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It was nearly pitch-black in the alley behind the shops and restaurants. Damien ran his free hand along the brick until he came to the first door in the row. He felt the surface, possibly looking for a window, and tried the handle before continuing down the alley.
“Damien, we’re just getting closer to them.”
“Shh. Keep listenin’,” he whispered, trying the next door.
I listened, but all I heard was a horde of drunk sailors, my own heart pounding in my ears, and the sound of me failing to walk quietly in Damien’s massive boots.
By the third shop, it took all the courage I had to keep going. My throat had gone dry, my legs trembled, and despite the evening chill, a trickle of nervous sweat rolled down the length of my bruised ribs. Every step we took closer to the hell we’d just escaped from made me want to scream and run in the opposite direction, but I trusted Damien’s instincts more than I trusted my own. He was the only reason I was still alive—a fact I had to repeat over and over in my head to keep from bursting into frightened tears.
The muffled rumblings of male voices grew louder as Damien approached the fourth door, and I knew we had to be close to the pub that they were drinking in. Panic gripped me, and I dug my feet—still warmed by Damien’s socks and boots—into the pavement, pulling him back before his fingers could graze the handle. Damien turned to face me, and as he did, the ground shook with the sudden blast of a bugle being played at full volume over a loudspeaker. A series of long, proud notes punched through my chest, filling me with even more dread. I didn’t know what the song meant, but it felt like a victory cry. It was proof that no matter where I hid, they could find me, and they could terrorize me, and I was helpless to stop it.
The voices inside the building grew louder and were accompanied by the sound of glasses breaking and heavy wooden chairs being shoved across a floor. I clung to Damien’s arm with both hands, listening as their shouts and grumbles spilled out into the street. But soon, their voices faded away, and on the last bugle blast, long and loud, Damien pulled out the gun he’d taken from the encampment and shattered a small window on the back door as quietly as possible.
By the time the last shard hit the ground, the trumpeting stopped, and all was quiet in Wexford again.
“They play that before lights out,” Damien whispered, reaching into the black hole and unlocking the dead bolt inside. “A few patrolmen will have the night shift, but the rest will be tucked away inside the ship until sunup.” He tried the handle, and the door cracked open. “As long as we’re quiet and don’t turn on any lights, we should be safe until then.”
Safe until sunup. It wasn’t much, but eight straight hours without fearing for my life sounded pretty damn good after the week I’d had.
Tucking me behind his back, Damien stood to one side of the door and opened it slowly in case a hail of gunfire was about to come pouring out. When the coast was clear, he entered before me, broken glass crunching quietly under his extremely graceful bare feet. It sounded like firecrackers under mine.
After closing the door behind us, Damien raised his gun and whispered for me to stay put. So, I stood in the dark as he disappeared down the hallway, realizing once he was out of sight that the pistol he was carrying might have been unloaded. He’d shot so many bullets during our escape from Howth.
Shite.
Pulling the sleeves of Damien’s jacket over my hands and crossing my arms over my chest, I tiptoed down the hallway behind him. Up ahead, I could see that it opened into a large room with a wall of windows that let in enough light from the streetlamps to actually see what you were doing.
I wished Damien had let me keep that knife. Anyone could be in—
A hulking silhouette appeared before me, so suddenly that I ran straight into its hard, bare torso. He smelled like the sea and my father’s favorite whiskey.
“Damien!” I whisper-shouted, slapping him on the chest. “Ya scared the shite outta me!”
His answering chuckle rumbled through my bones. Deep and velvety, it was the most comforting sound I’d ever heard.
“You’re never gonna believe where we are, angel.”
Angel.
I smiled.
Damien took my hand, and the sensation of his warm, rough fingers sliding between mine sent a flush up my neck and into my face. Tiptoeing behind him into the open room, I realized that we were in some sort of restaurant, but it wasn’t a pub. Where the bar would have been, there was a counter instead. A glass counter, the kind you would see in a—
“A bakery?” I squealed as quietly as possible.
Glancing over his shoulder at me, Damien beamed, and for the first time since we’d met, it was more than just his eyes that reminded me of the fairy boy from Darby Donovan’s books. A lock of disheveled black hair grazed his eyebrow, a spark of mischief ignited his smoky stare, and beneath all that dark stubble, a hint of a dimple gave me the overwhelming urge to find a mossy wood to run through just so that he would chase me.
I was so happy, so … overwhelmed with relief that I returned Damien’s grin before breaking into a sprint. I darted across the seating area, weaving my way between the tables as I headed for the counter. My ribs and back ached with every step, but Damien’s bare feet on the tiles and his soft laughter behind me were a balm that could heal any wound.
I couldn’t remember the last time someone had played with me.
“It’s all mine!” I whisper-giggled, stopping in the small pass-through on the side of the counter and turning to block his path.
But Damien didn’t stop. He stalked toward me with hungry eyes and a sinister smirk that made my knees go weak. I suddenly felt very naked, standing there in nothing but his blazer. Needing to defend myself, I grabbed a handful of forks off the counter, but before I could throw them, Damien charged. He grabbed the backs of my thighs and lifted me off the ground, plastic cutlery flying in all directions as I threw my arms around his neck to stabilize myself. His gun dug into my hip. His breath warmed my exposed throat. His hair found its way between my fingers. And when he set me down on the counter, his body settled between my parted legs.
Still clutching my thighs, Damien held my stare as our chests rose and fell in rapid unison. I wanted to kiss him again, but it didn’t feel right, not now that I knew I was only a charity case to him. My chest ached as my vision grew dark around the edges and the room began to tilt.
“Clover?” Damien’s voice sounded echoey and distant.
