Chapter 0003

I jump and blush when the bartender clears his throat, because I’d been so busy staring at the tall, broad-shouldered stranger that I didn’t even notice that the bartender arrived.

“All right, little lady,” the bartender says, smirking at me and leaning against the bar. “What’ll it be?”

“Um,” I say, ”I’ll have a glass of white wine?”

“There’s no wine here, missy,” the bartender says with a sigh, leaning forward towards me. “There are no grapes. What, newly arrived from an earth dimension?”

I just stare at him because…what’s an earth dimension?

The bartender smirks at me and shakes his head, glancing back at my neighbor. “She must be brand spanking new.” The stranger hums in agreement.

I scowl a little, folding my hands in my lap, embarrassed. “Well, what can I have?”

“Liquor,” the man says, giving me a nod. “Or, what the locals call beer but…” he grimaces and leans towards me. “If it’s your first day in the underworld you’ll want to…avoid that.”

“Okay,” I say, straightening my shoulders. “I’ll have…whatever you recommend.”

The bartender nods and produces a short glass. He sloshes some clear liquid into it from a cloudy bottle, pushing it towards me before he walks away.

“To your first day,” the stranger says, lifting his glass towards me.

I turn towards the stranger, curious, studying his face as I lift my glass and clink it against his. My eyes eagerly move over the sharp line of his jaw, his high cheekbones, his dark, slightly glowering brows…

But then I blush, remembering that I’m here in the Underworld to find my fiancé and bring him back to life. Not to ogle strangers.

“Bottoms up,” the stranger murmurs, smirking a bit at my pink cheeks. I do as he does, lifting the glass to my mouth and tossing the liquor back –

But I gasp immediately as the liquor absolutely singes its way down my throat. I sputter and choke, spilling the rest of the glass down my front in my desperation to get it away from me as I cough and hack so hard I see stars, trying desperately to draw breath.

“Whoa, girl!” the stranger says, patting me on the back with one hand as the other goes to my shoulder, keeping me on my stool.

Red-faced and still coughing into my fist, I glance up at him, both embarrassed and pissed. “What the hell is this!?” I rasp, gesturing towards my now-empty glass.

“It’s shadowroot liquor,” the man says, and I scowl again when I see him smirking. “Pretty much the only thing that grows here.”

“And you didn’t think to warn me?” I gasp more air down, starting to feel my head spin.

“Didn’t think you wanted to be warned,” he murmurs, signaling the bartender to refill his glass. “After all, a girl who sits at the bar in a black wedding gown but no groom in sight seems like she’s kind of…on a mission.”

I sigh sharply through my nose, looking down at my dress, now covered in sticky liquor. “Don’t get me started.”

“Don’t need to,” the stranger says as the bartender makes his way over. “I already know. You’re one of the Prince’s twenty brides, aren’t you?”

I whip my head up to stare at stranger in complete shock as he orders two more glasses of liquor, requesting that the bartender add some cherries to mine to make it more palatable. The bartender hesitates, glancing at me, but the stranger just waves a hand.

“How…” I whisper, my words coming back to me as the handsome stranger turns his attention back to me. “How the hell did you know that?”

“We don’t get a lot of new people here,” he murmurs, looking around the bar at the collection of particularly dull and despondent patrons. “And suddenly a bride shows up, alone, the day before the Ceremony?” He shrugs like it wasn’t much of a puzzle.

“Well,” I say slowly, looking askance at the drink the bartender puts before me, which is now the color of a garnet, a few cherries sunk at the bottom.

Eagerly I begin and find that my tongue is looser than I thought it would be. I spill everything out to this strange man, who lets me talk unimpeded. I tell him all of my great lost love, who died in the war – of wearing this dress to Blythe’s funeral, even though no one understood that I’m half widow half bride – of rashly accepting this horrible deal so I can save him – of finding myself here in the Underworld, of all terrible places.

“So, I was tricked!” I say, gesturing wide with the hand that now holds my half-full glass of cherries and liquor. The handsome stranger smirks, reaching out to catch my wrist so I don’t splash it everywhere. I frown as I look at his hand, and then at the drink because…when did I pick that up?

And when did I drink it?

“You were tricked?” he murmurs, putting me back on track.

I turn towards him with a frown.

“And what do you think of this Prince?” he asks, leaning against the bar and raising a brow at me. “No interest in marrying him?”

“Obviously not,” I say, appalled at the idea. “One, because I love my boyfriend, and two,” I swallow hard, suddenly parched, “what kind of loser needs his dad to organize a game so he can get married?”

The stranger huffs out a laugh, his eyes narrowing.

“Seriously he must be like, deeply ugly, in the face,” I say, gesturing towards my own face as I take a sip from my drink. “And boring and stupid with a bad personality. I mean, what kind of pathetic man has to trick twenty girls into a competition for the dubious honor of having his kids!?”

The stranger grins at me, a dark and cunning expression. “So, then you definitely don’t want to marry the Prince?”

“If I wasn’t tied to this stupid deal,” I whisper, leaning towards him and shaking my head, surprised to find that my words are more than slightly slurred, “and the fact that I gotta win to get the wish at the end…I’d run away screaming! I’d rather die than marry that idiot, whoever he is.”

“Well,” the man says, leaning a bit closer now, giving me a smile that shows all of his teeth. “You’re in the Underworld now, aren’t you? Perhaps that can be arranged.”

**

“Okay, little girl,” the bartender says with a sigh, shaking his head at me. “Time for you to get home and sleep this off.”

I wipe roughly at my face with the back of my hand and nearly falling off my stool.The man disappears. “What happened?”

“Shadowroot is about six to eight times stronger than whatever you were drinking on Earth, little lady,” the bartender says, giving me a sad smile. “You gotta watch yourself down here.”

“Hey, who was that guy?” I ask, wrinkling my nose at the bartender and leaning close. “He was cute.”

“Oh, sugar,” the bartender says, leaning forward to pat me on my cheek. “You don’t want to know.”