Chapter 5

Gods…

I nearly hissed the word aloud as we walked into the place. It was so dark, so dank, that I wasn't at all surprised when the soles of my slippers stuck to the floor, each step requiring extra effort. While men around the tavern shouted, guffawed, or drank deep from their tankards, Arik led me straight to the bar.

"Arik!" the barman said roguishly, with one eye gleaming and the other covered with a leather patch. "And who's this, then?" He leered at me in a way that had me shrinking against Arik. "That's a nice bit of pretty you've got there. Fresh, too, unlike these tarts."

"That's enough out of you, ya old prick," said a woman who was wiping down the bar top, and I couldn't help but stare at how her blouse was cut so low you could see the edges of her nipples. She flicked the man with the dirty tea towel.

"I've got some things you could do for me for a couple of coppers," the barman said to me, drawing my attention back to him in time to see a suggestive waggle of his eyebrows.

I drew in a sharp breath of outrage as I realised what he meant. I knew that some poor women fell so far in life they were forced to make their money on their backs, and he thought—

"Keep your fucking eyes to yourself. She's mine."

I glanced up at Arik, studying the stern expression as his deep voice washed over me. There was something animalistic about his snarl, something… possessive. I felt a rush of an unwelcome sentiment as a sudden desire for more of that rose within me, but I knew I had to stifle the emotion. So I feigned shyness, turning into him and pressing my face to his chest, reassured by his clean scent filling my lungs.

To be claimed was what I'd dreamed of over and over for all of these years, and when I'd donned the dress such a short time ago, I'd— I cut off the thought, then moved my hand experimentally. I felt the need to convince the two people behind the bar that I was indeed Arik's doxy and his alone, in order to ensure that no one else made any kind of offer to me, so I unbuttoned one of his shirt buttons and slid my hand in. His stomach muscles, hard as iron, jumped at my touch, then shifted as the pace of his breathing started to increase. When I looked back to our audience, the barman nodded and the serving woman beside him looked on with interest.

"So what're you drinking then?" the barman asked bluntly.

"Beer for me and…?" Arik looked down at me, raising one perfectly formed eyebrow in query.

"For me, as well," I said.

I had no idea what beer tasted like, but having been told over and over that it was what the common people drank, I wanted to try it.

"With a roseblood chaser?" This time, the barman leered at us both. "That'll stiffen your wick and make your lady slicker than an oyster."

Roseblood was a red powder created from grinding the dried sap of a specific species of tree only found in one of the kingdoms far to the west of Stormare. I knew what it was because of the ornate box that my father kept his own roseblood supply in— whenever it was put on the dining table, it was time for the unmarried ladies to leave the room. We divined that from the familiar clunk of the wooden box against the tabletop followed by the squeeze of our mothers' hands on our arms. It didn't matter if we'd finished our meal or not. There was no concession that eating was a process made so much more difficult by the presence of the veil—we were expected to withdraw and eat in our chambers, or not at all, but we were never allowed to remain in the room when roseblood was consumed.

"Perhaps later—" Arik started to say.

I found I simply couldn't bear that: another man saying no to an experience on my behalf, without consulting me. I didn't know what roseblood did and I was sure imbibing it in a place like this was not wise, but I wanted to be asked what I thought on the matter. And so I pushed myself forward.

"Will this cover the drinks?" I asked, plucking one of the smaller pearls from my pocket and offering it to the barman. "With the roseblood, of course."

"Well, then—" The man started to puff himself up, but the woman beside him swooped in, taking the pearl and looking it over for imperfections.

"That'll cover your tab for the night, and a meal as well." She nudged the barman. "Serve the two of them their drinks, sharpish-like."

The barman grumbled as he poured the beer into ceramic tankards, then sprinkled a teaspoon of the blood-red powder over the foam on each before shoving them towards us.

"Bring Silas to me," Arik told the barman, reaching for the tankards, but he did something strange as he moved. His thumb turned what seemed to be a simple gold band around, to reveal a signet ring sporting the sigil of a golden stag. "As soon as he can be found. Send a boy for him if you must."

"Right you are," the barman said with a surly nod. His attention moved to another customer, and we turned to survey the dingy inn.

Arik led the way to a small, unoccupied booth at the back, then nodded for me to slide in. I did, expecting him to sit opposite me, but instead he placed both tankards on the same side before folding himself in beside me. The effect was that I was hemmed in, his body forming a barrier between me and the raucous goings on of the inn. He hunched forward over his tankard, then looked over at mine.

"You needn't drink that, milady. Both of us simply need to appear to be having a beer until my contact turns up, lest we draw attention." His eyes met mine with a hint of challenge. "I assume you've never had roseblood before?"

"You assume a lot," I said, raising my tankard in salute. He shook his head, but his lips twitched as he touched his mug to mine. "I partake of it often at my husband's table." And, with that, I drank deep from the tankard.

