Chapter 28
I cried out, the pain of the warriors lifting Caspian excruciating in my back and sides.
“Take him,” I gasped when they paused to look at me in concern. I looked over my shoulder to see Astraios and Zephyr fighting a fierce battle with the Stormcrow’s thugs. I turned to Sereia, still fighting waves of agony. “Do not leave his side until I return.”
She nodded, and for once didn’t argue with me.
I stood and ran, hurtling back down the beach as I called the sea. The ones that had turned the Stormcrow into a bloody pulp were still lost to a frenzy, thrashing over the bones that were left as they battled each other for the scraps.
But Phyll slithered to my right and Rannoch to my left, both joining me as I moved to intercept the battle.
Astraios had already felled one opponent, leaving him badly injured. The others continued to fight as I told Ran and Phyll what I needed.
Rannoch slipped between the combatants, his watery form insubstantial when he needed to move quickly and perfectly solid when he bit down on the sword arm of one assailant and dragged him away from Astraios toward the sea.
“Put down your weapons!” I commanded as the kelpie dragged the struggling, screaming male into the surf. His friends ran for him, trying to pull him from the water horse’s grasp, but Phyll hissed at them as Ran pulled the male under.
“I said drop your weapons,” I repeated as Ran emerged from the sea, his victim floating face-down on its surface. “Now.”
The males obliged, as Zephyr and Astraios kicked their weapons aside and Phyll circled them menacingly.
“Take them to the dungeons and lock them in the cells where they kept you,” I ordered. It felt strange to give orders to Caspian’s crew, but both put a hand to their heart and said, “Yes, My Queen,” as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
I stood a little taller, trying to hide the pain I felt through the bond as I ordered Vitulus’ remaining guards to follow. They looked to my father to confirm the order, and he merely nodded. “Go.”
“I’ll take you to Caspian,” Zephyr offered, leaving the prisoners to Astraios and the selkie warriors.
“No. I need you to lead the Nordhavn selkies and sirens,” I told her as we landed. “Guard them. Let them speak to the people, if they wish. Find them a place to stay here.”
“I should guard you, Marina,” Zephyr argued. “Cas would want that.”
“Cas wants peace,” I said, taking her hands in mine. “Please, Zephyr.”
She nodded, frowning. “Send the kelpies if you are in trouble.”
I watched her stride away, her wings still too broken to fly. I’d need to make her see a healer soon too.
Healers were already swarming around both Caspian and Vitulus, who tried to wave them off and protest he was fine. His wound was long, but shallow. Still, he had lost a lot of blood and looked paler than usual.
“Stop arguing and let them stitch you,” I commanded, glaring at the captain. “Take him to his room when he’s fit enough,” I added to the healers.
“And what about…um…” One of the healers, a terrified-looking young male, glanced at my mate. “None of the guest rooms or cots in the infirmary have beds big enough for his wings.”
“Take him to my room,” my mother commanded, brooking no argument from the healers.
“We can’t—”
“You can,” she said firmly. “And you!”
My mother whirled on my father as he climbed the last step to the courtyard that looked out over the beach. “How dare you!”
“Silene—”
“No!” My mother shouted, startling the entire courtyard to silence. “You will listen to me for once, Nereus. You are not to touch Marina’s mate. You are to respect her choice, which is the will of the gods themselves, if the events of this day are to be heeded. You will lay down your weapons and come to a peaceful agreement with the sirens. And you will do it all starting now!”
“Silene, I—”
My mother wasn’t finished, and the healers and soldiers looked more terrified of her wrath than they had ever been of my father’s.
“How dare you lock me up! How dare you lock your daughter up! You will send every available warrior now to the adjoining islands to call in the clan leaders. This ends now, Nereus, and you will heed me for once in your seas-blasted life!”
Her face was practically red with fury as she shouted at my father, who stood mouth agape and unspeaking.
“You heard me!” she shouted at the guards. “Move!”
It was the fastest I’d ever seen anyone run, and the first time I’d seen my mother the way I imagined her in her youth.
It was glorious.
“Take His Majesty to our room,” my mother snapped at the healers.
If they were surprised by her use of Caspian’s title, they didn’t show it. They lifted his litter and carried him into the keep as my mother took my arm in hers and bade me follow.
“We will have the best healers look at him,” she assured me, guiding me swiftly after him through the halls. “I will not let him die. I will not lose you, Marina.”
I squeezed my mother’s arm, too emotional to form words. I knew her concern was primarily for me, but the fact that she had extended it to Caspian so readily—the fact that only she had believed me out of everyone in the keep—touched me more than I could say.
My mother and father’s room—rooms, really—were far grander than my own. The bedroom adjoined a private sitting room and bathroom, and the cold stone walls and floors were draped with colorful tapestries and rugs to ward off the chill. The windows overlooked the sea, and the bed was absolutely massive. Four large warriors could easily lie abreast, and Caspian’s battered wings only hung off the end a tiny bit.
“Place him on his stomach,” I commanded as the healers made to shift him from the litter to the bed. “His wings need to be set.”
The process was unpleasant and left me nauseated more than once. I tried to remember how he had instructed me in the past, but the damage was different, more extensive in parts of the wing I wasn’t familiar with.
When Zephyr returned, I’d have to repeat the process with her. Her wings were less damaged than Caspian’s, but setting them would still be painful, and I wasn’t sure I was up to the task.
Astraios joined us eventually, reporting that the prisoners had been secured in the dungeons.
