Chapter 1 #2
His brow ticked up just slightly, like he was trying to decide whether I’d just insulted him or read him for filth, but either way, he’d understood me.
This meant one of two things—he’d either studied sign language for Court, or someone had warned him about the “deaf” bartender long before he’d ever stepped into my bar.
I was betting on the latter and that did not give me the warm and fuzzies.
He lifted the glass, sniffed the concoction like a food critic, and sipped as if he expected disappointment. Surprise flickered across his face—quick, but there—before he wiped it clean. The soft clink of glass on wood followed, and I fought the urge to flinch.
“Not bad.”
Rhett leaned in beside me, eyebrow cocked as his shoulder bumped mine. “Was that supposed to be a compliment? You’ve got to do better than that, man.”
Kieran didn’t look at him at first, just kept his eyes on me.
Those icy blues were measuring, sizing me up in a way that left me unsettled.
Normally, if someone were staring at me like that, I'd be privy to every thought in their brain, but not Kieran. He was just as enigmatic then as he was since he’d set foot in my bar.
And I didn't like it one bit.
Then, slowly, he turned his head, eyeing the spot where Rhett touched me.
Rhett held his gaze with a lazy smile as he held up his hands in surrender. “Right. Your funeral,” he muttered, and slipped back down the bar.
I reached for the nearest glass, wiping it with a cloth I didn’t need. Kieran didn’t move, didn’t speak. He just watched me, and somewhere in that stillness, my control slipped—just for a second. It was long enough to feel something cold and sharp skimming the edge of the room.
Not thought. Not spell. Just... intent. And it wasn’t his.
The moment I recognized that cold, quiet threat that had just slithered into my bar wasn’t coming from Kieran Veyne, the first attack hit.
The front window shattered inward in a burst of glass and smoke. Screams tore through the room. Magic surged—raw and uncontrolled—as a wardstone detonated above the door in a flash of acidic green light.
A hexbomb—the kind that didn’t warn, it confused, it maimed, it killed. And it sure as Vireth wasn’t one of mine. A cloaked figure stepped through the acrid haze, blade in hand, eyes locked on the bar, on him. He didn’t speak, but his mind screamed with purpose.
Strike fast. Kill the prince. No witnesses.
I moved before the thought finished forming. My hand closed around the small, silver-edged paring knife Rhett had left by the fruit tray: a lifeline I hadn’t known I’d needed until just that moment.
And then I threw.
In the midst of the chaos and frightened patrons, the blade caught the attacker right under his collarbone just as he lunged. He roared in pain before his scream cut off in a gurgle as he crumbled to the ground. And then all seven hells broke loose.
Another looming figure appeared near the back—taller, faster. Magic danced along their fingertips, bright and crackling. They raised a hand to cast, cloudy-blue mist coating his fingers before Jex moved.
One moment he was against the wall, and the next he had the caster by the throat, slamming them into a support pillar hard enough to splinter the wood. His golden eyes gleamed as a demonic smile curled his lips in delight.
To my left, another attacker darted toward the goblin booth.
I vaulted the bar, heart pounding as I grabbed the nearest bottle—heavy in my hand, cold, familiar—then hurled it with every ounce of fury I had.
The glass shattered across his face, and the freezing enchantment inside burst into a cloud of frost. He stumbled back, cursing, clawing at his withering skin as it blackened and cracked.
Kieran hadn’t moved, not at first, but now he was a blur of motion and death.
He disarmed the fourth one in a single, fluid motion—twisting the weapon from his hand, driving his elbow into their throat, and sinking the attacker’s own wicked dagger into his ribs before he hit the floor.
It wasn’t flashy or panicked. Kieran’s movements were simply a level of precision that was out of most people’s reach. Then again, being a centuries-old vampire had its perks.
By the time the smoke cleared, three attackers were dead, their blood staining the wood floor bad enough that it would take years to kill the smell. One moaned on the ground, clutching his ruined face.
Spelled mist curled toward the ceiling as I surveyed the damage to my one and only livelihood.
Tables and chairs were overturned, some broken in half.
Bottles of spelled liquor and glass littered the bar and floor, smashed into a million pieces as their contents burned through the rough-hewed planks.
Someone was crying softly behind the counter, their frightened, almost childlike thoughts nearly bringing tears to my eyes.
Rhett was already herding patrons toward the cellar door. Jex dragged the surviving attacker toward the back, blood streaking the floor behind him.
Yanking my knife from the corpse at my feet, I straightened slowly, my heartbeat thundering in my ears.
Everything I’d built, everything I’d worked for, felt like it was slipping away, my tenuous hold on my life falling like sand through my fingertips.
My bar was in shambles, and there was no way to pay to fix it.
The prince of Morathen watched me use my ability, and now there were dead bodies littering my floor.
The room had gone silent. Not quiet—silent. Like even the magic was holding its breath. In that hush, I stood over the body, weapon dripping, heart pounding, no longer invisible. I wasn’t just the mute bartender anymore—not after this. Not with blood on my hands and a corpse at my feet.
I’d just made myself a target.
Not because I killed him, but because of how I knew to do it. The weight of every secret I’d ever kept settled on my shoulders, and still, I didn’t move. Couldn’t.
Because the moment I did, I’d have to face what came next.
Then I lifted my gaze to his.
Kieran looked at me, really looked.
His gaze drifted to the velvet choker at my throat like he knew what was behind it. Then to the attacker at his feet. Then to the blood staining my palm.
“Who the hell are you?” he murmured.
Not curious. Not impressed.
Just... interested.
And I still had no way to answer.