Chapter Twelve
Calliope tightened her grip on the pistol.
Her hands were steady. Her heart was not.
“You had that pistol on you the entire time?” Reaper asked, the faintest edge of admiration in his voice, his mask of carefree ruffian having once again slipped into place. Rather admirable, if one stopped to think about the nerve involved.
Calliope was beginning to understand.
They all wore masks. Each and every one of them. Even Maxen.
Even her.
“Perhaps I did, perhaps I didn’t,” she answered vaguely. They probably kept their weapons in much more sophisticated places than beneath a pillow. They probably didn’t forget them when they left home either.
His lips quirked. “Cunning wench. Why didn’t you pull your pistol out earlier when I approached you?”
“You mean when you goaded me? I was outnumbered. I choose my battles more wisely than that.” True enough. She tipped her chin to the chair. “Sit.”
He gave a low chuckle, but the humor didn’t reach his eyes. He also didn’t argue. He moved, slowly, never taking his eyes off her, as he settled into the chair.
“What are you going to do next, little mouse?”
She edged to her bed, pistol steady, bending to pull out a travel case and shoving it open. A neat coil of rope rested inside, bought for laundry and odd jobs. Who would have thought she’d use it to tie up a man? Hopefully there was enough.
She tossed the rope to him.
“Tie yourself to the chair. You understand?”
He caught the bindings easily, eyeing her the entire time. “I do. You plan to run away, then?”
“I plan to leave,” she corrected. “Which is not the same thing.”
“And you think my brother won’t hunt you down the moment he realizes you’re gone?”
“Why would he hunt me down?” She was doing him a favor by removing herself from whatever nightmare was circling them.
“You have much to learn about men, little mouse,” Reaper said looping the rope around his chest and the chair as she wanted.
“I know enough.”
“Do you? I rather doubt that. But you do seem to possess the sort of fire that burns holes through cold men.”
Was he mocking her? “You all like to believe you’re so very cold. But you’re ruled by loyalty, are you not? By blood. Seems all very hot to me. And that’s why you won’t try to stop me from leaving.”
His gaze sharpened. “I fail to see your reasoning.”
“It’s better for your brother if I disappear,” Calliope said calmly, stepping up to the man, considering how to bind him from here.
He observed her like a hawk but stayed seated.
Stayed loosely bound. “Don’t move. I’m going to secure you now, and I don’t want to use my pistol on you.
However, one word from me, and Prince sinks his teeth in a region you’d very much like to keep intact. ”
The air around him froze.
Well, look at that. See? She was a fast learner.
His expression didn’t change, but his gaze flicked toward Prince sticking close to her feet, staring at him, ears twitching as if he understood every word.
Calliope didn’t give him time to reconsider.
She moved quickly, efficiently, knotting the rope tight around his chest and the arms of the chair, then looping the binding around the legs twice more for good measure.
A good purchase, if she had to say so herself.
She stepped back, breath slightly unsteady.
She was doing this, then.
Leaving.
Leaving everything behind.
Mr. Fitz would help her retrieve her belongings and send them along to where she next decided to settle.
“Look at you, little mouse. You’ve a talent with rope. Where did you learn such a skill?”
She didn’t know if he was being dry or serious, but she smiled sweetly. “I guess you’ll have plenty of time to wonder.”
“The time will be less than you think.”
Calliope backed toward the wardrobe where she quickly retrieved her valise.
The contents weren’t much—a change of clothes, a purse with coins, and some books.
The exact bag she’d prepared for fleeing her old house.
She had hoped she would never have need for this one, but as long as Duvessa was in search of her, she had to be prepared.
Thank stars she was.
Her gaze locked on one lone shoe.
Ah.
The slipper that started it all. Should she take the shoe with her? She hadn’t been able to part with it before, but today she found she could. Let him find the thing. She would not see him—or any of them—again.
“Little mouse, you really think you’re going to get far?”
