Page 53 of By the Horns
There’s a jitteryfeeling in my stomach all weekend as I keep busy and avoid Raptor. We were supposed to work together, but the tunnel job is completed and I latch on to Marta instead, offering to help her cook up some of the meals she was supposed to make yesterday.
Raptor sits in the kitchen, sharpening his weapons, and never leaves me alone for a moment. He’s the source of my stomach flutters for sure. He watches me closely, and whenever our eyes meet, he gives me a lazy smile, as if he knows all my secrets. Well, he knows one for sure. He knows that I’m the one who had sex with him that day…he just doesn’t know why.
I can’t stop thinking about yesterday, either. When he hoisted me onto the counter and then proceeded to work my pussy with his hand until I came. In that moment, I’d have blurted all my secrets, and thethought of losing my mind simply because he touched me is terrifying. If he finds out that I’m a mancer, is he going to go straight to the guild to demand a bounty of some kind? I don’t know if I can trust him, so I can’t say anything.
Only Sparrow knows my true secret.
I’d been doing a good job of hiding things while in the cavern, or so I’d thought. But then they’d opened up that new room, and a flood of fresh sensations washed over me. There were dead up there. A lot of them, all very long deceased but still echoing in my head and crawling under my skin as if they wanted something from me.
I can’t stop thinking about that, either. How am I supposed to be an artificer if I can’t even go in the blasted tunnels?
After our round in the kitchen, I avoided Raptor for the rest of the night and went to bed early. Today I’m chopping vegetables and making overly chatty conversation with a bewildered Marta, despite doing my best to avoid her for the last several weeks. “I can help out as long as the others aren’t around,” I explain to her, dicing onions with my good hand. “But the moment they return, I have to go back to ignoring you.”
“I understand,” she says in a soft, gentle voice. “You have to be seen as one of them.”
Her words make me want to weep with the acceptance in them. “When we’re done here, though,” I continue, my voice low, “I’m going to tell everyone, especially Mistress Umala, what an amazing job you did. How comfortable you kept the nest. If I pass, I’ll be an artificer, and an artificer that suggests you get a pay raise holds a lot of weight around here.”
“I’ll do the same,” Raptor adds in behind us, reminding me that he’s listening to everything we discuss.
I shoot him a dirty look. “Don’t you have something better to do?”
“I do not,” he says, and runs his blade over the whetstone on the table again.
Kipp returns earlyin the afternoon, setting his pack and his shell atop his bed. Marta is cleaning Master Jay’s rooms, so I sit on the end ofKipp’s bed and turn all my efforts to one-sidedly chatting with Kipp while he gives me the slitherskin equivalent of a bewildered stare. Through a few gestures and lots of questions from me, he tells me that he spent all weekend delivering letters. I’ve seen slitherskins moving about the city as couriers, so this doesn’t surprise me. I’ve never known Kipp to do it, though. “Are you saving up for something?”
He gestures at something on his brow and then licks his eyeball.
“I don’t follow.”
“He’s saving up for a lady friend,” Raptor offers, sprawled on his bed next to Kipp’s, his hands behind his head. “They have little ridges on their brows. That’s what he was indicating.”
“Oh!” I want to shoot Raptor another annoyed look for listening in, but Kipp practically squirms, his hands going to his tiny lizard cheeks as if he’s mimicking a human’s blush. “That’s very sweet of you, Kipp. Are you going to take her on a date? If you want suggestions, find out what her favorite food is and take her some of it.”
“That’s a wise choice,” Raptor comments. “What’s your favorite, Gwenna?”
“I love a tall glass of shut-your-trap-and-mind-your-own-business.”
Raptor laughs.
Kipp huffs with amusement and goes back to gesturing wildly, extolling the virtues of his lady friend, who works as a messenger in the lower parts of the city and apparently has gorgeous skin. It’s so sweet.
Both Hemmen and Arrod return just before dusk and flop down in their bunks, not speaking to the rest of us. Hemmen pulls out a book and lights a candle to read by, while Arrod takes a nap. Kipp and Raptor start a discussion on the best kinds of blades, and since I know nothing about knives, I retreat to my bunk and work on stitching a subtle breast dart into the front of my fledgling uniform so I don’t look so very boxy when I wear it. It’s a terrible thing to be vain, but I’m not a looker in the face, and I’m not rich. Tits are all I have.
As we settle in for another week, I stare up at the ceiling in bed that night, hating how out of control I feel. It’s because Raptor thinks he has the upper hand on me, I decide. He thinks he can push me around and I’ll allow it, and I have been allowing it, because I’m worried that he’ll find out the truth. It’s clear he’s not going to leave me alone, and while Iwouldn’t mind another glorious fingering (truly, I wouldn’t mind that at all), I don’t want him to continue to have the upper hand.
I need to gain control of our relationship again, such as it is. If nothing else, we need to be on equal ground. I have to stop getting flustered every time he addresses me, because others are going to guess that something is going on. But how do I get on equal footing with him again?
An idea floats into my head. An obvious one.
I could touch him like he touched me. Make him come.
He’d like that, of course. But then he wouldn’t have one over on me any longer.
And if I’m being honest with myself…I’d like touching him, too. Every time he gives me a look from across the room, I feel as if I’m the only person he’s noticed that day. That no one else matters but me. It’s made me wet for hours.
It could backfire spectacularly, me touching him…but…Raptor knows how to be discreet. And if he doesn’t keep this to himself, well, it tells me all I need to know about him.
I glance over at his bunk. He’s a few feet away from me, sleeping on his back with the blankets at his waist. Kipp isn’t in his bed, which is good, because he’s a light sleeper. I lay where I am, quiet, and listen to the sounds of Arrod and Hemmen sleeping. Good. They’re both fast asleep.
