4. Chapter 4 #2
“The ransom reward for reporting the raven to the crown is a gallon of Vitalis,” Frank reveals as he stuffs a meaty finger in my direction. “An entire bucket’s-worth of bloodmagic. Eric knew that. Which is why he offered to exchange information about your whereabouts as a form of payment.”
My world falls away as Frank continues on with his incessant rambling, his spit sailing every which way.
“It really is a win-win for everybody,” he continues.
“Now he’s paid off his debts quadruple-fold, and I’ll be favored by the queen.
Although I must admit, I find it fascinating to hear that the raven doesn’t have any magic.
How could that possibly be? Anyway, Eric said if I needed to confirm your identity, all I had to do was—”
I don’t hear the rest of his sentence. The grim walls of the orphanage flicker in my mind, walls that had once worked so tirelessly to keep me harbored inside. Sure, the place had been dark and dreary. But it had also been my safe haven.
Until it hadn’t.
They’d seen me for who I really was.
An abomination.
“Enough.” I slam my fist onto the table, my ears ringing like there’s a tuning fork stuffed inside of them.
I suppose that deep down, I’ve always known this would happen.
And yet, I still cannot believe that Eric sold me out for shit.
“I’m not the raven,” I grit out, the vaporous realization of Eric’s treachery threatening to suffocate me whole.
I may not be the raven.
But I am a fool.
A fool for believing that hiding within Eric’s sweeping estate and sharing my secrets with him would ever afford me a life of normalcy. A fool for thinking that he ever loved me at all.
“Not what I heard,” Frank grunts. To my utter horror, he clamps down on my sleeve with his grimy fingernail and gives me a wicked smile. “And I can prove it. Right under here.”
“Let me go!” I shout.
“Why would I do that?” Frank asks.
“It sounds like the lady here just gave you a direct order,” a baritone voice grumbles from the doorway.
Frank pivots his gaze toward the patron lurking in the shadows. “Who are you?” he hacks out.
“You’re about to find out,” the mysterious man says.
“Fuck off,” Frank mutters underneath his breath.
Before I have time to realize what’s happening, Frank upturns the entire table, sending glass shattering to the floor.
Then he scoops me up into his arms and heaves me over his shoulder with a wet-sounding grunt.
I kick and scream from upside-down with a perfect view of the dirt-trodden floor, feeling extra stupid for not impaling him earlier.
“Hold still!” Frank gripes at me as he barrels around furniture on his way to the door, shouting, “Get out of my way! I have a package for the queen!”
Rude. I am not a package, I am a lady.
Somewhere along the way, I hear the unsheathing of a blade, the singing of sweet metal meeting the air, and the squelching of skin tearing. And then Frank drops me.
I land on my back with a thud that rattles all the way to my bones.
Frank collapses beside me in a motionless heap.
Above me, a dark silhouette wipes the blood off his dagger with the back of his sleeve, his face suddenly visible beneath the dim lighting.
Wait. I recognize that pompous smirk from somewhere.
“Did you follow me here?” I ask, my gaze pinned on him as I roll to a stand and shake out the pain in my shoulder blade, which had buckled upon impact. After the man doesn’t answer, I sweep my gaze back toward Frank, only to realize that he’s lying in a puddle of his own golden blood. Dead.
“Wait. You killed him?” I ask. What I fail to say is that I’m a bit disheartened I didn’t do it first. Now I simply look pathetic.
“You asked for him to be put down.” The man from the parade shrugs.
“No, I told him to put me down,” I groan.
“I must’ve misunderstood.” The stranger swipes up a pint of frothy mead from a nearby table and takes a giant swig. That’s when I realize the rest of the bar patrons are staring at us in stunned silence.
Meanwhile, my gaze oscillates between the corpse on the ground and the beautiful, infuriating idiot standing before me. “Are you crazy? Do you realize what the Divine Army will do to you now?” I hiss.
The stranger leans against the bar and raises a brow, as if I’m the one who’s overreacting.
“Don’t pretend like you weren’t thinking of doing that yourself,” he drawls.
“I could see it all over your pretty little face that you wanted him dead.” He drops his pint and shrugs.
“I was doing you a favor. You’re welcome, by the way. ”
I ball up my fists. “You need to get the hell out of here before the Divine Army bleeds you out.”
“Don’t you mean we need to get out of here, considering how you are now an accomplice to murder?” he asks, snagging an uneaten bread roll from a nearby plate and biting down into it.
I dig my heels into the ground. “Are you kidding me? I had nothing to do with this!”
“Oh yeah?” he asks. “Tell that to them.” He jerks his chin toward the bar patrons, who have since gathered amongst the shadows with their metaphorical pitchforks and fiery accusations, looking as if they’re itching to string us up on a clothing line out back.
But none of them advance—as much as they look like they want to—likely because they’re intimidated by the sheer magnitude and size of the man standing before me, who has unknowingly become my own personal, prickly veneer of protection.
Just as I’m about to give him a mouthful…
out of the corner of my eye, I spot Sally.
She’s peeking her head out of the kitchen and staring at me with her mouth agape.
Her eyes flit down to Frank’s dead body and widen.
A beat of silence passes before she jerks her gaze back up at me, her expression softening to something that mirrors relief.
“Thank you,” she silently mouths, giving me a little nod of recognition.
I nod back, biting my lower lip. Admittedly, as much as I would love to take credit for this situation… it was not me who did this.
It was him.
“Who are you?” I ask the man through gritted teeth when Sally disappears back into the kitchen. “And why are you ruining my life?”
“I just saved your life,” he counters between sips of his drink. “The least you could do is let me finish this delectable treat.”
I rub a hand along the back of my neck, irritation causing my hair to stand on end. “You’ve done nothing to alter my fate, other than ensuring that my death will come at the hands of the Divine Army,” I remind him.
He pauses to grin at me. “That would require they catch us first.”