Chapter 19 Jealousy in Jest
Jealousy in Jest
Ragnar
Demons were staring. They always gave Ragnar looks on the rare occasion he went into the city, but Heck was busiest in the evenings, and he was not keeping to the alleys. Too many black eyes flicked over him then landed on the human who had her arm looped around his, curiosity piqued.
Then again, the staring could have been because Brioni waved and called out to every third demon, asking after family members and minor events that Ragnar would never have been able—or cared—to keep straight in his mind.
But she also squeezed his arm a little tighter or patted his elbow every few moments, and the mounting dread eased with each of her extra touches.
She didn’t take them to the Fallen Priest despite his expectation since it was closest to the post, so he decided he really shouldn’t be too pressed about the additional walk along busy roads or Brioni’s short stride slowing them down.
Eventually they reached another tavern, Hilde’s Hearth.
He wasn’t familiar with it, especially as it was nestled into the middle of a string of other businesses he had no need to visit, but when they entered the tavern’s foyer, the smell was extraordinary.
“I’ve never been here at night,” Brioni said, bouncing forward on her feet, the eagerness practically trembling through her.
Orange lanterns were strung up from the rafters, dousing everything in a warm, flickering glow, and almost every table was full.
It wasn’t as rowdy as he expected, but the din of the demons rushed over him like being dunked in water.
The constant movement from every corner was impossible to track, his gaze pinging from a boisterous card game at one table to a small band of children running circles around two seated families.
“We can go somewhere else, if you want.”
“What? No.” Ragnar turned to look at Brioni instead of the crowded tavern, and the rigidity in his body loosened. “No,” he repeated softer, blowing out a breath and focusing on the way the lanterns lit up her face. “I want to be here with you.”
She beamed up at him and pointed. “Great! There’s a table.”
It was, of course, in almost the exact middle of the place and quite small, but then everything was for Ragnar, so he couldn’t fault the tavern much.
He tried to find a comfortable position—elbows on the table, hands on his knees, arms crossed—but each felt more awkward than the last. At least Brioni looked like she belonged, tossing her curls over her shoulder as a cheery grin spread out on her pretty face.
She really was pretty. He’d known it the moment they met despite missing horns and those odd eyes, but when she was waving across the tavern and her round cheeks were rosy from so much smiling, her eyes sparkling as her sing-songy voice called a greeting, there was no doubt she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
And he needed to earn his spot across from her.
“Well, well, you finally caught one, eh?”
A red demon stood beside the table, but Ragnar hadn’t noticed her coming until she was suddenly just there. She had large, curling horns and eyes that narrowed in on him, smirk all too knowing.
Brioni’s hands shot out and gripped onto his forearm. “Ragnar’s taking me on a date. Isn’t that sweet, Hilde?”
“Is he?” She elbowed the human. “Or did you drag him here?”
“Maybe a little of both.” There was a giddy wickedness in Brioni’s laughter that made Ragnar’s tail curl around the leg of his chair.
“Be careful with this one—she can handle her blackberry wine better than you’d think.” The red demon gave Ragnar a look, one that was almost friendly, though that was so rare he didn’t dare to think it possible. “Tonight I’ve got cobgruk stew or blackened grouse. Which would you like?”
“Not the cobgruk.” Brioni stuck out her tongue.
“One grouse it is. And what about you, big boy?”
Ragnar cleared his throat, an embarrassing warmth in his face. “I’ll have what she’s having.”
Brioni hadn’t removed her hand from Ragnar’s arm, her fingers squeezing on a little tighter when Hilde walked away. “Oh, I knew she’d like you,” she whispered.
Those weren’t words Ragnar often heard either, and never in a voice so sweet, so he slipped his hand atop hers and squeezed her back.
“Nobody’s ever taken me out before,” she said, nibbling on her lip.
“You might be the one taking me out.”
“No, no, no.” She shook her head vigorously. “You asked me out, I’m here with you—in public, in front of everyone. No sneaking, no secrets.”
“Right.” Ragnar pushed his shoulders back, feeling a little admonished, then cocked his head. “Wait, no one ever took you out? But you said you’ve seen other…” He flicked his eyes to his lap and back up.
Brioni snickered. “I wasn’t allowed to go out on my own, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t find ways.
Sometimes I got to go out with the Doonovanis, and I’d meet people.
