by Logan Jacobs
Then there was a banging on the front door.
“What the fuck?” I sighed.
Elissa groaned beside me in her sleep, and I carefully slipped my arm out from beneath her head. She mumbled something incoherent as she shifted, and when I laid the blanket over her, she was fast asleep again.
“This has better be fucking good,” I growled as I pulled my pants back on.
The weight of my two blades was comforting at my side as I headed through the house. The banging on the door started back up as I reached the living room, and I almost got a fist to the face when I yanked open the door.
The Loser Lord stood fuming on my doorstep and looked like he wished he had gotten to punch me.
“What?” I barked. “I left a very sexy woman in my bed, and I would really like to get back to her now.”
“I’m sure you would, Great One.” He said my title with as much of a mocking tone as possible, and I nearly wiped the smirk off his face with my dagger. “But that’s exactly why I am here. That very sexy woman in there does not belong to you.”
I arched an eyebrow. “More to me than to you.”
The Loser Lord took a deep breath that was probably meant to keep him from strangling me before he was able to speak again. “I traveled all this way with the intention of marrying that beautiful woman. You cannot just take her from underneath my nose like this. Her father and I had an agreement, and I will see that it is fulfilled.”
“Oh, just get on with it already,” I growled. “What do you want?”
“Elissa’s marriage with you will be revoked, and she will marry me as she was supposed to,” the Loser Lord said as he raised his nose into the air.
Chapter 11
Did this guy really think that barging into my house at the crack of dawn would get him whatever he wanted? I didn’t even need to ask myself that because the look on his face was answer enough. He probably thought that I would be too exhausted from the night before to argue whatever nonsense came spewing out of his mouth.
Or he was just a prick.
“Look, dude, I don’t know what you expected,” I said as I leaned against the doorframe. “The deal was that you cleared out the mine, and then you would get the girl. Well, I did all that before you and your army got here, so I’m the one who gets the prize. I can’t make it simpler than that.”
“That was not the deal,” Lucian growled and took a step into my personal bubble. “There was no caveat that some false god could come in and do all the work for me. Elrin and my father discussed this at length, and it was decided that Elissa would be my bride!”
“Woooooow, you really sound like a whiny little bitch right now,” I said.
The Loser Lord’s face turned even redder, and he managed some kind of garbled speech that was harder to understand than the goblin language.
I smirked as an idea popped into my head.
“Male waste time,” I mocked in the goblin tongue. “This male keep female. This male destroy fighters, destroy all!”
The gaped expression on Lucian’s face made all of the respawns to learn the goblin language totally worth it. He recovered quickly enough, and instead of questioning or praising my amazing new skill, the Loser Lord just seemed to get angrier.
“No wonder you were able to get rid of the goblins,” he snarled. “You’re practically one yourself!”
“I get why you would think that, but you’re wrong.” I shrugged and looked down at my fingernails. They could really use a trim. Did they have nail clippers in this world? Maybe a file would do. “Now if there’s nothing else you want to whine about, I really would like to get back to bed.”
“Whine!” Lucian must really be used to people bending over backwards to give him his every wish. “You will annul your marriage to my bride and give her to me!”
“Gentlemen, please, you’ll wake the entire town!” Elrin came jogging up the street to my doorstep and gestured for us to quiet down. “Why don’t we take this conversation to my house, and we can continue the discussion behind closed doors.”
“There is nothing to discuss!” shouted Lucian. “Your daughter was to marry me, not this so-called God of Time!”
“He is not ‘so-called,’ Lucian,” Elrin said in a calm tone. “Sebastian is the real thing. Everyone in town has seen him in action, and there is nobody in the world quite like him.”
The brown-haired duke’s son gave me a wary glance. He clearly didn’t believe that I was anything special, and I wondered if he was going to challenge me to a duel over the lady’s hand. It wouldn’t be much of a fight since I already had Elissa’s hand, but I didn’t mind playing cat-and-mouse with the Loser Lord.
“Elrin, I want this explained,” Lucian finally demanded.
“Don’t you ever say ‘please?’” I chimed in. I earned a glare from the duke’s son that might have had me shaking in my boots if I was actually wearing boots.
“You’ll come along, too, charlatan,” Lucian added. “I want the entire story from all sides so that we can figure out where the misunderstanding lies.”
He almost sounded reasonable, but I had a feeling he was just being civil for the moment. He didn’t seem like the type to let something get snatched away from him without his say so.
Which kind of defeated the purpose of it being snatched, but whatever.
“My new wife is sleeping all comfy in bed,” I said as I shrugged my shoulders. “I’m just going to go back there. I don’t really care what length of rod Prince Toad has shoved up his ass.”
“Great One,” Elrin cleared his throat. “Lucian’s father… well. He--”
“My family owns this town and the mines!” the other man hissed.
“Ahhh,” I sighed, “so this is a bit of a political thing? I can’t just kill him right now and be done with it?”
“No, Great One,” Elrin sighed.
“I am a trained swordsman!” the twerp groaned as he reached for his sword, “and I--”
“If you pull out that blade I will skin you alive and then roast your balls while you are still living,” I stated.
