Daughter of Wolves

by Stephanie Anthony

  Tyler hesitated, then patted Magenta’s shoulder, “Sure, see you tomorrow. Take care.”

  It was a little after Magenta disappeared around the corner that Tyler felt that unwelcome prickle on the back of his neck.

  It came from a life of crime to have a built in sixth sense for when someone was following you. He didn’t look around, quickened his pace only slightly. There wasn’t far to go, and once he got to his rooms he’d be fine. Even he’d have a hard time picking some of the locks he’d got on his door.

  The feeling wasn’t fading. The streets weren’t that busy, he could hear footsteps, two sets, clicking into place behind him. In time to his strides. Whoever it was they were done being patient. They knew where he was going, and they knew they wouldn’t get another chance like this for a while. Tyler glanced over his shoulder, swore under his breath and ran.

  Chapter 23

  Lord Irena Wolf

  The windows let light in through cracks, lining up beams of light across the floor like stripes. Irena toed her way along one, hands out to balance herself, as if she was walking a rope and not a ray of sunlight upon the tiles. Despite her best intentions she’d found that the majority of her time so far had been spent within the castle walls and not aboard the decks of her ship. It wasn’t much fun this ruling lark. She steadied herself, slowly placing another step in front of the other.

  Mrs Beets had kitted out a whole new wardrobe for her, on a tab of course – she was a businesswoman first and foremost. Irena hadn’t asked her to, but clearly the seamstress had been unable to stop herself. They’d arrived yesterday, trunks spilling open, packed with dresses and jackets, skirts that fell apart like petals and shirts that felt like water slipping over skin.

  She was wearing one of them today, a dress held together with little more than a couple of brown leather belts – or so it seemed. In fact there were a variety of buttoned panels very cleverly hidden. The top half was cream, something like an off the shoulder shirt. The skirt was pleated, pastel blue. Long enough to graze the floor. Her hair was piled up, a few curls strategically pulled loose. Her swords hung on the throne, their default position nowadays as she couldn’t wear them while sitting down, but also felt prickly if she kept them too far from her person. Her pistols remained at her hips, knifes strapped to various positions. She wore a few more ever since that assassin. Even the pin she’d used to tie up her hair was actually a blade, one of Roselyn’s designs.

  She’d reached the end of the stripe of light. Irena pirouetted, slammed a heel down once more. The door resonated to a knock. Irena stopped dead, heart thundering as she hurried back into the throne. She adjusted the hem of her dress, tucked a curl behind her ear. She knew who it was. It was the whole reason she’d actually bothered to dress up today, the reason she’d been unable to sit still, had forced everyone from the throne room just so she could have a minute alone, a minute to compose herself. To pace, to think, to remember. The doors opened, the knock having been more a warning than a request for permission. Her brothers didn’t ask permission.

  Irena had half expected them to have lied, or to have found the wrong person. She wasn’t actually prepared to see him. Tyler. Hot and cold washed over her all at once, the back of her neck prickling. She was suddenly very aware of him, and not much else. He looked older, a lot older than the time that had passed. Stubble had thickened over his jaw, his hair was longer. They escorted him like a criminal, hands held behind his back, shoulder to shoulder. To be fair knowing the thief he’d probably tried his fair share of escape attempts whilst in their company. He didn’t look at her. Irena barely dared to blink. Look at me. Look at me.

  Jon and Kris knelt Tyler before Irena, then stood protectively beside him, like hawks guarding their prey. He was swaying slightly, his head hanging, eyes firmly focused on the floor.

  “You took your time.”

  “He proved a slippery one to catch.” Kris began.

  “But it’s our job to find people, sis.” Jon finished.

  Irena sighed, they’d always had this habit of finishing each other’s sentences. That or speaking in unison. Honestly, it was a wonder they hadn’t insisted that their families live in the same house.

  “Thank you brothers, you may leave us.”

  Alone with her thief, Irena stood from her throne and stepped off the dais. She crouched before him and propped her hand beneath his chin, lifting his head up. There were bags beneath his eyes, as if he hadn’t been getting much sleep. “Tyler, look at me.”

