Page 17 of A Pirate's Pleasure
Wasn’t it obvious? “Because if it was anything useful, you would have used it to get out of that fight.”
He sniffed. “I don’t normally have to worry about fighting. They usually take one look at Dax and decide they don’t fancy their chances. He’s ill today, though.”
Now, Dax I knew. He was a great hulking thug of a boy. Bit of an outcast. Which probably explained why the two of them had gravitated toward each other. He also happened to be the son of the ex-pirate who ran The Black Skull, one of the dodgiest places in Glimmerfield, a tavern not a million miles from where we sat. If him not being bigger and more muscular than anyone else wasn’t enough of a deterrent, the threat of his dad was. I’d certainly always given Dax a wide berth, just as I was supposed to be doing with the boy who was sitting so close to me that our shoulders touched.
“What can you do?” I asked again. If I was going to avoid him after today, I at least wanted to know the answer to the question before I did.
Zephyr’s sigh was long and weary. “I’m more than my magic.”
“Of course you are. What can you do?”
His glare turned his gray eyes even stormier. “You’re persistent, I’ll give you that.”
“I am,” I admitted. “So you may as well just tell me.”
Zephyr stared at the toe of his boot. “I can control the weather.” He pulled a face. “Well, control is probably too strong a word to use. But I can do stuff with the weather.”
“Like what?” I hadn’t decided whether his magical ability was something I should be in awe of or something I should laugh at yet.
He shrugged. “Make it rain. Make it hail. Hit things with lightning bolts.”
I’d been halfway to deciding it was a pretty poor skill to have if all you could do was make it rain when he’d said the last bit. “Could you hit people with lightning bolts?”
“If I wanted to.”
I pointed to the patch of earth where the fight had taken place. “So why didn’t you hit them with lightning bolts rather than letting them beat you to a pulp?”
“Because,” Zephyr said slowly, like he was talking to a small child and rapidly losing patience, “I would probably have killed them.”
“Can’t you just zap them a little?”
He shrugged again. “Like I told you, I don’t have that much control.”
“You should practice,” I said. “If I could do something cool like that, I’d be all over it. It’d be a far better deterrent than a knife. Or Dax.”
Zephyr turned his head to stare at me, his gaze searching. “If you want to know the truth, it scares me. It scares Dax, too. He refuses to be around me when I’m doing stuff like that. Says it’s not natural.”
I snorted at the idea of Dax being scared. “Then Dax is all mouth and no trousers.”
The corners of Zephyr’s mouth twitched. “You should tell him that.”
“I will. I’m not scared of him. I’m not scared of anything. So don’t go thinking I’m scared of you.”
The smile grew wider and I realized I enjoyed making him smile. I liked the way he looked at me as well, like he found me a mystery he wanted to unpick. Why that would be the case when he was the wild one who had magic, I didn’t know? But yeah, I liked it. I drew a lightning bolt in the dirt, making the edges as jagged as I could. “I could help you,” I said. “If you wanted me to, that is?” I risked a glance at him to find his eyes still on me. He had pretty eyes, the lashes really long and dark. When he stayed silent, I went back to drawing lightning bolts.
“Have you got any money?” Zephyr finally asked.
Frowning at the change of subject, I pulled a matching bronze coin to his out of my pocket and placed it in the dirt so that they were next to each other. He pushed his closer until it slightly overlapped mine. A feeling grew in my chest. There seemed to be some sort of symbolism to the two coins together and while I didn’t quite understand it, that didn’t mean I didn’t feel it.
“I’d like that,” Zephyr said. “For you to help me, that is.” He stood, brushing dirt off his trousers before holding out his hand. I collected both coins before taking it and letting him pull me to my feet. Unfortunately, that was when his nose started bleeding again. The rush of bright red blood was too much, and I passed out at his feet, my last thought whether he’d stick around until I regained consciousness or whether I’d come round to my new friend having walked away with both coins.
I awoke alone in the cabin, the sunlight already bright enough that it had to be mid-morning. Of all the dreams I could have had, why did my subconscious have to conjure up that one? But then I supposed it had been when my life had changed direction, when I’d stopped listening to my mother and everything had revolved around Zephyr instead, and we’d become as thick as thieves.
Dax had been there, too, but he was more of a background figure when I was around, shaking his head and rolling his eyes as Zephyr and I plotted world domination. No one had said so much as a rude word to us, though, from that day forward. Dax’s bulk, my knives, and Zephyr’s growing and far more controlled powers once he started practicing, causing everyone else to label us as more trouble than we were worth. We didn’t care. We made our own fun, existing in our own little bubble.
Still wearing Zephyr’s shirt and nothing else, I went up on deck to find him. A search of the cabin would probably have provided me with something else to wear, but if it annoyed him, then all the better. Plus, my own clothes should be dry by now and I’d rather wear them.
Chapter Eight