Chapter Sixteen
Calliope never thought she’d set foot in the tavern again, yet here she was, still a bit dazed. How could she not be?
You are who I protect.
An intoxicating declaration. The last time she’d felt such a rush was when she’d found Prince as a pup.
Only back then, she had been the protector.
She hadn’t declared her promise so loftily, though.
But then, she wasn’t Maxen Fury. She had come to an irrevocable conclusion, or rather finally, fully accepted the one already there.
She didn’t want to leave.
Not her shop.
Not Brighton.
And not—ahem—well, just not.
So here she was.
Prince padded beside her, his presence reassuring.
The fact that he calmly accepted this den of beasts without a growl or howl alone felt like a kind of sign.
Dogs growled at people they didn’t trust. People who threatened their territory.
Bad people. As though they could sense the intentions behind the person.
Prince hadn’t once growled at Maxen. And if the hound could sense something in Maxen Fury worth trusting . . . maybe she could, too. Granted, not everything. But enough.
Hah.
What would the big, bad beast think if he learned he wasn’t so big and bad and beastly after all?
“Where are all your brothers?” she asked as Maxen led her to a door leading to the personal rooms.
“Out on business,” came his simple reply.
“Is one of them still missing?” Calliope asked, recalling this matter.
The front door slammed open before he could respond.
Calliope jumped, her heart leaping violently.
Her hand brushed her trousers, as if to reassure herself she was still disguised, still someone who might pass unnoticed.
Maxen moved at once, pivoting with feral quickness, shoving her behind him.
The sudden menace in his body—the sheer readiness of his actions—sent her pulse racing for all the wrong reasons.
Two figures stood in the doorway.
One bore a jagged scar slashing down the side of his face; the other sagged against him, badly beaten. Stars, blood was dripping from his head to his ripped shirt.
Calliope grabbed the back of Maxen’s coat.
“Found him,” the scarred one said.
“What the bloody hell happened?” Maxen demanded.
“Run into a bit of trouble,” the bloodied one said hoarsely.
Calliope blinked, her mind scrambling. This must be the missing brother. Yet she didn’t recognize either man.
The pair staggered to the bar, the scarred man hauling his brother over, keeping him upright by sheer force. Maxen surged forward to meet them, and with her hand still holding onto his coat, she was yanked along before she could even blink! She released him at once, heat pricking her cheeks.
He stopped short, turning back. “Calliope?”
She waved him off. “It’s nothing, go help your brother.”
He hesitated, torn, his hand flexing as though he might reach for her, but he turned to meet his brothers.
“How bad is he, Drake?”
“Don’t know,” the one with the scar said. “We need to get him to his bed.”
“I’m bloody fine.”
“Serpent,” Maxen said low. A warning.
What a strange name.
The one called Serpent looked at her. He didn’t so much as blink. Didn’t smile. Didn’t ask who she was. He just stared.
Calliope shivered.
“Found him in a heap two streets over,” Drake ground out. “Pair of cutthroats dogging his heels. Devil’s own luck I chanced upon him when I did, or he’d be finished.”
Serpent grunted.
Maxen turned to her. “Upstairs. Now.”
“What happened?” Calliope asked, voice rising.
“We’ll talk later.”
“Maxen—”
“Go.” He paused. “Please.”
She hesitated, but one look at Serpent’s blood-covered body and Drake’s unreadable stare and she made a decision. “No. Whatever it is, I can help.”
Maxen turned slowly, dark eyes flaring with more warning. “Calliope—”
“I am not made of porcelain.” She crossed her arms. “I’ve seen blood.” Duvessa had often beat the servant girls in a fit of rage, and Calliope had always helped patch them up. “I’ve seen blood, tended wounds, stitched flesh. Do not mistake me for something breakable.”
Serpent groaned, swaying slightly. “Let the chit help if she’s so eager,” he muttered. “Or I might bleed out just to spite you.”
Maxen gave her a long look before giving a single, curt nod. He joined his brothers, slipping beneath Serpent’s other arm to take the weight across his shoulder. Together they half-hauled, half-carried him forward. “Upstairs. Second door on the left.”
She nodded, already moving. “Come on, Prince,” she called, though the hound was already shadowing her steps, nose twitching at the scent of blood. She led the way to the designated room and held the door open for them. The men helped lower their brother carefully to the bed.
