SONGS AND TRAILS (Book 1)

PROLOGUE

Noise.

It was all noise in that tavern.

People were dancing, some were cursing and others drinking. Most of them tried to talk to him, get his attention but to no avail. It had been like that ever since he started coming over to get drunk. And even in his drunkenness, he had never slipped and take anyone home with him.

The room was filled with the smell of liquor, sweat, tears, blood, and many other smells he quite couldn't decipher for himself. Perhaps he didn't need to. People around him danced, laughed, and gambled, enjoying each other's sexualities... it was chaotic and he wanted that.

He wanted chaos!

To him, all that noise was a distraction from the emptiness he felt inside his heart. To the void he felt in every second that he breathed. Even in that noise, it was quiet. Everything around him was quiet. A deadly silence that he had never been able to be rid of.

Maybe he would never be rid of it.

"You're making it so hard to find you." A woman sat next to him at the bar. "Spent months. I thought it would take years." She looked at him.

He drank from his cup.

She signaled the waiter. "Same as his." She pointed at his drink. The waiter served it to her and she immediately took a sip. "Oh wow!" She cringed. "That's strong." She took another sip. "How many shots are in this?"

"What are you doing here, Janine?" He finally spoke.

"I would ask you the same." She winced. "Although, I'm hurt... not Jenny anymore?"

"Leave me alone!"

She clicked her tongue. "That's the one thing I'd never do. You out of all people should know that."

He huffed in anger and gulped down his drink.

"Caldor..."

He didn't turn to look at her. Not even a gaze after she showed up all the way from Greyenvir Institute.

"Everyone is worried sick about you."

"Then tell them not to be."

"I am worried about you."

He doesn't say anything.

"For the love of the gods, this..." She pointed at his drink. "...is never going to work out. You out of everyone knows that."

"No shit!" There was sarcasm in his hoarse voice.

"Oh, don't you give me that bullshit." There was a hint of anger and disappointment in her voice. "Seth is worr..."

He cut her off angrily. "Don't you dare mention his name! He's never cared once about her."

"I did." She snapped but Caldor didn't say a thing again. "I cared about her, Caldor. She was my friend, way before you existed in her life."

His tone lowered into hurt. "I don't wish to talk about this."

"And I'm not going to coerce you to do so, but I need you back." She touched his face, now filled with an overgrown beard that made him look feral.

Probably one of the many reasons as to why everyone in that tavern wanted to leave with him. In that beautiful huge body and a beard, they saw a beast that would make them go wild in bed. But she just saw a broken friend, a broken man.

He flinched at her touch but didn't move away.

"I don't want to have lost two friends. You've made me chase you all over the realm, Caldor."