Chapter 7
“ E lders bless me,” a male voice rumbled.
Emer searched the darkness before her but found nothing. She knew the lack of response was not because she was alone but because whatever it was enjoyed her panic. As she peered into the void, she wondered if even the night was a malevolent entity here.
A soft glow appeared in the distance, accompanied by the rasp of a deep inhale. The flickering embers drew closer, giving shape to the man who stalked towards her. Only the outline of the cloak that masked the man and the soft glow as he took greedy draws from his pipe were visible.
She stiffened.
The air around him felt wrong, his presence was an oily sensation on her skin. As she moved to run, his hand lashed out and planted against the wall of the keep, blocking her path. His other hand, strong and calloused, slammed against her nose and mouth as she began screaming. The impact of her head against the stones caused her vision to spot.
“Careful, lovely, don’t you know there are monsters in these woods?” he purred as he moved closer, pressing his chest against hers.
Blinking away the blur from her collision, she looked at her attacker but found the shadows of his hood still obscured his features.
Even without seeing him, she could feel his leering gaze sweeping over whatever the moonlight revealed.
The hum beneath her skin roared to life.
“All sorts of creatures lurk in the dark here. Witches and Fae folk, Sluagh, nameless creatures, and beasts unknown,” he said, drawing his nose up the side of her throat as he spoke.
She struggled against his hand, her airways blocked, and her panic was rising with each stolen breath. Each gasp she fought to capture was laced with the scent of the herbs he had packed into his pipe. The aroma churned her stomach, and she strained to turn her head.
Clawing at his wrist, Emer felt herself growing faint. With her last bit of strength, she released a strangled cry.
When he finally removed his hand, she drew in the desperately sought air. Smoke quickly swept into her lungs, and she realized too late that he had only released her to blow the toxic cloud between her gasping lips.
Her body protested the invasion and she coughed violently in his grasp.
A deep chuckle radiated from under the darkness of his hood.
“What mischief have you caused for the Elders to place you in my path? It is certainly not a reward for my behavior. So, I can only assume it is a punishment for yours,” he whispered.
Her eyes burnt and her mouth grew wet. His face was next to hers, pressed against her hair. He drew in another deep breath but this time it was not from his pipe.
He was breathing in her.
The horror of it caused another scream to tear through her. He gripped her hair in his fist and pulled it as an angry snarl rumbled from his chest.
“What did you just say?” he demanded.
Emer’s tongue felt thick, and she tried to shake her head in confusion, but his grip on her braid kept her still.
What had she said?
It was only a moment before, but it already seemed far away. She remembered screaming. A scream in the shape of the only name she knew. Calder was many things, but his threats were far less terrifying than the promises that dripped from this man’s lips. Promises that seemed to grow fainter as her dizziness grew.
The man’s hand slipped to her throat and he hummed.
“Fortunate, indeed. I do so love breaking his things.”
A whistle pierced the night and he took a startled step back to scan the sky above them. Emer used the temporary distraction as an opportunity to thrust her knee between his legs. Curling forward, he released his grip in addition to several hoarse curses.
Willing her legs to carry her far and fast, Emer fled. Even as disoriented as she was, she recognized that the much taller man would have no difficulty catching up to her once he recovered, and she cursed her inefficient and unsteady steps. She turned back, expecting to see the man lurking behind but found only darkness.
All manner of relief shattered as she collided with a solid wall, the impact sending her stumbling backward. Pain shot through one of her wrists as her fall halted.
“The sea is the other way, Merrow. Or did you already miss me?”
Calder’s voice should not have given her relief, and yet Emer found herself crumbling before him.
This man who had not laid a hand on her.
This man who had a Lina who loved him.
This man who read Tam Lin.
He was not like the man behind her .
She blinked wildly. Her lids were heavy and her thoughts fragmented.
In her confusion, Calder’s eyes first appeared to be as black as onyx. A heartbeat later, she found them as she remembered—a stormy blue.
They searched hers, the fury in them quickly dissolving into an expression she had not seen him wear before.
Concern.