Serpent let out a raw groan when his body hit the mattress.
“Where does it hurt?” Maxen asked.
“Every-bloody-where.”
Calliope stepped up to the bed while Drake retreated to lean against the doorframe, arms crossed, jaw clenched.
“We need to clean and wrap the wound,” she said, concerned.
“I’ll go get what you need,” Drake said, then disappeared.
“Who did this?” Maxen asked softly.
Calliope almost flinched. She’d never heard his voice that soft before.
“Don’t know,” Serpent muttered through clenched teeth. “Got jumped. Escaped.”
Drake returned, and Calliope launched into action. She took the water from him and filled a basin. He handed her a cloth, and she soaked it thoroughly before she knelt by the man and started wiping the blood from his face.
Maxen dropped to his knees beside her and reached for the bloodstained shirt, but Serpent stopped him. “Don’t.”
“Serpent.”
“Just see to my head. I need that more than anything else. I’ll do the rest myself.”
Was that an attempt at humor? It utterly failed!
Maxen withdrew his hand with a curse.
Within minutes, she had cleaned the worst of the blood from his face. As he showed no tolerance for their tending elsewhere, she didn’t venture further.
Her gaze flicked to Drake. “Your lip is cut.”
“I’ve had worse.”
Maxen stood and crossed to him, reaching up to grip his brother’s chin before Drake could stop him.
“It won’t scar,” he said firmly.
Calliope’s gaze dropped to the scar splitting Maxen’s lip. Had his injury come about the same way—just another day in the life of a Fury? She couldn’t look away.
Drake pushed his hand aside. “It’s nothing. More concerning is that the men who trailed our brother dearest had the same shaved heads as the one who broke into your Miss Turner’s shop.”
Shocked, Calliope shot to her feet. “What does this have to do with me?”
“It seems,” Drake said. “That whoever is behind these assaults has taken an interest in my brother’s interest in you.”
Well, that sounded ominous.
Serpent hissed as he drew himself upright. “We’re being provoked. Someone’s testing our reach. Seeing how far we’ll go. How far they can go.”
Stars, this truly was the stuff of criminals!
Maxen scowled. “Power. They want to topple ours and seize their own.”
“Did Peregrine say anything to you last night when he escorted you to the inn?” Maxen asked her.
Peregrine? Did they suspect him? “No. Does he have something to do with this?”
“Uncertain,” Maxen said.
Calliope let out a slow breath. This all had been rather unexpected. “I think I shall retire to my room if you could point the way.” Better to grant them space. Serpent’s other wound would need tending, and she doubted he would allow it in her presence.
Maxen nodded, escorting her from the room. “Thank you.”
She glanced up at him. “You’re welcome.”
Behind them, Serpent groaned again. “If you’re going to start kissing, warn me first.”
Maxen scowled at his brother before leading her and Prince away. And for the first time since she’d set foot in Brighton, Calliope didn’t feel like she was running anymore.
How long would it last?
*
Once Maxen had seen Calliope and her hound to her room, he stalked back down the corridor toward his brother’s chamber.
He wanted to kiss her.
That inappropriate thought landed like an even more inappropriate brand in his skull. The impression simply wouldn’t be removed. He had never wanted to kiss anyone the way he wanted to kiss her. The way she’d helped clean his brother’s face without flinching, how could he damn well not?
He sneered at himself. Him. Wanting to kiss a woman because she’d scrubbed gore from his brother’s face?
No doubt he was losing what little sense he had left.
Most men were attracted to the flirtatious shenanigans of women.
Him? He was apparently aroused by competence and the stench of iron. Charming.
His lip curled higher.
A kiss. As if he could be trusted with something so simple.
He’d ruin her. And still—curse and damn it all—he wanted.
He wanted until want clawed at him like starvation.
Was it lunacy to want to stick to her side?
Undoubtedly. Fortunately, his brother’s state took precedence, sparing him a test he was bound to fail.
When he returned, Serpent was half-dozing while Drake worked over him, binding a cut that slashed across a chest already ruined by old burns.
“You can go,” Drake said without breaking focus. “I’ll stay with him.”
Maxen hesitated.
“Get some rest,” his brother insisted. “You probably didn’t get any sleep last night.”