  He flashed a gaze of his yellow-flecked irises at her before looking down once again.

  Irena removed her hand from his face and stood once again. She paced around him. He’d rested his hands in his lap, his shirt sleeves pushed up to the elbows. The poppy was blood red even against his darker skin, the mark on his wrist unbound. And a new tattoo covered his once blank forearm. Like a diamond made out of diamonds, solid and black and unbreakable. Another mark she didn’t know. So perhaps not associated with the thieves, but she highly doubted it. “You took some finding Tyler, it’s not often I have to send my brothers out. They do normally deliver their...targets shall we say, in a different state, but since I requested you alive.” She stopped walking as she reached the throne again, and took a seat in it.

  General of the Pack, one of the biggest alliances of pirates on the ocean, and now Pirate Lord. She had the power to bend the seas to her will, to wage wars if she chose. Pirates were by nature protective of their way of life, and she represented them all, everything that they stood for. It should have meant the world to her. That’s what she’d wanted all along wasn’t it?

  Tyler remained silent, he hadn’t moved, hadn’t looked at her again. Once upon a time he’d not been able to take his eyes off of her.

  “Stand up.” Irena ordered.

  Tyler remained where he was, but this time he spoke. “You can’t make people do whatever you want. The world doesn’t revolve around you.”

  His words were sharp and cold, they stung. “The oceans do.”

  “I’m not part of the oceans. Never have been. I’m a thief Irena, Siren’s Call was always temporary.”

  “Do you hate me?”

  “I want to hate you.”

  “Why are you being like this?” She whispered.

  Tyler laughed. “Why?” He rubbed at his eyes. Something had clearly snapped. He abandoned his forced control. “You sent your bloody brothers out after me! Do you know how paranoid I’ve been, how many favours I had to call in to keep myself hidden? You should have told me about Howard, and not have let me –.” Tyler paused, and stood up. He ran his fingers through his hair, breathing deeply. Then, with a snarl, he added: “I have to be angry at you, if just because its stops me feeling...anything else.”

  Irena stood and walked towards Tyler, standing in front of him. “You know, everyone thinks it’s easy having famous parents. But I don’t agree. There are expectations of you. My brothers were okay, they had their lives planned out for them already, but for me…I think that’s why I was glad to start out on my own, though I was so young. I wanted to prove that I could be my own person, that I was worthy of the name Wolf. I think that’s why I got used to pushing people away too. Because I had to stand on my own two feet first. But I’ve recently realised I don’t have to be alone to be independent.”

  “I can’t do this again.”

  “Tyler, I called things off with Howard. I thought it would be easier accepting someone who wasn’t part of this world, who I could keep separate from it. We both had different ideas of what we wanted from each other. He turned out to be…he wasn’t what I thought he was.” She paused, “I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

  “No. Not now, not like this.”

  Irena nodded sadly. “It was a mess, the whole thing between us. Nothing has gone right – maybe we should take that as a hint. But I’ve never been great at taking orders. So, I suggest we start from scratch.”

  “What?”

  Irena smile
d, and held out her arm, “Nice to meet you, I’m Irena. Captain Irena Wolf, Pirate Lord.”

  He hesitated, then grasped her wrist, flashing a grin as he did so. Not one of his usual smiles, but it was progress. “Tyler, High Thief.”

  “You have been busy.”

  Epilogue

  New beginnings

  The thief looked out over the breaking waves. Though he should be used to time on deck now, it still struck him as strange for a man who grew up with his feet so firmly planted on cobbles to be so comfortable with them on the boards of a ship. He tugged at the collar of his jacket – navy, lined with copper thread. It was a fair sight richer material than he was used to but he had certain standards to uphold now, and this was for official business after all. When he went out on jobs he didn’t wear anything as flashy. He’d say that at least, his time away had made him a lot more conscious of keeping an eye on every level of his operation. He liked to think his colleagues respected him for it, the fact that he wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. He would play the pencil pusher when necessary, but he wouldn’t let them forget again that he knew about the gutter.

