Fic: Maestra (Part 4)
Title: Maestra
Fandom: Legend of the Seeker
Author: cakeandqpm1138
Rating/s | Content: PG-13
Word Count: 2553
Summary: Set immediately after 'Tears.' By performing the Spells of Undoing, Zedd grieviously altered the course of history. Now, Richard, Kahlan, Cara and Zedd must team up with Nicci and Rahl to find a way to appease the Maestra, the Goddess of Time, before she decides to correct the problem by destroying the entire universe, past, present and future. This, however, will be no easy task; Zedd's spells split the course of history into three paths. Which one, if any, will be saved?
Warnings: Spoilers through 'Tears'
Author's Notes: Written for the Legend of the Seeker Big Bang Challenge. Feedback is craved!
The sun had barely set the next evening when Kahlan pushed her chair away from the table and stood up. She yawned and stretched luxuriantly, managing to look completely exhausted and entirely content at the same time. Morsewood had not seen a confessor in a very long time, so she’d spent from sunrise until early evening hearing complaints and settling disputes, most of them petty, all of them steeped in the essence of small-town Midlands in a way that reminded her how much she had missed the life of a Confessor. Perhaps taking my place as the Mother Confessor won’t be a downgrade after all she thought to herself.
She picked up the last crust of bread left on her plate and popped it into her mouth. The meal was delicious. Even Zedd had eaten his fill. He was currently in the process of nodding off in his chair, a disconcerting sight because he slept with his eyes open. Kahlan shot Richard a mischievous glance and he rose from the table to escort her upstairs. Zedd started at the sound of Richard’s chair scraping across the tavern floor and he shook himself awake.
“What am I doing drifting off at the table when there’s a remarkably comfortable bed waiting for me upstairs?” he laughed.
“Richard and I were on our way upstairs, too. It’s been a long day.”
Zedd smiled and nodded at the two of them. “Just make sure you two actually get some sleep tonight. We need to be on our way tomorrow and it won’t do for you to stay up late like you did last night.”
Kahlan blushed furiously and stepped behind Richard to try and hide it. Richard beamed, pinched her playfully and began guiding her towards the stairs. “Goodnight, Zedd,” he called behind him.
Just then, Cara burst into the tavern. She’d been away doing spirits knew what all day and had missed dinner. Kahlan began to question her, but Cara cut her off without so much as looking at her.
“Richard, I need to speak with you,” Cara said slowly. Zedd got up from the table and joined them at the base of the stairs, a concerned look on his face. Cara shifted her gaze to him and growled “Alone.”
The wizard stiffened but said nothing. He merely took Kahlan gently by the elbow and led her up the stairs. The handful of eavesdroppers scattered around the tavern also made good their escape. The innkeeper nervously untied his apron and handed his dishtowel over to the unfortunate young woman who was just beginning her shift behind the bar. He mouthed good luck to her before beating a hasty retreat.
Cara watched them go before turning her attention back to Richard. “I caught you on your way to bed.”
Richard nodded, though he sensed it was not a question. Cara’s stare bored into the back of his skull. He wanted to look away but found he couldn’t.
“I expect you’re tired. You didn’t sleep very much last night,” she continued.
Richard laughed a little at this. “You’re a little late to tease me about that. Zedd beat you to it.”
“And if he hadn’t, surely everyone else within a league of this inn could have.”
Richard’s grin wavered. “What are you…”
“The walls here are remarkably thin and you were inconsiderately loud,” Cara stated coldly. “You kept me awake.”
Richard blushed and his shoulders sagged. He was painfully aware of the few other people who remained in the tavern, thus far oblivious to the confrontation. “I’m sorry,” he began, but Cara cut him off.
“From the sound of it, you should be apologizing to Kahlan, not me. It didn’t sound like she had much fun. A bit of advice, Seeker: either stop disgracing yourself trying to bed the Mother Confessor in roadside inns, or see that you gain the skills necessary to make up for your base surroundings. I don’t care which you choose, as long as you do it quietly from now on.” Cara’s words resounded icily throughout the room. The onlookers stared, mouths agape, no longer oblivious. They scattered as Cara turned on her heel and strode toward the bar, making it clear that was her final word on the matter.
The battle between rage and humiliation made Richard’s ears burn and his hands clench into fists. He wanted to shout at Cara but he could not ignore the feeling that she was right. He forced down his rage, gave in to his humiliation and stalked dejectedly up the stairs, leaving Cara alone at the bar.
