Reecah swallowed, trying to avoid eye contact. She wanted to follow the viscount but was afraid to push through the sea of strangers dressed the way she was. She searched for the servant who had taken her cloak, hoping to discover where he had taken it. Her journal was in its pocket.
A meaty hand grasped her wrist, jerking her attention back to the baron’s lecherous, bloodshot eyes.
“Well, well. It looks like fate has shone upon us after all, eh lovey?”
Reecah involuntarily shuddered.
If the baron noticed, he made no sign. Instead, he ran his tongue over his thick lips and pulled her after him, forcing her to sit on the couch.
Fearing he might break her wrist, she had no choice but to follow his lead. Sinking into the plush upholstery, her pointed shoes lifted high off the ground. Mortified, she tried to sit up straight and adjust her knee-length skirt, aware of the dagger digging into her backside and the many eyes watching her.
The baron leaned in, grasping her other wrist and pulled her close—his rancid breath reeking of stale ale.
She turned her head and breathed through her mouth to keep from retching.
“If I know Vullis, he won’t be back anytime soon.”
Reecah’s eyes grew wide. The thick press of bodies around the settee didn’t appear concerned one way or another about what was taking place in front of them. It was as if they were used to such behaviour from the baron.
“In fact, Vullis has probably gone in search of Princess J’kaeda, fearing for her safety. If that’s true, we shan’t see him again tonight.” Heaving a contented sigh, a large grin transformed his anger into a vision of longing. He raised his thick eyebrows. “Alas, such is the life of a royal courtesan.”
Shocked, Reecah looked into his glassy eyes, not liking what stared back at her.
He nodded, releasing one of her wrists. Using a thick finger, he traced her exposed collarbone—starting at her shoulder and running it into the centre of her cleavage and circling. “I’m growing tired of this crowd. Perhaps a little privacy is in order, eh, GG?”
Just Reward
Cold tingled Reecah’s skin. How did the baron know the name Tarrek had labelled her with? The viscount hadn’t mentioned it.
If not for the curious onlookers watching their every move, Reecah would have flattened the baron’s purple-veined nose against his face. As it was, she was afraid to do anything lest she invoke the man’s wrath. Who knew what he was capable of?
“Wench!” the baron bellowed, holding out a hand to be assisted to his feet. Not attempting to hide his intentions, he spoke loudly to the serving girl. “See to it that the fire burns well in my chamber and then be off. I’ll not be requiring your services tonight.”
Reecah fought to keep her jaw from dropping.
The servant curtsied, bowing her head. “Yes, m’lord.” She cast Reecah a commiserating glance as she scurried away.
Reecah watched her disappear through a panel in the wall, the hidden doorway guarded by a burly male servant.
“Come, GG.” The baron held out his hands. “I’m sure you’d rather be rid of this tiresome crowd.”
Before she had a chance to protest, he grasped her hands in a crushing grip and pulled her off the couch like a wee child, practically dragging her across the floor. She struggled to keep from tripping in her tight skirt.
Reaching the hidden panel, she braced her feet and tried to extricate herself from his painful grip. “Wait. What about Vullis? He’ll be looking for me.”
“Pfft, that old prude.” The baron nodded to the man responsible for triggering the panel’s latch. “I’d be surprised if he comes back at all. A head too big for his britches, that one.”
With a sudden jerk, the baron nearly yanked her from her feet. He dragged her through the doorway into a musky corridor beyond, its dark-panelled walls aglow in the scant light of wrought-iron sconces set into the wall.
Wanting the pain to stop, Reecah scrambled to keep pace, her eyes darting everywhere, looking for a distraction. All of those long, lonely nights back in her cabin above Fishmonger Bay, filled with nightmares of being caught alone with Joram Waverunner, came rushing back to her. This time, it was real. She flailed her hands to grab at a sconce—anything to slow their progress—but missed.
The hallway ended at a heavy wooden door. The baron turned the handle down, his other hand painfully twisting Reecah’s arm behind her back.
Pushing into the softly lit room beyond, the baron chucked Reecah ahead of him and slammed the door.
