4
How had an Alpha snuck in under Jemma’s nose? He took a step toward the door, and a low growl rose from his chest.
Crappity crap on crap toast! “Never should have taken that dang bath,” I muttered, dropping the last chamber pot with a clang. I made it to the end of the hall before the door to that room flew wide. I was already barreling down the stairs when Jemma called out, “Vali!”
I didn’t bother to answer, just grabbed the bundle of my clothing, the sponges and the lidded pot of vinegar buried in the center, and raced for The Rutting Sow.
It was dark, and more than one man catcalled as I ran past. I kicked out at hands that reached for my ankles and jumped over pools of suspicious liquid. I wanted to think I had escaped, but somehow I could sense the Alpha, though I couldn’t see or hear him. He was following me.
Of course he was. My aroma was leaving a trail that might as well have been made of fireflies. Any Alpha could find me.
Soon, a whole group of men—two Alphas and at least three Betas—did. “Hey, girlie!” A low voice called out from the door of the apothecary’s shop, the one I’d avoided going to. I didn’t stop, didn’t slow, racing around a corner. “That’s her at last, that’s the one,” someone else yelled in a strange accent as I turned one more corner, then another, like a rat in a maze. I had to shake these men, or my life wouldn’t be worth a rat’s arse.
Later, when I had time to think, I’d have to figure out why it seemed they’d been waiting for me. Where that strange accent had come from. Maybe there were Verdanians taking our servant girls.
I slipped into a narrower alley when a loud shout that was almost a bark split the night. “Stop!”
Suddenly, my body was paralyzed. I stood stock-still in the middle of the dark street, shivering, unable to move. The group of men moved closer, almost rounding the corner.
Oh, Goddess. This was it. I was going to be attacked, possibly kidnapped.
I closed my eyes, wishing I could make my legs move, but fear had immobilized me. Fear, and whatever was in that Alpha’s voice.
“Pssst!” A whisper came from a closed-up shop. “Over here!”
As if a spell had been broken, I was suddenly able to move my head. “C-come over here.”
I knew that voice. “Max?” I almost fainted with relief. He held open a door, and I raced inside, the sudden stench of brine and fish assaulting my nostrils.
He no sooner had the door shut than the men outside came storming past. Low curses split the night. “Where is she?” “I can’t smell her.” “Try another street.”
Max and I remained silent until they gave up, though two of the Alphas stayed for almost a half hour, sniffing at doorways. I worried they would scent me, but Max had that covered: he’d handed me what felt like a half-rotten sardine, and I’d methodically rubbed it on all my exposed skin while we waited.
“That was too close,” he said when the street was empty. He crossed the shop and lit a small lantern. “What are you doin’ out on these streets, Vali? Yer madam knows better.”
He knew better as well. Two years before when I—in Max’s words—started “smelling pretty,” his older, Alpha brother had attacked me in the stables. Max had conked him on the head with a shovel to get him to stop. We’d stayed close, until almost overnight Max had grown two feet taller, almost as much wider, and it had become obvious he was an Alpha, too. One day he’d just disappeared.
“You work here now?” I asked, watching his obvious familiarity with the layout of the shop as he pulled two half-barrels up to a small table. A plate of food—bread, sardines, and an apple—was quickly divided in two. “Max, that’s your dinner!”
“I don’t mind sharing,” he said, his deep brown eyes twinkling in the lantern light, the same color as his chestnut hair. “If you c-can stand to eat in a room that smells like old fish?”
I shrugged. “I have to eat my meals with Selene. I’m used to it.” He wrinkled his brow, but when I pointed to my lady parts and pinched my nose, he got the crude joke, and let out a soft laugh.
“Should I spread the rumor that she’s got the crotch rot, then?”
I batted my eyelashes and made a swoony face. “You’d do that for me, Max?”
Max cleared his throat and stammered, “I’d d-do anythin’ for you, Vali. I mean that.” He handed me a plate, but I couldn’t answer until the lump in my throat subsided.
“I missed you. You just left.” The last word was more of a whine than I liked, and I dropped my eyes. I was no child to pout when she lost a friend.
“I had to get away, Vali,” he said. “You know how ya smell, right?”
“Yep.” I chewed the bread glumly. “They can’t smell me here, though.”
“Nah,” he said, and bumped me with an elbow. “No one can, not even me. That’s why I quit the stables. I was afraid someday I’d do… what m’brother tried.”
My mind spun. He’d left to protect me? I whispered the question, and he ducked his head as well. “Well, sure. That and I’d rather smell like fish than horse dung.”