Page 23 of Dragons' Bride
Not that I don’t want to curl up into a ball and lick my wounds, but I’m too furious with him to let things drop. Too furious to make smart choices like keeping my mouth shut. I swing my face back toward Quinton and bare my own teeth, though admittedly it lacks the effect the dragon’s snarls have. "You wanted a separation between personal feelings and training, my prince. But let’s be clear… you are the rutting bastard who turned one against the other.”
Quinton snorts and crosses his arms. His silver scales are up like hackles. “Fighting words for a human who can’t even stand.”
"What the bloody hell happened here?” Hauck says as he reaches us. His gaze is serious for once, taking in everything on the deck. Hooking his arm around my waist, Hauck lifts my feet with preternatural ease. A moment later we both discover that unless he keeps holding me, I fall back down to the deck.
Quinton shakes his head in disgust.
Hauck makes a sound with the back of his throat then turns my wrist over to reveal rope-flayed palms. His jaw tightens. “You were supposed to train her, not kill her.”
“She is alive,” says Quinton. “Is she not?”
Hauck rolls his shoulders back, his natural good humor nowhere to be found. “I will take Kit. You, go do whatever the bloody hell you do to cool off. And you do not go near her again until you’ve pulled your head out of your ass. Understand?”
Quinton laughs without humor. “You were the one who wanted this.”
“Not. This.” Hauck’s lips pull back to reveal his canines. “And you know it.”
“Oh, I know many things,” Quinton snarls right back. “It’s you who’s forgotten what reality is like.”
Suddenly Hauck is no longer holding me – because he is busy swinging his fist at Quinton’s jaw.
13. HAUCK
Hauck’s fist connected with Quinton’s face, the force of the impact jarring his elbow. He knew he’d aimed the blow well, but Quinton hadn’t even bothered to block the attack which only poured fuel on Hauck’s anger. His scales rose, the magic inside him singing. The ship was made of wood. Dead wood, but with enough lingering life force that Hauck could make a few vines sprout and wrap themselves around his asshole brother’s legs for the next day. Thorny vines. Let the asshole deal with that.
“Hauck?” The only voice that had the power to draw Hauck’s attention just now sounded from behind him. Taking a breath he turned toward Kit.
“Whatever you are about to do, could you please not break the ship? I don’t know how to swim.”
Hauck forced his breath out slowly, seeing Kit’s point. As satisfying as it would be to leave Quinton stuck in vine-made irons for a day or two, warping the ship’s planking would unlikely bode well for the frigate and her passengers. More to the point, it would do nothing for the one being who mattered more to Hauck than he himself did – Kit.
Throwing Quinton one final glare, Hauck scooped Kit into his arms and headed for the hatch leading toward the cabins.
“When I am the responsible one in a group, that’s a sure sign of things going amiss,” he added over his shoulder. Quinton ignored him.
Issuing orders to have the table moved and a tub delivered to the princes’ dining cabin, which was the largest of the private spaces they had access to, Hauck carried Kit there. The human was little more than dead weight in his arms, her skin too pale. And her palms… Hauck had no idea what had snapped inside Quinton to cause him to torment the girl, but he’d get to the bottom of it eventually. And then he’d beat Quinton into a rutting pulp.
Cyril and Tavias rose to their feet when Hauck brought Kit into the cabin, the seaman with the tub following moments later. There was a brigade of more sailors right behind them, all lined up and passing buckets of seawater from above to fill the tub. The seaman in the front apologizing that the water wasn’t fresh.
Cyril waited until they were gone before speaking. “What happened?”
“Quinton decided to ensure I do not like him,” said Kit.
Hauck hooked a chair with his foot and sat in it, cradling Kit against his chest. She had a glazed look about her and smelled of pain and exhaustion, whatever fight she’d had in her to tell Quinton off now drained away.
“You liked each other well enough last night.” Tavias brought over a ladle of water and Hauck held it to Kit’s mouth to help her drink. She attacked the water greedily, nearly choking on the cool liquid. Quinton must have kept that from her this morning as well.
She flushed slightly at Tavias’s comment, though she couldn’t have still been unaware of the fae’s hearing and sense of smell. There was not one soul on the ship who didn’t know what happened in Quinton’s cabin last night.
Kit cleared her throat. "I guess I got too close. And Quinton, well, I think he wanted to let me know I'm not welcome in his soul. Or maybe he just woke up with gas and was cranky. Who the hell knows.” She closed her eyes. “Or cares.”
Hauck brushed Kit’s hair from her forehead and wondered whether she had any idea how strong she was. How much he valued holding her like this.
Tavias pursed his lips, the scales on his temples rising. Going up to the tub, he quickly summoned a wave of magic, heating the water to a gentle steam before striding out of the cabin.
“Nice trick,” Kit whispered, eyeing the steam.
“Tavias has his occasional uses,” said Hauck.