Reecah caught hold of a dark wood column rising up from the foot of a four-post bed.
A yelp of fright came from beside an open hearth—the young girl from the ballroom jumped to her feet holding a bellows in soot-smeared hands.
“What’re you still doing in here?” The baron roared, taking a step toward her.
Reecah took advantage of his distraction and started for the door, but the baron’s glare stopped her. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Reecah’s eyes met the girl’s terrified gaze. She shook her head at Reecah—as if warning her not to anger the man further.
Reecah’s short temper surfaced. “I’m not what you think I am.”
The baron stepped sideways, barring the door. “Oh, you’re not, are you?”
“No, sir.”
“Are you not the girl who asked Tarrek for a job?”
Reecah’s mind reeled. How did he know that?
“Stole his fish in the market, is what I heard.”
“I didn’t steal anything! He tricked me.”
“You took what wasn’t yours. Those fish belonged to me.”
“You?”
“Caught by my fishing fleet. Who do you think pays their salary? And yours, hmm? I dare say, if you wish to earn it, you’d best start cooperating or you may find yourself worse off than when you agreed to work for Tarrek. In fact, I believe it’s time I collected my just reward.”
The knowledge of who the baron was took the breath from Reecah’s lungs. He was the man Axe had referred to when he had informed Tarrek in no uncertain terms, “…see to it she don’t run, else you know who will be using that sword on your sorry carcass.”
The baron was in charge of the brothel district. At least the inn Tarrek had put her up in. Everything began to make sense. The baron was the leader of Thunderhead. If he was anything like Jonas Waverunner, Reecah imagined most of the city answered to him in one fashion or another.
Quivering against the wall, deathly afraid of what the evening had in store, she had to extricate herself from the baron’s company. At the cost of her great-grandmother’s sword, she needed to thaw the icy grip of fear immobilizing her. Judging by the servant girl’s cowed expression, Reecah wouldn’t find any help there.
“I-I’m s-sorry good baron.” Reecah didn’t have to feign her terror to throw him off guard. It came naturally. “I, uh, d-didn’t realize it was you that was paying me. Forgive me.”
The baron’s dark glare pinned her to the wall. Without taking his eyes from her, he snarled at the servant. “I thought I told you to leave us.”
“Y-yes, m’lord. I just got here.” The young woman said with a meek voice, her hands clenching the fabric of her skirts. “I, um, can’t leave with you blocking the door, m’lord.”
Empathy for the frightened servant fueled Reecah’s rage.
The baron growled and threw the door open wide. He grabbed the girl by the arm and threw her headfirst into the doorjamb.
The servant thrust her hands out to catch herself but the strength of the baron’s toss smashed her face into the hardwood frame. Her head bounced back and she collapsed to the floor—her quivering body preventing the door from closing.
Seething, the baron tried to slam the heavy door shut but one of the servant’s lower legs lay in the way. “Damn it, wench. I’ll have your hide!”
The girl cried out as he leaned into the door.
Pulling the door open, he stomped on her ank
le. “Move!”
The woman’s ankle shattered beneath his heel with a sickening crack.
Reecah cringed.
The baron bent down to grab at the screaming girl, but a sudden gasp escaped his throat. His shoulders arched backward. “Hey!”
Reecah’s fingers wrapped in the pudgy flesh of his neck, giving her the leverage needed to plunge her dagger into his fleshy shoulder. Though she had killed her first person outside of the Dragon Temple a few weeks ago—the memory never far from her thoughts—feeling the blade cut through the baron’s sinews and fat, scraping against his collar bone, mortified her. She wasn’t a killer.
She yanked the dagger free and stumbled backward, catching herself on the edge of the canopied bed, her dagger staining the cream-coloured duvet with his blood.
Howling in pain, the baron’s bloody fingers grabbed hold of the doorjamb and he pulled himself upright. The servant crying at his feet forgotten, he spun on Reecah, his face twisted in rage. He staggered toward her, one arm hanging useless at his side. “You little bitch.”
