The Wicked Born

Chapter 8

Dacre watched in terror, his eyes wide and alert as he took in the scene before him. The man stood a few feet in front of Tabitha with his palms skyward and a devilish grin plastered across his face. Although her back was toward him, Dacre knew that Tabitha had her hand firmly gripped on the dagger she kept hidden away simply by her posture. He waited for her to fling it out and through the throat of the man who dared called her little red only moments before. He waited for the chaos to erupt in the tavern after her retaliation. For her to slaughter her way out of the situation, as that always seemed to be her go-to move.

"This isn't exactly the homecoming you've been praying for, I assure you," Tabitha mused to the man. Her back stiffened slightly and Dacre felt himself exhale a sharp sigh of relief when her hand moved from the blade on her side. Watching her kill a man for a childish taunt wasn't exactly something he'd wanted to see tonight.

"Why don't we take this conversation downstairs?" the man questioned, lowering his hands to his side. He seemed to have only just noticed the nosey crowd that surrounded the two, although some were quickly dispersing once they realized it wasn't going to turn into the fight they'd hoped to see. The ones who did remain quickly averted their gaze once the man passed a watchful eye over them, suddenly finding something quite interesting in the floorboards below their feet.

Tabitha nodded her head infinitesimally and cast Dacre a quick glance over her right shoulder before turning and following the man as he retreated through the crowd. Her sharp blue eyes gave away nothing of what she was thinking in that small amount of time that they'd made eye contact. He simply followed her through the thinning crowd like a lost puppy, not even sure if she'd wanted him to follow her but doing it all the same.

After a few feet of walking, the trio came to a thin, downward winding staircase. The metal of the steps allowed a small thud with each foot of weight he put on it. Dacre wasn't surprised that Tabitha was making no noise on her descent of the stairwell, but why wasn't the other guy?

Not a word had passed between any of them before they finally arrived to a small, underground room. Dacre had to stifle his gasp of surprise as he crossed the threshold to what was obviously the strange man's office. A medium-sized lantern sat atop the middle of a solid oak desk in the back of the room. The flicker of the flame of the lantern illuminated the glorious room they'd stepped into. Almost a hundred different kinds of swords and daggers and various weapons lined the wall to their right. The chair behind the desk looked unnervingly like a throne by it's high-rise and the unmistakable royal metal that adorned it. Dacre cast a quick glance at Tabitha and was disconcerted to see that she didn't seem surprised at their surroundings in the slightest. She'd been here before, he realized.

Dacre was shook from his awed stupor when the door behind him slammed shut with a jarring quake. He whipped his head around, wondering how the man had managed to walk right past him to the door without alerting him. Dacre always prided himself on being vigilant of his surroundings. It was how he'd managed to keep from Tabitha's grasp for months before his own carelessness had caught up with him. Something about the man simply wasn't right, Dacre decided. Something about him simply wasn't human.

Tabitha was the first to break the mounting silence. "It's truly quite sad that you must flaunt your wealth so much, Ellias." Her voice was one of simple indifference, as if she was reading off a list of items needed from the market. "It must be an over compensation for the lack of personality that you contain. Truly sad, indeed."

Dacre stiffened at her verbal insult. His eyes shot to the arsenal of weapons on the wall at his right, wondering if this Ellias was dumb enough to attempt to cut down the witch for her taunting. He felt himself relax when Ellias gave a genuine bark of laughter. The tension that seemed thick enough to choke him only moments ago had now evaporated completely.