<div class="floatright">(https://mfiles.alphacoders.com/402/402340.jpg)</div>The minute – no, the instant – that shoe left Lesniya’s hand, she knew it was going to hit harder than expected. She’d put too much spin on the boot. It was out of her control now though, so the first thing she did after watching wide-eyed while the leather and sole landed smack dab on precisely where she did NOT want it to land, was duck and hide behind Sophia.<br/><br/>This was a disaster.<br/><br/>She could hear the much more brash Evenember give a lame excuse about the shoe. Without looking, she could even feel the stares they were getting from around the tavern. Les covered her face and groaned behind her fingers. They were dead. Doomed. Murder-bait, for sure.<br/><br/>Les didn’t look up as the target of the shoe-throwing mistake made his booted way over to their table. She couldn’t make herself open her fingers or pick her red-head up enough to even face the towering man. She felt the tears begin to well in her eyes even as the first word he spoke left his lips. Her own reaction made her even MORE upset because crying was such a stupid, lowly, female thing to do! What good were her tears??<br/><br/>Then the shoe dropped. Right into Sophia’s beer.<br/><br/>Lesniya peeked up, tear-stained face and all. She watched as her best friend in the world, the one who never left her side through anything, was railed at, laughed at by the tavern, and then told no because of something she did. Worse, she was now covered in wet, sticky liquid. On top of being just as filthy as Les from the stupid rats.<br/><br/>Sophia yelled back at the man and stammered through excuses. Finally, Les pushed up from her hiding spot to glare at the man. The hardened, handsome warrior wasn’t as big as she had feared in person. It made her next actions of standing from the table and pushing her way around to shoulder herself between Sophia and the obstinate warrior easier. Although no less heart-racing.<br/><br/>Yanking the boot off the table, her tear-laden eyes glared up at the warrior who had turned down their last hope. She was sorely tempted to hit him across the jaw with it. Instead, she fought back tears.   “Why would we want anything from a rude brute like you??”<br/><br/>Les glanced back at Sophia then and stepped back towards the door, putting both of their bedraggled forms in his line of sight again. “There are bigger swords out there, Soph. C’mon …”