Chapter 6 #2
“Oh, are we in the habit of explaining our doings to mortals now?” Maura was leaning back in her chair, with one leg thrown over the arm of the chair.
She wore black leathers, including a tight corset top that clung to her curves, and she had incredibly long legs.
Her arms were bare above the leather bracers on her forearms, exposing colorful tattoos.
She also wore so many knives that I couldn’t count them from here.
She looked like a goddess, untouchable and unearthly. For a split second, I dared to wonder what it would be like to be her. To be one of them.
“You’re going looking for the rip,” I repeated, and then, remembering what he had said the night before, I added, “and then you’ll set traps for any monsters that come through.”
“Gotta make sure those games are exciting,” Dairen muttered.
“That’s right.” Fieran was still looking at me with that knowing expression, as if he knew something I didn’t.
Was it that I needed a favor?
I’d come here to beg for one, but maybe I could soften him first by serving their cause. “I know the land around us. Can I help?”
“No,” Maura answered before he could. “Mortals are the opposite of helpful. As you might have noticed, given you were nibbled on by a wyrm yesterday.”
Asrael reached out and nudged her. “Let her come.”
“It’s not up to you anyway,” Fieran told Maura, who scoffed.
“It’s not every mortal who wants to go toward the kind of danger we face,” Anayla noted. “How novel.”
She gave me a smile that I couldn’t read.
“You can come,” Fieran said, pulling the chair back next to him. “But first, eat. That’s not negotiable.”
So I went and sat, feeling strangely thrilled just to sit down at the table to a meal with the five of them.
Fieran threw me a beaming smile and kept his hand on the chair back. Delicious tension teased over my skin having him so close.
It was too easy to imagine how last night could have felt if I hadn’t run away to hide the mark. His big, calloused hands sliding under my skirt, teasing over my thighs, parting them with the muscles in his powerful arms rippling…
I forced myself to look away from him and take in the rest of the room.
I’d never had a reason to be in the lodging house dining room before. There was a fire burning away in the fireplace, logs settling and throwing sparks in an occasional orange shower. The chairs were mismatched but comfortable, the room cozy.
The old wooden floorboards creaked as Louise carried in dinner.
She made one trip after another, delicious scents wafting in with her: baskets of crusty, fresh bread, soft butter mixed with herbs, roast chicken, vegetables sauteed in butter and garlic, red tomato and crisp cucumber salad, baked potatoes, pork cooked in a thick, sweet plum sauce, tomato-dill soup with dollops of cream, a pitcher of ice-cold lemonade, and another of beer.
I knit my hands in my lap, suddenly distracted by the food, even when Fieran was next to me.
No one else seemed to share my eagerness to tear into the meal, so I made myself wait patiently, my mouth watering.
We’d eaten far better since Lidi’s magic bloomed, but the hungry days after my father died seemed to haunt me.
There were still so many things we couldn’t afford, like the elaborate cakes and chocolates and occasional ice cream in the village store.
I always found the money, one way or another, for sweets for Lidi’s birthday, and I always lied that I didn’t even like them so she wouldn’t hesitate to eat them all.
Maura was watching me across the table. When I looked up, catching her eye, she gave me a thin, knowing smile, her beautiful eyes narrowing, that made me feel uneasy.
“You look at these rolls like Fieran looks at you,” she said, picking up the bread basket and passing it toward me. “Grew up hungry, did you?”
“Maura,” Fieran’s voice was full of warning.
“I have,” I said, determined to be able to hold my own. There was nothing in my simple life to be ashamed of. “We’re doing better now. Thanks to my little sister’s magic.”
“And that horrible job you have at the pub?” Fieran clearly disapproved. “I hope that pays well, because it does not seem fun.”
“That horrible job you do at the pub?” Maura asked. “I heard some of the complaints.”
If she was trying to strike at my insecurities, she was chasing the wrong rabbit.
“I am terrible as a servant,” I admitted with a laugh. My gaze dropped to the table and the platter of steaming pork. My traitorous stomach rumbled audibly, and if I could hear it, no doubt the shifters could as well.
Fieran grinned too. “Meant to be a queen, I suppose.”
“And, Fieran, I hate to tell you, but just because a job doesn’t pay well doesn’t mean it’s any fun. The opposite usually, actually.” I regretted the words as soon as I said them, because I could sense their pity.
“Well, your job prepared you to use a shovel with alacrity I’ve rarely seen among the shifters.
” Fieran looked so relaxed and amused as he picked up one of the serving platters that I felt my bristling ebb.
He didn’t seem to feel sorry for me. “So it can’t be all bad.
Is this pork in plum sauce? My favorite.
Do you think we should keep it to ourselves? ”
“Don’t be a greedy bastard,” Maura said, leaning across the table to skewer a piece off the platter as he tipped it toward my plate.
He pushed an outrageous amount of meat onto my plate, then stabbed a piece and popped it into his mouth.
He closed his eyes as if with pleasure as he chewed, and when he opened them, he half whispered, with a guilty look toward the kitchen doorway, “It’s not as good as home, but it’s decent. Try it.”
I grinned, feeling at ease with him, and began to shovel in food.
He replenished my plate with complete disregard for the size of a mortal stomach.
He and his friends resumed their easy banter, but I could’ve sworn his gaze kept flickering toward me, and when our gazes met, he looked almost… fond. Pleased, maybe.
I felt heat color my cheeks, and I didn’t know why.
“Ready for the sweet course?” Louise bustled in, carrying a trayful of sweets. The scent of sugar and vanilla came with her, and I inhaled deeply. Even though I was full, my mouth watered.
“We have to get on patrol,” Maura told her, pushing back from the table.
I let myself hate her for a moment as everyone else began to rise, but I pushed my chair back.
“When we return,” Fieran told her, then stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. The heat of his fingers burned through fabric into my shoulder, and I was too keenly aware of his tall, powerful body, of the broadness of his chest at my eye level. “You’ll have to come back with us after. Promise?”
“Fieran has an embarrassing sweet tooth,” Anayla teased him with a grin.
“I’m not embarrassed.” Fieran’s eyes crinkled at the corners in a way that was disarming. “I know what I like.”
His gaze met mine, and for a split second, I could barely breathe.
I’d grown up thinking the forest at night was death, and yet I felt like if I walked into that darkness with him at my side, I’d be truly alive.
It was foolish, but I didn’t want to go home. I wanted to follow him into the night.