Chapter 11 #2
“Save your righteousness.” He snorted. “I didn’t see you fighting for the rights of the thralls your father owned.” His lips brushed my ear, his voice low and rough. “Oh right, it was because we had dark hair and eyes. We don’t count in your fight for justice, do we?”
“This is different!”
“How?” he sneered. “How is it different? You know nothing about my capture, or what they did to us in the thralls’ lodgings. But you didn’t want to know, did you? Stayed willfully ignorant to what was right in front of you.”
My hands rolled into balls, his censure coloring my cheeks.
I hadn’t cared if my father retained thralls, or what happened to them behind closed doors.
I never wondered about their lives before being captured or the families they left behind.
To me they were treated well and had positions inside the king’s castle. What more could they want?
But seeing my people being treated like that, sold like cattle, made me sit in an uncomfortable realization. The world I was taught, believed in, and shown was all through the privileged eyes of my station.
The Night Raven directed the horse toward a building with the word Inn carved on the metal sign. Boisterous voices spilled out with the warm light from oil lamps from the open doors and windows. The temperatures were cool, but still milder compared to the snowy region I was from.
“We’ll get something to eat here. Hopefully a place to sleep too.” The Northerner slipped off the horse, dropping to the ground, leading the fanged creature to a water trough.
“Here?” I watched as men and women drunkenly stumbled in and out of the inn. Their loud, crass language and boorish appearance kept me sitting on the horse, skittish and overcome.
The Northerner unhooked the saddlebag, flipping the bag full of stolen weapons over his shoulder, the scythe on his back. He took steps for the door, stopping when I wasn’t instantly behind him.
“What’s wrong, my lady.” He used the title mockingly. “Feeling out of your element?”
Huffing, I tilted up my chin, sliding down the horse to my feet, my borrowed boots sinking deep into muck. The stench of horse manure burned my nose.
“Great.” I sighed, and teeth snapped out, nipping at my arm. “Huginn-Muninn!” I yelped, hopping out of reach from the draugrhest. The horse nickered.
My lids lowered at the creature’s frightening face. “That how it’s going to be?” I muttered to myself. “Fine.” My irritation was replaced with an overzealous smile. “Oh, Fluffy,” I patted the horse’s head, speaking in a baby voice. “Who’s the adorable little pony? That’s right, you are.”
Horses had extremely high intelligence. Their connection with their rider could be closer than any other relationship, communicating through noises and body signals.
There was no doubt the horse understood me.
Its lids lowered on me, and it exposed its fanged teeth, like we had truly just become rivals.
“Such a scary pony, aren’t you, Mr. Fluffal,” I cooed, rubbing its nose, before I leaped out of the way of its sharp teeth, his hoof stomping at me.
With a wicked grin, I wriggled my fingers at it, following the Night Raven to the inn.
“What was that?” The Northerner peered between us.
“Nothing.” I shrugged. “Just something between me and Fluffy.”
He blinked at me. “Did you just call him Fluffy?”
“Or Fluffal. Still deciding.”
“It is a draugrhest!” he exclaimed, motioning back to the frightening beast. Pools of black ink reflected back at me with abhorrence.
“So, Mr. Fluffal?”
The Northerner ran a hand down his face, exhaling. A few drunken men strolled out of the inn, peering over at me, quickly shifting his demeanor.
Grabbing my cloak, he tugged it higher over my face, his cruel disposition back in place. “I hope I don’t have to remind you to keep your hood up, and don’t draw attention.”
I was in a provoking mood tonight.
“Why should I?” I challenged. “Why should I listen to the man who has abducted me? Who would love for me to silently and obediently follow him back to his king?”
“Like I could be so lucky. Silent and obedient are the two things you are not.”
“Why start now?” I stepped up to him, taunting him. “Drawing attention might be the very thing to save me from you.”
He tilted his head, countering my step, his body flush against mine.
“There is no saving yourself from me, kanin.” He kept his voice low and calm, his statement heating my skin.
“I don’t know how many ways I need to say this.
This is not your kingdom. No one here will help you.
” He reached up, tucking a loose strand into my hood.
His touch felt like a jolt, both threatening and intimate at the same time.
“All you will do is become one of those girls on their knees, being sold for auction.” His thumb ran over my bottom lip, his gaze on my mouth, rushing heat into my bones.
