Page 5

FIVE

Tempest

“Stupid, strutting alpha males and their tempers,” Tempest found herself reciting, over and over again like some kind of mantra. Her mood had grown decidedly worse by the time she finally reached the outer walls of Dotae—which was saying something, since her bad mood back in Pyre’s cave had been considerable.

Reaching the city walls had been uneventful, other than having to battle against the incredibly cold night air and the pounding in her skull. She’d decided against entering through the main city gates—women traipsing about in the night received a certain reputation. While she wasn’t exactly a proper lady, she still needed to keep her reputation somewhat intact. So, she’d skulked to the southeastern part of the city. The slums. The city wall there was crumbling and had been clearly overlooked for some time. In fact, she knew that the patrol tended to avoid this area, so it was never well guarded. She’d bet her best dagger this was how Pyre got his drugs into the city.

Using the loose and broken bricks, Tempest nimbly ascended the wall. A giddiness swept over her as she climbed higher and higher, almost whooping in satisfaction when she reached the top of the thirty-foot wall. Her dress and cloak whipped around her in the winter wind. She’d like to see any of her fellow Hounds accomplish such a task while wearing a gown.

The wall curved and smoothed out in the distance on either side of her. While she longed to walk around the perimeter of her city for a while, that was hardly inconspicuous, and she preferred to go about her business unseen.

She took a deep breath of freezing air that bit her lungs, wondering why she hadn’t just gone straight through the city gates. Wanting to avoid the guards was a poor excuse—and largely a lie that she could not fool herself with. Ultimately, she knew, deep down, why she did not want to return to the Hound barracks. After everything she discovered over the past few weeks, Tempest felt less and less like a member of their ranks, and she could hardly stand to look at any of them.

Keeping secrets from her uncles pained her. She’d never lied to them. Every time she lied, it felt like she lost another piece of herself. Her entire life, all she’d wanted was a family and to fit in. Her uncles had created that for her. Now, it felt like it was on the edge of collapse.

Your so-called family might be murderers.

She shied away from that thought. Tempest didn’t want to think—or want to believe—that this was the case, especially given how they’d cared for her. And what of Madrid? He’d never been one for speaking many words to anyone, much less to Tempest. She’d always assumed that was because he was the head of the Hounds and had far too much to do. He had no time to concern himself with the likes of a scraggly orphan girl who’d been too wild to be cared for within King Destin’s court.

But it was becoming glaringly clear that Madrid actually paid more attention to her than she’d initially thought. Now, she couldn’t help but wonder if that was because he suspected her of wrongdoing.

Like betraying your king and country.

Tempest jumped from the wall to the nearest building and traveled for another fifteen minutes across shanties and roofs. She paused and peered down from the edge of a rowdy tavern. Drunks laughed beneath her while others crept quietly through the shadowy streets. Though night was fully in bloom, the time of day never seemed to matter in the slums. The people here never quite went to sleep.

A whimper caught her attention. She scanned the street and spotted a nightwalker being accosted by a man who was two times her size. Tempest rose onto the balls of her feet, preparing to intervene, when the woman slapped the man across the face and stomped on his foot for good measure. The man held his hands up and back away.

“Get sober,” the nightwalker hissed. “Or never see me again!”

The disturbance settled, and Tempest glanced at the small gang of children who had darted from the tavern below, crusty bread in their grubby little hands.

Tempest chuckled. She was quite certain, even from up here, that she recognized a couple of the children from the orphanage she often helped out at. The question was, had they stolen the bread, or had it been given? Probably the former. Little miscreants. An angry man ran into the street and shook his fist at the fleeing children. “If I catch you again, you won’t like it!”

Stolen it was.

The children of this orphanage had always had a knack for thievery. Tempest had learned some of her best tricks from them; she owed them a great debt for bestowing on her their secrets. With a small smile, she cast her gaze to the southwest and the northeast: the merchant quadrant and the working-class quadrant. They were completely silent. Most of the residents would be in bed, likely exhausted from a hard day of work.

The final quadrant in the northwest was the most affluent part of the city, within which the palace and the seaport were situated. It, too, appeared to be dead asleep, but Tempest knew it was all a fa?ade. The members of the upper class were secretly as rowdy as the slums, only they kept their business indoors. There were parties and violent revels and sordid affairs happening within every third or fourth grand building. The revelries wouldn’t end until the sun rose, when the hedonistic upper class fell into bed only to repeat the same reckless behavior again the following night.

