2. Chapter Two
Chapter Two
Yana
“I can still smell my Heartmate’s scent along this path.
” Nyrah quickened her steps, boosting herself along with a flap of her red, iridescent wings.
“He came this way and he definitely took the right fork.” Her brown and black striped tail swished behind her and the brown cat ears atop her head twitched as she hurried down the forest path.
Yana’s stomach grumbled and she sighed, but followed her friend.
Yana was half-orc and half-elf, with the beauty and lithe figure of an elf and her delicately pointed ears stuck out from her silvery-white hair.
Her skin was a pale, minty green shade, much softer than the average orc's skin tone. But her orc parentage also meant her body burned through Stamina if she didn’t have enough to eat, and they hadn’t pack enough provisions for this impromptu journey.
It was already well past dinner time, and the sunlight was quickly fading.
Nyrah stopped short, put her hands on her hips, and spun around to face Yana.
“What’s wrong?” Yana asked.
“You believe me, right?” Nyrah stepped closer to Yana, forcing her to step back she found herself pressed up against tree behind her.
Nyrah growled softly and bared her tiny fangs, but Yana knew the nekofae wasn’t going to hurt her.
They were best friends. They grew up in the same orphanage together.
They served in the same temple. Or they used to serve in the same temple, Yana reminded herself. They’d left all that behind.
“I believe you.” Yana looked down at her friend, who was a whole head shorter. “If you sense that this man, this Cody Hampshire, is your Heartmate, then I will help you find him.”
Yana barely knew the man. Sure, he had saved them when their temple had been attacked by trolls and set on fire exactly one day ago, but Yana wasn’t able to see into people’s hearts the way Nyrah could.
A simple touch of the hand, skin to skin, could reveal a lot about someone to Nyrah.
And apparently when Cody had taken her hand in his and pulled her from the encroaching flames of the burning temple, she’d seen that he possessed a Heart of Gold.
That was enough to convince Nyrah that this man was her Heartmate, and that he should be Yana’s, too.
Unfortunately, the man ran off into the night before Nyrah had a chance to explain all of this to him and now she was determined to track him down.
Nyrah released Yana. “He is my Heartmate! And we will find him!”
With that, she fluttered down the path, and Yana had to jog to catch up. Not long after, they arrived at a small town. Nyrah insisted that she could smell Cody’s scent down the road and right up to the wooden door of a ramshackle tavern.
Having gone from orphans to cloistered priestesses, the two twenty-one-year-old women had very little experience with taverns.
The windows glowed golden in the dying light of day, and they could hear the sound of a fiddle and drums playing lively music as people talked and laughed boisterously.
Yana didn’t need the heightened senses of a nekofae to smell the stench of unwashed men and stale beer, even when standing outside.
Nyrah adjusted the brown priestess robes she was still wearing, even though both of them had prayed to the Goddess only that morning, asking forgiveness for leaving the temple and renouncing their vows.
Nyrah’s fluffy ears twitched on the top of her head, a clear sign that she was nervous, which made Yana feel anxious, too.
“You think he’s in there?” Yana asked.
“It’s harder to smell him now, with all those other horrid smells getting in the way.” Nyrah wrinkled her little nose in disgust. “But I can still smell a bit of him. As if he was here, but he may have moved on already. But…”
“What is it?”
“His scent stops here.” Nyrah took a few steps past the building, sniffing the air, before returning to her friend. “There’s no more trail past the tavern.”
“Maybe that means he is here.”
Yana reached down and held Nyrah’s hand, giving it a squeeze, and then pushed open the tavern’s thick wooden door. As soon as they entered, Nyrah slipped her hand free.
“I don’t want him to think we’re together,” Nyrah whispered. “In case he’s here.”
Yana was not offended. “Do you see him?”
“No,” Nyrah said as she carefully scanned the room.
“He could be staying in a room? Some taverns rent rooms, like an inn, yes?”
“I suppose we could ask.”
They walked up to the wooden bar that ran along the far wall of the tavern and found two empty seats.
Some of the drunken men eyed them, but since the women were dressed in their priestess robes, they were not bothered.
Most feared the wrath of the vengeful Rose Goddess, which would surely come to pass if you caused trouble with any of her devotees.
Yana waved over the barmaid; a young woman with curly blond hair.
“Good evenin’, how can I—” Before the barmaid could finish her sentence, Nyrah had leaped onto the bar.
Black, razor-sharp claws grew from the ends of her fingers in a flash.
While crouching cat-like on the bar, she grabbed a fistful of the blonde’s hair, spinning her around and yanking her head back to expose the barmaid’s throat to the tip of her claw.
