7. Chapter 7 The Hen #2
Sif slid into the bench across from me and put her elbows on the table. She looked around the room, taking it in, the low ceiling and the trestle tables and the hearth and the man at the bar who hadn't looked up from his bread.
"I can see why you like it here. It's comfortable. It feels like a real place where real people live."
"It is a real place where real people live. That's the whole appeal. After everything that happens out there, it's nice to have a room where the biggest decision is eggs or porridge."
"And whether to remove Brenna’s pants or not."
"That’s a bad thing?"
Sif tilted her head. "She's beautiful and confident. She doesn't waste motion. I respect that in a woman."
"You said that about her the first time you saw her."
"I say it again because it's still true. Also, she has very nice forearms."
"You're looking at the serving woman's forearms. Why her forearms?"
"I look at everyone's forearms. It's the first place you can tell if someone knows how to use their hands." She turned her attention back to me and her blue eyes settled and held. "Speaking of hands. You and Liv came back from the fletcher yesterday looking like you'd been caught stealing."
I picked up the water Brenna had left and drank. "We bought arrows. We definitely paid."
"Liv's face was flushed and her hair wasn’t as pristine as it was before her trip with you to get her precious arrows. I've seen guilty faces in every city from here to the capital and yours was in the top five. Something naughty happened."
I laughed. "Nothing happened."
"Daniel. I called her a whore on your way out the door and neither of you flinched. Something happened."
I didn't have a good answer for that. I looked at the table.
Sif laughed. "I'm not asking for details. I saw the faces and I drew my own picture. It's a nice picture. I'm happy for you both."
"Are you really?"
"Why wouldn't I be? She's wanted you since before I joined the party. Dragging you behind a building or in a closet shows you how hot she is for you."
"What makes you think it was behind a building?"
"Because Liv doesn't have the patience for a bedroom." Sif sat back and crossed her arms and looked incredibly pleased with herself. "Am I wrong?"
I took another drink of water and didn't answer. Sif's grin got wider.
“You are wrong. It wasn’t behind a building. It was behind some crates in an alleyway.”
“I knew it. Glorious. I said I didn’t want details, but that is a lie. Tell me.”
“I don’t kiss and tell.”
“We’re a party and we share these sorts of things. Do tell. I demand it.”
“Oh, you demand it? I bet you always get what you want.”
“Damn right, I want to know the details. Spill.”
“Liv would kill me if she knew I told you.”
“Ha, that’s rich. Liv is as open as they come. She fucked Brenna right in front of me at our apartment drinking party only days ago. I’m going to find out what happened from her if you don’t tell me. I would prefer for you to tell me.”
“Why do you want to hear it from me so bad?”
“I want to hear filth from your mouth. Don’t deny me.” Sif kicked my shin under the table.
“Ouch.”
“Don’t be a baby, tell me!”
“All right, all right. We were on our way to get the supplies she needed. She pulled me down an alleyway and pushed me against the wall behind some crates.”
“Don’t stop now. Tell me the explicit details.”
“You’re so bad.”
“That has been established on several occasions. Talk.”
“We kissed. She pulled my trousers down and gave me a blow job.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere. More details.”
“More? She fingered herself while she sucked my cock.”
“Gods, yes. How is she at sucking cock?”
“Pretty damn good.”
“I bet there were sticky wet noises when she fingered her pussy. Am I right?”
“Yeah, definitely. Listen, I’m reliving this in my head and I really don’t want a boner right here at the breakfast table.”
“You might flip the table over.”
“That’s a possibility. It was certainly a highlight of my fairly ordinary life.”
“Damn you, Daniel. I’m going to have to change my panties. They are getting drenched. It’s my fault. I asked for the details.”
“Sif. You have no filter at all. That isn’t helping my boner either. Let’s change the subject, please.”
Sif poked out her lower lip. “If we must.”
Brenna came back with two plates. Eggs and thick bacon and a heel of dark bread with butter on the side. She set them down with the quick, sure motion of a woman who'd done this ten thousand times and set two mugs of coffee beside them.
"Eat. You look like you need it." Her hazel eyes were direct, no hedging, no buildup. "You said you cleared Cold Hollow? The whole thing?"
"Four depths and a boss. The boss was a nightmare, this enormous creature called a Brood Mother. Sif nearly died."
"He's exaggerating." Sif cut a piece of bacon without looking up. "I was mostly dead. There's a difference."
"There is not a difference," I said. "You had broken ribs and internal bleeding and you weren't breathing right. I had to cross the entire chamber to get to you."
"And he did just that, Brenna. My hero." Sif put her hand over her heart and batted her eyelashes. The performance lasted about two seconds before her face broke into a grin.
Brenna's hazel eyes moved between us, reading the dynamic quickly and thoroughly. "You two are something together."
"We're a handful," I said.
"He's a handful," Sif said. "I'm a delight."
Brenna pulled the empty chair out and sat. She folded her arms in front of her and looked at me with the same steady directness she had since I arrived.
"I'm glad you're okay," she said. "Both of you. The dungeon runs make me nervous. Every time you walk out that door for one of those, I think about it until you walk back in."
"That means a lot. Seriously. I don't want you worrying about me, but I appreciate it. We've got a good team. Bjorna keeps us alive and Nott drops fire on everything that moves and Liv shoots anything Nott misses."
"And Sif?"
"Sif stabs things and makes jokes about it. She bounces off the walls too."
"Accurate." Sif picked up her fork and went back to the eggs. "I'm the comic relief with sharp objects."
Brenna stood. "I need to get back to work. But you two should come in more. Both of you. It's good to see friendly faces in here."
"We'll make it a point. Thank you for the food, Brenna. It's as good as I remember."
She squeezed my shoulder on the way past, her hand quick and warm, and then she was back at the bar, moving between tables with the tray on her forearm.
Sif tracked Brenna across the room. "She cares about you."
"I care about her. Brenna's been part of my life here since the beginning. She was one of the first people in Halver's Reach who treated me like I belonged."
Sif nodded. She forked a piece of egg and chewed it and was quiet for a few seconds, which was unusual for her.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Depends on whether it's another question about my blow job."
"It's not." She set her fork down and picked up her coffee. "When did you know this was what you wanted? The party, the healing, the beastkin quarter, all of it. When did it stop being something that happened to you and start being something you chose?"
I thought about it. "I'm not sure it was one moment.
It just kept going. I'd heal someone and they'd walk out better than they walked in and it felt right.
And then Bjorna showed up and the party became a real thing and people in the quarter started coming to the clinic because they heard I'd help them when no one else would.
It just became my life. I didn't plan any of it. "
"That's what's strange about you. You didn't plan it.
You just did it." She drank her coffee, watching me over the rim.
"Most people from capital families, from wealthy families, they plan everything.
Every relationship is transactional. Every friendship has an angle.
My mother's entire social circle operates that way. I grew up watching it."
"Is that why you left?"
"That's part of it. The other part is that I was bored out of my mind and I wanted to stab things with daggers."
"Both valid reasons."
"My mother doesn't agree. She thinks I'm wasting my potential sitting in a frontier town playing adventurer.
She sends letters." Sif rolled her eyes, but the gesture didn't land all the way.
"Long letters. Detailed letters. Letters with suggestions about who I should be seen with and where I should be living. "
"You don't strike me as someone who follows suggestions."