The sandals made a satisfying slap-slap sound as I strutted down the dusty main street. Heads turned. Mostly male. A few curious wives. One goat. My new leather straps glinted in the sunlight like I had money. Or a sugar daddy. Which, I suppose, I did—if you stretched the term to include gouty dragons with hoarding compulsions and emotional constipation.
I had a mission.
A proper one. Not the kind involving back rooms and ham-fisted cobblers, but the real craft: the con. The art of bending a village's fear into shiny, portable tribute.
Step one: reconnaissance.
Step two: exaggeration.
Step three: scream artistically while His Scaliness swoops in.
Step four: profit.
I adjusted my cleavage and pushed open the door to the largest inn in town—The Sloshed Satyr, according to the painted sign featuring exactly what you'd expect. One foot in and I knew I was in the right place.
The air smelled like stale beer, roasted meat, and regret. My kind of perfume.
Inside: mid-day drunks. Slutty barmaids with cleavage like bait. One was bent so low over a retired mercenary's lap she might as well have been trying to smother him with her tits for coin. The barkeep — all hammy arms and pickled-onion eyes — loomed behind the counter, polishing a glass that had long since given up on ever being clean. Shadows clung to the corners. Dice games clattered. Deals were whispered. Boots sprawled across tables like they owned the place.
Perfect.
This was the kind of place where you could trade three silver for secrets, or three smiles for a room and breakfast. Gossip soaked into the walls like grease. The ideal spot to get the pulse of the town. Or wrap your hand around its throat, depending on your mood.
I sauntered in, hips doing what hips do best, and slid onto a stool like I owned it. The bar creaked. The man beside me gave me a slow once-over, the kind of look that usually ends in disappointment and coin loss.
"Wine," I said to the barkeep, flipping a copper.
He raised an eyebrow. "We got red, bad red, and the one that makes you see music."
"Surprise me."
He nodded and poured me something that glowed faintly.
As I sipped and listened, the gossip came easy.
The beast had been seen over the last few days. Big, black, winged. A dragon, they whispered. Or a cursed god. Or a giant bat. Opinions varied with alcohol levels.
Two cows gone from a farm up north. A sheep pen ripped apart near the riverbend. A water mill torched to cinders. A bridge—stone, minor, but still expensive—collapsed under something huge and angry.
The whole valley was ripe.
Tension crackled. Fear brewed. Merchants were already talking about diverting their routes. Farmers prayed louder. The mayor's son had apparently wet himself during a sunrise patrol.
I smiled into my wine.
Oh yes.
Perfect conditions for a scam.
I leaned into the bar, striking the kind of pose that promised sin and secrets. One leg bent just enough to show thigh, elbow crooked to lift the girls, wrist limp and sultry. Classic seductress stance. Field-tested. Brothel-approved. Guaranteed to loosen tongues and tighten trousers.
With my wine in hand and a slow smile curling my lips, I scanned the room.
Tankards clanked. Dice rattled. Someone burped a folk song. I let my gaze drift over the patrons, searching for the right target to probe for intel—an off-duty guardsman, maybe. A lonely merchant. A drunk with a loud mouth.
And that's when I saw him.
Him.
My smile fell off my face like a brothel curtain at sunrise.
There, in the shadowed corner, lounging like a smug rash on a velvet cushion, sat Sir Odran.
Sir godsdamned Odran.
The lying, cheating, thieving bastard.
And—unfortunately—the bastard whose stupid perfect jawline still made some traitorous part of me clench like a prayer. Damn my body. Damn his jaw. Damn the gods for giving him shoulders like that.
He was surrounded, of course. Some twink with a lute strummed hero ballads nearby. Three groupies—no fewer than three—were draped over him like fur pelts, gazing up with parted lips and worshipful eyes as if he were some demi-divine cocksmith dropped from the heavens to bless their virtue and scramble their reproductive futures.
He lifted one arm in a grand heroic gesture, reenacting some tale no doubt stuffed with bravado and fiction. I could practically hear him from here:
"And there I stood—sword blazing with justice—upon the burning bridge…"
My eye twitched.
Burning bridge?
That was our bridge.
The one the Dragon toasted two nights ago because I said it creaked under my footsteps.
"Ah, yes," slurred a voice beside me. The barstool creaked under a very drunk dwarf with a braided beard and the breath of fermented herring. "That there's Sir Odran. Famous dragon killer. Real hero, that one. Cut the head clean off some sky-scaled beast down south. He's here t'solve all our dragon problems."
My fingers tightened around the mug until the wood creaked.
"And I," the dwarf added proudly, thumping his chest, "am gonna join 'is hunting party. Bring back the beast's horns in me pack and me pride in me pants."
