Ris felt a strange ripple of déjà vu. This was exactly the sort of night she'd first visited the Plundered Pixie — the chill autumn air necessitating a jacket, the action around the pool tables the main draw of the evening . . . until voices raised and huge bodies began brawling, bottles smashing around her, the threat of being crushed beneath one of them seeming imminent. Until the fight had been ended with a few mildly spoken words, and the real terror began.
Strangely enough, the details of whatever had transpired after Tate's arrival were hazy in her memory, only that she’d never before been that frightened, and hadn’t been since. Ris thought she understood a part of the attraction between Tate and Silva, at least most of the time, but she wouldneverbe able to forget that suffocating feeling and how frightened she’d been.
Unlike that ill-fated night the previous year, Plundered Pixie's owner appeared to be in a jovial mood as they approached.
"That's the spirit, lads," Tate called out, his voice ringing like a bell over the din of orcs as he moved through the press of bodies around the pool tables, the crowd parting for him like the sea. "Don't let him forget it. You cunts are shooting like a bunch of old women tonight."
His grin stretched when he saw her and Ainsley, barely sparing a nod of acknowledgement as he made his way to the bar, never slowing.
"You're doing a fine job holding up the counter, boyo," he told Rukh, slapping the older orc on the back as he movedbehind him. “Who knows how it would manage to stay in place without you.” Ris grinned when he pulled several of the lightly carbonated Elvish drinks she liked from a cooler behind the bar. "I trust you'll be able to take care of your own self the rest of the night?"
"I’ll be glad to see the back of you," Rukh huffed in annoyance, earning a laugh from his employer. "I'll be sure to call just in case I need help wiping my ass."
Tate paused, turning to pull a whiskey bottle off the shelf, sparing a withering look over his shoulder to where she and Ainsley stood. "I'm not a bleedin' octopus. Make yourselves useful or go back to wherever it is you came from."
Ainsley sputtered, moving to take the bottles that had been pulled from the cooler, cold and not yet beading in condensation, passing Ris the whiskey as Tate hit something beside the POS station with his elbow. It wasn't a bell, but it reverberated all the same, catching the attention of a handful of the orcs around the pool tables.
"You lot had me uncask this glühwein, so you need to start drinking it. Draft pricing until it's gone. If I come back tomorrow to see a single drop, you'll be drowning in it."
Rukh scowled as several orcs left the tables to hustle to the bar, their big bodies shoulder-to-shoulder. "Aye, you did that on purpose."
Tate beamed at the old bartender, giving him a winsome wink as he pulled four rocks glasses from behind the bar. "It's a fine night for makin' money, lad. I'll be in the back if you need anything."
He paused again at the end of the bar, setting down the glasses to pull out his phone, quickly tapping out the text with the side of his thumb before returning the mobile to his back pocket and glancing back to Ainsley.
"Well? Have they tricked you into going back to the city, then? I’ll warn you now, I’ll not be breaking my back again moving those fucking books of yours. Have a sale or make a new friend."
Ris laughed as Ainsley sputtered again, following Tate through a doorway at the back of the bar, into another room that was seldomly used in the off-season. Several low sofas and four top tables normally populated the space, but they’d been pushed to the corners, the floor taken up by several more pool tables.
"League play," Tate answered her unspoken question, noting her raised eyebrow. "Tuesdays and Thursdays. You're lucky it's the weekend, otherwise you'd not have fit through the door."
At that moment, Silva appeared in the darkened doorway on the other side of the room, squealing in excitement when she saw Ris.
"How fun! I didn't know you were coming by tonight!"
"I didn't know either," Ris said pointedly, as the bottles and glasses were deposited on one of the remaining four top tables, clicking her tongue as Ainsley made a face in response. “I would have brought my wedding magazines if I’d known we were coming.”
“Well, I’m glad you did. I was just upstairs reading my book. This is way more fun, though.”
She watched as Tate pulled out a chair for Silva. Her younger coworker hadn't even made a move to reach for one herself, simply waiting for it to be done for her, secure in the knowledge it would be. Ris looked down to hide her smile. Silva might have been a decade younger, but damn if she hadn’t figured out how to get her way in every scenario.She’s better at this than you and Lurielle ever were.
Silva leaned over, kissing Tate's smooth, lichen green cheek as soon as he was seated beside her, before straightening in her chair and smiling prettily, completely content in the control she had over her little world.
“Are you readingThe Fire Warfor the book club? I don’t know about you, but I’m having a hard time getting through it.”
Silva blinked, her expression freezing as if her grasp on the common tongue had suddenly vanished at Ris’s question. Blinked again.
“Oh.The Fire War. I . . . I read the reviews. Some of them were very thorough. I think I got what I need for the meeting.” She ignored Ris’s outraged laughter, gracefully accepting the orange blossom-flavored drink Tate passed her. “I just finished theHighland Governessseries, with the selkies?” She sighed with a dreamy smile. “It waswonderful. I really think we ought to take a vote on how the books are selected for the club.”
“I left my copy at home, where we weresupposed to stopbefore going to Starling Heights.” Ris emphasized each word, looking askance at the orc beside her.
Meanwhile, Ainsley threw up his hands in defense.
"I will be apologizing to you once we get home," he told Ris, earning Tate's preemptive laughter.
“Sure look, that’s the mark of a guilty man. You’ve fucked yourself arseways for sure, boyo.”
"Butfirst,” Ainsley went on, glaring, “I need validation like a child. I'm sorry, but that's all I am. A little child. And I need to be agreed with. And there’s no one who will agree with me harder.”