Bitter, hoppy beer swam over my tastebuds, fizzing in a way that almost stung, but as I gulped it down, there was a much softer, sweeter, and almost floral taste that had me going back for more. When I was forced to pause in order to take a breath, a loud burp built up in my chest and then expelled itself without conscious effort. My hand slapped over my mouth and Arik shook his head, taking a much more moderate sip of his beer to mask the smile on his lips.

"And how does your ‘husband' deal with you when you're high on roseblood?" Arik asked as he set his drink down.

"High…?" My throat felt too dry, so my hands reached for the mug again.

"It's a drug, Pearl," he said, running his finger through the red tinged foam on the top of the beer. "An aphrodisiac. I assume that's why your ‘husband' gives it to you." He put the finger into his mouth, then sucked it clean. "Puts a man in the mood, if you take my meaning, and does the same to a woman."

My cheeks flushed bright red, redder than the roseblood powder, and when I reached my hands up to feel them, they were hot to the touch.

"Gets the blood pumping to the extremities." He turned to face me, blocking my view of most of the rest of the tavern, even as his eyes slid down my underdress. "To some parts in particular."

"To…?"

I looked past him to the part of the room I could see, my attention drawn to where a tavern girl was serving drinks, her clothing little more than a strip of fabric tied like a bandeau around her breasts, with another forming a short skirt around her hips. Her clothing was disgraceful, but no more so than her actions. The filthy sailors pawed at her, and she was pulled down onto one man's lap, her tray of drinks liberated away by another as her hands were grabbed and slid up to clasp behind his neck. I expected her to fight this, to spin around and slap the man across the face, but instead, her body did something very strange. I shifted in my seat, following the sinuous arch of her back and the buck of her hips against his as a smile spread across her face.

That wasn't right, was it?

That was undignified, unladylike. Worse, the man was forcing her to submit to his lustful gropings, making her a victim of his base impulses. So why was she smiling, her eyes growing heavily lidded as his hands slid up her bare ribcage, dislodging her—?

"I told you this was no place to bring a lady." Arik's voice broke through my dream-like reverie, and my eyes heavy in my head as I forced them up to meet his. Once my gaze locked with his though, I felt like I never wanted to focus on anything else. There were so many shades of blue in their depths, from the pure cerulean of a summer's day, to the darker, more murky grey-blues of a winter storm. There were even flecks of dark amber and gold around the iris, something I realised I needed to see more clearly, so I leaned closer to him. His response was a raised eyebrow before his eyes widened. "Gods, you're flushed already."

"Flushed?"

I held the back of my hand to my forehead and, sure enough, my skin was damp with perspiration. I twisted my mouth with distaste and quickly wiped my hand against the skirt of my dress. Doing that was a mistake. Touching my body made me all too aware of it: the way the thin cotton underdress skimmed over my skin, the way it brushed against the parts of my upper body that were usually bound in a corset. My breasts swayed freely, just as the other woman's did as the man freed them from her bandeau. My gaze was caught by that tableau again as the others roared their glee at such a sight, and I wondered at what was unfolding.

What she was freely engaging in was so far beyond what I'd heard was acceptable behaviour that if you had told me this is what went on at the docks, I'd never have believed you. So why did she show no sign of shame as the man's hands went to cover her breasts? Her back arched up, thrusting them harder into his palms, right before his fingers separated and caught the hard points of her nipples between them. She made a strange little sound, and a similar one caught in my throat: part purr, part moan, and utterly without decorum. Pleasure, I realised, as my body went hot, then hotter, and a strange liquid feeling of heat built between my legs.

"Flushed," Arik confirmed, looking at the serving girl and then back to me. "Roseblood expands all of your capillaries, sending blood rushing around your body—for one purpose, milady." He nodded to the serving girl. "The Siren gives all of the serving girls free access to it, to make them receptive—nay, eager—for the attention they're likely to get in a place like this. It sets a fire alight inside of them that's only quenched by sexual congress."

I watched with fascination at how the man scrabbled with his breeches to free something pink and hard, and how the woman shifted her hips and sat down upon it, both of them groaning in response.

I had a sense of how that might feel. At times I'd been wont to lie in my maiden's bed and feel a strange tide pulsing inside me, in time to the beat of my heart. I'd had aches sometimes, ones I couldn't explain or understand, knowing not how to deal with them. Her look of delight, of relief, told me that she was satisfying that ache, and I wrenched my hand free of the tankard and slid it under the table.

What was I searching for? The source of the ache? It seemed as if it went far deeper than anything my fingers might reach. A little wildly, I turned my gaze to Arik, and I had the sudden sense that while I might not be able to ease the ache, he could. Arik was staring at me in a way I'd never seen anyone look at me before, the black pupils of his eyes swallowing the blue of his irises until there was only a thin rim of colour left. His lips were parted, and his tongue flicked out to pass over his full bottom lip.

"You called for me?" The voice startled me out of my mesmerised state, and I saw that a man all dressed in black stood next to the booth. His smile turned as sharp and vicious as a knife as he took in my overheated self. "And who do we have here, Arik? A tasty morsel you wish to share?"