“The sea dragons seem to have decided to take it upon themselves to make sure they don’t escape,” he commented, putting a comforting hand on my shoulder as I watched the selkie healers clean, stitch, and dress my mate’s various wounds. “Such a shame you didn’t let them just eat the bastards down on the beach. They’ve earned a good meal.”
Astraios shot a grin at Sereia, who blushed and looked away.
“He needs a siren healer,” I said, unable to focus on anything but Caspian’s ruined back and body. His pain was a dull ache throughout my body now, and it was making it hard to focus on anything else. “So does Zephyr. They won’t be able to fly if their wings aren’t set properly.”
Astraios looked again at Sereia, who met his gaze this time. Seas, is this what Caspian and I were like at first? It was maddening.
“I’ll go,” he said finally. “I can be back in two days with Mira if I take a sea dragon.”
“Thank you,” I said, giving him a genuine smile. “I’ll let them know you’re coming.”
“Tell them not to eat me please,” he asked, glancing at Sereia once more. “I’ll be back.”
It was clear he wasn’t saying it to me.
The healers left eventually, telling us that Caspian shouldn’t be moved. They left several vials of medicine, some of which I’d taken during particularly bad flare ups for pain or sleep. None of them worked as well as Mira’s.
“I’ll check on Vitulus,” my mother said, rising from the desk where she had been writing s to the ladies of all the noble selkie houses explaining what had happened. Females, she had said, are the more sensible ones about matters of politics. I couldn’t disagree as she gathered her letters and swept from the room, a true queen if I’d ever seen one.
“Sereia,” I started, needing a distraction from my pain—Caspian’s pain. I took my mate’s hand in mine, stroking the back gently as I thought over my question. In the end, I decided to be blunt as usual. “What’s going on with you and Astraios?”
She blushed and bit her lower lip. “Oh. I mean…now isn’t really the time—”
“He’s your mate,” I stated, framing it as a fact rather than a question.
The pink blush across her cheeks darkened, but her gaze was steady as she met mine. She dragged a chair so that she was sitting next to me and sighed heavily. “Yes.”
“So?” I pushed, eager for details. “Is it official? Have you even kissed yet?”
She bit her lip. “We were alone in Nordhavn, Marina. What do you think?”
“And?”
“And that’s all,” she replied primly. “I barely know him, Marina.”
I groaned.
“It’s not that simple,” she said, smoothing the blankets to do something with her hands. “It’s…it’s not…”
She struggled for words, and I turned to look at her properly, trying to ignore the ache in my side where Caspian’s stitches lay. “It’s what?”
“It’s not how this was supposed to be,” she said firmly, sounding so unhappy that it broke my heart a little. “I know you and Caspian were a…a surprise, but it is right. Perfect. But my parents expect me to mate a selkie and have selkie children. What will they say if I bring home a siren and claim he’s my mate? And all we do is argue with each other and stare awkwardly. Is this how it’s really supposed to be?”
I blinked. It stupidly hadn’t even occurred to me that Sereia might be struggling. My love for Caspian now felt so natural—so second nature—that I had somehow already forgotten how it had begun.
“You have to remember,” I said, still holding Caspian’s hand between mine. His breathing was steadier than it had been, and I wondered if the sound of my voice was enough to soothe him, even in this state. “My relationship with Caspian began with him kidnapping me. You should have seen how we bickered in those first few weeks.” I smiled at the memory. “It wasn’t all sunshine and roses, but there was that inexplicable pull. The desire. It was enough for me to look past our differences and consider a different path than the one I’d been told I had to take.”
“You were forced together,” Sereia pointed out. “Under peril and adventure and danger. It's natural for affection to bloom in those conditions.”
“And you and Astraios weren’t?” I teased, smirking at her. “I recall you telling me he crashed through your window while on a secret mission for me. Sounds like adventure and peril.”
“Seas, he was so handsome,” she sighed.
I laughed and nudged her shoulder with mine, the humor giving me a brief reprieve from Caspian’s injuries. “The bond muddies everything. I wondered more than once if what I felt was real or just some twist of magic. But when it’s reciprocated, it’s…” I tried to put into words what my bond with Caspian was like, finding it impossible. “It’s an indescribable connection. Consuming and terrifying and wonderful.”
“But what..” She paused, considered, and tried again. “What if he leaves? What if he won’t wait for me to be ready? What if this is my one chance and I ruin it?”
“I’ve seen the way he looks at you. And I know Astraios.” I pushed a lock of her silver hair back from her face and met her sky blue eyes. “He will wait until the world ends, if that’s how long you need.”
“You think?”
“I know,” I corrected. “Talk to him. Fight with him. Honestly, it makes for excellent foreplay.”
“Marina!” Sereia pretended to act scandalized.
“And when all of this is finally settled, we can send you on some diplomatic mission or other to give you an excuse to have your own adventure. You waited years to find each other. You can give yourself a few more months to fall in love.”
I looked at Caspian, still and injured and pale, lying in a bed that I was determined he would wake from. Mira would come and heal him, and he would be the same strong, handsome, irritating male I’d fallen in love with.
He had nearly died on that beach. I’d seen him flagging in his fight. Seen how deep the Stormcrow’s blade had pierced. If the sea dragons hadn’t answered him, I would have lost him.
No. I would have felt it and saved him. But the thought still terrified me.
“You have time, Sereia. He’s your mate forever, whether you claim him now, or in a hundred years. But if I were you,” I added, kissing Caspian’s bruised knuckles, “I wouldn’t wait that long.”