Chapter Eleven. A Terrible Discovery.
Eleven
A Terrible Discovery.
“Exactly where are you going?” When I don’t reply, he exhales a stream of blue smoke and pivots to face me. “My price depends on the engagement. Where are you going?”
“The Badlands,” I mumble. “I want to go to the Outpost in the Badlands.”
When he chuckles, I glare at the lobe of his left ear, and note in my peripheral vision how the brow over his pale eye arches.
“Why not Prosperitus? Closer. Safer.”
No, my reputation not only precedes me there, but is going to get me in more trouble. “Badlands. Outpost.”
“There are only outlaws there.”
“What do you think I’ll be if I make it out of here alive.” As he stares at me, I shift my weight back and forth. “Name your price.”
He draws on the wensel, and releases another cloud that glows blue even in the darkness. “One thousand emras.”
My breath leaves me in a rush. “Th-that’s a fortune.”
“Do you have any idea what is between this village and the Badlands?” The smile is cold. “Forests full of wild beasts, the Lake of Lost Souls, grylon territory. And there’s been talk of demons. This is not a leisurely stroll through the long grass.”
“In my lifetime, I will not see even a hundred emras.”
“Hm. Pity.” There’s a stretch of silence while he smokes. Then he drawls, “But it appears as if this is your lucky day.”
“That is not what I would call my present circumstance.”
“I happen to be headed to the Badlands myself.” My brief flare of relief is quickly dashed. “However, I don’t work for free under any circumstances. I have a code, you know.”
“One that’s clearly not of honor.”
“Honor doesn’t mean anything on Anathos. You’re in the process of learning that right now.”
Oh, I already knew that the first time I was shunned by someone I’d helped. “So what do you want, apart from an absurd amount of money.”
“What else do you have to offer.” His attention goes down to the hem of my cloak. And then returns to my hood, slowly, as if he’s envisioning me naked. “What else do you have that I might want, I wonder.”
My body warms in a rush, to the point where I swear the ground beneath my feet has given way to a hot spring—
Off in the distance, the crowd begins to chant.
“Your time is running out.” The mercenary tilts his head toward the lane. “What are you going to do. Leave with my help or stay here and get burned in that big fire down there.”
Tears come to my eyes and I tremble, but not because I am frightened of him or the situation I’m in.
Although both warrant fear. No, the response is because I’m a virgin, and I’ve made peace with dying one because I’ve had to.
I just never thought there’d be a chance to feel a man’s touch, a man’s lips …
a man’s body … against my own because he wanted me, and I wanted him.
The sacred mystery not overheard, but experienced.
“I’ll be gentle with you,” he says in a low, resonant voice. “What I do for a living won’t be what I bring to the bed, not with you.”
“Why,” I whisper.
“I only fight what fights against me.” His scarred dagger hand reaches out, and runs along the hooding as if it is my hair. “And you can’t hurt me.”
The crowd roars anew, and I’m reminded of what’s going on outside of this charged privacy we’ve created in the passageway. Except the bartering we’re doing over my body seems far, far more dangerous.
“I’ll get you the money,” I croak as I must turn away, not so much from him, but from myself. “Follow me—”
As I try to continue down the alley, he snags my hand and pulls me back. His palm is warm and callused, and it’s as if he touches me over my entire body, all at once.
My lips part and I stare at his mouth. “What.”
“I have to have you,” he says with urgency.
“You must be mad.”
“I am very sane.”
I gather up some of my cloak. “Are you certain you know what this is?”
“I can assure you, I do not wish to bed your woolen folds.”
He steps in to me, his body emanating a sexual energy that cannot be denied, ignored, or diminished. It’s what is under his surface, all the time, what every woman reacted to the second he walked into the pub.
“It’s quite another fold I am interested in,” he murmurs as he drops his head so his lips are by my ear, separated only by the hooding of my cloak. “A place that is warm and slick and welcoming to a male. Where I can leave something of myself behind, inside of you.”
I think of all the pleasure he’s surely given to so many females and take my arm out of his hold. Yet I can’t look away from his lips.