The prince froze, and I could almost hear his teeth grind together as he let his fingers off his blade.
“You… We need to have this discussion,” he finally graveled.
I looked at Elrin, and when the man gave me a nod, I sighed, raised my finger so they knew to wait a moment, and ducked back inside to grab some more clothes. I retreated back to the bedroom and slipped the loose undershirt back over my head. I didn’t bother with the doublet since I didn’t want to look super fancy for the annoying conversation we were about to have, but I shoved my feet into the nice boots from the wedding. They were surprisingly comfortable, and once they were laced up they fit so snugly that I could have run at top speed and not worried about them falling off.
Elissa stirred as I sat on the bed to lace up the boots, and she gave me a lazy smile. “Good morning, Bash.”
“Good morning, wife,” I replied.
“Why are you up so early?” She reached out and tugged at my shirt to entice me back into the bed. “Nobody should be expecting you to be up and walking around for several hours.”
“Yeah, well, your former fiancé is throwing a little bitch temper tantrum,” I explained as I started lacing up the other boot. “He’s demanding that we annul our marriage so he can have you as per the original agreement.”
I half expected Elissa to give me a worried or terrified look. The Duke of Bullard sounded like a pretty powerful guy if he could get a marriage agreement out of Elrin, and his son had more to offer Elissa than I did, at least where her father was concerned.
“Does he really think Father will order our marriage to be broken?” Elissa laughed. “You are the God of Time, Sebastian. He fears your power far more than the Duke of Bullard.”
“Well, that’s good,” I growled playfully as I leaned closer to her. “Because I don’t like returning gifts that have been given to me.”
Elissa’s green eyes sp
arkled with desire, and when she pulled me in for a heated kiss, I nearly lost the resolve to go and chat with her father and former fiancé. It would have been so much easier and much more pleasurable to fall back into bed and enjoy her company.
But I had left the door open when I came back inside to get my clothes, so I knew it wouldn’t be long before the Loser Lord came stomping in here to ruin the fun.
“I would love to climb back into bed, my dear, but I have to go be a grown-up for a while,” I said to her as I pulled away from the kiss, and the pout she gave me weakened my resolve further, but I pushed through it. “I will spend tonight making it up to you, alright?”
“It’s a date,” she purred and planted another quick kiss to my lips.
The redheaded vixen sprawled herself out on the bed as I made my way out of the room. She knew she was in the strongest form of temptation, especially when she gave me a seductive smile. Several deep breaths did nothing to break through the fog in my head, but I somehow managed to turn my back and leave the room.
The short walk to Elrin’s house was filled only with the sound of our footsteps. Lucian clearly wanted to save the discussion for when we were indoors, and Elrin was probably trying to act as the mediator between us, so he didn’t want to seem too chummy with me. It gave me plenty of time to fantasize about the naked woman lying in my bed and all the delightful things I would do to her later.
Elrin brought us to a sitting room with plush red chairs. His offer of breakfast went ignored by Lucian, but I was happy to be treated to a bowl of fresh fruits and berries.
Then I made a save point before the conversation started, just in case things took a wrong turn into Crazy Town.
“Get on with it, Elrin,” Lucian growled as he threw himself against the back of his chair. He looked like a child that was being forced to interact with family members he didn’t know or like. He probably thought this whole thing would culminate in Elrin telling me I had to give Elissa up.
“Sebastian arrived here a few days ago,” Elrin began. “We were under siege by a horde of kobolds, and he just came out of nowhere and annihilated them all.”
“Kobolds are weak,” Lucian scoffed. “I would have done the same thing.”
“Against a horde of twenty, my lord?” Elrin questioned. His tone was curious instead of confrontational, but the duke’s son still shot him a glare. “Sebastian knew where the attacks were going to come from. I cannot explain it to you without it sounding like a tall tale.”
Elrin paused to give Lucian a chance to add some comment, but the brown-haired man-child just waved his hand for the town leader to continue. “When Sebastian offered to help the town, I was desperate. We can do nothing without our mine, as you know, and the horde of kobolds was just too close to home.”
“You knew I would be arriving shortly,” Lucian snorted. “You could have waited another day or two.”
“Or he could have had his mine under his control again for a day or two,” I countered with a shrug. “Just saying.”
Lucian glared at me. “He had an agreement with my father, and he should have honored it.”
“Show me the paper trail,” I argued.
“Paper trail?” the duke’s son echoed. “What does that even mean?”
“Gentlemen!” Elrin clapped his hands together before I could retort. “Let me finish the story in full before you start bickering again, please.”
Lucian crossed his arms and scowled at me. He seriously looked more and more like a child with every passing second.
“One of Sebastian’s terms was that if he succeeded, Elissa would be his bride,” Elrin told the duke’s son, and he raised his hand when the man-child opened his mouth to complain. “I will admit that I didn’t think Sebastian would be able to clear out the mine with only himself and the mercenary woman. I thought they would return, or be killed, like others I had sent. I even mentioned as much to him, but he was confident that he could take care of our problem.”
Lucian shifted in his chair and glared at me again, but kept his mouth shut. For once.
