Date Knight

by Bridget Essex

  “This really worries me, baby...” I tell her, glancing around the bar as I try to spot the knights, but all I see are women writhing together on the dance floor, and women chatting each other up at the bar. “What if something happens?” I ask Virago, biting my lip. I trail off as I realize that Virago's arm is around my waist and that she's pulling me toward her.

  “Do not worry so,” she growls into my ear, making me shiver as the band's energy increases, the guitar vamping up to a loud, almost primal thrumming that makes my bones feel like they're vibrating, my breath coming faster. “They are knights,” Virago murmurs into my ear, her mouth against my skin. “They can take care of themselves, and they know to stay close to us. Now,” she says, taking a step back from me. The rush of cold air between our bodies drives me crazy...just like she thought it would, because she gives me a slow, sensual smile before turning to her glass and drinking down the rest of her beer in a few swallows. She upends the glass onto the bar's counter so hard I'm surprised the glass didn't break—and then she turns to me. “Will you dance with me, beloved?” she asks me, her eyes sparking with a very welcome fire.

  I try to drink my beer down, too, but I'm a total lightweight these days (Ha! Who am I fooling? I've always been a lightweight), and when I upend my glass on the bar's counter, too, I feel the effects of the alcohol almost immediately.

  I'm already tipsy? From one beer? My college self is laughing...in that my college self would be tipsy from one beer, too.

  I lean on Virago a little as she pulls me onto the dance floor of the bar. Out here, among all the women dancing with (and—let's be honest—grinding on) each other, I can feel the energy of the room, the energy of the music, of all the people surrounding us. Maybe it's just because I'm tipsy (okay, probably because I'm tipsy), but that energy fills me as I gaze up into Virago's bright blue eyes. She's smiling down at me, her mouth rounded at the corners into a soft, sexy grin, and when her hands grip my hips, when I meet her stare, I can feel her want and need. I have just as much want and need, so I wrap my arms around her neck, pulling her head down, pulling her mouth to mine for a kiss.

  She's electric, her kiss potent and powerful as the thrum of love and lust (never quite knowing where one stops and the other starts or where they both merge) jolts straight through me.

  The tempo of the song changes, becomes more energetic now, hard and pulsing like the blood pounding quickly through my veins. The woman on stage locks the microphone into the mic stand, and she leans the mic forward, gazing out at the crowded bar with hair that sweeps in front of her eyes. She lowers her tone, her shoulders curving, her breath coming fast, impassioned, as her eyes narrow, as the power of the song compels her.

  “I feel you, under my skin,” the woman growls into the microphone, raking her eyes over the women dancing in front of her. “I feel you...”

  I turn on the dance floor, and Virago turns with me as we press tightly together, her fingers in my hair now, pulling me closer as I dig my own fingers into her hips, gripping her, breathless.

  In the back of my head, I realize that this is the last night I have here on Earth—literally. And Agrotera isn't the safest place. There is a chance that something bad could happen to me while I'm there. Monsters roam Agrotera: cannibal werewolves, massive beasts. And I'm aware—highly aware, in this moment—that this could be my last—truly last—day here.

  But you know what? If this was my last day, it would be such a good day that I don't think I would regret a damn thing. My mother always talked like that, reminding me over and over again that the days that make up our lives are important, that to make a conscious effort to be happy every single day means you're living happily ever after. And, dammit, right now I am so happy I could burst, really and truly happy, as I dance with my knight on the dance floor, as the performer sings her heart out on stage, as the other knights whirl around us with women in their arms.

  It seems like they're pretty happy in this moment, too. I've caught glimpses of Magel, Kell and Alinor, and while Magel and Alinor have been dancing with the same two women (and they look pleased to be doing so), Kell...has not been dancing with only one woman.

  This is the fourth woman I've seen her dancing with since we've arrived at the bar. And Kell is dancing closely with this new lady, a smaller, lovely woman with long brunette hair that's as straight as a pin, and—like us—Kell and she are making out unabashedly in public.

  A little bit of my happiness leaves me, then, because I realize that I haven't seen Calla dancing with anyone at all.

