32 #2
He eyes me, chewing on a stalk of hay. “This ain’t a dance hall, lassie. Five rounds before ye even touch my champion.” He glances at the soldier. “And this ain’t for—well, for women.” He nods at the solider who’s trailed me like a wolf pup his mother.
“Not for women, huh?” I tilt my head. “Thought Avandal was all about freedom and equality. Or do you still keep your females locked up for breeding, like they do in Palisandre?”
A howl of laughter rolls through the crowd. The faun frowns. “Ye talk too much, lass.”
“Yeah, rather have me sign up for a knitting class like a decent little female? Write my name down, or I’ll mount your horns on my wall,” I tell him sweetly, batting my lashes. “Or maybe shove one where the sun doesn’t shine. Don’t care if your dad was a minotaur—or was that your mom?”
The crowd howls. The faun only growls.
“That mouth would put a sailor to shame,” someone mutters.
“Oh, it does more than that,” I say, flashing the blond soldier a wink. “Five fights, then your boy. Winner takes all. Or are you all scared of a little girl with a wicked tongue?”
An elf behind me—bare-chested, bleeding, and drunk—snorts. “Maybe I’ll shut up that mouth of hers,” he drawls. One of the losers. One I need to fight to climb up the ladder. “Put that wicked tongue to a better use.” The dickhead has the nerve to grab my ass.
All the men laugh as I swat his hand away.
“Yeah? I doubt that, because I bet the only big thing about you is your ego.”
The laughter grows louder.
The elf turns red, his eyes turning to slits. “Watch it, bitch.”
I bite my tongue to keep from correcting him and telling him that I’m a witch . Instead, I shrug and let out another dramatic sigh and wriggle my damn juicy ass at him. “My bad. I’m way too clumsy to be around fragile masculinity, it seems.”
“You should watch that mouth or I’ll fuck it, bitch,” he snarls back.
“Wow, big man. Original, calling me bitch twice. Say it again—maybe you’ll grow a second brain cell. And well, as for your…offer. That would imply you have something hard to offer in the first place. And I bet it’s neither your dick nor your swing.”
Right, there we are. Trust the arrogance of fae men.
He roars, then he swings.
Wrong move.
I sidestep, hook his knee, send him sprawling. “Just how I like my men,” I purr, “on their knees.”
He gets up and charges again. I dodge with an elegant sidestep that would have made my mothers proud, then kick out his kneecap and make him fall again.
I laugh for a second as he glowers up at me before my fist cracks across his jaw. He drops cold.
Silence follows for a heartbeat, then the room erupts in cheers. Some even start slamming their tankards on the table.
I grin, flexing my knuckles. “So that’s what a girl has to do to get in a proper brawl around here.” I turn to the faun. “Convinced yet, horny?”
He grunts. “Ye’ve got four more.”
“Good boy,” I grin. “Write down Morrigan .”
The greatest queen of the witches. They won’t know the name. Witches’ legends don’t reach this far. But it feels good on my tongue.
“Alright,” I say, rolling my shoulders, turning to the crowd. “Who’s next? Anyone else who thinks a woman is some kind of plaything you can grope at with your dirty hands?”
“Why don’t you crawl back to the kitchens where you belong, girl? Plenty of floors need scrubbing.”
The brute lumbers forward, all muscle and swagger, long hair hanging into his eyes. He shoves it back with a practiced flick, flexing his arm as if on instinct, flashing a wide grin at a cluster of girls in the corner. Poor things—he looks like the sort of man who jerks off to his own reflection.
The tavern erupts. Tankards slam against tables. Someone whoops.
I smile. For the first time in weeks. Maybe months. And it’s a real smile—slow, sharp, and entirely unkind—as I take him in from boots to pumped-up biceps. Because if there’s one thing a witch loves more than anything else, it is the promise of blood in abundance.
“Oh?” I ask sweetly. “Are you the one I’m supposed to wipe the floor with?”
The noise dips, just a fraction. They want to hear this.
I tilt my head, considering him. “Because I swear,” I continue, voice carrying clean and clear over the room, “once I’m done with you, those rancid floorboards are going to shine.”
For a heartbeat, there’s silence.
Then the tavern explodes with cheers and laughter. The brute’s confident grin falters just a little at my reaction. Clearly not what he expected, poor boy.
