Or at least the Intrepid would appear unharmed from a distance. Up close, the scent of smoke and burnt plastic hung heavy in the air, while splinted lines attested to the battle that had nearly been lost to keep the dirigible afloat.
Pulling success out of the jaws of defeat should have been a triumph, but the cold, hard knot in Sabrina’s stomach grew rather than shrank as she approached. The pain eased subtly when she caught sight of her brother’s familiar shape at the edge of the crowd...then ossified into a lump of stone-cold regret as she took in the grim faces surrounding Zach’s welcoming form.
With the exception of her brother, none of the assembled men cheered or even smiled at her approach. Instead, when Nicholas dropped the first of many mooring lines down toward the rooftop, airmen stood idly by, staring up at the hovering hull of the ship they all called home.
“Catch the blasted rope!” Sabrina ordered, hurling another line down past the railing in the first one’s wake. Her aim was better than the shifter’s and this heavy end nearly slapped her cabin boy in the face. But Tom stepped back at the last instant, folded arms making no attempt to do his captain’s bidding.
“No one will care, eh?” Sabrina muttered more to herself than to the shifter who should have been too far away to hear. But Nicholas’s head rose at the sound and fiery wings popped out of his shoulder blades as easily as if his shirt and jacket didn’t exist.
The angelic form of this half-man, half-dragon didn’t match the expression on his face at all, though. Nicholas was furious...on her behalf?
Before Sabrina could decipher the strange feeling of warmth rising to snuff out the cold rock in her belly, the winged man leapt over the railing. Fluttering gracefully downward, he grabbed her recently ignored rope and did a far better job than expected of recreating the cleat hitch that Sabrina had shown him not many minutes earlier.
Then Nicholas’s waiting brothers returned to human form in a flash of brilliant flames. Four strong shifters grabbed ropes out of the air as fast as Sabrina could throw them, lashing the ends messily but securely to the mooring spikes arrayed across the rooftop. And, at long last—no thanks to her rebellious crew—the Intrepid was safely docked.
***
Only after her ship was secured and no longer in immediate peril did Sabrina consider her options. Retreating into her cabin to lick her wounds in peace sounded like a pretty enticing scenario in the face of her crew’s near mutiny. But the more captain-worthy solution would be to toss down a rope ladder and start the long hard slog of winning her way back into the airmen’s good graces.
Still...why even bother with a ladder when the magical cat had clawed its way entirely out of the bag? Instead, following Nicholas’s lead, the captain leapt up onto the railing...then stepped out into open air.
It was pretentious to waste her final dregs of energy forming stairs out of nothingness. And yet, Sabrina hummed cold air from above her head and froze ice crystals into the shape of a long, broad spiral that led her far more slowly than was really necessary down toward the gaping faces of her errant crew. She allowed attending breezes to eddy around her head and smiled as wind lifted her braids until they streamed out behind her like a dress’s train.
The crowd remained silent as she descended, although Sabrina thought she caught a hint of amusement on Nicholas’s face as the frozen stairwell brought her around to face in his general direction. Then the shifter was forgotten as she rounded another bend and peered down upon Claude’s head, noticing for the first time that her second-in-command was developing a bald spot right on the tippy top of his crown.
The imperfection should have made her first mate appear more human. But, instead, it merely reminded her of their discrepancy in experience and wisdom.
Claude had been sailing this ship since Sabrina was a babe in arms. Claude had taught her everything she knew about airmanship. Claude was and forever would be her superior in every way that truly mattered.
Nonetheless, Sabrina kept her spine straight and her voice regal when she called him on his recent insubordination. “If there’s something you want to say to me, then say it to my face.”
“There’s nothing to say, Sabrina...” the older man began, familiar sadness imbuing his voice.
But Sabrina cut him off with the shake of one angry finger to accentuate her curt words. “You’ll call me captain.”
“I won’t,” Claude replied simply, taking a step forward and motioning with one arm to encompass the sailors hanging onto their every word. “And these men won’t either.”
