Chapter 5
Five
All day long, I convinced myself I had the best of plans to stay far away from Fieran. I was never going to see him again.
That night, he walked into the pub while I was working.
Actually, all five of them walked into the pub. And they were all tall, eye-catching, gorgeous beyond belief. But while they caused a huge stir, Fieran was the only one who had that impact on me. He was the only one I couldn’t tear my eyes away from.
Fieran’s eyes lit up when he saw me.
“Cara!” he called as if we were good friends. “I’m glad to see you again.”
I thought no one could take their eyes off the five of them, but suddenly, every eyeball in the place swiveled toward me.
“Hi, Fieran.”
The five of them seemed larger than life, as if their presence drew all the air in the room. As they took over a table, I made my way over to ask what they wanted. I was keenly aware of everyone watching me approach them.
I went to the opposite side of the table from where Fieran sat, but he was watching me with those striking eyes and suddenly, I was only keenly aware of him.
They ordered a round of drinks.
Fieran leaned back in his chair, an amused smile coming to his lips. “I feel a little strange having the hero of Stonehaven wait on us.”
Gods, the man was loud. I flushed even hotter, if that were possible.
“What’s the story?” Jaila put her hand on my shoulder, smiling at me like we were best friends. She’d been two years ahead of me in school and hadn’t talked to me in years except to tell me I forgot the butter for the bread.
“It’s not important,” I said, cutting off Fieran, who’d clearly been about to launch into the tale. “Let me get those drinks for you.”
I brought them a basket of bread from the back, too, hoping that perhaps Fieran’s mouth would stay too busy chewing for my name to land on his tongue.
When I was talking to a table across the room from them, one of the old men who was there every night asked me quietly, “You met the dragon shifters before?”
“I did,” I admitted reluctantly.
“What are they like?”
“You know, you can ask me questions yourself,” Fieran called across the room.
Well, I could add that to my tally of reasons to believe he had heightened senses. How could I keep a secret from him?
He seemed jovial and amused and maybe slightly intoxicated. Not dangerous. But I couldn’t trust my instincts around him. The Fae—and the dragon shifters had descended from them—evolved to charm and trick mortals. I wasn’t wiser than the rest of my kind.
He certainly had the crowd charmed, even before he said, “If you want a really good story, let me tell you about Cara today.”
I groaned, hid my face with my hands, and then went back to the kitchen for another basket of bread. One clearly hadn’t been enough.
When I emerged again, Fieran was surrounded by a crowd. His friends watched with evident fond amusement as he acted out his little stageplay. “She jammed the shovel into the wyrm’s mouth until it was choking on it. Then it managed to wrench the shovel away from her and crack it in two!”
“I don’t think that’s exactly what happened,” I said dryly.
Fieran met my gaze over the heads of the enamored crowd before he gave me a wink. “You can always trust a dragon shifter.”
“I doubt that very much.”
He scoffed. “You stood valiantly between that wyrm and the school.” Then he raised his glass, and the rest of the pub—always ready for a toast and the downing of the beverage that followed—cheerfully joined him. “To Cara, Stonehaven’s own hero!”
There were murmurs repeating his words, and I felt myself flush hearing my name on their lips.
The last time I’d garnered this much of the pub’s attention, I’d tripped carrying an entire stack of plates, and there had been a betting pool on whether this was the day Humbridge would fire me.
For the first time, I heard admiration while everyone was staring at me.
I bit my lower lip, but I was smiling as I put my head down and went to serve another round of drinks.
Later on, new patrons came in. Well, they weren’t new; I knew them quite well already. I’d served beer to one of their laps the day before.
Herret groaned when I came over. “Where’s Linny?”
“Linny’s on break. You get me.”
“But I don’t want you. Or, to be more precise, I don’t want another lap full of beer.”
“You spill enough of it on yourself; I don’t see what the difference is,” I said sweetly.
“You are the worst server in the history of The Tilted Stone.”
“At least I’m memorable.”
But no one was listening to me anymore. He was focused on something behind me, and the rest of the bar had gone silent.
I turned to find that Fieran had stood. He towered over everyone in the bar as he crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t like how you’ve spoken to her.”
His voice was low, almost soft.
But there was still a ripple of unease that ran through the bar.
