Chapter 25
Reva
Ifeel the moment Finch steps back onto the ship. Just like I felt it when he shrank from one form into another, and how I’ve spent the past few days experiencing snippets of pure rage that couldn’t belong to anyone else.
You should go to him.
I’m half asleep with a furnace of a body at my back while my head rests on Aster’s bicep, no doubt sending his entire arm numb. I’d love nothing more than to sink into sleep properly, but Noush’s words drag kicking and screaming into consciousness.
I’m sure he’s fine, I mumble back at her.
He sank a billion ships. They attacked him with those weapons that don’t miss. He could be injured. He could be heartsick and hurting.
I groan inwardly, knowing she’s not wrong.
I lost count of the number of times the kraken got hit and that was before we lost sight of him the day before yesterday.
It takes a minute to untangle the mess of threads looping around my heart, especially when there are now five of them vying for my attention.
Two have shot off and are pulling at a deep spot just below my ribs, tugging me in their direction.
It feels uncomfortably like indigestion and general unease had a baby that’s set up camp inside me.
There are also two more threads—one gold and one silver—that are feeling content right now.
From their proximity, I know that one belongs to Torin and the other is Aster’s.
And the final one is... a mess all by itself.
It’s darker and looser than all the others, linked in a way that seems somehow more fragile, like it’s made out of the most brittle links that might snap at any time.
It’s also steel grey and matte, while all the others are shining gold, silver, copper and bronze.
I find that if I focus on it for more than a couple of seconds, it feels like it starts to burn hotter and hotter until I have to look away.
He’s not in a good way, Noush insists. You need to go to him.
I don’t need to do anything. Finch is a grown man. A grown man who has spent the past two days wreaking destruction with apparent ease, turning the king’s ships into matchsticks and killing everyone on board with no mercy.
I bet he’d like it if you let him rest his head in your lap. You could play with his hair... and his tentacles.
Fine, I huff back at her. Mostly because I know for a fact Noush won’t shut up until I move.
She’s always been stubborn and persistent when she thinks she’s right, aka all the time, but now I get the pleasure of her company at all hours.
She doesn’t tend to understand that there are certain times when I’d prefer her to keep her thoughts to herself.
Hence me feeling like I haven’t slept a wink in two nights.
Carefully extricating myself from my position between two males is easier than I expect.
Both are sleeping hard, if I go by the sound of their deep breathing.
With Torin, I don’t have much else to go on.
It’s not like I can see his face, or any part of him, since he still hasn’t worked out how to make himself visible again.
Pulling on the clothes I left abandoned in a pile on the floor, I tiptoe out of the cabin and head toward the kitchen.
It’s the dead of night, and the creaks and movement of the ship are the only sounds I can hear. As I pad along the passageway, we roll from side to side, cresting on a rolling wave and I stumble forward, catching myself on the walls so I don’t go arse over tit.
I’ve barely taken half a dozen steps when a figure appears around the corner, swaggering toward me and causing me to forget how to breathe for a second.
Finch.
He’s heading right for me, moving with a lithe grace that leaves me feeling like I’ve only just grown legs and haven’t worked out how to use them yet.
The way he walks is with the surety of someone who knows every inch of their body and what it’s doing, like a fighter or a dancer.
Tossing his head back so that his long, dark hair falls behind one shoulder, he cocks his head to one side as he focuses his attention on me.
“Reva.”
As soon as I’m close enough for those stormy grey eyes to snap to mine, the bundle in my chest glows and I suck in a sharp breath. Then that brittle, dull grey thread tugs at some deep part of me, and I stumble forward until I’m standing with him looming over me.
One tentacle reaches out to prod at his chest, and an answering pulse hits me in the exact same location.
Huh, that’s different.
All these bonds seem to adore proximity, and Finch’s is singing with joy after we’ve been separated for so long.
It’s a strange feeling, that’s for sure.
Just as strange as being bound together by an overabundance of magic and a persistent seal who decided that she wasn’t getting left in the dark again.
While I haven’t got Noush to tell me what exactly she experienced while I was dragging my way through life without her, her silence makes me think that it wasn’t a good experience.
Hence the five new soul bonds she forced with absolutely no one’s consent.
Hunky soul bonds. And they’ll get used to them, just give them all time.
You are an absolute menace, I tell her. But rather than feeling chastened, she preens.
Finch and I barely know each other. We’re acquaintances, bordering on in-laws, at best.
And now I can feel exactly where he is at all times, and every so often, I’m delivered an unwanted sneak peek of his emotions.
Right now, that seems to be a whole big dose of confusion.
“Are you all right?” The words fly out of my mouth before I can catch them and cram them down my throat.
His lips quirk into a little smirk that does strange things to my insides. “I’ve been better, love, I’ll admit that much,” he replies. “Yourself?”
Bobbing my head while giving an awkward shrug, I struggle to come up with an answer that’ll encompass exactly how I’m doing. There are at least five possible conversation topics threatening to spill out of my mouth, and all of them are equally awful and awkward.
So... thanks for observing me getting railed six ways to Sunday the other night. Things didn’t quite pan out how we’d hoped, eh?
Good job on smashing up those ships, I saw you gobble up a load of the king’s men like they were a tasty treat.
If you’re wondering where your brother is...
“We should go to your office,” I say, right as another wave hits and I bash into the wall yet again.
At this rate, I’m going to end up with a gnarly bruise on my hip, and we’re both in danger of waking Torin and Aster up.
Mother Ocean knows they’ve both worked themselves to the bone and they need sleep.
Finch raises an eyebrow at me, and my stomach gives an errant flip, like a dog uncertainly wagging its tail. I’m aware that I just ordered the captain about his own ship. Well, if he doesn’t like that, he’s really going to hate it when he finds out what else I’ve done over the past couple of days.
