7. Kira
Chapter 7
Kira
THE PLAN
“ Y ou shoulda seen it!” Thaddyus bellows, for what has to be the tenth time. “My shot was this close!”
He leans in, his fingers a thimble-width apart and just in front of my face.
“And I hit the bastard,” Niles says, pushing Thaddyus out of the way and pressing his face so close to mine I can see the back of his throat when he talks. “I know I hit ‘im. Then, poof! Damn thing vanished like smoke!” Niles lowers his voice to a stage whisper and rocks back on his heels. “It was magic. A magic wolf!”
The two men crowded around me make another round of impressed noises. I smile politely. I’ve been doing so much polite smiling today that my cheeks ache. Zayne made it sound like it would be hard, getting information out of the hunting party. Well, that’s hilarious. All these assholes have done since they arrived is give us all the information we wanted. And then some.
At this point, at least all of the men in the hunting party shot a dozen wolves each, and every single one of those wolves was magical, and most of the men also shot the mysterious tall man in the cloak.
I can’t keep it all straight, and I’m bored out of my godsdamned mind talking to the hunters. I should be trying to get information out of the guides, but Girwin is playing cards with them, and it seems to be an intimidatingly serious game.
Plus, I’ve tried to ditch Thaddyus and Niles for the past hour and had no luck. I moved from the table to the bar, to the other end of the bar, to a smaller table, and then back to the bar. They followed me the whole time. If I sat down with the guides, Thaddyus and Niles would sit down too. At this point, I’m starting to worry they’ll follow me up to my room and talk at me through the door.
This has been one of the most excruciating days of my life. And coming from someone who once cleaned the outhouses at the orphanage after an outbreak of food poisoning, that’s saying quite a lot.
I turn toward the stairs and try to mentally summon Tholious. That’s the kind of thing someone with magical ancestry would be able to do, right? Summon one of the Towers’s own? Tholious , I whisper in my head. You’re supposed to be leading this stupid mission. It’s your turn to smile at these drunk idiots.
“You’ve never seen wolves so big!” Thaddyus declares. His breath is so strong I could probably get drunk off it. “Damn things were the size of horses! Big horses!”
I sigh, then smile politely. Tholious does not appear at the bottom of the stairs, of course. The Towers’s precious Disciple has been in a private room with Matius since breakfast, going over supplies, or whatever thinly veiled euphemism for wild sex they used this morning. I frown at the nasty gray rain beating against the windows. It’s nice weather to spend all day in bed with a lover, I suppose.
The front door of the lodge bangs open. I jump. Thaddyus and Niles don’t seem to notice. A tall, hooded figure walks through the door, then scans the room from under the deep shadows shrouding their face. Whoever this is, they’re completely soaked; puddles are already forming on the stones at their feet. Their back stiffens as they turn toward the bar. The door swings shut behind them. This person must be alone, then.
An idea flashes through my mind like a bolt of summer lightning.
It’s a stupid idea, but come on. It’s not like I’m going to get anything useful out of these mighty hunters. Hells, at this point I could prop up a painted gourd on a stick, and I don’t even think they’d notice it wasn’t me.
I slide off my stool. I’m doing it.
I’m going to escape their monologues by pretending I recognize whoever just walked through that door. If I have any luck at all, the stranger will go along with it long enough to let me slip up the stairs and into my room. Without being followed by drunk men who want to tell me about all the imaginary monsters they’ve killed.
I walk up to the soaking-wet stranger and smile.
“Please play along,” I whisper under my breath.
I want to explain that if I have to listen to any more drunken hunting stories I’m going to chew my own arm off like an animal in a trap, but I don’t have time to whisper all that. I cross my fingers against my arm and hope for the best.
The figure’s dark hood bobs in silent agreement. Thank you, gods of hunting lodges.
“Oh, it’s so good to see you!” I announce. Loudly.
I touch the stranger’s mud-covered sleeve gently and smile up at the hood like whoever’s in there is my long-lost cousin returned from the bottom of the sea.
“You as well,” the stranger replies, in a deep voice.
He’s a man, then. That’s no surprise. He must be rich too, to come here. The innkeeper approaches and clears his throat.
“May I take your cloak?” the innkeeper asks.
The hood bobs again, and then the man pushes it back. My breath catches against my throat. Holy hells. I wasn’t expecting someone this young, or this ridiculously attractive.
I swallow hard as the stranger pulls off his cloak. Water drips down the curve of his jaw. His long, dark hair is plastered to the back of his neck, and his deep green shirt sticks to his chest, leaving absolutely nothing to my imagination. The innkeeper takes the cloak and offers him a towel. I turn away as the man accepts; I’m not stupid enough to stare as he drags a towel across that face.
Godsdamn it. I thought this stranger would be an older gentleman, someone I could pretend was an uncle or a grandfather. Now I’m going to either embarrass myself in front of a gorgeous waterlogged traveler or have to listen to drunk idiots tell me about their slaughter of imaginary wolves.
I glance back at the bar, where Thaddyus is still talking about the shot he almost made and Niles is blinking at the stool I just abandoned like he’s trying to figure out what happened to his audience.
Yeah, I’ll choose to embarrass myself. No contest.
“Thank you,” the man says in his thick, deep voice as he hands the towel back to the innkeeper.
“Of course,” the innkeeper replies. “What can I bring you?”
“A change of clothes, if it’s not too much trouble,” the man replies as he pulls a pair of thick shills from his waistband. “With a bottle of red, please. And have you eaten?” he asks, turning to me.
“Huh?” I reply, then mentally kick myself in the ass. “I mean, uh. No. No, I haven’t eaten. Since breakfast, that is. Which was great,” I add, as the innkeeper stares at me.
