Chapter 27 – Ferrin
FERRIN
Ican’t keep my eyes off her. That’s not new.
It’s been this way since I first saw her.
If she’s not in front of me, she’s in my head.
But right now, I truly can’t keep my eyes off her.
She put on her suit after noticing boats a bit closer offshore and has been splashing and playing in the waves, hunting for fish and crabs, and teasing the birds that curiously keep coming near her.
Her mother texted me, and I reminded her that I’m not with her. That’s how I left it, and I haven’t heard from Sven. I have no clue what he knows and what he doesn’t about my involvement. I don’t like it, though. I don’t like pretending I’m not with her. It feels… cowardly.
I’m hoping it gives me the element of surprise on them.
Either way, a fight is coming for us.
“Come on, Ferrin!” she calls to me, waving me toward her with a crook of her finger.
A wry smile hits my lips. My shorts are wet, and I’m caked in sand. My shoulders are also burning a bit, but who cares? Honestly, this is the happiest I can ever remember being. Everything is light and calm. Even the water and the wind are cooperating with that.
“Nah. I’m good. Enjoying the show.” She’s so fucking adorable, I could watch her watch paint dry or cook or read or garden or whatever the fuck else she likes to do.
“You’re lazy. Come play.”
“I’m not really a play sort of chap.”
“Sure you are, but this isn’t psychological warfare or stealing. You can’t tell me that thieving and killing are more fun than playing in the ocean.”
I smile. “Depends on the moment, but the psychological warfare is for sure.”
“So I’ve come to learn. Fine. I’ll come to you.”
“I prefer it when you come on me.”
She walks over to me, looming over me and mercifully blocking the sun from shining right in my face. “My vagina is on a break from you.”
“Aw, darlin’, but she loves how I play with her.” I snap my fingers in an aha way. “See, I do play. And I’m rather good at it.” I bounce my eyebrows suggestively.
She rolls her eyes and wiggles a finger for me to sit back. I drop my hands into the sand behind me and straighten my legs, and she sinks down onto my lap, straddling me.
“Did you ever want to be anything other than a thief?”
“Honestly, I never thought much about it. My father was always in and out of work. He was a day laborer and spent his nights drinking his earnings. My mum cleaned houses when she could get the work and would occasionally waitress to make our rent.”
“You were an only child?”
I nod. “A blessing that was.”
She scoots in on me. “What did you like studying in school?”
“Psychology.”
She smacks my shoulder. “Liar. You did not.”
I chuckle. “No. I didn’t study that. I liked history. And English. I was particularly good at that since it’s my first language.”
“How did you end up in Ireland?”
I brush the wet strands sticking to her face back and brush my finger across the freckles dotting her nose and cheeks.
“My mum had a half-sister, and they sent me to live with her. Only she decided she didn’t want me and shoved me off to the church, which also didn’t know what to do with me since I wasn’t an Irish citizen, but I had no one back in America. They put me in the orphanage.”
Her arms drop onto my shoulders, and I grasp her hips, holding her on me and not caring in the slightest that she’s dripping cold water all over me. “Was it awful?”
“Some moments were worse than others.”
She leans in and kisses me. “I’m sorry.”
I shrug even as that warms my heart. No one’s ever cared about my past, let alone asked about it. “No need to be. It’s where I learned my trade. And how to watch people.”
“In school?”
“Kids there had a lot of issues and were always trying to hide their feelings. I was able to see patterns and tells, and it became sort of a thing for me. Something I was good at. I could read people, even the things they didn’t want me to, and I knew how to work them in my favor. Plus, they were always nicking stuff.”
“What was the first thing you ever stole?”
I work to hide my smirk. “The priest’s rosary.”
Her jaw drops. “You did not!”
“I did. I placed it in the drawer of the asshole who got his rocks off on bullying. He got thirty lashes for it. He was also the first person I killed.”
She covers her face with her hands. “Oh my god. Don’t tell me that.”
I run my hands up and down her back. “He had it coming, princess. Believe me, he did. He was a shit as a kid and a truly fucked-up human as a teenager. The world is better without him.”
She holds up a hand. “I believe you. I don’t want to know more.”
I kiss her neck and breathe in her scent. “What do you like to paint?”
“I started painting myself out in the world, and my mother would throw fits over it and threaten not to buy me more paints. That and books were about all I had, so I started painting myself at the cottage with the chickens or Gerald the feral cat. I’d sometimes paint vampires or fairies since they were in the books she’d get me. ”
I kiss the sweet skin under her jaw. “What do you remember about before you went to the cottage?”
She tenses, but I have to know. It’s important.
Her hands fall to her lap, and she looks down at them. I hold her hips as I shift my body and cross my legs, drawing her up closer. The cold water is keeping my dick in check, but for once, it’s not the only thing. I’ve been thinking about this since last night.
“I remember the woman. Or at least I think I do. She had blonde hair and kind eyes. But she was always scared. Always anxious, and we moved around a lot. I didn’t have friends then either.
She never let me talk to anyone. I remember asking about school once, and she told me I couldn’t go.
She spoke to me in French. I didn’t learn Italian until my mother took me and taught me. ”
Interesting. “Who do you think she was?”
She shakes her head. “I have no idea. I don’t remember her name.
I called her ‘Mother’ in French. I was excited for the festival.
