They gave those there a few more rounds with Squirt, but she didn’t win any other bouts. Unlike the first two, the rest of her opponents didn’t try to kill her with their hits, though they still hit her harder than necessary.

  By the end of the last bout, she hadn’t just lost speed in her exhaustion but started making mistakes as well. Genuinely bad choices like attempting to parry a longsword because she was too slow to dodge.

  Instructor Hawke pulled her away from the others as they continued their individual bouts, having her pull out the practice short sword he’d given her. Then, much like her own teacher Stalf used to do, he made her meet his blade as he taught her the exercises she was to do daily while she was spent.

  Utterly exhausted, she continued until Instructor Hawke finally let her go, telling her to practice against the other hunters. As soon as he finally released her from his torture, she collapsed where she stood, her legs too shaky to hold her any longer without sheer force of will.

  He wandered off, finally freeing her from the attentions of a fey far above her in the hierarchy. For longer than she cared to admit, she simply sat there, her eyes unfocused in exhaustion, her hands still clenched around the short sword hilt. She had blisters. The grip on a short sword was different than daggers, and Stalf had taught her to use those, not swords.

  “You’re too little to take frequent hits. Better to focus on not getting hit at all and wearing your opponent out. That’s what you’ll be learning, pipsqueak. You wanna to learn how to fight? First, you’re going to learn to dodge.”

  Grabbing out a cloth, she tenderly began cleaning the blade, her eyes still glassy from exhaustion, slowly recovering some energy one bit at a time. She almost groaned when she remembered she still needed to order supplies from Quint. She’d dropped off her gathered materials and had to put an order in for new knives that morning to replace the ones she lost, but she’d gone straight to Lord Everwinter’s office right after.

  Finished cleaning the practice sword, she stowed it and the cloth into her bag, then staggered to her feet, finally registering the wider training yard.

  Standing in front of her was the intimidating, large form of Zakam the bull shifter. His hair was dark brown, almost as dark as the fudge she’d gotten from the lord, his skin the light brown common in autumn fey. His eyes were even darker than his hair, yet still not quite black.

  And his arms were crossed as he stared down at her seriously.

  Nervous, she glanced around, but the others had also been released from their training. A few lingered around the edges of the training yard, but most had since left.

  Great. She was on her own.

  Warily returning her gaze to the bull, he didn’t shift. Didn’t yield. Didn’t speak.

  Meaning she had no idea what was on the man’s mind, particularly since he was one of the most infuriatingly straightforward fey she’d ever met and barely had two braincells to rub together.

  She dusted off her clothes, keeping one eye on him. He was unbothered by the action, and she didn’t feel like there was any impending violence coming from him. He was just… intensely staring and naturally intimidating.

  She scowled. Damnit. She’d been scared of him on instinct. He at the very least seemed to respect her win against him in a weird way.

  He nodded to her.

  Exhaling sharply, realizing he wasn’t speaking because he had nothing he actually wanted to say, she turned and began trotting to the quartermaster.

  He followed.

  She stopped. Turned to stare at him questioningly, but no matter how hard she studied him, there was no intent to harm. He simply nodded at her again and stopped along with her.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Gods damned it all.

  She clenched her fists and glared at her silent protector. She hissed out, “I can take care of myself.”

  He just blinked slowly at her, his head cocking to one side. “You are tired.”

  Exhausted, really. “And?”

  He nodded. “You can take care of yourself well when you are not.” The statement was simple in the bland tone. An unequivocal fact he knew. A conviction. He had absolutely no doubt in his mind about the truth of it.

  She was as baffled as she was oddly flattered, then embarrassed she was flattered, then angry she was embarrassed, then angrier that she had both blushed and dropped her eyes.

  Rather than address any of that mess, she turned on her heel and decided to dart through the halls as quickly as she could manage, trying to be as stealthy as possible while a dumbass bull followed her around. He remained at a respectable but obvious distance, so she did her best to avoid every soul she could, including taking several detours before finding her way back to the quartermaster.

  Quint greeted her with a nod, then the bull shifter Zakam with one. Zakam nodded back, said, “Well then,” inclined his head politely in goodbye to Squirt, turned on his heel, and left.

  She stared after him in a daze before muttering, “I think that was the strangest ten minutes of my gods damned life.”

  Quint grunted out a question as she started laying out supplies for Squirt.

  Squirt just shook her head in disbelief.

  Of all of the weird shit that had happened to her since Stalf sent her here, every single thing had been a transaction of some kind. Even Tobias wanted something from her, even if most of that want was to call her family and be friends.

  Zakam had wanted nothing. His eyes had not been lustful, but open, like there was genuinely no other thought on the man’s mind than to follow her until she was safe. It had not been lost on her that a few of those lingering had shot him dirty looks when their pair had exited the training yard.

  He didn’t engage in conversation, nor ask anything of her. Hell, it had almost sounded like he respected her. He saw her vulnerable, decided she was worth protecting, then left when the job was complete.

  If he weren’t such a simple creature, she might have thought it a larger plot. Only the man was dumb on a good day and had few real thoughts to speak of.

  Thus, by far, the weirdest part of this entire weird existence she’d fallen into.

  Shaking her head in mild awe, she sighed, tired but grateful for the man, even if she would never admit it to his face.

  Sadly, his efforts ended up being in vain.

  On her way out, one of the guards at the gate called out as she tried to exit, “Oi. You. Greenling.”

  She froze.

  The woman came over and clapped her hands on her knees as she bent over to stare Squirt in the face. Squirt kept her eyes fixed on the ground in absolute deference as she bowed and said, “How may I be of service, Guardsman?”

  The woman laughed. “Someone wants to speak to ye before ye leave. Come on.”

  Squirt debated running. She knew she wouldn’t make it. Attacking them wasn’t an option—even if they attacked her, it would be better for her to assume they wouldn’t kill her and take the beating. If she tried to fight, there was no guarantee that her title would protect her.

  She followed the woman into a room with three of those at the training today. Interestingly, she noted, none of the ones she fought against.

  The malice in their eyes was unmistakable.

  One grinned at her as the guard turned around and left, shutting the door behind her. “Well, I hear you’ll suck cock for special privileges. So how about this—perhaps we can come to some kind of arrangement.”

  She sighed deeply. She’d done it before. Gotten on her knees for someone to avoid a beating. Sometimes, she’d even enjoyed it.

  He was clearly one of the fetishists, one who wanted to fuck a greenling just to prove something. Sex was an easy way of solving the dispute, giving them an outlet to prove something since sex had to be consensual. If it wasn’t, it counted as a fey bargain being broken, cursing the fey who did. It wasn’t coercion, technically, since he wasn’t threatening her.

  Yet.

  Odd that bargain magic didn’t work that way for literally any other form of consent. She couldn’t shout, “No,” while someone was murdering her and get them cursed by the gods, only if they were trying to rape her. The priests always explained it as a taboo hated by the Goddess of Sex with such vehemence that she rewrote the realm to prevent it from perverting her creation. Meanwhile, the other gods had things they supposedly hated. Universally they hated people falsely invoking their names, but strangely enough, none of them were all that upset about murder.

  If only this kind of coercion counted for that curse. The kind where she knew what would happen the moment she said no.

  She could say yes. Save herself the beating and suck cock.

  She just couldn’t.

  Instead, she braced herself for the first beating in twenty years, silently cursing every damn titled fey that had brought this upon her before stating clearly, “I do not consent.”

  The leer turned into a furious sneer promising violence. “Trumped up greenling bitch—”

  She dropped to her knees and protected her head as best as she could, letting the beating commence and hoping that they would finish in time for her to get home before dark.