He smirks at me and gives a little wink, and air whooshes out of my lungs. “Lead the way then, love.”
The sea is choppier around here than I remember the last time we were sailing. I end up clinging to the wall, running one hand along to keep me steady as we sway from side to side.
A particularly nasty wave has my feet losing contact with the floor for a moment, and my knees buckle when I land again.
I stagger, and then Finch’s hands are on my shoulders, steadying me until I can get my legs under me.
The moment he touches me, a shock of sensation goes through me, and I suck in a sharp breath.
All around us are the sounds of the crew groaning in their cabins as they’re thrown around, and there are a couple of loud bumps as someone clearly falls out of bed.
“We, er, we did have hammocks for a while,” Finch tells me.
“They’re traditional, you know? Meant for exactly these conditions so that you’re less likely to fall out, but they’re not so easy to wash.
I’m not sure if you’ve smelled a hammock after it’s been slept on by a sweaty male that runs hot for a couple of months. It’s not pleasant.”
“Ah.”
I don’t quite know how to respond to him. It seems like we’re going to gloss over the fact that my entire body lit up in reaction to his touch. His hands weren’t even on my bare skin, for goodness’ sake, and yet my skin sang in response.
Because he’s your mate.
That’s another topic of conversation I don’t want to get to, that we’re going to have to tackle at some point. The unwanted mate bond that’s been forced upon him.
We reach his office, and he steps aside, gesturing for me to go first.
I glance up at him as I pass, hoping for a glimpse of his expression to see if he felt the same thing I did, but he looks entirely unmoved.
Does he know that? I hiss at Noush. Does he know that we’re mates?
He must do, right? But Finch has been... elsewhere ever since the bond formed. Not even inside his own body, so maybe he doesn’t know.
Which means this conversation is going to be even more awkward than I thought.
Stepping into his office, I’m aware this is the first time I’ve been in here without Torin’s buffering presence.
Having Finch’s attention on me is always a dizzying, intense thing, and right now is no different.
He takes a seat perched on the edge of his desk, gesturing for me to do the same with a lazy wave of his hand.
The only chair other than the one behind his desk is one right in front of him, which means I’m practically face-level with his crotch. Averting my eyes so I don’t make any unexpected eye contact, I’m staring at the floor and trying to formulate my thoughts when something tugs at my hair.
Glancing up with a frown, my reaction’s just quick enough to catch the tentacle sheepishly retreating to its position on Finch’s shoulder.
See? He wants to touch us, but he doesn’t know how to ask. Tell him he can rest his head in our lap and you’ll play with his hair again. Or he can play with your hair, you’ll just have to warn him he might lose a hand in all the matting.
I snort out loud. Noush has certainly not grown any less sassy during our separation.
Finch is watching me with a curious expression, and I suppose I’d better actually open my mouth and say something. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner I can get back to bed. Snuggled between the two men that wanted me, mate bond or no mate bond.
Just like Kit did. We were friends before the fake bond and still wanted each other without it.
Something prods at my chest, and I clutch my hand to the point, frowning. When I peer up at him, Finch’s tentacle is now pressing at a specific spot just over his heart.
... and I can feel it at the same location inside my chest.
“About the mate bond,” I start to say right as he also speaks,
“Now, can you tell me where—”
I snap my mouth shut.
Well, shit.
The two of us aren’t exactly in sync. Finch furrows his brow, giving his tentacles a little slap as one prods at his—and my—chest again while the other reaches for my hair.
“Can I tell you what?” I ask, deciding to leave the mate bond conversation to one side for now.
“Kit,” he says slowly. “I’m wondering if you can tell me where the hell my brother is and why we’re travelling north? I’ve been informed it was under your orders that we change direction.”
Ah.
I suppose, of all the issues to dive into, that might be the easiest to explain.
“Kit disappeared at some point after the ships appeared, while we were all distracted. He and Jack were there one minute and gone the next, and none of us knows what happened to them.”
Whether it was a coincidence that the overload of power blew out the wards right as the king’s ships appeared and Kit and Jack disappeared remains to be discovered.
Finch rubs the furrow in his brow. “But you know where they both are. That’s why we’re heading north?”
I nod, tapping my chest. “I can feel them both. Even stronger than last time.” Licking my lips, I tentatively ask, “How about you? Can you... feel either of them?”
I know from both Torin and Aster that the two of them can feel each other. We’re all a total mess of bonds with crossed wires all over the place.
Finch nods slowly. “It’s faint, but I can sense them both. That’s the bond you were talking about that I’m sensing?”
“It is. I can’t tell exactly where they are, just the general direction.” I tug on the ends of my hair, jiggling my foot. “I probably overstepped in telling the crew to shift course, but I didn’t want to waste time. Not when we don’t have any idea what’s happening.”
The glimmers of Kit’s emotions I’ve experienced have mostly been surges of irritation and boredom, while I haven’t felt a single thing from Jack. I don’t know whether to be concerned about that, so I’m settling for a general feeling of unease about the whole damn thing.
“You did right, love,” Finch says. “You made a bold choice, but I’d have said to do the same thing if I was in any fit state to give orders. This bond of yours is a strange thing,” he continues. And I feel the moment he tests it out, plucking at it like it’s the string of a guitar.
“I can pinpoint my brother’s exact location in a heartbeat.” He shifts from his desk, rolling a gigantic map over the surface and tapping his finger at a point.
“They’re in Ashwick,” I reply. Something I hadn’t been certain of until he confirms it with a single nod.
The kingdom’s capital. Home of King Wildrake.
“And so that’s where we’ll go.”