The Bladed Tiger's Empress, page 9
part #1 of Claiming Her Empire Series
She headed into the woods. Not too deep, just deep enough so Hayden wasn’t disturbed. He had used a lot of his energy protecting her and escorting her around the kingdom, he deserved his sleep.
Unsheathing her blade, she twirled it within her fingers, feeling the weight of the dagger. Treat it as if it is an extension of you, a part of your body, she recalled Hayden’s instruction as she swept the blade through the air, a whoosh echoing over the trees as it sliced through oxygen. Use it enough, and it’ll feel like one.
She twisted her body, sweeping her arm and the blade with it, cutting and slicing with no resistance. She focused on the movement of her body, the fluent motion as she danced on her toes.
She turned suddenly, swiping her arm and her blade connected with something, sparks flying. She blinked up at Hayden, one of his swords held up to catch hers. Her dagger was positioned, blade resting against his as he gazed seriously down at her over their weapons.
“It’s a little late for training,” he said gently.
She averted her eyes, dropping her dagger to her side. “I know that.”
“You have nightmares.” Her eyes flickered quickly back up to his, a statement not a question. He stood solid before her, his eyes unwavering and face expressionless as he watched her, his emerald gaze missing nothing.
“If you saw your father murdered in front of you, you’d have nightmares too,” she muttered defensively.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he said gently, face still passive and unreadable. “I have nightmares too.”
She tilted her head, searching his still expression and finding only monotone emotion. “About what?” she whispered.
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he averted his eyes to her throat. Reaching up, he gently brushed his fingers against the small scar that rested beneath her chin. She gasped at the electric current that zipped beneath her skin, raising the hairs along her arms as he whispered, “Flashbacks that end… differently.”
She leaned into his fingers, reaching up to clasp her delicate hand around his wrist. “Me too,” she admitted before breaking eye contact to press her forehead into his solid chest. The warmth of his skin seeped through her as his arms went around her back and held her close. “Me too,” she repeated, her hands fisting around his back as he pressed his lips to the top of her head.
She wished they would press to her lips instead, but she still felt the warm tingling desire flush her entire body.
“Hayden,” she whispered, a ghostly breeze of air against his chest as she turned her face up to his again.
For a moment he stared at her, his eyes flickering from her intense gaze to her slightly parted lips. He even leaned forward until his lips were brushing hers, but instead of pressing them firmly and claiming her mouth he suddenly drew back and stepped away from her.
“You need your rest. We should try to get some more sleep before daybreak.” Then he turned his broad back to her, and Marilla nearly whimpered. Part of her wishing he had never kissed her if he had no intention of doing it again.
She had had a taste of the forbidden fruit, and now she felt she couldn’t live without it. Couldn’t live without his body pressed to hers.
Marilla drew back the bow, her arm still shaking slightly as she released the arrow and it skimmed the tree, completely missing the mark she had been aiming for. Her teeth clenched with frustration. She had shot what felt like a million arrows and yet she didn’t feel she had gotten much better. She was now skimming the tree instead of completely missing it, so perhaps that was a small victory.
She had followed Hayden for several days, camping in the woods, ignoring nightmares, and practicing her fighting. They came across many villages as days stretched into weeks. All much like Montresser only steadily growing worse. The land untended, the crops uncared for, the people either dead or dying. Marilla felt helpless, utterly useless to the outside world she had been shielded from her entire life.
Being a fugitive had basically turned into a tour of her father’s misdeeds, and her grandfather’s before him. It was an endless cycle it seemed, growing more and more corrupt through each monarch.
She fired another arrow, this one slamming into the tree. She got lucky every few arrows but that was all it was: luck. Regardless, she beamed beneath Hayden’s praise. “Well done, you’ve proven you can hit a still, lifeless target,” Hayden teased her before his tone took a serious edge. “You aren’t bloodthirsty enough. You’re treating that tree as if it’s a tree, shoot it like it’s Frederick himself.”
She turned back to the tree, looking it up and down as if it were a person. “Frederick,” she echoed quietly, and Hayden was pleased by the savage ferocity that lit her eyes at the mention of his name.
Pleased and a little bit frightened.
Her eyes blazed like fire, the flames threatening to devour him entirely and he found himself shuddering beneath them.
He hoped one day Frederick got a taste of that fire.
She pulled back the bowstring with clear resolve and released her arrow, and this time when it struck in the dead center of the tree, he could have sworn it buckled beneath the impact.
She had handled herself better and better with each passing day. He found her to be ferocious in both her fighting style and her protectiveness of the many sick and injured they found on their journey.
As they walked down the street of the most recent town, a woman Marilla stopped to help had a leg that had been mangled and so was forced to sell herself on the streets to survive. She had made the comment that Marilla possessed a fiery passion and that Hayden was like the water that subdued her. She had said that they complemented each other, yet Hayden had been deeply bothered by the compliment.
He didn’t want to be the water to her fire. He didn’t want to extinguish the burning passion she felt, he wanted to be the one thing she could not burn. He wanted to be impervious to her fire, the unmoving boulder that survived her wrath. If he must burn however, if he could not withstand her blaze, perhaps he could be her kindling so she could burn even brighter, but never what neutralized her. He was not the water or ice to her feisty fire, he would rather be the ground she scorched in her wake.
