Chapter 3
To my chagrin, Caspian returned with both Zephyr and Astraios in tow, as well as a dark-skinned female I didn’t know.
“I’m Anatole,” she said, embracing me so unexpectedly I stood motionless. “But please, call me Ana. I’m Zephyr’s mate.”
“Oh!” I exclaimed, her presence finally making sense. I remembered both Caspian and Zephyr speaking about Zephyr’s mate, who was next in line to take a council seat. I just hadn’t learned her name. “Of course. It’s lovely to meet you.”
Zephyr grinned and threw an arm around Ana, who was at least a foot taller than her, planting a kiss on her cheek. They were like mirror opposites, one fair and one dark, one the rugged pirate and the other a delicate lady. But they fit together somehow, and Ana beamed under Zephyr’s loving gaze.
“I hope you don’t mind that we invited ourselves,” Astraios said, placing several bags on the low table before the couch. “And I notice that once again, I receive no greeting.”
Caspian rolled his eyes in beleaguered amusement. I raised a brow at him, and he gave me a tight-lipped, apologetic smile.
Later. We’d talk later.
It turned out that the bags contained dinner, and a veritable feast was laid out on the low table for the five of us. I worried that perhaps it was too much food, considering the situation in the cliffs, but none of the sirens seemed bothered.
We dug into fish and rice and vegetables, all cooked to utter perfection and pleasantly seasoned. The only disappointment was the bread, which was almost as hard as granite.
“Another of Reuben’s failures,” Astraios said by way of explanation as I nearly broke my teeth. “Bread and breakfast, his two great nemeses.”
“Why does no one tell him?” I asked, laughing as Astraios tried and failed to break the roll in half.
“We do,” replied Zephyr and Caspian at the same time with the same dark resignation in their voices. Ana laughed at this, and I smiled as I gave up on the bread.
This was nice. I didn’t have a circle of friends on the isles who ate dinner or joked with me. As much as I loved and missed Sereia, who was probably mad with worry about me, it wasn’t the same. Yes, we were friends, but she was also employed by my parents, and her primary objective in our friendship had been keeping me out of trouble.
Caspian looked so at ease around his peers that it was easy to forget he was their king. I found myself staring at him, his scarred golden chest heaving with laughter, when Ana tapped me on the arm.
She and I were sitting on a pile of pillows and furs spread over the ground, since there wasn’t enough room for all of us on the sofa. I looked over to find her smiling knowingly at me.
“They make quite a trio, don’t they?” she mused quietly, flicking her eyes to our respective mates and Astraios on the couch. “It can be intimidating, trying to find your place among them.”
“You seem to fit in well,” I pointed out, noting the way Zephyr’s eyes shifted to her delicate face repeatedly throughout dinner.
“It took a while to get here,” Ana replied, smiling faintly at her mate. “And I’m thrilled we have you now. We officially outnumber the males.”
“Oh,” I said, uncertain whether or not I should tell Ana that I might not be staying. Probably not, since her family was on the council. “I hope so.”
“You will,” she said assuredly. “I know Caspian wants you to, and he usually gets his way when he wants something.” She said this with a warm smile and squeezed my knee. “Plus, I hear you’re going to study our history. I can’t wait to show you the library, and I’ve already pulled several books for you!”
“There’s a library?” I asked, trying not to squeal too loudly.
“Of course!” Ana laughed, shaking her head as if this were obvious, and the three on the couch turned their attention back to us.
“Ana is the head archivist,” Caspian explained, nodding to Zephyr’s mate. “I asked her to start pulling records for you as soon as I knew you would recover.”
“How big is your library?” I asked, looking between Caspian and Ana. We had a small royal library on the Isles, of course, and there were many books in my father’s private archives that the public—which included me—were not allowed to read. I assumed that any library in these cliffs must be smaller than ours.
“Oh, I’m not sure,” Ana said, frowning as she did some mental calculations. “Twenty thousand books, perhaps?”
“Twenty thousand?!” I exclaimed. The library at home had maybe a thousand books, if you didn’t include the ones in the archive. “How did you save that many?”
“She means from the Exile,” Caspian clarified when Ana looked confused.
Her expression cleared and turned thoughtful. “It was the priority of the former archivist,” she explained, studying me with quiet interest. “Why do you ask?”
“We just have so few books on the Isles. And only a few on sirens that I’ve been able to sneak out of my father’s archives.”
“You snuck books about sirens out of your archives?” Zephyr asked, a knowing grin lighting her face. “You little pirate. I knew you’d fit right in.”
“What was in these books?” Astraios chimed in, glee lighting his features. “Naughty things?”
Caspian punched him in the arm.
“Just histories,” I laughed, admiring Caspian’s strong jaw as he glared at his second mate. “Battle tactics and things. Nothing that wasn’t common knowledge.”
