Chapter 14 A Blacksmith’s Understanding of Female Anatomy #2
The blacksmith circled his finger in the general direction of Sybil’s stomach. “Get too close to the fire, sweetheart, and your baby makin’ bits will”—he mimicked a small explosion with his hands—“poof. Burn right away.”
“Pardon me!” There her fists. There her poker-straight spine and bloody beautiful indignation. “My… my baby making bits are none of your concern!”
“I happen to agree,” Apollo said.
“You stay out of it.” Now she was rounding on him with a stubbornly set chin and narrowed eyes.
“I think I’ve done my job here.” Apollo made for the door.
“Get back here,” two voices called out at the same time.
The combatants agreed on something at least.
With a sigh he hoped reached the indifferent ears of whatever deity had so far looked after his fate, he returned to Sybil’s side and leaned close enough to whisper in her ear, “He could squash me between two fingers.”
“Coward.”
“Self-preservationist. Besides, you’ve just acted rather cowardly yourself. Glass houses and whatnot.”
“I’m not… I cannot… you do not understand.”
“Would tha two of ya stop chatterin’ away and get out!” the blacksmith bellowed. A bit of his spittle landed on Apollo’s sleeve.
Right. He could only take so much. “I do not believe we’ll come to any agreements, Sybil. We’re leaving now.”
She seemed about to argue, but he dragged her toward the door. “We’ll figure something else out. Don’t give up your plan, give up the route blocked by a beefwit blacksmith.”
She allowed him to escort her outside, where he lifted her up into her saddle then mounted himself.
She didn’t flirt or bat her lashes. She didn’t attempt to prolong their contact.
She only set her gaze at the end of the road with the firmest jaw he’d ever seen.
Those shoulders—thrown back and squared—not just for keeping balance.
She rode a horse like she’d been born in the saddle, but more impressive than that—she wore determination, purpose, like it was the air that kept her living.
And… hell…
He’d never seen anything so exquisite.
They rode all the way to Foggy Hill in silence, again, and when he helped her down, she took off on her own two feet, gaze fixed on something he couldn’t see.
He jogged after her, caught up in a few steps, and swept her up, set her atop a bench near the stable door. She gasped but didn’t fight him, perhaps because he knelt on one knee so quickly before her.
And stripped her of her stocking. Unwound the thin strip of linen wrapped around her foot, which he set on his thigh. He stroked his thumb down the sole of her foot.
Her healed foot.
A small, silver scar there, but no open wound. He’d needed to know, to be sure.
“Does it hurt?” His voice like a growl.
“N-not anymore.”
He pressed his thumb into the scar.
She hissed.
And when he tossed her over his shoulder, she was silent for a shocked second.
And then she wasn’t. “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded. “It only hurts a tiny bit!”
“I think it’s rather obvious what I’m doing.”
“Put me down! You’ve seen I can walk on my own.”
He had. He just… didn’t want her to be able to. Not yet. He paused only briefly before the front door, a stutter of a step revealing that truth. Then he opened the door and plopped her onto her feet (one bare) in the entryway.
“Stay here.” He backed out of the doorway.
“Where are you—”
He put his finger on the tip of her nose, and her eyes crossed as she looked at it. “Stay here.”
Then he slammed the door between them and headed back to the stables. It took less time than before to find his way to the blacksmith’s forge, and this time he didn’t waste time knocking.
The blacksmith looked up from his anvil, a staff of iron glowing hot in one hand and a hammer heavy and raised in the other. He dropped the staff’s hot end in a bucket of water. “What the hell do you wa—”
“Listen here, cretin. You’re going to give me every single one of your tools. Now. And a cart in which to carry them.”
The blacksmith laughed, putting his hammer down and stabbing the blade into a nearby bucket of water where it sizzled. “You’re mad.”
He was mad. He had no power to beat this man, not physically or socially. He had no money and few connections, nothing of his own but for a tattered book filled with his grandmother’s handwriting and pressed flowers and herbs. He had the clothes on his back and several deals with the devil.
He also had a glorious woman, beaten but not defeated and for one hour of his cursed life he could give her the one thing he had—himself.
Cowardly and lying. Untrustworthy and selfish.
Apollo marched across the forge, reached into the water bucket, and retrieved the cooling staff of iron, not yet fully formed into its destiny.
It was still hot, but he was ready, and when it was held between him and the blacksmith, he reached for his heat.
It came quickly, readily, as if the days spent in the magnifying room had settled heat against his skin like sunbeams against glass.
The metal blazed to life, and Apollo shaped it swiftly, intuitively, sliding it between the fingers and thumb of his opposite hand.
Too curious or too stupid to be wary, the blacksmith watched him, was caught off guard when Apollo put the sharp, burning point of a newly honed sword against his neck. The blacksmith’s skin scorched until he remembered it didn’t have to, and his heat rose up to protect him.
“You’re safe against the heat,” Apollo said, “but not against a knife’s edge.
You do what I say, or I slice through your throat and simply take all the tools myself.
But if you help me, you can have your life and, perhaps, a favor from London.
Better tools. I’m related to the Royal Alchemist, and I have trained in the Master Alchemist’s forge.
Give me these old tools and receive better.
Or…” He pressed the tip of the blade harder against the blacksmith’s artery.
“Fine!” the blacksmith yelped. “Fine! Just take ’em!”
“Glad to see you’re so practical. I do appreciate a solid sense of self-preservation.” Something he seemed to have lost in the last half hour.
But whatever his loss, Sybil had gained.
And he was rather uncomfortable with how that made up for just about anything.