I barely heard him. My whole mind was crackling like a lightning rod left out in a storm.
Because Sir Odran wasn't a dragon slayer.
Sir Odran was the fool who once ran screaming from a sacrificial scene I staged—tripped over his own scabbard, pissed behind a haystack, and begged the gods for mercy like a toddler caught stealing figs. The only thing he'd ever slain was my patience.
And now there he was.
Stealing my act.
Our act.
Basking in stolen glory like it came naturally to him—which, infuriatingly, it did.
Wearing a sun medallion I'd once tried to fence and briefly contemplated biting him over.
This was going to be a problem.
A loud, golden-haired, bard-accompanied, groupie-slicked problem with shoulders built for sin and arrogance supple enough to wrap around a woman's sanity.
And worse?
He'd seen a dragon recently.
Which meant he might—might—know too much.
About me.
About us.
About things he had no business knowing.
I inhaled sharply and took a long sip of wine.
This just got complicated.
I lifted the mug again—anything to keep my hands busy, anything to stop myself from marching over there and punching him or climbing him; gods knew which urge was stronger—when I saw him laugh.
That laugh.
That smug, self-satisfied, "I have never earned a single thing in my pretty little life but fate keeps sucking my cock anyway" laugh.
My whole body betrayed me. Heat punched low in my stomach. My breath hitched. My thighs clenched like a reflex older than wisdom.
No. No no no.
Keep your mouth shut, Saya.
Do. Not. Engage.
I locked my teeth.
I swallowed the wine.
I told myself: Don't react. Don't rise. Don't—
And then something snapped—something deep, primal, hormonal, furious, starved, and stupid.
My voice tore across the tavern before my brain could wrestle it back:
"OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE—STOP LYING!"
The whole room turned.
Every head.
Boots stalled. Dice froze. One barmaid's cleavage hovered mid-bounce.
Sir Odran's hand halted mid-gesture. The groupies blinked like startled hens. The lute‑twink missed a chord so badly the gods should've smote him for it.
For a heartbeat, nobody breathed.
Odran squinted across the room, eyes adjusting, expression tightening—
Then:
"…Oh no."
He recognized me.
Recognized the voice.
Recognized the stupid pounding in my chest.
Recognized the disaster.
And I wanted the earth to swallow me whole.
Not because I feared him.
But because I wanted him, and I hated myself for wanting him, and he could see it written across my stupid, treacherous face.
His face went still—recognition, shame, and the ghost of a very bad day.
Dread.
Shame.
Spiritual nausea.
I slammed my mug down so hard the table jumped, and stalked toward him, hips snapping like a challenge.
"Sir Odran!" I announced sweetly, loud enough for the rafters. "Hero of the Bridge! Slayer of the Mill! Vanquisher of Two Sheep and a Particularly Unimpressed Cow!"
A ripple of laughter. A few heads turned.
Odran sat up straighter in his chair, chin tilting like he thought that made him look noble.
"Saya," he said, aiming for magnanimous and landing somewhere between tense and constipated. "To what do I owe the displeasure? Everyone, meet my favourite whore?"
"Sweet that you remember. Most men try to forget what they can't afford." I turned to his groupies with a vinegar smile, "Girls, he is broke. Didn't he tell you?"
One of his groupies gasped. Another hissed like a kicked kitten. The lute boy strummed a nervous, off-key chord.
Odran's smile tightened. "Still bitter, I see."
"Still lying, I see," I shot back. "Tell me, did you slay the dragon before or after you pissed yourself in the hayfield? I forgot the sequence."
The dwarf near me sprayed ale down his shirt.
Odran stood, fast enough to knock his chair backward. "Watch your tongue, gutter princess."
"Watch your ego, piss-pants paladin."
We were toe-to-toe now. Too close. Heat blooming between us like old coals stirred awake. His eyes were ice and fire all at once. My fingers curled, ready to slap or grab or both.
"Still selling it between towns?" he murmured, voice low and dangerous. "Or just here to remind everyone where syphilis started?"
I smiled like a knife. "Don't worry, darling. You're not my clientele anymore. I'm into men who don't cry when their belt buckle pinches."
A growl built in his throat.
"You always had a filthy mouth," he said.
"And you always had a forgettable cock," I replied, sweet as honey.
Laughter now. Someone choked on their drink. One of the groupies looked like she was re-evaluating life choices.
Odran leaned forward, close enough to make my pulse betray me.
"You don't want to do this here," he said, voice rough.
"Why?" I purred. "Afraid I'll tell them how you screamed like a milkmaid at the first whiff of dragon smoke?"
"I screamed once."
