Page 9 of Somnium

The troll let out a low grunt, the sound landing somewhere between approval and annoyance as he tugged the metal handle to pull the door open and wave them inside.

The clamor of dozens of conversations crashed into Cadi as she stepped across the threshold, the frenzied sounds of bar life drowning out every thought of temple duty or the Order. The inside was packed with humans and mythics with a heavy fusion of fried food and beer wafting on the air around them. The group wove through the crowd toward the bar, careful to avoid the toes, wings, and tails that littered their path.

A long wooden bar extended across most of the far wall, with masses of patrons clustered in front of it, shouting to make their orders heard above the noise. Cadi could see that the inside of the building extended past the polished wood to an open area with a raised stage before it curved into an L shape, giving way to a connected room with three evenly spaced pool tables.

Their group finally managed to shoulder through the press and flag down a bartender, and Cadi squeezed herself forward, forced to stand at an awkward angle to fit between Zoe and the stranger beside her. A young man in a black t-shirt approached them, flinging a white towel over his shoulder with a smooth grin.

“What can I get goin’ for you folks?”

Cadi studied the sticky menu, quickly deciding to forgo one of the sugary nautical-themed cocktails for her go-to drink: an Old Fashioned made with a moderately priced bourbon. Once the others had rattled off their orders, the bartender flashed another dazzling smile before he hurried off to begin working on their drinks.

The person next to Cadi stepped away, allowing her to shift to the side and lean against the bar more comfortably to study the prismatic bottles stacked against the mirrored wall. Rows of glassware sat on either side of the collection, and the overhead lights glinted off the intricate designs in a way that struck her as an oddly beautiful piece of an otherwise rough establishment.

“Oh, you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

The disgust in Damon’s voice quickly yanked Cadi’s attention to where he stood on the other side of Zoe, his eyes narrowed to a glare as he stared at the opposite end of the bar. Cadi tried to follow his line of sight, but the thick crowd around them blocked her view. She glanced down at Zoe, who shook her head and lifted her shoulders in a shrug before turning to give Damon a firm tap on the arm, pulling his focus down to her.

“What’s up, dude?” Zoe asked.

Damon tossed his chin in the direction he had been looking, the disdain never slipping from his face. “Masterson.”

The shift in the atmosphere was so abrupt it made Cadi’s head spin. Turning back toward the other end of the bar, she looked around the sea of bodies, trying to see who Damon was talking about until finally, a group of faeries flitted back from the bar, giving her a better view.

She didn’t know what she had been expecting to see, maybe some slimy looking guy hunched over the rail staring daggers back in their direction as he twisted a handlebar mustache between spindly fingers. But all she found were eager patrons leaning across the wood surface to shout their orders into the ear of a bartender.

A bartender who, Cadi had to say, was not exactly unpleasant to look at. She was struck by the way the deep brown of his eyes was a near perfect match to the rich hue of his short-cropped hair. That, coupled with the sharp line of his jaw and the lean cut of his tall, muscular frame had her struggling to tear her eyes away as he moved expertly through the motions of making drinks for the group in front of him.

“Seriously, Damon? You brought us to his bar?” Celine hissed, snatching her drink.

“Shit, my bad!” Damon replied, holding up his hands in a show of surrender. “I knew he owned a bar in town, but I didn’t know it was this one.”

“Wait,” Cadi said, finally pulling herself back to the heated conversation behind her. “You’re talking about the bartender? What’s the problem? Who is he?”

She looked back down the bar, watching as the man straightened, twisting to reach for one of the glasses suspended from the rack behind him. As he moved, his eyes found hers, and the jovial smile on his face quickly faded to a look of shocked confusion. Cadi sucked in a breath when an unexpected jolt flared to life behind her ribs at the intensity of his gaze. He was staring at her almost like he recognized her, but she was certain she had never seen him before. She’d never even been to this part of town.

Celine let out an irritated huff, then spun on her heels and stalked off toward an empty table in the far corner. Damon pleaded his case as he followed, but her cutting expression told Cadi that the other women had no interest in what he had to say. Cadi just stared after them, still not sure what to make of the entire exchange. Zoe shifted beside her, fidgeting with the straws in her drink and casting wary glances past her to where the bartender had returned to his task, occasionally looking up from his pour to where Cadi stood, still very much confused.

“His name is Elias Masterson,” she explained. “He has a … reputation.”

Cadi raised a single eyebrow, unable to mask her irritation at Zoe’s intentionally vague answer. “Thank you, Zoe, that explains nothing.”

Zoe sighed, grabbing Cadi’s wrist to drag her into the crowd as if desperate to put as many people between them and Elias as possible.

She didn’t let go until they reached the table, practically throwing Cadi onto the raised seat. The air around them hummed with tension, compounded by their uncomfortable lack of conversation. Cadi spun her glass between her fingers until the silence threatened to eat her alive, then, after taking a deep pull of her drink, she let the smoky bite of alcohol take control.

“So, what’s the story?” she asked.

Awkward glances bounced around the table; clearly, none of them wanted to be the one to answer. Finally, Celine sighed and leaned over the table. Cadi mirrored the movement, anticipation buzzing in her veins as she shifted closer.

“He used to be part of the Order,” Celine explained. “Pretty high up in the acolyte rankings from what I’ve heard. Then a few years back, he flipped a switch, decided everything Oneirios had given him wasn’t enough. He jumped ship, publicly denying Oneirios, the Order—all of it. For a while he spent a good chunk of time spewing lies to anyone who would listen.” She scoffed, leaning back against the metal chair. “Apparently, it didn’t take long for him to realize no one was going to follow him off that cliff.”

“The guy is bad news,” Zoe added with a nervous glance back toward the bar. Cadi looked between them, a quiet shiver tiptoeing down her spine at the apparent gravity of his betrayal. Objectively, she could see how the changing loyalties of someone with status and influence would sting, but without the same connection to the sect that the others shared, Cadi found herself struggling to match their level of discomfort with their choice of bars.

Misreading the change in her posture, either that or simply seizing his opportunity, Damon shifted closer to rest a hand against Cadi’s knee. “Don’t worry, Newbie,” he said, “stick with us, and he’ll be the furthest thing from your mind.”

She let out a soft laugh, though she felt no hint of the lightness she was trying to convey. Now that they were sitting, there was no place for her to escape to, no chance of quietly slipping out of his grip without making it painfully obvious. Her fingers tightened around her glass, and she lifted her eyes to where Celine sat across from her, fuming.

All too late, Cadi realized that it had been a mistake not to set firmer boundaries with Damon from the start; her concerns about making a pleasant first impression had held her back from drawing that line, and now it seemed that any attempt to enforce them would be nearly impossible without jeopardizing her chances of getting along with the group.