Chapter 130 – Flirting with Disaster
Eli
“Eli,” Mara says coolly. “You were going to help Brynna with the inventory so we know exactly what’s humming wrong.”
“I was?” I blink. “I hate that for me.”
“I love it for you,” she returns without smiling, which is how you know it’s not optional.
“Allow me,” Kieran says, all eagerness, and reaches for a case that doesn’t belong to him.
Jace is there before his fingers touch the wood. He doesn’t draw a blade. He doesn’t need to. He simply places his hand on the lid and looks at Kieran with the polite emptiness of a winter field after a fire.
“That one belongs to Brynna,” he says.
Kieran withdraws gracefully. “Of course.” He angles a glance at Hazel’s bow. “And the archer? Does Blackthorn train their sweetest marksman on the best targets?”
It could be a legitimate question. It tastes like a line.
Hazel doesn’t blink. “I train on whatever moves wrong,” she says. “And on what I think doesn’t need to.”
Her eyes flick so briefly to Jace I almost miss it.
Kieran laughs, genuinely pleased. “I like it here,” he declares, as if tasting spice for the first time and approving. “Practical people making an honest living.”
“Salt of the earth,” I inform him. “We lead a simple life here.”
He beams like I’ve handed him a treat. “Will you show me the yard, Eli? I’d love to see where Blackthorn makes legends.”
“Jace makes warriors,” I correct, then put a little spin on the next bit. “Ronan makes law. I make trouble.”
“And miracles,” someone murmurs. I don’t turn to see who. I don’t like that kind of talk.
“I’ll show you around,” I offer, because there’s advantage in setting the stage. “Try to keep up. We walk fast here. There’s always something that needs doing.”
He falls into step beside me immediately, not bothering to ask Ronan’s permission. His guards pretend to continue their efficient ballet of unloading crates, while their eyes track me like I’m a horizon line.
The yard looks like itself. Raked rings, scuffed edges, splintered targets. The Silvercrest set will hate the dust.
Kieran takes it in with a practiced, appreciative air. “I thought it’d be bigger,” he says, and I snort because I’m childish on purpose.
“We keep it humble so it doesn’t get ideas above its station,” I say. “Like some people.”
“You wound me,” he says, but his eyes are dancing. “What’s this?” He points at the throwing board Jace replaced yesterday, the new rings bright and crisp. Knives sit in a neat line on the rail, their handles wrapped in black leather that’s starting to soften to my grip.
“That,” I say, picking one up, “Is where we practice stabbing before we get stabbed.”
My voice keeps the joke. My hands don’t. I weigh the knife, settle my elbow, square my shoulders, let my hip give me the power, and bury the blade a finger’s width from the red-painted center. The thunk is a sound that goes through bone.
Hazel lets out a low appreciative whistle. Jace doesn’t bother to look. Ronan doesn’t need to. He can feel me across a field on a bad day.
Kieran claps, delighted by my skill. “Exquisite.”
“Serviceable,” I correct, flicking another knife. It lands just outside the first. “I’m still learning.”
“From the best,” he says. “Your commander is feared at our borders.”
“Our commander is busy,” I say, as Jace’s head barely tips, wolf-sharp, hearing without indulging. “If you want to flatter him, write it down and burn it as an offering later.”
Kieran laughs again, and it’s not mean and it’s not false. He genuinely enjoys being told no. Probably because no part of him believes he’s truly being turned down. That makes him a dangerous man.
“Teach me,” he says suddenly. “How to throw a knife.” He holds out his hand, palm up. “Unless that’s a Blackthorn secret.”
“Nothing we do is secret,” I say, putting the knife in his palm. “We just prefer not to broadcast our plans.”
I step behind him as if to adjust his stance, close enough to smell something expensive at his collar. I resist the urge to wrinkle my nose. Ronan’s smell is all him and it makes me woozy. This is manufactured and overpowering in all the wrong ways.
Kieran goes very still for a heartbeat, pleased with the proximity, like a cat who’s just realized the lap is for him.
“Chin tucked,” I say, yanking on his elbow until it lines up. “Shoulders square. Hips do the work. You’re not swinging a sword, the motions are entirely different.”
He nods and throws. The knife hits low and drops to the ground after a second.
He tries again. It still isn’t good, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He likes me teaching him more than the actual result, which I file under annoying because I prefer men who hate to lose.
He steps back to the line I’ve been practicing from, looks down at the scuffed mark Jace’s boot left yesterday, and gives me a sidelong look.
“You’re better up close,” he says softly. “I can tell.”
“I’m excellent everywhere,” I say, equally soft, and step out of his space like it never mattered.
Ronan’s presence makes itself known heavily. A pressure on the skin like weather deciding to become a storm. I look over my shoulder. He hasn’t moved closer by a single inch, but somehow the distance is less.
“How long are you staying?” I ask Kieran idly.
“As long as it takes to secure what Silvercrest requires,” he says.
“And what exactly would that be?”
He smiles at me conspiratorially. “Trade routes. Patrol agreements. Continuation of services.” His eyes flick to my mouth and back. “Hospitality.”
“We charge extra for that,” I say.
“I’m very well-funded.”
“Probably not well enough though.”
He smiles, unabashedly delighted with me. “You’re as dangerous as I’d hoped.”
“And you’re a bit obvious.” I lean in an inch. “Word to the pretty. Obvious is boring.”
“Not when you do it wholeheartedly,” he says with a wink. He tips a small bow at me. “If there are any… demonstrations of your powers this week, I’d be honored to observe.”
I bare my teeth in the approximation of a smile. “I’ll see if we can arrange a miracle for the entertainment schedule.”
He’s delighted, which tells me his thresholds are strange and malleable. He wants my attention at any cost. He’ll tell himself my words are benign even when they aren’t. This could be fun.
We walk back to the pavilion where the crates are being written into inventory.
Ronan stands exactly where I left him. He looks like law in a body. When Kieran approaches, Ronan’s gaze lifts from the crates to the boy and slides down him like a whetstone. My breath does a stupid, traitorous thing, as if my lungs think jealousy is air.
“Rooms,” Mara says sharply, already over the potential conflict. “We’ll quarter you and yours in the east lodge.”
“Alpha,” Kieran says smoothly to Ronan. “I look forward to our negotiations and learning more about your pack.”
He glances at me again, last and not least, as if he expects me to bless him. I show my teeth. “Welcome to Blackthorn,” I say in the tone people use to open traps.
He bows with that absurd flourish again, because he can’t help performing for me, and turns away, barking quiet orders that I can tell are efficient and kind. He’s not an asshole. It makes everything worse.
Hazel elbows me in the ribs once he’s at a polite distance. “Fish looks like it wants to be caught.”
“I’m going to feed it bread and thread,” I say. “Tug. Release. Tug. Release.”
Her mouth twitches. “Try not to drown the fisherman while you’re at it.”
“Where’s the sport in that?” I throw the line of my grin toward Ronan like a challenge and a promise both. He catches it without moving. The bond hums low and hot, a wire that runs under the floorboards of my life.
Ronan’s jaw ticks, slow and lethal. I feel it in my bones like the drum before a charge.
Let him simmer, I think, gleeful and sincere. Let the pretty boy shine. Let the gifts hum. Let the wolves want.
None of it changes the only law that matters.
I am his and he is mine.