Page 8 of Deadly Maiden (Dragons and Darkthings #1)

Wyntre

It’s mid-morning when we stop at the small town where Bethy and Fiorn plan to sell books. They unlatch the doors and beckon me into the sunlight and down the steps. Once on firm ground, rucksack over my shoulder, I look around with my hand over my brow to shield my eyes. After two days stuck in that box, sitting on my ass, even my bones feel bruised.

Someone grabs that hand. Someone with fingers the size of?—

Oh. It’s Rorsyd, of course. He looks down at me.

I squint up at him. “Hi?”

He sighs in exasperation and drags me behind the book cart and a cart selling sausages on a stick, then into an alley that leads between brick buildings. I barely manage to wave at Bethy to show this is okay.

“What are you doing?” The snappy growl and his glare says he’d like to raze me to ashes on the spot.

“What do you mean?”

“You are extremely easy to recognize with this.” He gestures at my hair, flips a strand of it. “Your long blue hair.”

“It’s not that—” Okay it is a bit unusual if not unique, but then, I’ve never before been threatened and chased, almost arrested, and then…that slaughter.

I’m a fugitive.

Rorsyd is more of an expert on this than I am. I may not trust him entirely, but for now I will listen. I nod slowly. “What do I do?”

He purses his mouth. “We need to make you blend in.”

I study him in turn, his flame-red hair and solid build. Rorsyd’s shoulders will take out a door frame if he steers wrong. When he drops the saddlebag he carries, one-handed, it thuds and clinks on hitting the ground.

Since it’s before me, I give the bag an explorative kick. It budges not one inch. And my toe hurts.

Rorsyd raises an eyebrow.

“Ouch. What’s in there? Gold? You’re not exactly plain, either.”

The shifting colors in his eyes are surely as distinctive as my hair. Which begs the question—why did his fellow enforcers not know what he was?

Then Anathema scoots across behind him, and I’m trying to act as if nothing is there.

“We need to cut your hair and change the color.”

“Cut it? No!” Pouting, I gather some of my hair in my fist, as if to protect it. He’s right, but it’s still sacrilege. It took me years to get it this long.

“Stay here. Don’t move. I’ll get something temporary, and then we ride out of town.”

“We only just got here…” But he’s scooped up the saddlebag and is already heading to the alley entry. “Stay?” I mumble. “I’m not a trained pet.”

Also we ride ? I’ve rarely ridden a horse for longer than an hour, and my ass muscles remember my recent escape. My butt is definitely going to fall off.

Wait. Anathema is here somewhere. I cast about and find him sitting in shadow, blue eyes unblinking. A real black cat arrives between my feet, purring like a miniature bubbling kettle. It rubs itself against me as I squat to pat it. “Friendly little thing. You however,” I admonish Anathema. “Should not be out.”

As if called, he blinks then paces over, seating himself a few feet away, squishing his rear this way and that before he stills. He seems fascinated by this real cat that I’m stroking about the ears.

This is an opportunity. Rorsyd is nowhere in sight, and the market out there is bustling and in the bright of day. No one seems curious about a lone girl, way back here, patting a cat.

Gently, I pick up one of the cat’s front paws and squash it with finger and thumb to make the claws extrude. She, or he, takes my manipulations happily, still purring, smooching their forehead at my knee. “This is what you should have.”

Anathema lifts a front leg and swivels his paw. Claws, I see claws growing. I smile.

“Yes!” I whisper. “That’s it.”

They pop in and out as Anathema experiments, tilting his head. Some of them are odd in shape, but it’s a start.

The cat makes a cute blert sound then wanders off, and now I’m regretting my stupidity. I forgot to show Anathema the butthole. That’s not something I ever thought would be a priority, and I grin at the absurdity. Next cat, next time. I rise to my feet, groaning at the bruise on my hip, gained when I fell into a bookshelf corner a few hours ago, when the cart lurched.

Books, butts, and bruises. That sums up today, so far.

