Chapter 1
Reva
Icy seawater swishes around my legs as I wade through the waist-high water, dragging my lifeless sealskin beside me. My movements are heavy and I drop down into the water until I’m on my knees, tilting my head back and letting it soothe some of the ache in my hip.
For a moment, it’s bliss.
The water moves over my skin, caressing me like a good lover. And for a second, everything melts away. It’s just me and the ocean.
My relief only lasts a moment, though. The cold digs deep into my flesh and I can’t stay still for long. I force the rest of me up and out of the water before wrapping my sealskin around my shoulders. Then I wait for the telltale shimmer of magic to roll through me as I shift into my seal’s form.
... but nothing happens. I’m left shivering in the shallows, pushing down my disappointment.
I don’t know what I was expecting. It’s been weeks since I first woke up and discovered my sealskin had been so drained of magic, I can no longer connect with my other half. So far, none of my daily dips in the freezing sea have made Noush appear.
I blow out a defeated sigh and plod along, wincing at the immediate return of the ache in my joints. It feels like my bones are rubbing against one another and the cold isn’t helping. A shudder wracks my body, and I hurry my pace, travelling through the shallows toward the shore.
With Kit’s and Torin’s faces and names plastered all over Kit’s hometown and a warrant out for their arrest, Captain Finch decided that the entire crew should hide out somewhere together.
I don’t know how they found this place, but the same day we found the first warrant, it was decided we’d be heading here and hunkering down.
We don’t know how long it’ll be before the king’s forces add the entire crew’s names to the warrants, but it seemed that sailing around on an infamous pirate ship would leave Finch’s entire crew as sitting ducks.
So, over the past few weeks, we’ve been staying on an abandoned tidal island, one that’s cut off from the mainland by a couple of miles of water when the tide is high and connected by a long, straight causeway when it’s low tide.
A wild, unkempt forest borders the island.
The first thing the crew did when they arrived was to cut a path through the dense vegetation and I search through the thick brush for the opening in the trees, then pad along the path for the half mile until I reach the centre of the island and the mansion house that hides there.
It’s old and imposing. Half of the windows have at least one hole and many are shattered entirely.
The roof also leaks on one end, meaning it’s both damp and frigid inside.
Making my way through the side door, I wipe sand and mud off my feet with the freezing tap in the mudroom and then continue along, past the warmth of the kitchen which still has the faint scent of the dinner I no doubt have missed by now.
Who knows how long I spent out in the water this time, but judging by the way my veins are currently pumping slushy ice around my body, it was longer than it should have been.
Stepping out into the entranceway that’s thankfully empty at the moment, I’m hit with the full musty smell of this place. I can still taste the dust in the air that’s been impossible to shift despite countless attempts to clean it up.
Since we don’t know how long we’ll be staying here, the crew have been busily turning their overexuberant attentions to fixing up the million things wrong with the house.
Honestly, you’ve seen nothing quite like a pirate crew turning domestic as they tried to make this place habitable.
Mostly, they worked together well until someone thought it would be a bright idea to use another crewmate as a mop, dragging him around on his arse while both roared with laughter.
Someone’s clearly made a start on replacing the rotted floorboards on the staircase today.
But they must have got distracted midway through, since I nearly lose my foot, pressing down too hard on one of the particularly rotten boards.
A jolt of nerve pain goes through my leg, and I stifle a groan, not trusting the rickety bannister to take my weight as I make my way up the deathtrap staircase.
The house is big enough that the quarters where my best friend, Frannie, and I have adjoining bedrooms. I’m not expecting to see anyone as I make my way to my room, hoping that Frannie has warmed up some water for a long soak in the stained bathtub that we share.
But a familiar figure is crouching by my door, carefully placing a tray of food onto the floor outside.
If I’m not mistaken, he’s trying to drop by and sneak off without having to speak to me.
Slightly tricky when you’re over six feet tall and built like a legendary warrior.
Torin.
My scarred, sort of ex-mate. Who has been avoiding me since we got here, for reasons that are mostly a mystery to me.
“Snugglebum,” I call out in greeting as soon as I’m in earshot. The soaked material of my trousers is sticking to my body like a second skin, and I don’t miss the way Torin’s eyes flick over me from head to toe, flaring with barely banked heat.
I shoot a tired smile at him. “Have you come for Thursday night bingo?” I might be cold and tired, but it seems like I’ve got just enough energy to tease him.
He clenches his hands into fists, bracing himself against the wall. There’s a tic going in his jaw, like he’s clenching his jaw, which I watch with interest.
“It’s Tuesday,” he grunts.
“Oh, right, Tuesdays are for crochet club. Did you bring your own hook thingy? I can share so long as you don’t mind that all I’ve got is this pretty lilac yarn. Did you bring your readers with you?”
He lets out a low, displeased warning growl. “Reva.”
It might be a warning, but it’s one I don’t heed. His rasping voice goes right through me, leaving a hot shiver in its wake. The man is pure fire. Not quite enough to thaw the newly developed shell of ice around my heart, but enough to leave a pulse between my thighs.
“Yes, sweetpea?”
I push aside the ugly painting that’s hanging beside my door and unhook the key that’s hidden behind.
Then, jimmying the key into the sticky lock and wiggling vigorously, I glance over my shoulder as I step inside.
I catch Torin’s eyes locked on the sealskin tossed over my shoulders before he notices my attention.
A slight blush covers the tops of his cheeks.
“Why bother with a key at all if you’re just going to leave it out in the open?”
“I was out in the water. I’m more likely to lose it out there.”
He blinks at me, shifting from foot to foot. “You went swimming again?”
