by Tara Brown
I glanced over to one corner. Men were disappearing through a door. I pointed. “What's that?”
He turned my face. “Something else. We're not here for that. We’re here to dance.”
I couldn’t help but wonder at the door. My curiosity was piqued.
He grabbed a huge mug from a man, dropping coins onto the tray he was carrying and then passing one to me. I eyed it cautiously.
“It's not fire ale.” He watched me, but I could see the humor lingering behind his serious face.
I sniffed and took a sip. It was sweet and spicy. It warmed my belly immediately.
“Chug it back,” he shouted over the fiddles, guitars, and piano. A man was singing as though it was his last moment on earth, singing with such passion like I had never seen.
He motioned for me to drink it back again so I tilted the mug and let the drink sail down my throat. I felt some spilling down the side of my mouth, but I didn't stop. I lowered the mug when I could see the bottom. He wiped my face, and I grinned back with recklessness.
I could love him.
It wasn't the drink of the seedy dance hall that made me see it. It was the commonness of him.
I saw that I could so easily forget them all and let this be my life. I could turn a blind eye and work in his inn, drink on nights at a place like this, and forget the stars and the fire blood and the prophecy.
I could forget Maddox.
Grayson grabbed my hand and pulled me out onto the dance floor. He pushed and spun me. He sang to the songs as he moved us both through the fastest steps I had ever danced. I didn’t know the moves at first, but he taught me as we danced. I laughed and wiped away sweat.
The songs blended into each other. He passed me another drink and I shot it down my throat.
My hips started to move to the beat as I waited for him to finish his drink. He finished and pulled me back onto the floor.
We knocked into people and laughed. The whole room was having the most fun I'd ever seen people have.
Guy and Hans came running over with ladies in tow, beaming at me. “Millia!”
“Hans! Guy!” I shrieked and grabbed them both. I planted a huge kiss on either side of their faces and noticed they were as sweaty as I was.
The girls eyed me up, but I was having too much fun to care. Besides, the guy I was with was by far the handsomest in the room.
“Millia, what in God's light are ya doing here?”
I laughed at Hans. “Dancing and drinking.”
Hans gave Grayson a worried look. I glanced over my shoulder at him but he was grinning from ear to ear.
“In fact, we mean to dance now.” Grayson pulled my hand and dragged me out onto the dance floor. He held me tight to him and spun me around until I felt like I could get lost in the world he'd let me into. The music stopped after the song and an older lady stepped up onto the raised platform the musicians played on. Everyone stood in silence as if they respected this older lady immensely.
She shouted into the sea of sweaty people, “TONIGHT WE HAVE A SPECIAL GUEST. YA ALL KNEW HIS FATHER AS A GREAT MUSICIAN. IF WE CLAP HARD ENOUGH, WE MIGHT GET HIM ON THE STAGE!”
Guy grabbed Grayson and dragged him to the stage, tearing his hand from mine. The crowd went wild, clapping and shouting at the tops of their lungs.
My jaw dropped when I realized the special guest was my host.
I loved that I didn’t know him at all. I never would have guessed he was musical.
He let the lady drag him onto the stage, all the while smiling bashfully and shaking his head. His eyes met mine as he took a guitar from the man at the back.
He looked at the other musicians and said something I couldn’t hear.
They all grinned and got themselves ready.
The lady stood at the front of the platform with him. He looked at me and winked. I shook my head, confused.
He stomped his foot and at once the others started with him. The crowd erupted, shoving to the front. I let myself get shoved to the back. The music was amazing, but I was stunned beyond belief. His song too was full of animation and exhilaration. Grayson sang loud and stomped his boot hard.
“He's good,” I shouted and leaned into Hans.
He looked at me and nodded. “Aye, he is, but ya should be careful with that one.”
“It's Grayson.”
“Exactly. He doesn’t make the best choices or have the best luck, and I fear he might actually have the worst temper I have seen.” Hans truly looked worried.
