Chapter 10 #2
Garrett quickly explains the rules of the game, but I opt to sit the next round out to observe the players in action.
It’s a fast-moving game, a singalong with repetitive hand movements and claps.
Anyone who messes up the words or misses the next movement has to drink. This is clearly a favorite in Eida.
Not sure if it’s my inexperience, the whiskey, or both that ensures I am terrible at this game. But even the good players drink. There are no losers here.
With every round, Garrett leans in a little closer, his hands linger on my arm a little longer, his breath a little hotter on my ear.
Even over the whiskey and spilled beer, I can smell his intoxicating scent—burning coal and hot steel, courtesy of his trade as the village blacksmith.
He’s saying something but I’m consumed with the thought of burying my nose in the overly-defined muscles that are on full display in his thin white shirt.
Garrett’s fingers inch dangerously close to my inner thigh but he remains a perfect gentleman.
Another song from the fiddler, another round of the game, another glass of rot-gut whiskey, and before I know it, I no longer care that we’re in a tavern full of people.
I want nothing more than to feel the weight of his hands on the rest of my body.
I move closer, readying myself to ask him to do just that, when the fiddler strikes up a song that sends the rest of our table jolting to the dance floor.
Shouts ring out at the sound of another local favorite. One of Garrett’s friends is pulling him by the arm, urging him up from his seat to join the others. His hand grabs mine and tugs as he’s yanked further into the crowd.
“Dance with me, Selene!” he calls out.
I follow, eager to feel the warmth of his touch again.
It’s a fast-paced jig and I swing playfully from arm to arm through our group as we turn in circles. When the music stops, my arms are hooked around Garrett’s midsection. My head spins and he pulls me against his broad chest to steady me.
I close my eyes only for a moment, leaning fully into his warmth.
Rough fingers lift my chin, angling it slightly.
I rise up on my toes, preparing my mouth for what’s sure to be a crushing kiss.
But as his thick beard scrapes against my cheek, I freeze.
I pull back from him slightly, opening my eyes to find a pair of deep brown ones staring back at me instead of the gray ones I crave.
My stomach lurches as a commanding voice resounds throughout the tavern. “Get your fucking hands off of her.”
Garrett never breaks eye contact with me as he speaks. “You don’t speak for the lady.”
“Did I stutter?” The sharp sound of a steel blade leaving its scabbard echoes through the now quiet room. “Get your fucking hands off of her right now or I’ll cut them off.”
Garrett drops my chin, squaring his shoulders and turning nose-to-nose with the Captain of Corinth.
“What did you say to me?” the blacksmith challenges.
Fuck.
This night is not going at all like I had hoped.
I need to say something to defuse this, but I can’t think straight.
This is simultaneously the most frustrating and arousing thing that has ever happened to me.
I should be fuming that grown men are about to duel over me, but I can’t stop picturing what it might feel like to be caught between the two of them.
Fucking whiskey.
“That’s enough of that!” Mae’s voice cuts sharply through the room. “Go home, Garrett. And you two,” she points at both me and the captain, “upstairs before I turn you both out.”
The entire tavern is holding a collective breath to see what will happen next. Garrett takes a long look at me before reluctantly deciding I’m not worth the fight.
“Only for you, Mae.”
The captain doesn’t resheath his blade until the blacksmith leaves the tavern, his friends going with him to ensure the situation doesn’t escalate. Once the door swings closed, the atmosphere immediately lightens, the fiddler restarting his song and the patrons resuming their conversations.
Captain Murphy shoots me a menacing glare that makes my blood boil before stomping up the stairs. I run to catch up, never one to back down from a fight, especially with this much whiskey running through me.
“What the hell was that?” I snap as I furiously climb the stairs after him. “I don’t need you to protect me.”
“Clearly you do.” His voice is accusatory and angry in a way he has no right to be.
“He wasn’t going to murder me, he was going to—”
Murphy turns abruptly, and I don’t have time to stop before plowing into his granite chest. I can feel his eyes glaring down at me and I meet them with instant regret. He grabs my arm pulling me towards him, the whiskey serving as an accelerant on the growing fire that threatens to burn us both.
“I know good and well what you were going to let him do to you.” His hold on my arm tightens, mimicking the muscle along his jaw as he restrains himself. “Godsdammit, woman. Did you want me to kill him?”
“I didn’t think you’d notice. You looked pretty preoccupied from where I was sitting.”
Murphy’s head cocks to the side, strands of black hair falling across his brow. He drops my arm and takes a step backwards, letting his gray eyes survey me from head to toe. Pearly white teeth snag on his bottom lip as his gaze wanders back to my face.
“You really can pull off every shade of green, can’t you?”
