Page 2 of Ruthlessly Mated
He ignores me.
Great.
I guess I am just going to have to wait my turn.
The air coming off the sea is fucking cold. I’m starting to freeze, and I am really starting to think that I’m going to end up being an ice block if I don’t get indoors.
The port doesn’t really offer a lot of options for entertainment. The main building is pretty much the only building. It’s massive,spread out kind of like a train station along the frontage of the docks.
PORT DENHOME is spelled out along the front of the building, outlined by dozens of little bulbs that glow warmly in the night. It feels oddly homey, sort of old-fashioned. The building is made of old weatherboard that has been silvered in the sea air over decades.
I go indoors and seek out a place to settle down until they get my cargo sorted. I tell myself I will go and check it every fifteen minutes or so. I don’t have time to tarry. I might have been followed. It’s hard to be followed across an ocean, but you never know.
I need a drink, so I head through the foyer, which has a big staircase that goes all the way up to the second floor, which is listed as being private with a big sign in front of it and velvet ropes stretched across the base of the stairs.
Bar
The bar is marked with another big, old-fashioned sign, this time painted above the door frame.
The floor creaks. The smell of salt and whiskey fills my nostrils, a blessing given the filthy animals inhabiting this place. I can feel eyes on me as I sit in a dark corner, back to the wall. It makes me nervous. I’m not prey, but I absolutely look like it. Being a short, curvy woman is a guarantee of being harassed in most places like these. That’s why I have the knife. If anybody takes a step toward me, or tries to slide up behind me, they’re getting stabbed. Might seem like an overreaction, but I’d rather overreact and stab someone than under-react and have something terrible happen to me.
A waitress swings by the table. She has glorious red, curly hair and an expression that can only be formed by handling dozens of criminals every night of her life. Sort of a cross between a soldier and a nursery school teacher. “You have your port seal?”
“Port seal?”
“You get it when you pay your cargo tax,” she says.
“Oh, I must have forgotten,” I say.
“I can’t serve anyone who hasn’t paid their cargo tax,” she says. “The bosses take it really serious.”
“Oh, okay. I’ll go take care of that.”
I get up and leave the bar. I can see that the bursar’s office is over on the other side of the building. A big sign says: Pay Here.
I have enough money in my pockets for gas for the truck and a drink for me. I don’t even know how I’d declare the contents of my cargo if they asked. Neither do most people; that’s why the port has a flat fee. They take pretty much any currency, but that doesn’t make any difference because I used all my money getting the thing here.
I go and hang out just outside the bursar’s office and I wait for someone drunk to come and pay their fee. He gets a port seal in turn. Perfect.
As he stumbles out past me, I grab it from his loose fingers. He doesn’t even notice it going away. He’s at the stage of inebriation where his digits aren’t really communicating with the rest of his body. I slip the seal into my pocket, do a bit of a loop, and then head back to the bar.
The same seat is free, so I slip back into it.
The waitress comes back around, scans my seal, and takes my order. Perfect.
In a matter of minutes, I’ve got a flagon of something high proof in front of me, and with any luck, my payday being unloaded on the dock. This is the last time I’ll have to do something desperate and shady. After this, I’m going to go straight. I’m going to buy a nice house in Eclipse City. Something that has a view of the palace, and I’ll reminisce about these days. I’ll probably get bored.
Mind you, from what I hear, Eclipse has plenty of trouble to get into. I might even find a mate there—it’s where the royal shifter lines live, so I’m thinking I’ll finally escape the general pits of scum that make up the rest of the world and get what I deserve for once.
All I have to do is get out of here with my cargo on the next stage of the journey. The truck shouldn’t take too much longer to load.
I’m trying not to be nervous.
More specifically, I’m trying not to make the fact that I am nervous obvious to the others in this seedy bar. Everybody here is up to something, but I am up to more than most of them and they’ll sniff it out in the way criminals do. Breaking the law and not being arrested is all about instinct. Everybody in this place is trying to read one another, trying to sniff out weaknesses and scout for opportunities.
I’m used to dangerous, nasty hideouts. They feel like home most of the time. But today there’s so much more at stake. I have just performed my greatest heist, and now I have the most precious and valuable cargo that ever came through this place.
I get up and look out the window, gazing toward the docks. It’s hard to make out entirely, but I am pretty sure I see the flatbed. It still looks flat. Dammit.
