Chapter Seventeen
Briar froze. “Keepers?”
“No, that arse from your tearoom.”
Briar willed her heart to unstick from her throat. “Charles? What is he doing here?”
“Don’t know. But I can fix that.” Ethan was grimly certain. Always.
The rain hissed across the surface of the sea. Wood creaked as the ship shifted. A kelpie screeched, and it prickled the hairs on Briar’s arms.
“Wait.” She caught his arm but turned her body so it would not be visible from the docks or the beach or the cliffside. She had no idea where Charles was lurking. If he was indeed lurking and not just out for a wander. In the rain. “You can’t just murder him.”
Ethan did not look remotely convinced. “I think you’ll find I can.”
“Well, you shouldn’t.”
A grunt was her only reply, as if he found her logic unsound. She did not know why Charles was out here during a storm. He did not enjoy wet hair. Or weather. Walking. Basically, being outside. Had he followed them? Had he seen Petal? It seemed impossible.
But not impossible enough.
“You’re reconsidering that murder option, aren’t you?” Ethan murmured, pleased.
“No.” Maybe. She sighed. Probably not. “I’m sure there’s another way. This could be just a coincidence.”
Ethan’s gaze did not waver. His hair was tousled and damp, rainwater running down the side of his scarred jaw.
Witch glass gleamed behind him, twisted into a rainbow of colors inside a clear ball.
Ropes lay coiled like giant snakes. There were cannons and barrels of gunpowder, swords and sabers and magical iron.
A fierce, glowering woman in the crow’s nest, crossbow in hand.
All of it so tempting. But ultimately not helpful.
“I can shoot him,” the woman called down.
“So can I,” Anais added from the quarterdeck. She sounded half bored. “It’s not even a challenge.”
“What do you want to do, little thorn?” Ethan asked Briar. He laughed softly at her expression. “Your choice.”
“There’s no good way to explain why I am on your ship.”
“I am considered handsome by some,” he said, mildly offended.
As if handsome was a word that suited. It was entirely too insipid. He was rugged and powerful, commanding. He was like a sword, gleaming and sharp and beautiful and dangerous.
Not the point.
“An Iron Crow as handsome as yourself would not spend a single minute with a spinster like me without some kind of ulterior motive. No one in their right mind would believe it.” She wouldn’t. Couldn’t.
Wanted to.
At any rate, he did not like that. There was thunder in the clench of his jaw, lightning in the narrowing of his eyes.
“If Charles has seen me, even accidentally, then he’ll have to believe he saved me,” she added with a great deal of distaste. “That I owe him.” Owed him her magic and her cottage and her gardens.
Ethan liked that even less. Lightning speared the sky, a glint of fire on the crossbow bolt at the top of the mast where he had once bound her, on his dragon, on witch glass and kelpie teeth and iron nails. “Like hell.”
Briar was not particularly enamored with the idea either. But she knew it would work.
And Petal was just below deck. There was too much at stake for Briar to be squeamish because of her pride.
And, once again, not enough time to think of another plan.
What if Charles went to the Keepers? “But he can’t want to tell anyone about being here,” she said.
“He has to want to brag that he saved me from you, but not here specifically.”
“It would be much easier if you let me do this my way.”
She sighed. “I know.”
There was no reason for Ethan to go along with yet another mad plot. It was enough that he was protecting her sister. “I’m going to have to make this look good,” he warned. “Are you ready for that?”
“Do your best.”
“Don’t you mean my worst?”
And then he wasn’t Ethan, nor even an Iron Crow with an unsavory past, nor a captain with a small army of thieves and murderers at his beck and call.
He was the Dragon. Cold, calculating. Hunting, stealing, and taking for himself what anyone else would hesitate to even ask for politely. Magic, gold, weapons.
Briar.
He had her backed to the railing between one blink and the next, looming, scarred, and ruthless.