Calliope sighed and turned to Maxen’s brother and tucked the pistol in her valise. “Far enough.”
“Alone?”
“Don’t sound so skeptical. I have Prince.”
“You are still alone.”
“And what of being alone?” she asked. “I was alone here for three months before I met the likes of you.”
“You still met the likes of me, didn’t you?” He flashed her a grin. “But now you’ve no idea what you’re stepping into.”
“Perhaps, but I know what I’m stepping out of.” She hated how her voice wavered slightly. “I will never be trapped again.”
The beast’s brows furrowed, drawing her gaze to his scar.
“You think we mean to cage you,” he said without humor, cocking his head, studying her.
Calliope shrugged. “Trap. Cage. Tighten the ship. It’s all the same.”
“You’re wrong about that. It’s not all the same.”
Perhaps she was wrong. But, “Let us agree to disagree on this score.”
He simply gazed at her.
She clutched her valise tightly and crossed to the door, every step shadowed by those dark eyes of his. At the threshold, she paused. “Tell your brother whatever you want.” She hesitated, but still added, “And that I’m sorry I was troublesome.”
He gave a low chuckle. “Do not fool yourself into believing that running would make our world better. Running never makes anything better. Trust me, I know.”
She shook her head. “I’m leaving while I still have a say in the matter, still have a chance.”
He didn’t respond, for a moment, she simply stood there, valise in hand, heart in confusion. She had not thought withdrawing from Brighton would feel quite like this. Both an ache and a release. Almost like her moment of departure was about to tear something vital apart.
Regret filled her.
Which was foolish, was it not? But it was also proof she had something to walk away from. So unlike her old home. That, at least, was something.
She cast one last glance at Reaper.
“I don’t belong in your ‘ship.’” Calliope said softly. “Goodbye, Mr. Fury.”
She motioned for Prince, and the hound followed her out, the door closing between them with a final snap. She forced her steps forward, down the narrow passage, through the back exit, and into the dark that always seemed to wait for her—the dark she hated, and knew too well.
*
Maxen shoved the door to Calliope’s shop open with such force the frame’s hinges rattled.
“Calliope!”
No bloody answer.
He’d been right, and the silence only fed his urgency. He surged into motion, boots thundering up the stairs two at a time, heart pounding like war drums in his chest. He didn’t pause. Didn’t breathe. Didn’t think.
He couldn’t.
If he did, he’d remember the way she’d looked at him before walking out of Fury’s.
An expression he hadn’t pieced together until he sprinted to her shop at full speed.
Her look had been different from any other she’d given him before.
One of finality. How the hell hadn’t he recognized the glance?
With each second that passed, the shape of her reaction became more and more clear.
He reached her living quarters in seconds and burst through, and finding no trace of her, strode straight for her chamber, ready to drag her back to Fury’s, to demand why the devil she’d thought she could run from—
Maxen stopped.
Dead.
Reaper sat tied to a chair, arms and legs bound with a length of rope that, at first glance, looked haphazard as hell, yet was also far too competent for a mere shop owner.
“Ah, frère, you’re finally here. I expected you sooner.”
Maxen took in the room with a swift glance, cataloguing every detail in seconds. The wardrobe gaped wide. A pillow lay by the bed for her hound. A travel case—open, empty. And beneath it all, the faintest trace of sweetness.
She was gone.
Her hound was gone.
His growl was lower than usual. Menacing. “Where is she?”
Reaper sneered. “Left about five minutes ago.”
Maxen’s vision narrowed.
Not rage. First, disbelief. That she’d left.
That she’d bound his brother to a chair, walked out, and not looked back.
The thought hit him harder than any blow.
He’d let her go. He’d let her leave with his brother.
Hadn’t stopped her. He’d stood there like a blasted fool.
And for what? Because he hadn’t wanted to let the bloody words past his tongue?
“Saint. Knight,” Maxen barked over his shoulder.
