Chapter Ten #2
She shuddered, an outright wail wracking through her. My arms tightened reflexively around her back even as I searched for Caelan over her shoulder. I met his eye, a horrible, heavy dread pooling in my stomach when he shook his head, face grim.
“He’s been found,” said Caelan.
Ciara sobbed harder.
“Oh gods,” I whispered. “Oh Ciara, I’m so sorry.”
The three of us stood there for a time, Ciara crying into my shoulder until her sobs faded into hiccups and uncontrollable shivering.
She let me guide her to a table and settled there numbly while I went to seek out my cousin and fetch a sugary cup of tea for Ciara’s shredded nerves.
When Sorcha and I returned, Caelan was sitting at the table with Ciara, his large hand completely engulfing hers while he spoke to her, his low and earnest words met only with distant nods.
Caelan stood at my approach.
“A word, Rosie?”
He inclined his head as he stepped back towards the front entrance, and I followed. I shut the door behind us, and when I turned, Caelan was dragging a broad hand down his face.
“What happened?”
Hearing my own voice tremble was a surprise to say the least. I hadn’t known Johnny McAlpine beyond a warm greeting as we passed each other in the market, but he was well-liked throughout Stormsby – and his daughter’s heartbreak was hard to watch.
Ciara had always been kind. A little bit older than me, she’d been someone I looked up to growing up.
When I returned to Stormsby after my mother took ill, she’d greeted me like an old friend.
Later, when Magnus and I were mourning, she’d closed down her family’s stall and forfeited sales to be there for our mother’s wake, and again just a few months later for my father’s.
But if I was honest with myself, it wasn’t just Ciara’s grief that struck a chord.
Fear had a grip on me and my Flame had retreated from its insidious shadow, the rapid pulse of my heart seeming to echo in the absence of the familiar warmth.
Perhaps it was loud enough that even Caelan heard it because in the next moment he had closed the gap between us and wrapped an armoured arm around my waist, his free hand coming up to cradle my face.
Heat came rushing back to my chest, and I closed my eyes against the sudden shimmering wave of it.
I laid my head on the cool steel of his chest, revelling in the relief for just a moment.
“What happened?” I said again, and felt Caelan’s bristled jaw drag against my hair as he shook his head.
“I can’t say much. The McAlpine girl reported her father missing last night, and Brennan began the search. My platoon found him this morning.”
“And you think–”
My throat tightened, cutting off my own words. Caelan didn’t wait for me to gather myself, but his voice was just as tight as my own.
“What I think is that I’ve been instructed to investigate any sign of a dangerous escapee.”
“And that’s what this is, isn’t it? First Tanner, now Johnny McAlpine–”
“Rosie.” My name was sharp on his tongue, but he caught himself with a kiss to my crown, squeezed me tighter in wordless apology. He spoke a little softer; “I can’t talk about this. Not while their deaths are under investigation.”
Well feck right off then, I thought to myself.
It was all very well for the Kingsmen, wasn’t it?
Armed and strong in their numbers, guarding each other’s backs as they patrolled our petrified village.
Meanwhile, we mere mortals hid away in our homes and establishments while our friends were abducted and murdered, and we could do little but cower in the dark for days on end.
I sniffed, nettled and struggling not to show it as I untangled myself from his grasp and stepped back, arms crossed once more as my Flame pressed forlornly against my ribs, pining for him already.
“Then what did you want me for?”
“Don’t be like that.”
“What did you want, Captain?”
Caelan gave a long-suffering sigh and mirrored my stance, armour creaking as he crossed his arms over his steel-clad chest.
“I have to head back out to search the McAlpine lands. The girl–”
“Ciara.”
He paused, inclining his head with exaggerated, irritable acknowledgement.
“Ciara, then. She needs a bed for the evening. My room has been empty recently, she could have it. If you think you can tolerate my company for another night.”
“Fine.”
I turned to go, but Caelan went on even as I stomped away.
“Keep a tab open and the crown will cover anything else she needs, meals or –”
“I’ve got it,” I snapped over my shoulder, still walking.
He raised his voice, that stretched patience finally pulling taut. “Rosie.”
I’d made it to the entrance, had just curled my fingers over the handle when Caelan caught me by the elbow and whirled me around to face him.
The decision to thaw for him wasn’t a conscious one, but when he caught my jaw in one hand and tilted my face up, my chest was alight within a split second.
I met his lips without a shred of hesitation, as naturally as taking a breath.
