Finally, I take my opening and attack. My feet move quickly, lunging forward for my first attack in the few minutes we’ve been at this. This is where I thrive, where I am best. I can compound attack after attack like this. My sabre clashes against Orthia’s with every action I take. The screech of metal echoes around the training room and the hush over the crowd evaporates.
They cheer and chant. I can’t make out much, terrified that if my focus falters from this bout, one of us is going to end up bleeding out. But I know they aren’t booing; they aren’t upset that I am fighting their captain. We come together again, metal slapping off metal. It’s frustrating, but rather than my confidence faltering, it grows. I am somehow holding my own against her and it must because of the extra power Love gave me.
She thought this would be easy, a joke, but I am actually surviving the challenge. The goal isn’t to win, it is to show her I am capable. It would be nice though. The impossibility of besting someone who has spent centuries fighting isn’t lost on me.
“C’mon,Captain,” I tease between panting breaths. “My ass feels pretty safe right now.”
Orthia lunges and pushes me back into a retreat. She doesn’t say anything, but I can feel the difference in her swings. She isn’t attacking to kill me, but she’s shooting to win. Her thrusts are faster. I’m not even parrying them any more. Running away is the closest experience. The razor-sharp edge of her sword comes down over my handguard at my failed block, and I lose my grip.
It’s all over. The vibration of the attack sends shooting pain up my arm and the sabre falls to the ground. Around us, the crew is silent, but it doesn’t last. They erupt in cheers and rush us. Nargol and Neela are shaking me with excitement, demanding to know how I did that. Orthia gets lost in the swarm of people and it’s only when I find her again, do I see the look on her flushed face.
I’m not the only one who was disarmed during that fight.
Chapter eleven
Orthia
7 Day
Ithasbeenfivedays of herculean battles to keep myself away from Delphini, which has only become hard since the training room incident. Aoife has sequestered her to stay within the bounds of our pocket dimension, but that doesn’t keep her out of my thoughts when I am on deck or attempting to hunt. Every bar I enter, every club I sneak into, I see her where she is not. Or where I wish she was. I end up leaving before I can find my prey to make sure she is, in fact, where I left her onThe Princess’s Despair.
Every morning, she is amongst the crew as we prepare for another day of performing. She has been given the worst jobs Aoife can think of; dish washing, laundry, and scrubbing the grout between the tiles. Jobs we usually split between us evenly so we aren’t working ourselves to the bone.
This is cruel, and it makes something inside of me curdle. When I see how her curls are restrained into a tight bun and her hands, acrylics bitten off, dried from all the detergents, I want to tell her to stop working. She has done more work than any new recruit would have been asked to do.
However, what I want doesn’t matter. This is about keeping her busy and away from me, even if she is the most beautiful being I have ever seen thrust a sword into my face. No matter how much her soft smile makes my stomach flutter with elation or how her steady sureness that we are meant to be reminds me of smooth sailing across the Mediterranean.
In the evenings, it’s worse. Once our meals are served, she is alone. The crew has been told they aren’t to socialise with her, though some still do.
On the first night, since the bath is closed, most take to spending their evening relaxing alone. I catch Delphini staring at the floor mosaics later that night when I am returning from failed hunts. It’s easy to get lost in the unguarded way she focuses, but then I feel Love slip from my mind and my anger returns full force.
When everyone is too wound up on the second night, I suggest our evening rituals happen some place drier. I know a few of the girls have learned to pole dance to reclaim some of their bodily autonomy. The crew is more than willing to set up the stage in the dining area for them and anyone else who wants to perform before the night crew has to leave for their shift.
I try to take my usual place amongst the revelry, a place of control where I can enjoy the evening with my sisters, but the erotic dancing, heavenly moans, and slaps of skin don’t offer their usual pleasure. I haven’t joined them since, opting to hunt or lock myself away in my quarters instead.
I wonder if Delphini would bathe with the crew.
My whetstone slips off my blade as I think about what usually happens in the baths. How those who are so inclined writhe together in tangles of limbs. My blood thrums with the thought of Delphini in those waters. How would she react to Aoife’s stern hand? Would she let the sirens sing her into a state of bliss? My clit throbs at the vision of Love’s tentacles binding her while everyone has their turn with her.
It has been days of this, too. My thoughts wander as though I am not in control of them. They create such destructive visions that have my body reacting before I can put a stop to them. She is a hurricane in my existence. Sunday afternoon did not help either. Knowing the strength, balance, and coordination hidden under her softness set my pulse racing.
She has me questioning myself, trying to prove things to her that I would have never done before.
It was like yesterday afternoon when the final tour spot had no bookings. A perfunctory exercise more than a necessity, we still practise the performance we put on for tourists. The clash of steel is music to my ear when I am not hunting. It keeps me in check. Yet, with her eyes on me, it caused the opposite. There was a deep part of me that wanted to show her I could kill with one blow. I found myself performing for her, flexing my muscles as though she could see through my costume. I parried harder, and each attack became more aggressive until Love intervened and held my arm. Their slithering tentacle pulled my gaze to hers, to see the heat in her stare.
She wants me like this. It makes her departure all the more critical. I can’t risk her being a distraction to our mission to bring Love here. She can fulfil her promise to our patron off my ship and out of my thoughts.
Nargol flirts with Delphini. She has always been one to skirt my authority, but I don’t stop her. The human doesn’t mind that the large orc woman thinks she is pretty. Who would not think a woman is pretty? Yet I have seen how she reacts; a curl twirled around her finger or a quick, playful rebuff. Either makes me furious that it isn’t me she gives such reactions to. Even my own hypocrisy astounds me.
While she has tried to speak to me more since Sunday, to thank me for healing the burn on her left hand, I have done everything in my power not to say a word to her. It’s bad enough that I can no longer look at my bed without seeing her there, seeing a future with her spread out across my dark sheets with tears of pleasure in her eyes. However, the way she whispered my birth name, it will haunt me for the rest of time.
I toss my whetstone onto the desk in front of me. What the fuck is wrong with me? Before me is a record of our work. Obituaries of all those sacrificed to Love since they started recording and announcing the deaths of humans. Some are handwritten and in a language I can’t read. Others are only just beginning to yellow.
Little mementos to remind me of our mission.
This all ends tonight. It’s Tuesday evening, and it is time I show my face in that stupid church basement. Delphini will be spotted for what she is and she will be taken care of. No longer my problem and everything can return to normal.
I flick the blade of my knife closed and place it in the pocket of my overalls. I take off my scarf and wipe the sweat from my brow. There is no reason for me to feel this warm, yet there it is. My body is reacting to something, but I don’t know what. While windowless, this pocket has never varied in temperature, no matter what it is outside. It is always magically perfect. Fae bullshit, I suppose.
