Page 8 of Artemysia
Well, damn.
The ale must be stronger in the city. It’s not like me to engage withanystranger, no less a beautiful woman of rank, and suddenly want to show off and fight her. And then almost kiss her? With her face glowing from the fight as if we’d just done something indecent, I wanted her lips on mine, and I think I had a chance.
She threw me off with that angelic smile, coupled with fighting skills like a damn Syf. Fierce. Confident.
In turn, I acted like the village idiot. For what? Attention?
Why didn’t I have more self-control? The idea displeases me. Still, for someone to make captain so young is impressive. It’s damn sexy, is what it is.
I can count on one hand the women I’ve wanted to kiss in any situation, but one I wanted to both kissandfight?
None. Never.
And I’m not sure which I want more, her lips or her fist on my face…
I must be deranged.
Captain, huh. She and courageous others like her protect the people and the towns. They deserve the glory. Me, on the other hand, well—
I lied when I said I was a messenger.
I’m just a wild beast in the shadows. A dangerous one.
Now, I follow her obediently as she leads me through a long corridor of shops. She has long, lean legs and the sweetest round ass that fills out her riding breeches. I keep getting glimpses of it when her short cloak ripples behind her. Her hair is shaved short on the sides, but long on top and braided into a loose, pale fishtail from forehead to midback.
Her hair is the color of salt.
Salt? No, it’s better than that. Starlight. The color of her hair is starlight.
What am I, a fucking poet now? Either way, it’s almost colorless, and it’s alluring.
She glances back over her shoulder at me. I avert my eyes in time, pretending to peer into a window of a closed furniture maker’s shop. Despite myself, I can’t help stealing a second glimpse of her large brown eyes. She has the same concerned expression she did when my eye started bleeding.
No one is ever concerned about me. People take one glance and look away.
Maybe because…I’m not a smiler. Fuck that. I know I’m not.
Maybe I’m intimidating. Definitely. Years of training as a spy taught me it’s best if people look away, and I’ve cultivated an aura that warnsturn away, I was never here.
Not her. She’s not intimidated. She hasn’t looked away, the clever creature. She’s got me following her like a damn puppy and agreeing to let her deal with my eye. If she’d put it any other way, I’d have said no. Admitting I needed help? No thanks.
But I wasn’t lying when I said I was intrigued.
How in the world will she—at the last minute—fix me up and show me the entire city? It’s not as if she expected to find me in the alley, butshe’s already come up with a plan to get me to do what she wants like it’s my own idea.
We stop in front of the highest clock tower in the entire kingdom.
I’ve seen it from the villages. It’s the tallest thing around this valley except for the watchtowers at the city gates, until you get to the mountains surrounding our country.
She jiggles the door handle at the base of the tower. I’m only a couple inches taller than her, so I crane my neck to look over her shoulder. It’s locked.
“You didn’t see me do this,” she says, her lopsided grin the sweetest thing I’ve set eyes on in a long time. Sweet and deadly, my swollen lip reminds me.
Two large hairpins come out of her braided hair. A few loose strands fall along her temple, but she doesn’t bother brushing them away. She picks the lock as if she’s done it a thousand times before and ushers me in. The thick wooden door shuts with a creak behind us.
“Up the stairs,” she directs.
A thin iron stairway spirals up the inside of the impossibly tall and narrow tower.
