Chapter Eighteen
Calliope blinked after Maxen as the door leading to the back swung shut behind him. He hadn’t said a word to her before he left. He just gave her a long look, something unreadable flickering in those stormy, dark eyes and a strange connection that slipped away along with him.
Had she said something wrong?
She exhaled, quietly. Not a sigh, precisely. A mere . . . release.
Reaper leaned back in his chair like a man born to slouch and smirk.
He gave the impression of supreme laziness, but she knew, with those sharp eyes, nothing about this man was truly at rest. He was a wolf acting the sheep.
Lord. And he put kissing images in her head, and she quite resented him for that!
Shameless.
“Is it always like this?” she asked him.
Reaper quirked a brow. “Like what exactly?”
“Secrets. Shadowy schemes. Brooding.” Her gaze drifted to the exit again. “Silent storms.”
Dagger arched a brow. “That wasn’t a storm. That was Max being . . . Max.”
“Right.” She tilted her head. “And what, precisely, does that mean?” Max being Max could mean a million things.
Reaper grinned. “It means he broods better than the rest of us. Saint is close second, Knight the third.”
“Serpent comes close.”
Reaper nodded. “But frère has the full ‘smite-your-enemies-and-glower-while-doing-it’ look perfected.”
She had to agree there. “What was he like as a boy?” That, more than anything, piqued her curiosity. What kind of boy became a man like that?
“You should ask him that,” Dagger said simply.
Right. Of course.
It was easy to imagine Maxen as he was now—powerful, unreadable, impossible to ignore.
But she couldn’t picture him with bright eyes and lanky legs.
Couldn’t picture him with scabbed knees or laughing until he hiccupped.
Had he ever laughed like that? Had anyone ever tucked him in at night, or made him hot milk when he was sick, or told him he was loved or adored?
She doubted it.
There was a hardness in him, a kind forged by hellfire and held together with sheer will.
But under that was something bruised. Something buried.
She had glimpsed it in the way he touched his brothers, in the rough tenderness he tried to hide.
And last night, when he’d looked at her like she was something he wanted and didn’t know how to hold onto.
Well, she might have very well imagined that, but still.
What had shaped him? What had hurt him?
What had he lost?
For all his moodiness, the man wasn’t just danger and command.
He was loyalty. He was protection. He was silent storms and deep oceans and things that made her insides ache without reason.
And maybe—perhaps maybe—if she could understand the boy he’d once been, she might make sense of the man who had somehow taken root beneath her skin.
Something familiar in him stirred something within her.
When had he slipped past her defenses? She couldn’t even name the moment. Perhaps it hadn’t been a moment at all, but rather a steady erosion. Every glance, every broody word, every step wearing her down until she no longer remembered where her walls had stood!
She also understood his bone-deep determination to stay one step ahead of danger.
It was the same with her and Duvessa. And the fact that he was a criminal?
Stars, it scarcely seemed to matter. What did it say about her that she felt more at ease here in a tavern full of rogues than anywhere else?
In a den of men the world would name villains.
Did that make her a villain by association?
Hah. If so, she would rather claim that title than the one she’d been born with.
Sorry, Papa. Mama.
This was not the fate they would have imagined for her—their daughter breaking bread with brigands. And yet, somehow, she didn’t think they would fault her for her choices either. She might just have found the place she truly belonged.
Duvessa and her stepsisters would faint dead away if they saw her now. The thought of it brought a smile to her face.
She glanced at his brothers. “What about his stare? Has he always glared like that?”
Reaper flashed his teeth. “What do you think? Of course.”
She nodded. “I thought so.”
Reaper leaned forward. “What mischief brews in that head of yours, petite souris?”
Calliope glanced at the man. “What about his protectiveness? Has he always been this overprotective?”
Reaper shrugged. “I think you know the answer to that, petite souris.”
Dagger chuckled. “Or you can ask him.”
Calliope groaned. “Oh, come on! You lot are impossible.”
Reaper grinned, utterly unapologetic. “It’s a rule. No gossiping about the each other, accept with each other. Certainly not to pretty little mouses he stares at like he’s contemplating feasting.”
Lord. More pictures of kissing flashed in her head. But! He stared at her like that? Her cheeks flushed before she could stop them. “He doesn’t,” she denied. “He doesn’t look at me like that.”
Two pairs of eyes burrowed into her.
Calliope almost threw her hands in the air. “Fine. New strategy. I’ll ask about you instead.”
“By all means,” Reaper drawled, flicking his coin into the air at catching it again.
Calliope didn’t waste time. “Why do they call you Reaper? Is that your real name? Sounds a bit grim.”
He chuckled. “I earned the name.”
“How?” she pressed.
The man stretched, like a cat. “Once upon a time, I may or may not have inspired a rumor that I don’t leave anyone standing when I’ve got a blade in my hand.”
Stars. “Is it true?”
“Now that, I can’t answer.” He winked.
Urgh. She turned to Dagger. “What about you? Is Dagger your real name or your nickname?”
He shrugged. “It’s the one I chose.”
So not the one he was born with. Come to think about it, did they all have the same mother? However, one glance at them and she refrained from asking. The subject might be too personal as of yet.
She glanced at Knight, the silent sentinel keeping his spot behind the bar. One could easily forget his presence. “Let me guess, also chosen.”
He simply shrugged.
Reaper said, “That’s his way of saying yes.”