“On it,” Knight returned, already moving.
Reaper called after them, “She might have left through the back door.”
Maxen crossed the room in two strides and grabbed his brother by his jacket. “You let her go?”
“Maxen,” Dagger cautioned.
“Did I?” Reaper cocked his head mockingly. “Hard to stop a woman when she’s got a pistol trained on you. Even harder when she threatens to set the dog on your—well, future bloodline.”
“You think this is damn funny?” Maxen growled. “You could have disarmed her in a second.”
Reaper raised his brows. “Her I could disarm, sure. The teeth of her hound, not so much. Frère. She is not our hostage.”
Maxen let go of his brother, clenching and unclenching his leather covered fists until they hurt.
“Did she say anything?”
“Let me think . . .”
“Reaper.”
“Ah, I remember,” the arse drawled. “Something about never wanting to be trapped again, having been alone all her life, alone in Brighton for three months, and sorry for being troublesome.”
“She said a lot,” Dagger muttered.
“Why the devil did she apologize for being troublesome?”
Reaper gave a half-hearted shrug. “Your mouse was leaving no matter what.”
“This is what happens when you ignore a woman’s questions,” Dagger pitched in with a drawl.
“I bloody get it,” Maxen snapped at his brothers. “Move on.”
“Also,” Reaper said. “Your little mouse said something about leaving while she still had a chance. Still had a choice.”
Damnation.
Maxen’s gaze caught on the wardrobe. Brows furrowing, he stalked over, bending over to carefully lift a very familiar slipper. The companion to the one he still had in his possession.
It was her all along.
Reaper cleared his throat pointedly, the chair scraping forward. “Will someone untie me, please?”
“No.”
“Why the devil not?” Reaper demanded.
Dagger chuckled. “Isn’t it shameful that you haven’t been able to free yourself in the minutes between her leaving and our arrival?”
“How about I tie you up and you try escaping this travesty of looping?”
Dagger scoffed. “I’m not an idiot like you, you clout. Maxen? What do you want to do?”
Maxen clutched the slipper in his hand.
“You’re not going after her, frère?” Reaper asked.
No.
Yes.
Not yet.
He needed to catch his faculties first.
Perhaps this outcome was better. Better for her.
Better for him. Better for them all. Not because she was troublesome.
Trouble, yes, but those were two different things.
He’d rather keep that trouble where he could see it than have any unforeseen danger slip beyond his sight. The latter was far more troublesome.
Dagger shifted near the door. “You’re not exactly the sit-back-and-let-it-be type, brother. I need to know what you’re planning to do.”
“She made her choice.” He only still wrestled with his, torn between hunting her down or letting her escape him.
“She made a choice without understanding the scope of that choice,” Dagger pointed out.
“Agreed,” Reaper muttered, straining against the bindings. “You didn’t give her a reason to stay.”
Maxen’s jaw flexed, his thumb stroking over the slipper. “And if I do? I drag her deeper into this world. Into danger. Into us. Into me?”
Dagger pushed off the doorframe. “She’s already in our world, brother.”
“He’s just stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the truth, like stubbornly refusing to untie me.”
“Reaper is right. You don’t have to acknowledge the fact aloud, but don’t lie to yourself. We don’t lie.”
Bloody hell. Since when was denial lying?
However, somewhere between their first and last meeting, he’d grown used to the idea of Calliope Turner in his life. Not as a mere tenant.
But as something else.
Something vital.
Indispensable.
Somewhere between her stubborn questions and that damned look of finality, she had settled herself beneath his skin. Maxen clamped down on his jaw. He should have answered her. God help him, he should have answered her. The next time he saw her, he would. He rarely ever made the same mistake twice.
He slid the slipper into the inner pocket of his coat, sending a cold do not ask look when Dagger raised his brows. A better man would let her go. A better man wouldn’t be selfish. But he not a better man.
He was a beast.
“Let’s hunt.”