Page 22 of Truth's Blade

Melodie looked up at her and nodded. “Yes.” She didn’t want to drag the sordid business between her and Vinest into the public, but from the glint in Captain Draper’s eye, she decided honesty was probably the quickest way to get this over with. “My former employer didn’t want me to leave and locked me in.”

Draper’s eyes narrowed. “Locked you in?”

“In my room. I lived with him over the workshop where I worked. I decided it would be better to escape tonight than delay the lieutenant tomorrow morning with an ugly confrontation.” She lifted her shoulders. “I really just came to say I will try to geta room at the inn on the corner, and the lieutenant can fetch me there, rather than across the bridge tomorrow.”

“Does your former employer know you are coming here?” Draper asked.

Melodie tilted her head, thinking about it. “He knows Theo is a soldier for Kassia and Cervantes; he has associated Theo with my leaving; so he may come here to ask questions.” She thought back to what happened at the river crossing. “The soldiers at the booth in the middle of the bridge delayed him a little for me. I don’t know if he decided to keep after me or not.”

Draper glanced over at the soldier who had originally told Melodie to wait. He had come back into the room and was standing to attention behind his captain. He nodded and moved to the door, slipping out into the night.

Gone to see what was happening at the bridge, Melodie guessed.

She was suddenly hit by a wave of fatigue. She forced herself to stand. “Please pass on my new address, Captain. I’ll see Theo in the morning.”

“You’re from Kassia and Cervantes, aren’t you?” Draper suddenly asked. “Even though you’ve come over from Grimwalt. I can hear it in your voice.”

Melodie hesitated in the doorway. “I think so. But we moved around a lot when I was a child. My father never told me where we were originally from.”

Theo suddenly pushed through the door from the back.

He was wearing soft black cotton pants and shirt, and it outlined the height and the breadth of him in fine detail. “Melodie.”

She grimaced, suddenly feeling embarrassed and disheveled. “I didn’t mean for you to be woken. I just wanted to say I left my house, and you can find me at the inn down the road tomorrow instead. Please go back to sleep.”

“What happened?” he asked.

She shook her head. “It really doesn’t matter. I’m packed and I’m ready. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He moved, silent and quicker than someone that big surely should, and stopped her with a hand to her shoulder. “I knew something was wrong earlier, and I let you go into that house anyway. I’m sorry.”

She stepped back, fighting the sudden prickle of tears. She would not weep. She would not look weak under the weight of so many suspicious eyes. “This was my fight, not yours. And it is finished. Go back to sleep.” She drew in a breath, lifted a hand, and touched his arm. “Please.”

As she turned to the door, Vinest burst in, hand clamping hard on her forearm. “There you are. We need to talk.”

The look in his eyes was off, like he had lost some part of his sanity along the route from home to here.

She fixed her gaze on his fingers, knuckles white with the force he was using on her, and a sound came out of her throat in response to the pain that she couldn’t control.

His head suddenly snapped back, and the bruising grip released.

She collapsed back onto the bench, arm cradled close to her stomach.

Theo had hit Vinest.

He was still hitting him.

“Enough.” Draper came to stand beside Theo, and with a sound of regret he dropped his fists.

Vinest was hunched over by the door, arms lifted in front of his face.

“Let me see your arm,” Draper ordered her.

The heat of embarrassment from earlier was nothing to what she felt now. She wanted to refuse, but the look on Draper’s face told her she wouldn’t take no for an answer. She extended herarm carefully, and Theo knelt beside her and carefully pushed up her jacket and her shirt sleeve.

The bruises already looked ugly, four lines on top, one below.

“I didn’t mean to do that,” Vinest said, gaze fixed on what he’d done. “I just want you back.”

---