Reecah pushed away from the bed, holding her dagger between them as they circled each other.
The baron feigned a sudden move toward her.
Reecah lunged to meet him but the baron aborted his attack. He swept his good hand out wide, whacking Reecah’s forearm so hard the dagger flew from her grasp. Digging his thick fingers into her wrist he twisted out and down, a malicious smile distorting his purple face.
Rolling with the baron’s advance, Reecah’s instincts took over. She had never forgotten her mistake with Jonas at the dragon hunt camp. Dipping low to pull the large man off balance, she drove the open palm of her free hand into the baron’s ear, knocking him to the ground. Spinning her hips, she stomped on his face with every bit of strength she possessed. “I’ll give you a just reward!”
The baron’s head cracked off the flagstone floor and his body went limp.
Reecah’s pointed shoe slipped off his face, hitting the ground hard. Losing her balance, she dropped a bare knee against his bleeding shoulder—a loud tearing noise informing her that her skirt had ripped up the back.
Scrambling on her hands and knees to get free of the loathsome man, she snatched her dagger from the floor and ran to the servant girl.
“My leg. It’s broken,” the girl sobbed.
Reecah tried lifting her. “Come on, we have to get you out of here.”
The girl screamed in pain. “Leave me!” Her crazed eyes fell on the baron. “Is he…is he dead?”
Reecah followed her gaze. Shrugging, she eased the servant into a sitting position against the wall. “I’m not sure.”
The ramifications of what she had done began to sink in. If the baron’s men or the Watch caught her now, her life would be forfeited. She had to escape but didn’t relish leaving the poor girl to face the baron’s wrath if he lived.
“What’s going on in here?” a deep voice called out from the end of the hallway. “Is everything okay, baron?”
Reecah’s nerves leapt.
The burly doorman ran toward them. The ring of his short sword pulling free of its scabbard filled her with dread.
Dagger by her side, Reecah thought quickly. “Help. The baron’s taken a fall. He hit his head off the floor and I can’t wake him.”
The doorman frowned, his gaze taking in the servant girl on the ground. He lowered his sword and pushed by Reecah into the room.
“Baron!” The doorman dropped to a knee to examine him. Inspecting the baron’s shoulder, he pulled his hand away, stained with blood. “What the…?” was all he had time to say before Reecah brought the hilt of her dagger smashing into the back of his head, laying him out flat.
“M’lady, you need to get out of here. They’ll kill you,” the servant girl cried.
“I’m no lady,” Reecah bristled at the inference. Pulling the pointed shoes from her feet, she considered the girl. There was nothing to be done. Reecah wasn’t strong enough to carry her, nor had she any idea where to take her. “I’m sorry. I want to help you but—”
“Go, before it’s too late. It won’t take them long to realize the doorman is missing.”
Bursting through the panel in the wall, Reecah was met by two men clad in chainmail and leather armour. She held the panel wide. “Quickly, the baron needs you.”
Swords leapt into the men’s hands as they scrambled down the hallway.
Closing the panel, Reecah started through the crowd, aware of the eyes on her. Suddenly conscious of how little she wore, she remembered her cloak. She grabbed the arm of the nearest servant, the girl’s arms laden with a large tray bearing drinks. “Where can I find my cloak?”
The girl fought to keep from spilling the tray, glaring at Reecah as if she were mad. Her eyes flicked to a doorway beside the steps at the front of the ballroom. “In the cloakroom?”
“Take me to it!” Reecah ordered and yanked on her arm.
“Hey!” The tray tumbled from the servant’s upturned palm.
Guests jumped back to avoid the fluted glassware shattering on the ground.
The servant pulled free of Reecah’s grasp. “Look what you’ve done!”
Reecah paused but for a moment. She didn’t need the girl. Conscious of every eye in the ballroom following her across the floor in a ripped skirt, a bloody dagger in hand, and blood smeared on her knees and bare feet—she mused at what a sight she must be.
She spotted her cloak as soon as she entered the long cloakroom. Checking its pockets, she was relieved to feel the journal, the Dragon’s Eye, and the key to her room at the Naughty Saucer. Slipping into her cloak, she started to lace it up but a commotion from the ballroom forced her attention to the doorway.
