Elf world the complete s.., p.87
Elf World : The Complete Series, page 87
Yes, these humans were civilized indeed. I could get used to the way things were around here.
But as I kept watching the games, I seemed to be getting a fair amount of stares right back at me for some reason. I assumed it was because of my shabby clothing. Yeah, I really needed to get those new threads ASAP.
“Here you are, sir.”
But not before I had something to eat!
I could already smell the piping hot lamb before I spun back in my seat. The side of veggies added some color to the dish, and the frosty glass of ale had a stream of cool foam running down the side. It all looked like something right out of a restaurant commercial, and was almost too beautiful to tear into.
Almost...
“Everything looks great,” I said, vigorously rubbing my hands together while preparing to make short work of this work of art.
“The house specialty, sir. I’m sure you will enjoy it,” he said before making his way back to the other end of the bar.
“I’m sure I will,” I said to no one, and began cutting off a piece of meat.
The lamb was tender and perfectly spiced, and the veggies added a tangy zip to the overall dish. I heard the door swing open behind me but was too busy stuffing my face to care. However, when a wave of hushed whispers washed through the place before everything fell silent, I couldn’t help but turn around.
“Holy shit,” I mumbled, a few peas falling from my overstuffed mouth as I nearly dropped my fork. Everyone was already staring, and now that included me. The woman who just walked in was damn sexy!
She had black leather boots and a tight pair of matching pants that hugged her hips and showed off her thick thighs. Her small top was little more than a leather bra at least two sizes too small, causing her cleavage to bulge out the top. She looked like a straight-up dominatrix!
Her long, black hair and creamy, pale skin made her piercing green eyes stand out like emeralds. She gazed around the room, apparently intending to meet each and every stare during her long, slow sweep. She knew she was the center of attention and wasn’t shying away from the spotlight.
But it didn’t take long for me to realize they weren’t staring for the same reason I was, and there was this hostile energy lingering in the room like a dark cloud.
“Hey, who is that?” I asked the bartender. He ignored me, his glare fixed squarely on the sexy lady just like everyone else. His intense gaze was actually one of the first things I noticed about him, but that was nothing like what I was seeing from him now.
I hadn’t noticed before that his eyes were yellow, but now they were bright yellow and looked like a pair of headlights shining in the dark night.
In fact, now that I looked around again...
Everyone in the room had those same yellow eyes! It wasn’t as apparent when they were calm, by now that they were all riled up, I felt like I was sitting in a room full of demons.
What the fuck is going on here?
The sexy woman sauntered up to the bar and sat one stool down from me. She seemed reasonably calm considering all the obvious hostility directed right at her. She glanced over once, and looked me up and down before sniffing so hard, it made her nostrils flare.
Her eyes narrowed and her nose crinkled in disgust. “Fucking human,” she muttered under her breath, and then turned her attention to the bartender.
“We don’t serve your kind here,” he growled before she could say anything. And I mean, like, an actual growl gurgling up from the depths of his throat. “Perhaps you should leave while we’re still feeling generous.” His whole demeanor had changed. Between his twitching cheek and curled-back lips that exposed his teeth in a quivering snarl, he seemed to be more animal than human.
But despite the mounting tension, the woman still appeared cool and calm as ever. That is, except for those bright green eyes of hers that suddenly seemed to flash like spotlights. What was going on here? This was really starting to creep me out.
“So you’re telling me that you’re fine serving this animal,” she said, casting her hand in my general direction, “but won’t serve one of your own?”
“Hey!” I protested without thinking. “I’m just sitting here! I’m not bothering anybody. And who are you calling an animal?”
“You are not one of our kind, cat,” the bartender rumbled. “And my original offer to let you leave”—chairs screeched along the floor as men rose from their seats—“is now off the table. Get the bitch!”
“I tried to be nice,” she said in a raspy hiss, her green eyes flaring like his. “You could have just served me like a good boy, but now it looks like I’ll be having dog for lunch.”
Dogs? Cats? I have no idea what’s going on around here, but someone needs to throw some water on this fire before it gets out of hand.
“Guys!” I jumped off my stool and tried to move between them. “Knock it off already. I don’t see any reason why we can’t work this out like civilized—”
A stiff open hand to the chest sent me stumbling back. “Out of the way, human,” the woman snarled, now pointing a finger with the same hand that just shoved me. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“Looks like we agree on something for once, Moana,” the bartender said. “Stay out of this, human.” I leaned against a nearby table, clutching my chest while trying to get my wind back. Man, what a strong chick! That was a hell of a shove. “But as for you, cat...”
The men moving in around her began to change in appearance, their faces bubbling and warping like their skin was made of rubber. Wiry hair rose around their ears and shoulders, twitching like they were reaching for the ceiling. Their yellow eyes looked like angry beacons, and several of them started to howl.
The transitions were not even, some changing faster than others, but in the end I had a pretty good idea where this was going.
Holy shit! Did I really just walk into a tavern full of werewolves?
