Page 23 of Given to the Fae
‘Bad luck, Morgan,’ Kings sniggers as I stride over to take the female.
I snarl at him and lunge, playing into the idea that I’m more beast than fae, and I’m gratified by the way he pales and scrambles back.
‘Try not to kill the other two, eh?’ I growl, glancing at the other females who are in the adjacent stall in the straw.
They look bruised, broken and pitiful. I steel myself to the sight. I can do little for them.
Hari snorts. ‘We ent allowed to touch ’em. Bere’s orders. Ent allowed to give them to the bulls to watch some sport neither.’
He sighs but brightens when Kings winks and produces a flagon of wine from the straw. Hari gives him a friendly thump on the back.
‘Aye, good lad! Make sure they’re chained well and we can still have a good night.’
I grab the slave in an iron grip on her forearm and pull her from the barn to the inn across the way. I’m wondering why Bere is going all the way to the crossroads half an hour away instead of meeting his contacts here, but then I notice that many of the patrons around the tables are shifter sellswords the Council is paying to keep the peace. I doubt Bere, with his dubious business practices, has a permit to sell humans in this Circle. He must be trying to offload those bulls on the sly.
I sit the girl at the table. She looks around, clearly surprised.
‘What?’ I snarl.
She looks down. ‘I’m sorry, my lord, but I think...’
Her words are too faint for me to hear over the din of the crowded taphouse.
‘Speak up, girl,’ I say impatiently.
She looks up at me, her eyes flashing in anger that she quickly conceals and I almost chuckle. Perhaps I will turn my back on this slip of a thing. It might be quite entertaining to see her try to overpower me and escape.
‘Slaves sit on the floor,’ she hisses.
I shrug. ‘Who cares? Shut your mouth or you’ll not get any food, girl.’
It’s an empty threat, but she doesn’t know that.
Her lips thin and she looks down at the table’s surface.
A robust troll in a dirty apron brings over a plate and sets it in front of me. He pours me a goblet of wine and glances at the slave sitting at the table, doing a double take as if he hadn’t noticed her properly.
His face twists in anger and before I can stop him, he’s grabbed her by her hair.
‘No slaves on the chairs!’ he bellows, spittle flying from his mouth into her face.
He throws her to the floor and she yelps as she hits the flagstones hard, skidding a little on her hands.
I stand up, towering over the troll. What would a true slave master say in this instance?
‘What the fuck are you doing with my property?’ I thunder.
‘Their kind are for the floor!’
The troll looks at me angrily, tipping his head up to stare into my face and realizing how large I am. He opens and closes his mouth, clearly thinking the better of whatever he was going to say next.
‘She stays on the stone beside you,’ he says after a moment, ‘or you’re not welcome here.’
I give him a narrow-eyed look and he backs away. I watch as he steps too close to the large barrels stacked up by the wall and bumps one hard. It knocks into another and falls on him, making him lose his balance and tumble against the hot fireplace. He screams, pulling a badly burned hand back from the grate.
A female troll rushes from the kitchen with a cry and leads the innkeeper away, berating him for his clumsiness while she fawns over his injury.
The spectacle over, the low hum of chatter returns, and I look at the human. She’s next to the chair on her knees. She suddenly looks much more relaxed than I’ve seen her all day.
