ll be given new jobs. You’ll work so much that you’ll look fondly on these days of screwing yourselves into uselessness.” I met each of their guilty gazes, letting them know I would see if any of them weren’t there tomorrow.
They each dropped to their knees and bowed, I guess grateful I hadn’t chopped off their heads or something. I let them go, watching them scramble out into the night that might cover their many sins.
The girls came down one by one, wearing silky sheathes over dirty jeans and under overlarge shirts. Their guilty faces were rosy and made up with too much makeup. They ranged in age from about fourteen to well on into their fifties. I gave them each a tight nod, offering them work at the mansion if they needed the money until they could find honest professions. I held the door open and warned them that if they were caught even drinking in this deserted place, I would hear about it. This way of life was over with, and they would make good use of the second chance, so help me.
I shut the door with a heavy sigh, waiting as the familiar clunk of heavy boots finally descended the steps. I could barely look at Bastien, unbathed and unshaved as he was. His usual scruff had grown into an inch-long beard that was scraggly and unkempt. He stank of sex and cheap beer, which wasn’t a winning combination on even the hottest of guys. Gustav had his arm wrapped around Bastien’s waist, with Bastien’s limp arm slung across his neck, balancing my drunken man like the child he was.
Gustav sat Bastien down at a table and splashed a cup of water in his face, rousing Bastien enough to widen his eyes when they fell on my guarded expression. Bastien let out a loud belch, and then seemed to come to himself marginally. He spoke in only a string of swears until self-loathing closed his mouth in a mournful moan.
I couldn’t be mad at him like this. I’d spent all my good rage on the dude who copped a feel. The whole thing just felt too sad or something. I wasn’t about to push it under the rug, but I knew not to kick someone who was already so far down. Despite it all, I loved Bastien. Between Roland’s stabbing and torture, I’d underestimated how very broken Bastien had become.
My hands found his dripping face, cupping his prickly cheeks so I could examine every chiseled angle. “Before you met me, you were content. You had your cabin in the woods.” I saw the ache in his heart that shone through in his glossy eyes. “I shouldn’t have taken you from your happy place. Your adventure isn’t me. It’s you, and there’s lots more on your journey you need to figure out.”
I tried to keep my legs strong and steady as I ducked under his other arm, working with Draper to get Bastien back to the mansion, where he could sleep it off. It was slow and painful, but each step marked a real growth in me. Even when I fell a few times, I picked myself back up and helped the man who had tried his best to be good to me. He was barely aware it was me who helped him along, but that trek taught me a little more about who I was. No matter what, I would be a person who was good to the ones I loved, whether they deserved it or not. I would be who I was, regardless of the way I was treated. I’d loved Bastien, and though I was torn up inside, I put my pain on hold to shoulde
r a bit of his. After everything, it was a comfort to know I was still Lane’s daughter.
Abandoned by my Monkey
The beauty of being a princess is that if you want to send your boyfriend home, there are people who can do that for you. It took a simple request from one of the stable hands, five minutes of dictating a letter for Draper to write down and shove in Bastien’s pocket, and a heartbroken kiss on his sleeping cheek before Bastien was being loaded into a wagon to be taken back to his cabin in the woods.
The kitchen was empty at this time of night, and I was grateful to have it to myself after Faith, Hope and Mercy kissed my cheeks and left me to my creeping misery. I stared at my cup of water, knowing I should drink it, but unable to bring the ornately etched glass to my lips. Depression’s funny like that.
“Is tha any way to say farewell to your strapping lads?”
I’d been so good at keeping my tears on standby, but when the meaning of Link’s words resonated with me, the moisture started pooling in my eyes. My words came out choked with the suddenness of the pain that clinched my heart. “I didn’t think… I guess it makes sense that you two would… You’re really leaving me?” I couldn’t turn around to look at him; I didn’t want to debase myself in front of the seasoned warrior.