One of them grabbed a glass mug off the bar, clutching it in his suddenly very hairy hand. “Watch out!” I shouted in warning right as he cocked it back over his shoulder, ready to throw.
The woman whirled around at my warning, dipping her head to the side just as the mug sailed past. It smashed against the back mirror, sending two shelves’ worth of bottles crashing down to the floor.
But her reaction to the close call was minimal, and all she did was casually put her hands in her pockets while giving her would-be attackers a cocky stare.
Further enraged by her show of arrogance, the hairy beasts closest to her lowered their heads and charged. But before they could reach her, she ripped her hands out of her pockets and flung two handfuls of live snakes at them.
How she could have had that many snakes, or any snakes for that matter, in her pockets this whole time was a total mystery to me. But she obviously did, and now the swarm of angry death noodles were clinging to necks and cheeks, hissing and biting.
The stout bartender took advantage of the distraction and reached over the bar to grab her by the neck from behind. He leaned back with all his weight, her feet lifting off the ground as he tightened the choke.
But once I saw that, I sprang into action without thinking. I had no real incentive to help her, considering how shitty she was being to me. But it was like ten against one, and I wasn’t going to just sit by and watch a lady get strangled to death.
Even if she had been kind of asking for it...
I came around and jumped on the bartender’s back, then began strangling him the same way he was strangling her. “Let go of her neck!” I ordered, squeezing with all my might. “Knock it off already!” The guy’s massive back made it feel like I was riding a horse, and squeezing his thick neck was no different than squeezing a cinderblock. The three of us stacked up like that must have looked like a circus clown act.
Physically, it was a pretty one-sided mismatch, one I was definitely on the short end of. “Oh, come on already!” I shouted when it became clear I just couldn’t do anything to this dude. “Can’t we all just get along?”
I was able to annoy him just enough to earn a back elbow to the ribs. I wheezed from the hard blow, dropping one hand to my side while still clinging to his neck with the other. But I had done just enough to loosen his grasp around the woman’s neck, enabling her to spin in his grasp and turn back into him.
She snarled in his face, her suddenly black cheeks rolling in sputtering vibrations. She raised her hand, which was now a black paw, and extended a set of razor-sharp claws when...
“Stop this at once!” came a sharp call. Men wearing silver chainmail and sheathed swords at their side stood near the doorway, blocking any possible escape. They looked human enough to me, but after what I had just seen, I knew better than to trust my eyes. “Well, one of you had better start talking, or we’re taking you all in.”
The woman lowered her claws bit by bit, as if still not convinced the fight was over just yet. The bartender released her and took a step back. Meanwhile, the other men all made their way toward the far wall with their heads down, now trying to appear like innocent bystanders.
Then all at once the men pointed our direction and began shouting wild accusations about how it was the outsiders’ faults. There were a few incoherent complaints about flying snakes mixed in there, too, a baffling little detail considering those were suddenly nowhere to be found.
“This is bullshit!” I shouted back in protest. “All I wanted was a cold ale, and then all hell broke loose. Next thing I knew, I was...er...” Choking the bartender from behind. Yeah, I should probably leave that part out...
“I must confess my role in all this,” the woman said, head bowed with a slouched posture indicative of someone who knew they were guilty. Good, I could use a buffer here. She turned sharply and pointed at me. “It was the human. I tried to stop him, but he’s clearly insane.”
“Oh, what the fuck?” I shouted, throwing my hands up in defeat. Why did this shit always happen to me? “That’s not at all how it went down, and you know it!”
“Take him,” the guard said, gesturing to me. “And her,” he added while my hands were being secured around my back.
“What?” the woman protested. “But I didn’t do anything.”
“Sure you didn’t, cat,” he said. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
Next thing I knew, we were both being led away.
Chapter 4
Not long after they took us in, they ended up separating us so we could be interrogated individually. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience, but it wasn’t like they started yanking out fingernails like they do in the movies. The process was just...irritating.
No matter how hard I tried to answer their endless questions, the response was always, “Don’t lie to us, human.”
By the third round of all the same questions, each one asked again in just a slightly different way to try and throw me off, I just fell silent and let them believe whatever they wanted. If everything I said was deemed a lie anyway, then what was the point in answering?
Soon after that, I was thrown into a holding cell with the rest of the riffraff. It was mostly men in the crowded cell, but there were a few women scattered about. And once again they all looked human to my eyes except for that one standout trait.
Everyone had those same yellow eyes.
Great, I was in a cell full of werewolves, and I was considered the dangerous one? What a joke...
But I couldn’t help but wonder what might happen if they all suddenly decided to turn on me. Would the guards try and stop them, or would they just turn a blind eye and consider it an accident?
I tried not to think about it, but it was difficult with all those yellowed-eyed stares fixed on me.
When I noticed a guy lying on the floor near the corner, I made my way over. He was probably just intoxicated and thrown in here so he could sleep it off. By default, that made him the least intimidating one here, and therefore my new best friend until I could figure out what to do next.
