Cassiel released the dwarf and took her arm, pulling her back as he approached.
Draven clutched a long battle-ax, the wooden handle adorned with braided leather and embellished steel. He pointed the two-headed edge at Cassiel. “Don’t touch my dwarves,” he said in a coarse voice. The sea breeze whipped at his dark brown hair streaked with gray. A thick beard framed his squared face, tanned and weathered from life at sea. “If you’re not here for business, then off with you, mate.”
Neither of them replied because dangling from the neck of Draven’s ax was a tassel of charms, three of which were grindylow scales.
“Cassiel,” Dyna murmured under her breath. His hand slid down her arm to take hold of hers and squeezed gently, signaling he noticed them too.
“You cannot cage a phoenix,” he said. “They are nearly extinct because of people like you.”
Draven sneered. Scars marked his thick, muscular arms, left behind by teeth and claws from his catches. Four long jagged scars ran down half his face through one eye, leaving it milky white. “Then it shouldn’t surprise you that I have one, aye? There is no law against it.”
“Well, there should be,” Dyna huffed.
“You’ll keep that woman quiet lest I tan her hide.”
“I beg your pardon?” she snapped before Cassiel could reply.
The poacher glared at her, but a slow smile spread across his dry lips as he scrutinized her. The abhorrent way he looked at her left a clammy sensation on her skin.
“Fine little minnow you’ve got here,” he said.
Cassiel shifted his stance to hide her from the man’s view, his back tensing.
Draven shifted to keep his leer on her. “Well, are you here to trade, mate?”
“The scales,” Cassiel said through his teeth, and Dyna sensed how much he hated saying it. “I will purchase them from you.”
Laughing, Draven crudely tickled the cluster of charms. “You want these wee things? Nearly lost me other eye to get them. I have another offer for you, honest business.” He nodded at Dyna. “I’ll give you one scale for her. I’m in need of a bonnie lass to clean my cabin and to keep me warm at night.”
What the poacher implied struck her as if he’d slapped her. Cassiel’s entire demeanor changed. Something dark and cold filled her mind as the planes of his face hardened into stone.
“What did you say?” he asked, his quiet voice coated in icy wrath.
The poacher grinned, exposing all his teeth. “I want to mount your woman until she knows nothing but my name.”
Cassiel’s eyes burned like silver flames with a promise that blood would spill. He unsheathed his knife, his jaw tight with tension. “Dyna, go.”
She stiffened as his intent washed through the bond. Any reservations he had against bloodshed were gone. He would kill this man.
A group of dwarves and men clambered down the gangplank to join the poacher’s side. A lanky young man with fewer scars, Draven’s same features and contemptible sneer followed behind them.
“Come on then, boy. I could do with a fight.” The poacher widened his stance and readied his battle-ax. His assemblage snickered, taking out serrated daggers.
Dyna clutched Cassiel’s sleeve and tugged him back. “Let’s go. The others are waiting for us.”
But he wouldn’t budge.
“Is there a problem here?” a voice asked.
The unit of Azure Guards who had been inspecting cargo stood behind Dyna and Cassiel with their swords drawn out. The leader regarded all of them with calm brown eyes. He stood tall in his fine regimental coat; dark brown hair perfectly swept back from his handsome face. A brass badge shone on his left lapel with the Azure sigil of an interwoven seven-pointed star.
The dwarves cursed under their breaths. She heard them whisper the name Veron and read the nervousness on their faces.
Draven straightened from his stance. “You needn’t trouble yourself, Commissioner. We were merely exchanging pleasantries, is all.”
“I see nothing pleasant about it.”
The poacher shrugged innocently, leaning on his ax. “Well, there may have been a dispute over the trade of a slave and our nightly endeavors.”