“Because I wield magic,” Sabrina interjected rather than giving her first mate the space to say it for her...probably in the more earthy language sailors used when referring to witches out on the docks. Claude was a dandy in dress, but she’d heard him swear like...well, like a sailor when wind currents tossed the ship awry and nearly crashed the Intrepid into the Green.
But, to her surprise, her former first mate merely shook his head. “It’s about damn time you used the one skill God gave you. No, that’s not our primary complaint with your handling of this ship.”
Sabrina’s cheeks flared hot as she realized she was being taken to task in public for a real mistake rather than for a vagary of birth over which she had no control. “The evacuation order, then....”
Sure enough, Claude’s reply, when it came, was annoyingly patient. “Evacuation wouldn’t have been necessary if you’d simply fired on those dragons at first approach.”
He kept speaking, but Sabrina didn’t hear the rest of his lecture. The tone reminded her too much of childhood days spent trailing along at the first mate’s heels when her usually lax father decided it was time to learn mathematics or navigation or some other sailorly duty. Claude had nearly always been the one tasked with teaching her...and Sabrina had nearly always failed the older man’s tests.
And even though she wasn’t a child any longer, Claude still held far too much power over the state of Sabrina’s future. For seven long years, she’d tried and failed to win her sailors’ respect, and in the end had been forced to admit that her first mate was the only true conduit between captain and crew. Now, recent events suggested that if Claude walked, then every one of Intrepid’s sailors would leave with him.
An eventuality Sabrina couldn’t afford. Not when her brother’s good name depended on following the orders Gunnar had risked so much to impart. Not when her own independence and future depended upon the use of a working airship.
So, ignoring her first mate’s pedantic tone, Sabrina stepped down off her aerial perch and gazed from familiar face to familiar face instead. “What would it take to win you back?” she asked, ignoring the blow to her pride as a note of entreaty entered her voice. “A bonus? Higher pay?”
Not that she could afford to pony up more cash. But if Gleason really did forgive the Fairweather debt at the end of this ill-fated journey, then Sabrina could begin refilling coffers that seemed eternally bare. And, yes, some of that increased wealth could flow down to her not-so-loyal crew as well.
Even that capitulation, though, wasn’t enough. Feet scraped against concrete; heads turned away from her searching gaze. And absolutely no one was willing to meet her searching eyes.
Claude seemed almost kind when he stepped up beside her at last, laying one heavy hand atop her tensed shoulder. “Things were different in your father’s day,” he said quietly. “More...” he paused, glancing at the non-crew members in the audience then finishing simply, “...more lucrative.”
Abruptly, the power Sabrina had thought nearly quenched flared back to life around her skin. Air currents lashed braids into an agitated mass of medusa-like anger and she realized she was levitating off the ground.
Set me back down, she hummed gently. But her eyes continued to flash with anger. No, Frank Fairweather’s method of making a buck was not something she ever intended to repeat.
Either her first mate hadn’t noticed her silent tantrum or he didn’t particularly care that an angry wind witch
was located only inches away from his unprotected form. “I know all the routes,” Claude continued. “It would be easy to get back into business. And then—with the usual percentages in place, of course—your crew would be glad to return to the ship.”
Chapter 8
That strange, secretive captain had turned her sailor down flat. Had rejected an offer that Nicholas could tell she was desperate to accept, leaving her ship earthbound and unable to fly until she replaced her entire crew. And all this after risking her own life to bring the Intrepid into port.
Intriguing.
Nicholas mulled over the enigma for the hour it took the bustle of arrival to die down. He continued gnawing around the edges of the puzzle while helping his foster mother pull together a special dinner to welcome their unexpected guests. And he became even more intent upon ferreting out those secrets once Sabrina entered the family dining room that evening with one arm slung casually across her brother’s back.