Link’s voice came back gravelly. “Aye. We were here to help Bastien because he asked us to stay. If he’s going back home, we’ve no reason to stay here.”
I’m not a reason to stay, I said to myself as calmly and emotionlessly as I could, willing my tears to remain tucked inside of me until I was alone. Of course I’m not. They don’t owe me a thing. They’re not really my friends. They’re my boyfriend’s friends, and I don’t have one of those anymore. “I don’t want you to go. You’re… You live here.”
“We live wherever we put ourselves,” Mad countered from behind me in the doorway of the kitchen. “And we aren’t putting ourselves here no more.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and counted to three before speaking, so I didn’t give my sudden swing of grief away. I wanted to argue. Part of me wanted to beg. But I knew that, just like my animals, I couldn’t keep the people I loved in one place. I steadied my flood of anguish as much as I could before I opened my mouth. “Okay. Makes sense. Let me pack you two a sandwich for the road.” I kept my back to them to make sure my face stayed out of view.
Of all the times I’d wished for Link to be a monkey and not catch onto anything going on around him, in this moment, I longed for his oblivious charm most of all. I didn’t want him to see my bloodied and bruised heart. Link’s voice was soft, and filled with too much understanding. “Rosie.” His brogue wrapped around my name and made it sound like a sad song. After tonight, I was pretty sure those were the only kinds my name would be associated with. “Ye know we can’t stay. Our duty is to the Brotherhood.”
I waved my hand to let him know it was all fine, but I still couldn’t turn around. “I get it. Bros before hos. It’s cool. It was good to have you around here. You’re welcome back anytime.”
“Rosie,” Link said again, this time with too much understanding.
“Go on, Link.” I set to chopping an orange tomato, hoping my hand didn’t tremble and make me cut off a finger instead. I hoped he’d gone, but I didn’t dare check for confirmation.
I shut my eyes tight when I heard his footsteps coming up quick from behind me. His hug knocked the breath from me, but that seemed to be the way of things with Link. He was a giant monkey, and darn it if I didn’t love his unpolished boyishness. He squeezed me from behind, his chin resting on my shoulder so he could kiss my damp cheek. “It’ll be alright, wee Rose.”
The tears were evident now. I was embarrassed, caught in my youthful indiscretion when I realized that Link and Mad meant far more to me than I ever had to them. I felt stupid for loving so freely, and for letting my heart soar so high without a safety net. I deserved this heartbreak, so I welcomed it for the life lesson it was. “Dammit, Link, get off me! Just go!”
He only squeezed me tighter, loving however he wished, which was his way. “Don’t ye know tha we don’t want to go? We have to see Bastien gets back on his feet. He’s our brother.”
“If you don’t get out of here, I’m going to stab you with this knife, I swear!”
He chuckled at my threat. He gripped my wrist while keeping his other arm secured around my waist, and banged the knife onto the counter until it clattered from my grip. Most people didn’t understand the rough hands of the Untouchables, but I did. Their calluses were a comfort to me, and their scars a beautiful map of all that made them the lost boys they were. The song that he’d made up for me was honey and acid in my ear as he crooned softly to me. “Rosie, I love ye. Rosie, I care. Rosie, without ye, my heart’s in despair.” His whisper was sweet, but it only broke me more. “It was a good thing ye did for Mad, getting him to open up like tha. I won’t forget ye.”
His words cut more than they healed, and before I knew it, a full-blown sob erupted from my mouth before I could stuff it back inside. My heart was breaking in slow motion, and Link was scrambling to hold me together as I fell apart in his arms. “I told you to go! I don’t want you to see me cry like this!”
“Shh. I’m not seeing a thing. Ye were making me a sandwich, aye?”
I tried to nod, but my wet cheek brushed up against his, sealing my embarrassment that there would be no coming back from. “Don’t tell him he hurt me. Don’t tell him I cried.”
