Wait a goddamned minute!
I pointed at Solaris. “That little shit is the prince?”
Chapter 4
Pinky’s eyes went wide and he glanced over his shoulder. “Shhh! Don’t let him hear you say that.”
“Or what?” I leaned close over the bar. “Is he gonna get mad?”
He gulped and took a step back, so I dialed it down. I knew I could be intimidating thanks to my height and build, but it wasn’t this lackey who had my back up.
“Can I just have five pints?” Pinky asked without any eye contact.
I rolled my eyes and went to grab glasses. Even though I wanted to ruin each pint, I didn’t do it. Pinky walked away with five of my best pulls.
My flare of temper had me thinking of a plan, though, so when there was a lull in patrons, I sidled up to Lars, who was having a grand old time counting the cash in his lockbox.
Keeping my voice low, I asked him, “Why is everyone okay with the prince sitting amongst them right now?”
“What else are they going to do?”
“Hold him for ransom?”
He slowly swiveled his head to look at me, a big grin on his face. “I like how you think, my boy.”
Literally every idea in my head right then was so wrong. I knew it. Lars probably knew it. But sometimes wrong was the only right thing to do.
“Any chance,” I said, “that I could get a change of clothes and some supplies for a trek to the castle? A nice length of rope or some handcuffs, too?”
Lars snickered. “Son, I’ll handle everything.”
He had one of the servers collect payments, while I went back to pouring pints.
I was in a foreign land and about to commit who knew how many crimes. But I wasn’t doing it out of revenge for getting left behind, or even for having to work for my meal instead of sitting at that table over there.
Though, yep, I was still pissed about both of those things.
No, my plans might benefit me in the long run if they got the fairy rings open again, but most of all, I was going to do what no one else would and teach their prince a few life lessons.
Maybe I was entirely delusional, but kidnapping Prince Solaris back to his castle felt like a hero move to me.
I kept an eye on the prince and his band of little idiots, hoping they’d stick around long enough for Lars to return. And in watching them, I realized all the tape was gone from Solaris’s wing. In fact, he looked healed. Had he gone to the apothecary? If he was that fine now, going there must’ve been like visiting a wizard.
Someone made apsstsound outside the window. I turned to find Lars grinning in at me. “Ready when you are,” he said and passed me a sword.
Well, that was a first. Truthfully, I didn’t know what to do with a sword aside from emulating any number of swashbuckling or lightsabering movies I’d seen. And it lookedsharp, too. This was not some dulled movie prop. I could do some damage with this thing, if I wasn’t careful.
And if I was going to snatch a prince, I’d need to make sure folks thought I would use this sword to do damage.
Oh, this is a bad idea.
I straightened my spine, held the sword down at my side, and walked around the bar directly toward their table. The chatter of the crowd changed almost instantly to a murmur, but no one ran for the door or sounded the alarm. They watched me, though.
Red and Blue noticed me coming. They drew daggers from their hips as they stood and, for a second there, I thought I’d have to fake some sword swinging moves against dudes who might be professionals.
But then the damndest thing happened.
A man at the table behind Blue pushed back in his chair and pinned Blue against the table in front of him. That distracted Pink and Purple as well as Red. One of the servers then whacked Red’s hand so hard with her tray that his dagger flew up and embedded itself in a ceiling beam.