Whether he’d be able to do so now remained to be seen. “I’ll be in my room if you need me.” He gave Serpent one last glance, jaw tight, before he turned away. The door shut softly at his back, and he made his way toward his chamber—just beside hers.
No sleep for him.
A soft voice drifted from her room as he passed. He didn’t mean to stop. And he certainly didn’t mean to lean closer. But he did.
“I know he means well,” her muffled voice carried through the door, soft but clear enough for him to catch.
Maxen froze.
“But stars, Prince,” she went on, her tone turning wry, “the man could scare a storm off the sea just by frowning.”
Maxen’s brows drew together. Was that how she saw him?
Then came a soft chuckle. “I don’t think he means to look like that. I think he just . . .” Her voiced dipped and he couldn’t catch the last. He leaned in, and caught again, “But then he . . .” another dip, “and suddenly he doesn’t seem quite so terrifying.”
What? What did he do, exactly, to seem less terrifying?
“He still looks like he eats danger for breakfast,” she added.
Now that was just bloody absurd.
A throat cleared behind him. Loudly.
Maxen snapped upright, head whipping to the side.
Reaper stood a few feet away, arms crossed, both brows raised.
“I wasn’t spying,” Maxen muttered instantly in a hushed voice, caught off guard.
“I know,” Reaper drawled.
Maxen nodded, stepping away from her door. “Good, then.”
“You were eavesdropping.”
Damnation. He glared at his brother. “She was talking. I thought she might need something.”
Reaper grinned. “Did she ask through the door?”
Maxen turned away, annoyed at getting caught doing something so foolish.
Reaper followed. “You’re turning all red.”
“I’m not.”
“Oh, you are.”
Maxen swore under his breath. “Go look in on Serpent and Drake.”
Reaper snorted but mercifully didn’t argue.
Maxen ducked into his room, resisting the absurd urge to slam the door behind him like some ill-tempered brat. He let his back rest against the wood, then pressed a hand to his chest.
Ah, yes. He drew the slipper from his pocket. What to do about this?
Talon’s had seemed the perfect place to confront her, but he hadn’t been able to convince himself to bring the matter up.
Crossing to the small chest on his desk, he flipped the lid open.
Inside lay a lone dagger—their family blade, each brother had one—a faded ribbon that had belonged to his mother, and the mate to the shoe in his hand. He set the slipper beside its match.
So she thought he looked terrifying.
He stripped off his coat and tossed it to the chair.
A man didn’t survive the gutters by appearing approachable.
Fear was useful. Fear kept knives from slipping into his back, kept enemies second-guessing.
Terrifying had kept him alive. Terrifying had kept his brothers alive. But that word from her lips?
Maxen dragged a hand down his face. Perhaps it was absurd being bothered by what she thought of him, when half the town already quaked at his name.
Restless, he left his room again and made his way downstairs.
He’d go mad if he stayed in his room, next to hers, hunting for any and every sound from that side of the wall.
Knight looked up from his spot behind the bar. “Drink?”
Maxen nodded.
His brother poured him a glass of bourbon and pushed it over.
Reaper sidled over. “Your face is still red, by the by.”
“Say another word and I’ll relocate your jaw.”
Knight raised a brow at them.
Dagger pushed through the entrance. “We’ve got a problem.”
Maxen tipped the content of his glass down his throat in one go. Could a man not get a minute of peace? “What kind?”
“Warehouse in Newhaven. Another fire.”
Maxen stilled. “Ours?”
Dagger nodded.
Damn it.
Knight set out more glasses and filled them.
“Anyone hurt?” Reaper asked grimly.
“Not badly,” Dagger said, snatching up a glass and draining the contents. “Seems to have happened the same time as the Ashford fire.”
Maxen wanted to kill someone. “And the goods?”
“Gone.”
Knight and Reaper cursed.
“I’ve had enough of this damn shite,” Maxen growled. “We’ve been betrayed.”
Dagger’s face turned dark. “Are we riding out?”
Maxen nodded. “Bring Saint. Knight and Reaper stay here. Drake’s with Serpent. We need to keep this ship tight.”
If someone was starting a war, they’d chosen the wrong bloody empire. And if they touched one hair on the woman upstairs . . .
Well.
They’d see just how terrifying he could be.