“I’m—I’m sorry.” Herret looked around the pub for help, and when none arrived, he looked at me and nodded in surrender. “I’m sorry, Cara.”
“It’s fine.” I smiled at Fieran, trying to diffuse things. “And he’s right. I am the worst server.”
“You are fantastic,” Fieran said flatly, in a tone that allowed for no argument.
“Sure,” I said, because I always had the feeling I couldn’t win an argument with Fieran anyway.
Was I really going to keep arguing that I was terrible?
Though, I could see Fieran’s friends at his table exchanged amused glances, as if he must be really deluded on my behalf if he thought that I was good at this job.
When I brought their dinner out to them, Fieran said, “How much longer are you working tonight?”
“Late. Later than you’ll be here.” There was a flirtatious note in my voice that I heard too late to change, and I felt a sudden rush of embarrassment.
Fieran looked up at me curiously. “Dragon shifters often work at night.”
Beside him, Darien choked. Fieran reached over and whacked him on the back, harder than could be helpful.
“Don’t mind my friends. Scoundrels, all of them. And annoying too,” Fieran said, though I knew he didn’t mean that, given the pride with which he had spoken about them earlier.
I just smiled and set his food down in front of him. I was not going to be drawn into obsessing over Fieran. Especially watching how everyone else was obsessed with them.
What must that be like? To have everyone both afraid of and awed by you?
While I was working, he came up to the bar to try to talk to me. A girl slid in and tried to chat with him. He gave her polite but brief answers and only cursory glances, his attention fixed on me.
I completely lost the plot of what I was trying to do and started inventing tasks like polishing already dry glasses with a cloth. I just didn’t know what to do with myself when Fieran was watching.
I was saved by the need to serve another round to the far side of the room, and I could feel Galin watching me from where he sat at the table with several other farmers.
Galin caught me with a hand at my waist as I turned back toward the front. “I can’t believe what you did today.”
There was an edge to his admiration, too, that I couldn’t quite understand. Irritation, maybe? Jealousy?
“Neither can I,” I said dryly, since Fieran’s version of events was incredible. “I’m not a hero.”
“You’re going to have fun with the dragon shifter before he leaves?” If Galin was trying to hide his jealousy, he was failing.
“No!” I blushed hot, daring a glance over my shoulder. Fieran was intent in conversation with his friends.
“It seems like too good a chance to pass up.”
“Galin, if you ever want to talk to me again…shut up now,” I warned him.
“I’m speaking as a friend,” he told me. When I raised my eyebrows at him, he raised his hands to appease me. “It’s the ultimate novelty, right? When will shifters ever come through our village in our lifetime?”
“Hopefully never, given why they came.”
“Sex is the one indulgence you allow yourself.” Now he was vexed, though trying to hide it; hurt bubbled under his tone. “Never love; you never let yourself love anyone, but you can have sex. So what better situation than with the hot shifter you’ll never see again?”
“You’re doing a great job talking me into it,” I agreed.
His face looked as if I’d slapped him—just for a second—before he said quietly, “If you would just let down your walls, Cara…someone could take care of you. For more than just a night’s needs.”
I doubted that very much. Some of us take care of people, and some of us are taken care of, and rarely do we get to be both.
Galin looked as if he had more he wanted to say, but I cut him off. “I can hear Humbridge getting madder and madder in the kitchen. I’ll be back.”
It was an unusual night when I was more willing to talk to Humbridge than Galin, but I felt flustered by our conversation. Was Galin just trying to stake his claim because Fieran seemed to be flirting with me in front of the whole pub?
I carried out bowls of stew, crinkling my nose—fish stew today, never a favorite of mine—to a table of three nice old men who never complained.
Well, Dredick did eye the fish stew in a way that seemed displeased, but all three of them were widowers and always took supper at the pub together.
“I brought extra bread,” I told them, setting the basket on the table too. I was in no way responsible for the fish stew, but I still wanted to make it up to them.
Fieran’s gaze caught me from across the pub, and I returned his intrusive look for a moment. Halli, the most beautiful mortal girl in our village, tried to talk to him, but he gave her a cursory answer before he turned back to me. I jerked my gaze back away to the table.
“Hendi was just telling us he saw a Nightwalker when he was in Bevest to sell wheat,” Curran told me, in a way that suggested that perhaps Hendi was chock-full of nonsense.