“Maybe we were made to be together then.” My answer was truthful, but he laughed as if I were joking. Though his lips smiled and his belly shook, the strange look never left his eyes.
He turned back to the music, stomping his boot too. Grayson sang like an angel. His deep voice was throaty, quite sexy, and surprising if I was honest with myself. A man shoved past me, heading for the mysterious door in the corner.
I leaned back into Hans. “What's in the room back there where the men go?”
He glanced in that direction, and the way his face fell told me I had to see it. “Oh nothing. There’s nothing. Nothing good anyway. Ya stay out here and dance—that's what the ladies do.”
“I’m no lady. We both know that.” I chuckled but waited for the lady Hans was with to drag him off to dance.
Grayson sang and played beautifully, and when the song ended the crowd erupted again. He shouted over top of them all, “All right, you greedy bunch of bastards. One more song, and then I have to get back to milady.” He winked at me.
I shook my head and rolled my eyes; they almost rolled themselves. A man passed me a drink. “Any friend of his is a friend of mine,” he shouted and turned back to the music.
Grayson raised an eyebrow at me. I grinned and held up my drink with a grin.
He watched the man who gave it to me.
I slowly sidestepped toward the mystery door, sipping while cautiously eyeing him up. When Grayson’s beautiful eyes were closed, and he was singing the same way he danced—passionately—I bolted for the door. I opened it and jumped inside, closing it quickly before turning around to find a huge circle of men all facing the same direction and screaming in rage.
A man next to me slapped my drink from my hands. Seeing what he did, his eyes widened. “Sorry, miss,” he shouted over the voices, giving me an odd look. I shook my head and walked by.
As I squeezed in between the hordes of men shouting and raising their hands, I stood on my tiptoes and tried to see what they were looking at. I ducked suddenly, dodging a couple of flying arms.
Whatever was in the circle was bad. The men were savage.
I slinked through, wiping spit from angry words off my arm. The man next to me looked like he was about to cry at whatever was happening.
I made my way through, slinking and squeezing, to the very front of the circle where two bare-chested men fought. They were swinging and grabbing at each other, but their hands slipped on the sweat and blood coating their naked bodies. One man had a hugely swollen lip and the other man had an eye shut with swelling. Both drooled and breathed like animals.
It was not the thing I expected to find, not even close.
Angry men shoved and pushed all around me, knocking me to the right and left as we moved like a sea in a storm.
The man with the swollen lip reached with a punch, exposing himself to the man with the closed eye. He took advantage of the exposure and punched hard, knocking the other man out.
He fell to the floor in a heap as cries rose from the crowd.
My heart was beating wildly and my eyes were huge. I didn’t understand what the place was until the moment the fight was over, and instantly notes started changing hands and screams of either victory or defeat filled the heavy air around us. I tapped an older man just in front of me. “Are they really betting money on the fight?”
He looked at me like I was insane and nodded.
My eyes grew. What a fascinating idea. “Do women ever fight?”
; He laughed.
“No womenfolk allowed in here, miss.” I looked at the huge barrel chest of a man staring me down from inside the circle. “You shouldn't be in here.”
“What? Why not?”
“No women. Only men allowed in here. Don’t you have a lad in there you should be entertaining?” His voice was thunderous. Everyone in the area started to take notice of me. My cheeks heated up, but I couldn't stop the indignation from being bigger in me than the realization that I was out of place.
I shouted back at him with a cheeky grin plastered across my lips, “No, in fact I don’t. I wanted to see what the big deal was about this room.”
He grinned. “Impressive, huh?”
I crossed my arms and shrugged. “Not really. I've seen better fights.” It was true. The guard trainer taught us to fight without weapons for years.
His eyes narrowed. “Ya must mean when I was still fighting? A few years ago?”
I shook my head and yawned. “No, I meant I've been in better fights than this.”
The men around me started to chuckle and talk in a low hum.
The big man scoffed at me, “Ya? Yer a slip of a girl.”
