Page 1 of Date Knight (Roll for Romance #2)

Yorick Proudhollow

Y orick Proudhollow pressed his dagger into the cleric’s neck, his arm pinning her against the stone wall. It wasn’t often that he got to be the group’s muscle, and even less often that he was evenly matched with his opponent.

“Yorick!” Morgana reached for his shoulder, but he shrugged her off. She stepped back in line with the others who looked on in horror, not helping Yorick, but not stopping him either.

“She knows something,” Yorick hissed. “Don’t let her fool you.”

The cleric, a gnome just an inch or two taller than Yorick, was putting on a good show, her eyes wide in a show of fear, her hands pressed flat to the crumbling brick behind her, her mouth trembling.

To be fair, he’d gotten in a good few hits before the others had caught up to him.

But it was warranted; he’d seen the tattoo of a twelve-pointed star peeking out of her tunic back at the tavern.

The amulet around her neck and the holy tunic and the smell of incense wouldn’t fool him, even if the rest of his party was convinced she was innocent.

If he weren’t certain, he wouldn’t have chased her out.

And if she weren’t guilty, she wouldn’t have run.

They’d been hunting The Twelve for months now, trying to work out who was behind them.

They knew it wasn’t the Queen’s adviser Lord Arnault or his minions; Yorick and his friends had defeated him.

But in the aftermath of what they’d hoped was the final battle, as they’d mourned the friends and fellow adventurers they’d lost, Yorick had received a letter, supposedly from his long-dead mother, with a twelve-pointed star stamped into the wax.

Yorick instantly went into a frenzy trying to solve the mystery. They’d sent him the letter. They’d targeted him . And though he’d confirmed his father’s and younger siblings’ safety, he didn’t like being baited. Used.

Weeks later, having exhausted every lead they had, one finally panned out; the delivery boy who had brought the letter had been handed it by a woman in a pub with a “weird sparkly star tattoo”.

And after staking out the pub for days, Yorick had watched an unfamiliar gnome stand up to leave, her cloak catching on her top just long enough to show the outline of a twelve-pointed star.

“Tell me what you know about The Twelve,” Yorick demanded now, using his free hand to hold the wax seal, long dislodged from the letter, to the young woman’s face. He was trying to be intimidating, something he didn’t often attempt due to his stature, but she seemed unfazed.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she insisted, closing her eyes and wincing away from Yorick’s blade, which pressed so hard into her neck that her skin yielded. If he slid it even a fraction of an inch, he would draw blood.

“Liar!” he spat.

“Yorick, maybe let’s take a beat,” Calamity said, and that made him pause.

The rest of the party– the honourable Ser Liam Prize, ex-Queen’s Guard Captain Morgana, Gorlag the barbarian, and their newest initiate, the druid Eden– could be a bit too restrained sometimes.

But Calamity was a trigger-happy, pyromaniac, half-demon sorcerer.

If she didn’t approve of what he was doing, maybe he should reconsider.

But he didn’t get the chance.

The cleric must have seen his resolve waver, because the slightest of smirks tugged at her upper lip. Yes, he thought. I knew it.

But at that same moment, Yorick felt a nudge at his feet as thorns erupted from the ground, twisting around his legs and his torso, holding him in place.

A look of confusion crept over the cleric’s expression, which spread instantly to Yorick– why was she confused?

Had she not been the one to cast the spell?

– but before he could figure it out, the roots reached Yorick’s hands, causing them to tense, dragging the blade across the cleric’s skin just enough to nick her artery.

It took six long seconds for the cleric to die.

Yorick remained trapped in place, and the cleric trapped beneath him, watching in horror as the blood drained from her neck and the light from her eyes, until the spell holding him ceased as suddenly as it had taken over him, the roots withdrawing into the gaps between the paving stones.

But by then it was too late. Yorick dropped to his knees to catch the cleric’s body as it fell.

“What’s wrong with all of you?” he yelled at his friends as he cradled it. “Why didn’t you help?”

“Did you not do that on purpose?” Liam asked, rushing over to place his hands on the wound, but none of his divine healing magic made an ounce of difference. The cleric was dead.

“Of course not,” Yorick spat. He looked over his shoulder at the others, who stood there in horror. His eyes landed on Eden, whose hands hung limply at her sides. He could still see the remnants of her druidic magic pulsing over them.

“You did this!” he shouted, his face hot with anger.

“You were going to kill her, clearly!”

“My hand was steady until your godsforsaken roots got a hold of me!”

He watched as the colour drained from Eden’s face as she realised what he meant, then rushed to the ground next to Yorick. But no matter how much magic she and Liam channelled into the body, the life force had already dissipated.

“No!” Yorick wailed as he turned on Eden, pushing her away. “I had her right where I wanted her! She smirked at me! She was giving away the game!”

“What was it you thought you saw?” Calamity asked, helping the elf to her feet.

“She had a twelve-pointed star tattooed on her shoulder. I saw it in the pub.”

Calamity and Morgana exchanged a loaded glance. They didn’t believe him.

“Go on,” Yorick said, pointing at the body. “See for yourself.”

Calamity nodded at Liam, who gingerly sat the cleric up and drew back her cloak. She was wearing a loose-fitting tunic underneath, which he pulled to one side to expose her shoulder.

As they pulled back the fabric, they revealed one point, then three, then five, until they could see the tattoo in its entirety.

Just as Yorick had known, it was a twelve-pointed star that perfectly matched the seal in his hand.

And now that he looked at it more closely, the tattoo seemed to shimmer in the warm evening light.