Chapter 15
Spencer returned to the Ferret’s Mott with sand still clinging faintly to his boots and a problem sitting heavily in his chest. He disliked both things equally, the latter more so.
The pub was beginning to wake properly now, the quiet calm of early morning giving way to the slow build of conversation, clinking glasses, and movement.
Someone was already arguing over breakfast near the bar.
Somewhere upstairs, something crashed, followed immediately by a voice yelling, “I MEANT TO DO THAT.”
Normal. And comfortingly chaotic. Spencer stepped inside the pub, pulling the door shut behind him and seeing his brother in a corner booth. Mark looked up immediately from where he sat nursing a coffee that smelled strong enough to strip paint.
“There you are,” he grunted. “Thought the sea finally claimed you.”
“Disappointingly, no.”
Mark eyed him for a second. Spencer ignored it, because he was very good at ignoring things… usually.
“You look weird,” Mark decided.
Spencer sat opposite him. “That’s rich coming from someone who sleeps like a dying walrus.”
Mark narrowed his eyes. “Deflection noted.”
Spencer reached for the untouched mug waiting for him. “You’re awake early,” he said instead.
“I sensed judgment in the universe.”
“That’s just your personality.”
Mark snorted faintly, but he kept watching his brother. Which was unfortunate because Spencer knew exactly what he looked like when something had gotten under his skin. And unfortunately, something absolutely had this time.
He took a slow drink, buying himself a moment, thinking back on the encounter, he hadn’t lied to her. He genuinely had wandered onto that beach. Only now he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
The woman with purple hair standing at the edge of the sea like it had all the answers… Spencer stared into his coffee.
Seventy percent.
That was where he was sitting. He was seventy-percent sure she was the missing heir.
Which, under normal circumstances, would have been enough. More than enough. He and Mark had acted on less before.
But this… this wasn’t sitting cleanly. Because she hadn’t reacted like someone violent or unstable. Or dangerous in the way the brief had described.
She had reacted like someone cornered. Like someone who knew exactly what he was the moment she saw him, and had immediately started calculating survival.
Spencer exhaled slowly.
“You’re doing it again,” Mark said.
“Doing what?”
“Thinking loudly.”
Spencer gave him a flat look.
Mark shrugged. “You get this line between your eyebrows.”
“I do not.”
“You absolutely do.”
Spencer ignored him again. Which was becoming difficult because his own thoughts were already loud enough. He noticed ridiculous things now.
Unhelpful things. Things that had absolutely no relevance to the job whatsoever.
Like the freckles scattered lightly across her nose. Or the way her hair changed in the sunlight, not just purple, but shifting subtly with the light, catching flashes of lilac and silver beneath the darker strands.
Or… his jaw tightened slightly.
Her skin. Because for one brief moment, when the sunlight had caught her just right, he could have sworn he had seen scales.
Not fully visible. Not even obvious. Just the faintest shimmer beneath the surface and gone almost instantly.
His fingers tightened slightly around the mug, and he didn’t know if that had been just his imagination because maybe he wanted her to be the missing heir now. Not for the bounty, not even for the job, but because he needed the uncertainty resolved.
Needed to understand why the sight of her had lodged itself under his skin so quickly.
Mark leaned back slightly, studying him.
“You met someone.”
Spencer nearly choked on his drink.
“No.”
“That’s not a denial.”
“It literally is.”
Mark grinned. Spencer hated when he did that.
“You’ve got the look,” Mark continued smugly.
“I do not have a look.”
“You do now.”
Spencer rubbed a hand across his face. “This conversation is over.”
“Oh, it absolutely isn’t.”
Spencer glared at him and Mark looked delighted.
Unfortunately, Spencer couldn’t even properly argue because his mind was still back on that beach. On her expression when she’d seen him.
Fear first, followed quickly by calculation, and then control… she had hidden it well.
Most people wouldn’t have noticed the shift. Spencer had thought because he’d spent his entire life around predators pretending not to be predators, he recognised survival instinct when he saw it.
That was the real problem, not whether she was the heir or whether he could complete the job. But whether he wanted to, because deep down, somewhere beneath the logic and training and years of taking contracts without hesitation, something felt wrong about returning her.
The thought settled heavily in his chest. He stared out toward the window, jaw tight.
If she had run and had hidden herself for years then maybe there was a reason.
The more Spencer thought about the Smokeclaw clan, the more he remembered the way the women never spoke freely. The way the men carried anger like inheritance. The way the envoy hadn’t once referred to her as a person. Only as obligation, an asset, one that needed to be returned immediately.
His instincts curled sharply at the memory, it was wrong, but a job was a job and Spencer had built his life on one very simple rule:
Finish what you started.
Especially when the stakes were this high.
He and Mark had earned the retirement it promised.
Hadn’t they?
Mark’s voice broke through his thoughts. “You’re spiralling.”
“I’m evaluating.”
“You’re emotionally evaluating.”
Spencer looked horrified. “Take that back.”
Mark barked out a laugh.
Spencer scowled into his coffee, because maybe, annoyingly, his brother wasn’t entirely wrong.
Something about her had shifted the balance and Spencer didn’t know what to do with that yet.
Did he return her to the people she’d clearly feared enough to flee from? Or did he walk away from the biggest bounty either of them had ever seen?
Neither option sat comfortably. Which meant, inevitably, things were about to get messy… and Spencer hated messy.
Especially when it came wrapped in purple hair and freckles and eyes that had looked at him like he was the start of another nightmare.