As long as Frederick burned with him.
“Good shot,” he complimented as she loaded another arrow against her bow, snapping it against the string.
Yes, she had grown a lot over the past few weeks. Even helped him gut the kills he had hunted. He had tried to keep shielding her from the blood and gore, but she had put a quick stop to that. “I thought I made you promise not to keep me in the dark ever again,” she’d said, her voice low and aggressive, peeking around him as he cut into a fawn’s belly.
“Force of habit,” he chuckled, sliding to the side to let her kneel down beside him. He had been surprised to watch her hike up her sleeves and retrieve her copper blade, resuming his cut herself.
“Very good,” Hayden said with obvious surprise, and Marilla had understood why.
“This journey, though obviously not my idea, has taught me things, things I would never have learned if I had stayed in the castle,” she explained quietly, focusing on keeping her sleeves out of the way and the careful incision which Hayden corrected when she dug a bit too deep. “I never gave much thought to how the food wound up on my table or valued the lives that were lost so I wouldn’t go hungry, but I will honor this animal’s life and the many more that will fill me in the years to come. I will show gratitude as I didn’t before.”
His thoughts returned to the present as her arrow again struck wood. “I think you’ve found your motivation, Princess.”
“My husband’s death,” she snorted, sounding doubtful.
Hayden’s jaw set at the title husband. A title he would never have within her life. “Gyles is close. We should get there today, and this one we can stay the night in.”
“Sure it’s safe?” she dared to ask as she unstrung her bow.
“One of the few safe places before we reach the temple, and Princess?” She looked up at him. “The city is centered around a brothel. The whole town is mostly drunks and courtesans.”
“So that’s what you meant by entrepreneur,” she grumbled, “How is that safe?”
“Bandits stick more around the higher populated cities, not much to steal in this town that isn’t given freely, and any guard will be too drunk to recognize you. We can safely stay somewhere that isn’t covered in dirt.”
“I’ve come to like dirt.”
Hayden smirked at her. “Come on, let me treat you like a princess again for a night.”
“In a brothel town?” she scoffed.
“See? You’re even sounding like a stuck-up princess again.” She smacked his arm and he laughed, a low rumbling in his throat that spiked her heart rate.
“Well, let’s get to this town you’re so excited about,” she said as she started her walk, leaving Hayden to gather the satchel and follow.
They walked side by side, the sun beating down on their shoulders and sweat gathering down their spines. “Will we be suitable for this village?” she asked, fluffing up her skirt to show the lines of dirt and grime.
“We’ll need a little dirt to blend in.”
“Ah, so it is a dirty place,” Marilla teased.
“Filthy,” Hayden snickered, looking down at Marilla’s sparkling skin before his smile fell and he focused forward. Gently he laid his hand against her shoulder and pulled her to a stop, turning her to face him, “Princess—” he started, but she pressed her delicate fingers to her favorite scar, the one that stiffened his lip and made him look even more ferocious than he actually was. He was her gentle defender, but that scar had always been her favorite.
“Marilla,” she corrected quietly, offering him a small smile. “You don’t want to blow my cover, do you?”
That smirk that made her legs weak returned as he looked down at her, but again it faded and irritation pricked beneath her skin. She thought she was being charming. Sure she had no experience in tempting the opposite sex, but she had seen maidens around the castle doing it. She had tried to mimic what they’d done and they had kissed, but he hadn’t made any attempt to do so again, even after she had basically propositioned him in the woods when she mentioned the bandits, but he had just teased her. Perhaps he had grown disgusted with who she had become. The thought crossed her mind, but she wasn’t completely convinced that that was the problem.
“Marilla, men of all professions come here to blow off steam. The merchants stop here with no merchandise so they can replenish in the forest and form contracts with the businessmen over a pitcher of ale. The town will be filled with fur trappers, lumberjacks, hunters, miners, soldiers, and even some businessmen and lawmen. They’ll be gambling mostly, and the lifestyle will be very different than anything you’ve ever seen before,” he warned.
She crossed her arms against her chest, hip popping and face squeezing into a sour pout. “If you’re so worried Hayden, why are we going?”
“I’ll be there,” he said, some of that gentle teasing light in his eyes returning.
“Cocky as always,” she snorted, resuming their walk towards the village.
“I’m sure you can handle yourself, but no one will touch you with me around to test that theory.” His voice took on a hard edge as he looked at her seriously. “So stay by my side at all times, understand?”
“I understand but with the town centered around willing brothel women, why would anyone try to touch me?”
Hayden’s lip’s pursed, his jaw clenching, “Not everyone understands the difference.”
“Then once again, why are we going?”
“It is a safe town for the most part. We won’t be noticed there. We can eat a freshly cooked meal without having to hunt and be served non-moldy bread, cheese, and fresh fruit. In this village, anyone with coin is royalty.”
Marilla snorted, “So you’re a royal and I’m—”
“A handmaiden?”
She scowled at him.
