Page 5 of Cursed Shadows 2

My shields. Deterrents.

Pandora won’t want to face me with too many ears and eyes around. I wait until the corridors of the garrison are at their busiest, just after the lunch break, before I head for the Hall.

In there, I find a piece to the puzzle—a part of my scheme.

My plan is still brewing, just a spark. I need more security before I fan it into a blaze.

It makes sense then that I start with the harem worker who’salways looking at me, the one who spoke to Daxeel—the one I’m certain he visits.

Before I can commit to the bargain that I might make with Daxeel—when I offer him my body in exchange for his help, I offer him the one part of me, my sex, because he’s never hadthatwith me—I need to find this female and get her to tell me all the grim details.

Especially now that Daxeel has issued me with a fae’s promise. In the end, I will meet his dagger.

Still, I have some hope, because a fae’s promise is breakable. It’s not common for those nearly binding words to be dismissed, for a fae to change their minds and go back on them. But it can happen—and so I hold tight onto my foolish bud of hope.

I find the harem worker in the Hall.

After the lunch rush, most of the fae are gone for a brief rest or headed back to the battle blocks. The servers stay and clean up.

It’s quiet in here, as expected, ashoped.

In just a cotton dress, much too short for father’s liking, I feel the warmth of the smouldering hearths as I wander around the benches and tables. I make my way for the bar, where the blond beauty stacks dirty dishes by a little window in the wall. From the other side, human hands reach out and steal away the glasses and plates, then retreat with them.

Servants, I think to myself.

Then Daxeel’s voice is in my mind, firm and unyielding, ‘Slaves’.

My hands fist at my sides, sudden annoyance sprouting in me. He talks to me on the tower, kisses my core, protects me from Taroh out in the open—then bites me, hates me, and fucks a whore.

But I force my hands to relax as I approach her. Cornering her with the anger I feel won’t help me. It’ll hardly open her up.

So as I approach the edge of the bar, and she looks up with a shuttering expression that quickly turns to red panic, I let a practiced smile slip onto my face. A small smile that drawsher into me, lets her feel like I’m letting her in on a secret, not that she’s about to spill her own to me.

My slender hand settles on the wooden bar, and it drags along the edge as I round the corner, until all that’s between us is a hinged bench.

“I think it’s time we talked,” I say, my voice light and friendly.

I disarm her with the smile still in place, but I give her no room for argument as I step back and move for the table tucked in the corner. Out of earshot of the other servers.

I settle myself onto a creaky seat that I suspect has been knocked about too many times, and only a moment later, she’s falling into the one opposite me.

Her gaze is as shifty as the fingers she has fidgeting on her lap.

Might be a halfling like me, sure, but the difference in how we just sit here, with a small table between us, is all one needs to know. I come from a fallen family, a poor one, but a family that was once great all the same. I was raised with posture and manners. She was raised in slums, no manners, maybe the child of a slave, a halfling that was never taken in by her fae parent.

Sometimes, I do feel a little sorry for the less fortunate of my kind.

Mostly, I just feel sorry for myself.

“I’ll cut to the point,” I start and fold my arms on the table.

I lean closer to her.

She mirrors me, leaning forward, but her fingers are all twisted together, red and angry. She’s too nervous.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” I promise as though it’ll soothe her nerves some, “or to judge you.”

My words work.

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