"Twice."
"Once, godsdamn it!"
"Oh love. Even the haystack winced."
He reached for me—mistake.
He grabbed my wrist.
I yanked it back.
Our chests collided.
Friction.
Heat.
History.
That awful, magnetic, addictive pull.
His jaw clenched. "Back room. Now."
He seized my wrist again.
The barkeep didn't blink — just jerked his chin toward the supply door.
Odran shoved through it like a prince on parade, cape flaring, ego flaring harder.
I followed.
Gods damn him.
Gods damn me even more.
The door slammed behind us. The room was cramped, stacked with sacks of barley, crates of sour wine, smelling of leather and dust. A lantern flickered overhead. Shadows swayed.
Odran whirled on me.
And damn it all —
he looked good.
Infuriatingly good.
Sun-bronzed skin. Hair too perfect for someone who'd slept rough. That heroic jawline, the one I wanted to slap and bite in equal measure. Broad shoulders. Narrow waist.
Gods. I hated myself for noticing.
Worse—I hated him for making me notice.
He stabbed a finger at me. "What in all seven hells are you trying to do?"
"Expose you," I snapped. "Ruin you. Humiliate you. Pick one."
He stepped closer, his chest rising, heat radiating off him in furious waves. "You want to destroy me over a bridge?"
"For my gold!" I shot back. "You stole my treasure and strutted off like you earned a single godsdamned coin!"
His face twisted. "I didn't steal it. I salvaged it."
"You packed it into your bags while I was naked and chained to a goddamn pillar. You looted my loot, you arrogant, sun-warmed shitstain."
He winced. "Must you always be so crass?"
"Must you always be such a leech?"
He ran a hand through his hair, pacing in a tight circle. "You can't just walk in and call me a liar in front of a crowd!"
"Why not? You are."
He turned on me again, voice low and hot. "I have a reputation now."
"Oh, congratulations," I sneered. "Built on lies and panic piss. Should we reenact the haystack scene for the crowd?"
He took a step toward me. Too fast. Too close.
That spark hit again—sharp and stupid and alive. I wanted to punch him. Or kiss him. Maybe both. Hard.
He pointed toward the door. "What you did out there—don't do it again."
"Or what?" I asked, soft and deadly.
"Or I'll tell them who you are."
I laughed in his face. "Please. Tell them I'm a whore. See how long it takes before they ask for a demonstration."
His jaw ticked. "You'll ruin me."
"You deserve it."
His mask cracked then—just a little.
The bravado faltered. Something raw bled through the cracks.
He lowered his voice so it was only for me. "Saya—"
I didn't answer.
"I built something. A name. A room that doesn't smell like the road. A man who gets a warm bowl without asking." His words were clipped, not pleading. Pride sat like armor over the thing that trembled underneath.
"Don't burn it down," he said, hard. "Don't make me watch it all go up for the sake of a story. Not here. Not now." His eyes cut into mine like a blade.
"Don't mistake my patience for weakness, Saya. This—" he gestured around "—is all I've got, and I will protect it."
He stepped in until the heat between us felt obscene. "Keep your mouth shut," he added, low and dangerous. "Or I'll make sure the next word you hear about me is a lie that leaves you worse off than you were before."
I stared at him.
The liar. The coward. The bastard who ran, stole, and smiled while doing it.
I should've decked him.
Instead, my chest pulled tight.
Gods help me, I drew in a breath, slow and measured. "You owe me."
I stepped closer.
"I want my pound of flesh."
His eyes winced.
"And that fucking medallion."
I held out my hand.
Palm open. Fingers loose.
"Medallion," I said.
Odran didn't move.
Didn't blink.
His jaw worked. His eyes burned.
And then—
he snapped.
With a growl, he surged forward. Hands on my shoulders. He shoved me hard against the wall, forearm pinning me like I was some criminal he meant to interrogate with his body. My breath caught.
"Enough," he snarled. "You want to take something from me? Then take it."
His face was inches from mine. His chest crushed into mine. The air between us was thick with heat and hate and something that felt too much like memory.
And that was it.
That was the moment.
I reached up.
Grabbed his stupid, handsome, infuriating face with both hands—
—and kissed him.
I kissed him like a punishment. Like a relapse. Like a sin I'd already half-forgiven.
His mouth was hot and angry and full of curses he didn't speak. He tasted like wine and pride and trouble. He didn't pull back.
This is a mistake. The worst kind. The kind you want twice.
Gods help me, he kissed me back like we'd been doing this in dreams every night we were apart.
And in the small, stupid space between heartbeats, I thought:
I am going to regret this in the morning.
And worse:
The dragon is going to kill me.