His chuckle is muffled. “But if you like her, then why not give it a try?”
I shake my head. “She knows what I am and she knows I’m not her cup of tea. I have to stop stirring things up between us. It’s childish at best; a friendship-breaker at worst. I don’t want to lose the connection I have with her. It’s worth more than anything else to me. From now on, I’ll help her fill this order and there will be zero flirting.”
“Right.”
I scowl at Halvard. “You sound like you don’t believe me.”
“That’s because I don’t.”
“I will prove you wrong,” I say.
“I’ll bet you a full night of the best mead that you can’t stop yourself from at least uttering one innuendo in her presence.”
I stop and look at him. He pauses, a funny look on his face that reminds me of something I can’t place.
“I’m having a bad influence on you, aren’t I?”
Halvard shrugs. “Depends on who you ask.”
I start walking again and then push open the back door of the pub. “Damn it. I am just traipsing about life, ruining folks left and right.”
Halvard laughs as we enter the pub’s front room, where the crowd is loud and two males are close to blows, yelling in one another’s faces. I don’t see DeFleurtis anywhere.
I push through the group of tourists and locals alike. “What’s going on?”
Betilda, the town’s gossip, is there, and she grabs my shoulder, her overly rouged cheeks rising as she smiles down at me. The orc female is nearly as tall as Halvard.
“Cyrus, darling, don’t interrupt. I have twenty coppers on the wiry human. I think he’s tougher than he looks.”
I pull away. “Sorry, darling,” I say, giving her a wink. She grins and snickers. “But we can’t have any more fist-fighting in here. I had to buy three new tables the last time.”
The two potential combatants are in one another’s faces. It’s a human I don’t know, and our town butcher—a goblin with a temper.
“We told you not to go up there, you idiot!” the butcher shouts, waving a dark green fist.
“You can’t stop our research,” the pale-skinned human male snaps. “We have a king’s pass to peruse the area!”
The butcher’s black eyes widen, then narrow on the human. “That pass isn’t worth shite! It only talks about land in Kingstown. He knows nothing about the curse here. You’ll bring darkness down on us all if you keep at your foolish work!”
“Eh!” I blow out a stream of fire above their heads. Breaking up fights in my pub is becoming far too commonplace. “I’m the only one allowed to shout in here!” I flap my wings and rise over the group. All faces lift to look at me, and the room goes quiet. “That’s right. I can toast the lot of you if you don’t break this up. You two, outside, now. The rest of you can stay if you go back to your tables and immediately take up a new subject for your conversations.”
The customers listen to my strong suggestions and I land beside the human.
“You’re with DeFleurtis, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“Where is your fearless leader at the moment?”
“He twisted his ankle coming back down the hill from the ruins, so he is at the Acorn Inn, resting.”
“Didn’t you see our Lord Mayor’s guards up there?”
“We did,” he says with an obstinate tone, “but we forced our way through them.”
“And now your friend is suffering the first touch of the curse I warned him about.”
He glares, but doubt shows in the depths of his eyes. “It’s just a twisted ankle.”
