Page 129 of Of Bargains & Betrayal

Its feeble-looking body was dense as fucking stone and sent me tumbling across the ground with a pained curse as my bones rattled. It came down on top of me, crushing the air from my lungs as it snapped its rotting maw in my face, but I sent my dagger into its throat without a moment of hesitation.

A crunch. A squelch.

An agonized wail.

The sick shifter went limp, and I shoved it off me in one excruciating heave, scrambling to my feet as a tremor took hold of my body. Another shifter was dead on its side too, blood pouring from a gaping throat wound, and Gallan was keeping the other two at bay with bursts of nytefire.

But they were pissed.

Their fetid maws snapped, and they let out piercing howls as they lunged for Gallan. His nytefire ate away at their mangy fur and rotting skin, filling the air with the most putrid scent, but they were unbothered by it, sending him back a step with every blast.

As I came up a few feet to Gallan’s side, getting a better grip on my blade, now coated with thick blood, I let out a series of low whistles. The wolves whined, and their attention snapped to me. I whistled again, waving my free hand in the air, and thanked the goddess Gallan was a smart man.

As I drew the attention of the two sick shifters, he worked a slow path around them, coming up behind one with stillness to his movements that left me in awe. I kept whistling, kept waving my arm, until Gallan locked eyes with me and nodded.

He tackled one wolf in a blurred lunge, wrenching its head back and artfully flipping his blade to slice clean across its throat. As the other let out a guttural, pissed-off roar and turned for Gallan, I charged at it. Just as he had, I landed on the bony ridge of the wolf’s spine, gripping it by the muzzle before I ran my blade through its neck. Both wolves landed in a pile, seeping a pool of dark blood around them.

All I could fumble out in a panicked squeak was, “Are you okay?”

Gallan had his hands braced on his knees, his chest heaving as he gulped down air. “Am I okay?” he wheeze-laughed. “Goddess, princess, I am⁠—”

“HELP IS ON THE WAY!”

I spun around to find the lone guard we’d encountered earlier racing down the road like he was the one being chased by a diseased shifter.

“We are the help, you flaccid cock!” Gallan shouted back, and the roar of his voice caught me off guard. “Get your useless fucking arse back to station and send for a Wilds envoy now! Someone needs to claim these men’s bodies and give them an ounce of decency.”

These men.

The rest of Gallan’s words may very well have been nonsense for how I narrowed in on that single concept as my attention slid to the bodies at our feet.

They were no longer wolves.

They were naked men, curled on their sides, horribly emaciated, and riddled with sores. Lifeless, milk-white eyes were wide open. Their throats gaped with wounds.

My hands shook so badly, the dagger slipped from my bloodied grasp.

Commotion had picked up all around me, doors opening and closing, voices and gasps, but it sounded so far away, like I was back beneath the surface of the pool the other night, even though I could see things happening right in front of me. Curious faces, crowds gathering, so close but so far. It was so disorienting, a soft touch on my back had me sucking in a violent breath.

“Princess…” came Galen’s cautious drawl. “Are you injured, love? No fight bites? Errant fangs?”

I turned to him and shook my head.

“No,” my voice wasn’t much more than a rasp, and it lowered to a squeak when I glanced between him and my bloodied hands. “Gallan, I…I’ve never killed anyone. An-and I-I don’t kn-know how⁠—”

He clasped my face and smothered me with his palms. “You are going to fill up your lungs with all the air you can manage right now, okay? There you go. Good girl. Very good. Now let it alllllllll out. In once more, but hold it this time.”

I would’ve walked straight into the ocean if it meant Gallan called me a good girl again.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever been a woman’s first anything,” he chuckled, and all the air came rushing out of my lungs in a pained laugh. “Oh, very good. We like laughter. You feel alive, yeah? No overwhelming urge to tear out my intestines or anything?”

Alive was certainly one way to put how I felt, tremors racking every inch of my body. Still, I nodded.

“Incredible. You were absolutely brilliant, princess.” Gallan tossed me a wry smile and added, “Let me buy you a round at the Wench, then a meal. Maybe in the opposite order. Bryer’ll open for us, I’m sure, and then you and I can have a little chat about what we’re going to do to get that beautiful head of yours in a better place, okay?”

29

HOW DO YOU LOSE A PRINCESS?