Page 20 of What Lies Within Masks & Shadows

The stranger watched with a cold expression, as if he couldn’t care to even breathe in their direction, before settling back in the chair. Adjusting the black tunic fabric at his abdomen before propping his arm across the table, he said, “Your savior could use another drink.” With an amused grin, he gestured toward the empty one beside him.

Smug bastard.

Everything in Alora desired, desperately, to command her powers and knock the tankard into the stranger’s irritating face, but the painful reminder of what happened to Marked Ones tethered her from such suicidal impulses. And besides, he wasn’t worth it.

“What. Will it. Be?” Sneering at him as if he were a simpleton made it easier to bite down the roaring anger through gritted teeth.

His silent stare captured the last edge of her sanity.

She raised an eyebrow and hissed, “Enjoying the view?”

Those silver eyes didn’t move from her burning irises. Something unreadable crossed his face before his voice flattened. “Bourbon.” He gestured against the tankard for two knuckle lengths of liquid, the silver of his ring glinting in the candlelight. “If a place like this has it.”

A place like this.Alora scoffed and turned. Storming between the empty tables and into the kitchen. Away from him.

Emeline’s wide amber eyes welcomed her. “What on Elysian wasthat?”

Alora threw the empty tankards in the sink and ran her hands down her face, ignoring Emeline’s question. “Give me an ale.”

The mighty bastard could drink piss water instead.

The stranger’sbody sat rigid and tense, a contrast to his previous temperament.

Alora scowled as she approached. Scowled because where the table had sat empty before, with only his arm lain across it, was now crowded by the muffled whispers of three figures adorned in bright crimson cloaks.

She debated on interrupting them. Debated knocking between their shoulders to slam the drink down and retire before the stranger could mutter a word. But those cloaked figures turned at a lazy wave of his hand.

Of the three, the smallest, clad in a vicious snarl, arranged green eyes in her direction, letting out an unpleasant hiss before walking away.

But the other two…

By their considerable builds, they were male. Both were muscled, though she couldn’t quite see the extent because their bodies were covered in battle-black armor and hidden by bright fabric. On close inspection, their armor was intricately designed. The leather appeared scaled like that of a dragon—the likeness a best guess, surely. Dragons were myth—legend—tall tales, and they both wore the tribute to the creatures well.

The larger of the two, with beautiful dark brown skin, motioned to the doorway with an outstretched tattooed hand beside the shortest one. They both crossed the threshold, vanishing onto the street.

The other, tanned like the seated stranger, with waved ebony hair spilling around his stubble-shadowed jaw, hovered in place. Under that crimson hood, a wry smile captured his well-favored, rough face.

Much to Alora’s surprise, he … winked.

Behind him, the stranger cocked his head, silver eyes unamused, and cleared his throat and an unforgiving expression on the elegant planes of his face.

But unlike the other two soldiers, this one slightly bent at his waist, blaring his seemingly gray, almost blue, eyes at her through his top lashes before his palm collided with his temple. That rough face grimaced before he stiffened upright. Without a word, and with a short glance over his shoulder, his boots fell heavily to the floorboards, and he, too, found his way outside.

“Try not to take offense,” the stranger taunted. “I thought it best if my friends were not endangered by the …charmingbarmaid who can handle herself.”

“Friends?” Alora snorted. “I should think someone like you wouldn’t have any friends. Maybe if you weren’t so unconscionably smug.” She paused and realized the scheme she was playing into. Alora met his gaze, finding his growing intrigue, and didn’t care to indulge him any longer.

He lifted his head enough that the cloak slipped back slightly, and the corners of his mouth twitched. “If I were not so unconscionably smug… Do go on.” Arching a brow, his smile grew sinister.

She slammed the tankard on the table. The contents splashed out; beads of ale splattered the stranger’s cloak and pants.Satisfying, to say the least.

“I’m not doing this with someone whose face I cannot even see. Take off your cloak.”

“No.”As if she’d expected any other answer from him.

So she pressed with baiting amusement. “Why? Are you dreadfully hideous?” Grinning, she crossed her arms, the leather of her corset groaning at the contact.

The stranger remained a solid wall of effortless composure. Then his gaze drifted to the tankard, releasing a breathy chuckle at the absence of bourbon, and he merely focused his gaze back on hers. “Quite the contrary. I am afraid, should I remove my hood, you will be stealing away with me in the night.”

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