Read Online Dragon Precinct by Keith R. A. DeCandido - Free Book Online

Nulti’s own fellows.
    Nulti continued to stand in place, his mouth hanging open, though he did blink twice.
    Danthres turned around and noticed that Urgoss wasn’t laughing. Then again, he never did, but he was probably already calculating the cost of the damage that the impending fight would inflict, which he’d bill to Osric, and which Osric would bill to her and Nulti. I’ll probably wind up paying him most of my overtime money.
    “Half-breed bitch!”
    Not even needing to turn back around to see what Nulti was doing, Danthres knew that the oaf was now charging at her, ready to throw a punch. So she ducked down into a crouch. Nulti stumbled, his intended target having all but disappeared, his girth causing him to fall forward—onto her. Danthres held up her hands, catching him at the chest, his great weight pressing down on her. She was able to support his weight, however, and then straightened to an upright position, throwing Nulti backward. His weight and drunken clumsiness combined to make that upright pose a temporary one, and he fell all the way over, back-first into one of the empty chairs, his head colliding with the table, knocking over several drinks. He then sat there, sprawled and unmoving, a combination of drool and ale dripping out of his still-hanging-open mouth.
    One of the people sitting at that table, whose wine was now on the floor, asked, “Is he dead?”
    “We can only hope,” Danthres said.
    Torin, who, she now noticed, was standing nearby, along with Dru and Hawk, added, “But he only hit his head, so it wasn’t like any vital organs were harmed.” Then he grinned. “I’m hurt. You gave him my drink.”
    “You’ll get over it.” She turned to the bar. “Four more, please, Urgoss, and refill these people’s drinks on me.”
    “Thanks,” said the wine-drinker, a young guard from Unicorn. “For what it’s worth, I like the way you look. It’s—exotic.” He even waggled his eyebrows for effect.
    “Oh, for Wiate’s sake, Manfred,” one of his comrades, also from Unicorn, said, “not again. Didn’t you get in enough trouble after what happened at the stable?”
    Oh Lord and Lady, not another thrill-seeker. One of the reasons why Danthres had chosen Torin as an occasional lover was because he was fond of her . The only people who had expressed any interest in her physically were those who were attracted by her status as a half-breed. Half-elves who were permitted to live past the age of one day were rare this far north—indeed, Danthres had seen plenty of mass graves of half-breed infants in the nearby elven lands before she came to Cliff’s End—and she had dealt with more than her share of those who wanted, as one propositioner had put it, “the half-elf experience.”
    That particular man soon learned that “the half-elf experience” consisted primarily of broken bones in his sword arm and a smashed nose.
    Suddenly, the air in the Chain was weighing her down. I need to get out of here. She turned to Torin. “I’m leaving. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
    “Of course,” Torin said with a nod. Danthres was grateful that he didn’t raise a fuss that she was rescinding her earlier invite, but after all this, the last thing she wanted to do was take Torin home. Even though she knew Torin would never treat it as such, his sleeping with her tonight would feel like nothing more than a sympathy fuck, and she simply couldn’t stand that on top of everything else.
    “ ’Scuse me, but, uh—”
    Danthres looked over at the entrance to see a guard from Dragon standing in the doorway. “Yes?”
    He pointed at the dripping, prone form of Nulti. “That ain’t Lieutenant ban Wyvald, is it?”
    “Hardly,” Torin said. “I am.”
    “Good. So you’re Lieutenant Tresyllione. You both gotta come with me.”
    “We’re off until sunup,” Danthres said. “Can’t this wait?”
    “ ’Fraid not, ma’am. Got a directive when we came on from Cap’n Osric sayin’ that