“Nyrah, what are you doing?” Yana tried to pull Nyrah off of the woman, but the little nekofae was a lot stronger than her petite frame suggested. She was an equal match for Yana’s own orc-related strength.
The barmaid flailed, trying to reach up and grab at Nyrah, but Nyrah tugged on her hair.
She pushed her claw into the soft skin of the barmaid’s throat, enough to draw a tiny bead of blood.
The woman fell still, but whimpered. The band had stopped playing.
The tavern had fallen quiet, except for the gentle crackle of the fire in the hearth.
A few of the drunken, burly men rose to their feet.
One of them had his hand hovering over the pommel of the sword that he wore at his hip.
Yana turned her back to Nyrah and glared at the Sword Man.
She raised her hands in front of her chest, activating the silver sparks of her elven [Life-Force] magic.
The sparks crackled from her fingertips, but her Stamina was only at twenty-percent since she hadn’t eaten in hours.
She really hoped this didn’t turn into a fight, because she wasn’t going to last long.
“My friend just wants to ask a few questions.” Yana’s voice was low and menacing. “We don’t want to hurt anyone.” The silver sparks were enough to keep the men back. They had clearly fought an elf before or had heard the stories of what happened to those who did.
“W-what do you want?” the barmaid asked.
“You smell like him,” Nyrah hissed. “He was here. Did he touch you?”
“I…I don’t know who you’re talking about! Please, don’t hurt me!”
“I am talking about my Heartmate!” Nyrah tugged more forcefully on the woman’s hair. “His name is Cody Hampshire and he is the most handsome man to walk the lands!”
“Nyrah, calm yourself,” Yana said, but kept her eyes on the two men who were watching closely.
Sword Man, a tall, bald man with a thick beard, raised his hands in a show of good faith. “We mean you no harm, priestesses. Please, set our barmaid free. Let her go and we’ll have a nice chat about the man you seek.”
“She smells like him!” Nyrah seethed.
“Nyrah, enough! Let her go and we’ll ask about Cody.”
“If she shared a bed with my Heartmate, I will slit her throat.”
“W-what?” the barmaid stuttered. “I don’t know anyone named Cody! And I haven’t slept with anyone!”
“Nyrah, please!” Yana turned and rested her hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Let her go. Cody wouldn’t want you to hurt innocent people, would he? That’s not what someone with a Heart of Gold would do.”
Yana watched as Nyrah breathed deeply, her chest rising and falling. Yana was pretty sure that was the right thing to say to talk Nyrah down from this particular path of violence. After a few more breaths, Nyrah retracted her claws. She uncurled her grip on the barmaid’s hair, setting her free.
“You smell like him, so you've obviously crossed paths recently.” Nyrah stayed right where she was, perched on the bar.
“Who are you talking about?” the barmaid asked. She reached up, gingerly fixing her hair but keeping her eyes locked on Nyrah.
“We’re looking for a man,” Yana said. “He’s tall-ish—”
“Tall with broad shoulders and a strong, commanding presence,” Nyrah cut in.
“And has a scruffy beard—”
“A ruggedly handsome beard,” Nyrah corrected.
“With shoulder-length brown hair—”
“Perfectly tousled chestnut brown hair,” Nyrah said.
“And brown eyes.”
“Like orbs of polished mahogany,” Nyrah said breathlessly.
“He wears a sword at his side—”
“Because he is an undefeated hero of heroes. I watched him slay a dozen man-eating trolls single-handedly the night our temple burned.”
“And he also wears a knife on his belt,” Yana continued. “Does any of that sound familiar?”
The barmaid’s eyes darted to Nyrah and then back to Yana. “Someone who fits that description came by earlier today, yes. But I swear, I didn’t touch him! I may have bumped into him while serving, but that’s it! And it wasn’t on purpose! He was talking to a woman.”
Nyrah’s wings fluttered and her tail swished violently across the top of the bar as she stared at the woman. Yana reached out and held Nyrah back from pouncing on the barmaid again.
“And they left together?” Yana asked.
“Y-yes.” Tears began to well in the barmaid’s eyes, as if she knew she was delivering the worst possible information to the deranged nekofae.
“Where?” Nyrah hissed. “Where did they go?”
“Upstairs.” The barmaid sniffled as a tear ran down her cheek. “The woman paid for a room.”
A low growl thrummed in Nyrah’s throat, and Yana was actually impressed that she was holding herself back from murdering the bearer of bad news.
“That’s enough!” came a commanding, feminine voice.