Chapter Three
Corde
He angrily stabbed another piece of garbage and shook the grabber until it fell free in the bag.
“Vanek would never let me down if he could see this,” he grumbled. “Me, Corde, picking up trash? Unbelievable.”
He’d been fuming all morning. Such tasks were not suited to him. He was capable of so much more. A warrior of renown, he’d charged into battle alongside his brethren time and time again, wielding his mighty greatsword of fire, striking down his enemies and helping to win the day. What sort of champion was he now, reduced to picking up the droppings of others?
It angered him greatly, to know that he was here to find a mate, so that he might then fight for the humans in their battle against the Outsiders, but was unable to tell anyone. If only he could up and tell Kylie that he was a great hero, for whom songs would be sung and thanks given. She would then see to it that he was given better treatment.
Perhaps he could be her bodyguard, so that the likes of Jose would not bother him again. He’d had to fight the flames that burned brightly in his soul when another man spoke to his mate so derogatorily. His first instinct had been to march over there and wring him by his neck.
That wouldn’t do, however, and Corde knew it. This was a different world than the one he’d left, and his actions the night before had driven that point home in a way that no lesson on a screen could have. If anyone had asked Corde, he would have told them that what he’d done was stupid and not acceptable. But in the heat of the moment he’d fallen back on the old ways, on habit, and it had landed him in big trouble with a lot of people.
But it had also shown him his mate.
Looking over his shoulder now, he contemplated her. She was short, though almost everyone was compared to him. He towered over her by a foot, though it was less with the shoes she had on now, their heels elevating her a couple of inches closer. The long hair with its beige tones was no longer falling freely, but instead held up in a high ponytail, though it still fell to her mid-back it was so long.
In addition to her black shoes she wore dark green pants that hugged her wondrously thick legs, rising above her hips and sitting high on her waist. A loose-fitting top of such a faint pink it was nearly white sat on her upper body, helping to conceal her breasts, though it did little to hide the outlines of her overall figure. Corde was having a hard time focusing on his job with her standing around like that, black purse over one shoulder.
He had noticed that she kept one hand close to it anytime one of the program members approached. She must have a weapon of some sort in there for her personal protection. Even now her hand clutched it a little tighter as she saw him looking at her. The rosy-red cheeks lost some of their natural beauty as she frowned in his direction.
Corde forced himself to look away, lest she grow uncomfortable with him, returning reluctantly to picking up trash, even as his mind continued to wander elsewhere.
It amazed him sometimes how fate worked. He had committed an egregious error the night before, and yet amidst it all, he’d been shown his mate. Fate, though, was a cruel mistress—giving, and then taking away as he was arrested. Yet it was never to be denied, and now he’d found himself here, with his mate, destined to be near her for the next few months as he completed his five hundred hours of community service.
It seemed Kylie hated him because of what he’d done. To the point she wouldn’t even let him explain that it wasn’t at all what it seemed. Instead he was to be judged and found guilty on the spot. Still, he intended to do whatever he could to change things. Whatever it would take to get him out of this terribly demeaning job.
“Lunch break. Thirty minutes!” Kylie called, her voice warm and soothing, like the noise of a brook as it bubbled and splashed around a rock in its midst on a beautiful summer afternoon.
He marched back to the pile of bags and snagged his, thankful that Vanek had told him to prepare ahead, otherwise he would have gone hungry all day, leaving him in a terrible mood. Corde smiled. He’d learned that humans had a wonderful word to describe how he got without food. Hangry. A combination of hungry and angry, it was such a perfect fit he couldn’t believe he’d never thought of it before.
As he passed by Kylie he inhaled deeply, desperately hanging on to the smell of eucalyptus and warm fresh breeze for as long as possible. It certainly beat the smell of asphalt and freshly disturbed garbage all piled together. He closed his eyes and imagined lying with Kylie in a mountain meadow, surrounded by nature and completely alone, sucking in her scent, and tasting her for the first time.
Maybe in the future. For now he had a lot of work to do to prove to her that he wasn’t some mindless thug who wanted to hurt other people. He could sense a lot of resentment from her toward all of them, especially him, and wondered what had pushed her into this line of work in the first place if she was so disdainful of them all. It seemed… not a very good match.
Setting himself down apart from the others, but still close enough to Kylie that he could intervene if necessary, Corde opened his lunchbox and set about deciding which tasty morsel he was going to feast upon first. There was a sandwich, made with beef and some cheeses, a side of chicken, crispy things called crackers, an apple, a banana, and three cookies, a newfound weakness of his. The vanilla filling between chocolate wafer ones were his favorite.
Deciding on the sandwich he began to unwrap it, salivating over the first bite. As he bit down, his eyes were drawn to the crowd of others, noting how most of them were giving him unpleasant looks. Some were covertly glaring, while others, the self-proclaimed “tough guys” weren’t even bothering to hide it.
Corde smiled and took another bite, ripping off a hunk of bread with gusto. Screw them, they were real criminals. He had just made a mistake, something he would be sure not to do in the future. They deserved to be here, he didn’t.
“You know,” a voice said at the same moment a body eclipsed the sun that was shining down on him, “I’m not sure you should get a lunch break.”
He looked up with disinterest, uncaring what anyone else had to say. When he noticed it was the same wannabe thug who kept harassing Kylie though, his attention was abruptly distracted from the sandwich.
“You haven’t even filled one bag yet. The rest of us are on our second or third ones. Why do you deserve a lunch?”
