Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 121924 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121924 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
“Mead, please,” I replied.
A cheer went up from the table where officiates were playing games. Officiates weren’t paid, but their food, lodgings, clothes, and other supplies all came free—as did the drinks at the tavern. As such, no coins were up for grabs when it came to gambling. But losers might have to take over another officiate’s chores for a day or complete a dare.
Jelani materialized at my side, his mouth curved. We’d gotten to know each other over the past six days. He was funny. Flirty. Easy to be around. “Heard you got called into the shack.” He winced. “I remember those days. How’re your legs?”
I felt my nose wrinkle. “They’ll be better once I’m sitting.” I gave the barmaid a smile of thanks when she placed a tankard of mead on the bar in front of me.
Jelani slanted his head. “How are you liking Xalbia so far?”
“It’s the sum of all my hopes and dreams,” I deadpanned. “It’s also kicking my ass.”
“It’s supposed to. That’s the idea.” He propped his hip against the bar. “The Black Tapestry is Deimos’ line of defense. It can’t afford to have any weaknesses. Xalbia essentially snips them off. You’re doing well so far, especially for a human. A lot of us didn’t think you’d last this long.”
“I still have thirty-three days left. And that makes me want to cry, because the past week has felt like a year.”
He snickered. “It was the same for me, I—”
An arm slashed through the space between us, making me jerk back.
His focus on the barmaid, Talon clicked his fingers and pointed at a beer pitcher.
Flashing him the hugest smile, the woman said, “I’ll bring one over to your table.”
With a grunt, he turned away, angling his body to fully face me. He glared at me. As per usual. It wasn’t something that I could be hurt by—he glared at everything and everyone, as if life itself inconvenienced him. And I supposed that I was an annoyance, considering he’d feel that he had better things to do than observe and report on a candidate.
I tilted my head. “You know, I feel so connected to you when we stare at each other this way.”
The look he gave me was so droll that I had to bite back a smile.
“I think it’s because you make me think of my old cat—she was a scowler who was completely unimpressed with the world at large. Every time you glower at me, I get all nostalgic and think, ‘Oh, Bitsy.’ Then I feel so warm and fuzzy inside.”
His eyelids flickered as he appeared to be fighting the urge to roll those pretty peepers.
“Now, I have to go sit before my legs fall off. See ya.” I swiped my tankard off the bar and made my way to Khalida’s table.
Or tried to.
Bevan slid into my path—not on purpose, just with the arrogance of someone who expected others to stop for them or get out of their way. But when he spotted me, he broke stride and gave me a smirk.
“How’s your face?” he asked, and I knew he was thinking of how he’d accidentally elbowed my cheek while exercising yesterday. At the time, he’d gone to apologize. But once he’d seen it was me, he had only grinned.
“Looks better than yours,” I sniped, flicking a glance at the ugly-ass bruise spanning one side of his face after he took a hard punch during a combat lesson.
His eyes flared. “You know something?”
“Whatever it is, I really don’t care.”
“That’s too bad, because—” He stopped talking, his gaze snapping to something behind me. And when fear sparked in his eyes, I knew that it could only be Talon whose body heat I could feel radiating against my back.
Neither Talon nor the Marshalls liked it when candidates argued. They stressed that the Black Tapestry was a family; that there was no room for people who wouldn’t have the back of every officiate, their personal feelings about each other be damned.
Bevan averted his gaze and walked off. I glanced behind me to give Talon a nod of thanks, but he’d already turned away.
I crossed to the table on which my new friends sat and slipped onto the bench beside Khalida, who was leaning into Quillen. A tray of bread slices sat in the center of the table beside a jug of ale. Meals weren’t served here, but bread was often laid out. Soule was currently launching bits of it at a sleeping officiate’s head.
Quillen scowled at Soule. “You’re wasting perfectly good food.”
“Well, I’m bored,” said the Nemean with a defensive shrug. “And Nakoa won’t let me sing.”
On his left, the female Nemean sighed. “Because you sing like shit—and I say that with affection.”
He frowned. “How exactly does that communicate affection?”
Snorting, Khalida turned to me. “I noticed that Bevan was giving you trouble again. Looks like Jelani’s having a word with him about it, although I’m not sure it’s necessary after the death glare that Talon gave him,” she said, drawing my attention to where a pissed-off Jelani had cornered Bevan on the opposite side of the space.