“Fuck you!” I call out, turning towards my room with every intention of putting distance between us.
“You want to.”
His words stop me in my tracks, my mouth hanging agape. I know my audacity is fueled by whiskey tonight, but I’m not sure where he’s getting his.
I turn back to find Captain Murphy walking towards me at full speed. I backpedal, my back smacking the wall seconds before his forearms move to bracket my head, holding me in place.
“Let me go,” I protest half-heartedly.
Wow, real convincing, Ivy.
“I will,” he promises. A soothing bolt of magic washes over me urging me to trust him. His lips brush against the shell of my ear as he speaks. “As soon as you admit that it wasn’t the blacksmith you really wanted to fuck tonight.”
The feel of his body pressed against mine overwhelms all of my senses, his words stoking the embers of my magic and my lust back to life. I fight the urge to expose my neck to the heat of his breath, futility demanding the molten heat in my core to steel.
I cannot melt into him.
“You think awfully highly of yourself, Captain.” I force the words past my lips. Words that neither confirm nor deny his damning accusation.
He stiffens and my magic shudders as a ripple of emotions cascade through me. Waves of frustration mingled with a deep longing and capped with an indescribable desperation. Emotions that I know don’t fully belong to me. He shifts slightly, angling my head upward until our eyes meet.
“Why do you refuse to say my name?”
“Why does it matter?” My whispered words are barely audible over the hammering of my heart in the empty hallway.
The tattoo, the inexplicable way my power dances around him, his name. They’re all omens. Dark signs of our intertwined fate. Saying his name aloud doesn’t change that; I know that in my bones. But it feels like accepting it. Like I’m giving up my last chance at fighting whatever waits for me.
Murphy’s hands move to cup my cheeks. “The only people who use my name are the people who are important to me. Whether you like it or not, you are important to me.”
“I’m not …”
“Don’t do that.” His demeanor shifts, something akin to pain flashing across his expression. “Don’t diminish yourself.”
His right thumb traces my cheekbone, leaving a trail of sparks in its wake. Instinctively, I lean into his hand, sealing my fate without a thought in my head besides the otherworldly call of his touch.
“Look me in the eyes and tell me that you don’t feel that. Tell me that you’re not … that we’re not important … that we’re not connected. And don’t fucking lie to me, Ivy.”
My stomach clenches at the sound of my name on his lips. The very world feels as if it’s spinning on an unnatural axis. I swallow the thick knot in my throat, fighting back the warring feelings within me.
“The only thing we are is death.”
My whispered confession burns as it claws its way past my lips. Giving voice to my premonitions feels oddly like carving them into a headstone. Proof of our demise that will last for hundreds of years after the Dark God has claimed our damned souls.
“Death and I are well acquainted.” The captain’s voice is just as pained.
Unspeakable memories must be playing on an infinite loop behind the silver storm that churns in his irises.
His hand slides to grasp the nape of my neck, hauling me closer to him until his nose rests atop mine. “I’m not afraid of shadows.”
“What about poison?”
A low chuckle shakes his chest as a sly smile forms across his too close lips. “I’ve waited a long time to be poisoned by you, Ivy.”
What little hold I had on my stability is completely lost at his words, his grasp the only thing keeping me upright.
I struggle to breathe, to form a single thought other than his name.
I clench my fists hard, nails digging into my palms in a futile attempt to restrain myself from falling completely into whatever spell he’s cast over me.
I don’t want to think—not about who he is, who I am, or the doom that fate has in store. I just want to fall senselessly, passionately into the neverending chasm that awaits us.
“Cal.”
His name is barely above a whisper, but his eyes open instantly at the sound.
Murphy’s demeanor shifts from longing to something akin to pain before settling on resignation.
His hand slides down the column of my throat before dropping to his side, a chill racing down my skin at the loss of his touch.
The moment, once far too intimate, is now gone entirely.
“Go to bed, Ivy. You’re drunk.”
He’s right. I’ve consumed too much whiskey tonight to be trusted to make decisions, but that is not what intoxicates me now. That honor belongs solely to the magic coursing through my body at lightning speed urging me closer and closer to him.
“Don’t,” I say.
Don’t what? Don’t go? Don’t do this? Don’t say these things to me?
Even I don’t know what I’m asking.
Cal runs his hand through his onyx hair. Every muscle drawn taut as he steps backwards towards his rat-infested broom closet.
“When you kiss me, princess, it won’t be because you’re drunk. It will be because you can’t imagine living one more second of your life without knowing how I taste.”
Cal stalks into his room, slamming the door closed behind him. And once again, I’m left standing in the empty hallway cold, gaping, and struggling to catch my breath.