Corde just stared, wondering if the speaker realized how easily he could snap his neck, or otherwise inflict extreme amounts of pain without even trying. So far he was up to seventeen, no, eighteen different things he could do, and that was without standing up. The miscreant was so far beneath him that Corde didn’t bother to reply. Instead he looked at his sandwich and went in for another bite.
“I’m talking to you,” the thug snarled. Jose, that was his name. Jose reached out to try and swat away the sandwich.
Until that point Corde had been content to let him talk, to act tough in front of the others and gain face. None of it meant a thing to him. He wanted his mate and nothing more. The rest could rot, for all he cared. She was what was important. That being said, while he would have happily ignored the talking, he wasn’t about to let himself be trampled over either.
His legs uncrossed and one of them swept out, depositing Jose on his back with painful ease. As the breath rushed out of him Corde pulled back and his foot shot toward his agitator’s face. He stopped it an inch short, the massive boot hovering an inch away, making it very clear that he could have busted his teeth in or worse without much in the way of effort.
Then he let the boot drop and grabbed a bite, content that Jose had learned his lesson.
A tingle on the back of his neck clued him in that someone was watching him. A quick look around didn’t show any threats, but when he glanced at Kylie, he was surprised to see disappointment and frustration on her face before she looked away.
What the hell? He’d dispatched Jose with care, doing little more than bruising his tailbone, ego, and making him short of breath for a few minutes. Compared to all of the far nastier things that he could have done it was nothing. In fact, he’d done it that way so that she could see that he was dealing with things calmly, that he didn’t always leap to violence, even if it was his first instinct.
And yet, he’d screwed up. Again.
Couldn’t he for once in his life do something right? The answer seemed to be no. History had told him that no matter how hard he tried, things just didn’t work out for him. His past had example after example of it. Why should the future be any different?
No. Corde wasn’t going to lie down and take it. Finishing his sandwich, he got to his feet and walked over to Kylie, who was busy eating some sort of salad that contained all sorts of weird ingredients. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned meat and potatoes?
“What do you want, Corde?” Her tone was openly defensive, though he suspected she was trying to make it seem hostile.
Was she afraid to talk to him? Had he scared her that badly? Corde sighed.
“You don’t like violence, do you?”
“No, I don’t. I think it’s a silly thing spurred on by far too much testosterone in men.” She paused. “And some women, though we usually just talk shit about one another behind their backs.”
He thought about that before responding. “Some might say that there’s a certain honor in men for at least confronting those they dislike head-on.”
Kylie held back sarcastic laughter. “Right. Oh so noble to bludgeon one another with your fists, or to kill someone, simply because they looked at you wrong.”
He frowned. “I didn’t hurt anyone. Nor did I use my fists. Besides, he came over to me. I was sitting by myself, ignoring everyone. How is it my fault?”
His mate—oh how he longed to be able to reach out and hold her, instead of maintaining a distance he hoped made her safe—looked at him slightly bug eyed, as if wanting to ask if he was stupid.
“You could have talked to him, you know. Addressed his problem.”
Now it was Corde’s turn to dismiss her comments as ridiculous. “He didn’t want to talk. He wanted to establish that he was the boss, that I would follow him and do what he says.” His shoulders rose and fell, the flaps of tattered vest popping out slightly. He glared at them, having forgotten for a while that they were even there.
“No, what he’s doing is expressing his frustration that you’re slacking and not pulling your own weight compared to everyone else. And he has a point,” she said angrily.
Corde sighed. “If we’re going to be together for the next fifty days, then perhaps we should try harder to get along.”
Kylie paused, then shook her head. “Your math is wrong.”
“What? I doubt that. I have five hundred hours of community service. At ten-hour days, that’s fifty days. I doubt that much has changed since I was awakened.”
The way her eyebrows lowered clued him in to his slip of the tongue. Hopefully she would just shrug it off and address his point, but Corde reminded himself to be more careful in the future with how he spoke.
“I see where you went wrong,” she said, scolding him lightly. “You assumed ten-hour days.”
“Nine to seven is what I was told I’d be here for. Was I misinformed?”
“No. But you see, Corde, if you don’t actually work those hours, then you don’t get credited for them.” She gave him that same overly-fake smile again. “At this rate, you’re looking at closer to a hundred days.”
His jaw dropped, and he stood there staring, trying to find the words to say as Kylie walked away.
They were going to punish him even more if he didn’t work like a maniac? That hardly seemed fair at all. He shouldn’t even be here in the first place. Somewhere inside him a voice reminded Corde that if he’d thought ahead, taken a moment to plan, then he wouldn’t be there. Whether he’d meant anything or not by his actions, he’d still committed them. And that meant he had to own up to them.
Forget this.
Sullenly he finished his lunch before picking up his flimsy plastic grabber and plastic bag. He stared at them for a moment in disgust before resuming picking up garbage. Slowly.
***
“Wow, Corde, I’m impressed.”
He looked at his full bag, but didn’t say anything.
“You managed to actually fill the bag. I didn’t think you would.” Kylie scribbled something on the hours sheet he’d handed her, the form that tracked his progress, and shoved it back at him before turning away.
Looking at it he saw the date, her name and signature, and a single number in the hours column.
5.
Furious at her, himself, and everything about this wretched world he now lived in that took away all his honor, nobility and dignity, Corde stormed off, wishing he could go to the inn and drink away his sorrows, revel, get in a few fights and sleep it all off. But noooo, apparently the humans had gone and outlawed that.
If it weren’t for his mate, the world would suck.
She hates you.
The world did suck.