“That wasn’t very nice,” remarked the bartender, cutting through the cloud of anger and disgust that Cara exuded.
Cara answered without looking up, speaking more to herself than to the woman behind the bar. “It had the desired effect: they won’t be keeping me awake anymore. It’s embarrassing the way they behave. He is a grown man. She’s the Mother Confessor. There is no excuse for them to act like lovestruck teenagers.” Cara’s stomach turned painfully at the thought of Richard’s hands on Kahlan’s body, the two of them blissfully entwined without a care about anything or anyone else in the world.
Once again the bartender’s voice broke into her thoughts. “Do you love him?”
“Not him.” Cara’s head shot up, her eyes wide. She had not meant to say that aloud. She turned a suspicious eye to the bartender who returned her gaze, smiling pleasantly. “How did you make me tell you that?”
The woman shrugged and picked a glass up off the bar. “Maybe it just needed to be said.” She began carefully cleaning the glass in her hand. “I’m a bartender. Isn’t it my job to listen to whatever it is you have to say?”
Cara grunted and looked away. She refused to say anything else for fear the woman would make her talk about her feelings again. She tried to stare resolutely at the patterns in the wood of the bar, but she found herself following the bartender with her eyes as the woman circled the now-empty room, gathering up empty glasses and returning them to the bar to be washed. Cara tried not to notice how the woman carried herself like a hunter but moved like a dancer. She refused to be impressed with how easily her long fingers gripped several glasses at once or how she could balance them all on her tray without dropping a single one. Cara swept her eyes around the room, analyzing every detail except the way the ties of her apron accented the curves of the woman’s hips and waist or the way the sleeves of her shirt were rolled up snugly against her strong upper arms. She was in the process of not watching the woman’s large, deft hands clean a glass when she realized she was being spoken to.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening.”
“I said, ‘since you’ve frightened off all my customers, the least you can do is have a drink while you ignore me.’” She slid Cara a generous glass of amber liquid.
Cara examined the glass carefully. “What is it?”
“The good stuff. You look like you can handle it.”
Cara picked up the glass and took a tentative sip. The drink burned on her tongue and down her throat, almost but not quite making her cough. The aftertaste held pleasant hints of smoke, peat and honey.
“You’re right; it is good.” Cara lapsed back into self-conscious silence.
“I thought you might like it,” the woman beamed, doing her best to win Cara’s full attention. Cara hated to admit it, but she was doing an unusually good job. “Are you going to tell me your name, or am I going to have to make one up for you?”
“Cara,” answered Cara, once again shocked by how quickly the woman had gotten her to respond. She found the woman’s easy manner quite alluring and couldn’t help staring at her bright, intelligent eyes and soft, upturned lips.
The woman’s smile widened and she held out a hand to shake Cara’s. “Nice to meet you, Cara. I’m Dahlia.” Cara gripped the hand Dahlia had offered. The shock that went up their arms at that first moment of contact made both women blush, eyes locked. Cara was the first to look away. She berated herself for showing such weakness, but she was having a hard time controlling her breathing with Dahlia’s eyes on hers, her strong hand pressed against hers. She sipped her drink awkwardly. Dahlia gave her another small smile and resumed cleaning her glassware.
When she had finished washing, drying and storing all of the various cups she’d collected off the bar and empty tables, Dahlia slung her rag over a shoulder casually and leaned on the bar in front of Cara. “So, Cara. What’s it like adventuring with the Seeker and the Mother Confessor?” she asked good-naturedly.
Again, Cara answered honestly and automatically. She found, to her confusion, that she was getting used to answering Dahlia so easily. “Right now it’s a nightmare.”
Dahlia’s brow creased with empathy. “It can’t all be lovesickness and bad sexual technique. You must have your fair share of exciting stories. I’d give anything to be able to go on adventures.”
Cara raised an eyebrow. “You’d give up a warm bed and a reliable food source to travel the Midlands, sleeping on the cold, hard ground and eating dried biscuits paired with whatever you’re lucky enough to hunt or gather?” Cara’s voice held the trace of a challenge.
Dahlia leaned closer. “Sounds exciting to me. Besides, if I were travelling with the Seeker, we’d eat like kings every night.”
This time, both of Cara’s eyebrows rose. “You can hunt?” she asked, involuntarily sizing Dahlia up.
