The White Werewolf || Season One: Ties That Bind

Chapter Forty-Three

"Well, who did you side with? It sounds like neither of them was particularly pleasant," Jaskier observed.

"I didn't side with anyone," Geralt revealed. "Stregobor spoke to me first and I refused him. I don't kill humans, after all. I kill monsters. I'm not an assassin for hire. I'm not a bodyguard. He told me that killing Renfri would be the lesser evil."

"There's no such thing," Robin interrupted him. "Evil is evil. The concept's rather simple."

Geralt smiled and rested his chin on her head. "I agree. Which is why I also said no when Renfri asked me to kill Stregobor, though her story was certainly more compelling than his."

"What did she have to say for herself?" Jaskier prodded.

"That her stepmother tried to have her killed," Geralt explained. "But the man decided to rob and rape her first. She killed him with the pin on a brooch she was wearing."

Robin turned slightly and stared up at him. "The gold one that you tried to give to Foltest?"

He nodded. "The very same."

"What, did she give it to you as payment or something?" Jaskier mused. "To try and get you to do what she wanted?"

"No. I took it off her body after I killed her."

Jaskier frowned. "But I thought you said you weren't going to kill either of them."

"I wasn't going to. But they forced my hand. Renfri came to me again after we spoke the first time and told me she was going to leave Blaviken without attacking Stregobor. But she... hypnotized me, I think. It's hard to say. According to Stregobor, she had strange powers. She could make people rally to her cause even if they didn't want to."

"You let your guard down enough to be hypnotized?" Jaskier snorted.

Geralt grimaced. He didn't really want to talk about this part around Robin, despite their arrangement. She knew he'd slept with women before her, of course, but since he'd been sleeping with her exclusively for some time now, it felt disrespectful.

And Renfri had been different. She wasn't a whore. He and Robin weren't in love, but he wasn't stupid. He got jealous, after all. There was no reason she shouldn't.

Ultimately, though, he didn't think any good would come of lying.

"We were... together at the time," he confessed, leaving it at that.

Robin swallowed and stiffened at the admission. Jaskier stammered, realizing that his question had made things awkward. "Oh, I... I see," he added lamely in an attempt to diffuse the tension.

"By the time I woke, she'd gone back to the marketplace. I followed and her men attacked me. I killed them all. Then she attacked me. I told her to stop, but she insisted that she would keep killing unless I killed her."

"So you did," Jaskier finished for him.

"So I did," Geralt repeated. "It was a hard fight. I didn't come away unscathed." He paused and licked his lips. "I didn't want Stregobor to have her body, but when they drove me out of town, I couldn't stop him. I took the brooch, though, as a memento. And a reminder."

"Why did they drive you out of town? It sounds like you did them a favor, really," Jaskier decided.

"They said I'd endangered them all by fighting. They threw stones at me as I left."

Jaskier shook his head. "Well, that hardly seems fair."

Robin squeezed his hand between both of hers. "I'm sorry, Geralt."