Chapter One
Jalisa
“Hey, another round, sweetheart!” shouted a silver haired male fae as he leaned a wobbly elbow on the glossy black wooden bar. He was older than my thirty-five years by several decades, even at our slowly aging rate, I could tell the difference. Puffiness framed his heavy lidded dark brown eyes, etched with fine lines from what, at first, I mistook as a jolly disposition. He let out an undignified belch, and I reared back, rolling my eyes.
Most evenings I loved working as a bartender. The place was unremarkable, with a long bar counter and stools, lighter hard wood floors, several tables scattered about, dim floating orbs, dark purple painted walls, and a space near the hallway leading to the bathrooms where musicians usually played. Thepub could draw some rowdy customers, but it was cleaner than most, with good food and drinks and talented musical guests. Also, coming up with inventive drinks and seeing the customers appreciate it was fulfilling. Plus, the hours suited my anti-early morning temperament.
I liked the people of this town, the capital of Prinath. Despite my initial hesitation to move to a town that my birth kingdom despised, it was quite lovely. Also, I had no loyalty to Nodoor. My hometown treated me more as a commodity than a valued citizen. Including my family.
However, there were some days, more and more recently, where I wanted to give out back-handed slaps to almost everyone who even looked at me wrong. I had a growing list of folks today, and he was the latest entry.
One of my many rules was, don’t give me a pet name if I don’t know you.
The silver-haired fart snapped his fingers in front of my face, and my mind dimmed for the briefest of moments. “Hurry. We don’t want to lose our buzz.”
I clinched my jaw and turned away; if I bit down any harder, I was going to shatter my teeth. Tolerance for foolishness was not my strongest trait. I absent-mindedly filled a pitcher with ale as I thought, once again, about how I found myself here. This wasn’t my path. If my family knew what I was doing, they’d be disappointed and maybe embarrassed. I’d come from nobility with an elite education, and my family cherished that more than anything. In addition to the comforts it provided, it also meant status and power, and we had a lot of it.
However, that didn’t come without challenges for me. It just added more pressure and less freedom. I was trained to be noble and high-ranking. I’d even joined our military for a short while, which my parents didn’t approve of, but I’d done well at convincing them it was good for connection building. Andpossibly to find a mate, which is all they really wanted for me, despite my intense schooling.
Still, there were limits. And I’d met my parents’ limits. In return, they’d done something so awful, I could never forgive them. And thus, I found myself here, serving drunk Prinathian fae to escape the controls of my Nodoorian life.
I slid the pitcher in front of the silver-haired fae who had turned his back to me, yelling at his friends who were sitting at a wooden table not too far away. Geez, his voice was louder than the band playing across the room. “Here’s your ale, I added it to your bill.”
“What’s your name, honey?”
I raised my shoulders, tensing at the pet name. I’d had just about enough. “Jalisa. That’s my name. Not sweetheart or honey.”
He reared back, chuckling. “Calm down, didn’t mean to offend. You got a man with that sunshine attitude of yours? You got the looks, but that temperament has got to settle down.” He gave me a cocky grin, his eyes barely opened enough to even see me. “Be my woman. I could help you work on that.”
I glared at him, crossing my arms. This wasn’t the first time I’d received such a proposal. It came with the territory as a bartender. “Not interested.”
Undeterred, he broadened his grin. “Aww, you’re just saying that because you don’t know what you’re missing. I may not be much to look at, but I could show you a good time. Turn that grumpy face into a happy one with just my tongue.”
I was running out of patience. “Extremely hard pass.”
He shook his hips, thrusting his crotch out. “I’m extremely hard.”
I raised my upper lip in a silent snarl. “Listen, dick head, get away from me before I clean this bar with your head. I don’t want you or your slimy tongue. Go, now, you fucker.”
He scowled at me and grabbed the pitcher, spilling ale on the counter. “With that mouth of yours, no man is ever going to want you.”
I placed my hands on my cheeks and gave an exaggerated worried look. “Oh, dear, whatever will I do? I guess I’ll have to keep taking care of myself the way I always have since reaching adulthood.”
He muttered a curse before turning away. I was probably not going to get a tip. I shrugged. I had good savings and wasn’t struggling enough to have to put up with that bullshit.
I twisted to the side, the nagging resurgence of an all too familiar ache wracking my lower back. It usually shifted to different parts of my body. Knees, shoulders, elbows, wrists, fingers, collarbone, and now back. I’d been fighting this pain since I’d become an adult, and so I was used to it. No potion or magic cured it, but I did have potions to help handle the pain. Fae were typically healthy, it came with living long lives, but some of us were less fortunate with illnesses that shortened our lives or remained with us. No one knew where my pain came from, although there were certain things that didn’t help, like stress.
Stress had been my closest friend the last month, and it wasn’t because of my illness. I’d painted myself into a very unfortunate corner without thinking everything through. I’d agreed to marry a Prinathian fae as part of the treaty between Prinath and Nodoor for the supposed greater good of the two kingdom union. At the time, I was willing to make that ultimate change to my life because of a cause I no longer believed in. Now, I had to find a way to get out of this situation without getting locked up by the royal court for disobeying an order.
Despite recent murders of arranged marriages between Prinathians and Nodoorians, the court had not stopped this part of the treaty agreement, although they seemed to allow fordisunions if the couples did not work out. The culprits behind the murders had been found, and our king and queen believed that blending the people of both kingdoms through work and marriage, were still the best tools for long term unity. I’d come to enjoy living here, but I did not agree that forced marriage was our best option. Especially when the man I was being forced to marry was someone I could never love.
I glanced over to the other bartender, a tall male with a blue mohawk named Noren. “I’m going to take my break. I’ll be back.”
He nodded, and I moved from behind the bar, heading toward a corridor off to the left of the pub holding the restrooms and outside patio seating. I rubbed my lower back as I walked, knowing it would do nothing to soothe the inflammation. I dug into a pocket of my brown leather pants, taking out a small vial filled with clear liquid. My pain medicine. It came in a big container, but I poured some in vials to take with me to work or other places.
I flipped open the vial and drank the medicine, thankful for its quick working effects. I sighed and leaned against the door frame opened to the back tables. The area was more intimate and quainter, with a cobblestone ground and fire pits. We were in the early stages of our winter season, but it was not yet too cold to prevent customers from sitting under our large, heated floating orbs. I took in a deep breath of crisp night air and pushed my thick, coily hair from my face. I closed my eyes, listening to the music from the band that traveled to the outside via a magic based amplifier.
“There you are,” came a familiar male voice from behind me.
