Chapter 14
PRUDENCE, MAYORAL CAMPAIGNS & WATCHING IN THE MIRROR
MAYORAL CAMPAIGN HEATING UP!
Several prominent Crow’s Nest citizens have registered their candidacies with the Election Commission during the last week.
With the field getting busier, will it bring an actual competitive election this time?
Or will Mayor Fowler run away with it, like the other five times?
What issues are the Nesters going to prioritize?
Will stability above progressiveness reign once again?
Watch this space, and watch the polls.
—Crow’s Caw
Pru blinked at the not-so-veiled accusation of her father being an antithesis to progressive ideas.
Once again she wondered at the voice behind the Caw, and once again she found herself torn between family loyalty and her firm belief that a change of guard was necessary.
The world was changing too quickly, and her father…
Well, he was changing with it, but maybe not in the same direction as Pru would’ve wished him to.
She set the newspaper aside and looked at the barista.
“It’s coffee, Seren, not holy water, I don’t know if it will help.”
“Unless a demon is chasing you, coffee will be of a lot more help. The way you look…”
A moment or two later a tall mug of milky brew was set in front of her.
Pru sighed and wanted to dunk her head in it.
She had not slept a wink. After leaving Rhiannon in her apartment, she tracked down Patches, who was once again gazing adoringly from under Boleyn’s window at her sweetheart.
The cat showed no signs that she was aware Patches existed.
Pru no longer had that issue. Rhiannon was very much aware of her. The bruises on her behind would probably remind her of said existence for a few days. Pru closed her eyes and allowed the memories to overcome her. It had been…
Glorious.
She had no other word for it. To see Rhiannon take down Lisa before completely surrendering to Pru… She gulped, choked on her coffee, scorched the roof of her mouth, and then promptly dropped the mug and the remaining contents all over her hands.
Seren was at her side in a heartbeat. With a swift look around to check if any of the patrons of Crow’s Brew were paying attention to the commotion, she grabbed Pru’s scalded hands and whispered a short incantation.
Pru heard the end of it: “…I will it so.” And before she knew it, her fingers were bathed in cold vapor, cooling down the burning skin, washing away the sting of the spill.
With a subtle wave, Seren vanished the wet sensation and was back behind the bar, making another cup before Pru could even blink.
When Seren set a replacement cappuccino in front of her, Pru reached out and laid a hand on a tattooed forearm.
“Thank you. I…I don’t know what to say.”
Seren shrugged, all nonchalance, but her eyes were warm when she shook her head.
“You’re one of our own, so what is there to say?”
Pru considered her words.
“Did Ceridwen tell you?” Then she scrunched her nose and reached for bravery. “Did Rhiannon?”
Seren’s smile was kind, as if she was breaking bad news to a child.
“Ceridwen asked me to keep an eye out, is all. You’re learning, and it’s not always smooth sailing.”
The fact that she sidestepped Rhiannon entirely was an answer in itself. And why would Rhiannon even bring her up?
“Was it smooth for you?” Desperate to change the subject, to not allow her anxiety take over, Pru forged forward. It’s not like she didn’t care about the topic. The power of water was fascinating, and Ceridwen mentioned it was one of the most difficult ones to master.
“It was and it wasn’t. But I was never alone while learning. Growing up with a twin, one with a directly opposite element of mine was, shall we say, interesting? Everything was a competition, school, magic, girls.”
Seren grinned, and Pru blinked. She knew the younger Crowhart was objectively attractive, but this? With mischief playing in her deep aquamarine eyes, Seren was irresistible, and Pru could swear she could hear a patron swooning to her left.
She had known Seren for most of her life.
The quiet Crowhart. The silent one. One of the few professional firefighters on the island, now that it had a permanent station, she also ran her small yet crazy popular coffeehouse.
Tucked in an alley to the side of the Town Hall, just off Market Square, it offered the option of privacy and exclusivity that patrons couldn’t get at the Rooster, the older and more touristy place.
There were rumors about Seren’s conquests, but Pru never gave them any credence. Until now. Whatever that smoldering smile was, it was criminal. Heck, Seren probably had outstanding arrest warrants galore.
And speak about women definitely and permanently banned from places for being too beautiful…
“Are you flirting with Prudence, Seren?”
