38. Clash of Stone and Steel
Clash of Stone and Steel
Samhail
Samhail knew it was her the moment he entered the tavern.
There was a passing resemblance between Talyn and the woman sitting at the bar – an almost too obvious one – but that wasn’t what convinced him it was her.
It was the fact that she looked away from him a full thirty seconds before everyone else in the tavern did that confirmed it.
Samhail was used to being the center of attention when he walked into a room.
Indeed, the entire tavern had gone quiet as he entered, all eyes fixed on him.
The woman looked at him as well, but only for a few seconds before she turned away.
By contrast, the eyes of every other person there followed him all the way to the bar where he took a stool two seats away from her.
The stool groaned under the weight of his solidly muscled frame, and the people in the tavern slowly went back to their conversations as they decided he wasn’t there for trouble.
He glanced at the woman again. Her hair had more of a rusty hue than the hints of copper in Talyn’s strawberry blonde waves, but there were similarities in their faces. This woman had Talyn’s pert nose and high cheekbones, but that wasn’t what he found most familiar about her.
It was the way she held herself, the gracefulness with which she crossed one leg over the other on her stool.
It was in the way her head tilted and turned on her long neck so regally it would make a swan envious.
And there at the base of her throat was the locket she’d once told him she’d lost in Cyra and Bressen’s sitting room.
The faint scent of lemon verbena that drifted to Samhail down the bar stirred something in his chest, and he inhaled deeply without thinking. Yes, he knew without a doubt it was Talyn.
She’d known what she was doing when she bumped the barmaid into his lap. It had taken him nearly five minutes to get the woman off him and pay their tab, but by then Talyn had already been gone when he reached the room.
He didn’t think she’d run. Her things were still there, and her horse was still in the inn’s stable. She’d clearly been upset when she left, and the fyrebyne had suggested to him she might be looking for more alcohol, so he’d started searching taverns.
He’d been sure it would be pointless to look for her.
She could shift her appearance, so there was no way for him to know what she looked like.
He’d just hoped she might do or say something to give herself away.
As it turned out, it had been easier to find her than he’d expected, as this was only his third stop. She wasn’t trying very hard to hide.
Samhail ordered an ale from the barkeep as he opened an ear to eavesdrop on her conversation with the three men who currently had her attention.
One man sat between her and Samhail while two stood next to her.
Their chatter was banal, idle conversation mixed with the men’s not-so-subtle attempts to keep Talyn’s attention on them over the others.
They were all mortals as far as he could tell.
Talyn finished her drink and called for another, and Samhail wondered how many she’d had already. There was an urgency in the way she took a deep gulp from the new glass the barkeep set before her.
The two men standing next to her both rushed to pay for her drink, and Talyn raised her glass to them before taking another long swig.
Samhail recognized the hunger in the eyes of the men around her.
The man seated next to Talyn reached out to put his hand on her knee, and Samhail’s arm twitched as he watched from the corner of his eye.
Talyn didn’t seem to notice the hand, and he tamped down the urge to spin the man around on his barstool and plant a fist into his face.
In answer to their companion’s boldness, the two other men pressed in closer to Talyn, and Samhail gritted his teeth.
He was guilty of doing the same thing when he was interested in a woman, of finding excuses to step in closer to her or brush her arm with his hand, but seeing these men do it now made him want to rip the legs off his barstool and beat them bloody.
That Talyn didn’t discourage them flared not only his anger, but some kind of dread deep within him he couldn’t explain.
He had no claim on her. She could do whatever she wanted with whomever she wanted, and he had no right to say anything, but knowing that and being able to accept it were two different things.
Feelings of jealousy were new to him, and although he’d never felt them before, he knew that’s exactly what this was.
He and Bressen had shared women a few times, but there’d never been any jealousy between them, even with Cyra.
Perhaps it was because Bressen was more like a brother to him than his own siblings, but jealousy also wasn’t a common emotion among gargoyles.
Lust and promiscuous sex were common and accepted among his kind, so jealousy simply had no place in their world.
