Dance with the Devil

Chapter Four

   Left heady thanks to the drink, my mind became lost to thoughts of Luke as a made my way through the halls to our shared chambers. Would he be there when I arrived or still in one of the meeting rooms with the Slayers, recounting our evening’s activities? Would I be able to disrobe and clean up myself in private before slipping into bed, or would he be there just beyond the changing screen? Hoping this would be the day I came to him as I was born, ready to consummate our relationship…though he would never admit that was why he stayed so near. 

   He spoke just the opposite as a matter fact. Though I myself have forgone my feminine ways to survive in this world of men, he encouraged me to maintain what little I could, including my…honor. He did not mind that I would not bed him, even insisted that I not be there when he relived himself after spending days beside me in only our thin bedclothes.

   As I passed though the foyer to the stairs I found my answer, the doors to the Slayers meeting room were shut tight, a guard on either side of the door. I wasn’t sure if that was a relief or not.

   I returned each man’s nod, my held high despite my obvious state of disarray. Being wounded was not a reason to be ashamed after all, it meant that we had given our all to the fight no matter the toll it took on our bodies.

   I looked to the main doors that led out into the courtyard, my mind set on meeting the surgeon’s wife as he had asked me to, but my body seemed to have its own ideas. Of its own accord I began moving towards the stairs, towards the room Luke and I shared in the house. Not all Hunters resided in the main house, only the highest of Masters and the Slayers who did not have their own homes had rooms set aside for them here. Hunters of my caliber and lower roomed in the barracks the next building over when nearby, the Killers in the one behind that. But as I was romantically involved with Luke we shared a bed, if not a marital one.

   Even the housemaids looked down on me for such, for sharing the bed of a man I had not, in God’s eyes, committed myself to. Most avoided me outright, keeping their eyes to the ground and scurrying away from me whenever I came across them. Proving just how far I had come from those days in that spiteful village of my youth, their actions did not bother me in the least.

   And in truth I was not in immediate need of the herbs, I still had a few days’ rations left amongst the tea leaves I brewed it together with.

   As I crested the top of the stairs I turned towards my right even as my eyes went to the left, falling on the large wooden door open just the barest of inches. It was the Master Slayer’s quarters, a man I have met only once despite Luke and I’s regular stays in the house as we moved between cities and villages. Unlike the rest of us, his residence here was permanent. Every Master Slayer that has come before and every one still yet to be lived here so as to be at the ready, to be at the center of the Hunters activities.

   There was talk that he would soon be stepping down from his duties as he had already led the Hunters for nearly thirty years. And despite all that time, of a hard life of fighting and killing that earned him his rank, the man’s face was alarmingly flawless. My cheeks heated at the memory, of when I had met him the first and only time at my initiation. Where Luke was handsome the Master Slayer was…beautiful. The only other man I had ever found myself attracted to, with hair almost as fair as mine and the greenest of eyes I had ever seen.

   Then as now I had blushed, unable to speak as he took my hand in his, welcoming me into his society in the same fashion he had the dozen other men standing with me that day. I would bet a week’s earnings that they did react in that same way, no, they did not find themselves in awe of such a man.

   At that thought an arm appeared in the break between the doors, shutting them so even that small gap was no longer within view.

   The soft sound broke me from my thoughts and I set my feet moving again, not having realized they had even stopped.