A Girl Named Calamity by Danielle Lori

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE REFLECTION OF A TITAN

MAGIC FORBIDDEN

All Mages, Sisters & Druids must inform the innkeeper of any magical abilities.

ANY users of magic inside will be dealt with appropriately due to the nature of the crime.

Thank you

Icocked my head while I read the black calligraphy on the overly large wooden door. The sun had almost set when we came across an inn. The top and sides of the wooden building were covered with grass as it was built into the hill. Tall pine trees were all that surrounded it. The building felt out of place sitting in the middle of nowhere, and I had told Weston that. But he’d said it was a traveling inn, and there wasn’t anything strange about it. I had left it to him then, since he was the experienced traveler.

Grandmother had taught me little about magic, but I did learn some about Mages. The magical ability was only passed down through the mother’s side. Every Mage had different abilities, but I didn’t know the extent of what they could do. The only one I had ever seen came through Alger once in a traveling show. The cloaked man could manipulate fire into any form he wished. He had put on a show of a maiden being rescued by a knight all out of flames. It was common knowledge Mages had hot tempers, and soon after there were broken bones and burnt down buildings. Many businesses had restrictions on magic and enchantments to back them up.

After requesting a couple of rooms, we sat down at a wooden table to eat some supper. I was devouring mine. The hot meal was definitely better than the dry jerky and fruit Grandmother had packed.

The serving women were overly friendly with Weston. Asking him whether he needed a refill, only moments after they refilled it while leaning over the table too far every damn time. Asking him whether he needed anything, with much emphasis on the anything.

I could have used a refill, but they ignored me.

Annoyance prickled my back, and I grabbed Weston’s cup of ale and took a big swallow. His gaze hardened as I grimaced at the bitter taste. I was used to wine, not ale.

“What? They’ll refill it within moments. Don’t you worry,” I told him as I poured the rest of his drink into my cup and then scoffed at the prompt maid. She looked at me as if I were the strange one.

When the door slammed, I glanced up. My breath hitched, and I dropped the cup in my hand. Weston reached out and caught it before it could spill all over us. I only saw the action out of the corner of my eye, because my gaze was focused on the Titan in the doorway.

He had dark hair, cropped short; his face undoubtedly resembled Weston’s. He was probably stockier than Weston, which was hard to imagine, but he was an inch or two shorter and dressed in full Titan wear. Black pants and black sleeveless shirt, the Titan brand on his forearm only confirming everything else. Weston always wore the traditional sleeveless leather jerkin they wore around these parts, and his brand matched the Titan’s.

So, he was a Titan. Or is?

I looked at the man in question. He was only leaning back in his chair, his forearm on the table and watching me with a lazy amused expression. I glanced back to the door uncertainly and then back at Weston. His lips tipped up a little as if he knew who stood behind him and was entertained at my confusion.

The man came straight for us, and I couldn’t help but stare. I had never seen a Titan before, besides Weston, and it was a sight.

Somehow just the way the man walked, as if he owned the floor, captivated me. I was used to normal peasant men, nothing like . . . this.

How had I gone twenty years without ever seeing a man who made my breath catch and then meet two within days? The Titan’s blue eyes met mine and my cheeks warmed.

“Might want to close your mouth, Princess. He would snap your neck without a second thought,” Weston said sardonically.

I frowned. Because Princess?

Worry gnawed at me as the man sat down in the chair next to me and across from Weston. The room suddenly felt as cramped as trying to put on one of my childhood dresses. I imagined this man’s and Weston’s presences combined were going to push me right out the door. The oxygen in the area was diminishing, and I had the desire to get up and leave. There was no room for a mere girl and two Titans at this table.

“Brother,” the Titan said.

“Roldan,” said Weston. I wasn’t alarmed to find out they were brothers, the similarity too uncanny not to be. But some unease snaked through me at the fact that they both had ended up at a traveling inn in the middle of nowhere. I gnawed on my lip as my guess was the odds of that were slim to none.

They watched each other with their gazes locked, having said nothing but the strange greeting. I was almost mesmerized by their blatant stares. They weren’t even acknowledging my presence, and yet it felt as if I were the one they were both staring at. I felt breathless as tension clouded the room the longer they were silent.