Of all the wounds to suffer, I have a book bruise.

I’m thankful, though, so fucking thankful I’m not worse off. And Rorsyd is why I’m not dead or with that troop—restrained and heading for Tensorga. After that, only the gods know what they intended to do with me.

The air acquires a sobering chill.

I check my surroundings to be certain no one is watching. What a wonderful place to be accosted, assaulted, or worse. The sword waits, sheathed and attached to the rucksack by the belt. I unfasten it and buckle it around my waist. I need to be ready to fucking stab someone if I have to. I roll my shoulders, contemplate the ground between my boots. I can do this.

I need to learn to be careful. To think ahead. He’s right. I lean my back against the wall, in the shadows with Anathema, so I can watch everything and everyone.

Though life is supposed to be fun too. Landos once said that. Happiness and fun. I’m building a plan, piece by piece. What else?

At the approaching shoe leather on stone, Anathema melts into the nearest piece of gloom as if he was never here.

Rorsyd. I’m relieved it is him. Actually relieved.

My life. Fun, occasionally lethal, and full of a fucking huge dragonshifter. Someone who makes me a bit giddy whenever I see him walking my way with that land-gulping swagger. He is nice on the eyes. I’m more than a little smitten with his looks if not the rest of him.

He reaches me. “Come a little further in, so I can use the scissors without drawing gawpers.”

His hand in possession of my wrist and his scent add to that giddiness. “Gawpers?”

“People who want to watch.” Our eyes meet.

“Oh. Sure.” I look away to hide what I’m feeling, how my body is reacting. This is just too much. You’d think I was in heat.

He pulls me deeper then halts and produces a large pair of scissors that shine in some stray light. They make a nasty snik-snak when he opens and closes them.

“Be very still. I’m no barber,” he murmurs as he reaches for my hair.

“Wait.” I back away, breathless, my palm up to fend him off. “I’d rather you do this in full sunlight and when we aren’t rushed or likely to be surprised.” I gulp. “Can’t we tuck it under something? I have a tie in my pocket.”

Truthfully, I don’t want any more of this touching, of him brushing against me. Not now.

I’m a fugitive, and I’m lusting after this man? Yes. Yes, I am.

I withdraw another step.

“Hmmm. You’re scared? I cut good hair.” He snik-snaks the scissors again, and a hint of a smile hovers on his big mouth, making his lips curl. “Very well. I have bought a hooded cloak, so if you can tie it up enough. That might do?”

“Yes!”

He can smile? Whoa. It’s the first time I’ve seen this.

After I tie my hair with the piece of red cord, don the cloak, and pull the hood over my head, he walks around me then nods approval.

“Just this piece escaped.” He picks up a twirl of hair before he tucks it over and behind my ear, beneath the hood. His fingers are just there . So gentle. I’m breathless again; the world silences except for the intimate sounds of his hand on my ear, of his breathing and mine, and the crunch of his boots. He is so close.

When he steps away, I’m too quiet.

“Good?” The question seems wrong, as if it has some other meaning.

“If you say so, it’s good. Let’s ride.” Fuck. Even those words twist in my mind.

If my leggings need changing, it’s not going to be due to the horse rubbing off on me. I let him go ahead. Firstly, because I don’t know where the horses are. Secondly, so I don’t have him watching my rear and giving me fantasies. Thirdly?

Thirdly is so I can admire his rear. Dayum, do all dragonshifters have hips that move like this?

He stops dead and swings so quickly I’m caught with my sights down low.

Blushing hot, I smile at him. The hood will hide the flush on my cheeks. I hope. The hood and the shadows. “Something else?” I ask, far too perkily.

“Yes.” He rummages in a pocket, draws out paper that he unfolds. It’s a poster and he taps it then lets me see it properly. “That’s you.”

The top half is a sketch of a woman with long blue hair. Stunned, I read the text below, hoping he has this wrong. She looks somewhat like me—the hair, the ears that are a little less pointy than most fae. Okay, a lot like me.