Samhail almost shook his head. He had no idea now how Bressen had ever shared Cyra with him. Samhail hadn’t even fucked Talyn yet, and he already knew there was no way he’d share her with anyone, even Bressen.
Talyn was his.
Or she would be soon, and he wanted to pull her onto his lap right now so these men knew it.
He ached to claim her mouth and run his hands over her body until every inch of her smelled like him as a warning to anyone else who might be foolish enough to think they could have her.
If he didn’t know she’d strenuously object, he’d pull out his cock right here, haul her down on top of it, and make her ride him in front of the entire gods damned tavern.
A soft cracking sound brought Samhail back from the spiral he’d been heading down, and he lifted his hand off his glass of ale to see there was a small fracture snaking up the side of it.
The glass didn’t appear to be leaking, so he glanced back at Talyn and the three men.
One of the men standing near her now had his hand on her hip, and Samhail pulled his own hand away from his glass so he didn’t accidentally crush it into shards.
He couldn’t sit here and watch this all night.
At some point, especially if he kept drinking, he’d get the urge to throw one of these men across the room.
He didn’t know why Talyn was here, or why she looked the way she did, but he’d leave her to it. Now that he knew where she was, he could go back to the room and wait for her to stumble in later…
No, he should stay. He didn’t want to leave her here alone with three men when she was drunk. She could easily take on all three of them when she was sober, but what if they somehow knocked her out?
Samhail’s hand clenched into a fist just thinking about it, and he was about to drag her back to their room, consequences be damned, when he tuned in to their conversation again.
“If I win, I get a kiss,” one of the men next to Talyn said.
“That’s reasonable,” she said, slurring her words a bit.
“Then let’s do it,” the man said as he rose and strode toward a large dart board on a wall across the room. Instead of darts, the board had two sets of throwing knives stuck in it.
The man plucked the six knives out of the board and handed three to Talyn as she came up next to him and set her drink on an empty table.
The two other men followed, and at the bar, Samhail turned around on his stool to watch.
Talyn and the man had the attention of several other patrons in the bar as well.
Samhail had never actually seen Talyn throw knives before, but given what he knew about her, he’d bet everything he had on her to win.
The man stepped up and sent his first knife cartwheeling through the air. It lodged itself in one of the outer rings of the board, and he frowned.
“I must be a bit rusty,” he said. “Your turn, sweetheart.”
Talyn stepped up to the throwing line and aimed at the board. She pulled her arm back and let the knife fly. Samhail expected it to hit the bullseye, but instead the knife bounced off the wall next to the board before clattering loudly to the floor, and a couple of patrons snickered.
Samhail narrowed his eyes. Talyn was either drunker than she seemed, or she was missing on purpose. There was no way in the three hells The Raptor of Avril, assassin extraordinaire, was bad at throwing knives.
“I must be rusty too,” Talyn purred, flashing the man a smile.
She swayed but caught her balance on the back of a chair, even as three sets of male hands grabbed for her waist to steady her. The men’s hands lingered before releasing her, and Samhail began contemplating which of their bones he wanted to break first.
Fingers were always a good start. He’d work his way up to their necks.
Talyn’s opponent grinned at her and stepped back up to the line. His next knife was closer to the middle of the board but still not near the center. He stepped aside so Talyn could take her turn.
Her next throw also hit the wall, but at least it stuck there this time.
Samhail ground his teeth. He was sure she could beat this man easily, even drunk.
She was losing on purpose, and he wasn’t sure why.
If they’d been betting money, he might’ve suspected she was drawing the man in to make him put more money on the table, but if he’d heard right, they were playing for a kiss. Did she want to kiss him or…?
Was she doing this on purpose to drive him crazy? Make him jealous?
The man’s third knife stuck in the outer ring of the bullseye, and his two companions cheered.
“I don’t think you can win now, sweetheart,” the man said to Talyn.
She sighed. “No, but I’d like to at least hit the board one time.”
“Let me show you,” the man said.
He stepped in behind her and closed his hand over hers. His other arm crept around her, and he laid a hand against her stomach as he whispered into her ear, apparently giving her instructions as he moved her arm to demonstrate the proper throwing motion.