She nodded confidently, noticing that she’d caught Cara’s interest. She ran with it, flirting shamelessly. “My father taught me. He was quite the woodsman. Thanks to him, I can track a flea in an elk migration and light a fire with damp tinder in a snowstorm if I need to.”
Cara almost smiled, picking up the game. “Can you drop a sprinting rabbit at 200 paces?”
“Blindfolded.”
Cara tried not to think about Dahlia blindfolded. She failed spectacularly, her cheeks beginning to color. She steered the conversation back into calmer waters. “You said your father was quite the woodsman. What happened to him?”
Dahlia’s smile faded. “He died several years ago. Now it’s up to me to provide for my family.”
“I’m sorry,” Cara said, and meant it.
Dahlia shrugged. “Don’t be. I always knew I’d need to take care of them, sooner or later. My mother was a clothier, a damned good one, before the textile mills that cropped up during the war ran her nearly out of business. There was a time when she was the most popular seamstress in our province. Engagements were long in my home town so she’d have time to make the wedding dresses. Once her arthritis started slowing her down, her business slowed with her. By then, my brother was too far along in his studies to come home and find work. He’s a scholar, my brother. He’s got quite the mind for history. Unfortunately, no one is interested in hiring historians these days. He doesn’t really have any other, more practical skills, and even if he did, no one would hire him. A rumor got started that he’d chosen to become a scholar to avoid being drafted into the army during the war. It isn’t true, but he’s been branded a coward nonetheless. We agreed that he would be the one to stay and care for my mother while I left home to find work. For the past five years I’ve travelled around doing everything from scrubbing floors to taking in laundry to, well, tending bar. So here I am. Forgive me for talking your ear off, but talking to travelers when they pass through is the only thing keeping me sane until I can send home the next month’s wages.”
Cara listened quietly, rapt, to Dahlia’s story. “Where is home?”
“A little town called Stowcroft.”
Cara nearly choked on her drink. “Stowcroft? I was born in Stowcroft.”
Dahlia stared long and hard at her, agape. She searched her memory for traces of Cara, but none came to mind. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I know you. Or if I do, I don’t remember you.”
Cara shrugged. “I don’t remember you, either. I was taken away from there when I was very young.”
Dahlia nodded somberly. “That I do remember. The Mord’Sith would raid Stowcroft every so often and carry off young girls. I remember the year they would have come for me quite vividly. It must have been the same year you were taken.”
Cara tried hard not to imagine a young Dahlia being led away, screaming and thrashing, by a squad of leather-clad Mord’Sith. She failed at that, too, and shuddered. “I wonder why you weren’t taken.”
Dahlia’s eyes clouded. “Somehow I knew they were coming. I don’t know how I knew. My brother and I were playing in the yard when they came. I started throwing rocks at him. One hit him in the forehead and he started to bleed. I wanted to cry, but I laughed instead. I laughed and laughed and threw stone after stone. He seemed to understand and threw rocks right back at me. I still dream about the blood and the pain and the terror of that morning. My brother still has scars, one on his forehead, one on his shoulder blade, from where I hit him hardest. I’ve got this scar,” she touched her upper lip, just under her nose, “and this one,” she pulled the collar of her shirt down to reveal a raised scar on her collarbone, near her shoulder. Cara’s mouth watered as she was seized with a nigh uncontrollable urge to kiss both of the places Dahlia had indicated. “Small prices to pay for my freedom. I’m sure that’s why they didn’t take me; everyone knows the Mord’Sith only choose kind, sweet, pretty little girls.” Dahlia’s voice was quiet and subdued, but it still held the slightest trace of flirtatiousness. She ran her tongue along the scar on her lip and her eyes smoldered when she saw Cara’s eyes fixated on her every movement.
Cara reminded herself to breathe. “If they’d known you’d grow up to be so beautiful and kindhearted they would have taken you in a heartbeat,” she said before she could stop herself.
Dahlia’s face froze, taken aback. “That’s the strangest compliment I’ve ever received. Thank you.” She recovered quickly from her initial shock and locked eyes with Cara, reaching behind her back to pick at the ties of her apron.
“What are you doing?”
Dahlia licked her lips as the knot holding her apron on loosened. “The tavern’s empty and the look on your face says my shift is over.”
Cara blinked, head reeling and not just from her drink. Dahlia glided out from behind the bar and sidled up next to Cara. She hooked a finger into the neckline of Cara’s top and pulled her close. “Take me upstairs?”
Cara could only nod, dumbstruck, as Dahlia grinned wolfishly and pulled her by her chest towards the stairs.