Calder leaned in, angling his face and bringing his nose to hover near her jaw. The scent of the Aisling root coated his tongue and he jerked back. Gently, he pressed his fingers under Emer’s chin and studied her fearful expression. His jaw worked and he turned his attention to the darkness behind her.
While it was not uncommon for men at the keep to indulge in inhalants, Calder included, there was only one person who smoked Aisling root and only two possible explanations for why her lips reeked of him.
Mother. Fucker.
“What happened?” The concern he felt was entirely absent from his voice.
Emer shook, her fingers curling into his cloak confirming that whatever transpired led her to decide that she was safer with him. It caused a strange ache in Calder’s chest as he watched her process what had just occurred, the extent of which he was still unaware. He suddenly felt responsible for the dull and distant look in her eyes, the same ones that had been full of fire just that morning. It ignited a rage that would only be doused by blood, but the broken way she collapsed into him held him in place.
Dempsey would have to wait.
He moved to reach for her but paused, unsure if his touch would cause more harm. Slowly, he brought his hands to either side of her, wrapping them warmly around her elbows. For the first time, she relaxed into his touch.
“Come,” he said softly, leading her back to the keep.
Although the journey was short, he noted each and every time she turned to look behind her, carefully tallying them. He did not know who the castaway was, but she was a daughter, a sister from what he could tell, a person… and he would break one of Dempsey’s fingers for each time she looked back.
At the entrance to the keep, he hesitated, scolding himself for only then noticing she was not wearing a cloak. He was not ready for his little shadow to be in the light, even if it was only the moon. Removing his own for the second time that day, he thew it over Emer. She would need to remain his shadow until he figured out what to do with her. She swayed from the weight and he groaned.
When she was finally deposited on the edge of the bed, Emer sighed in relief.
She was so very tired.
Calder stepped away until his back met his closed door and just stared at her.
“You.” He paused. “Jumped out the window.”
Emer did not look at him—she did not acknowledge his fury or even the faint hint of surprise in his voice. Instead, she looked around the room, blinking slowly several times as if the scene would change when she opened them next.
“This isn’t my room,” she observed. The effects of the smoke she inhaled still addled her mind and weighed heavy in her body. Someone larger or more familiar with the root would not have been affected so dramatically, but to Emer, the impact was almost immediate.
Calder scrubbed his hands down his face. “How much did you breathe? ”
“Dunno… blew it into my mouth.” She shrugged, wincing at the pain the movement caused.
When Calder rolled his neck to the side in irritation, an audible crack echoed through the space. Unable to remain still, he crossed the room and reached past Emer to a mug on his desk. Emer did not startle at his movement or his nearness, but instead, slowly drew her gaze up until it met his. The gold of her eyes more akin to that of a dying star. Again she blinked slowly as if she was once more looking at something that didn’t make sense.
“Drink this,” he said, pushing the mug of water towards her.
She wrinkled her face and turned away, “I don’t have to listen to you.”
“Want to bet on that?” he asked with a quirked brow.
Emer lifted her chin in defiance.
Leaning down and bringing his nose to hers, he growled, “You need to sober up. So, you can either drink it or you can wear it.” He punctuated his warning by bringing the mug in front of her lips.
“Asshole,” Emer spat as she leaned away from him and snatched the drink.
“Brat,” he hissed back.
Emer brought the mug to her lips and drained the contents, though, at one point, she forgot to breathe and began to cough. Rubbing her temple, she attempted to soothe the sudden ache but her hand was snatched away.
“What the…” Calder croaked.
The sticky warmth that she had noted earlier was not sweat but blood. He tugged at the bloodied strips, and while she tried to pull away, she could not free herself from his grip. Her muscles were too weary and his hold too firm. She turned her face away but winced. The fabric of the cloak was a hot poker against her damaged skin and she fidgeted beneath it.