I stood my ground. “Find a man. Any man. I will fight who you choose, and I will best him.”
He laughed harder, joined now by the men all around us.
I tilted my head. “Afraid I'll whip one of your mates?”
His eyes burned. “No man will hit a woman. Not one he isn’t married to.” The sentence burned into me more than it ought to have. Why would a man hit a woman he married? Why should that be allowed?
The man next to me looked hungry, desperate even. “Ya serious?”
“Very serious.”
“Ya’d fight a man for money?” he licked his lips nervously, eyeing up the room of naysayers.
I smiled hard at the man ahead of me. “I'd bet on me if I were you. And I’ll buy the entire bar a round when I win.”
The guy next to me put up some notes. “I'd wager on that fight, Tom.”
The big man at the center of us all shook his head. “We don’t fight women against men.”
His protests were quickly snuffed out by the noise around us as the other men came around on the idea.
“I'll take that fight.”
“Aye, Tom, if she wants to fight, I'd wager on it too.”
The crowd erupted. The big man’s face turned every shade of angry scarlet it could. “I said no!”
My back straightened with defiance.
He nodded at my outfit. “Yer wearing a dress. Ya can't fight in a dress.”
I stepped into the circle and tore the bottom off my dress. It was as short as my knickers. He almost choked, looking at my bare legs and boots.
I started rolling my shoulders and loosening my neck. “Find me a competitor.”
“It’s yer funeral.” The big man named Tom shouted, “Anyone feel brave enough to take on this little lady here?”
The crowd began growing rapidly. Bets were placed as panicked shouts filled the room. I maintained my even smile, taking long draws of the heady air and preparing myself to fight. I pulled my long strawberry-blonde hair up into a bun and tied it with a ripped piece of my dress.
All around me, men laughed and pointed, but I had not felt so alive in a very long time. I flexed my fingers and watched the room becoming chaos. I was calm within it.
“Anyone. Anyone at all want to fight her? No man feeling brave enough to fight a little girl?” He looked at me and grinned. “Group of gentlemen. What can I say?”
I laughed as a man with a scar over his eye stepped up to the ring. “Heard ya were looking for a challenger.” He was huge.
Tom pointed. “This is the challenger.”
I smiled sweetly.
The challenger scoffed, taking a step back. “I don’t hit women and children, and she is clearly both.” His voice hit me immediately. He was a golden guard. He was the one who let me go—he was the one I told I was a Thatcher. He was one of Herrick’s men.
My eyes narrowed. “Scared of a girl?”
His face turned red as he repeated, “I don’t hit women and children.”
“That’s not how it went last time we met. You were dressed all in gold, and I was running around in the mud dressed like a boy.” I leaned in whispering, “Pretty sure the sentence you said was ‘I don’t kill children.’ Then you told me to run away.”
His eyes widened, but I suspected he was still confused.
I bowed. “You must remember me, the Thatchers’ son at your service.” I winked. “Just call me Amillia—Amillia Morgentstein.”
His eyes shot open as he realized every bit of what I was saying. He looked behind him, but the crowd had swallowed him up as people started to chant, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” He gritted his teeth and stepped into the ring. “You want to play pretend with me, little girl? We can play. I'm going to teach you a lesson you'll never forget. Then I am going to turn ya in to your rightful owner.”
I batted my lashes at him. “I look forward to it.” I gushed a little. “Then I can sort him out too.”
He looked at the big man, Tom, who was clueless about our exchange. “I'm in.” He handed him five hundred notes. “Double or nothing, on me.”
I winked. “That’s a pretty big pot to hand over. You sure you don’t want to save a little for later? In case you get lonely and your hands are both broken?”
He growled but said nothing as he stepped toward me and put his hands up, knuckles out.
I flexed my fingers into fists, stepped in to where he was, and lifted my hands to match his.
The ringmaster started to scream at the crowds, shouting about the fight and the rules.
