Chapter 18
“He’ll be fine,” Zephyr said for the eighteenth time as I practiced molding fog into different shapes. I scowled and floated a fog seagull toward her.
In the last three days I’d done nothing but train, drink tea, and practice harnessing wind. As soon as Caspian suggested I might have the ability, it was like something broke open inside of me. Suddenly, speaking to the sky and wind was as simple as speaking to the sea.
Zephrus above and Undine below. The sky and the sea joined forever at the horizon.
Not for the first time, I wondered where that left Melusine.
Zephyr looked at me unamused as the seagull flapped its foggy wings once and disintegrated into shapeless mist.
The idea for the fog shapes had struck me yesterday as we sailed through a particularly dense cloud, and I’d been entertaining myself—and the sky, if I wasn’t imagining its regular rumble of masculine amusement—with fog animals ever since.
“So you can really speak to the sky?” she asked, waving at a cloud of fog ineffectually.
I asked it to coalesce a little to the right, and it obliged with a tiny gust. “Apparently.”
“That’s not a normal selkie thing, right?” she pushed. Zephyr had kept me company all morning, and we’d been over this already, but I knew she was trying to distract me from Caspian’s absence.
He should be back any minute, if he hadn’t been killed or captured. The warm glow of the bond in my chest told me he hadn’t, but I gnawed on my lower lip regardless.
“It’s not.” I debated for a moment how much to reveal to her, but decided to keep my theories to myself. “He thinks someone named Theia will have answers. Have you ever met her?”
“Once.” Zephyr shuddered, and I raised a brow at her. “She was…odd. Unsettling.”
“What happened to her?”
“That’s her story,” Zephyr replied, giving me a wry smile. “And I couldn’t tell you the whole truth of it even if I wanted to. Only Cas knows it.”
“Is it something to do with the Betrayal? The Exile, I mean?”
Zephyr gave me a knowing look. “I’m not lying, Marina. I truly don’t know everything. But if Cas thinks she can help, I’m sure he’ll take you to meet her.” She shuddered. “You won’t enjoy it.”
I frowned. Who was this female that everyone seemed so disturbed by?
A thump on the deck next to me broke me from my thoughts as fire-hot hands gripped my hips and warm lips covered mine.
“Miss me, Urchin?”
“No,” I lied, stepping back to scan him for injury. He looked fine, but it didn’t stop me from running my hands over his chest just to be sure. “What happened?”
“It was the Stormcrow alright,” he said. He sounded exhausted, but his attention was diverted by the menagerie of fog animals surrounding me. “Are you sure you didn’t miss me, Urchin?”
Caspian grinned at my restless attempts to distract myself, and I dissipated them into mist with a wave of my hand. “Did you kill him?”
“No.”
“Was he behind the attack?” Zephyr asked.
Caspian nodded. “He was hired.”
“By who?” Zephyr and I asked in unison.
“He wouldn’t tell me,” Caspian yawned. “Not when I had the advantage with a blade to his throat. And he wants to meet Marina first.”
Zephyr scoffed, but I frowned. “Meet me?” I asked, looking between them. “Why?”
“No idea,” Caspian replied, planting a kiss on the top of my head. “But it’s not happening.”
“Why not?” I pushed out of his arms. “Isn’t this why you’ve been teaching me to fight?”
“Teaching you to defend yourself is not the same as bringing you knowingly into danger,” he sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. “The Stormcrow is dangerous.”
“And you faced him alone today.”
“And failed to kill him,” Zephyr added.
“Skies, I miss Astraios,” Caspian grumbled.
Zephyr snorted. “He’d side with Marina, and you know it.”
“We’ll meet with Theia instead,” Caspian said resolutely. “If she can tell me who was behind the attack, then I don’t need the Stormcrow.”
“She can see those kinds of things?” I asked, both impressed and a little wary.