Calliope leaned back in her chair and studied them. “You’re all the worst with driving conversation.”
“Naturally,” Reaper said easily. “Beasts usually are.”
“They seem to hold grudges as well,” she muttered. She’d hoped to glean a little insight into them, but all she discovered was they were utterly maddening. And their names were chosen by themselves.
Reaper just laughed.
Speaking of grudges, her thoughts drifted back to the slipper she left back in her living quarters.
Had Maxen found it? He would have said something if he had, wouldn’t he? Was Maxen even his real name?
*
Maxen closed the door to his chambers with a soft click, though the sound rang in his ears like a gunshot. He didn’t move. He just stood there, breath held as if exhaling might crack the threadbare grip on himself he’d managed to drag upstairs with him.
He had almost kissed her right there and then.
In front of his brothers.
He yanked his shirt over his head in one rough pull, the fabric sandpaper against his skin.
He needed it off. The shirt hit the floor with a muted rustle.
He rolled his shoulders. The old wound on his side pulled tight.
He rubbed a hand across his chest, the leather oddly soothing over the slashes that served as reminders of darker days.
Every word, every syllable of her voice dug into him.
He braced his hands on the edge of the desk.
The blood in his veins pulsed far too fast in his neck, and the skin beneath gloves itched. It was one of those days when all the scars on his body throbbed. Usually, they were triggered by phantom memories crawling along his bones. This time, only her face filled his head.
Damn Reaper.
The man was a blazing menace.
One by one, finger by finger, he peeled off his gloves. He only ever took them off when he was alone. Removing them also felt like laying down a weapon. He tossed them on the desk and stared down at his hands, flexing them once. Twice.
Scars mapped his skin, ridged in certain places, red and twisted in others, a patchwork of burns and cuts and memories he had no wish to keep.
Tattoos that covered most of the obvious ones.
Most days, he forgot they were even there.
But today, they itched. Itched like the time they were still healing.
He flexed again, watching the burn scar that cut across his palm like a jagged grin.
What the hell was he doing?
With a growl, he dropped heavily on the edge of the bed, his elbows braced on his knees, head bowed.
Too much.
Everything was too damn much.
The fires. Serpent’s injuries. The unanswered questions stacking higher by the hour.
And her.
Bloody hell, her.
Calliope Turner had appeared in his world like a storm, and now she was wearing trousers tight enough to drive a man like him to prayer and had the grace to take space in his tavern as if she’d always belonged there.
She didn’t. She couldn’t.
Except, she did fit. Too well. Too damn easily.
And she wasn’t afraid. Not of him. Not of his brothers. Not even of what Brighton could do to a woman like her. He rubbed at his face, dragging his hands down until his fingertips pressed into the muscle of his neck.
He needed sleep. A plan. Instead, all he could see was her. The way she’d spoken to his brothers. The light in her eyes when she challenged him. That smile she wore like a weapon—sharp and bright and utterly undoing.
He cursed under his breath.
She shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t be involved. Shouldn’t be looking at him like she saw something worth seeing. He didn’t have the space for softness. He never had. Not since—
He clenched his fists. No. He wouldn’t think about that now.
He got up, paced the room once, then went to the basin in the corner and splashed cold water on his face. It did little to clear the fog.
What did she see when she looked at him now that she didn’t believe he looked so “terrifying?” Still a beast? A monster?
He didn’t know. He wasn’t sure she did either.
And yet she returned without a fuss.
She made him forget. That was the danger. When she was near, things quieted. Enough to make him want more of what the devil would surely tear away from him later. And more was not something he could afford in this life of his.
Someone knocked on the door.
He turned, body tense, already half-reaching for the blade at his waist. No one ever knocked. Not that soft.
A note slipped under the door.
What the bloody hell was this now? He moved to pick it up and unfolded it, scowling.
Careful.
No name signed.
Who the devil would have the audacity to warn him to be careful? No one. No one with intentions he trusted. But whoever it was had reach in Fury’s, where he employed several boys and a few others to see to the daily necessities.
Maxen didn’t enjoy their flair for theatrics, whoever it was.
His fingers started to itch again.
He flicked the note onto his desk.
The itch over his scars intensified.
He was always careful. And thorough. And cautious. So excessively cautious, he made caution itself seem a reckless pursuit. He needed to vent. He reached for his gloves when another knock on the door came.
His eyes narrowed as he straightened. Was it another damn note? At this rate he would have to flog every boy in his employ.
But to his surprise, the door pushed open.
Calliope filled the frame.
Maxen froze. By God, she looked soft. Inviting. And those damn trousers.
Her gaze dropped—first to his bare hands, then to his bare chest. He saw realization dawn on her face as she took in all his scars.
Her eyes flew wide. “I-I’m sorry . . . I don’t know what I was thinking. I shouldn’t have just entered like this.”
He let out a rough sound. Not quite a laugh. Not quite a grunt. He couldn’t even find bloody words.
“Your gloves,” she said, gaze flicking back to his hands. “You’re not wearing them.”
He flexed his hands, a reflex, resisting snatching his gloves up and tugging them on. “Not in my room.”
“Ah.” She hesitated, then stepped forward, only a pace, shutting the door behind her. Prince hovered behind her like a pale shadow, his head turning toward Maxen, watchful.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Maxen said.
Her eyes lifted to meet his. “I know.”