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“Excuse me,” I say, making a show of sliding my seat out. My hands lift, pressing against the table, and my chair squeaks as I slowly inch it backward. I lock eyes with Kai across from me, his head held up by a finger.
“Sit.” His deep baritone rolls through me, and my lips tuck into a triumphant smirk. “You’ll watch how you speak to my betrothed. She’s more of a man than most of you sitting around this table. She deserves to be here just as much as, if not more than any of you.”
“Wow… She must be something behind closed doors,” says a scrawny man with an accent I can’t quite place.
The room erupts with laughter and my jaw tenses. It’s not until I smell the smoke that I realize where my hands have been sitting on the table is burned. The wood smolders with bright orange cinders, leaving perfect blackened handprints in the wood grain.
“Wow, and to think hundreds of men died today, just so you all can sit here and shove your misogynistic, self-absorbed, egotistical noses in the air. I didn’t see any of you on the battlefield with a sword in hand. Trust me, I was there. I’d have known if some half-baked hobgoblins were storming the field.”
I scan the table, making eye contact with every dickwad around it, including the fugly orc and the olgre’s proxy. “Now that I have your attention, let’s get a few things straight, and hopefully, we can get through this meeting without having to say it again. I’m Alice Whittaker, nephilim and mediocre witch extraordinaire, and I’m sorry to inform you, but acting like a dick won’t make the microscopic string bean between your legs any bigger. So, shut your dirty mouths unless you have something useful to contribute, or so help me, I’ll shove a sponge so far inside there you choke on it.” The room falls silent for a moment. “It’s fantastic to meet you.”
The only noise that follows my rant comes in the form of shuffling papers, awkward throat clearing, and the occasional sniffle or gulp of water. At least until Lucifer clasps his hands together.
“Well, why don’t we start with the cue cards everyone submitted at the beginning of the meeting.”
We were each given an index card looking questionnaire to fill out before Lucifer arrived, where we could state topics we wished to discuss or put down questions we had for the King. Currently, he holds all twenty-four of them in his hands.
“The first one here is wondering what we’ll do regarding Finn, my son’s second hand, who offered himself in Malikai’s place. He was taken prisoner by the High King.”
“Well, if we attack now, we might be able to save him before he’s executed,” says the dipshit who questioned my right to be here. His agreeing to try to save Finn might earn him a spot back inside my good graces, though.
“We don’t have the men to spare,” Kai says, tapping his fist against his chin. “If we attack too early, before we have a force strong enough, we risk losing again and we can’t afford to do that. Our best bet is to wait for the Elves. In a week’s time, they’ll be here to help. As much as I’d love to save Finn… We have to do what’s best for the kingdom as a whole. Not what’s best for one man.”
“Except that single man has served the crown his entire life and holds more honor and loyalty than everyone at this table combined. We owe it to him to try.” Kai’s eyes meet mine, tensing as if I’ve slapped him in the face.
“Still wish to have her at the table?” the scrawny man says, letting out a belly chuckle.
“Let’s put it to a vote,” Lucifer says, shuffling the cards in front of him as if he already knows how this will go. I’m sure he does, seeing as his dead wife is practically a crystal ball for him to glimpse the future in. “All in favor?” My hand shoots up along with Dipshit’s. No one else out of the twenty or so men sitting around the table moves an inch.
That does it then. Standing from my seat, I push in my chair, fully aware of the dozens of eyes watching me part from the room. Fuck them. If you want a job done, sometimes you gotta do it yourself.
30
Finn
Well, this is going swimmingly.
On a scale of one to ten, being taken prisoner is somewhere off the chart. It’s sort of in this focal section near the edge of the page known as bullshit island. It’s where all the dreams go to die, and the occasional best friend of the prince…
I’ve been alive far too long to be eaten by some cumstain orc. My bones have been honed for purposes far greater than being someone’s toothpick or cricket stick. I don’t even know what bone you’d use for that, or if orc’s even play cricket. Still, my comment stands.
What in the absolute fuck is that?
Some creature with a disjointed eyeball has shoved a piece of flesh through the bars of the cage they’ve locked me inside of. It almost looks like a—Oh, fuck no…It’s a humanoid hand. Knobby fingers and all. The bastard must’ve taken it from the battlefield as a to-go snack and for some unholy reason, he’s offered to share.
Though, I wonder if I should turn down an act of kindness… It’s not like I’ll get many of those in the coming days, assuming I live that long. Maybe this is an olive branch. Deciding on a middle ground, I grin at him, nodding my appreciation.
“No thank you, I’m allergic.”
That’s gotta work, right? The creature snorts, reaching back inside and yanking the hand away.Thank the gods…I have waged more wars and battles in my life than I care to admit, but seeing that thing up close and personal is making bile claw at my throat. I don’t do gore. Never have. Never will.
It’s a peculiar dynamic. In the heat of the moment, blood and guts don’t phase me. I’m too concerned with staying alive and making sure our enemy doesn’t, to worry about the mangled bits. Afterward, though? Let’s just say there’s a reason Kai has someone tote along a bucket while we collect our dead.
Silence descends on the camp. We’ve stopped somewhere for the night, deep within the woods of the forgotten lands. As much as sleep tries to sweep me away from this bloody shit show, I’m way too scared that one of these assholes is going to find my asshole and ruin it the moment I close my eyes.
I’d much prefer it to stay as is. Never used or abused.
It’s a rather moot point to stay awake, though. I’m a warlock with no magic, and my hands are cuffed together. If someone tried, I’d be helpless to stop them, but at least if I’m awake for it, and can scream with some dignity. That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway.