She gasped as he bent her backward. Her hair fell loose, heavy with rainwater, scattering the last of the flowers she’d woven into the knot at her nape.
His hand was warm at the back of her neck, gripping hard.
The rain eased, but the lightning limned his face as he lifted his head and smirked.
He was an oil painting, turbulent and seething with some inner depth. A story within a story. Glowing.
He brushed his lips over her ear. “Got his attention now, little thorn. What are you going to do about it?”
She pushed against his hard chest with the palm of one hand and he allowed it, easing back.
And then she slapped him.
Hard. His head jerked to the side, his black eyes never leaving hers. She swallowed, feeling bold and shocked at herself. And nervous. Very nervous. She had to stifle a mildly hysterical giggle.
Ethan said quietly, just for her, violence and vengeance carefully leashed, “You weren’t supposed to enjoy that, sweetheart.”
A shiver went through her.
“And neither was I,” he added.
The shiver turned hot. Hungry.
Deeply inappropriate.
But also deeply enjoyable.
How else was she supposed to react when Ethan was so near, so entirely focused on her? The rest of her might be in a panic, but her body did not seem to mind it. It was quite certain it could do more than one thing at a time.
“You! Release her at once!” Charles shouted.
Ethan sighed, his mouth ghosting over hers, denied. “I really hate that sodding git.”
Briar also sighed. “Me too. And I hate this even more.” She turned to face the beach. Charles was soaked through, the fur of his beaver hat spiky and ruined. There was mud on his breeches, ordered from London. “Charles?” she called out, tremulously. “Help me!”
Ethan growled.
“I’m going to make him pay for that,” he added quietly.
“You release her right now!” Charles said, approaching the ship with a combination of arrogance and uneasiness. Briar knew full well that were she in actual danger, he would save himself at the first opportunity. Every time. “This is not how we do things in Haven!”
It took some work not to grimace at him. Or roll her eyes.
“I’ll call the Order!”
“Not the Keepers,” Ethan said flatly. That Charles thought he could intimidate such a man only showed that he was truly an idiot.
Briar shimmied free of Ethan’s grasp, but he did not make it easy.
“Captain, what the hell?” Godric asked, disgusted. She had forgotten he was there. That anyone else was there at all.
“I know,” Ethan muttered to the satyr, equally disgusted. “The long con, Godric.”
She hurried across the plank to the dock, his gaze hot on her back. Charles waited until she was within reach before sauntering forward.
The urge to push him over the side was strong.
Too strong, apparently.
The storm suddenly lashed out, smashing waves against the wooden dock. The witchlights swung wildly. Water reached up and pulled Charles into the dark sea. He fell, screaming. There was a splash, a yelp.
Briar glared up at Ethan.
“What?” he asked as innocently as one could when bristling with weapons and questionable spell ingredients. Not to mention all that talk of murder. “I had to make it look good.”
“I don’t think he can swim!”
“He lives on a bloody island and he can’t swim?”
“Well, even if he can, he can’t fight off a herd of kelpies!” She darted to the edge of the dock, where she could hear thrashing.
“Don’t you fucking dare.” Ethan leapt over the side of the ship, landing beside her. He caught her by the waist, growling, “You’re not going in there.”
“Someone has to.”
“Not you.” He gave a long-suffering sigh, just before the sea tossed Charles back out like it had not enjoyed the experience any more than he had. There was blood running down one arm from a kelpie bite. He choked and groaned.
Briar backed away from Ethan.
“One more thing,” he said to Briar as Charles coughed up salt water, oblivious to his audience. Anais watched from the railing and could not have looked more disgusted if she had bitten into a rotten pear.
“What is it?” Briar asked.
His eyes burned.
“If he touches you, sweetheart, he dies.”
The walk home was long. The ground under her feet was muddy and riddled with puddles, but the rain did not touch her, not once.
It fell on Charles as though it hated him personally.
She did not even try not to enjoy it, though she did keep her expression calm. Not that he noticed—he was too busy moaning over the state of his shirt sleeves, his hair, and his arm, in that order.
