Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Dahlia
Pedalling Spero’s feet, I pretend he is on a little bicycle. It’s slightly cold down at the cove today, but he is warm and pink from our pretend baby-workout.
It’s fun to play with him, and he has started to look at me. Really look. And his gaze of wonder… It’s something else. It almost overpowers the headache I’ve been cursed with for days.
Stars could be bright, the moon magnetic, but a baby’s awe is magic.
“Tonight, I’m having lemon on the fillet Tomar brings me,” I say to Spero, my voice a silly, playful beat. Yesterday, after I untangled four nets, Tide offered me a lemon that a drifter gave him in exchange for a fish. I literally bounce in the air with excitement. “Who’s a lucky girl? I am. I am a lucky girl.”
I am being silly with Spero, melting against his playful gurgling, when a slither of energy tickles my spine and the hairs on my arms rise...
I look up. Of course. Only he can make me feel like every part of my body is vibrating all at once—Lagos is crossing the cove, his hair pulled tightly into a bun at the back of his head. The shiny plate above his ear appears to be the shape of a quarter-moon. He is in the same black shirt I sawed a line into, with the hood gathered on his shoulders. It is too small for him; his muscles form shapes beneath.
Guilt hits me. Clothing is not abundant for people like us, and he may be a giant brute who hates me, but he has helped me. And probably hundreds of others alongside Tomar?—
“I can fix that,” I say, keeping my tone light and casual.
He pulls his shirt over his head, long, thick muscles up his sides tightening, moving. My belly clenches at the display. He drops the ripped shirt to the stony floor, and I consider grabbing it.
“I can sew,” I add, hopeful. “I’m good, too. If you wan?—"
“It’s just a shirt.”
He is so cold.
“I’m sorry,” I say plainly. He looks at me—bored. “That you have to help me and Spero. I know you don’t want to. I’m sorry. I appreciate your help.”
“Thank Tomar.” He starts to unbutton his jeans, his large hands drawing my gaze down to the thick girth of his hips.
“I will.” I stand and smooth my oversized shirt down my pants. I wish I’d worn my shirt-dress, but it was dirty. I don’t know what comes over me whenever he is near, but it’s equally primal and pathetic. Magnetic, even. A power inequality that throws me over.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice movement on the steps. Over Lagos’ shoulder, three girls I have seen around The Bite descend, their gazes coy as they linger on the massive Xin De male.
“But I want to thank you anyway.” I smile at him because he’s quite beautiful, in an annoyingly brutish way. “We’re not the same. I should just accept your perspective?—”
“Save me the sensitivities, Lace Gi?—”
“Dahlia!” I spit out as the three girls stop a few metres away from the massive, brutish man everyone seems obsessed with. Removing their clothes, stripping down to nothing at all, they eye him as they move into the water. Long naked legs disappear into the cool cove bath.
He is still looking at me, a slight grin in the corner of one lip. “Dahlia,” he says my name, and I almost lose my balance. “A little flower.”
“That I’m sure you’d love to step on. Look, I will stay out of your way from now on. I didn’t mean to see… What I saw. You and the, erm…” Oh , why is my tongue not working? “If I see you, I will walk the other way. If I need something, I will go to Tomar.”
His brows knot in harder as his eyes assess me before he shakes his head with a gruff sigh. “Listen.”
Shocked, I square my shoulders as he suddenly strides toward me. Grounding my heels, I refuse to shuffle backward this time. His huge form, a powerful machine now sauntering toward me in only ripped black jeans, open at the top. In the opening, a dark-brown patch of hair makes me feel weird things...
My mouth dries up. My eyes widen when he stops, so close. Too close.
Breathe.
“Tomar said you have been trying to get things for yourself. Why?” I crane my neck to look up into his black gaze, noticing the tiniest slither of grey banding each large pupil.
“It is my fault the Hub is gon?—”
“Have we not been providing for you both? You and the infant?” A deep voice like melted steel, and I barely hear the words.
My mouth doesn’t work. “What?”
“Tomar wants the burden of this infant, so it is mine by default. And you’re his guardian. I’ll keep you both alive. Outside of that, you don’t need more. I’m not here to pamper you. If you need anything urgently, you come to us.” His jaw pulses, and I wonder if he’s uncomfortable. He talks like razor blades line his throat, every word expelling with pain. “I’ll try to get it for you. Do you need anything urgently, Dahlia?”
“Urgently?” I tuck my lower lip between my teeth, chewing. Then say, “ You want to protect Spero?” And me; my mind screams those two words, but I don’t question them in case he didn’t mean them. “The baby you said to kill?”
He sighs roughly, a sound similar to the long, low growl of a beast. “If The Trade finds him, you will wish I had killed him quickly, but it’s not up to me.”
“So you don’t want to kill him?”
“Why would I want to kill a baby?” He reaches out a big hand and cradles the back of my head. His touch is warm, and I try not to melt into it. That scent, safety, shelter—it’s him. “You come to us. You need something, you come to us.”
“No.” Shaking my head, I try to understand. “But… you told Sweets to keep me out of your business. And now you want me to come to you?”
His brows draw in over a dark stare, making me shuffle. “No. I told Sweets to keep you away from my business.”
Huh? “Is there a difference?”
He steps closer, until my jaw falls open as my head cranes back. A lording form in front of me, formidable, yet it pulls at me. “Yes. There is a difference, Lace Girl Dahlia.”
I can’t stop myself. Can’t keep the words in when he is this close. Can’t deny my body or the way it shifts, gravitates toward him. I want to know. “Do you dislike me because I’m a silly Trade girl or because I got in the way?”
“I don’t dislike you . I don’t think about you at all.” His words cut deep, but they betray the energy pouring from him and beating against me.
The dominance in his tone curls my toes into the stone. He goes on, “You’re young, fragile, Common, and you will abandon that Xin De infant when you realise the danger that follows him.”
He doesn’t trust me.
I hold his gaze. “I won’t abandon him. I promise.”
His already black eyes darken. “If you do, and the Trade finds him, death at my hands would have been a mercy for him. Understand?”
“I won’t abandon him!”
Then his focus shifts to Spero on the ground beside my feet, and I share my gaze between them. Watch them eye each other with a keen and strange interest.
“Do you want to hold him?”
Lagos slides his hand from behind my head and steps backward from us.
“You’re my responsibility now,” he states, his tone deep, his attention still tethered to Spero. “Until you’re both safe, you’re mine.”
You’re mine.
Two words.
And I panic.
Not in a bad way— Wait… not in a good way either. In an overwhelmed way. By everything I feel, his words, closeness, and the fact he is actually talking to me. Not just grunting.
I don’t move a muscle… Can’t seem to convince my legs that the conversation is over, and I should move away from him…
Move away, Dahlia!
Oh, I wish I wasn’t attracted to him, but then he drops his jeans and briefs at the same time, exposing the entire, long length of his form.
And he wades into the water.
I can move now. Inhaling the air, the scent of metals from the boats and salt from the sea mingle. I scoop Spero up, not wanting to witness whatever happens between Lagos, and the three girls waiting patiently for him to notice them. I walk away. I’m feeling a little better, knowing he doesn’t want to hurt Spero and doesn’t hate me, when a giggle from behind me snaps at me like a whip, jolting the truth into my head—I’m jealous.