The muscles on William’s arm bulged. He flexed and she felt herself lifted out of the water. He plucked her out and held her above the lake for a moment.
The tiny hairs on the back of her neck rose. Nobody was that strong.
A hint of a smile curved William’s mouth. Carefully he set her on the pier and caught her by the shoulders. “You okay?”
He was standing too close.
Cerise tilted her face up. “Fine.”
He had a peculiar look on his face, a slightly hungry, possessive expression. His hands on her shoulders felt dry and warm.
If he took a small step forward, his chest would touch her breasts.
Say something, you idiot. Snap him out of it.
“So do you often rescue hobo queens from filthy puddles, Lord Bill?”
“William,” he told her quietly. It sounded like an intimate request.
“How’s your side?”
He let go of her long enough to raise his shirt. The dressing was gone—he’d probably taken it off, the ass—but the cuts had scabbed over. That was some fast healing.
William dipped his head, looking at her. There was nothing threatening in his gaze, but she had a distinct sense of being stalked by a large, careful predator. They had to get out of the damn swamp and into town, where there would be other people and she could leave him . . .
“Maybe swimming would be good,” he said.
Oh no. No, no, no.
Cerise looked past him, trying to think of something to say. Her gaze caught on chunks of battered wood bobbing in the lake just beyond the boundary. She squinted at them. Yep, sure enough. Cerise swore.
He turned. “What?”
“See those muddy broken boards in the lake?”
He looked to where she pointed. “Yes?”
“I think that’s our boat.”
CERISE stood at the boundary, staring into the Broken and listening to a torrent of cursing ripping from William’s mouth. He had used a couple of words she’d never heard before, and she filed them away for later. She’d have to ask Kaldar what they meant.
The boat was no more. And the long smudge flanked by clawed tracks left no doubt about who was responsible for demolishing it.
“I’ll kill that damn fish with my bare hands!” He must have run out of swear words.
Cerise sighed. One chunk of the punt lay twenty feet to the left, the next was up on a bush, the third was in the lake . . . “Boy, he really must’ve flailed around to throw the pieces so far apart.”
William took it as a sign to unleash another string of curses.
“It’s a lake house,” she said. “There is bound to be some kind of boat in there.”
Twenty minutes later they climbed into a narrow canoe they’d found in the garage and paddled through the boundary. The crossing took her breath away. Tiny painful needles pierced her insides. Cerise slumped over. Everything had a price. This was how she paid for her magic. She was lucky. Most of her family couldn’t even cross into the Broken.
“Are you all right?” William asked from the stern.
“Fine.” She swallowed the pain. Lord Bill seemed no worse for wear. “We’re aiming over there.” She pointed at the opposite end of the lake where a narrow river spilled into the water.
They began to paddle. The canoe slipped along, light and easy.
In front of her William paddled, hard muscles working on his back. Why did she have to meet him now? Why not a month before? Then she could’ve actually flirted and had the luxury of doing something about it. She really wasn’t handling this whole thing well. First, she practically invited him to frolic in the lake with her, then she let him ogle her, then . . .
The surface of the river dappled. Tiny silvery streaks burst from the waves in a reverse hail. Fish fry, scared out of their wits. Cerise grabbed her sword.
“Something’s coming!”
William dropped the paddle into the boat and pulled his knife.
A long serpentine shadow slid under the water. Cerise caught a flash of stubby fat paws. Not again. Damn it all ...
The eel shot under the boat. Cerise lunged, thrusting the blade into the water, and felt the sword’s tip slide off the armored head. The creature dove, vanishing into gloomy depths, and she withdrew.
The lake lay placid.
A smooth wave rose and sped toward the boat. The fry leaped into the air in a futile attempt to escape. She gripped the canoe.
“He’s going to ram. Get down!”
The blunt head smashed into the boat. The small vessel careened, propped on the eel’s skull. A round fish eye stared at her.
William hacked at the head with his knife. The eel shot up, snapping at William’s legs. The boat careened and he fell into the water.
Oh no.
She let the eel eat the blueblood.
Cerise took a breath and dived in after him.
Cold water burned her skin. Cerise hung suspended in the dense gray-green depth, seeing nothing, hearing nothing.
An icy spark of Gospo Adir magic flared to the left. She swam like a rolpie, kicking her feet in unison.
An outline of a scaly body loomed before her.
She sank her blade into it, cleaving into the spinal column, before she realized that the eel lay motionless. Pale blood leaked and spread through the water in opaque clouds. Cerise tasted copper on her tongue.
She surfaced and saw William, one hand on the boat, looking for her. He reached her in two strokes.
“You aren’t happy unless you’re wet,” he growled.
“There are times when wet is better than dry, but this isn’t one of them,” she snarled. “If you got down like I told you to, the fish wouldn’t have knocked you out of the boat.”
“It didn’t knock me out. I jumped in.”
Dear Gods. “You jumped into the water with a Gospo Adir eel in it?”
“I couldn’t get a good cut from the boat.”
Unbelievable. “Are you crazy?”
“Look who’s talking, swamp mermaid.”
“I jumped in to rescue you, you fool!”
He submerged and popped out of the water right next to her. There it was again, that wild thing he hid inside, looking at her through his eyes. If she just looked at it long enough, she would figure out what it was . . .
He grinned a crazy, happy grin. “You dived in to save me.”