Dotae was huge. How many people did it hold? On the ground, it was hard to grasp the scale of the population of the capital city. Up on the roofs, however, Tempest had a bird’s eye view of Dotae. She knew to triple the number of people in the slums compared to the merchant sector, and even that was a conservative estimate. All in all, Tempest imagined there were close to a million people living within Dotae’s walls.

An intimidating city. There wasn’t a city half as big, not for leagues and leagues.

While she enjoyed the city, even loved it, she wasn’t a true resident of Dotae. In her heart, she was a forest girl. Daughter of a healer. Lover of all that was pure. It was all she had left that had been unsullied. By King Destin. By the Hounds. By the Jester himself.

Tempest was not entirely sure how to even reach the little clearing in the forest where her mother’s cottage had been. It was but a faint memory, and it pained her that, with every day that passed, it grew a little fainter still. Her heart stung just as painfully as the bitter night air did her face. She was losing hold of the one clear, coherent part of her past that made her who she was. Forgetting her mother would erase the last piece of the forest girl from her soul.

Tempest could remember her mother’s voice in scraps of stolen moments between dreams and wakefulness, but it was getting harder and harder for her to remember her mother’s face. Did Tempest look like her mum? She slapped her cheeks to bring some heat back into them. But there was no one to answer her.

She wished there was.

Her head pulsed again, a sharp ache moving through her skull. She’d spent enough time outside. It was really time to retire to bed. She could not feel her ears, nor her fingertips. Her teeth were chattering so badly, she worried she might bite straight through her tongue. When had she gotten so cold?

On silent feet, Tempest slunk over the sea of roofs. She dropped to the street and veered to the left to take a shortcut to the barracks when a group of off-duty guards caught her eye. She resisted the urge to cover herself and held her head high as she attracted their attention. She felt naked out of her uniform. They moved in her direction before she could slink off down the street. Tempest scowled, then relaxed slightly when she realized Levka was among the group. Tempest was still not entirely sure if he was genuine or was merely using an opportunity to get closer to her now that she was on the war council. Regardless, she was relieved to see him. She would face no trouble or harassment from the guards with Levka in their presence.

“Where has our lovely Lady Hound been, then?” one of the guards asked. “The slums are not for the likes of you.”

Her shoulders tensed at the name the king used for her. A palace guard, then.

“I could ask you the same question,” Tempest replied, keeping her tone just as good-natured and jovial as the guard himself. “What are you all doing? It’s so late, and we’re in the slums, no less! Don’t tell me you were visiting a brothel?” Her gaze slid to her friend. “Though surely not you, Levka.” She made sure to emphasize his name and gave the Hound-in-training a pointed look.

Instead of blushing or turning away—which Tempest would have expected if he really, truly liked her—Levka looked indifferent instead.

Very telling.

“And what about you?” a guard whom Tempest did recognize fired back, grinning sleazily. “You’re out just as late and in the same unscrupulous part of the city as we are. Don’t tell me you have a lover here?”

There wasn’t any way she was going to answer that. Either way, they’d all assume the worst.

“Oh, looks like the girlie is ashamed,” a third guard said. “Don’t tell me. Are you an animal-screwer ? Is your lover a shifter? Most of the bastards in this area are. Why else would you be in the slums alone ? ”

Tempest flinched at the insinuation, not because of what it said about her, but because she now knew a fair share of shifters who were good people. She thought of Briggs, of Aspen, the fawn shifter, and his mother Rina, who had baked bread for Tempest. Most of them were good, honest people who did not deserve the ire they faced from Dotae every single day. The prejudices against the shapeshifter people were baseless and wrong.

“Bet she would like the hands of a bear or a wolf or a lion on her,” the third guard taunted. “I mean,” he slurred, clearly a little drunk, as they all obviously were, “she took on that beast in the ring easily enough. No man can handle her.”

Her lip curled at the suggestion in his tone. “Well not anyone, to be sure. Only the strongest and brightest. Clearly, that doesn’t include any of the likes of you.” Not her best retort, but she couldn’t stand there, silent. She arched her brow at the quiet Levka who said nothing, choosing to look at his feet instead. Coward.

Tempest was on her own.