The captain appeared just as poised as ever, her usual poker face firmly in place. She accepted Sarah’s effusive hug with neither apparent enthusiasm nor resentment, introduced Zach to the family so deftly that no one else seemed to notice that the captain hadn’t offered a single explanation for the teenager’s previous absence, then defused the drama posed by Zach’s current muteness with a well-timed joke.
Even Amber’s horror upon hearing about Intrepid’s burnt rigging and near demise didn’t cause Sabrina to react. “Your poor ship!” the earth witch emoted, her concern so blatant that Nicholas’s foster brother pulled his mate closer against his side in instinctive consolation. But Sabrina just placated her friend briefly before changing the subject to Amber’s pet topic—the latter’s experimental offshoot of the Green.
Unsurprisingly, the deflection worked like a charm.
Sabrina is a master at keeping secrets, Nicholas was forced to admit at the end of the pre-meal cocktail hour. She was an expert at plastering an enigmatic smile onto her face that completely hid the deeper ruminations clustered behind her sky blue eyes.
Yet despite his opponent’s skills, the shifter wasn’t concerned. Sabrina might be a master at hiding her thoughts from view...but he was equally adept at unearthing them.
So Nicholas made it his goal to draw the captain out, to tempt her away from the rest of the family and bulldoze through diversions until the truth bubbled forth. Unfortunately, that tactic was easier said than done.
Because Sarah had invited several other Aerie inhabitants to join them for the occasion, packing the dining room to the gills. And the captain took full advantage of the room’s energy to drift from cluster to cluster, never quite incorporating herself into the conversation and always moving on before her pursuer approached.
Only after his third circumvented attempt did Nicholas realize that she was eluding him on purpose, that Sabrina had known she was being stalked as soon as he first sidled in her direction. Now, their eyes met across the room for one fleeting second and Sabrina’s sky blue irises seemed to flash with fire.
The captain was pissed at Nicholas’s tenacity...and maybe also impressed by his stamina?
Or maybe not. Because ice settled back into Sabrina’s face as quickly as it had faded away and the shifter was left wondering whether he’d imagined the entire incident.
Shrugging, he returned to the hunt.
***
Sabrina knew as soon as she entered the dining room that she was in trouble. Oh, not because of Nicholas, who persisted in hounding her as if he’d finally noticed she existed then determined to become her best friend all in the same instant. No, the problem—as meek and innocent as she initially appeared—was Steph.
The female dragon wasn’t currently winged and scaly, of course. And, at first, the woman seemed as ordinary as anybody else, taking her seat between Sarah and Nicholas before spreading a cloth napkin daintily across her lap.
But rather than exuding the predatory grace of the other dragons in the room, Steph more closely resembled a beleaguered and tremulous mouse.
“Hey, we need butter down here!” Alexander bellowed with his usual lack of grace from the far end of the dining hall soon after food was served. And the female shifter literally jumped in her seat as if the male’s voice was an electric shock galvanizing her into action. Her eyes darted from side to side and all blood drained from her face as she realized the worst—the butter dish was located directly in front of her very own plate.
For one agonizingly long moment that no one but Sabrina seemed to notice, the woman hesitated. She was clearly terrified by the notion of having to interact with near strangers, to possibly brush fingers with someone as she passed the desired item down to the other end of the room. The concept scared her so much, in fact, that she froze like a rodent in the grass who hears a hawk’s hunting scream and knows her death is on the horizon no matter where she turns.
Then Nicholas came to the female shifter’s aid, whispering something too quiet for Sabrina to hear into his dining companion’s ear. After that, the male picked up the dreaded butter dish himself and lobbed the condiment above the other diners’ heads with dragon-like disdain for manners. All conversation ceased as dragons and humans alike watched the dish arc down to land easily in his twin’s waiting hands.
But Nicholas didn’t shrug off the encounter the way he usually would have. Instead, he mouthed “Cool it” at his twin, the follow-up nearly too subtle for Sabrina to see. To her surprise, Alexander responded with a quick grimace and an unusual apology, the tone of the room quietening a susceptible notch for the remainder of the long meal.