  Actually, since we arrived at the bar and Calla first disappeared...I haven't seen her once.

  I'm fairly certain that an assassin following the knights and queen from Agrotera to Earth is an impossibility. But just because there aren't assassins on this world who would seek to kill the queen of Arktos, that doesn't mean that a bar in Boston is a completely safe space. It worries me that I haven't glimpsed her, and now I can't rest until I find her—just to make sure she's okay.

  “I'll be back in just a second,” I tell Virago, reaching up and brushing my mouth against hers, exchanging one hot, short kiss, before extricating myself from her embrace as the song the band was playing comes to a final, long-held note. The song ends, and the crowd cheers the band on voraciously. “I'll be right back,” I repeat, shouting to Virago over all the yelling, and she nods. “Keep dancing!” I mouth to her with a smile; then I'm moving through the crowd, trying to find the queen.

  I trust that Calla can handle herself, just like her knights can handle themselves. But she was just...so sad earlier. I want to make certain she's all right. Hell, I'd be thrilled if I found her slow-dancing with a woman, or making out with one... But when I finally spot her across the crowded bar, that's not, unfortunately, the case.

  Calla is sitting at the bar, her back to it, nursing a glass of what appears to be only water, her expression distant. She's staring out at the crowd of happy, intoxicated women, and she looks like she's not really seeing them at all. Her eyes are unfocused, as if she's a million miles away. She stirs the little plastic straw in her glass before taking a small sip with a downturned mouth.

  I reach her, then clear my throat, hoping not to startle her—but she must have seen me coming. She turns to me expectantly with a small sigh, like she's about to take an audience with a dignitary.

  “Hey,” I murmur to her, leaning against the bar beside her. “Are you...all right?”

  “Don't even try with her,” says a woman on my left, a woman who's pretty inebriated, judging by how hard she's leaning on me, her hooded eyes blinking slowly. “I just tried to get her to dance, and she was all like, 'No, thank you,' like she was declining an award or somethin'.” The woman hiccups in my face.

  I ignore her as she makes a show of shrugging and pushing off the bar. Calla gazes unhappily at the floor now, twirling her straw in her hand. I bite my lip and clear my throat again, having to shout over the band as they start a new song, “Hey,” I repeat, “are you all right?”

  Calla glances sidelong at me, and a single tear leaks out of her right eye, tracing its way down her pale cheek.

  So, no, then. Not all right.

  “They have all been very kind here,” she says, indicating the bar at large. “I have had many offers,” she says, smiling sadly. “It is enough to make a woman blush,” she says, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear as she lowers her lashes. “But I can not be with anyone.”

  My brow furrows as I try to understand what she's talking about. After a moment, things start to click into place in my head, and as I watch Calla gazing wistfully out at the room full of women, I wonder...is she so heartbroken because of a woman?

  “What are you drinking? Can I buy you another one?” I ask Calla, and she shakes her head at me, lifting up the glass.

  “Do not bother, dear Holly. I am only drinking water,” she says simply, her shoulders rolling in an elegant shrug. She uncrosses her long legs and crosses them the other way, raising a
brow as she glances at me. “I wanted to keep my wits about me on a new world.”

  “More ale!” Alinor bellows next to us, appearing out of thin air to slap her open palm on the bar, her other arm around a slip of a woman who's clinging to her happily. Alinor looks...pretty drunk already, actually. We haven't even been here that long!

  Calla smiles a little indulgently as she shakes her head. “Obviously, my knights do not share my philosophy,” she says, glancing at Alinor with affectionate eyes.

  Alinor takes the “ale” that the bartender just gave her (it looks like he just poured her a beer) and stumbles off to drink it down and dance with the woman she's with. Calla's gaze follows her, and it's equal parts affectionate and pensive.

  “Um...it must be pretty wonderful—to have knights,” I tell her, inwardly cursing myself for such a ridiculous conversation opener.

  Calla glances at me quickly and then looks away. She doesn't say anything for a long moment as she bites at her full bottom lip, rotating the glass in her hands. She gazes down at the water, her mind turned inward.