I ate sweets and played some of the games.
But we were there looking for another little girl, and I was most excited about that.
The girl was quite a bit older than I was, but she was my sister, or so the woman claimed.
The thought of having a sister was the best. She said after the lanterns, she’d get her.
Only I never met her because I was taken before that happened. ”
Hmm. Was that woman kidnapping another child? Princess Brea was born sick and is younger than Desta, so I doubt it’s her. And also the fact that she was so excited to meet a potential sibling. This girl has that. But I don’t want to keep going with this. I want tonight to be different.
“You look pretty in purple,” I tell her, running my finger along the strap of her bikini at her neckline. “And so incredibly sexy in this bikini.”
A smile that I have to kiss lights up her face. “I want to get a new dress for tomorrow.”
“I didn’t mean to ruin your last one. You looked beautiful in that too. We’ll stop on the way.”
She shifts. “Do you think it’s stupid to go?”
I shake my head and hold her cheek. “Nah. We’ll be careful. I promise. I was so jealous last night. You were gorgeous, and everyone noticed it. You were supposed to be with me. The girl on my arm, who only talked to me.”
She tilts her head, surprised by my confession. I’m telling her everything. Baring my soul. Soon I won’t have that ability, and I don’t want regrets with her. I’m also waiting for the moment when all of this with me is too much, and she runs screaming from me.
I don’t know when it exactly happened, but I don’t just want her, I need her. She’s tearing me up and shredding everything I had so perfectly set in place. I have the necklace and should be a thousand kilometers away from here.
But there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. Fucking nowhere.
Part of me knew without even having to sample the goods that one taste of her would change everything.
It’d be one of those defining moments we get every decade or so.
Like killing the bully in my orphanage who got his rocks off on hurting the small ones or killing my father in a gleeful moment of triumph after hours of torture.
I knew it would be as gruesome and as spectacular as both those moments.
“I’m sorry I overreacted in the car.”
Her hands drag along my cheeks, and she kisses me. “You’re forgiven.”
I’m a balloon. Something light that floats and is tethered to something holding it to the ground, but in constant peril of popping.
She picks up the bottle of sparkling water sitting in the sand beside us and twists the cap. Only the cap doesn’t budge with her slippery, wet hands, and she works it harder.
A wheezing sound comes from the top of the bottle, and before I can tell her not to open it, she gets the cap off, and water shoots out like a geyser, soaking both of us.
“Ah! What the hell?” she cries, staring down at her body that’s soaked in carbonated water.
“You shook the bottle.”
“I did not! It wouldn’t open. That’s not my fault. I don’t even like bubbly water.”
“Next time ask for l’eau mineral sans gas.”
“Merci. Super helpful right now.”
“Stick with me, princess.” I squeeze her ass and lift her, taking us both out of the sand.
“You mean stick to you.” She laughs only to make a noise. “What are you doing?”
“We’re covered in mineral water. I’m taking us into the ocean to wash off.” She wraps her arms and legs around me, a happy smile on her lips now that I’m done with the heavy questions.
I walk us straight into the water, going deeper and deeper, ignoring the biting cold and her gasp.
I clutch her tighter and dunk us both. We shoot immediately back up, and I take her bottom lip between my teeth, hungry once again for her.
That is, until I feel something move by my legs. Something big and sleek.
“Fuck!”
“What?” she cries, searches the clear water, and climbs up me with a frightened squeak. I don’t have it in me to look. “What is that?”
“A shark.”
“A shark?!”
“That’s what I’m thinking it is, yes.” I can’t see what kind, but I felt the side and movement of the body, and sharks are very common in these waters at this time of year.
Without waiting to find out, I spin and get us out of here, fighting the waves as I run back onto shore.
The shark won’t follow. It’s too shallow for it.
“Holy shit! You could have told me there were sharks. I was in the water all day.”
“Relax. Shark attacks are extremely rare.”
“Fabulous.” She wiggles out of my arms and turns back toward the water. “Oh my god! Look!” Three dorsal fins are moving through the water not far from where we were just standing. She runs toward the shore to watch them go—likely Mako sharks from the looks of them.
But something she said is sticking with me. That piece about how excited she was to have a family in her life. Unease weighs on my shoulders, and I let out a breath.
Tomorrow is going to be dangerous. Despite what I told her, it’s not smart. But I can’t let her miss out on her dream. I also can’t let her get hurt.
More than that, I won’t allow anything to happen to her.
At least right now, I know she’s safe. No one comes down here.
I take another picture of her—a little more than addicted to that as I am to her—then go back to my searches on my phone while she’s preoccupied. I don’t know how I’ll let her go, but what other option do I have? What can I possibly promise her?
She’s sunshine and magic, and I’m… me. A thief. A murderer. She’s a literal princess, and I’m far from a prince.
I need to let her go.
I need to be ready to do that. But I have to make sure she’s where she belongs first. I walk back toward the cave, putting space between us so she can’t hear me. I pull up a number, not expecting it to get me where I want it, but I call it all the same.
“Palace, this is Emily speaking.”
“Hello, Emily. I need to speak to Prince Rowan or King Sebastian. It’s urgent.”
She’s quiet for a moment before she asks, “May I ask who’s calling?”
“No.”
“May I ask what this is regarding?”
“Princess Desta. Trust me, they want to take this call.”