It felt odd to leave her sister behind, to leave a ship full of witches and Iron Crows and return home to her little cottage.
It was where she usually felt safest, but tonight everything was too topsy-turvy.
The Midsummer fires burned, cheerful music drifting up the hillside from the beaches.
Wine flowed; wishes were made. The wind was sweet and warm where they celebrated, but at the top of the hill, it was chilled with rain and there were Keepers hiding in the shadows, watching her.
There were Iron Crows coming for her sister.
Black Shucks roaming unbridled. Probably boggarts in her rosemary buses.
And Charles Bloody Aster where he did not belong.
But a green witch knew patience. Seasons would not be rushed. Daisies did not grow in January, no matter the magic. Seeds needed time.
Small, manageable steps, she reminded herself again. Plant, grow, harvest.
So she bade Charles goodbye and locked her front door.
She pulled the bench in front of it for good measure.
She swept the floor clean of broken crockery, ignoring the scorch marks and the honey residue in the center of the room, the hint of Black Shuck breath.
The very thought of dragging herself up the stairs nearly undid her.
She was so tired that even her arms ached, never mind her hip.
And it was hardly the first time she had slept on the shop floor, tucked by the hearth.
It was, however, the first time she curled up in a circle of salt for extra protection.
And it was definitely the first time she woke to an Iron Crow glaring down at her.
She gave a start, heart hammering. “Is it Petal?”
“She’s fine.” The rain had stopped and Ethan had left his cloak behind. He wore his usual black trousers and lawn shirt, dry now. There was violence in every bone in his body.
“Oh.” She sat up, confused. “Then why are you here?”
“Had to make sure Aster went home and stayed there. The flood in his shop ought to see to it.”
“You flooded the apothecary?”
“Yes.”
“But…why? He’d never have the gall to bother you again. Not after tonight.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“You didn’t really think I’d let you walk home alone with him, did you?”
“Yes?” She was too tired to lie or even wonder if she ought to.
Ethan’s brows, already dark and menacing, lowered. “We’re going to talk about that later.”
“We are?”
“Yes. But first, why are you sleeping on the bloody floor?”
She refused to be embarrassed. “My hip is not up to climbing at the moment,” she said evenly. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
“Why do you live in a house at the top of the steepest hill in the village with a bedroom at the top of a narrow set of stairs?” Ethan asked, sounding truly angry for the first time since she had met him. And that included the time she had stabbed him with his own fork.
Briar blinked up at him. “It’s home.”
“Well, you’re not sleeping there.”
“This rug is perfectly comfortable. I braided it myself.” She felt a little ridiculous, like Cinderella to his Prince Charming. Only he wasn’t a prince. Nor was he charming. He would be the dragon in every fairy story.
“No.”
She frowned. “That is not an answer, because I did not ask you a question. Neither did I ask for your permission.” She could barely keep her eyelids open. Even her bones were weary. She may as well have been made of mist and dandelion fluff. “Go away, Mr. Swansea. I’m tired.”
He crouched next to her, eyes glittering, jaw sharp. “Stop calling me that,” he growled.
She sighed. “Mr. Dragon, then.”
“Ethan.”
“Certainly not.” She didn’t know why that should scandalize her after everything else.
“We’ll discuss it later. But you’re not sleeping there,” he said again.
He slid his arms under her and lifted her up. Her eyes popped open, but only briefly. “What are you doing?”
“Putting you to bed, little thorn.”
“Why?”
“Because someone should.” His touch was gentle. His expression was not.
He carried her down the hall and up the staircase as though this was all perfectly normal. As though he wasn’t an infamous Iron Crow who made seasoned Keepers blanch and other thieves tremble. As though she wasn’t a witch who made tea and grew roses.
She didn’t even have it in her to argue.
“Don’t murder me,” she mumbled. “I’m too tired for that.”