“Just go with the flow, Marilla. Maybe you’ll like being my personal handmaiden. Serving your master.”
“I thought you said you wanted to treat me like a princess again for the night?”
“I always pay my servants like they’re royalty,” he teased, and Marilla elbowed his arm.
They heard the town then smelled it before they saw it. Shouts and laughter mingled with the stench of body odor and alcohol. There was a man passed out on his stomach right beside the first building. Marilla started, afraid they had just discovered a dead body, but Hayden assured her he was just sleeping off his drink.
She was disturbed that finding a dead body was now her first thought when discovering an unconscious man.
Most of the subjects within the town were stumbling around, babbling obscenities as they chugged their ale or leaned on a much more sober woman with sticky fingers stealing his silver coins without bothering to hide it. This was Marilla’s first real look at a courtesan house and trained courtesans. She had stumbled across several prostitutes having no choice but to sell themselves or starve, never had she laid eyes on a woman who tactfully engaged men, flirted and propositioned with class, then sent the men out into the street penniless. The pitiful prostitutes she had previously encountered begged for the chance to pleasure men then left with barely a bronze coin.
These courtesans were in control. They ran this town and they knew it. They funded the inn, and the saloons because this town owed its existence to their presence. Any man who entered was prey, and they would engage in an equal give-and-take relationship until their prey had nothing more to give.
As Hayden and Marilla passed, the women still standing outside their house giggled. “Hello, handsome,” called one.
“You’re enormous,” called the second, her hair as black as a starless night, lips reddened and eyelids painted with color. “Love to see what else is giant about you.”
Hayden smiled politely, nodding to them in greeting as he and Marilla passed their house. They continued down the street, Marilla dodging one man who had simply stumbled into her path while another courtesan took the opportunity to step into Hayden’s.
She was short, shorter than Marilla and slimmer except for her breasts, her hair was perfectly straight blonde that draped over her lace cherry-red gown. The dress wasn’t cheap, she pulled silk as high a quality as Marilla used to wear around her body. Her skin was like porcelain, mysterious brown eyes intrigued as they flickered over Hayden, moving up and down the length of him. Her head was tilted, chest puffed out as she swayed under his gaze.
Marilla rid herself of the confused drunk who stunk of pig feces before staring at the scene of Hayden and his new handsy friend. The woman placed her fingers lightly onto Hayden’s bicep and traced the defined line along it. Marilla’s chest tightened, her breath catching painfully in her throat as she watched. She wasn’t expecting her body to reject the sight of her general being felt up by a busty blonde, but she could have sworn she spiked a sudden fever.
“I’ve never seen such a magnificent shade of green,” the courtesan gushed as she looked up into his eyes, and Marilla could feel the vein against her temple begin to pulse.
Her voice seemed more whiny than alluring to Marilla. Was this how Marilla was supposed to act? Her breasts pushed forward, head tilted, talking in a whiny voice?
She was pretty, but beneath the face paint Marilla could tell her skin was pitted. Too much sun and working too many men had caused her to age less than gracefully, and for now Marilla felt superior because the feeling of superiority was better than the feeling of jealousy which still stung deep in her chest. She was envious of this woman’s charm though she mostly blamed Hayden for the toxic emotion that stung her heart. He had been ducking her advances for weeks, what was wrong with her that he had kept his distance since their kiss? Was he not as affected as she was?
To her satisfaction Hayden smiled politely and stepped out of the courtesan’s reach to grab Marilla’s arm instead. “Excuse us. My lady and I need to be on our way.”
The working girl scowled at Marilla, but she met the disappointed glare with a glare of her own as Hayden led her away.
Hayden dragged her into shops where Marilla hardly noticed the merchandise, more occupied in scouting the town. Hayden was used to this however, his princess was always distracted in towns, always waiting and watching, observing the activity and the lifestyle. He found it endearing that she was interested in how her subjects lived, and he took the opportunity to slip coin to one of the shopkeepers and smuggle a present under her unseeing eye.
The first shop he took her into sold only jewelry, probably so men could buy courtesans something shiny and earn their favor. Most were shiny pieces of glass, but there were a few closely guarded jewels that were to a princess’ standards. The kind the emperor’s business friends used to bring Marilla when they came to the castle to speak with him. Was this where they had gotten such jewels? Were they really mostly given to the local courtesans as trinkets? If they were, then these women were as high class as she used to be, which was hard for Marilla to wrap her brain around. She came to the conclusion however, that she had been given such jewels just for existing while these women had to work for theirs. That superiority was fleeting however, and she was left with an empty feeling of uselessness. These women had earned their jewels, but what had she done? Nothing.
Without Hayden, she probably would have wound up on the streets like those common girls. She didn’t have the skills necessary to be a courtesan so if she had managed to escape the castle without him—not that she ever would have—living in a courtesan house would have become a dream.
She resented her helplessness and how her current situation still depended on Hayden. Part of her even resented Hayden for his strength and her lack of it.
The next shop they slipped into was a seamstress shop. While Marilla looked at the many illustrious fabrics of flashy coloring, the seamstress came to scold Hayden on his stained undershirt and insist she sew him one.