The panel on the back wall stood open. The minstrels stopped playing as an angry shout reached her above the noise of the crowd. “There she is! Stop her!”
Reecah started toward the exit.
A taller gentleman clad in royal finery made an attempt to intercept her.
She brandished her bloody dagger. “Uh, uh.”
The man stepped back.
Taking the front entrance stairs in a single bound, she pushed through the bodies milling about the open double doors and burst onto the rain-soaked street to the surprise of the guardsmen stationed there.
The carriage she had arrived in was nowhere in sight.
Not heeding a guard’s plea to stop, she sprinted down the steep cobblestoned hill, thankful for the revealing rip in the back of her skirt. Her cloak billowed wildly behind her.
Whistles and bells sounded the alarm but by the time she rounded the corner at the bottom of the steep hill she had outpaced the guards in their cumbersome armour. If only she could get into the Naughty Saucer, grab her stuff and be gone before they realized who she worked for.
Booted footsteps clattered down the hill and paused at the intersection—a familiar voice sounding from the opposite direction.
“This way! This way!”
Reecah stumbled as she looked over her shoulder, barely able to see anyone through the darkness and rain—a great smile lifting her cheeks. Where Raver perched, was a mystery.
“I saw her go this way!” one of the guards declared pointing in Reecah’s direction but he clearly doubted himself. “I think.”
“This way! This way!” Raver called out from somewhere on the far side of the intersection.
“Split up!” another man declared.
Reecah picked up her pace. She ran through the deserted marketplace and past the large Thunderhead Shipwright building. The sound of pursuit drifted further behind, but more whistles and bells were sounding throughout the city. It wouldn’t be long before everyone in Thunderhead was looking for her.
Reaching the Naughty Saucer, a different doorman made to stop her, but one look at her dishevelled outfit exposed beneath her sodden cloak stopped him. She cast him a dangerous look, not missing the fact that his gaze lingered on the dagger clutched firmly in her hand. Before he said any
thing, she growled, “I live here.”
Equally wet, the doorman opened the door and jumped out of her way. “Ma’am.”
Ma’am? Reecah fumed, striding down the hallway. She hated being called a lady, and she most certainly wasn’t a ma’am.
Her appearance in the bawdy common room caused the patrons to become strangely quiet. Feeling their curious glances following her, she stopped at the base of the stairs and faced the room. Still under the effects of her raging adrenaline, she ripped open her cloak and glared at the stunned faces. Waggling her dagger at them, she shouted, “You want a piece of this?”
No one moved.
Taking two steps at a time, she fished the key from her pocket and let herself into the room. It wasn’t until she stopped at the end of the bed that relief washed over her. Her belongings remained untouched.
Lightning flashed through the bay window drawing her attention to the reflection of a bedraggled, scared, young woman gazing back—wet hair flat against her head.
Another flash of lightning startled her, the sudden light illuminating Raver on the windowsill.
A brief smile eased her panic. Opening the window, the dripping raven stared at her; rain driven on the wind lashing through the opening.
“Get in here!” She ushered him into the room.
He flapped twice, spraying her with water, and landed on the bed.
“Ugh! You dirty thing!” Reecah wiped her face with her hands, grateful he was safe.
Taking a moment to collect her thoughts, she envisioned grasping Tarrek by the neck with both hands and throttling the impertinent fishmonger. It was his fault she had gone through this.
Removing the sheath from the small of her back, she slid the dagger home and tossed it on the bed, a faint smile curving the corner of her mouth. Wait until they found out who had murdered the baron.
The baron! Her immediate danger slammed into her. It wouldn’t be long before the baron’s men and the Watch traced her to the Naughty Saucer.
Grasping the ends of the thong securing the bodice, she tugged, grunting her frustration, remembering it had knotted. Shrugging free of her dripping cloak, she retrieved her dagger and sliced through the thong—something she should have done in the first place. She slipped from her skirt and stopped to gape at the size of the rip.
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