Fortune Favors the Cruel - Kel Carpenter Page 0,50
the most towering of trees. They stood tall, so tall she had to crane her neck back to even see the tops. The green leaves and bursts of color were jarring.
Her jaw dropped as she stared up at the dwellings that sat in the trees.
She’d heard stories of the Cisean mountains. Stories of savage men who brutalized any and all they came across. Whispered words of what one might find were they to enter these mountains without the tribe’s consent.
She didn’t expect to find such beauty inside of the mountains. She took note of her surroundings as sunlight spilled through the breaks in the leaves, shining down on her. Laughter snapped her to attention as two boys and a young girl came climbing down the rope ladders she hadn’t noticed and proceeded to run through the forest barefoot without a care in the world.
That was until a woman leaned over the railing, high above. Her red hair spilled over her shoulders, framing a lovely face that was flush with exasperation as she called out in a foreign tongue. The children came to a stop and looked over at Quinn.
Two seconds was all it took and they bolted through the trees, out of sight.
“Come,” said the voice behind her. The pale-eyed warrior made no move to touch her as he fell into step at her side. Another presence, one of darkness and burning fires came up on her other side. She didn’t need to look to know who was there.
“She-wolf has name?” the man asked. Quinn smiled to herself, and just because it would piss Lazarus off, she gave it.
“My name is Quinn. What’s yours?”
“Vaughn,” he answered with a nod, his full lips coming up to smile back at her. Even with the skull of a wolf on his head, she found it charming. Enough to stow her dagger as they walked through the winding path of the forest floor.
They came to a stop beneath a tree that had a base as wide as she was tall. “We go up,” Vaughn said.
“What about the horses?” she asked, wariness in her reply. He smiled and it was almost boyish.
“Borsht and Hakt take care.”
“Alright,” she replied, dropping the reins. Lifting her knife to her teeth, she bit down on the edge and reached for the rope. No matter how nice Vaughn might seem, she wasn’t taking chances with whatever waited at the top of this ladder.
Ignoring Lorraine’s muttered displeasure of her manners, Quinn started climbing and didn’t stop till her hands gripped the edge of a wooden floorboard. She curled her fingers around, hauling herself over the edge. Her leg came up and as soon as her boot found purchase, she rose to her feet.
Two eyes—as red as raksasa demons—looked back.
She pulled the dagger from her teeth.
“Who are you?” she asked, striding forward into the large room. Warriors stood at either side of what she could only call a throne. A sapphire rug covered most of the wood past the door she’d entered through. A woman dressed in furs was sprawled across the lap of the man sitting on the throne, without a worry or care.
Quinn wrinkled her nose in distaste, focusing on the brawn of a man with long orangish-red hair and a beard woven in braids. He wore furs like the group that surrounded them, but his mask—if it could even be called that—was not that of any ordinary creature.
It was the skull of a dragon, and he didn’t wear it on his head, but mounted it on his wall. The man clicked his tongue and said, “I am Thorne, leader of the tribes that guard the Cisean mountains.” He patted the girl’s thigh and she slipped off his lap, not offended in the slightest. She slid to the floor and walked across the room out of the only open door Quinn could see, and onto the deck that overlooked where they’d just come from. He rose to his feet and came to stand before her, a full two heads taller with fists as large as her face. “Who are you?” he asked.
Quinn opened her mouth to reply when another voice cut her short.
“This is Quinn,” Lazarus said by way of greeting. “She’s a member of my house.”
He didn’t say more than that as the red-eyed man watched him.
Apparently, he didn’t need to.
“Lazarus Fierté,” the man said in a booming voice. “My old friend.” He smiled as Lazarus strode forward, stepping in front of Quinn so the King could clap him