Page 8 of Savagely Mated

“No. Well. I might be,” I smirk. Then I remember again that I keep getting mistaken for a guy today, and that’s probably part of why he’s giving me a flat kind of expression. These are some crossed wires I have no intention of trying to untangle. It’s way too much to explain, and there’s a crowd around.

“What does that mean?” he asks.

“It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Are you trying to proposition me?”

I have to save face, and quick. “Sorry,” I say, mentally scrambling for a good excuse for this. “I thought you were for sale.”

Right. Good. Call him a hooker. That will sort this whole problem out right away. Sometimes I really don’t know what I am going to say until I have said it. This is one of those times, and it is very much not a good thing.

His head goes up and back, and he looks down his nose at me with an expression that denotes surprise.

“Are you trying to get yourself killed where you stand?”

“No,” I say. I’m edging toward the crowd, hoping to join it and be swept away from him and this awkward interaction.

“You’ll meet your fate at two o’clock, outside the ruins of the monastery, if you have any honor at all!” he calls to me just as I slip into a gaggle of tourists talking about going to the castle.

Alright. Three duels. This last one is the only one I feel bad about, and it’s because it’s the only one where I feel like I came across as an awkward creep trying to buy sex from a stranger. Hopefully I can kill the other two long before my appointed duel time with him comes. I’ll be at the academy having an afternoon bath before I see him again. How fucking embarrassing.

CHAPTER 2

Darcy

I somehow manage to get lunch without being drawn into any more fights for the death. Kind of a miracle. Then I have to sneak out of the city proper to get to the place where I’m supposed to fight.

I think about not going, of course. I think about just going back to the academy and hiding away there. They’d never find me. They have no idea who I am. But I’ve been raised with a strong sense of honor, and I don’t like that when people look at me they assume I’m weak.

I know I should be taking advantage of the fact I look small and unassuming. There’s a whole chapter on making the most of your disadvantages inElements of Deception and Disguise.But sometimes, a girl just wants to be taken seriously. And the truth is I felt drawn to all those men I met today. In some respects, what’s happening now isn’t entirely in my control.

I’m following my instincts. Or my worse impulses. Hard to tell which. Doesn’t really matter because I’m almost there.

The monastery isn’t in use anymore. It’s a ruin outside the city proper. If I were to be caught out here, I’d be in serious trouble. Sneaking out of the academy is one thing, but leaving the city confines is a whole other level of transgression. It’s not safe out here. There are raiders, and worse lurking in the woods. Academy kids don’t get many city passes, but they get absolutely no forest passes.

The city tries to keep the forest back from the walls as much as it can, but there’s something that makes this wild space very resistant to deforestation. Trees just love to fucking grow no matter what.

This isn’t my first time out here, of course. I snuck out here when I was young with Jory and some other friends. We used to think the monastery was haunted. Today I’m not worried about ghosts.

Or I wasn’t, until I got here. There’s something about the stillness of the forest and the ruins in contrast to the constant energy and motion of the city that makes me feel very, very uncomfortable.

I tell myself I’m not backing down. This is a good chance to see if my skills are as good as I think they are. Sparring at the academy with blunted swords isn’t a test of real battle-readiness. I’m going to be fighting real men today, real men who really want to hurt me.

So I take a deep breath and move through the trees to the clearing I know they were talking about. It’s actually a little way beyond the main monastery proper. It’s where all illegal dueling happens. It’s talked about in whispers at the academy because nobody would dare actually come here. Nobody exceptme, obviously—and a few other cadets who don’t mind risking expulsion or worse.

As I step into the clearing, I find myself confronted with the oldest guy. He’s gotten rid of his overclothes and now stands in tight pants and a white shirt. It’s not really fair, because both of those things make him look a thousand times hotter, especially with the way the dappled sunlight falling through the trees intermittently picks out a little red hue from his otherwise dark hair or seems to make his green eyes flash almost supernaturally bright. He also has his sword strapped overtly to his hip, and he is regarding me with displeasure.

“You’re late.”

“Sorry, I was held up.”

I’ve already forgotten his name. Did I ever know it? Was he this hot before? I probably didn’t notice because I was falling into him and trying not to be wrecked by a Nile drone. Here, in the clearing of the forest, he has a certain air of dominance that I’ve really only encountered in the upper level masters at the academy. I don’t come into contact with them very often, even though I’ve been there the longest. They avoid me for reasons I don’t like to think about too much.

“Timeliness is a form of manners, so it does not surprise me that one as ill-mannered as you would be tardy. If you survive your wounds, you’ll be better for today.”

If I survive my wounds.What an asshole. He’s trying to scare me, but I don’t scare that easy. I’m one of the top cadets in my class, not that he needs to know that. I’ll be showing him soon enough.

“Have you dueled before?”

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