Another shrug. “I thought it couldn’t do any harm.” Apart from causing me to freeze my imaginary nuts off, that is.
Torin grunts, but doesn’t say another word.
“Are you coming inside, or are you just going to loiter outside my door?” I ask him.
He shifts from foot to foot, then bends to pick something up from the other end of the porch. “Cookie made extra food for dinner. Thought I’d drop it off while it was still warm.”
Uh huh, a likely story. Cookie doesn’t make ‘extra’ food as a rule. If you’re not around for dinnertime, he says that you can fend for yourself or go hungry.
Seems Torin is doing yet another nice thing for me. My gut twists at the unhappy expression on his face as it hits me he’d far rather I’d never seen him. If I’d spent an extra minute in the water, no doubt he would have come and gone without a word. Just like he did yesterday and the day before.
I stifle a sigh as he thrusts the tray of steaming... something into my hands and makes sure I’ve got a firm grip on it before he turns and strides away, causing the rickety floorboards to give an ominous creak.
“Eat it while it’s warm. You look half frozen,” he grumbles over his shoulder.
“See you tomorrow, sweetcheeks,” I call after him, even as my heart ducks and rolls inside my chest.
And then he’s gone.
I allow myself to sigh softly as I let myself into my room.
It’s nothing special, slightly moth-eaten and worn with time.
There’s everything I need, though with a bed with an ancient, sagging mattress, a couple of oversized armchairs, and a monstrosity of a wardrobe that requires careful maneuvering around.
I dump the tray onto the bed before carefully placing Noush’s skin onto the back of the chair that’s in front of a wood-burning fire.
I then toss on some dry clothes before hanging up my wet ones in front of the fire.
My stomach rumbles and I plop down into one of the two seats and tuck into the food.
I hate to admit that Torin’s right when he’s acting so weird, but I’ve not been eating properly since my sealskin was stolen from me.
Half the time, my stomach rebels at the thought of eating, so I have to take the chance to chow down on as much as I can whenever I feel remotely hungry. Just like now.
I’m almost finished when Frannie strides in through our connecting door, weaving her tall form around the awkwardly placed furniture and brushing her long black hair into a sheet down her back.
“Was that your man bringing more food?” she asks, her black eyes lighting up at the sight of the steaming bowl in front of me.
“Not so sure he’s my man,” I mutter through a mouthful of stew. It’s meaty and delicious, filled with chunks of vegetables and slow-cooked to melt in my mouth. Clearly Cookie’s skills in the ship’s kitchen work equally well on land.
“He’s yours all right,” Frannie replies with a confidence I wish I felt right now. “Are you still both pussyfooting around each other?”
I snort through another mouthful. “He’s the one being weird, not me. I keep thinking if I prod him enough, he’ll go back to normal, but it hasn’t happened yet.”
Something changed in Torin when we visited the Deadwood Cove labs. Sure, he’s usually gruff and a little grumpy. But he also usually finds me at least a teensy bit amusing, as much as he tries to hide it.
Not anymore, though.
I don’t know if it was revisiting the home of his nightmares—where they experimented on him until he was no longer human—or if it was our mate bond breaking, but he’s changed.
And I don’t like it.
Now, he just seems fed up with me, as much as he is with everyone else.
Or like he can’t wait to get far away from me.
It’s like up until now, I’ve been getting a different version of Torin, but now I’m experiencing the one everyone else gets.
The one who brings you blankets and food and won’t accept a thank you, and won’t even acknowledge he’s doing something nice.
It’s not like I expected things to go back to exactly how they were. Not when he thought we were mates, and that fate had smiled down on us and selected the two of us to be a perfect pair. And then that bond got torn away. Still though, I’d like him to at least talk to me.
“But you told the others, right?” Frannie says with a knowing eyebrow raise. “You’ve told Torin and Kit about Aster faking the mate bond?”
She knows full well that I haven’t. Frannie’s the only one I’ve told the truth to, and that was only because I couldn’t cope with all the shitty feelings that have been steadily growing in intensity since I first lost my sealskin.
I just can’t seem to make myself say the words out-loud. Possibly it’s because it was bad enough to have an unwanted bond break and to realise it was the only thing giving you any sort of connection. But it would be infinitely worse to know the bond shouldn’t have ever existed.
Things are messy, and that’s without both Torin and Kit being wanted by the authorities.
Which means we’re stuck together in this house, so there are likely to be a lot more awkward encounters with Torin as he tries to pretend he’s not taking care of me, even though he’s decided he no longer wants to be around me.
But that’s an issue for another day. Until he puts on his big-boy trousers and tells me what’s bothering him, I have plenty of other things to occupy my mind. Like trying to get Noush back.
“No luck on your swim then?” Frannie asks, although it’s pretty clear she already knows the answer.
I shake my head, piling my empty bowl back onto the tray to return to the kitchen later.
“Maybe it’s time to try something else then?” Her tone is more hesitant than I’m used to hearing from my strident friend. “Have you spoken to Aster about it yet?”
Shaking my head, I avoid her knowing look. “I know, I know I’m a terrible hypocrite, moaning about Torin avoiding me one minute and doing the same thing to Aster the next.”
Things have been strained between us ever since we made it out of the Deadwood Cove labs. And I know that he didn’t mean for his magic to cause chaos, but it did, and I’m struggling to just pivot like I normally do and get over it.
Aster spent weeks allowing me to believe that our mate bonds were real, and it’s not something I can easily forget.
I just don’t know how to feel around him.
Frannie’s annoyingly right, though. Daily swims in the water aren’t working, so maybe I need a solution that’s more magical in nature. Which means begging a favour from the witch I used to think of as mine.