“Don’t make too much of it.” Cerise dived, picked up momentum, and climbed into the boat. Idiot blueblood and his idiot eyes. What the hell was she doing? This was the last time she would let him throw her offkilter.
William hooked the eel’s carcass and swam, dragging it to the shore.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to cut off its head.”
“Why?”
“I’ll have it stuffed and mounted on my wall.”
She stared at him in disbelief. Every handsome man had a flaw. It was just her luck that in William’s case that flaw was lunacy. The man was nuts.
William’s feet must’ve hit the ground because he stood up and began to wade. “That way,” he said, “I’ll be sure the damn thing is dead.”
WILLIAM shifted his rucksack on his shoulder. The eel head he carried on a sharpened stick stank of rancid fish, and in retrospect he decided dragging it around probably wasn’t the smartest idea. But that’s what a blueblood would do, and he was too stubborn to toss it away now.
Cerise walked next to him. She hadn’t said two words since they had gotten back into the canoe. Apparently he really pissed her off with that fish. His plan to get her to like him had gone up in smoke. She would leave him in Sicktree and disappear in the swamp. They were getting close to town, too—the muddy path had joined a narrow one-lane road.
He was out of ideas and out of time.
“We’re almost there,” Cerise said.
Think. “Got a favor to ask you. Before we split, will you help me find somebody to take the fish off my hands?”
She frowned. He concentrated, trying to read her expression. It would be a no, he could see it in her eyes.
He pulled a doubloon from his pocket, holding the small coin between his index and middle finger. “I’ll pay for your time.”
“There is a man. He sometimes stuffs fish.” She held out her hand.
“Not until we get there.”
“Fine.” She turned away, but William caught a ghost of a smile on her lips.
He had done something right. He didn’t know what it was, but he hoped he would keep doing it.
Ahead the road bent. The wind brought the smell of gun oil and a hint of human sweat. He stopped. “There are people ahead.”
“How many?” Cerise asked.
“A few.”
She pulled her sword out and kept walking.
“If they’re waiting for you, we need to get off the road.”
“They would just track us down,” she said. “The road is better. Gives me space to work.”
Crazy woman.
They turned. Six men waited across the lane. Five had blades, the sixth held a rifle. They wanted to take her alive, William decided. The more guns you had, the higher was the likelihood that someone would lose his shit and pull the trigger, so they gave the coolest head a gun as insurance and brought lots of manpower.
A bright smile painted Cerise’s face. “Remember my family’s feud? This is their hired muscle. Stay back.”
“Very funny.” He kept walking. He was feeling a bit frustrated, and he always made it a point to vent his frustration.
“It’s not your fight.”
“Six of them, one of you. I don’t know what you think you’ll do with your pretty little sword. I know they aren’t playing.”
“If you try knocking me out of the way again, I will cut your arm off. Stay back, William. You’ll get hurt.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll share this time.”
“Don’t do it.”
Time to pick a fight. He jerked his fish head at the men barring the road and raised his voice. “Move.”
“Lunatic,” Cerise said under her breath.
The rifle’s barrel sighted Cerise instead of him. Ah. So they knew about her sword tricks, too.
The Edgers looked him over. A tall balding guy with a machete smiled. “Where did you find the blueblood, Cerise?”
“In the swamp,” she told him.
“That’s nice. You shouldn’t have gone off your land. Now you’re all alone out here and your family can’t help you.”
Cerise’s grin got wider. “You’re looking at it the wrong way. I’m not all alone with you. You’re alone with me. You should’ve brought more people. Six won’t do it.”
The Machete shrugged. “We got enough. Lagar says to bring you in one piece, so come along before anybody gets shot. You know Baxter. He doesn’t miss much.”
Baxter winked at them from behind the rifle.
“We’re going to Sicktree,” William said. “You’re in the way.”
The Edgers chuckled.
“This ain’t the Weird. We don’t care for bluebloods here,” the man on the left called out.
“You’ll get killed,” Cerise murmured.
William thrust the stick into dirt. “I don’t have time for this stupid shit. Move or I will move you.”
Machete shrugged. “You heard the man. Baxter, move him.”
The rifle barrel swung to William. He shied left. The bullet grazed his shoulder, burning across his flesh.
“That’s it.”
The rifle shot again, but he was already moving. He smashed the knuckles of his right hand into Machete’s throat, hooking his foot with his right as the man fell, swiped the weapon from his fingers, rammed his elbow into the Edger to his left, and hurled the machete at Baxter. The knife hit the shooter between the eyes. The blow wasn’t hard enough to kill, but the oversized blade cut at the man’s scalp. Blood poured into Baxter’s eyes. He screamed. As William broke the arm of the Edger to his right, he saw the rifleman take off into the brush.
William lost himself to the flurry of punches and kicks. Bones crunched, people howled, someone’s blood wet his knuckles. It went fast and was over too quickly. He tossed the last man at Cerise, just for the fun of it. She reached out and very carefully popped the Edger on the head with the hilt of her sword. He went down.
William strode to her.
That’s how it’s done. Drink it in.
She surveyed the carnage behind him. “Did you have fun?”
He showed her his teeth. “Yes. Now they won’t take you anywhere.”
Cerise stepped closer to him, so close he only needed to lean in and dip his head and he would kiss her. Since he saved her, maybe he could just grab her and—
“That was the stupidest thing you have done since I’ve met you,” she ground out through her teeth.