Curses Snippet

I'm barreling through this draft and am fairly happy with what I have so far. (Whether my editor agrees or not...we'll see. But I thought I'd share a fun scene. Merit is my beast character, Tevin is my beauty character. Kate and Amaury are his siblings and Val is his cousin and friend. Glendon is a baron that's an old family friend of Merit's. This takes place after Tevin's mother has traded him to get herself out of jail. His siblings and cousin decided that they'd stay, too. 

Enjoy!

***

She stepped through the front doors, nodding at the guard. The man scrambled out of his chair and caught up to them right as they stepped through the doors into the back. She stopped. “DuMont?”

“They’re in the back cell,” the man said.

“They?” A low growl had crept into her tone. She wasn’t mad, but she was upset, and the beast was making itself known.

He gulped at her. She hadn’t dealt with the guard much, and he wasn’t used to dealing with the beast.

The guard pulled out his keys. “It’s best if I just show you.” He led them down to the last cell, the same one Florencia DuMont had occupied. Merit wanted to walk right back out. Instead she turned and pulled up short. There were four people in the cell, three of which were clearly DuMont’s. She wasn’t sure about the redhead.

The occupants, oddly enough, weren’t the strangest part. Every other cell was clean but spare—wooden plank attached to the wall for sitting and sleeping, piss bucket, straw floor. The DuMont cell had a rug. The planks had blankets and pillows. They had a lantern, a basket full of food, and what appeared to be a bottle of wine. She squinted. It was even a decent vintage. The four people in the cell were playing cards, sitting on the rug, and drinking wine. By their empty plates, she could guess that they’d already eaten their fill.

“Where,” Glendon said, his tone deceptively calm, “is their piss bucket?”

The guard shuffled his feet. “They said it smelled. We’ve been letting them use the guard’s lavatory.”

Glendon covered his mouth with his hand. Dropped it. “And the other goods? Where did those come from?”

“The guards, mostly.” He paused, licking his lips. “They seemed like reasonable requests at the time. And it’s not like they’re real criminals. They were traded for the criminal. It seemed wrong to just leave them in there….” He looked at Glendon, his eyes big. “It’s just, they’re so charming, sir.”

“And smart,” the DuMont girl in the cell said, not looking up from her cards. “Don’t forget smart. It’s very important.”

“We’re just defenseless children,” the girl with the freckles said, throwing down an ace. “Well, half of us, anyway.”

“Defenseless?” The DuMont girl asked.

“No, children,” Freckles corrected. “As you and I haven’t technically reached our majority yet.” 

Merit waved off the guard sending him back to his station without looking away from the game.

The other girl frowned at the ace. She plucked if off the pile and handed it back to Freckles. “Not that one. Honestly, Val, if you can’t play properly, don’t bother.” 

Val looked at her cards, confused. “I thought I was playing properly?”

Her companion just shook her head and held out palm. “Let me see your hand.” She took the cards from Freckles, who was apparently named Val. She quickly rearranged them, pulled out a two of clubs and tossed that into the pile. “There. Trust me.”

Val eyed her warily. “I trust you with my life, Kate, but I’m not sure I should trust any of you with cards.”

The taller, leaner man sitting by Kate threw down a jack. “You’re learning. Good.”

Merit had done her best not to look at the last person in the cell. By process of elimination, the last person had to be Tevin. It couldn’t be the man sitting next to Kate. Sure, it had been two years, and he’d likely grown, but she knew it wasn’t him. So she turned and looked at the last person, the one who hadn’t spoken yet.

When she’d last seen Tevin DuMont, he’d been heartbreakingly handsome. Sweet, and full of boyish charm. Merit knew he’d be different, but she hadn’t realized how different until now. He stood, walking slowly to the bars, his cards hanging forgotten in his hand. This Tevin was taller. Wider in the shoulders. His eyes were a startling shade of green. He had two days of stubble on a masculine jaw, and his lips were still made for temptation. She watched him move all the way to the bars until the tip of his hat touched the metal. There was an edge to him now that hadn’t been there before. The combination of all of these changes moved him from heartbreakingly handsome to absolute, completely, unbearable irresistible. Merit could feel the rough pads of her beastly hands sweating at the mere sight of him. How would they be able to work together?

Tevin tilted his head, taking her in from the tops of her horns to the claws on her feet. Then back to her eyes. He smiled, and it wasn’t a nice smile.

“Merit Cravan,” he said, and his voice—the deep velvet of it—made her knees actually weak. “As I live and breathe.”

“Tevin DuMont,” She replied. Then she hauled back and punched him right in that perfect jaw.

It didn’t feel good.

No, it felt amazing.