Chapter 41 #3
Bradley’s face heated. “Only to burn them!”
“So you are eager.”
He threw up his hands. “This isn’t about me. It’s how Beau looks at you. Jax, too.”
“And what? You’re jealous?”
“No!”
“Then what are you worried about?” Millie swept across the landing and resumed her climb. No longer trapped against the door, the fresh air felt liberating but empty at the same time. “Men only fight other men if they pose a threat to the object of their desire. And you’re obviously not a threat.”
It was true, wasn’t it? Then why did it sound so emasculating? Bradley chased after her, catching her wrist and turning her to face him. Why did she have to be so infuriatingly obtuse? “I don’t have to desire you to care about what happens to you,” he snapped.
The irritated creases in her brow smoothed with her surprise.
The princess was always so composed, so poised, unless it was to show righteous indignation or impish mischief, that this unguarded expression caught him off guard.
Now her brown eyes were large and doe-like behind thick lashes, her pink mouth parted with her soft gasp.
Bradley suddenly saw her for the young woman she was, not the princess, not the pirate. Brave but vulnerable, like a rose who hadn’t grown her thorns yet. And how he felt compelled to protect her until they did.
Under his hand, the princess’s pulse danced a lively Scotch reel. On instinct, he swept his thumb across her inner wrist once, twice to soothe its rapid beat. “Dirk would never forgive me if I let something happen to you.”
Millie’s expression fell. “Dirk.”
“I’m asking you to be careful is all. Don’t be so na?ve—”
“Na?ve?” She wrenched out of his grip. “Why do you think I asked Sir Roger to teach me chi blocking? I do not suffer the delusion that someone of my stature can overcome a larger adversary through brute strength. To be the One in Ten, I need to be like Fink: quick and sneaky.”
Millie dropped and jabbed him with her knuckles again, and Bradley collapsed onto all-fours. “Like that. Now you can climb the stairs like a dog and see how that feels. Just make sure you wash your hands before you make breakfast.”
As Bradley sputtered, trying to regain control over his body and failing, the princess hoisted her skirts and soldiered up the stairs to Dirk’s room. She did her best to focus on anything but the sorcerer apprentice and the roiling mess of confusion he’d stirred up inside her.
The tower had brightened with the dawn, slants of buttery sunlight from the windows striping the stairwell and dimming the crystals. It bounced off the large pearls dangling from her earlobes and sent flecks of white chasing after each other like cinder pixies. A welcome diversion.
Moments later, Millie rapped her knuckles against the D carved in the wooden door, and a sleepy cerulean luck dragon emerged from his bedroom.
“Huh?” Dirk scratched at his mane, caught himself, and tucked his paws behind his back. His golden eyes widened at the sight of his best friend crawling up the stairs. “Egad! What happened to him?”
“I did,” Mutineer Millie said proudly.
Dirk swirled around Bradley, inspecting him much like a foxhound would an opossum playing dead. “You blocked his chi! Don’t take this the wrong way, Bradley, but well done, Millie. All the huzzahs!”
“Dirk,” the apprentice barked.
“Yes, yes, Grumpy Robes. Hold on.” The luck dragon tapped here and there with his claws, much like he had when resuscitating Sir Roger after his fall. “So why did you happen to him?” he asked Millie.
“He had some concerns about reminding people who was really in charge, so I addressed them.”
Bradley, having regained full usage of his body thanks to Dirk, surged upright with a tirade prepared on his lips.
The princess was waiting for him on the step above so they were at eye level. Before he could react, she booped him lightly on the tip of his nose. If he could turn her morning upside down and topsy-turvy with a few choice words and an errant touch, then turnabout was fair play.
“By the way, that was a very smart thing you did back there,” she said, “substituting ‘food’ for ‘breakfast.’ But you mustn’t be intimidated by a word simply because you think you’ll stumble over it.
I was going to have you work on your Ms today with ‘my mother makes mushy marshmallows malleable in March,’ but now I think we’ll return to those Bs again with ‘bonehead Bradley babbles besmirching bullshit about beautiful buccaneers.’ But after breakfast. I’m starving. Aren’t you, Master Dirk?”
“Like a bear fresh out of hibernation.”
Bradley remained on his step, befuddled, bemused, and his nose tingling most distractingly.
“Fetch Henri from the workroom, would you, Master Dirk? There’s a fellow who certainly needs reminding who’s in charge now and then. He can sing for his sashimi.”
Millie glanced over her shoulder at the apprentice, smirking. If she could handle that grumpy hothead with a simple tap on the nose, she had no doubt she could handle anyone else. But only after breakfast.