And the mouse? Steph didn’t manage to take another bite for the rest of the evening and her shoulders quivered ever so slightly whenever someone attempted to draw her into the conversation or even to meet her eye. The conclusion was obvious—being asked to pass the butter dish had left Steph distressingly traumatized.
To her dismay, watching the other woman made usually anticipated delicacies turn tasteless on Sabrina’s tongue. And, gradually, the captain’s certainty that she could kidnap a shifter for the sake of her brother’s mental health fled along with her dreams of dragging herself out from under her overwhelming mountain of debt.
So by the time the meal ended, the captain had made up her mind. She’d leave Steph out of it and find an alternative solution...she just wasn’t entirely certain what yet.
***
To the captain’s surprise, it was her closest friend who suggested a workaround. “You look like crap,” Amber commented an hour later as the two settled into a love seat artfully hidden from view by an overgrown plant. The potted tree hadn’t been so large before the earth witch passed by, but Amber’s presence immediately caused limbs to shoot out in every direction, shielding the women from view. Then, at an absentminded flick of the earth witch’s forefinger, one limb bent floorward to provide a belated meal for the goat clattering along at her mistress’s heels.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Sabrina replied dryly, reaching forward to pat her friend’s hand to soften the sarcasm. And as Amber grinned widely, Sabrina relaxed into the moment.
Amber might not know all of her secrets. And yet, Sabrina’s friend accepted her, Fairweather blood and all...for the moment at least.
Oblivious to Sabrina’s mental perambulations, the earth witch elaborated on her initial assessment. “You spent the entire meal turning your head back and forth between your brother and our new sister like an oscillating fan. Do you want to tell me what’s up?”
And the hint of relaxation created by Amber’s calming presence instantly fled. Sister. If the earth witch had tried, she couldn’t have come up with a better way to make Sabrina feel like crap for plotting against a woman who’d clearly been mistreated for her entire life.
Unwilling to admit her traitorous intentions to another dragon’s mate, Sabrina merely shrugged and evaded. “It’s complicated,” she said in lieu of opening up entirely to her companion. “Some secrets are meant to remai
n hidden....”
“Oh, speaking of secrets,” Amber interjected, wincing as she sidetracked herself away from the topic at hand. “I owe you an apology. Nicholas has known you were a wind witch since New Year’s Eve.”
“What?” This time, Sabrina wasn’t able to muffle her near-shout of dismay, was instead forced to paste a sickeningly sweet smile on her face and duck outside the bower for a moment to deflect the heads that turned in their direction after the fact. Twisting back around to face her companion, Sabrina took in startled goat and wide-eyed friend before repeating more quietly: “What do you mean?”
Despite the sick feeling in her gut, it was impossible to be angry as the shorter woman hemmed and hawed and finally fessed up to her lapse in a babble of explanation. “I mean I spilled the beans. I’m sorry. But, in my defense, it really wasn’t my fault. That’s Nicholas’s knack. He knows everything there is to know about everybody...but he keeps those secrets close to that handsome chest of his. He never uses confidences against anyone—just helps out whenever he feels able.”
At the exact same moment, the branches above their heads parted, dark brown eyes peering down into a space that Sabrina had formerly considered a safe harbor. “Is everything alright over here, ladies?” Nicholas asked, his tone cordial but a wicked smirk tilting up one corner of his mouth. The captain’s pursuer had tracked her down at long last, and he was clearly thrilled at having been given the opportunity to launch a head-on attack.
Amber defended her like a champ, though. “We’re just fine. Shoo,” the earth witch retorted, fluttering her hands the same way Sabrina had seen the other woman do when her pet goat nibbled on the wrong piece of foliage. And, to Sabrina’s surprise, the shifter—like the goat—bowed and obeyed.
But Sabrina just sat there and stared after him, the ice in her gut gradually thawing. Because the solution to her own problem had arrived in a blinding flash of insight while Amber was prattling on about her brother-in-law’s sterling qualities.
Cerulean Magic: A Dragon Mage Novel Page 5