  As the music starts to wind down, I realize that the band is preparing to play a slow song...

  And it's at this moment when everything begins to fall apart.

  Here's a pro tip: if you have knights visiting you from another world, never take them to a bar. This is something that I have to apparently learn the hard way.

  A tall woman wearing a backwards baseball cap and a t-shirt emblazoned with the Boston Red Sox logo is currently stomping her way across the dance floor, shoving women aside and generally being rude as she makes a beeline toward...

  Oh, crap.

  Kell.

  Currently, Kell is slow dancing with yet another woman. Well, they're not so much dancing as grinding on each other, Kell's front against the woman's back, the woman's arms reaching over her own shoulders and cradling Kell's head. Kell is kissing the woman's neck, her hands sliding beneath the woman's blouse...

  And this Red Sox-shirted woman is stomping toward Kell and her dance partner with a determined scowl. She's just as tall as Kell, and she looks like she works out, muscular arms evident beneath her t-shirt. But more importantly than anything else? She looks pissed.

  And now that the music is quieting, it's the perfect lull for voices to be easily carried throughout the bar.

  Yeah, I didn't want the knights to draw any attention, but it's apparently a bit too late for that.

  The angry woman finally makes her way through the mass of bodies gyrating on the dance floor, and she taps Kell pretty hard on the shoulder with a jabby finger. Her face is glowering so much that I'm surprised a storm cloud hasn't rolled into the bar, aiming miniature-sized lightning bolts at Kell.

  It's obviously aggressive, how this woman gets Kell's attention, but Kell does what I'm assuming any trained knight would do. She turns around slowly, pivoting on the back of her heel. Her guard is up, and she's staring at her challenger intensely, as if her ice blue eyes could turn someone to stone.

  “Hey, you're dancing with my girlfriend, asshole,” says this new woman to Kell. She shouts it at her, actually, her hands curling into fists at her sides, and because the music is so quiet, the sound of her voice does carry throughout the bar, and the entire crowd falls silent in that moment, people flicking their eyes to what is clearly about to become a scene.

  Kell glances, her brow raised in question, to the woman she was kissing half a heartbeat ago. This woman, with disheveled hair, her shirt untucked (and unbuttoned at the bottom), simply shrugs. Then Kell turns back to the woman who just interrupted them.

  “That's not what she said a minute ago,” Kell informs her, almost sweetly.

  And then she ducks a punch.

  That punch came from nowhere, and with the strength that the woman threw it, it could have knocked Kell out cold if it had actually hit home. But it didn't. Kell was standing one second, and then she just...wasn't. She moved so fluidly and quickly, I never actually saw her do it; she just bowed like a dancer, avoiding the punch.

  The woman lets out a groan of annoyance, and she gets ready to throw another punch, but then Virago arrives at Kell's side, appearing there in a heartbeat's time. She stands as a barrier between Kell and her opponent, her hands up, her expression conciliatory, friendly.

  “I am so sorry, friend,” she tells the woman, her tone mollifying. “It was but a mistake, truly. Kell is not from this country, and she is unfamiliar with the customs. She only arrived here today. Please forgive her. Let me buy you a drink, show you there is no need for animosity,” says Virago, offering her hand to the woman and smiling.

  But Virago's soothing words don't fix things. Not even a little.

  “That jerk had her hands all over my girlfriend's ass!” shouts the angry woman, taking a step forward and shoving Virago's shoulders.

  “Well, it's a nice rear,” says Kell, shrugging, as if she doesn't understand what the fuss is about.

  The seething woman takes in what Kell just said, as if she's drunk and has to process the words (or maybe it just takes her a minute to realize all that was implied by Kell's statement). But when she understands it, it's like a hurricane has settled in the bar.

  “That does it!” the woman shouts, and then she steps forward so quickly that her body is a blur as she aims a very aggressive, savage punch, not at Kell...but at Virago, who still happens to be standing between them. Virago is a barrier to Kell, and it's obvious that this woman is going to do everything she can to get through that barrier and unleash her fury on Kell.

