Nor Iron Bars A Cage by Kaje Harper Read Free Book Online Page A

Lowbridge.”
    “I searched for you. You and Meldov. I asked at the local hostels and everywhere else I could think of.” Tobin’s voice was thin. “No one had heard of you. Even in Lowbridge.”
    “Perhaps I hadn’t arrived yet. In any case, I begged them to hide me. I was afraid, and delirious. The burn was suppurating by then.” And I was babbling, in a panic over some nebulous pursuit, and wouldn’t tell them my own name. They’d either believed my fears were real, or humored me. “They tended me for a little while. Then I… traveled, and eventually wound up here. It was peaceful. I stayed.”
    His lips twisted ruefully. “And here I am to drag you out of your refuge. I am so, so sorry. But that doesn’t change the fact that the king commands it.”
    “It won’t serve him if I wind up a babbling idiot drooling all over his floor.”
    “Is that likely?” He looked at me intently. “Is there truly a spell tying you to this place?’
    I was exhausted and wrung out. It was the only reason I could see for telling him the truth. “No. No spell. Just my own crazy mind, that likes hiding inside these stone walls. The books and the work come to me, and I stay here safe and snug.” I growled. “Less snug now my window’s broken.”
    “But alone.”
    “I like being alone. I wasn’t alone even in my own head back then.”
    He was giving me that look again, pity and fear, and I couldn’t stand it.
    “I’ve done fine. I built a life. I survived and I won and every year it gets easier. Keep your pity to yourself.”
    “Every year ?”
    “Screw you.”
    “Have you ever?”
    “What?”
    He cleared his throat. “Been with a man? You apprenticed to Meldov when I was sixteen, which means you were fourteen. And he was a cool man, and not one for boys, I thought, for all his looks.”
    I made a sound, and Tobin shot me a glare. “You don’t think I was paying attention? I was a horny bastard at sixteen, and I was worried about you. But he seemed all right. So you went into his house, and then I went to training, and when I saw you off and on you seemed content. And then I was called out into the field. I had plenty of boys around in training, and later enough fay men in the cavalry to not be alone if I didn’t choose to be. But what about you? Did you ever have someone to hold you?”
    I had to cut this off right here. “I’m not a virgin,” I said flatly. I set my feet onto the floor and pushed upright. “So now what? What should I pack? Will I need court clothes, because I don’t have any.”
    He stared at me. “You’re coming?”
    “Do I have a choice? I’ve pulled out all the stops, I asked, I begged, bargained and whined, and I haven’t shifted you. I remember how stubborn you are. So it looks like I’m going with you.” It felt oddly freeing to say so.
    He looked pained and dropped his eyes. “I don’t understand you,” he said. “At all. But yes, we still have to go. So if you’re willing, now, somehow, then pack whatever you wish to have with you for three weeks, with travel. Don’t worry about fine clothes. If King Faro wants you in court finery, he’ll buy it for you.”
    “This is my best shirt. Although hardly fit for court.” I stretched my arms upward, knowing that it had become short with many washings, and that the action would bare my midriff to his eyes. There at least I was muscled and toned and sleek, if a bit pale, and I wanted to shake him out of thinking of me as a victim.
    “I like the shirt,” he muttered. “Bring it.”
    I took the way his eyes followed me across the room as a sign he’d noticed. Although he might have just been making sure I wouldn’t go for my knife, sitting where he’d put it onto the counter not six feet away. The edge of the blade was dull with blood. I’d have to clean it soon. Or make him do it.
    ****
    He made me try to sleep before we left. I didn’t think I could, especially with him there in my house, but I caught a couple of