“The only job you will have cleaning . . . is their knob.” He curved around and headed inside.
The king didn’t raise me to be foolish; that was a freedom Sarina could partake in. She was good at dragging me to the cusp, but I could never fully let go. That was not my duty. My role in life. I had to be sensible.
Which angered me to no end right now.
I understood the Northerner was right; this place had shown nothing but cruelty and heartlessness. Yet everything in me still wanted to defy him like no one I had ever met before, my stubbornness tipping the scales, wanting to outweigh common sense.
Tell him to fuck off. To turn to the nearest person and scream for help.
Another group of men brushed by me, their gazes leering, their dark features latching onto the silver strand tumbling back out of my hood.
“Look at the pretty thing we have here . . .” The man’s drunken breath blew into my face, his gaze hungrily moving down my figure.
Once again, I noticed the tint of indigo in his irises, the color sharpening under the torchlight from the building.
He leaned in. “You looking to make a few extra coin?”
Stick with the devil you know.
Pushing past them, I ran after the Northerner, stepping into the public house.
Instantly, my senses were assaulted by crushing abuse.
The pungent odors, the sheer volume of boisterous voices—yelling, laughing, and talking—punched down my throat and buzzed in my head.
The surprise of seeing not just Shadow Rifters and Night Ravens, but Day Ravens in the pub as well.
Their white hair sprinkled like snowflakes among the darkness, lifting drinks and sharing tables with the enemy.
It was instinct to want to run to them, to tell them who I was. They were duty-bound to help me, right?
My intuition told me the Northerner was right. They did not live here because they liked King Stallard.
No one would help me here.
The stuffy room was packed with people who didn’t seem to have any understanding of personal space, crowding together, bumping, and knocking into me. The smell of body odor, ale, and burnt barley had my mouth gaping like a fish, trying to keep the sharp aromas from coating my tongue.
Lanterns dimly glowed in the room, defining the long community tables, low arched ceilings, and large fireplace cooking with pots. A meat I couldn’t distinguish rolled on the spit.
My father loved to throw festivities, the gala room teeming with lords and ladies, but when my handmaidens and I moved through a room, everyone parted ways, clearing space for me. My guards always made sure they were a boundary between me and them.
Here, I was drowning in a sea of people, sinking to the depths.
Like a fishing line, an arm cut through the figures and hooked around my wrist, yanking me from the abyss. The Night Raven hauled me to him, his gaze rolling over me, noting the way my chest huffed in and out, perspiration lining my forehead.
“Calm down.” His jaw strained, a frown forming on his lips. “And stay close to me.” His only words of comfort before moving us deeper into the room. The man was so large and intimidating, people scrambled out of his way, crafting a bubble of safety in his wake.
The panic attack lingered, but oddly, his huge figure and the firmness of his fingers around my arm made me feel protected, like I was a parasite fish, benefiting from hanging out with a predator.
“Sit,” he ordered, pushing me to the only vacant stool at the end of a long table. I dropped down, my bones aching from riding all day. Everything hurt. The wound in my arm throbbed, my stomach howled, and every muscle in my body cried in pain.
The Northerner turned to a man sitting on a stool, his teeth baring. “Get up.”
“What?” The man’s eyes widened, peering up at the beast hovering over him.
“I. Said. Get. Up.” He pushed up his sleeves like he was getting ready to fight, displaying the tattoos covering his arms. The man’s attention went to them, his throat bobbing. He scrambled up, abandoning his seat without hesitation.
Confusion wrinkled my brow as the Northerner grabbed the stool and sat down, staying close to me.
“What was that?” I asked.
“What?”
“Why did that man react that way?” I nodded in the direction he’d disappeared into the crowd. “You didn’t even touch a weapon or threaten him.”
“Because others are smart enough to be terrified of who I am.” He leaned in so I could hear him over the noise, his obsidian eyes reflecting the blaze of the fire behind me, making him look menacing. A demon come to life. “They know my reputation. What I am capable of.”
“Am I supposed to be terrified of you?” I forced my eyes to go big, batting my lashes. “Oh, I’m sooo scared.”
In a blink, like a snake striking out, his hand wrapped around my throat, wrenching me to him. I went still, my muscles locking up.
“You should be, kanin,” he rumbled, his gaze embedding into mine, his thumb sliding over my pulse. “Or I will have to try harder. Make sure you are.”