He wondered just what she did with all the damn money. She gave him only barely enough to jingle in his pocket—Kaytin didn’t mind being a kept man at all, but he would have liked to be at the very least well kept.
It was true that they ate and drank a lot in the taverns and bars of the city, but they didn’t eat that much, and he doubted even they could drink that much. Besides, she made a frequent habit of sneaking out without paying her bills at all. Sometimes she’d even purposely start a brawl just to keep the barkeep’s attention drawn away from the fact that she was leaving.
In fact she stole most everything they needed. The only time Kaytin had ever seen Kadasah willingly part with money was to buy new weapons from the Black Spider.
Kaytin remembered the day well. He had found the shop shortly after it opened and happened to have been there to see the owner’s own prowess with the weapons he sold.
When later that day Kadasah had proudly shown Kaytin the new weapons she had bought to replace the ones that had been taken by the followers of Dyareela, he had looked at them, yawned, shrugged, and told her he’d seen better, and at better prices.
She demanded to know where, and he took her straight to the Black Spider.
“Can I help you?” Spyder asked from behind the counter.
She turned to look at him and smiled. “New weapons.” “But your weapons look new,” he said looking at her, one eyebrow cocked in suspicion.
“Aye, but my friend tells me they aren’t as good as your weapons,” Kadasah said slamming a thumb Kaytin’s way.
Spyder had smiled at him. “Good to see you again, Kaytin.”
From that moment on it was as if Kaytin had gone invisible. As Spyder showed Kadasah all the weapons, she moaned and groaned in damn near orgasmic ecstasy. It was embarrassing to see her gush in such an uncharacteristic manner.
Spyder hadn’t even had to work at talking her into the most expensive bastard sword and hand ax in the entire store, with a trade-in of course. She didn’t blink an eye at the cost nor did she try to steal the things. And when she had handed over her weapons, paid the difference, and had them fastened to her person, she was in no hurry to leave. She didn’t suddenly remember that she had come there with Kaytin and say, Come on, Kaytin, let’s go, and by the way thanks for bringing me here, and I love you with all my heart and soul.
No, she never even acknowledged his presence. In fact, it soon became painfully obvious why she wasn’t showing that she was connected to Kaytin at all as she began to flirt outrageously with Spyder, not that Spyder for his part seemed to take any notice. She engaged him in conversation about weaponry and even played dumb. She started telling him stories, bragging about her riding abilities, all her battles and her talent with both sword and ax. She even, once again, told the tired story about how she’d killed three men with one ax blow.
At first Kaytin had thought it was all some trick, some way for her to get her money back, because he had never known Kadasah to flirt with any man including—maybe even especially—him unless she wanted something. But no, she never once started to steer the conversation into, “You’re in a bad section of town, and I am the best bastard sword fighter in all the Kingdom, maybe the known world, and for a small fee …” No, she was actually flirting with him as if Kaytin didn’t exist at all.
“I’m wondering,” Spyder asked, “why you didn’t enter the tournament?”
“Tournament?” Kadasah had asked curiously.
Spyder had then told her all about the damnable tournament. In fact, it seemed they might stand there talking all day, but then Spyder’s mysterious and beautiful mate came strolling down the stairs, saw Kadasah’s rather blatant display, and Kaytin swore he heard the woman growl.
Kadasah took one look at the woman and the way Spyder looked at her and seemed to realize she was wasting her time. She said her good-byes and left. Kaytin had followed her, as he always followed, even though in that moment he had known … . Nothing had changed between them. She was using him before, and she was using him now. Kaytin meant nothing to her; he was just, well … her man whore.
To add insult to injury she had chided him all the way home for not telling her about the tournament, which she was sure she could have won.
He had been silent, pouting, for all the good it had done him. If Kadasah had noticed at all, she did a fine act of hiding it.
There was very little he could do about the position he had put himself into. His mother had disowned him, and he had no place else to go. As little as Kadasah had, Kaytin had even less. His mother had been in such a rage over his affair with Kadasah—it was so hard to hide things from people with the sight—that she’d thrown him out with only the clothes on his back, screaming after his departing form that she had no son.
Kaytin didn’t even have a marketable trade. The only job—if you could call it that—he’d ever been any good at was listening in on other people’s conversations, blending in, being relatively unnoticed, and reporting the things he heard back to his family. And now … well, none of them were actually talking to him.
So his life was playing decoy for Kadasah, and being her love monkey.
He could probably get a job as a bartender or a dockworker and rent a place in town. There were other women, many women, women who had loved him, who would take him in.
There was only one problem.
He loved Kadasah with every fiber of his being. He would willingly stay with her forever, even in this hovel.
If she didn’t frog him to death.
Kadasah belched loudly then yelled—just to make sure he was awake no doubt, “Hey, Kaytin! You want some scrambled eggs?”
“Yes,” he said in a small, tired voice, trying not to think about where she had gotten the eggs and what condition they might be in. It hardly mattered. Whatever they had been before, they’d be cinders when Kadasah was done with them. He had heard once that charcoal was good for your digestion. If that was the case, he’d never have to worry about any ailments of the stomach.
He heard her starting to cook. She’d obviously been up long enough to get the fire going. She was whistling a happy tune as she clanged the one spoon against the one skillet, and it sounded like doom to him.
They had just left the pub after a couple of pints and a bit of bread and cheese. Normally Kaytin would have scoffed at such a bland meal, but after three days of Kadasah’s cooking it had been like a little slice of heaven.
“You never listen, or you would have known about the tournament,” Kaytin said, wishing this argument wouldn’t have started up again. He climbed onto the back of his mule.
“People purposely kept the news from me because they knew that I would win,” Kadasah said, now accusing the general population as she climbed onto her red stallion, Vagrant. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Kadasah asked as she started riding toward the ruined Temple of Savankala.
“For the hundredth time I did tell you. Kaytin talks, and you do not listen.” The truth was he hadn’t told her about the tournament because he knew she would enter if she had known about it, and although she was a spectacular fighter, even he didn’t believe she was as good as she thought she was. Since she really did only half listen to him she wasn’t likely to catch him in his lie.
“I do listen … most of the time,” she said, then added, “you should have told me more than once and when I was sober. They said the prize was some jewel worth a lot of money.”