Total pages in book: 164
Estimated words: 152666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 611(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 152666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 611(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
He walked me to the front of the stables and nodded at me.
“Best thing for you,” he said, “is to take that money and spend it on a good night’s sleep.” He pointed at the inn. “Then go back home and find yourself a nice happy mate who’ll take good care o’ you. You’re real pretty—you should find someone, no problem. Have a couple of little ones and forget you ever thought about dabbling in any of that stuff.”
I smiled at him, hiding how disturbed I was. Snack boxes, having too many snacks, the hook—they were cute terms disguising horrible effects. Life altering effects. People lost their appetites? How in the hell had Granny devised that? Why?
Frustrated, I pushed through the weathered door of the inn, intent on asking more questions. Maybe the innkeeper would have more insight than the young stable hand.
Wooden beams ran overhead in the entrance area and a worn oak counter stood to the side. A large book lay open near the end, half filled with a heavy scrawl, the rest blank save for a dusting of faint brown lines. A chubby man stood behind the counter looking up at me over wire-rimmed glasses as I walked in. He took in my face and then my clothes as I asked for a room, and then paused in putting out a hand for money as I inquired after the snack boxes.
“This inn is a no-tolerance establishment. If you get caught snacking here, you’ll be kicked out without a refund. Not into the stables, either, which I see you’ve found. Into the street.”
He waited expectantly.
“Got it,” I said.
His eyebrows furrowed and he took my money.
“You get breakfast with your room. Be down by nine tomorrow. Otherwise, lunch starts around eleven and bleeds into dinner. We got ale, nothing harder. If you want harder, you gotta go into the square.”
“Sorry, I’m new to all this. The snack boxes count as something harder, then?”
Again he studied me over his glasses. “If you’re new to this, you’d best quit while you’re ahead. Otherwise, head to the main square. Before you get to the fountain, hang a left down the side street. You’ll see the cart halfway down with the purple and black awning. They sell other stuff there, but mainly Granny. If you buy it, you’d best hide it because we got a lot of people in this town who’ll knock you down and take it from you. That stuff creates a lot of crime.”
“Got it.” I took my change and slipped it into my pocket, pausing before heading for the stairs. “Could I . . . I mean, do you have baths here?”
He leaned against the counter. “A hot bath is a copper. If you want someone to attend to you, it’ll be two.”
My smile was shy. “And where do I buy supplies? I’ve been rinsing up in a . . . well, a bucket, basically. It might be nice to have some nice smelling soaps and maybe some fragrant bath stuff.”
“The attendant will have what you need.”
I laid out my coppers and had no idea what I would do with all the gold. What would I spend it on to even get change? It wouldn’t be a bath, that was for sure, and I doubted very much the food here was much more. The room had been less than a silver and I didn’t have too many of those. Weston had given me a literal fortune. He’d given me more than enough to start a life. Without him.
It was hard to pull a breath into my suddenly tight chest as a swell of regret overtook me. The need to go back to him was suddenly and completely overwhelming, so much so that I had to stop myself from canceling the room and going back to him right now. I missed him. I missed his glittering eyes and his hard-to-coax-out grin. I missed the opportunity to learn more about him. Hell, I even missed hate-fucking him and being forced to share his bed and his warmth after.
Now, here, I wished I’d gotten the chance to explore this intense feeling further. Or maybe . . . maybe I just wished we were two different people with normal lives who’d met in a chance encounter at a market.
“Miss?” The man looked at me expectantly, clearly having just asked me a question.
“Sorry, what?”
“When do you want it, now?” the man asked. “Or after a bite to eat?”
“Oh.” My stomach rumbled but I didn’t want to eat while smelling like a hay loft and looking like something that crawled out of one. “Now, please. Thanks.”
It had been a good choice. The woman attending me must’ve been the innkeeper’s wife. She was chatty and lively in comparison to his deadpan, no-nonsense delivery. She put rose petals in the water, making it smell lovely, washed my hair with lavender soap, and scrubbed me down within an inch of my life. I was pretty sure she’d taken off an entire layer of skin.