He stood, moving toward the window, tugging the curtain back an inch to glance at the street. “Something to that effect.”
Should she even ask?
Let’s not.
“Peregrine brought you here.”
She hadn’t expected that. “You even know this?” Brighton truly wasn’t as big as she thought. “He only happened upon me and offered help.”
“He’s dangerous.”
Had she imagined it, or had his hand tightened on the curtain before he let it fall? “You’re all dangerous.”
“Not to you.” He turned to her. “You are who I protect.”
How was that not supposed to terrify and melt her at the same time?
*
Maxen stepped outinto the morning and lit a cigar, sucking deep, the pull raking his throat, sharp and unforgiving. He blew out slowly, smoke curling into crooked forms before dissolving. Unlike some ghosts. The blackguards who clung on.
Bloody hell.
He’d never told that story before. About finding Drake half-dead with drink, about dragging his brothers home one by one, claiming them as his. Not even to his brothers, who were the story.
He dragged in another breath, puffed out a billow of smoke.
She’d probably already crowned him a “good man” despite his words to the contrary. He rolled the cigar between his fingers. Some truths were his alone.
“Well, cock on a duck, you only ever light one when you’re worried. Are you worried,frère?”
The voice came from the shadows beside the building. Familiar. Dry. A little too amused.
Maxen didn’t turn. “I’m not worried.”
Reaper stepped forward, arms folded over his chest, his coinconspicuously absent. “Then why are you smoking?”
“Habit.”
“Liar.”
Maxen sneered and tapped ash to the side. “I have things to think about.”
“You mean worry about.” Reaper nodded back to the inn. “She kick you out?”
“No.”
“She coming back?”
Maxen nodded. She and the hound were having a quick breakfast. He didn’t have any hunger in him to join them. Peregrine had yet to show his face. He’d havehimfor breakfast, if he could. The vulture must have already heard they’d taken root in his establishment. The man was annoyingly well-informed.
Reaper leaned against the wall beside him. “Knight says you tore nearly half of Brighton apart looking for her.”
“An exaggeration.”
“Drake said you nearly took off the head of the manager.”
“He was in the way.” And he had given him options. Tell him Calliope’s room, or he’d go through them all. The man had chosen wisely.