Fandom: Legend of the Seeker
Author: cakeandqpm1138
Rating/s | Content: PG-13
Word Count: 2553
Summary: Set immediately after 'Tears.' By performing the Spells of Undoing, Zedd grieviously altered the course of history. Now, Richard, Kahlan, Cara and Zedd must team up with Nicci and Rahl to find a way to appease the Maestra, the Goddess of Time, before she decides to correct the problem by destroying the entire universe, past, present and future. This, however, will be no easy task; Zedd's spells split the course of history into three paths. Which one, if any, will be saved?
Warnings: Spoilers through 'Tears'
Author's Notes: Written for the Legend of the Seeker Big Bang Challenge. Feedback is craved!
The sun had barely set the next evening when Kahlan pushed her chair away from the table and stood up. She yawned and stretched luxuriantly, managing to look completely exhausted and entirely content at the same time. Morsewood had not seen a confessor in a very long time, so she’d spent from sunrise until early evening hearing complaints and settling disputes, most of them petty, all of them steeped in the essence of small-town Midlands in a way that reminded her how much she had missed the life of a Confessor. Perhaps taking my place as the Mother Confessor won’t be a downgrade after all she thought to herself.
She picked up the last crust of bread left on her plate and popped it into her mouth. The meal was delicious. Even Zedd had eaten his fill. He was currently in the process of nodding off in his chair, a disconcerting sight because he slept with his eyes open. Kahlan shot Richard a mischievous glance and he rose from the table to escort her upstairs. Zedd started at the sound of Richard’s chair scraping across the tavern floor and he shook himself awake.
“What am I doing drifting off at the table when there’s a remarkably comfortable bed waiting for me upstairs?” he laughed.
“Richard and I were on our way upstairs, too. It’s been a long day.”
Zedd smiled and nodded at the two of them. “Just make sure you two actually get some sleep tonight. We need to be on our way tomorrow and it won’t do for you to stay up late like you did last night.”
Kahlan blushed furiously and stepped behind Richard to try and hide it. Richard beamed, pinched her playfully and began guiding her towards the stairs. “Goodnight, Zedd,” he called behind him.
Just then, Cara burst into the tavern. She’d been away doing spirits knew what all day and had missed dinner. Kahlan began to question her, but Cara cut her off without so much as looking at her.
“Richard, I need to speak with you,” Cara said slowly. Zedd got up from the table and joined them at the base of the stairs, a concerned look on his face. Cara shifted her gaze to him and growled “Alone.”
The wizard stiffened but said nothing. He merely took Kahlan gently by the elbow and led her up the stairs. The handful of eavesdroppers scattered around the tavern also made good their escape. The innkeeper nervously untied his apron and handed his dishtowel over to the unfortunate young woman who was just beginning her shift behind the bar. He mouthed good luck to her before beating a hasty retreat.
Cara watched them go before turning her attention back to Richard. “I caught you on your way to bed.”
Richard nodded, though he sensed it was not a question. Cara’s stare bored into the back of his skull. He wanted to look away but found he couldn’t.
“I expect you’re tired. You didn’t sleep very much last night,” she continued.
Richard laughed a little at this. “You’re a little late to tease me about that. Zedd beat you to it.”
“And if he hadn’t, surely everyone else within a league of this inn could have.”
Richard’s grin wavered. “What are you…”
“The walls here are remarkably thin and you were inconsiderately loud,” Cara stated coldly. “You kept me awake.”
Richard blushed and his shoulders sagged. He was painfully aware of the few other people who remained in the tavern, thus far oblivious to the confrontation. “I’m sorry,” he began, but Cara cut him off.
“From the sound of it, you should be apologizing to Kahlan, not me. It didn’t sound like she had much fun. A bit of advice, Seeker: either stop disgracing yourself trying to bed the Mother Confessor in roadside inns, or see that you gain the skills necessary to make up for your base surroundings. I don’t care which you choose, as long as you do it quietly from now on.” Cara’s words resounded icily throughout the room. The onlookers stared, mouths agape, no longer oblivious. They scattered as Cara turned on her heel and strode toward the bar, making it clear that was her final word on the matter.
The battle between rage and humiliation made Richard’s ears burn and his hands clench into fists. He wanted to shout at Cara but he could not ignore the feeling that she was right. He forced down his rage, gave in to his humiliation and stalked dejectedly up the stairs, leaving Cara alone at the bar.