“Most of her visions are nonsense,” Caspian replied with a shrug. “But she occasionally makes enough sense that I can figure out her meaning before it’s too late.”
“Too late?”
“They’re usually not clear until after whatever it is has happened,” Zephyr explained, knocking her shoulder against mine as I leaned against the mast beside her. “Not very useful, unfortunately.”
“Who is she to you, exactly?” I pinned Caspian with my best glare which had absolutely no effect on him.
“Everything will make sense tomorrow, Urchin. Patience is a virtue.”
“Tomorrow?”
“That’s when I’m taking you to see her.” He stretched his wings and shoulders in a way I knew was mostly to distract me. “Now, if I’m not mistaken, you and I have some pressing business to attend to.”
He scooped me up from my perch against the mast, and I yelped in surprise.
“Make good choices, you two!” Zephyr called behind us. Caspian threw a finger over his shoulder in a dirty gesture, and she laughed before shouting at someone to be more careful lest they be strangled by the shrouds. I didn’t see where she went as Caspian ducked into the room and practically threw me on the bed.
“Name screaming, Urchin.” Caspian locked the door and prowled toward me. “As promised.”
“A lady likes to be romanced a bit, you know,” I groused, pretending to be affronted at his brazenness. “We need wooing. I’m not the wind for you to just command, you know.”
“Ah, but I never command,” he corrected, leaning over me and weaving his fingers into my hair as he pressed me back onto the mattress. “Usually I ask very nicely.”
He pressed his lips to my neck, kissing a fluttering trail across my throat that made my heart stutter.
“Please, Marina,” he murmured into my ear, nipping at the lobe and making my toes curl and core tighten. “Let me fuck you senseless.”
“Well, since you asked nicely,” I conceded rather breathily. “I suppose that would be fine.”
He laughed and pulled me into a kiss that I felt down to my very soul, taking the time to unlace my trousers before tugging them down my body. I went to work on the bodice, still engrossed in the kiss that was turning sloppy and feral as we worked to undress me.
“Why do your clothes have so many fucking laces?” Caspian practically tore the bodice from me and growled in frustration at the shirt that separated him from his prize. “I think I miss your gowns.”
“They’re too cumbersome for pirating,” I laughed, pulling the shirt over my head until I was bare before him.
He sucked in a breath and cupped my breasts in his warm hands. “Skies, the things you do to me, Urchin.” He stepped away and pulled off his own trousers, then threw his pauldrons unceremoniously to the ground. “Turn around.”
“What?” I blinked up at him and saw a wicked smile curving his lips that made my thighs slick with heat.
“Turn around, Urchin,” he purred, bending low to press a kiss to my shoulder. “Trust me.”
I obeyed, tension building at the command and tone of his voice.
“Bend over.”
Seas, that sensual purr was my undoing. I pressed my hands into the mattress as Caspian’s palm ran down the length of my back, pushing me ever so slightly forward.
“Spread.”
He tapped my leg with the hand that wasn’t pressed against my back, and I whimpered as I widened my legs.
“Good girl,” he murmured, pressing his hard chest to my back and kissing my neck. The hand at my leg splayed, gripping my hip tightly as his other hand trailed down my front, settling between my legs. “Remember, communication. You’ll have to tell me if you don’t like something.”
“Just fuck me already.” I gasped as he slipped two fingers between my thighs, teasing my most sensitive flesh in slow, deliberate circles.
He laughed against my neck, his length hard where it pressed to my backside.
“Patience, Urchin. I want you screaming, remember?”
I fisted the sheets as he continued stroking me, my nipples pressing into the bedspread and sparks of pleasure dancing down my ribs. Caspian held me tight, pressing kisses to my neck between murmured praise and terrible, wicked suggestions.
“The things I plan to do to you in this life, Urchin. I want to bed you until you can’t walk straight. To make you come so hard you pass out. To strum you like a lyre and bask in the sweet sounds you make with your pretty mouth.”