“Try it,” Weston said with a malicious smile that gave me the shivers.

Roldan returned the smile and raised a brow. “You think I can’t?”

“Go ahead and find out,” Weston said indifferently and took a drink out of his cup. Confusion surrounded me, and my legs itched to get up and leave. I didn’t exactly feel the safest where I sat. Try not at all.But it felt as though my butt were frozen to my seat.

“Such confidence,” Roldan mocked.

“I could say the same to you, Brother. I thought you were smarter than this.”

Roldan’s eyes narrowed at the insult.

My shoulders were tense while I stared through Weston.

Weston set his cup down. “Go ahead, let’s get this over with. I don’t want to be sitting here all night.”

I felt he should be a little more concerned about whatever was happening. His brother made a nervous knot in my stomach. Not that Weston was a choir boy or anything, but he was the scary I kind of knew.

“I think I’ll stick around. Get to know your friend.”

“I think you’ll leave, and you’ll do it now,” Weston growled.

Roldan leaned back. “I think I’ll stay until I get what I came for.” How anyone could be relaxing during this was a mystery to me. I sat stiffly in my chair as every muscle in my body was tense. “Let’s not make this difficult,” he said.

I would have missed the subtle tells if I weren’t staring at Weston. I swallowed hard as I watched his fist tighten around his cup and a muscle tick in his jaw. He had apparently had enough of this.

His brother must have noticed it too because he slowly sat up.

I wasn’t sure whether I should feel better that this scary Titan was intimidated by Weston or worse. I decided at the moment it was a good thing. And hopefully, I wouldn’t have to reevaluate it in the future.

“Make me say it again, Brother. Make me say it one more fucking time,” Weston snapped. They continued to stare at each other for another moment, and I swore the temperature in the room sky-rocketed. Roldan leaped to his feet, and my heart was in my throat when he flipped the table over to the side. My plate and cup went flying across the room, landing at the feet of one wide-eyed serving girl. Weston’s mocking laugh didn’t ease the tension in the air—it magnified it.

I came to the conclusion they were both mad.

“I’m sick of this fucking game,” Roldan growled. “Remember what I said in Cameron,” he warned before he stormed out of the inn. My heart thumped in my chest as I watched Weston take a drink and lean back in his chair. Definitely mad.Or maybe that was normal Titan conversation?

I let out a breath. “What the hell was that?”

Weston’s heated eyes bored into mine. He was pissed, so apparently that wasn’t typical Titan talk. He wasn’t going to give me any answers, and the oxygen was still depleted in this room, so I left my table that was no longer in front of me and went up to my room to get some sleep.

* * *

The next morning I was up with the sun. I was eating breakfast when Weston came through the front door. Where had he been this early? He sat across from me, and I watched the maids behind his back, pushing each other to be the one who got to serve him. I rolled my eyes.

If only they knew he would kill them for money.

“Where have you been?” I asked. I sighed when he only gave me a look that said, You really think I’m going to answer that?

We left right after breakfast and around noonday, the temperature began to rise. It had been perfect for a while with the soft breeze and then all of a sudden, it was overwhelmingly hot. It changed within a second as if we had hit a wall of heat. It was a relief not having the heavy hair, but sweat still ran down my face and into my shirt. I was miserable in my long-sleeve shirt and pants.

Weston only talked to me to let me know when we were taking a break, and the silence was aggravating. I didn’t know how much I liked to speak until I couldn’t. I really liked it.

My butt began to feel raw from riding all day, and I shuffled around on Gallant, trying to ease the pain by sitting in different positions, but I stopped when it almost landed me on the ground. I didn’t miss Weston letting out a small breath of amusement.

When the sun set, we stopped and set up camp in the last part of the valley. Dirt hills stretched on from here, the grass sparse.

I settled down on my pallet, but the long sleeves of my shirt were suffocating, and it was impossible to get comfortable. There were sticks and rocks under me but every time I got rid of one, another would poke me in the back. When that was taken care of, the heat was too unbearable to sleep. I wiped some sweat from my face and pushed my long sleeves up all the way, but that ended up just being more uncomfortable. When I had rolled around for the seventeenth time, I was tugged into a sitting position.