Beware of this woman, Wyntre Gothschild, sometimes known as Wyntre Diamond.

Report sightings to the Authorities, immediately. She may be accompanied by a powerfully built male with red hair who may or may not show signs of being a dragonshifter. Both are dangerous. Do not approach.

Reward of 1000 gold omi for information that leads to an arrest, alive, of the woman.

“The artist is excellent.” The reward is stupendous. I’m vaguely pleased they call me a woman not a girl. This has spoiled my mood, for which I’m both grateful and horrified.

“I saw this being pinned up, and they had more.”

“Hence the need to leave. I get it. I’ll keep my head down.”

“And don’t speak at the stables. Wait where I say to.”

“You are recognizable too,” I say as I retrieve my rucksack.

“I know.” He crams a floppy brown hat on his head, messily tucks his hair beneath, and rattles off more information as we stride along. “Nothing else was big enough for my head. One of us has to be exposed. If anything happens there, run to the horse and go north. I’ll point them out. The horses. If we have to do that, I will find you once I shake off any pursuit.”

For someone I called not quite trustworthy enough, he’s doing a lot to help me. I need to ask him questions.

Later, though.

“I can’t say thank you and goodbye to Bethy and Fiorn?”

“No time. Should’ve done that when your feet hit the ground.”

Except you grabbed me and?—

It’s not worth saying. We hurry onward.

The market has created chaos at the stables. People and their mounts, the two stable boys, the owner, and any number of people are trying to leave crates of this or that, saddlebags, storage chests and other possessions in the care of the stables for the day. I can guess why Rorsyd carries his. Thieves are surely waiting to pounce on such disorder.

Warily, from under my brow and in the shade of a small, straggly but green tree, I examine the stable’s comings and goings through a gap in the brickwork. Rorsyd has vanished in there for long enough to grow a new horse. I’m sitting, knees raised, with my back wedged against a low, crumbling brick wall that creates an alcove and cordons off this spot nicely. The gateway leading in has a decrepit wooden gate hanging on one hinge.

Before me, a sylph fountain shoots the tiniest amounts of water into the air, after which it tinkles back into a green scummed pond.

I keep the hood pulled over my head and try to appear lazy, drunk, or both, though I’m not sure how to do either. My sword hilt crosses my palm beneath the spread cloak.

I think I’m getting the knack of this armed and dangerous renegade style. I blow a bang from across my eye then realize it’s blue. Hurriedly, I poke it under the hood. Iridescent dragonflies roam past, buzzing in a desultory fashion. A neighborhood fairy chases after one, zigzagging in flight with a sharpened splinter in its tiny hand. There must be a nest of them somewhere here. I’m allergic to the little bastards, and I stay hunched and still. An hour passes, close to two. I’m hungry and getting baked in the sun.

Where is he? We chose a bad day to be in a hurry.

At last, Rorsyd appears. He’s leading two horses, the roan one called Brinks and a spotted, chestnut-and-white mare, and has added a rucksack to his gear. He waves to me, and I jog over, attempting to appear nonchalant. No one seems curious about us.

“This is Nimue. Treat her well, and she won’t bite you.”

“She bites?” I look at the mare with some skepticism. “Is there a non-bitey version?”

“No.”

He mounts up, and I follow suit, gingerly, after roughly tying my rucksack to the saddle. I’ll have to ask him how to do it properly, later.

By the time we ride past the last few houses and onto the open road, I’m relaxing into the movement of this huge beast between my legs. However, sore butt, here I come.

“Let’s keep to a fast gait until we’re closer to the hills. An hour’s ride, maybe. We can camp there near a river called the Georgie.” Then he snaps his heels into Brinks, and we’re off with no detailed discussion of where or why. I guess that can wait.

“Off we go, Nimue.” She barely needs any encouragement. Maybe she likes Brinks. I let her find her own speed as we canter after them. Another hour and the sun is low and bumping into the hills mounding on the horizon. They’re in friendly tones of gray, soft green, and blues.