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“Get your hands off me!” I slapped a meaty hand off my ass, glaring at the offender.
He grinned yellow teeth at me. “What’s holding up that beer, honey?”
“Touch me again, and you’ll regret it.”
“I don’t think so. A sweet thing like you…” He continued touching me.
I’d had enough.
I moved fast. My elbow connected with his nose, and I felt a satisfying crunch. Blood poured from his nose and dripped onto his shirt while he howled.
“Let me get you that beer,” I said through gritted teeth.
I would have asked him to leave, but it wasn’t my call.
When I walked away, another male tried to grab me. I dodged the hand.
I wanted to spin around and punch him in the face, too. I hated it when drunk males slobbered all over me. I wasn’t a piece of meat they could manhandle whenever they wanted just because I worked at the tavern.
I collected empty beer mugs and stayed clear of the really drunk guys.
“Do you want to tell me what the hell that was?” Craig demanded when I walked back to the bar to refill pint glasses with the bitter ale he sold on tap. His enormous, doughy belly strained against his stained shirt, in plain sight because of the two missing buttons, and his eyes were black, shifting in their little sockets.
He was in a mood today. I’d angered him since I’d come down from my room on top of the tavern at dawn this morning. I didn’t know why.
He leaned on the bar, talking to some patrons while I ran around, running the show for nothing but the tips a few of them left, and a room with a daily meal I didn’t have to pay for.
“He’s groping me, Craig,” I said and slammed the tray down so that the glass pints trembled. “He always gropes me, and you do nothing about it.”
“No harm, no foul. He pays good money as a regular.”
Yeah, I knew that. He was a regularoffender.
“And if you’re a sourpuss about it, you chase away my customers. One of these days, he’s going to find somewhere else to spend his coin, and then? What happens if they all leave?”
“I’d be better off,” I grumbled.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
I’d been in a lot of fights, fending for myself when Craig refused to protect me. A tavern wasn’t the type of place women worked when they wanted to be seen as respectable ladies.
Then again, Fae never saw human women as respectable. We were the slaves, the help, the bottom of the food chain.
Jasfin was Fae country. I’d heard that humans lived freely in the Uprain Mountains to the north, but it wasn’t like I had the means to leave. On foot, it was more than a week’s travel, and I couldn’t afford it without my job here.
Even if I made it, what if I got there and they wouldn’t have me?
I’d grown up being unwanted. My parents had gotten rid of me, my foster parents had used and abused me, and when I’d run away, this was the only place where I’d been able to take care of myself.
Besides, I’d lived my whole life—myspectaculartwenty-one years—in Steepholde. It was a tiny town at the very south of the country bordered by a forest, with rolling fields and sunshine and the illusion of happiness. It was home. Whatever the hell that meant.
“If I catch you causing trouble with the patrons again, you’re out,” Craig threatened. “I mean it, Ellie. I can find someone to replace you tonight if I have to.”
I stared at him, shocked. He’d taken away my meals, he’d forced me to work double shifts, he’d made me scrub the kitchen after hours. He’d never threatened my job. Craig didn’t threaten.