I sense his stare narrowing. “Why will you sell to others so easily what you will not give to me in return for a job I am very well good at? Especially when your life is in this kind of peril. I’m starting to take this personally.”
There are other ways of hurting a woman, I think to myself. And what is for him a transaction will be, for me, a piece of myself.
But do I really want to die untouched?
As I take a deep breath, I’m aware that there are two totally different negotiations taking place, and he’s only aware of the surface one. He thinks the terms are about sex, whereas I’m bartering with a bit of my soul.
“All right,” I tell him roughly. “If you take me to the Badlands, I’ll … give you what you want. But only when I say.”
His satisfied chuckle is deep in his chest, and very masculine. “Of course. I’m a mercenary, not a savage, you know.”
“Is there a difference?”
“I’ll prove it right now if you want. But there’s something to be said for discretion, don’t you think?”
My heart pounds, and I know I have to refocus. “We’ll see about that—”
As I go to take off once again, he recaptures my hand. “We have to seal the deal. It’s not official yet.”
Instead of shaking on it, however, he turns my palm over, and bends down farther, ignoring the danger we’re in. I stand transfixed as he massages the inside of my wrist with his thumb—and then presses his lips to my lifeline.
I have to close my eyes as he straightens. For the first time in my life, I can’t meet a man’s stare for a reason other than I don’t want to know his death: If I looked into this mercenary’s eyes right now, I’d burst into flames.
“Come on,” I say roughly. “I lead the way.”
I start running, following the alley farther down. The mercenary stays right behind me, his movements so silent I don’t hear him in my wake, even with all his weapons. When we get to the intersection of another alley, I pull up short and check for stragglers.
“To the right,” I say softly. “We go to the right—”
“I thought we were leaving the village.” He points over my shoulder. “The gate is back there, and now is a good time for me to overpower those two guards. They’re going to be distracted by the noise.”
I frown over my shoulder, focusing on that hard jaw. “You can’t kill them. They’re just farmers.”
“Oh, I assure you I very much can—”
“No!” I grab his arm and then retract my hand. “You won’t hurt them. I hired you and I’m in charge.”
Against the backdrop of the distant yelling, the mercenary scrums down so our heads are on the same level, and I have to look at his boots to make sure he doesn’t see inside my hood.
“They’ll kill you. Each and every one of them, including the two that are between you and what’s outside that village wall. You can be in charge all you like, but some decisions are mine and mine alone.”
Abruptly, I’m furious at him, and not just because he’s making a kind of sense that my conscience can’t live with.
I’m angry because I can’t be mad at the Fulcrum.
Or those cruel, dead boys. Or those families who are suffering and scared, but also prepared to condemn me to a brutal, public slaughter, even though I saved their bairns, and eased their pains—and had nothing to do with what happened in all that sand.
And fates, I have just become this mercenary’s whore.
I lift my chin. “We go to the right.”
That chuckle comes back, and he inclines his head like he’s humoring me. “Lead on. For the moment.”
I am more than happy to get running again. It’s a better outlet than so many others.
The cobbler’s former storefront is around the next corner, and before we make that turn, I have to force myself to stop to make sure no one is ahead. In our pause, I’m breathing hard. The mercenary looks like he’s been out for a stroll.
I feel like kicking him in the shins.
“Stay here,” I tell him.
“Why.”
“Because I said so.” Stepping out into the lane, I glare at him from under my hood. “I’ll be right back.”
Tears gather in my eyes as I tenderfoot it to Mare’s door. I don’t know how I’ll say goodbye to her—
The entry is ajar.
I glance around. Push the rickety panel open a little farther. “Mare?”
There’s a smell that registers, but my brain refuses to label it.
“Mare.”
Ordinarily, I never wait for a response from her when I come here with my herbs. I wait now, even though I am hunted. On the threshold, my heart thunders—and I know what’s happened, even before I see it—
The mercenary elbows me aside and goes in first.
His black boots leave footprints in the blood as he enters.