“What kind of battle tactics?” Caspian asked seriously. When I faltered in my response, he softened his gaze. “We need to know what the selkies know about us. What your father knows.”
“Mostly just your song magic,” I hedged, trying to recall if there was anything damning in my stolen books. “And that you had female warriors among your people.”
“Still have,” Zephyr replied proudly. “But I think the selkies used to train their females to fight as well.” She looked at Ana for confirmation.
“That cannot be the case,” I scoffed, thinking of my father and Vitulus. “It’s certainly not allowed now. It’s ‘not our place.’”
“Not your place?” Astraios asked with indignation, looking to Caspian for confirmation. Caspian nodded sardonically, and Astraios let out a huff. “No music? No female warriors? No offense, Princess, but your islands have gone a bit backward in the last few centuries.”
I bristled, even though I knew he was right. Zephyr gave him a disapproving scowl, but didn’t comment as Ana patted my hand in understanding.
“I’ll check tomorrow,” she said, smiling with so much excitement at the prospect of digging through books that I realized I’d found a kindred spirit in her. “We have a few books on our shared history. I’ll see if I can find them.”
The rest of the evening passed equally enjoyably. Astraios taught me a card game that I lost thoroughly, despite his best efforts to teach me. Zephyr found some wine somewhere, and I had far more than I should have, the card game quickly transitioning into a drinking game.
I had no idea what time it was when Caspian not-so-subtly suggested it was time for our guests to leave and sent them off into the inky night sky.
“It’s amazing,” I mused, sipping the dregs of my wine and deciding that the floor was a good place to stay while my head continued to spin pleasantly. “You’re the king, but you have regular friends and no one ordering you around all day and keeping you safe.”
“The council orders me around,” Caspian corrected, leaning against the door frame to the sky and crossing his arms over his chest. “How many drinks have you had, Urchin?”
“Three, I think?” I said, trying to count. “I barely feel it.”
I made an effort to stand and immediately stumbled. Caspian lunged forward and caught me around the waist as I laughed.
“Clearly,” he chuckled, brushing a strand of hair from my face as he gazed down at me. “I’m sorry that this seems amazing to you. It’s a tragedy that you didn’t have the same freedoms.”
I shrugged, feeling goosebumps erupt down my arms as his fingers tightened on my waist.
“You make a convincing argument for me to stay,” I murmured, meeting his golden eyes and wishing he would lean down and kiss me already.
A half-smile quirked his lips, and as if he felt the desire rise in me, he obliged.
It was too swift and too chaste, and I whined in annoyance.
“You’re drunk, Marina,” he said gently, cupping my face to hold me back from trying to climb him like a tree to kiss him more thoroughly. “And I won’t do anything more with you when you’re not fully in control of yourself.”
“I don’t want to be in control,” I pouted, realizing that it was absolutely true, even if it was a ploy to get him to give in. All of my life had been controlled. I wanted to taste the wild fierceness that was my mate, even if he didn’t know that’s what we were.
Even if it meant I couldn’t leave.
“Marina,” he murmured, placing another chaste kiss on my brow. “Skies, you test me. Tomorrow, Marina. After the council meeting and the library and training.”
“I’ll be too tired after all that!” I protested.
Caspian laughed and scooped me into his arms, carrying me into his bedroom where he deposited me on what had become my side of his bed. He sat beside me and gave me one final, firm kiss. A clear goodnight.
“If I lie down next to you,” he purred, “are you going to try to molest me? Or will you be a good girl and wait until tomorrow like I asked?”
I thought about telling him that I’d be a good girl in other ways, but a yawn hit me, making my jaw crack with the strength of it.
Caspian chuckled again, and I rolled my eyes. “I’ll be good.”
“Hmm.” Caspian slid warily beneath the covers and ran a palm across the wall. The veins of moonstone that webbed throughout the cliffs dimmed at his touch, some property of the stone responding to his innate magic.
We sank into utter darkness as Caspian pulled me to him, settling my head into the crook of his shoulder.
“None of that,” he tutted, catching my hands which may have begun to wander. “Tomorrow, Urchin.”
“Fine.” I sighed in resignation, nestling into him as he kissed the top of my hair.
His wings were soft beneath me, and Caspian had assured me multiple times that I wouldn’t crush them by lying on them. The warm heat of him wrapped completely around me meant I was never cold, and it occurred to me that I could happily stay like this forever.
Except…Home. Parents. War.
Mate.
Beneath my hands, which he had pinned to his chest with one of his own, I felt the huge scar that ran over his pectoral.
“Cas,” I murmured, sleep beginning to claim me. “What happened to your parents?”
I might have imagined the stilling of his fingers as he stroked them over my shoulder.
But I didn’t think so when he replied, “Tomorrow, Urchin. I’ll tell you everything tomorrow.”