“Seas,” I moaned. “Yes to all those things.”
Caspian rumbled a laugh again, and I felt the head of him press against me. He entered me with a slow, deliberate thrust.
We let out a groan in unison, the combination of sensations as he filled and stroked me almost too much to bear.
“Skies, Marina.” Caspian shifted so he was standing, his hand moving from my hip to fist my hair. The angle pressed him into me in a way that made pleasure flood me. “I wouldn't mind getting used to this view.”
“Pig.” The insult came out as a groan when he moved his fingers slightly, finding a spot that was aching for pressure.
He chuckled, pressing all of his weight into me as he pressed against my back. He slid the hand in my hair over my breast and to my throat as he pressed us into the mattress and began to thrust in earnest.
I felt completely dominated by him, pleasure and sensation building as one of his hands teased and stroked while the other held my throat. He continued kissing my neck and ear and murmuring to me all while he thrust and stroked a steady rhythm into me.
My cry as I found release was muffled by the blankets, and Caspian tutted. “Louder, Urchin. I promised screaming.”
He withdrew from me, leaving me panting against the bed.
“Where are you—”
My question was answered as he scooped me up, laying me out gently again with my head on the pillows and my legs splayed as he prowled over me. “Perhaps this will inspire you.”
The press of his tongue between my thighs nearly undid me all over again, but Caspian was a skilled lover, and he knew just how to tease without tipping me all the way over the edge.
I moaned as I fisted my hands in his hair, the temptation to grab onto his wings and pull him up to me nearly overwhelming. “Caspian,” I begged. “Please. I want you inside me.”
“Soon, my love.” He swirled his tongue and sent spasms rocking through my core before sliding two fingers into me. “Let me feast first.”
I was over the glittering edge of release again in minutes, the stroke of his fingers inside me coupling with his tongue in a way that had me coming wholly unraveled as I cried his name.
“There it is,” he laughed, his lips glossy as he rose and pressed kisses to my inner thigh. “Much better, Urchin. Now you can have me.”
He was rock hard as I pulled him over me. He hissed as I dug my fingers into his feathers, nipping the tip of my ear in retaliation. “Those are sensitive.”
“I know.” I stroked the white softness again and felt his length twitch against me. “This is payback.”
“Wicked thing.” He kissed me, his tongue twining with mine as he thrust into me, one arm wrapping around my back to pull me as close to him as I could possibly be. A thrust of his hips had me gasping, and he grinned against my parted lips. “Is this what you want?”
“Yes.” I arched into him, trying to get closer and feel more, wishing we could always be so close, so wholly connected to one another. “Caspian.”
“I know,” he murmured, his breath coming in pants as he thrust harder and faster, his face buried against my neck. “Come for me again.”
The words undid me, and Caspian followed, my name a prayer on his lips as he lay limp above me still buried deep inside me.
“Marina,” he murmured, lacing his fingers in mine as we panted together, sweaty and spent and blissfully sated. “My love. My mate.”
I hadn’t noticed the rain that now beat against the cabin, nor the rocking of the ship on waves that were a bit too vigorous to be natural.
Seas, everyone would know.
Caspian turned, pulling me into the protective crook of his arm. I was too boneless to protest with more than a whimper when he slipped out of me.
He chuckled, pressing a kiss to my brow as the rain began to lessen. “Satisfactory?”
“Very,” I agreed, kissing the deep scar across his chest. It was the most I could move. “I think you broke me.”
“Nonsense. You’ll be ready again in half an hour.”
I laughed, glancing up to see a feral smirk that told me he was completely serious. “Don’t you have work to do, Captain?”
“Let Zephyr handle it,” he replied, his smirk falling into a lazy, self-satisfied grin that sent heat flooding me all over again. Seas, what was wrong with me? “Tomorrow, we work. Today, we play.”
When he kissed me again, the rain resuming a steady thrum against the deck outside, I lost the will to protest.