“I was pleasantly surprised when they returned just after midday with a chest full of copper coins and the lead goblin’s head,” Elrin laughed.
“I have brought you several chests of gold coins, Elrin,” Lucian growled. “Which is the agreed-upon price of your daughter’s hand. This man gives you your mine back, and that’s it? You would turn away the wealth I bring for… for some god?”
“Yes, I would,” Elrin stated. “If you knew what power he possesses, my lord, you would be down on your knees begging for his forgiveness. He really is a god walking amongst us mere mortals, and I am happy that my daughter is his wife.”
I was pretty sure Elrin thought I was going to fail at clearing out the mine, so his confidence in my power was a surprising change. When we first met, he seemed like a man backed into a corner. He had nothing to lose by accepting my offer, and by clearing out the mine with only two people, I had proven just how amazing I was.
Elissa was right when she said her father respected me and my power more than he feared the duke’s wrath.
Warmth filled my chest at the man’s praise, and I was glad to say he was my father-in-law, even if the term was strange to the people of this world.
“He used a trick,” Lucian said, and he was clearly unfazed by Elrin’s statement. “He can speak to goblins. Probably because he’s got goblin blood or something.”
“I’m a god, you idiot,” I growled. “I can do anything I set my mind to.”
“Clearly,” he snapped. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be in this situation right now!”
“Look, you whiny man-child,” I snapped right back. “Elrin probably shouldn’t have made that deal with me, but what’s done is done. It’s in the past, and you have no power to change it. Elissa is my bride, and I am not going to give her up to a loser like you!”
“Then I will raze this town to the ground and slaughter everyone,” Lucian threatened.
He really was throwing a temper tantrum just because I took something away before he could get to it.
“You are welcome to try,” Elrin chimed in, and the leader’s face had lost its calm expression and now wore a confident smirk. “Sebastian has vowed to protect this town, and he will destroy you and anyone else who tries to harm us. I have no doubt of that.”
The Loser Lord got himself all puffed up again, and if he had been wearing green I would have said he looked like a frog in a pot of boiling water. He was wearing mostly neutral colors, so he just looked like a whiny man-child.
“I have an army at my command!” Lucian shouted.
“The God of Time will annihilate you all,” Elrin said as he shrugged calmly.
The duke’s son shot to his feet and stood breathing like a raging bull about to charge. His gray eyes darted between me and Elrin, as if he wasn’t sure which of us was insulting him more. He decided it was me and stormed the short distance to my chair.
“You will live to regret this, God of Time,” he snarled as he brought his face a little too close to mine. “My father will hear of this betrayal, and he will send as many men as he needs in order to crush you beneath his thumb like the insignificant insect that you are.”
“Don’t strain yourself too much there, bud,” I said as I leaned away from him. “That sounded like too many big words for your tiny brain to handle.”
Lucian’s face darkened further, but before he could make any kind of retort, the sound of someone clearing their throat filled the room.
We all turned to see Elissa standing in the doorway. She wore a pale pink dress that fell to her shins. It really brought out the red in her hair and caused the freckles on her arms to pop. A blush crept across her face when she caught my eye, but she didn’t try to hide her face as she stepped into the room.
“It is very nice to see you again, Lucian,” she said. “But I am happy in my marriage to Sebastian.”
“You’ve been married a day,” Lucian grumbled. “You
would have been happy with me.”
She didn’t argue that, but her eyes flashed, and I knew that she didn’t like him deciding for her.
“I doubt it very much,” she began. “Sebastian gave me an unbelievable amount of pleasure last night, and my womb is filled with his god seed. No mortal can compare to him. The matter over me, and my hand is resolved. I have married Sebastian. I am his wife, and he is my husband.”
“So your purity has been fouled…” Lucian’s gray eyes flickered between me and Elissa before resting on the beautiful redhead. “It’s no matter. I still want you, and you will be mine. I will give you two days to change your mind. If you make the right decision by then, I will not destroy this town.
He shot her a warning look before storming past her out of the room, and my mind spun for a second as I considered my course of action.
I could kill the spoiled prince now, but there were a few problems with that. First was that no one but the mayor and my wife would see me in action, and they already both believed I was a god. Second was that I didn’t actually know this duke dude, and Lucian whining to his dad about not getting the woman he wanted would only get a handful of troops for assistance, or so I figured. Reports coming to the duke that I killed his son in the mayor’s house with no witnesses would probably really piss him off, and he’d probably send a few hundred warriors here to kill me.
I figured there would be a better time to kill Lucian, and that would be in front of everyone so that it was clear that the deed was done in honorable combat.
So, I let the man storm out of the house with his life intact.
Elrin let out a deep breath and collapsed into the nearest chair. “I will sleep better when he is far away from here.”
“From the sounds of it, far away from here is going to be six feet under,” I remarked as I plucked a raspberry from the bowl. “He’s not going to leave without Elissa.”
“And I’m not leaving with him, so it’s an impasse,” Elissa stated as she crossed the room to sit in my lap, took the raspberry from my hand, and popped it into her mouth. “I’m quite fond of being a wife to the God of Time, thank you very much.”