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‘Open,’ I murmur, half expecting her to balk, but after a bit of hesitation, she parts her lips and opens her mouth.
I tip the contents onto her tongue.
‘Swallow it,’ I command quietly. ‘Every bit.’
I grin at my own innuendo, but she doesn’t seem to understand it.
After a moment, she does what I order, though, and I stroke her neck with my thumb gently as a reward, enjoying the way her breathing hitches at my touch.
‘There’s my good girl.’
I see the exact second I know I’ve taken it too far because her wide eyes clear and narrow quickly, and I don’t have time to act before her knee connects with my groin.
‘I’m not your good girl,’ she hisses.
I stagger back to the door, letting out a pained chuckle as I cup my front.
‘You will be, Harbinger,’ I grind out with a groan.
‘Never!’
I close the storeroom door and lock it, sinking into the nearby chair to lick my wounds. I let out another laugh as the agony begins to subside. If she thought that would warn me away from her, she’s got another thing coming. Her daring is a powerful aphrodisiac.
But as I work through my pain, I look toward the door with a bit of concern. It must have taken it out of her to strike out at me that quickly and powerfully in the state she’s in. I hesitate but then push another sachet of pain powder under the door.
‘There’s another if you’re second-guessing that kick,’ I say through the door. ‘Take it like a good girl,’ I can’t help but goad, and I grin widely when I hear her muffled voice tell me to fuck off.
This is going to be a much more entertaining trip than I thought.
I make sure her door is locked and leave Dane’s apartments as the chimes strike seven.
I have an hour, which is less time than I’d like, but if Pikerd and the other two cowards are where they should be, I’ll be able to take them all at once.
Fingers crossed.
I take the back stairs down to the main level and sneak into the servants’ tunnels that lead to the disused storerooms and smile in the dark when I hear talking and laughter. Not everyone knows that Captain Pikerd likes to hide down here with a flagon of wine while on duty and that he usually lets those who are with him partake so that he doesn’t have to drink alone.
I sneak up the gloomy passage, taking the torches out of their sconces and smothering them under my boot as I go. By the time I get to the room they’re in, the winding passage is pitch black, which should slow them down if any of them get out before I’m finished with them.
I get as near to the closed door as I can, noting that it’s ajar just enough for me to slip through and that the storeroom is quite dark. Perfect. I go as incorporeal as I can and slip into the room.
Inside, there’s naught but a lantern balanced on a wooden box and three guards I know. All three are Orcs, but Pikerd is the biggest. His silver tusks glint menacingly in the lamplight, and his eyepatch makes him look more dangerous than I know him to be. The other two are lithe and not so broad, though they all share the same green hue and black hair. Probably part goblin or even fae. I’d wager that the three of them are cousins, too. I walk around them silently, staying in the gloom where they can’t see me. Pikerd and Berd are guffawing at something.
The third one, Nels, chuckles as well. ‘Anyway, before you arrived, we’d only given her a few kicks. She was still in and out, making those fucking noises the humans make.’ Nels grimaces. ‘You know the ones I mean.’ He affects a few high-pitched whimpers, and the others nod with murmurs of assent.
‘Aye, they do sound like that,’ Pikerd laughs. ‘Pathetic. I can’t believe they’ve paid us so much to keep quiet about a human.’ He shakes his head. ‘Don’t know what this city’s coming to.’ He takes a drink. ‘What else did you do to her before I arrived?’
I freeze as I’m about to skewer Nels. They’re talking about her, what they did to her before she was delivered to the city dungeons. I try to stay calm and melt further into the dark to listen, my hands furling into fists in anger I don’t really understand the source of. I was only really here for Pikerd. Berd and Nels were just going to be collateral damage, but it looks like they deserve what’s coming to them as well.
‘We slapped her about a bit, broke some ribs, maybe her arm,’ Berd says. ‘I tore her uniform a little while she was still conscious, got a cane out, and gave her a few cracks with it. She was out by then, though.’
Pikerd frowns at his men. ‘Is that all? Berd. Nels. She was a fucking murderer! You were meant to make her suffer.’
‘Oh … she did, Cap’n, she did.’ Berd nods emphatically, looking towards Nels, who also bobs his head quickly, eyes wide at the captain’s ire.
‘Aye, she suffered as only a female can. We promise you that, sir. I made her squeal with the cudgel, I did.’
The image of them defiling her unconscious form has me seething behind Nels, my body coiled and ready to strike as the knowledge burns through me. But I move around the room, deciding to save him for last. If only there was time to do the same to him, but there isn’t, so I’ll just have to make the best of the minutes I do have.
