Page 115 of Long Live the King

CHAPTER 47 - ASH

SOMEWHERE UNKNOWN...

Iwas going to escape today, but it was just past dawn and I wasn’t out of bed yet, when I was startled by the sound of horses, weird, lots of horses, enough for an army. The rumble of them was terrifying, something I had never heard before, but I knew in my bones. Horses. Probably a lot of men riding them.

I was going to escape, had I missed my chance?

I scrambled from the bed and stood at the far wall from the door with the iron spike in my hand.

It was a very tense ten minutes or so when my ears pounded. There were shouts of men outside, then my door shoved open and a large shadow appeared in the frame.

I held the iron spike up like a sword.

A strange man walked in and stood there, not looking at me, but peeling off his gloves. He was wearing a fur around his shoulders, a long dress-like outfit that went down to boots. He had belts around his waist, long hair, a thick mustache, tiny, menacing eyes, a weird-ass gold band around his forehead as if he was the dude at the Ren Faire who pretended to be a king.

He chillingly said, “I see ye hae made yerself at home.”

“Who in the ever-burning hot fires of Hades are you?”

“I am goin’ tae be yer husband, here tae introduce m’self.”

“You get the hell away from me.” My arms were shaking — I tried to hold them still, but the iron spike had grown heavy and I was weak with fear. I had been holding it up in front of me for a long time with my adrenaline pumping.

“Ooooh, frightening. The lady thinks she can scare me.”

I thought,I could charge at him, just fight him, get it over with, but then what? My guess was there were at least twenty men out there now, that’s what the horses had sounded like, and the village was already full of people, they didn’t seem to wish me animosity, mostly they just bowed their heads when I walked by, but still... what would they do if I survived assaulting this stranger dressed in medieval garb?

Who was I kidding, he was big, I wouldn’t survive it.

I leveled my eyes. “Tell me where I am.”

“Ye are in my home.”

“It’s a crap home, you ought to have better furnishings, centralized heat and air. This is a hovel in the middle of nowhere. Is this some kind of cult? You the leader? I’m not joining your Kool-Aid cult, I’m a service member in the United States Army, I demand you let me go.”

His brow raised. “Ye are delightful — I canna decide whether tae smack ye across the face or laugh.”

“You come near me and I’m going to drive this spike through your vampire-heart. Then I’ll feed you to the dragons outside. Where the hell are we?”

He turned the chair from the table and sat down in it, wriggled a bit to make himself comfortable, then crossed one leg over the other knee, leaning back as if he had not a care in the world. He smacked the gloves against the table and looked off out the window.

“Do ye smoke, Ash?”

“Smoke? What are you talking about?”

“Smoke cigarettes, I hae a habit of them...”

“I don’t understand... no. I don’t smoke.”

“Not havin’ cigarettes makes me irritable.”

My eyes went wide. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I want ye tae marry me, I will make ye verra comfortable?—”

“Bullshit. Where are we? Once I murder you and escape, and trust me, I know how to do it, I have a route planned. The worst part is choosing how to kill you: I know at least half a dozen ways just using this spike.”

He smiled. “I see ye are verra overly confident. Some might find this a good quality in a queen, I find it tae be vexing. Find a way tae be more humble or I am going tae put a stop tae yer mouth.”

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