“That wasn’t very nice,” remarked the bartender, cutting through the cloud of anger and disgust that Cara exuded.
Cara answered without looking up, speaking more to herself than to the woman behind the bar. “It had the desired effect: they won’t be keeping me awake anymore. It’s embarrassing the way they behave. He is a grown man. She’s the Mother Confessor. There is no excuse for them to act like lovestruck teenagers.” Cara’s stomach turned painfully at the thought of Richard’s hands on Kahlan’s body, the two of them blissfully entwined without a care about anything or anyone else in the world.
Once again the bartender’s voice broke into her thoughts. “Do you love him?”
“Not him.” Cara’s head shot up, her eyes wide. She had not meant to say that aloud. She turned a suspicious eye to the bartender who returned her gaze, smiling pleasantly. “How did you make me tell you that?”
The woman shrugged and picked a glass up off the bar. “Maybe it just needed to be said.” She began carefully cleaning the glass in her hand. “I’m a bartender. Isn’t it my job to listen to whatever it is you have to say?”
Cara grunted and looked away. She refused to say anything else for fear the woman would make her talk about her feelings again. She tried to stare resolutely at the patterns in the wood of the bar, but she found herself following the bartender with her eyes as the woman circled the now-empty room, gathering up empty glasses and returning them to the bar to be washed. Cara tried not to notice how the woman carried herself like a hunter but moved like a dancer. She refused to be impressed with how easily her long fingers gripped several glasses at once or how she could balance them all on her tray without dropping a single one. Cara swept her eyes around the room, analyzing every detail except the way the ties of her apron accented the curves of the woman’s hips and waist or the way the sleeves of her shirt were rolled up snugly against her strong upper arms. She was in the process of not watching the woman’s large, deft hands clean a glass when she realized she was being spoken to.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening.”
“I said, ‘since you’ve frightened off all my customers, the least you can do is have a drink while you ignore me.’” She slid Cara a generous glass of amber liquid.
Cara examined the glass carefully. “What is it?”
“The good stuff. You look like you can handle it.”
Cara picked up the glass and took a tentative sip. The drink burned on her tongue and down her throat, almost but not quite making her cough. The aftertaste held pleasant hints of smoke, peat and honey.
“You’re right; it is good.” Cara lapsed back into self-conscious silence.
“I thought you might like it,” the woman beamed, doing her best to win Cara’s full attention. Cara hated to admit it, but she was doing an unusually good job. “Are you going to tell me your name, or am I going to have to make one up for you?”
“Cara,” answered Cara, once again shocked by how quickly the woman had gotten her to respond. She found the woman’s easy manner quite alluring and couldn’t help staring at her bright, intelligent eyes and soft, upturned lips.
The woman’s smile widened and she held out a hand to shake Cara’s. “Nice to meet you, Cara. I’m Dahlia.” Cara gripped the hand Dahlia had offered. The shock that went up their arms at that first moment of contact made both women blush, eyes locked. Cara was the first to look away. She berated herself for showing such weakness, but she was having a hard time controlling her breathing with Dahlia’s eyes on hers, her strong hand pressed against hers. She sipped her drink awkwardly. Dahlia gave her another small smile and resumed cleaning her glassware.
When she had finished washing, drying and storing all of the various cups she’d collected off the bar and empty tables, Dahlia slung her rag over a shoulder casually and leaned on the bar in front of Cara. “So, Cara. What’s it like adventuring with the Seeker and the Mother Confessor?” she asked good-naturedly.
Again, Cara answered honestly and automatically. She found, to her confusion, that she was getting used to answering Dahlia so easily. “Right now it’s a nightmare.”
Dahlia’s brow creased with empathy. “It can’t all be lovesickness and bad sexual technique. You must have your fair share of exciting stories. I’d give anything to be able to go on adventures.”
Cara raised an eyebrow. “You’d give up a warm bed and a reliable food source to travel the Midlands, sleeping on the cold, hard ground and eating dried biscuits paired with whatever you’re lucky enough to hunt or gather?” Cara’s voice held the trace of a challenge.
Dahlia leaned closer. “Sounds exciting to me. Besides, if I were travelling with the Seeker, we’d eat like kings every night.”
This time, both of Cara’s eyebrows rose. “You can hunt?” she asked, involuntarily sizing Dahlia up.
She nodded confidently, noticing that she’d caught Cara’s interest. She ran with it, flirting shamelessly. “My father taught me. He was quite the woodsman. Thanks to him, I can track a flea in an elk migration and light a fire with damp tinder in a snowstorm if I need to.”
