“Thank you, sergeant,” we both said.
“Alright, now set your things down here and come with me. It’s time to put you two to work.”
“Where exactly are you assigning us?” I asked. I hoped it was something that allowed me to move around the camp, so that we could discover the location of the prisoners.
“The kitchens, of course.” The sergeant arched a brow, and for the first time his lips quirked into a smile. “It’s about time someone brought a woman’s touch to the slop they serve as food around here.”
11
“This is unbelievable,” I growled under my breath as I scrubbed furiously at a cast iron pan using coarse salt and steel wool. The sleeves of my shirt were rolled up to my elbows, and I was wearing a colorful rag wrapped around my head to keep my hair away from the food. “You’d think they’d at least give us a little bit of a learning curve before dumping us in here on our own.”
“Yeah, right.” Annia snorted from behind me as she wiped down the stove. “I swear the cook practically skipped out of the doors as soon as we arrived. Guy was fucking whistling a happy tune. Even if the sergeant had told him to stay, I bet he would have hightailed it as soon as we were left alone.”
We talked quietly to make sure no one overheard us, though that was unlikely due to all the background noise. The mess hall was nearly full to bursting, with over a hundred men sitting ass to elbow at the picnic-style tables and stuffing food into their mouths from rough-hewn wooden trenchers. A third or so were shifters, and they mostly sat with each other. We’d had less than two hours to take the disgusting slop the former cook was putting together and turn it into a passable meal. I thanked Magorah that Annia knew her way around a kitchen, because my own cooking skills were rudimentary at best. We’d turned out some decent sandwiches using canned meat, fried potatoes, and green beans, and you would have thought we’d served them a gourmet meal from the way the men’s eyes lit up as they came up to the serving counter with their trenchers. Quite a few of them had complimented us on more than our culinary skills, their eyes lingering on the swell of our breasts beneath our shirts. It had taken me every ounce of willpower I had to smile flirtatiously at them, when what I really wanted to do was punch them in their leering faces. But if we wanted to find out where the prisoners were hidden, we had to start making some friends, and kicking these soldiers’ asses wasn’t going to help.
“I just wish we weren’t stuck in here the entire day,” I grumbled. “How are we supposed to talk to any of the men if they’re out there and we’re in here?” I spared a glance toward the mess hall, which I could see clearly through the large, rectangular opening in the wall. Fenris was sitting at one of the tables with several shifters, looking withdrawn and uncomfortable as he ate. The other shifters were ignoring him, and he made no effort to try and insert himself into the conversation. “Fenris certainly doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere.”
“Yeah, I noticed.” Annia moved to cleaning the steel countertop in the center of the kitchen, and I had to move my cast iron off it to get out of her way. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much, though. We’re the only women around, and those men probably haven’t seen a pretty face in months. I’ll bet a few of them are going to wander back here. And besides, the guy who’s on babysitting duty can’t stop staring at my ass.”
I flicked my gaze toward the soldier standing about twenty feet away in the mess hall next to the entrance nearest us. He was the classic tall, dark, and handsome human, with a day’s growth of beard on his strong jaw, and his pale blue eyes seemed to follow Annia around the room. I met his eyes, and watched with amusement as his high cheekbones colored before he jerked his gaze away, scanning the rest of the mess hall. Right now there were three other soldiers policing the mess hall, mostly there to make sure the other soldiers played nice and didn’t end up in a food fight or something worse, but he’d been here before lunch. I had a feeling he was stationed here at the captain’s orders to make sure we didn’t pull anything fishy.
“Well between the two of us, I’m pretty sure you’ve got the best shot at seducing info out of these guys,” I admitted as I finished wiping out the cast iron pan. I hung it up on its hook by the stove, then grabbed a rag and started wiping down the cooking dishes that were hanging in the drying rack. “They don’t seem to like me as much.”
Annia shrugged. “If you were a human, they’d be just as into your ass as they are mine, especially since you’ve got more of it than I do.” Annia grinned at me, and I stuck out my tongue – I was in good shape but I didn’t have Annia’s willowy figure. “You could probably get one of those shifter boys to tell you something, though.”
“I think I’ll leave the seducing up to you.” There was only one male I wanted to get my hands on, a mage with violet eyes and dark hair the color of glossy cherrywood. Seduction wasn’t really my strong suit – I just didn’t have the patience for it, and besides, it was almost impossible to lie to a shifter about finding them attractive.
As the men finished eating, they brought their trenchers up one by one and thanked us for the meal. Annia stationed herself by the counter and took her time chatting each one up, giving them smiles and winks while I busied myself washing dishes. There wasn’t really time for her to get any info out of the men, but we both knew they’d be thinking about her, and hopefully one of them would come back.