Chapter 3 #2
For the next few hours, I barely had time to breathe.
The orders flew, the drinks flowed, and the crowd seemed to be in reasonably good spirits, if a bit on edge with all the talk of tension between humans and Idrians.
It was around seven when I paused behind the bar to take a sip of water, and Seamus—the wolf-shifter bartender—pulled me aside for a moment.
“Don’t worry too much about it,” he said without preamble, looking weirdly sympathetic. “It’ll all die down within a week or two. But if anyone gives you trouble or makes you uncomfortable, you know I’ll have them thrown out.”
Wait, what?
I eyed him quizzically. “What did I miss?”
His head tilted exactly like a curious dog’s might. “Well, if they haven’t been bothering you, I’m not going to be the one to spread rumors.”
“Seamus…” I narrowed my eyes threateningly. “You absolutely cannot say something like that and then not tell me what the heck is going on.”
He gazed back at me with perfect innocence. “Says who?”
“Probably the Geneva Convention,” I muttered, folding my arms. “Now give. What am I not supposed to worry about?”
He jerked one thumb towards the rest of the room. “That.”
My eyes darted to the side, and I suddenly realized that half the room was staring at me. Their gazes darted away the moment they saw me watching, but it was too late.
“Have they been like that all night?”
“More or less.”
I’d just been too busy to notice. “Any idea why?”
“Terror? Fascination? Sudden romantic interest?” He winked.
I glared back.
“Hey, don’t blame the messenger. They know you’re dangerous now. They want to know where you fit around here. Some of them probably want to challenge you, but they’re too scared.”
“And some of them,” I returned slowly, “are remembering that I’m human. With all the tensions, they want to know where my sympathies lie.”
From the look on Seamus’s face, I knew I was right, but that he’d hoped I wouldn’t figure it out.
“Look, it’s not that many, and I’m shutting down the speculation whenever I hear it. They should know better than to think that Faris would employ anyone who wasn’t committed to keeping things peaceful in his city.”
Should. As if that ever had anything to do with reality.
“Thanks for the warning,” I said, hiding my frustration behind a nod of gratitude and a cheerful smile. “I need to get back out there, but don’t worry. I’m fine.”
His lips twisted and his eyebrow quirked to inform me that he didn’t quite believe me, but the drink orders were piling up and we didn’t have time to argue.
I bustled off to take orders from a table of trolls seated near the front door, then snagged a tray to clear a table full of glasses left by a party of slightly inebriated pixies.
Make that more than slightly. There were only three of them, but by the time I finished clearing their table, I had fourteen half-empty glasses on my tray, along with a half-dozen plates and a small mountain of used napkins.
The pixies were giggling and swaying with the music as they headed towards the dance floor, and I made a mental note to tell Seamus they shouldn’t be served any more drinks unless we wanted the tables to start growing roots.
Someone tapped my arm just as I picked up the full tray, so I shifted it onto my shoulder before turning around.
The man standing behind me was a stranger—about six foot two, with a trim build, dreamy dark eyes, and a knowing smirk on his face.
Probably just another smarmy but harmless flirt, I decided, as he looked me up and down while still wearing that same smirk. Unfortunately, then he opened his mouth and turned into a complete troll.
Figuratively. All the actual trolls I knew were super nice people, so I really needed to amend that part of my vocabulary.
“Hey there, sweetheart.”
Oh no he did not.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure what turned me off more—the “sweetheart” or the uneven patch of caterpillar fuzz growing on his top lip.
“You look like fire and ice, all wrapped up in a pretty little package,” he purred. “How about a dance? I could buy you a drink? And then we can decide if you wanna keep waiting tables or get out of here with a man who actually appreciates you.”
Okay, look. I have a lot of flaws. When I feel helpless or embarrassed, I tend to argue when I shouldn’t. And when someone is a complete and total arsehat?
Sometimes I lose my temper.
“Fire and ice?” I repeated slowly, noticing a little distantly that the entire room had gone dead quiet. Even the drunk pixies seemed to have realized something was up, because they were huddled together a few yards away, the glow from their skin and hair muted with dismay.
“You want fire and ice?”
Clearly, the man was an idiot, because instead of catching a clue, his smile widened.
“I’ll take whatever you want to give me, baby.”
Baby.
In a dreamy haze, I lifted the tray off my shoulder. It tilted dangerously, then spilled its entire load onto the floor at my feet. I barely noticed. I’d already gripped it in both hands and shifted my weight.
“Then here’s your fire,” I ground out, and swung, putting every bit of my frustration behind the upward trajectory of the tray.
It connected with his face, and something crunched. The would-be Romeo squealed like an outraged pig and clapped both hands to his nose as I let the tray clatter to the floor.
Fun fact? When you get hit in the nose, your eyes tear up and slam shut.
So he never saw the hook kick that took him behind the knee and sent him toppling to the floor, where he crashed into the fallen plates and glasses.
I heard another crunch as something broke, then he rolled to his back, still howling in pain, eyes slitted open and searching wildly for the next attack.
“And here,” I spat, “is your ice.”
As if it had only been awaiting my call, my elemental magic rose up and seized the water that had splashed on the floor when I tilted the tray.
Before my target even had time to flinch, it became a barrage of wickedly pointed icicles that sliced between us to hover menacingly about an inch from my would-be seducer’s face.
The scream cut off abruptly as his eyes tried to bug out of his head. Blood ran down his chin to drip on the floor, and in the ensuing silence I suddenly heard the sound of clapping.
Slow, deliberate, and somehow unmistakably sarcastic.
The entire confrontation had taken only a few seconds, so I knew it wasn’t Faris, though he was undoubtedly on his way. And the sound was coming from behind me, so I also knew it couldn’t be Seamus, or any of the other startled patrons currently staring at me with their mouths open.
I wasn’t quite ready to deal with another idiot—I was too busy cataloging the damage and wondering how much trouble I was going to be in—so I didn’t bother to turn around.
Until I heard the voice.
“Well. That was certainly instructive.”
I’d never heard it before, and yet…
“Apparently, there are more than a few things my children have failed to mention lately.”
No. There was no way my luck was this terrible. No way fate hated me this much.
I turned towards the front door, with my face frozen in what was probably an expression of pure horror.
The woman standing just inside The Portal appeared middle-aged.
She looked like a Valkyrie come to life—over six feet tall, with broad shoulders, and her long, silver-blonde hair in a braid as thick as my wrist. Her amber eyes shot daggers at me, while the smaller blonde woman beside her merely appeared curiously amused.
It was with an absolute rush of relief that I heard Faris making his way through the crowd behind me, greeting our visitors as he approached.
“Lady Tairen, Lady Skye. Welcome to Oklahoma City. I regret”—he glanced at the broken glass, the spilled drinks, and the man still groaning on the floor—“that you have arrived at such a chaotic moment. Perhaps if you’d bothered to inform me of your arrival…”
“Are you suggesting,” the newcomer replied coolly, “that I must ask for permission to visit my own daughter?”
Yep. My eyes slammed shut for a moment as I contemplated the brevity of life and the ephemeral nature of existence.
Namely, my existence.
Because the woman currently trying to stab me with her eyes?
Tairen-li-Corva. Former queen of the dragons. Possibly the scariest dragon alive, considering she was the only one I knew of who had actually eaten someone.
And also, Callum’s mother.
Looked like I wasn’t going to be getting that nap anytime soon.