“You’ll see,” he says cryptically before he waves me forward.
With a sigh, I follow him, but the boiling hot broth keeps spilling on my damn fingers, burning right through my gloves and making me hiss. “Did you have to fill these so fucking full?” I grumble.
“You should practice your lightness of foot,” he calls back cheerfully. “That stew’s the best dinner in the camp. Those other army cooks are jealous as hell, as usual.”
With a laugh that comes out as a grunt, I keep walking until he stops in front of a tent. He holds the flap open expectantly, and I cock my head, stopping just in front of it. “If this is your way of propositioning me, you’re shit at it.”
Keg lets his head fall back as he laughs loudly. “Captain, you wound me. I’m romantic as fuck. If I was propositioning you, I’d knock your Divine-damned socks off.”
“Just so you know, my socks smell like shit.”
He jerks his head at the tent. “Get in there, you’re causing a draft, and the stew’s gonna get cold.”
Rolling my eyes, I duck inside. As soon as I’m in, he lets the flap fall closed with a “have fun” tossed with the wind as he walks away.
Frowning, I straighten up, and then my eyes adjust to the darker lighting and the warmer air, and my gaze immediately zeroes in on the woman wearing some fancy ass dress that has no business being worn out here in these conditions. The little coat she has on isn’t doing shit either.
The blonde stands up to face me, crossing her arms in front of her indignantly. “And just who are you?” she demands.
I blink at her, then at the second woman who’s lying on the pallet next to her, white as a sheet as she sleeps.
“I’m captain of the whole damn army right now. Who the fuck are you?” I counter, though she looks familiar.
Her lush lips press together in a thin line. “I’m Rissa. When I was leaving Ranhold, I ran into someone named Lu. She told me if I went to the army, you would take me with you out of Fifth Kingdom. She said Auren had talked to you all about it—that I could come with you.”
My thoughts snap back to that night when Auren told us about Rissa. About how the bitch was basically blackmailing her. I suggested we kill her.
I suggest killing a lot.
“Yeah, she did. Gildy is way too fucking nice,” I grumble under my breath.
“Excuse me?” she says in her uppity voice.
“You heard me,” I retort, looking at her with disgust. “You threatened her, made her give you shit in return for your silence, and still, all she wanted to do was help you. I said we should just kill you. Because if there’s one thing I hate, it’s disloyalty.”
A flash of outrage flares through her blue eyes. “Disloyalty?” She eats up the space between us, shocking the hell out of me when she pokes a manicured finger into my chest. “You listen here, you savage hairy giant. I’m a sex worker and a woman. You think I have the privilege of living my life on some moral high ground?” she spits out. “Well, let me tell you, I don’t. Saddles give the world the pleasure it wants, and what do we get in return? We’re controlled and judged, and that’s just best-case scenario. So you can hate me all you want, want to kill me even, but I do what I have to in order to survive in this world, and if that means I use information to my advantage, then I’m going to do it.”
She’s breathing hard, chest rising and falling, pink dots cropped up on her cheeks, and for some reason, my wall of irritation suddenly cracks, and out leaks the realization that she’s really fucking beautiful.
Damn the Divine.
How did I go from the killing suggestion to this?
Her speech was emboldened enough that I know she meant every word. A part of me even respects her for it. I know what it’s like to have to do whatever you need to in order to survive the world. For so much of my life, it was kill or be killed, and I chose to be alive.
I guess she did too.
But survival is also about choosing your loyalties wisely. When it comes to those I’m loyal to, I’m a fierce fucker.
My tongue flicks over the twisted wood piercing in my bottom lip. “Auren is loyal to you, but you’re not loyal to her. Simple as that. I don’t let disloyal people march with my army.”
The blonde stiffens. “Fine.” She turns around and starts shoving things into a bag, half her body lit up with the pile of simmering coals set in the center of the tent. “We’ll leave. I hope you sleep better at night knowing that you tossed out two helpless women into the Barrens and saved your precious conscience by upholding your high and mighty loyalty.”
My head tips back as a long-suffering sigh comes out of me. “Quit with the martyr shit,” I snap. “That’s not going to work on me. You can stay because we told Auren you could, and I always keep my word.”
Rissa stops what she’s doing, the skin at her eyes tightening, while I continue to stand here like an idiot, still holding two steaming bowls of stew. I shove one toward her. “Here.”
She hesitates for a moment, but I guess her hunger is stronger than her dislike for me, because she stands up and quickly takes it. When my eyes wander down to the way her lips close over the tin bowl, to the way she starts sipping it politely down, all sorts of dirty images pop up through the cracks of my thoughts.
Not good.
Shifting my focus, I down my own stew in a mess of slurps and chews and one hearty burp at the end. After I wipe the dripping broth from my beard with the back of my arm, I look up to find her watching me with her nose wrinkled in repulsion. “Are you not house-trained?” she sneers.
I grin back, all teeth. “You’re gonna learn real quick that those dainty sips aren’t gonna do shit when you’re starved and freezing. There’s no kings and nobles for you to sit around and impress. Just me.”
“As if I would ever strive to impress you,” she shoots back after taking another delicate drink. “You wouldn’t even be on the bottom of my list when I mark a room. I only ever go for the rich and cleanly.”
This time, I’m the one who eats up the space between us, my long strides taking me right in front of her. The way her pretty neck bends to look up at me is oddly attractive. Never thought I’d think someone’s fucking neck was a turn-on.
I’ve been in Fifth Kingdom too damn long. Blue balls from the weather must be real.
“Good news for both of us, Yellow Bell.”
She frowns. “Yellow Bell?”
I shrug. “It’s fitting. Flower’s yellow like your hair, and it tricks some people, because it might be pretty on the outside, but it’s pure poison.”
Her eyes go dark. “My hair is blonde, not yellow, you incompetent brute.”
I grin. “So you don’t deny the poison part? Interesting.”
She shoves the bowl back at me. “You can go now.”
“Since I’m the captain of the army, I’ll be giving the orders around here.”
“Great,” she mutters under her breath before she turns her back on me to sit down next to the sleeping woman.
I have to say, not many men would dare to turn their backs on me, so the fact that this woman is doing it without a care in the world makes me hard.
Yep. Definitely been in Fifth Kingdom too damn long.
“What’s with the broad?”
“Her name is Polly,” she bites out as she picks up a cloth and dabs the woman’s brow.
“She sick?”
“What do you care?”
I shrug. “Guess I don’t. But if she’s gonna be using up army resources with one of the menders, I need to know.”
She shoots me a look that’s colder than the storm outside. “She’s not contagious, and I don’t need anything from you or this army.”
“Other than our shelter, food, protection...”