  But the punch that she threw at Virago doesn't touch her. Instead, Virago catches the woman's first in midair, her palm and fingers curling over the other woman's wrist in a calm but no-nonsense grip. “Friend,” sighs Virago, shaking her head, “Kell was wrong to dance with your girlfriend. It was just a misunderstanding. Please, I urge you again—let me buy you a drink.”

  But the angry woman doesn't seem to hear a word Virago is saying. Her rage only grows more potent: she snarls, and then she tries to punch Virago with her other hand.

  Yes, obviously, Kell should not have been dancing with the girlfriend of another woman. But no matter what, this woman shouldn't have tried to punch Virago, someone who was playing peacemaker and trying to make sure a fight didn't start.

  I've never seen Virago in a combat situation outside of jousting, and it's all fake jousting at that. So the speed with which Virago moves right now...well, it's kind of breathtaking. Because, one moment, Virago is standing calmly between Kell and the angry woman. And the next moment, somehow, the woman has been flipped through the air and is lying on her back on the ground.

  Virago executed the flip elegantly, just by grabbing the woman's hand and using her body weight to help her complete the arc through the air.

  Though I watched it happen with my own two eyes, the ease of the action is almost unbelievable to me. The woman turns over, and she's now lying in a fetal position on the club floor, coughing. I think she got the breath knocked out of her. Virago bends down and offers a hand to the woman again. For a single heartbeat, I think the woman is going to take it and finally accept Virago's offer of a drink.

  But nothing's ever that easy. And though the woman just had her breath knocked out of her lungs, she pushes Virago's hand aside, rolls over, gets on all fours, and then slowly, slowly, rises to her feet again.

  I'm not prepared for what happens next. The angry woman delivers a vicious short kick with her leg, aiming for Virago's middle.

  But Virago sidesteps the kick easily, as if she did expect it, and then she's crouching low, like a lioness about to leap on an unsuspecting gazelle. There is raw power moving through every inch of her muscled body as she leaps gracefully through the air and does a quick spinning kick with her right foot.

  In mere seconds, the angry woman is on her back again on the floor.

  Virago crouches over her for the second time, a small line furrowing her brow. “Friend, please let me buy you that drink,” s
he tells the coughing woman companionably. The woman on the ground has broken out in a sweat and is breathing hard, her chest rising and falling as she stares up at Virago with what really looks to be pure loathing. Virago, on the other hand, appears exactly as she did a moment ago, every hair in place, a bright smile on her face.

  This time the woman does take her hand as she struggles to stand. Virago pulls her upright easily and then guides her to the bar, where she raises a finger to the bartender, who races over, eyes wide, with two new beers.

  The woman Kell was dancing with has left Kell, following the woman and Virago to the bar unhappily. This means that Kell is now alone, and that's something that Kell is not going to stand for. Almost immediately—after a sigh and frown in the direction of the retreating woman—Kell is circling the dance floor of women again, her head to the side, swaggering with her hands deep in her pockets, a thoughtful expression on her face.

  The heads of nearly every woman on that dance floor turn and watch her, and I'm fairly certain they're not interested in her because she was just part of a fight a moment ago. No, Kell is prowling like a tigress as she circles that floor, a noble, gorgeous predator, ready to find her next willing prey.

  It's a very short hunt before she has another woman in her arms.

  “You did well,” says Calla, as Virago approaches us, walking along the bar with her head held high, her eyes flashing with a potent fire. Virago tugs down the sleeves of her suit jacket with a small shrug, but you can tell that she's pleased by the queen's praise, her lips turning up at the corners in a small smile that she tries to stifle.

  “Milady, it was nothing,” she says then, and her smile for the queen grows. But then she glances from me to Calla and realizes the same thing that I did: Calla is sitting here, nursing a glass of water, alone.

  “Are you not enjoying yourself, milady?” asks Virago, her voice dropping low as she leans toward the queen. “There are many women—” she begins, but then she seems to think better of her sentence, and she pales a little, straightening. “Forgive me, Your Majesty,” she says, her voice suddenly solemn.