His Mate, Her Choice novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Cellar Girl

"Not now, Fenn," I said, and kept walking.

He caught up in two strides and stepped in front of the stairs.

"Mother says you've gone strange. She says the King has turned your head."

"Your mother says a great many things."

"She says you're mine."

He had been sixteen when I came.

He was the one who handed me my first pen, smiling, in front of his father.

I remembered that smile. I had spent years afterwards trying to work out where it went.

"I'm nobody's," I said. "Let me by."

"You'll sign Father's paper."

"I tore it up."

Something ugly crossed his face.

"Then I'll have to explain it to you."

He took my wrist.

It was the burned hand. Pain shot up to my elbow.

He walked me backward until my spine met the banister.

He leaned his whole weight in, and I could smell the wine on him.

"You've been a lot of trouble for a cellar girl," he said.

"The King will be gone at the full moon. And I'll still be here."

"Take your hand off me."

"Or what?"

I looked at him.

Behind my eyes, something white and cold got up from where it had been lying for eight years.

I didn't think. I hit him.

It was a short punch with the heel of my left hand, straight up into his face.

I felt the bone give.

Fenn made a noise I had never heard from a person.

He stumbled backward into the wall with both hands over his nose.

Blood ran through his fingers onto the good jacket.

"You broke it," he said thickly. "You broke my nose!"

"I told you to let go."

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