Link’s voice was almost as sad as mine. “I won’t need to. He loves ye, Rosie. He knows he’s pushed away the best thing tha’s ever happened to him – besides me, tha is.”
I sniffed and hiccupped my sadness, not sure if I was even coherent. “Losing all of you in one go? I’m not the one who cheated! I did my best to be good to him, but now I’m losing all of you. How is this how it ends?”
“Shh. This isn’t the end for us. We’ll be back for ye someday.” He tapped the tattoo on the inside of my wrist with his thumb. “Our mark will keep ye safe until then.”
I threw my head back into his chest and let out a mournful wail. “You all marked me! This was supposed to mean something! You were supposed to be the family who didn’t leave me!” I struggled against him, throwing elbows to free myself. “Just go!”
Link was almost as stubborn as me, and held on tighter as I thrashed. “Settle, Rosie! I won’t leave ye like this.”
I fought with him until his strength exhausted me, making my fight painfully futile. When I was limp in his arms, he tried to scoop me up, but I came to myself marginally and wriggled down, breaking myself from his hug. “No.” I swiped the tears from my eyes and did my best to stand tall a few feet away from him, bracing myself on the counter. “You can go now. Go be Untouchable.”
“This isn’t how we wanted to leave things.”
“You want to leave, so you are. It’s fine. I get it. You don’t owe me a thing.” I turned and saw Mad still standing in the kitchen doorway. His guarded expression gave nothing away. “Have a safe trip, Mad.” I pretended my tears didn’t exist, hoping if I wished it hard enough, it would be true.
“Aye.” Madigan held out his hand to me expectantly, his eyes looking off to the side to avoid the raw emotion in mine. “My ring.”
Link swore at the ill timing of it all, and started making apologies.
I blinked at Mad, his simple words taking a few beats to sink in. I don’t know why my stomach dropped when I took the chain off my neck and plopped his heavy gold ring down in his open palm. It’s not like we were actually engaged. The fakeness of my life hit me anew, pushing me down into an abyss I was certain I would never climb out of. “Thanks for saving me from getting raped by my uncle. Super cool of you. Have a good life, Mad.”
Mad nodded as he slid his ring back onto his thick finger. “Aye. Ye were a good wife, Rosie.”
I slammed into him with a hug that ended as quickly as it began. I tore myself away and waved my hand over my shoulder by way of a parting
word. I wanted to beg them to stay, to help me through Avalon, and make our province stronger. I wanted him to stay for a million reasons, but knew none of them held a candle to the needs of the Brotherhood.
Not twenty minutes later, I watched from my bedroom window as the wagon rolled away, carrying three of the men I’d grown to love. I watched until the wagon disappeared through the streets, carrying the Untouchables far from the life I barely recognized as mine.
Love the book? Leave a review.
Otherwise Link dies.
I have that kind of power, you know.
Scan this code to sign up for my newsletter, join my book-of-the-month club and view my collection of books.
Broken Girl
Enjoy a free preview of Broken Girl,
book 5 in your new favorite series.
Sadness and Scrambled Eggs
“You locked me out of your room last night,” Kerdik accused quietly over breakfast. His chocolate-colored fitted slacks, crisp white dress shirt and charcoal vest were perfectly in place, making me look that much more disheveled in my jeans and wrinkled t-shirt.
I ate in the stone-floored kitchen with the staff, hoping they’d be normal and go about their day around me, but they ended up speaking in hushed whispers and being on their best behavior. I couldn’t tell if they thought I would have a nervous breakdown and start bawling because my Guardien and my fiancé were gone, or if they were scared my temper was as sharp as my mother’s – the dreaded Morgan le Fae. Or maybe they were terrified of Kerdik, whose displeasure was known to affect whole celestial orbs and throw nature into chaos. Either way, it made for an awkward breakfast, even a whole week after the Untouchables had left. I tried not to think about them, not to miss Link’s goofy grin, Madigan’s absence of a personality that only I found endearing, and…
Stupid Girl Page 32
