Page 46 of Faerie Fate
“If the two of you would prefer to chat with each other in private, then Bronwen and Noren and I can find a different table.” It was a shitty thing to say but with the tavern empty, we had our pick.
Bronwen swallowed aneepof surprise at my tone but Mike hardly glanced my way.
“It’s fine,” he replied. “You’re just easy to talk to.” He wasn’t speaking to me.
Poppy shrugged. “Tricks of the trade, you could call it. I have a way with people. A magnetism, some might say.”
Defiance flared up hot inside of me and I jerked myself back from stabbing her with the tines of the fork.
Bronwen, watching me, pushed my bowl closer, urging me without words to eat. The thought of the food now was one of the least appealing prospects I could think of despite my empty stomach.
“Well,” I said slowly, “whatever the tricks of your trade, thank you for the food and for saving us from Sylvester. But we really need to get going.”
Mike finally met my eyes, working overtime to pry himself away from Poppy and hermagnetismbefore he jerked his head in her direction. “Why don’t we ask her about it, Tavi?”
“I’d rather not,” I replied, keeping the sarcasm at bay as I swigged from my drink. “She already knows too much about us.”
Bronwen doubtfully arched a brow, but Poppy was staring and pinpricks of discomfort swam around us.
“Look, cards on the table? We’re here to find a witch,” Mike began. He pressed his palm flat against the wood as Bronwen squawked in protest.
“Are you out of your mind?” I asked him through gritted teeth. “Mike!”
He waved our concern away and focused on Poppy. “We’re looking for the great seer Oxana the Sightless. We heard she was in this area during the time of the Red Dawn. I’m not sure what you call this period now, but where we’re from, that’s the label. She made a great prophecy and we need her help.”
“Mike,” I said through gritted teeth, clenching the fork tightly enough to bend it. “Shut the hell up.”
We didn’t know this woman and we couldn’t trust her, no matter what kind of immediate romantic connection the prince felt toward the bounty hunter. Why would he trust her this way? Why would he open up?—
The door to the tavern slammed into the wall and my senses prickled. A little bit of apprehension and a shit ton of PTSD from the attack in the last tavern we’d been in added to the mix.
Only this time, the newcomers weren’t staring us down. They fixed their eyes and the tips of their swords on Sylvester.
“You owe us money, old man,” the clear leader snarled. “And it’s time for you to pay what you owe.”
Sylvester, to his credit, refused to back down. He stopped his furious scrubbing of a pewter pitcher and scoffed, the lines of magma beginning to glow across his face again. “You’ll have to take it out of my cold dead hands, Lezar, because I don’t have what I owe you, just as I didn’t have it when you came in yesterday.”
Lezar laughed; his head tipped back and the lank, greasy strands of hair touched the cradle of his neck. “You assured me you’d get the money, though. I see from the lack of patrons you might have issues scrounging it together. You?—”
He’d caught sight of Poppy now and the wolf at my side. He froze, stared at us again, taking our mettle. Then peeled his lips back and showed lines of pointed fangs like a shark. Lezar’s eyes took on the distinctive slitted pupils of the same creature.
“Well, Poppy. Imagine my surprise at seeing you. Back again?”
She took an unbothered sip of broth and slurped it loudly. “It’s not really a surprise to me, Lezar. I had a gut feeling I’d step in shit today. And here you are.”
It was the last thing she said before Lezar and his cronies charged us.
Chapter Thirteen
Poppy rolled her eyes.
“I have something to attend to. I’ll be right back.” She licked her lips, setting the bowl aside.
With unhurried movements, she pushed herself out of the booth and met Lezar and his men halfway across the tavern. Their march halted in its tracks as she drew her weapon out and released a feral yowl.
My breath caught in my throat and my heart joined it a second later, causing a traffic jam.
I’d never seen anyone as eager as Poppy to leap into the fray. She did not hesitate before she unleashed herself on these men. And that’s what this was—an unleashing. She held nothing back as she sliced toward Lazar.