  Beside him Magenta chewed on the end of his cigarillo. He was still looking a little green around the edges, this was his first trip over these waters. Tyler had got into the habit of having him stick around back at base while he went out on excursions, just to keep an eye on things. Understandably he still had trust issues.

  The heavy flicked an errant piece of ash from his cuff, smoke curling as his lips parted. He propped the cigarillo between his fingers. “I haven’t forgotten.”

  “What?”

  “Twice now, Rust and the twins.”

  “I haven’t brought you along for that.”

  He took another drag of his cigarillo, “Then what you dragged me overseas for Crimson?”

  “Is that any way to speak to your superior?”

  Magenta smiled, roughing up his floppy brown hair with his spare hand. The plait was messy as usual, not quite containing his mane. “The day I acknowledge a skinny brat like you as my superior, kick me out. I’ll be no use to anyone.”

  Tyler chuckled, braced his palms against the balustrade. “It’s just business my friend. It always is.”

  He didn’t watch as the captain threaded through the labyrinth. It was something of a game he played with himself. He’d close his eyes and work out the path from memory. A left here, a tighter one here, then a smooth right. He got some part wrong every time he came through. He suspected Irena had something to do with that.

  Tyler kept out of the way as the crew hurried about preparing to dock. Somehow or another a pack of cards ended up in his hand. Tyler shuffled through it, cutting it once, twice, flipping a card over his knuckles before plunging it back into the pack. He cut the pack again, held up the card facing away from himself.

  “Ace of North.” He turned the card, and grinned at the silver moon that winked back at him. Tucking the cards back in his jacket, he strode across the deck, meeting Magenta on the jetty below. Another familiar face was also there to greet him.

  Tyler smiled, shaking the newcomers arm. “This is my associate Magenta. Magenta, this is the godfather.”

  The heavy eyed the Westerner, matching grins appearing on their faces. Tyler could already tell they were both firm friends, and silently conspiring against him. He rolled his eyes and continued along to the dock. Marco and Magenta joined rank. “How’s things on land?”

  Marco’s green eyes shined, “Nothing we can’t handle. How’s things on the oceans?”

  “As turbulent as ever.”

  Magenta was lighting yet another cigarillo, as always he offered one to Tyler, and as always, Tyler refused. He looked back to the Westerner, “The Pack?”

  Marco chuckled, scratching at the stubble on his jaw. “Not under your jurisdiction I’m afraid.”

  “So I’m not even allowed to ask?”

  “No questions, no answers.”

  Tyler couldn’t help but smile, “How is she?”

  “Ask her yourself.” Marco propped the first door open, let the two thieves file in before him. The hall was dark, lit by scones on the wall and not much else. Tapestries depicting kraken, whales and giant squid filled the blank spaces.

  Tyler had lost count now of the number of times he’d trodden this path. His current role was something of a go-between, someone of land and of the seas. High Thief first and foremost, but somewhere alongside that he’d also gained a new title.

  Consort to the Pirate Lord.

  It had been Irena’s idea, knitting the thieves and the pirates together. Both of them held considerably more sway now, though it was a careful relationship. They toed the line through this uncharted territory together.

  Tyler pushed the throne room doors open himself, his eyes ignoring the gaze of the gathered crowd and settling on Irena. She hadn’t looked up yet. She was playing with one of her guns. She spun the pistol between her fingers, tossing it half-heartedly into the air a few times before sticking it back into its holster at her hip. Show off. He only thought it, but he saw the curl of a smile on her lips, like she could tell exactly what he was thinking. The dress she wore was white, the skirts like parted dove wings. The colour made her hair stand out even more. Her tricorn hat was propped on the back of the throne, along with the sheath that held her twin swords. The thief and the heavy halted at the base of the dais. Magenta had the good sense to look a little nervous. He was actually paying more attention to the figure lounging before them than his cigarillo.

  Irena flicked her long legs from the arm of the throne and spared a glance at Magenta before her black eyes locked onto Tyler’s. “You’re late.” She stood up.

  The High Thief tucked his thumbs into his belt straps as the rest of the congregation bowed. He was far too important to have to bow in her presence. They were equals after all. He grinned, “Apologies, my Lord.”