It withers completely when I step close and murmur so softly only he can hear, “You know, I might return to my hearth in the morning. Because I eat men like you for breakfast—and spit out the bones.”
Then my fist snaps out.
***
Of course I end up with the gold. And to my credit, I stuck to my word. The floorboards do shine—with his blood.
Now I sit slouched over the bar, cooling my swollen eye with a pint of ice-cold beer. Around me, The Drunken Kelpie hums with music and laughter.
By the end of the rounds, the whole tavern had drawn closer to watch and bets had been placed, on me and on him. At least the blond elf managed to land one solid blow before he, too, went down face-first.
The faun even shook my hand after, and signed me up for the real tournament next week.
I take a large swig and inhale the scent of the place deeply. The air tastes like roasted meat, sweat, and smoke. The smell of a piglet roasting away on a massive skewer over the fire makes my stomach growl.
Behind me a female bard has started to sing on a table. I recognize it as one of the old songs about a moon witch dancing with a wolf at starfall. A few people are dancing and clapping along. Hells, I love this place.
I grunt and bring the cold glass of beer to my throbbing temple. But however sweet my victory tastes, I can’t help but think that fae here fight like pampered oxen. Slow. Soft. Spoiled.
How slow the fae here are compared to the witches.
Or high fae I fought against in battles.
Palisandrean soldiers. Caryan’s soldiers.
They really kicked my ass hard a few times.
But those here in Avandal are lazy folk.
Sloppy. Even their footwork is for shit.
They make me think of cattle behind a fence, fattened for the kill.
Easy for every predator out there to poach.
If there’s really going to be another war, good luck to them all.
They’ll be slaughtered before they draw steel.
Not my problem though.
“I’ve never met a woman with a swing like that,” says a familiar voice. The blond soldier sidles up beside me.
“And I thought you’d be crying in a corner like a slapped girl.”
He scoffs but smiles, even with his split lip. “Since you robbed me of my gold, least you can do is buy me a beer, m’lady.”
I run an eye over him again. He has an easy smile, and I always had a thing for blonds. He is handsome and rugged in the way soldiers get when they’re too dumb or hard-assed to die.
“That depends what else you’ve got to offer,” I say. “I’ll pay in beer and food.”
He blinks at me, trying to piece together the woman in front of him—half lady, half brawl-born hellcat. “I guess you really only look like a lady,” he says finally.
I shrug, raising my pint, then signal the barkeep for another. “Isn’t that what men like? A lady in the streets, a slut in the sheets?” I laugh as he stares, as if recovering from a blow.
“Where are you from? Not from here,” he asks, eyeing me closer.
“Huh. Because your little fae girls don’t have the spine to say what they want?”
The horned barman puts down another pitcher, the beer running over the rim. I lean forward and lick it off.
His eyes follow the movement of my tongue. “Tell me something about you.”
“I was raised in the woods,” I say simply, because it’s true. My mothers raised me in the woods, away from my cruel Aunt Gatilla’s grip and hateful eyes, before we were ordered back to her court. Back to that evil, cold amethyst tower and nothing but barren, snow-covered wastelands.
I drown that memory with another gulp of ale.
Then I turn and look him dead in the eye.
“Listen. I’m planning on getting drunk tonight.
Proper drunk. Really damn fucking hammered.
You can share that piglet with me, drink a few rounds.
But after that, I need a good fuck. And I mean a really good fuck.
So if you can’t deliver, you’d better back off now, boy. ”
His nostrils flare at the scent of my arousal, pupils dilating. “Is that a threat?”
I don’t smile. “No. It’s a warning. I tend to get ruthless when I’m pissed off. And a waste of time pisses me off.”
His grin only widens and, to his credit, when my gaze travels down, his pants are straining against his not-quite-so-tiny manhood.
“Oh, I like ruthless,” he says. “And I promise I won’t be a waste of time.”
“Just what I wanted to hear.”
I shove a handful of gold across the bar to the tattooed faun bartender. “Two more ales. And that piglet. The whole thing.”
The barkeep doesn’t flinch—just hauls the roasted beast to the counter. The tavern falls silent for a beat, every eye on me.
I grin, tear a hunk of crackling from the piglet’s back, and toss the blond soldier a bone.
“Dig in, soldier,” I say. “And better eat fast. I’m a greedy woman.”