I hardly listened as I watched the eyes of the man across from me and waited for my fear to hit. But it never did. I wasn’t afraid. I felt so lost that I had nothing left to lose. I couldn’t find my fear.
The ringmaster stepped back, waving his arms wide, and screamed, “BEGINNNNNN!”
Instantly, I backed up, waiting to assess him. Everything moved as if in slow motion. My opponent jumped forward, aggressively, but I brushed past him—I was faster. I elbowed him in the back and spun with my foot coming up, hitting him in the face.
The contact didn't even faze him; he was stronger than that. He leapt again, using his size and force, not realizing he wouldn't win against agility and speed.
The guard trainer's words flew through my brain, coaching me and guiding me. It was easy as every move the large man made was predictable and easy to block. I had to avoid him at all costs. He was a beast and would tear me to pieces if he got his hands on me.
But I wasn't the only one weighing and measuring; he was smarter than I gave him credit for. As I spun and swung out, he caught my wrist, just before my foot kicked him in the face again. He took the hit and tossed me to the side, attempting to break my wrist, but I caught him mid-air with my legs and wrapped them around his torso.
I tilted and twisted until I took him to the ground with a thud. His back landed on my knee and calf. I screamed in pain as it hurt for a second but stopped almost immediately.
I kicked him off my leg. He groaned more than I did; my knee had hit his kidney. I squeezed with my other leg until he released my injured wrist, and then I sprung up with my good hand on the floor, pushing hard. I hunched into a fighter's stance, waiting for him to recover.
He rolled onto his back a moment before getting up and screaming as he charged, swinging. I dodged his right fist, but his left got my eye. It instantly closed. I ducked again and tripped his legs out from under him.
As I tried to blink the swollen eye, I suddenly noticed that the crowd was screaming like savage animals. He rolled onto his stomach to get up, but I jumped on his back, landing with my hands around his fat neck. He tried to grab me, but his wide arms had no flexibility. As such, I pressed my thighs into the back of his biceps and held his arms down on the ground.
His eyes fluttered a moment before he f
ound his strength. He threw me off him and across the circle. I landed hard, wincing as a stabbing pain ripped through my right leg. I stood and watched him find his footing again. He was fat and slow, but when he got a hold of me, he made me pay.
He staggered and smiled a bloody smile at me, his mammoth hands reaching for me. My leg was healing, although slower than cuts and scrapes, but I still scrambled to get up. He punched me in the face just as I tried to take a step with my leg, and I screamed in pain. The punch made a cracking noise and I was thrown back.
Blood poured down my face as the men in the crowd booed him for hitting me.
He lunged at me, but I spun and jumped up, climbing on his back, and again wrapping my skinny arms around his neck. I squeezed with all my might as he tried once more to grab at me, but he was never going to reach that far behind himself. I tripped his legs up with my feet, taking us both down. As we landed I smashed his face into the ground and leapt off him, limping away with my still sore leg.
In the haze of the crowd I could see men grabbing other men and screaming, holding onto each other. My opponent sat up, then forced himself to stand as he spit blood down on the ground and looked at me. I didn't know what to expect, but when he smiled and laughed I was caught off guard. “Ya got a mean streak to ya I never expected, milady.”
“Tell that to Herrick when he has to come and scrape you from the puddle I leave you in.”
He smiled wider. “Oh, he's going to be a might excited when I drag yer skinny arse home for him. I bet I even get promoted.”
I laughed. “Join me and forget him. I'll promote you. Just for fighting me.”
“Building a wee army for the wee princess, are ya?” He laughed again and lunged at me. My leg was somehow better. I jumped high into the air and flipped backward. My foot caught his face, using the force of the flip to send him sailing back. I landed and kicked again into his tumbling chest before I spun and backhanded him. I screamed in pain as his hard face broke my hand, for certain.
But he screamed louder as he staggered backward into the crowd. I jumped and kicked once more, hitting his throat. He fell back and landed on his ass. His eyes fluttered again, but this time he went down like a dead bull moose.