Robin Owens - Guardian of Honor

“Deshouse, Alyeka,” Thealia said.

Alexa scowled. Didn’t the woman know any other word? Choose, choose, choose…first a baton, then a lover. Alexa’s stomach rolled at the recollection of the night before.

A lime-green line slithered to a guy in the corner. Alexa glanced at him and he grinned, showing broken, stained teeth.

Ick. Every strand from the objects looked neon-nasty, and when she squinted to see the men they led to, her stomach roiled. How many were there? Twenty? Thirty? None of them appeared to be anyone she’d care to meet, but she had the vague idea that this was like last night—the Marshalls wanted her to choose a man.

Time stretched. She heard murmuring and turned her head. The flash of silver caught her attention. A small side table contained long thin knives that looked extremely sharp, and several lengths of colorful silk that looked like ties. She couldn’t force her gaze away from the ominous, gleaming knives.

Someone brayed a laugh. The lime-green guy. Too much. Her stomach revolted. She vomited on the table and sank into welcome darkness.

Very good, Alexa, Sinafin said, fluttering gauzy wings.

Bastien leaned back in the corner booth of the Nom de Nom Tavern and casually flicked his new hat with the broad brim onto the table. From the corner of his eyes he watched for the reactions of the other Chevaliers to his hat, and suppressed a smug smile.

Unlike most of the Chevaliers in the Nom de Nom, he was not a Lord’s or Lady’s Knight, but an independent. And the hat proved just how successful he was. Stretching out his legs, he admired it again. The hat was of his own design, with a great rim around it—wide enough to keep the frinks that fell with the rain off a man’s face or from slipping down his collar—if you had tough enough material. Soul-sucker hide did just fine.

It had been his first soul-sucker kill, and the bounty had been prime. He grinned as he recalled the scene at the Marshall’s Castle where he’d dumped the remains late in the afternoon. Oh, it was great claiming the prize from those tight-assed Marshalls who thought they were the best at fighting and believed they knew everything.

The assayer who’d counted out Bastien’s gold had covered his initial revolted horror at the soul-sucker’s body by donning a self-important air and informing Bastien that the Summoning had been a success—Lladrana now had a new Exotique who would save them all. Trust the Marshalls to dig up and follow all the old traditions instead of trying something new to defeat the invading horrors.

That had dimmed Bastien’s pleasure for a moment—or until he had requested the assayer provide him with the soul-sucker’s skin in an hour for his hat. It was Bastien’s right to have the hide, and the clerk’s appalled expression had revived Bastien’s spirits.

Now that he recalled the scene, he frowned. There had been something else—something that had made the hair on the back of his neck rise—the silver hair that denoted Power, not the black locks. Had he seen a pair of glinting eyes in the rafters of the storeroom? He shrugged it off and gestured for some ale.

After he’d gotten the skin he’d spent some Power fashioning the hat he’d designed on the long volaran flight from the North.

Unobtrusively he shifted in his seat. That last fight the day before had been rough. A slayer, a render and a soul-sucker. They’d been gleeful at their supposed ambush of a single prey—a volaran-mounted Chevalier. He moved his shoulders to avoid a throbbing bruise.

He’d rarely been in worse shape. Bloody tracks from the render’s claws covered his torso; a puncture from the slayer bore through his left thigh, far too close to his balls to think of the wound without a shudder. Bruises covered his body. Even the soul-sucker had marked him. Round, raised bumps from its suckers dotted Bastien’s right shoulder and scalp—thankfully hidden by his clothes and his black-and-silver hair.

The conversation rose as his new hat was noticed and became an object for discussion. Only Marrec, who swore loyalty to Lady Hallard, actually had the guts to turn from the bar to stare at the hat.

When the serving woman Dodu brought his ale, she gave him a long, slow look from under her eyelashes. “I can cancel my plans for tonight, Bastien,” she whispered.

More than Bastien’s aches throbbed at her invitation. He looked at her plump hips and sighed. For the first time in his life he was in no shape for bedsport. He had the feeling that if he took her up on her offer his reputation as a great lover would shatter.

“Ah, Dodu, my lovely, I only wish I could cancel my own, but for once I must place duty before pleasure.” He pasted a yearning expression on his face.

She narrowed her eyes.

Bastien lifted her fingertips and kissed them.

Dodu sighed and withdrew her hand. “Some other time, then.”

He grinned. “Definitely.”

With a swish of the ass she knew he admired, she served another table. Bastien shifted, trying to find a less painful position.

The door opened, letting in gray twilight and the stench of frink-filled rain. Bastien’s smile faded. His brother Luthan scanned the room, spotted Bastien and strode to him.

Bastien’s brows knit. Luthan didn’t move with his usual fluidity, and pallor showed under the golden tone of his skin. He looked as if he’d been through an ordeal—more than just confronting the Marshalls in their Council, which Bastien had heard Luthan was going to do—as the new Representative of the Cloister. His acceptance of the position had spurred a lot of talk, since it now left the Chevaliers without a spokesperson to the Marshalls.

Was Luthan’s streak of silver over his right temple wider? Bastien scowled. They were very different in personality, but close nonetheless.

Luthan stopped and looked down at the lounging Bastien, dressed in render-hide. Luthan himself had a pure white surcoat over his flying leathers, decorated with the coat of arms of their mother’s family—the estate Luthan claimed for himself. When Luthan’s eyes fixed on Bastien’s hands scored by the tentacles of the soul-sucker, Bastien sat up straight. Then Luthan’s gaze lingered on the new hat.

“That is the ugliest hat I’ve ever seen.”

“You wound me to the core!” Bastien placed fingers over his heart.

Luthan scowled. “Looks to me like your last fight did that.”

Bastien cocked his head and raised his eyebrows. “And you look like merde too.” He swept his hat to a corner of the table. “Sit. I know Council meetings are bad, but it shouldn’t make you look like a herd of volarans ran over you.”

Grunting, Luthan gingerly settled his long length on the opposite bench of the booth, angling his body so he could keep an eye on the room as well as his brother, an automatic strategy for a trained fighter. Bastien, of course, had taken the last booth with the wall at his back. Standing at the bar gave Chevaliers more freedom, but Bastien hadn’t been sure he could stay upright for long. Eyeing his brother, Bastien didn’t think Luthan could handle the usual jostling at a crowded bar either.

“You look like merde,” Bastien repeated.

Luthan stared at him, and his gray eyes seemed to have become darker. Bastien frowned, but when that pulled at the wounds in his scalp, he stopped and suppressed a wince.

“Jerir,” Luthan said, as if that explained everything. He caught Dodu’s attention and lifted a hand for ale.

“Jerir,” Bastien echoed, mind racing. He was supposed to be the quickest of wits of his family, and Luthan usually made him use every one of them. “An Exotique and jerir. Knowing the old tales, I’d say the Marshalls must have used it as a test.”

When the ale was set in front of him, Luthan stared down at the liquid. Then he looked up with gleaming eyes and a slight curve of the lips, lifted the mug in a half salute to Bastien, and drank. He set the glass down, pulled a pristine handkerchief from an inside pocket and dabbed his lips. “Right you are. There were several tests, but I don’t know the details. I do know that they—” he jerked his head toward the Castle “—have a whole pool of the stuff.”