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Kiernan shakes his head, but I step out and to his side before either man can say anything more.
I level the older man with a glare. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say.”
He grins, a Cheshire cat tip of his lips that makes him look like he eats human hearts for breakfast. The unease in my bones grows tenfold.
“You won’t get another deal like this. The amount of money I’m offering will set you up for life.”
I seethe, leaning forward on the counter, my elbows to the wood.
“I’ve already told you. Newbridge Farm, my land and my lighthouse are not for sale.”
I grab a pastry and shove it in a white paper bag, then throw it at him.
“Here. I packed you a go bag. Now get the fuck out of my bakery. And don’t come back.”
He grins again but ignores the paper bag.
“You’ll be sorry, Caspian. Mark my words, boy.”
“Pretty sure I won’t, old man,” I spit.
“When all of this falls apart,” he waves his hand around the bakery, “when you realise you can’t handle it all alone, my offer won’t be nearly as good.” He huffs, turns his back on me, and walks out. With the fight seeping out of me, I sink down into a chair behind the counter and bury my head in my hands. Only then do I note that I’m shaking.
“Fucking creep,” Kee mutters. He kneels down in front of me and kisses my temple.
“It’ll be okay. Nothing is falling apart. You’ve got this, Cass.”
I want to believe him, but I’m not sure that I do.
SEVEN
STERLING
My human is a mess.
A sad, beautiful, imperfect mess who is currently crying, perched precariously on the edge of a rock with a bottle of whiskey in his hand while he curses the breaking waves.
He hasn’t been having a good week, if the grumbling as he moves between the house and the barn is any indication. But today appears to have been worse than the day before. It began when his car wouldn’t start this morning and his friend had to drive over to give him a lift. By which time the sun had risen and he was muttering about being late, and having ‘yet another fucking problem.’
A guy in a blue van with the picture of a truck printed on the side dropped him back at the farm later in the day and got it started for him. The way he gestured wildly at the small vehicle, making Caspian frown, makes me think he didn’t have good news for my human.
“Why didn’t you take me?” Caspian yells now, swishing the bottle in a circular motion. “Huh? Why did you spare me? I’m just going to fuck everything up. Jesus, why did I think I could do this on my own?” He takes a big swig of the golden liquor, coughs, and then rubs his mouth before the yelling starts again.
With the lighthouse cast in darkness at my back, I crouch lower, my clawed hands gripping the rock I’m hiding behind, my feet digging into the sand.
He’s angry. At the sea. At me. At Mother Nature. Pure, unfiltered anger. I can feel it in the air that surrounds him. Thick and murky, like the seabed when it’s hit by a storm. I imagine if I sampled his anger, it would be a contrasting mix of sweet and salty – like dirt covered peaches.
A growl rumbles unbidden out of my chest at the thought – and I duck lower as he swivels on the spot, his eyes searching the darkness. I stick to the shadows so there is no way he can see me, but this human is clever. I heard him one day, muttering to himself that monsters are not real. He thinks he doesn’t believe in them – in me – but I know there’s a part of him that does. The part that looks for me in every dark corner. The part that is looking for me now.
“I’m not scared!” he screams, his words slurring and his arms flailing as his foot slips on the rock. “Whoever you are, you can show yourself! Stop fucking following me.”
Oh but sweet human, you are scared. Terrified, even. Of what hides in the darkness. Of the unknown. Of the power and unforgiveness of the sea. I sniff, then stick my tongue out, capturing a hint of his fear on the salty air.
“I hate you,” the boy yells, his eyes back on the choppy water. “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.” He’s talking to the sea, but in a way, I know those words are for me too. It’s why he can never fully know me, why if we do meet one day, it will be the human version of me he sees.
Caspian brings the whiskey to his lips and downs the final few drops with his head tipped to the sky. Then he’s singing a song about a ship that went to sea and never returned. He’s not very good – the sound more like a wailing seal pup than any music I’ve ever heard.
But despite that, as he moves his body on the rocks, hopping from one to another and swaying along with his emotion fuelled words, I find myself completely enthralled by him.