I had a couple secret…well, they weren’t boyfriends, not really.
They were boys who were…not really my friends, but they didn’t mind kissing me. What?”
Ragnar felt the hardness of his jaw and the dip to his brow, two things he’d been fighting since arriving at the post. He fixed his face as best he could and shrugged.
“You’re jealous?”
Ragnar snorted—he might not have thought much of himself, but he knew he was better than any human male. “They weren’t good to you.”
“Well, it’s tough to date a crime lord’s daughter, even a bastard one.
You make one mistake, and you might get your dingle cut off.
They all had stories about other guys it happened to, so it was important to keep things a secret.
Even Ivan said we couldn’t tell anybody because…
well, that might not be the best example. ”
He watched her eyes dim just like how they had when she’d told him stories about the walled garden and her family.
“Never mind, this is supposed to be fun,” she said suddenly, scrunching up her nose. “Just tell me you’re jealous, and you’ll kill any other man who dares talk to me.”
Ragnar’s lip curled—now that was easy. “If I even see so much as one demon’s eye flick in your direction, I’ll make them pay with their life.”
Wickedness flashed across her face. “And what will you do to me if I decide to flirt a little with, say, that demon over there at the bar?”
Ragnar didn’t bother to look where she pointed—he needed no more incentive. “I’ll remind you who you really belong to by—”
“Oh, Micha, hey there!” Brioni pulled her hands into her lap, smile turning sweet as she eyed the demon who appeared at their table.
It took Ragnar a moment to regain his bearings, but he quickly realized the demon who could be no more than twelve wasn’t a threat.
He carried two dishes, announcing dinner was served in a cracking voice and giving Ragnar a grin.
Children didn’t do that usually, but then children rarely had patches of gray skin on their otherwise red faces.
“And two blackberry wines. Careful, you two,” warned Hilde as she placed the cups down and then took Micha by the shoulders lovingly before walking him away. Two tails swished in their wake, one red and the other gray.
Ragnar watched long after they were gone, the squeeze in his chest finally bringing him back to Brioni.
She was tentatively poking at her grouse, lip bitten and cheeks pink.
Perhaps she thought it was a risk to bring him here, to show him something he had lost, to try and convince him things might be different now.
He let his tail slip under the table and caress the side of her leg because there weren’t any words that could properly express how he felt.
Dinner was delicious, but every sudden move or cheer in the tavern had Ragnar flinching as he did his best to not catch the eye of other patrons.
Brioni distracted him by prodding gently at the history he had hinted at before, and this time the answers came easily.
When she asked about Aesiphon, the beastkeeper he had apprenticed under, it for once felt good to remember the elder he hadn’t gotten enough time with.
Ragnar even found himself laughing as he recalled a trick Aesiphon had played on the guard when he replaced all the veilhounds with kewniqs and insisted that was their true form.
Ragnar never forgot he was surrounded by demons, but miraculously, time passed without any horrific occurrences besides their plates emptying.
Ragnar chalked it up to sitting across from the most beautiful thing in the tavern, and when Brioni slipped her foot out of a shoe and teased at his leg with her toes, he found it almost impossible to think of anything other than getting the rest of her undressed.
“Not here,” he warned even as a smile crept up the side of his face.
“I know a place we can go,” she said when the food was gone, and she looped her arm through his once more to hustle him out of the tavern and away from the busier roads.
They ended up at Perennial Bloom Apothecary, a place Ragnar knew even if he rarely visited.
The shop was closed, but Brioni knocked anyway, and a sleepy-looking Kizros answered, glasses askew.
He blinked several times through Brioni’s request to access the greenhouse then rubbed at his face once he realized Ragnar was looming there beside her. “Oh, hi.”
Ragnar nodded. “Kizros.”
“This is…” he looked from one of them to the other. “Honestly, not all that surprising. Go on, the door’s unlocked. I’ll let Tim know it’s all right you’re here. And if you hear Aofe scream? No, you didn’t.”
“Shouldn’t we help her if she’s screaming?” Ragnar asked Brioni in a hushed tone after Kizros had disappeared upstairs.
Brioni’s stifled laughter erupted as she tugged him into the greenhouse. “Depends on if she’s invoking the gods or not.”
Huh…maybe all humans are that deviant…