Deleted Scene

The more times I go over my book, the more little scraps of discarded scenes end up strewn across my hard-drive. Some of them are terrible and never deserve to see the light of day, but others were perfectly good, but just don’t serve my story anymore. Some, I’m even quite fond of.

Rather than let them all languish, I thought I would start sharing a few of them on the blog now and then.

Sorry, I can’t really give you any context for this scene snippet since there really isn’t any anymore, but I hope you enjoy it all the same 😉

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Scrap From What Was Formerly Chapter 23

Maren lurched out of the door and let it drop shut behind her. She leaned back against it, shutting Oakhill and the king and Elaine and all the nobles into their freezing ballroom. She never wanted to go back and she had no idea how she was going to get through the rest of the evening. If they were successful, the ball would be ending early. At least that was something. Where that would leave her, though, she had no idea.

          “I’m surprised those young lords let you get away; you’re looking so lovely tonight.”

          Maren spun around to find Hunter sitting on a bench just off to the side of the big doors. He was half hidden by shadow, but she could just make out the shine of his eyes and the glitter of fine embroidery on his dark coat.

          “Did you know?” Even she could hear the bitterness in her voice. “Was that something else you decided to keep from me?”

          The smile fell from Hunter’s face. He stood and Maren saw with surprise that he looked more like the young lords inside than the man of the road she’d grown to know. He wore a sober dark coat and breeches and his waist coat shimmered with delicate silver embroidery. His unruly hair was pulled back and combed into a semblance of order and the road dust was washed from his skin.

          For a moment she could clearly see what he had been before he went to the army and got on his brother’s bad side. A fine young man with the world at his feet.

The skull tattoo flickered and cracked its jaws at her.

          “I knew.” His voice was so low she had to strain forward to hear him. “I saw the necklace.”

          Maren clenched her hands. “I’m not going to ask why you didn’t tell me, because it doesn’t matter. We just have to get through this.”

          “You’re going to hold this against me too, aren’t you?” Hunter stepped towards her. “How was I supposed to tell you anything when you wouldn’t see me? What did I do that was so bad?”

          “I can’t believe you have to ask me that.”

          “I was doing my job, Maren. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

          “I don’t want to talk about this anymore, but you did hurt me and it’s too late to change that. Come on. We’re wasting time.”

          Maren turned away and wiped her furious tears away so Hunter wouldn’t see them.

          “Maren, wait.” Hunter’s hand clamped down on her wrist and stopped her in her tracks. Maren turned back with fire blazing in her eyes. How dare he touch her.

“I’m sorry,” he said and dropped her wrist as though it had burned him. “This isn’t how I wanted tonight to be. Won’t you at least hear me out?”

          “We don’t have time for this,” Maren snarled.

          Hunter’s face grew hard. “Fine. So be it. After tonight you need never see me again.” He sketched her an ironic bow. “After you, Lady Maren.”

          Maren yanked open the palace door and stalked into the tunnel. She didn’t bother to look back and see if he was following.