“Two dinners, then,” the stranger says, with a soft half smile that does wicked things to my insides. “Your house special, please, whatever it is. And do you have somewhere that’s a bit more private? We have some catching up to do, right?” he adds, glancing at me.
I blink but manage not to say anything stupid as the innkeeper leads us past the bar. Zayne catches my eye and raises an eyebrow over his hand of cards. I ignore him. I’ve heard all that I can stomach out of the hunters, and by the gods, I’ve earned a little break.
There are several doors in the hallway that cuts beneath the stairs. The innkeeper opens the first, revealing an elegant private dining room with a table, four chairs, and a large window. Several paintings of forests and rivers hang on the walls; it’s a nice change from all the stuffed dead animals in the main lodge. The innkeeper lights three candles on the table, then waves as though he’s ushering us across a threshold.
The stranger enters. I follow.
The innkeeper leaves, closing the door behind him, and suddenly I’m in a very small room with a complete stranger. I try to breathe, but all the air seems to have evaporated. The stranger walks to the window, glances out of it like he’s looking for something out there in the mist and rain, and then turns back to me.
“I assume you weren’t enjoying your conversation at the bar?” he asks.
A drop of rainwater traces a path down the front of his neck and slides under the lacings of his shirt. My mind goes completely blank. I stand there, like an idiot, until the door behind me creaks open again. The older woman who served breakfast this morning steps into the room with a large towel in one hand and a neatly folded stack of clothes in the other.
“Thank you,” the stranger says, as he accepts them both.
The woman nods, then leaves. The stranger gives me that little half smile again, and I realize that if he’s going to get undressed in front of me I’m probably going to spontaneously combust.
“Pardon me for a moment,” he says, with a nod.
He walks out the door. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbles across the peaks of the Daggers. Now is my chance to leave, some distant part of my brain realizes. I should slip out of the door, up the stairs, and lock myself in my room until tomorrow.
But my stomach makes a sad little rumble of protest, and my mind conjures up the highly unlikely image of the handsome stranger changing out of his wet clothes in the hallway just outside. Then I imagine the look on his face if I opened the door and found him naked in the hallway. Which is completely stupid, but still, it’s enough to make me hesitate. And I am hungry.
I force myself to sit down at the table and run a hand through my tangled hair. I hate wearing it long, but I’m following Fyrris’s orders. Even if they don’t make any sense. I can’t afford to have the Towers think of me as a problem.
The door opens again, and the stranger reappears. Now he’s wearing a pale linen shirt that looks too tight around the shoulders and dark, baggy pants. His long black hair is still plastered to the back of his neck, but the rest of him looks reasonably dry. He offers me an apologetic smile.
Well, hells. If I play my cards right, maybe I’ll be able to invite him up to my room for a few rounds of Questions and then dare him to take off those black pants. Why should Tholious and Matius be the only ones getting laid on this expedition?
I smile as the stranger sits down across from me.
“No,” I declare. “I was not enjoying my conversation at the bar. Thank you for rescuing me.”
The man’s eyes flicker up. He gives me that same little smile.
“You don’t have to stay,” he says.
“Oh, I’m staying for the food,” I reply.
His eyes widen, and then he laughs. It’s a strange, rusty sound, almost like he’s forgotten what a laugh is supposed to sound like.
“Well, then I won’t be under any illusions about the pleasure of my company,” he replies.
“Just don’t start telling me about how many monsters you’ve shot and we’ll get along fine,” I reply.
He raises an eyebrow. The soft glow of the candles on the table between us throws strange, shifting shadows over his features.
“Monsters?” he asks.
“Apparently, the hunting party was attacked by wolves last night,” I say, waving my hand toward the door and the group of men behind it. The candle flames gutter. “But, you know, not regular wolves. Huge wolves. Magic wolves.”
He frowns like he’s trying to picture a magic wolf. I grin.
“Okay, honestly,” I say, “I think they’re just really shitty hunters. Both of them kept swearing up and down they shot, like, a dozen wolves, but the wolves all vanished into mist as soon as they were hit.”
The man’s smile broadens. I feel like I’m seeing him for the first time. Because that’s a real smile, I realize. Because the smiles he gave me before, and the one he gave the innkeeper, were the same sort of smiles I gave the hunters when they told me about their magical wolves.
“Magical wolves who vanish when they’re shot,” he says. “That is awfully convenient.”
“Isn’t it?” I agree.
The door opens once more, and the older woman walks in with a bottle of wine and two glasses. She fills our glasses, leaves, and then reappears a moment later with two plates piled high with bony ribs in a thick, sticky sauce. She places a basket of rolls between us, and then, almost as an afterthought, adds two small bowls of what looks like a shredded cabbage salad. Topped with bacon.
“Meat, meat, and more meat,” I say, after the woman closes the door behind her.
“This is a hunting lodge,” the man offers.
“Oh, I’m not complaining,” I reply, with a grin.
I would have killed for a meal like this at the orphanage, but I know better than to say something like that in polite company. Or when I’m trying to be polite company.
The man smiles again, that real smile that seems to spread across his entire face, and then he lifts his wineglass.
“I’m Reznyk,” he says.
What an odd name. It sounds vaguely familiar, like it’s the answer to some important question I’ve forgotten.
And that’s something I can worry about in the morning, when I’m not sharing a bottle of wine with a gorgeous man who’s blessedly silent on the subject of magical animals he’s shot.
“Kira,” I reply, lifting my glass to his.
Our crystal rims kiss with a musical ping.
“To magical wolves,” he declares.
“I’ll drink to that,” I reply.
And I do.