It was fucking infuriating to be betrayed by my own body like that.
So much so that I couldn’t help but press an edge into my kiss, my teeth dragging at his lip, my fingers twisting and tugging the thick hair at the nape of his neck.
He met me with equal verve, backing me into the door so it rattled in its frame with the ferocity of our kiss.
When we broke away to drag deep gasps of the cold Stormsby air, he brushed a thumb over my chafed lips.
“You can be angry at me,” he panted, each word unfurling in a white gust of frozen breath.
“I know I can,” I shot back.
A grin ghosted over his lips, scar tugging.
“You can be angry at me,” he repeated more firmly, “but let’s leave each other with angry kisses over angry words. Deal?”
I stared coldly up at him, letting him sweat for just a moment even as the heat of my magic roared and crackled inside me. Then I rose on my toes and whispered; “Deal.”
I gave his lower lip a sharp parting nip and darted swiftly back as he hissed on an exhale, smoothing a thumb over the bite.
“Fuck’s sake.”
I grinned and he shook his head, fighting a reluctant smile of his own.
“Later then, Rosie.”
“Captain.”
I offered him a mocking salute and a final smirk before I slipped back inside.
???
I could only assume our slow afternoon was a sign that the news of Johnny McAlpine’s death had spread.
Not even Roy had made an appearance, for perhaps the first time in years.
But for once I was glad for the stillness of the tavern.
Sorcha and I spent the afternoon sitting with Ciara.
Listening. Coaxing her to eat little bits of bread and sip on tea.
After a time, we relented to her insistence on drowning her sorrows for just a few hours.
We watched her get carefully and methodically drunk, and by the time the sun set, she was ready to lay down to a dreamless sleep in the Captain’s old room.
I, on the other hand, slept barely a wink that night.
I stayed up for the Kingsmen’s return. I made love to the Captain, blisteringly slow and edged with an odd sort of ache I couldn’t quite name. And when he eventually fell asleep, I lay beside him for hours drifting in and out of shallow dreams.
In the darkest hours of the night I found myself suddenly and acutely awake. The moment my eyes flew open, I had the sense that something had woken me; a noise or a flicker of movement. My heart was racing, the glow of my magic poised in my fingertips, ready to ignite some unseen threat.
But with every second of silence that passed, the heat in my hands ebbed until the drowsy grip of fear finally faded into the still night, and I turned on my side to face a sleeping Caelan. My Flame gilded his handsome face, its glow pulsing when my heart gave a foolish little flutter.
I had known the last few days were wearing on him, but to see him now, entirely unguarded and at peace, it occurred to me just how much tension he normally carried in his brow, his jaw, even in his scar, which was so often pulled taut against a frown.
With his features relaxed, it seemed fainter; barely there at all.
I reached out absently to trace the smooth skin with my fingertips – and cried out when Caelan’s fingers suddenly snatched my wrist.
His eyes had blown wide, the green of his irises almost acidic. Bewildered and alarmed, he dropped my wrist and brushed his fingers over the spot on his face where he’d felt my touch.
“Shit,” he breathed. “I’m sorry. I don’t–I thought I–are you alright?”
“I’m fine.” I managed a shaky smile. “Just got a fright.”
“I’m sorry,” he groaned again. He took my hand in his and brushed a bracelet of kisses to my slightly pink skin.
“It’s my fault,” I said, though I turned my arm in his hands to give him my inner wrist and suppressed a shiver when his lips pressed to the sensitive skin there. “I was just…”
I trailed off, feeling suddenly sheepish.
His mouth paused against my skin – then resumed with one long, lingering kiss to my palm before he laced our fingers.
“Curious? About my scar?”
I nodded wordlessly, and he tucked our bound hands to his chest.
“I’ve had it so long I s’pose I forget it’s there sometimes.”
“How did you get it?”
Perhaps asking was not the done thing, but it seemed the natural progression of such a conversation held in the quiet twilight hours; something that might only be asked when we were both naked and half asleep, on equally vulnerable footing.
When he didn’t answer at first, I thought we might both pretend I hadn’t asked at all. But then he sighed and pressed another kiss to the back of my hand; it was becoming a nervous tic.
“After my parents died, my sister and I became the responsibility of the King’s state. It was not a glamorous life. Particularly for young women.”
He spoke haltingly; with difficulty. I squeezed his hand and tried, gently, to help him find the words.
“For your sister?”
He nodded.