There were always storms, but when they were at sea they carried with them her heart. Her husband knew they meant to come home. Perhaps she should have been concerned about his life and how the ships took such damage, but for her Poseidon this was nothing he couldn’t handle. In fact…as the other boats came in to boast about how they’d survived one of the Southern storms, she knew on the horizon Fintan was on his way home. 

By the time she saw the sails the afternoon was well on its way, and from their Olympus, his daughters bounced joyfully at the sight. With many tears and endless pleading, Aurore reminded them of their lessons and that they would see him at evening meal. 

The carriage was set out and she with it as the business streets went about their day, she crossed her hands over her lap in an attempt to calm her nerves and quiet her heart. All she could do to find any peace was to walk the rest of the way from where the carriage was parked and come to the dock that was as much her home as ever, and on any different day she would have been a little more open to speak to those around her. However, it was all she could do to contain her bitter anger at that mirror copy of the man she loved. 

Lucian hadn’t spoken to her since their argument, and in fact hadn’t come out of the woods that she vowed to burn down just to spare her the spurs on her hem as she went out to collect a boy who went to get lost in them. This was as much of Colin as she could stand to see in him, but of all of Fletcher’s character it was what she loved most dearly about her brother-in-law. 

The hot day wasn’t kind to her already worsening pain, but Aurore did not dare let on to anyone as she now stood like a sentinel waiting for her husband to finish the manifest. Of course those that passed smiled in greeting and the other wives that waited tried to make small talk, but as always a captain was the first to board and the last to leave. Stoic and cold as always, this was where they her temper differed than that of her dragon. Where he could breathe fire across the irons she too could see them freeze until finally there was nothing left to do other than to watch them shatter. 

So now she waited, and darkly so without a hair out of place.

Where storms at sea had once filled him with the irrational bravado of a man prepared to do battle with the heavens, Fintan McKenna was no longer that person. Having nothing to lose made him a dangerous man indeed, but it had also made him foolhardy when he spent many of his early sailing years boxing for coin in seedy pubs during brief reprieves on shore. There was even that one incident with explosives...

But Aurore had blown into his life with a storm and as though she commanded the very winds and waves of Poseidon herself it was a call to shore. To home.

The Ascalon sailed the channel easily, her captain having cut his sails on tropical storms and ocean waters. A callous stretch of icy water was practically a pleasure cruise. His quartermaster was born and bred on French waters and Fintan trusted Zac more than any man alive or dead to safely steer them homeward. But even as the sky grew black in their wake the gnawing anxiety in his stomach brought out the old bosun habit of checking each and every rope a dozen times over as the hull practically leapt from the water from the wind that had whipped up.

They anchored in port with the sky like a bruise at their backs and the crew made quick work of unloading cargo to make for the pub before the storm hit. Fin's specialty had never been numbers but he dared not turn in an incorrect manifest, and carefully combed through the cargo list and invoices until both sides broke even and he tucked his handiwork safely away in his satchel and made for the deck.

There she was.

The wind blowing hard and kicking up spray off the water, and there was Aurore on the dock weathering it like she had the first moment he met her. It was a quick descent from the gangplank and he was by her side.

He looked at her with all the affection of a man so hopelessly in love and with so few words in his head that whatever intimate proclamation could have adequately conveyed the deepest feeling in his heart came out of his mouth only as: "Quite the sight." as he turned toward the storm that was now mere minutes away.

He may not have been that same person, but no matter how many times she saw his ship upon the horizon or felt the touch of his hand she fell in love with that man all over again. They fought like lions in those first few years and it separated them with enough secrets to fill the space between the heaven and horizon. She could not hold those times against him, as now he closed the distance between them over and over again. 

The storm held her attention only until he was at her side and though she wanted nothing more than to reach to her toes to kiss him, she wouldn’t dare in public. Instead her gloved hand came to take his arm, a place she fit so perfectly, and she put the storm behind them. 

Perhaps had he married someone a bit more easy with matters of her heart or a bit more complacent she would have commented on the storm and welcomed him home. She would have let go of the social standards and let every ounce of her frustration out on his body then and there, but all she had to say was…

“Your son.” Lucian was only his son in matters like this. 

More McKenna than even she preferred, Aurore couldn’t let go of that fear that the man that had a hand in his earliest years left scars deeper than her own. It shouldn’t have been the first thing she said to her husband, but the last few weeks at home had been hell and she wanted to prepare him for what he was going home to. 

“He broke a boy’s nose yesterday, and before you get that proud grin of yours, Husband, know that this has been an ongoing situation and he is facing being denied a place the coming year in school.” The horrors!

They were, the two of them, entirely too similar for being near polar opposites. Had she married a different man, he might have come bounding down the gangplank to lift her into his arms in joy. But stubborn Irish pride and frigid French propriety looked largely the same as he offered his arm and they strolled down the dock toward the waiting carriage as though they were business partners and not the most passionate people either of them knew.

Your son...

That was never good.

Fintan bristled like a dog whose fur had been rubbed the wrong way as she delivered the news. It made him a hypocrite and he knew it, but the disappointment he felt in the boy was palpable. Disappointment that bordered on anger. But he would not allow the kettle to take after the pot. He had come too far to let his son make the same mistakes he did - and at fourteen the boy ought to know better.

"I will speak with him and it will not happen again." It was a promise. It seemed every time he returned home he had missed more than the time before. Had he been around more, Lucian would not have been so quick to strike another boy.

"I will discuss the next shipment with Durant in the morning, he will be glad to captain the next few I'm sure." Fintan was needed at home, and his quartermaster would surely be rid of his over-keen eye for detail for a couple months at least.

Stubborn Irish Pride, and Frigid French Propriety could have very well been the manifesto enough to keep their names afloat, but the sea would have to be without her beloved husband. He was indeed needed at home, and she selfishly wanted him to remain. 

“I do not know what to do with him, Fintan, he does not talk to me. I suspect there has been trouble with a few boys for a few months now, but this has gone too far. It can cost him his education, and worse I worry it will cast doubt upon Magdalene reputation with her classmates as well. You and I both know she will not stand much longer to see her brother mistreat that of anyone.”

There was more to it, but those doubts and concerns were for when they alone and she could set her lost soul to be found inside his heart. 

Aurore smiled to a couple that passed them and tightened her hold on Fin’s arm. She was rather possessive even now and of course she heard the gossip of the pent up elite at how much time they spent apart. She took in a deep breath to inhale his scent and the sea. 

Already she felt her walls come crumbling down, and for a very small moment she let herself smirk at just how familiar his tension felt beneath her palm. How many years ago was it when she introduced him to society? A privateer with her father’s commission came to stand at her side as she led him to the wolves that were the wealthy and impressionable society. 

*** The Past ***

“They will announce us at the top of the stairs, McKenna.” She spoke to him again as though he were beneath her; a subject in her majesty’s royal court, but slipped her hand into the crook of his arm—a place she would have liked to write her name, as now she possessed it.

“Your name will go first, despite how I am of higher standing,” She gave him a sideways glance, clearly approving of his attire, “And from there we will parade the entire way to the hosts of this occasion. At the end of the carpet you will bow to the governor and his wife. From there you will be received by an assembly of familiar faces and a few new ones. I will introduce you to as many as I can, and then—only then, Dragon, we can get a drink as I know you need one.”

***

Now so many years later she still led him through the crowd and he to lead her away from her own storm. 

“And our girls…” She didn’t even want to think about it, “They can not know such violence. We promised.” Aurore hid away her own broken bones poorly healed, and try as she might to not allow a single fight to feel so dark, she worried of Jocelyn’s pull upon him. 

What if…