“So,” I said to the unconscious man while sitting on the floor with my back to the bars so I could keep everyone in view. The last thing I needed was a shiv to the kidney when I wasn’t looking. “What are you in for?”
He smacked his lips a few times, then rolled his head to the side before his snoring resumed.
“Shy, eh?” I tapped him on the thigh. “That’s okay, John. I don’t mind going first. That’s your name, right? John?” He burped, a wet, gurgling rumble that reeked of alcohol. “Well, hang on to your hat, John, because I have one hell of a tale for you.” I squared up my fingers like I was looking off at some distant memory. “It was a dark and stormy night...”
The sound of jingling keys and a clicking lock drew my attention, and suddenly everyone began moving toward the back wall. I heard the door down the hall creak open, so I joined the others scooting away from the bars.
Three guards escorted a tall figure in a black cloak into the hall, his face shadowed beneath a hood. They stopped in front of our cell. “That one?” one of the guards said, pointing right at me. The cloaked figure confirmed with a slow nod.
“Me?” I said, pointing to myself. Did I seriously just get bailed out by the Grim Reaper?
They opened the cage door and motioned for me to step out into the hall. I approached with my hands raised. “Hey, all I wanted was a cold drink and something to eat,” I said, suddenly feeling the urge to try to tell my side of things for the hundredth time. “Next thing I knew, that chick walked in and starting causing chaos. I’m a victim of circumstance, I tell you! If everyone had just kept cool...”
“Shut up, human!” one of the guards ordered, raising his fist as if he were about to punch me. I didn’t shy away from his tough-guy act, but I did decide it might be better to stay quiet. “This one’s all yours,” he said to the shadowy figure.
They didn’t even try to hide the exchange of coins that happened right in front of my face. With that, the tall figure turned and went back the way they came.
I hung back a moment, not exactly sure what I was supposed to do here.
“Go on, then,” another guard said, pointing toward the reaper who had just reached the far door. “You’re not our problem anymore.” He smiled down at the coins in his palm, and just like that I was all but forgotten about.
“Don’t fear the reaper, right?” I mumbled to myself before hurrying to catch up.
I marched through the open door and fell into step next to the mysterious man. “Hey there. Um, thanks for bailing me out,” I said. But the shadow figure didn’t respond. “So...you’re not a serial killer, are you? Because that looked like an awful lot of money to drop on a soon-to-be corpse if your only plan was to cut me into little pieces. That doesn’t seem like a savvy business move to me, so I’m guessing you have other plans?”
Still he said nothing as we rounded the next corner.
“Not much of a talker, eh? That’s cool...” I pointed a thumb back over my shoulder. “You should meet my good buddy John. I think you two would get along just fine.”
When we stepped outside, there was a white horse-drawn buggy waiting in the street. There was a lot not to like about this, but I decided to play along for now. He did bail me out, after all, and there had to be a reason.
My escort walked around to the front, where another black-cloaked man was holding the door open. But when I went to slide in beside him, the other man quickly closed the door and opened the passenger compartment instead.
“Okay, boss, backseat it is.”
But I only had one foot inside before I was met with a rather familiar, green-eyed stare. “Oh, hey there!” I said. “Fancy meeting you here. Small world, eh?” The woman from the tavern groaned and rolled her eyes while I hopped into the seat across from her.
The buggy gave a hard jerk, and we started to roll.
I knew she didn’t like me much, but it was still hard not to stare the way those tight leather pants rode deep up into her crotch, forming a perfect little triangle. I could clearly make out her nipples in that way-too-small top of hers, and my eyes kept bouncing between those well-defined buttons and her deep valley of cleavage.
She did eventually notice me staring and tried to tug her top down and away to ease its death grip on her breasts. It might have helped free up her nipples for a few seconds, but the trade-off included having her cleavage come bulging out like a flesh waterfall.
I was a winner either way...
“Hey,” I said, breaking the silence. Not that the silence bothered me any, but I really wanted to get some answers. “Did I do something to you?” I asked, deciding to start with the obvious.
“I don’t know, did you?” she responded, her eyes up on the ceiling to avoid looking at me. Seeing as how the windows were frosted over so we couldn’t see outside, there really wasn’t much else to look at.
“Well, it sure seems like you have a problem with me,” I said.
“Pfft...” she scoffed, as if my observation was completely absurd. “What problem could I possibly have with one such as you? I don’t have a problem with you any more than I do with any other rodent. True, some pests just seem to be more annoying than others, but that is their nature. It’s hardly personal.”
“Ah, I see,” I said, saying each word in a drawn-out hum. “So just being a human makes me utterly inferior by default.” Her eyes flickered in my direction, but she didn’t reply. “Oh, don’t worry about it. I’ve gotten used to being judged by people who don’t know anything about me. Why should you be any different?”
“Me?” she scoffed, jerking her head and suddenly looking directly at me. “The real question here is, why should you be any different?”
“What does that even mean?” I snapped back at her. I seemed to have struck a nerve, and this conversation just went from zero to sixty in a heartbeat.
