The Firebrand
forever. No one here cared about Gillie the Fairy-Borne. Gillie the Scar-Face. Gillie the Bringer of Bad Luck. Nay, no one here would miss him.
    No one but Adrianne Percy.
    He covered his nose and mouth again to smother another sneeze.
    True, Mistress Adrianne cared for everyone. She had always been there to help a wife haul kelp up for a garden, or to lend a hand when a fishing net fouled on the rocks. True, she always watched over a sick child while a woman tended her wee ones. But Gillie knew that she cared for him, as well. Perhaps even more than she cared for the others.
    Through the darkness, he’d heard her scream, heard the crash of the cage onto the wave-swept rocks. When he’d seen the men out searching the waters around the castle, though, he’d known that she’d escaped them...again.
    And standing on the shore, watching the flaring torches and the small boats bobbing about in the bay, Gillie had even known where Mistress Adrianne had gone. He’d looked at the ship and, without a moment’s hesitation, he had stepped into the icy waters.
    The ship was pitching and rolling with the movement of the sea, and Gillie was certain they had gotten underway. He could hear the commands and shouts of the sailors on deck. Each time the ship would roll, the bumping and squeaking of the barrels straining at their lashings would fill his ears. There was a shudder of the ship’s timbers that Gillie felt in his bowels. Shifting his body, he pushed up slightly at the heavy cover of the barrel. Immediately, the foul smell of ship’s bilge filled his lungs, and Gillie smothered another sneeze in the wool cloth of his cap.
    The ship pitched forward with another lurching motion. It was even colder outside the barrel, and the boy tried to quiet his chattering teeth. His ragged clothes did little to keep out the winter cold. Wet as they were, they did even less.
    In searching for a hiding place when he’d climbed hastily aboard, Gillie had seen a pile of old sailcloth that had been cast aside in the dark hold where he’d found refuge. Deciding that the old sails might offer more warmth than the damp barrel, he raised the cover completely and stood up, pausing to listen.
    Aside from the shifting cargo and the water sloshing far below him, the noises were muffled, coming from above decks. The hold was dark as a cave. He pulled the wet tam onto his head and started to climb out of the barrel.
    He had one leg out when a pair of sneezes exploded from his head, filling the darkness of the hold. In his rush to cover his mouth, he slipped and fell—boy and barrel cover—on the rough wooden planks.
    The barrel cover rolled noisily across the deck, and Gillie scrambled after it. When it crashed into a bulkhead, the boy was nearly upon it. Grabbing it as it fell on its side, he held it and peered upward at the closed hatch doors.
    Gillie’s sigh of relief turned quickly to a gasp, though. From the darkness behind him, the talonlike hands of a sailor grasped him by the arms and held him up in the air while another sailor peered closely into his face.
     
    ***
     
    It was only a brush of the lips. But it was also a step toward a chasm that Wyntoun knew held great danger. He was standing at the edge. As he looked into her eyes, he knew that she felt it too. The desire sizzled in the narrow space between them…and he saw her struggling against it.
    With his lips still hovering just over hers, he watched her violet blue eyes grow round with awareness. The wild beat of her pulse beneath the tips of his fingers spoke of her agitation, and as he looked down at her parted lips, the thrill of conquest—and desire—surged in his loins. How he longed to feast on those lips!
    He released her abruptly and took a step back.
    “Remember this,” he growled. He saw her clutch tightly at the torn section of her blouse. “Next time, there will be no stopping. And I assure you, if you are foolish enough to arouse my passions another time, our dealings

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