A Girl Named Calamity (Alyria 1)

“The servant wasn’t the one who gave it to me, you were,” he told me.

I had been tricked again. The woman who sold me the potion had known my plan and yet failed to mention this important fact. I already knew the answer to my next question, but I needed a little more time to think.

“It didn’t work, did it?” I asked, not meeting his eyes. My gaze focused on his clenched fist, and I realized that I had never asked a sillier question.

“Come here,” he demanded roughly.

“Weston . . .” I backed up, only putting myself further into the corner of the stable. “You said potions didn’t work on you!” I said frantically. I was grasping at straws here . . . anything to get me out of this mess.

My stomach dropped when he walked toward me with a cloud over his eyes. Whatever feelings I’d ever had were annihilated by the fact I was only a mere human girl. A virgin girl, at that. And he was a . . . non-human man. A fact that was now physically evident.

Scarily evident.

Somehow I had forgotten what he really was. He looked like a human man. Seemed like a human man. But there was no way I could have forgotten now. None.

As he reached me in a couple of long strides, and I got a close up of the two teeth that were sharper than they should have been, I did what any sane girl would have done.

I stabbed him.

It wasn’t easy. The knife didn’t just slide in like it would butter. It had taken some pressure before it was buried all the way to the hilt in his stomach. Blood seeped onto my hand, and I forced down the sick feeling as the warm liquid covered my skin. He sucked in a breath and took a step back. I didn’t think about it twice before I ran to Gallant and hopped onto his back with the grace only my instinct of flight could have managed.

We raced down the street while people jumped out of the way and cursed at us. Part of the street was blocked off by a couple of horses, and we jumped a fruit stand to get around it. The stand knocked to the ground and fruit scattered. I barely heard the yelling that followed over the drumming of my own heart and the loud clopping of Gallant’s hooves on the stone.

When we made it out of the city and into the woods, I pulled up on Gallant’s reins. I took the man’s shirt I had stolen out and rubbed it all over Gallant. Then I rubbed myself with it and put it on. I had dropped a piece of my worn clothes all over the city with the hope that it would confuse Weston.

If I didn’t just kill him . . .

The fox was making a terrible mess in the henhouse. And yet, the fly seemed to have won. My hands were still shaking from stabbing Weston when I realized I had left my knife in his stomach. The thought had cold shivers traveling down my spine as we galloped through the forest. The moon was a tiny slit in the sky, making the night a dark one, as if it didn’t want to light the way for me.

I sighed as I thought not even the moon had faith in me.

* * *

Surprised was a soft word to describe what I felt as we progressed further through the forest. I had no clue what direction we were going in, but any direction further from Weston was a good one. I wouldn’t head straight away to Undaley; that would most likely be the first direction Weston would search for me. If he couldn’t smell me, that is.

When the sun began to rise, I stopped at a nearby pond to let Gallant get a drink. I was exhausted, but my nervousness was a shroud over it, keeping it from taking over. I’d been expecting Weston to show up at least eight times by now, but I hadn’t even felt the classic hair raise on my neck that usually alerted me to his presence. And now I realized why I had felt like that; because he was a true predator.

I kneeled by the pond and washed the dried blood off my hands while I thought about what Weston was. Titans didn’t have magic. I remember hearing it was banned in the city. Nor did Titans have fangs. It wasn’t like they were huge or anything, but only slightly longer than average. Why was I trying to justify this? The man was closer to the wolf brand on his back than human.

I pushed all thoughts of him out of my mind. He wouldn’t have any hold on me out here. I was done with Weston.

He could have all my chickens; I didn’t need them. Feelings only got in the way, and I wouldn’t let them destroy Alyria.

I was horrified when I realized how far away I was from Undaley. It almost made me want to turn around and stab Weston again.

I looked at the map longingly and wished I could just blink and be there. I sighed as I sat up and got ready to head out again. I wouldn’t get anywhere sitting by a pond. Unfortunately.

As we strolled into a small town nestled in a valley, I received more than a few strange looks in the men’s clothes I wore, but at this point, I was only glad I didn’t end up in another Latent City.

When I saw a woman carrying a basket of dirty clothes down to the stream, I purchased them from her. The middle-aged brunette haggled with me, telling me what material each shirt was made of, and just to shut her up, I ended up paying a fortune for a bunch of dirty clothes. Grandmother would be furious. She taught me how to haggle by age eight, but Grandmother didn’t have a non-human/assassin after her.

I purchased a knife as well, with the hope that I wouldn’t need to use it, and loaded myself up with dirty clothes. I grimaced at the smell, but whatever kept the assassin away. And the fangs.

I headed back out into the unknown and didn?

??t make it very far before I was abruptly stopped.

Frozen as someone would be in a moment of complete shock, and unfortunately, physically frozen.