Page 23 of Of Glass and of Gold

Panic gripped me like a serpent strangling its meal. My muscles were already spent from an afternoon of training, and if he got to his feet, I wasn’t sure how long I could hold him off. And after kicking his ass—again—I doubted he’d hold back.

He can’t get to his feet.

Affording no further thought, I lunged, ducking under the table as I pinned him beneath me. My knees came up to pin his elbows, and my dagger rested against the hollow of his throat. We had limited space to maneuver with the table acting as a roof just above my back, and I knew it reduced the effectiveness of his legs behind me.

Still, he was competent and capable, and if I gave him time, he’d figure out a way. So I didn’t wait. “Why are you kidnapping people? Why are you killing your own men?” I snarled. He couldn’t see the teeth I bore at the ferocity of my question, but my pinched brow and lethal glare delivered my message all the same if he could see through the darkness.

“I think deep down you know it’s not me.” His throat bobbed against the edge of my blade, but I didn’t ease the pressure. A sliver of moonlight shone over us, illuminating his eyes in a way that had me thinking I saw the truth shining there.

“Why are you here?” A stern question, one that demanded a response.

“Looking for answers.”

I didn’t want to admit he was telling the truth. Didn’t want to give him an inch. If he was tricking me, this moment could cost me my life. One quick motion could ensure that didn’t happen, but my stomach tensed. In all my training, I’d never considered there’d be a moment where it would be a choice whether I shed blood or not. I would fight to get away, sure, whatever it took, but this? I held the power here.

I wasn’t made of steel like my dagger. The act of taking a human life came with an immensely heavy burden I hadn’t grasped until now, and the sour truth coated my soul; I didn’t have the strength to do it.

His eyes flitted about, brow tense. “Shh,” he ordered.

Me? I wasn’t even making a sound? This could be a clever ruse, a distraction of his own. Pressing the blade firmer against his windpipe, I was about to rake him over the coals for thinking he could pull a fast one on me, but then I heard it.

Mumbled voices, a group making their way down the slope from the market to the docks. We froze as they neared our stall. My gaze darted to the man poised beneath. If these were his companions, all it would take would be for him to call out, and I’d be outnumbered in a heartbeat.

But he wasn’t looking at me. In fact, he abandoned all sense of threat that I possessed, though my steel still kissed his skin. He kept his focus sharp on those passing by, but there was no glimmer of recognition. Opposite, actually. He didn’t want them to know we were here. Panic filled his eyes as he looked at me again. “My legs,” he whispered.

I felt him pulling his knees up, caging me under the table. That group was about to pass, and surely if they spotted legs on the ground, they’d investigate. The movement gently pushed me forward, his thighs now pressing into my ass. It shifted my center of gravity. In a decision I hoped I wouldn’t come to regret, I removed my dagger from his throat to catch myself on either side of his head. I glanced down briefly to find this man’s face an inch away from my chest.

We remained silent as the entourage passed. I still didn’t hold all the confidence in the world that he wouldn’t turn the tables on me—or table, literally. His arms were free now, no longer pinned since we'd switched positions.

“This was risky coming back tonight,” one of the voices hissed. His voice was strained, maybe like he was carrying something heavy, but I couldn’t see.

“We watched all day. The guardsmen cleared the body, and haven’t been back since. Boss says they have it under control. All we’re to do is retrieve, so quit complaining,” another sniped.

I wasn’t breathing, my focus locked on every word. The man beneath tilted his hips upward, lifting us both to retreat further under the table. With his free hands, he gripped my thighs to guide me with his movements. The feel of the intimate gesture snapped me out of focus as effectively as a cold bucket of water.

My legs perfectly straddled his hips, and parts of us pressed together in ways that only lovers would share. A flash of heat crept over my cheeks as I became acutely aware of how oddly thrilling I found it to be.

“This might be our only chance to see them,” he growled under his breath.

I didn’t know the right call to make. Those men weren’t far enough away that they still wouldn’t be on me in an instant if this man betrayed me. But each passing second meant losing the ability to learn something vital.

Someone hired these men, for what, I didn’t know yet, but clearly nothing delightful. I needed to see if they were carrying something, and what exactly it was. Maybe it would solve the murder of the man on the beach Odion’s brother-in-law witnessed. With the darkness of night, it’d already be difficult to spot identifying details. Maybe it was unwise to let them get far…

“Move,” he snapped, still whispering. I’d already wasted precious seconds, so I took the chance. I crawled off him, momentarily planting my knees beside his head until I scrambled out from under the table. I moved quickly, keeping distance between us as I peered around the work bench close to the front, watching a group of three, no four, men carry something toward the pier.

In the mangle of silhouettes, I couldn’t make out any details. Not even the shape of what they were carrying, not from this angle. To make sure my familiar run-in didn’t threaten me, I glanced over to track his movements. Only briefly did I catch his form slip into the shadows on the opposite side of the stall. I peered over the tables and workstations of this stall and the next to see him slinking down the sandy bank that led to the shore before he disappeared from view. The beachy landscape provided minimal coverage under the spotlight of the moon, but he kept low to the ground.

My gaze snapped to the other group who had no idea they were being followed. With their focus fully on their task, I moved through the shadows until I crested the the edge of the bank. My run-in kept up with an impressively fast pace as he scaled the sandy slope. From where I stood, I had nowhere else to go that wouldn’t put me out in the open. The shops ended here, leaving only the exposed path to the boardwalk and launch points.

With no other options that would potentially grant further insight on this mysterious band, I trailed the path the masked man had taken. The ground shifted beneath my feet as I sunk into the loose earth and rode the drifting sands downward. Confidence grew that the man in the mask indeed wasn’t with the group of shady men as he kept his distance, even when they set foot on the wooden planks of the boardwalk that connected to the docks.

I finally made it down to where he perched. He didn’t turn to greet me, though I knew he was aware of my presence.

“Did you see what they were carrying?” he asked, not taking his focus away from the huddled group staggering along the wooden platform. A slight gust of wind blew past us, rustling the dry, barren grasses that survived the repressive winter.

“No, it was too dark. What have you seen?” He’d been here maybe a minute longer than I had.

“Appears to be a trunk, but filled with I don’t know what. Whatever it is, it takes two of them. Where are they taking it?” A rhetorical question I also wondered. No ships were docked at port, but they continued to the third launch, turning to stroll up the length of it.

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