Cara almost smiled, picking up the game. “Can you drop a sprinting rabbit at 200 paces?”
“Blindfolded.”
Cara tried not to think about Dahlia blindfolded. She failed spectacularly, her cheeks beginning to color. She steered the conversation back into calmer waters. “You said your father was quite the woodsman. What happened to him?”
Dahlia’s smile faded. “He died several years ago. Now it’s up to me to provide for my family.”
“I’m sorry,” Cara said, and meant it.
Dahlia shrugged. “Don’t be. I always knew I’d need to take care of them, sooner or later. My mother was a clothier, a damned good one, before the textile mills that cropped up during the war ran her nearly out of business. There was a time when she was the most popular seamstress in our province. Engagements were long in my home town so she’d have time to make the wedding dresses. Once her arthritis started slowing her down, her business slowed with her. By then, my brother was too far along in his studies to come home and find work. He’s a scholar, my brother. He’s got quite the mind for history. Unfortunately, no one is interested in hiring historians these days. He doesn’t really have any other, more practical skills, and even if he did, no one would hire him. A rumor got started that he’d chosen to become a scholar to avoid being drafted into the army during the war. It isn’t true, but he’s been branded a coward nonetheless. We agreed that he would be the one to stay and care for my mother while I left home to find work. For the past five years I’ve travelled around doing everything from scrubbing floors to taking in laundry to, well, tending bar. So here I am. Forgive me for talking your ear off, but talking to travelers when they pass through is the only thing keeping me sane until I can send home the next month’s wages.”
Cara listened quietly, rapt, to Dahlia’s story. “Where is home?”
“A little town called Stowcroft.”
Cara nearly choked on her drink. “Stowcroft? I was born in Stowcroft.”
Dahlia stared long and hard at her, agape. She searched her memory for traces of Cara, but none came to mind. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I know you. Or if I do, I don’t remember you.”
Cara shrugged. “I don’t remember you, either. I was taken away from there when I was very young.”
Dahlia nodded somberly. “That I do remember. The Mord’Sith would raid Stowcroft every so often and carry off young girls. I remember the year they would have come for me quite vividly. It must have been the same year you were taken.”
Cara tried hard not to imagine a young Dahlia being led away, screaming and thrashing, by a squad of leather-clad Mord’Sith. She failed at that, too, and shuddered. “I wonder why you weren’t taken.”
Dahlia’s eyes clouded. “Somehow I knew they were coming. I don’t know how I knew. My brother and I were playing in the yard when they came. I started throwing rocks at him. One hit him in the forehead and he started to bleed. I wanted to cry, but I laughed instead. I laughed and laughed and threw stone after stone. He seemed to understand and threw rocks right back at me. I still dream about the blood and the pain and the terror of that morning. My brother still has scars, one on his forehead, one on his shoulder blade, from where I hit him hardest. I’ve got this scar,” she touched her upper lip, just under her nose, “and this one,” she pulled the collar of her shirt down to reveal a raised scar on her collarbone, near her shoulder. Cara’s mouth watered as she was seized with a nigh uncontrollable urge to kiss both of the places Dahlia had indicated. “Small prices to pay for my freedom. I’m sure that’s why they didn’t take me; everyone knows the Mord’Sith only choose kind, sweet, pretty little girls.” Dahlia’s voice was quiet and subdued, but it still held the slightest trace of flirtatiousness. She ran her tongue along the scar on her lip and her eyes smoldered when she saw Cara’s eyes fixated on her every movement.
Cara reminded herself to breathe. “If they’d known you’d grow up to be so beautiful and kindhearted they would have taken you in a heartbeat,” she said before she could stop herself.
Dahlia’s face froze, taken aback. “That’s the strangest compliment I’ve ever received. Thank you.” She recovered quickly from her initial shock and locked eyes with Cara, reaching behind her back to pick at the ties of her apron.
“What are you doing?”
Dahlia licked her lips as the knot holding her apron on loosened. “The tavern’s empty and the look on your face says my shift is over.”
Cara blinked, head reeling and not just from her drink. Dahlia glided out from behind the bar and sidled up next to Cara. She hooked a finger into the neckline of Cara’s top and pulled her close. “Take me upstairs?”
Cara could only nod, dumbstruck, as Dahlia grinned wolfishly and pulled her by her chest towards the stairs.