“Wha—” My voice was interrupted by a loud rip. Weston had yanked the sleeve of my shirt right off. He grabbed my other sleeve, there was a loud rip, and the cool air on my arm announced it was gone as well.

“Now go to sleep,” he snapped.

How did he know?

Well, I guessed I was panting, but who knew heat would be this suffocating? I had never felt an uncomfortable temperature before, but within a few days, I had been too hot and too cold. The nice thing about Alger was that the temperature was always perfect.

With the sleeves gone, I thought I would be able to get some sleep. Although I would have felt so much better if I could take my pants off, too.

I smiled when I thought of my grandmother. She would be horrified if she could see me now, with my arms showing and thinking of taking my pants off in the presence of a man.

I rolled around some more, but I was still too hot to sleep. Weston had already seen me without pants on, so what would he care if I took them off? I rolled it around in my mind but decided I couldn’t. It wouldn’t be proper; the last time had been an accident . . . kind of.

After I’d rolled around a little more with my eyes wide open, I saw him moving towards me and knew whatever he would do wasn’t going to be good. My heart rate sped up.

“No!” I shouted when he grabbed my pants leg. My eyes went round when he took his knife out and cut a slit in them before he ripped it all the way around my leg and pulled it off. I stared at my really short pants leg while he did the same with the other. It was disconcerting having an assassin rip my pants to shreds, and I had the urge to scoot away, but I forced myself to stay still until he finished.

He pinned me with a hard gaze. “I swear if you roll around one more time, I’ll knock you out.”

A frown pulled on my lips but I only lay back down. By now, I was used to his surly attitude and didn’t grumble about it, because the breeze on my legs was too satisfying. I stared at the stars while I cooled down. I sighed as no gold flew across the sky. Nobody wants to fall in love tonight.

When I was drifting to sleep, I caught a reflection in my silver cuff. The fire blazed, and a bare muscled back was in view.

I slept soundly with a wolf as my guardian.

* * *

I spent a long time washing the sweat off my body in the stream the next morning. I put my newly shortened pants on and with the length of my shirt, it looked as though I wasn’t wearing any at all. That would surely get some attention on the road. I tucked my shirt into my belt on one side, so I at least looked a little respectable. Then I rolled my eyes; nothing about this outfit was respectable.

“You need to take the cuffs off,” Weston said while I was eating some of my rations for breakfast.

I was surprised that he hadn’t mentioned anything about them until now. I thought about what to say and knew I couldn’t tell him anything about the magic; I had no idea where he stood on the matter. He watched with curious eyes while I tried to think of a good answer.

I settled with, “I can’t.”

Good thinking, Calamity.

He turned his back on me and packed some things into his saddlebag. I was glad because it was hard to think with his eyes burning a hole through my skin. “You can’t wear them in the city we’re going through today. It will cause too much attention.”

“I’ll wear my cloak, then,” I suggested.

“You will draw more attention wearing a cloak.”

I frowned. “Why?”

What could be so interesting about someone wearing a cloak?

“Take them off,” he ordered, turning to pin that killer gaze on me.

“No,” I countered. My heartbeat quickened, but I acted as composed as possible after blatantly defying an assassin. My composure vanished when he started to walk toward me. I jumped up and stumbled back a few steps. “I can’t take them off!” I cried. He looked down on me for a moment before he grabbed the other half of my pants on the ground and ripped them into long strips.

“What are you doing?” I croaked. He had long strips of cloth in his fist when he walked to me with purpose. What was he going to do? Tie me up?

How could I have trusted an assassin? I was so stupid! I walked backward, but his strides were longer and he would have reached me in only a couple more steps. A cold sweat covered my skin while he got closer until I couldn’t take it anymore. I turned to run but a vice grip wrapped around my wrist before I could take another step. I pulled at it with no avail.

“Stop,” he spoke with such force that it was hard not to listen to the word. I paused long enough to realize what he was doing. He tied the cloth around my cuff so that no silver was showing. He did the same with the other while my heart still drummed.

I stared at his retreating back after he finished with my fists at my sides. “You could have told me what you were doing, you lunatic!”

When he turned to the side, I saw the small smile pulling at his lips.

An angry flush covered my skin.

The bastard thought it was funny.