Nine: The Prince Drugs Me

Thanks to SonderandWhimsy for your support!! :)

For all my bravado with Isabel, I wasn’t stupid. I knew that there was every chance this was a trap. The very fact that Valentin had brought up the match breaker at all told me he suspected me. Keeping that in mind, I armed myself with almost every weapon I owned, including the one I just bought, donned my blue papier mâché mask, and scampered up a tree long before dawn to wait.

People have schemed against me before, asking for my help only to actually be waiting to ambush the infamous match breaker. It’s why my first meeting with any new client I made sure to wear a mask and a cloak, and kept my distance, just like when I first met the princess.

I couldn’t blame those people for trying to snatch me either. The prince wasn’t lying before; there really was a bounty out on me for a sizable chunk of gold.

And I knew very well that the palace was the one offering that bounty. That begged the question – why had I accepted the princess as a client?

Number one, curiosity. The 50,000 initially offered to me was enticing, and though I was at first certain that the princess’s letter was just another attempt to capture me, I still couldn’t help but check it out.

The second reason was that it was the princess who hired me. If it was anyone else in the palace – an advisor, a royal servant, a count or a marquis, I would have run for the hills immediately.

But I doubted that the palace would send a precious little princess out on such a dangerous operation.

Although, as it turns out, for as much as the palace claimed to coddle their princesses, they sure didn’t care very much who they ended up spending the rest of their lives with.

Before finding my hiding place, I made sure to scope out the area to ensure there were no hidden traps or people lying in wait for me. Determining that I was alone and nothing had been tampered with, I was cautiously optimistic that I was really going to get paid.

That didn’t mean I was going to let my guard down, though.

Just as the first rays of sunlight trickled through the trees, I picked up on the faint sound of hoofbeats. It sounded like there was only one rider.

The princess said that her servant would be bringing my payment, implying that only one person would be coming. So far so good. I carefully shifted in the tree to avoid making noise and peeked through the leaves.

The path was little more than a deer trail, a skinny little bit of worn earth weaving through the trees and brush. A brown and white spotted horse slowly trotted down the path, easily evading fallen branches and roots, and on its back was an unfamiliar young lady with reddish brown hair and gray eyes, clearly dressed in the attire of palace servants. Her eyes darted back and forth nervously as she came to a stop not far from my tree. A tightly fastened blue drawstring bag rested on the saddle in front of her. My payment.

The servant girl couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen, clearly not a threat. Under other circumstances, I might have already dropped from my tree to take my gold.

But my stomach tightened anxiously, and I remained where I was, at first not sure why I was hesitating.

Something was off about this.

The princess didn’t know anything about me, not really. All she’d seen of me was our brief conversation when she first hired me and my acting as Darren. She didn’t know what kind of person I was. I could be a violent criminal for all she knew.

…So why would she send a young, female servant out by herself to pay me? Shouldn't she have sent someone who was at least out of their teen years?

I didn’t know any more about the princess than she did about me, but she didn’t strike me as the type to purposefully put a little girl in harm's way.

This wasn’t right.

I wanted my money, but this was too fishy. Do I stay, or go?

If this was a trap, it could be plain rocks in that bag instead of gold. But it could be gold too, even if it was a trap.

Either way, I knew that right now, if this truly was a trap, then there’s no way this girl had come alone. My only advantage here was that no one knew I was in the tree. If they couldn’t find me, they couldn’t capture me. Luckily, I was quite agile, and I could jump through the trees fast enough to evade any arrows.

I decided to probe a little bit.

“I hope all 75,000 is in that bag,” I called out. The servant girl whipped her head around, looking for me. The horse under her shifted nervously, sensing her fear.

“It is,” she said in a small voice. “I’ll leave it here and go.”

“Hold on,” I said. She paused in the middle of untying the bag from the pommel. “Open it and hold up a piece for me to see.”

She blinked in confusion, but followed my order, untying the knot on the bag and digging out a smooth hunk of gold.

This hunk of gold was several times bigger than regular gold coins, meaning each piece probably equaled about 1,000 gold. Only the palace could afford such large gold pieces, and even from my position in the tree I could see the careful smoothness of it, indicating that it had been carefully molded. It looked real. Of course, I could only know for sure if I bit it, but I’d have to get closer for that, and I didn’t want to risk it. From my position above her, I could see into the bag and knew that it was filled with dozens more gold bars.

A twitch of hope curled in my heart. I dared to believe that it was real.

I dared to hope that freedom was one bag away.

“Put it on that stump,” I commanded. The girl frowned, but soon located the stump I mentioned a few feet to her right. She hopped off the horse to set it down and then quickly hopped back on, turning the horse around and galloping away before I could say anything else. Kind of rude of her, but whatever.

I waited in the tree for another quarter of an hour, listening for the slightest out of place sounds. There wasn’t much wind today, so if anyone was hiding in the bushes, at some point they would shift and cause some faint rustling noises. Unless they were so well-trained they could remain still for long periods of time.

…Not out of the question with the crown prince’s people.

Paranoid as I was, I stayed in the tree for another two hours, keeping careful watch over the environment. At one point, I tensed up to flee upon hearing a rustling noise, but it was just a rabbit coming out of its burrow.

The gold was just sitting there, all tantalizing. Mocking me. All I had to do was swing down, snatch it, and run.

But if there was someone laying in wait, was I faster than they were?

I had to risk it. I couldn’t just sit in this tree forever, and I was a relatively confident fighter. I could take on four or five attackers by myself.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I told myself, and dropped from the tree.

I went right for the bag, snatching it up by the strings, only to feel an odd pinch in my neck.

Thinking it was a particularly vicious mosquito, I reached up to slap it, only to slap a long, thin dart away from my neck. It landed in the dirt of the trail, a thin bit of silver with a couple fletchings on the end to help steer it straight into my flesh.

That’s probably not good.

Fuck.

I ran. Logically, I probably only had a few minutes before the poison took effect, but if I could make it to a hiding place, I might be able to safely wait it out without being captured.

Luck, however, was not on my side today. Who knows what kind of sedative they’d used, but it took effect after I’d only taken four steps. My knees softened and I crumpled to the ground, losing my grip on the gold.

I ended up on my side, eyes half open and blurrily watching as two booted feet dropped to the ground and started walking toward me.

The strange thing was…he’d dropped from a tree. The tree right. Next. To mine.

He’d been watching me the whole fucking time.

I raised my gaze as much as I could to see which asshole had been playing with me like that, only to have him crouch down right in front of me so I could see him clearly.

Black hair, green eyes, and a feral sort of masculine beauty.

Valentin.

Of course.

He stared at me for a moment, watching my final struggle to remain conscious. There was no emotion on his face, not at first.

But then, slowly, the corner of his lips lifted, like he could no longer contain his glee. That glinting canine tooth reappeared.

“Nice to finally meet you, match breaker. I think we’re long overdue for a talk.”

I’m dead.