Pru sensed her before she heard either the doorbell ring announcing the new customer or the words.
The sly, teasing, tantalizing words, spoken in that low seductive tone.
Pru closed her eyes and counted to three.
When she opened them, Rhiannon was sitting on the barstool next to hers, the flowing dark blue skirt touching Pru’s white summer slacks.
She felt that touch in her bones, in her sinew.
It was like her knotted muscles suddenly uncoiled.
She could breathe. The sounds and the scents all around her became louder, sharper.
“Seren wasn’t flirting.” Even the sound of her own voice was different, deeper, stronger.
“I very much was, but I guess I wasn’t doing a very good job at it.” Seren set a cup of what looked to be a latte in front of Rhiannon and winked at Pru. The woman sitting at one of the tables just behind them gasped. Pru smiled. Rhiannon rolled her eyes.
“You are a menace. And you are out here menacing people, sister of mine.”
“Just making coffee. Another day in paradise.”
But Pru could hear the tiny note of distance in Seren’s voice when she spoke to Rhiannon, and for some reason it saddened her, her tired heart thudding painfully in her chest.
“You left yesterday, Prudence.”
Out of all the scenarios that Pru ran through her mind while tossing and turning all night, Rhiannon tackling the issue head-on did not feature at all.
Rhiannon, who fled from conversations, who avoided anything resembling sensitive subjects…
just forged right ahead and laid the stick of dynamite on the table. Or, well, coffee shop counter.
“I…I came back an hour or so later. Ah… I had to get Patches. She could’ve… ah… I don’t know.”
Pru ended on a rather pathetic note, her brain devoid of any and all plausible explanations.
How was she to talk about being so overwhelmed by Rhiannon’s surrender, so utterly blessed to have been allowed to cause it, to witness it, that she did not want to see the aftermath?
Rhiannon falling apart was one thing. Rhiannon talking about said falling apart, discussing what had happened? That was an entirely different subject.
“You thought I would be uncomfortable had you stayed.” It wasn’t a question. Rhiannon didn’t seem to need her to actually answer, so Pru just nodded and took a sip of her quickly cooling coffee.
Rhiannon set her palms down on the counter, and for a moment Pru was mesmerized.
Long fingers, translucent skin, rivulets of veins transcending it.
Prominent knuckles. Hands of someone who used them, who worked with them…
To feel those hands on her… Pru immediately choked on her mouthful of lukewarm coffee yet again and covered her face with her palms.
“Sorry, sorry… I’m sorry.”
“Are you sorry for not letting me reciprocate?” The Devil’s voice was so close to her ear.
“Or for imagining me doing it right now… Because I can do it, you know. Pull you closer, slide my hand in your panties… Would I find you already wet, Prudence? I think I would. I think you are wet as we speak, imagining what I’d do.
And I’d do so much. I’d start by fingering your clit so softly, barely a touch at all—”
“Prudence, daughter!”
The loud greeting of her father made her jump a foot in the air.
This is not happening!
“Mayor Fowler! How nice to see you again!”
Rhiannon’s sticky-sweet tone was back, and so was her father’s fake smile. Even his voice was permeated with it.
“I saw a truck unloading boxes in front of the Atelier, Rhiannon. Getting more stock?”
“Oh no, some personal effects. You know how life is, one tends to accumulate so much, books, diaries. I can’t say I am looking forward to going through all those things and deciding if I want to keep something or set everything alight in a big bonfire.”
Rhiannon waved her fingers in a dismissive gesture that didn’t quite deliver on its message. Her father’s too-cheerful reply grated on Pru’s nerves just as much as the little wave.
“Ah, but we do prohibit those, and what kind of mayor would I be if I didn’t advise you against arson?” He guffawed, and Rhiannon’s smile did not reach her eyes.
Her father moved on to shake hands of the patrons sitting closer to them and then limped toward Prudence to give her his usual sideways hug.
“I thought you patronized the Rooster, Father.”
Pru was very proud of how steady she sounded.
Because nothing about her was steady at the moment.
She didn’t think she could ever be steady again.
Not with Rhiannon lifting her fingers to her face, tracing her own lip, tapping it, then biting it, slowly, as if Pru’s essence had been there and she was now savoring it.
This woman would be the death of her. But oh, what a way to go!