“Darling, I’m worse than that,” Aerion said, letting his hand linger against hers as she pulled the mug from his grasp. “I’m bored.”
The men at the next table hooted. One of them muttered something too crude for politeness, and Aerion turned just long enough to wink at him before shifting back to the maid. “Tell me,” he said, voice dipping low, “if I drank too much of your ale, would you give me a bed for the night?”
Her breath caught, caught between laughter and scandal. Aerion’s smile sharpened, pleased at the effect… until he felt it.
The shadow at his back.
Clyde stood near the door, arms folded, eyes steady as stone. He hadn’t touched his mug. He hadn’t moved since they entered. But he was watching. Always watching.
Aerion ignored it at first. He leaned even closer to the barmaid, close enough that her lashes fluttered. Then he reached, slow and deliberate, to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.
The girl froze. Not because of Aerion, but because Clyde had moved.
The knight’s hand closed around Aerion’s wrist—not roughly, but firm, final, immovable. The tavern seemed to hush around them.
“My lord,” Clyde said, voice low, cutting through the din. “We should go.”
Aerion blinked, startled by the interruption. Then, quick as a spark, his mask returned, mockery curled over his lips like smoke. “Well. Look who speaks.”
The barmaid stepped back, startled, hands clutching her apron. Clyde didn’t so much as glance at her. His grey eyes were fixed only on Aerion.
“Now,” he said.
It wasn’t a plea. It was a command.
For one wild heartbeat, Aerion thought of resisting, of leaning in closer just to prove he could, of daring Clyde to drag him out like some common misbehaving child. But there was something in the knight’s stare. Not scorn. Not jealousy.
Warning.
Aerion’s smile faltered. Just slightly. He pulled free of Clyde’s grip, tossing another coin onto the bar with a careless flick. “Another time, darling,” he said, his voice lighter than he felt. “Do keep your mother’s fainting couch ready.”
Laughter bubbled uneasily through the room. The barmaid’s cheeks flushed crimson, and Aerion swept his cape as he turned, his head held too high, his smirk brittle as glass.
Clyde followed him out, silent as ever. But Aerion’s pulse thrummed faster. Not from the barmaid.
From the knight who had dared to lay a hand on him.
The night air outside the Laughing Pike was sharp with brine and smoke, a wind off the harbour cutting through the heat of the tavern. Lanterns swung on their chains, spilling gold light across cobblestones slick with ale.
Aerion stormed out first, cape snapping behind him like a banner of war. He didn’t stop until he reached the mouth of the alley, then spun on his heel, fire catching in his sapphire eyes.
“How dare you,” he spat, voice sharp enough to draw the attention of two dockhands loitering nearby. They wisely slippedinto the shadows. “You lay your hands on me like I’m some common drunkard? In front of half the city?”
Clyde emerged from the doorway behind him, slower, measured. His boots struck the stones with steady weight. “You were drawing trouble.”
Aerion laughed, a high, cutting sound that rang brittle in the night. “I was drawing a smile from a barmaid, not steel from a brigand. Do you truly think me so fragile? That I’ll break if a woman so much as sighs too hard?”
Clyde’s jaw flexed, but his voice was even. “I think you make enemies faster than friends. And I think you’ve no sense of when a jest curdles into danger.”
Aerion stepped forward until their faces were close, heat against stone. “You presume much for a hireddog.” His perfume clung in the air, thick with sandalwood, fig, the faint smoke of tavern fire. “Your duty is to guard me, not to leash me. Not to touch me.”
Grey eyes met sapphire, unflinching. “Then stop placing yourself where I have to.”
The words hit harder than a slap. Aerion froze, his lips parting in stunned silence.
Then he laughed again, but softer this time, edged with something raw. “Gods, you are intolerable. Do you know what I see when I look at you, Sir Clyde? A shadow with delusions of flesh.”
Clyde said nothing. His silence only sharpened the insult, left Aerion swinging his words into a void that would not answer back.