“Considering your fondness for rabbit shifters,” Tempest began, directing her answer at the palace guard, “and the unspeakable things you ask them to do to you, I’d say you’re far more familiar with shifters in bed than I am.” Thank you, Juniper, for always gossiping with me about the goings-on in the palace. Her smile grew as the man’s face darkened. “You really should be more discreet about these things.”

The guard did not like her response at all. “What do you think, Levka?” he asked, forcing the Hound-in-training to look up from his feet and answer the question. “You’ve lived with her since you were kids. Is she into shifters? Or do her tastes run even more sordid than that? ”

Unbidden, Tempest thought of Pyre, then clucked her tongue in disgust. She stared at Levka, daring him to say something, anything.

“Well, let’s just say I would never touch a woman who’d been sullied by such trash,” he muttered without looking at her.

Tempest couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Was he really insulting her right now? Putting himself above her? As if she was nothing beneath his feet? Was she not the Hound and he the trainee? Some days, she cursed being born a bloody woman. Had she not earned her place on the war council? But it didn’t matter to them. They only cared about what body parts she hid underneath her clothing. As if that dictated her worth. While she didn’t have feelings for Levka, it still hurt to have him dismiss her that way.

“No,” Tempest said, firmly and slowly, so there could be no doubt about what she was saying. “I’m not an animal-screwer. Yet something tells me I would altogether prefer being one than screwing any of you. ”

She threw a pointed look Levka’s way and was once more disappointed when he did not respond. Without another word, she forced her way through the group of drunken guards and stalked back to the barracks. She was so tired and angry. Angry at King Destin, who wanted her to do anything to get into the good graces of the Talagan rebels. Angry at her uncles, who were likely responsible for spreading mimkia to all the villages. Angry at Pyre, who was the ruthless, cold-hearted Jester.

Yes, she was angry with Pyre more than anyone else.

She felt guilty—betrayed, even—that she had trusted him even an inkling when he clearly was no better than the people she was currently fighting against as a double agent. He was a rebel, a drug lord, someone who played with the lives of others. What if he really was responsible for the missing children? How could she give him any of her trust at all?

Her shoulders slumped as she finally spied the door to the barracks, but it was short-lived. Her spine stiffened as Levka stepped from a shadowy corner and hovered near the door. How had he beaten her back? A tiny part of her was impressed by the speed with which he had returned to the barracks.

Long-legged bastard.

“What were you doing out all by yourself?” he demanded, though he had the sense to keep his voice hushed.

That was rich. Tempest crossed her arms over her chest, her patience about to well and truly snap. “It’s none of your business, Levka.”

“Right. You made that fairly clear.” He sighed and rubbed at his brow. Levka’s shoulders slumped, and he had the sense to look abashed. “I know you said you don’t want to associate with me. I know you’re not my property, and that I have no right to ask you to forgive me after what just happened. But I… I don’t know what came over me back there. I don’t. I shouldn’t have acted like that, especially not in front of other people. It’s disrespectful. I know I don’t have any right to know where you were. I’m sorry.”

Tempest almost caved and accepted his earnest apology.

Almost.

“I know it’s easy to get wrapped up in peer pressure,” she said, feeling as if she was talking to a child rather than a young man her own age. “But you should know better. We’ve spent most of our lives together. You should want to defend me, especially if you care for me, Levka. And even if you didn’t know me, you shouldn’t have let those men talk to me like that.” She swallowed hard. “You joined in without much hesitation.”

“Temp—”

“Saying sorry does not excuse your actions tonight, and you know it. If your behavior taught me anything, it taught me that you and I are not right for each other.” She opened the door to the barracks and looked him straight in the eye. “We don’t have a future together, and I won’t change my mind about that.”

Tempest stepped inside and slammed the door in Levka’s face before he had the chance to respond. Her heart clenched at the pain that had flashed across his face. She leaned against the door, breathing heavily. She immediately felt terrible about her needlessly harsh rejection. Don’t think about it.

“Next time you sneak in, don’t slam the bloody door,” Dima muttered from his bunk.

“Sorry,” Tempest whispered. She didn’t mean to disturb the whole place. She crept to her bed and managed to kick off her boots and drop her cloak to the floor before crawling under the sheets, still wearing the dress and all.

Tomorrow, she’d deal with everything on her plate. For now, she’d sleep.