Shifting his attention from the damage on her hands to her neck he said, “Oh, Merrow, what have you done? ”
He unhooked the clasp allowing the cloak to fall to the bed and reveal the wound he could only partially see before. Calder’s nostrils flared at the sight of her shoulder. Brushing her hair back, he slipped his hand beneath the collar and peeled back the fabric, revealing several deep gouges over the curve of her shoulder and collarbone.
Emer flinched, pulling the damp fabric back over her exposed flesh.
“Did he—” he began to speak, but she stopped him.
She hated the concern in his eyes.
She hated how something about his features was soft and hard all at once. It was his fault she was in the keep, that she had to escape in the middle of the night, and he had no right to feel whatever it was that swam through his eyes.
“It was the tree,” she barked, pulling at the cloak and tossing it at his feet.
She didn’t look at him when she heard his boots move across the floor, nor when he returned and placed a container on the table at her side.
“It’s yarrow. It will fight any infection,” he offered.
Emer eyed the jar with contempt, and while the aches in her body began to grow as the effects of the herb wore off, she could not bring herself to accept the offering.
“I should go to my room,” she said quietly.
When she moved to stand, Calder’s hand came to her uninjured shoulder holding her in place. Still intoxicated, she would have been terrified at how powerless she was if she didn’t feel so heavy.
“You keep saying your room. Nothing here belongs to you, little Merrow. Everything here is mine . And you are going to stay right where you are until that shit is out of your system.”
Emer could only muster a pathetic glare before finally admitting, “I’m so tired.”
Calder crossed his arms as he sat back in the chair by the fire.
“Then sleep.”
“I am not sleeping with you in the room,” she argued. Though, the way her body began to lean made her words less convincing.
Calder let out a derisive snort. This time when his eyes surveyed her, it was not her injuries that held his attention.
“Lovely to know how little you think of me, but I promise, I have a particular taste in the women I bed and one key trait is that they are conscious.”
Heat flushed Emer’s cheeks as she considered all the particular tastes he might have. She laid down, turning so that her back was to Calder and she closed her eyes, willing the room to stop spinning.
After a moment of silence, Calder heard her murmuring something and rose from his chair, leaning over to find Emer’s eyes closed and her breathing slow.
“What was that?” he asked quietly.
“You said, not naked enough for a Selkie. Not seductive enough to be Merrow,” she mumbled.
His eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“I did,” he confirmed.
Emer murmured something else and Calder leaned in closer to make out what she said.
“Say it again, Merrow,” he urged, curious what her unguarded mind might reveal.
A sleepy smile pulled at her lips as she sighed the word once more.
“Liar.”
Only when he was certain Emer was asleep and would not wake did Calder slip from his room.
It had been a long time since he tasted failure. Tonight was a reminder of that failure, which caused a tightness in his throat and bitterness on his tongue.
There were plenty of reasons why he should stay in his room to either get some sleep or watch over his ward. None of those reasons were louder than his need to expel the energy coursing through him. The desperate desire to replace the bitterness with something else.
In the courtyard, he stood quietly against the cold stone. Aside from the men already engaged in their nightly entertainment, the space was quiet. He returned to where he had found Emer outside the keep, backtracking her steps. There was a narrow path of exposed earth along the edge of the wall, and while remaining close had kept her out of sight, it also captured footprints. He quickly found her small boots running along the shadows. Her steps were fast but the footfalls themselves were unsteady, pained from the injuries sustained in the jump.
When the air became thick with the scent of Aisling root, Calder stopped. Bending down, he studied a section of the ground darkened by the burnt herb. His face twisted with disgust, realizing that this must have been where their paths crossed. He could see Emer’s footprints eclipsed by much larger ones that crossed the space to her in only a few strides. When his gaze rose to the wall, his body stiffened.
For a long moment, he denied what he saw. Kneeling down, he lined his hand up to the five crimson smudges. A tiny hand, pressing bloody fingers into the stone; the dirt disturbed from where she had struggled.
Anger ripped through him once more as the scene of what had taken place became clearer.
He was her keeper. She was his to protect. No one should have been able to touch her, and the person who did would need to learn not to reach for what did not belong to them.
He strode back to the keep, winged by darkness and rage.
This was far from over.