Chapter Thirteen
A blur of little kits swapped out the cool, saltwater-scented cloths on his arms every minute.
Left on any longer and they crackled like dry leaves, kindling on the cusp of igniting.
The ship could have sunk, and Nick wouldn’t have noticed, too entrenched in the burning of his arms. Anna dosed him.
He coughed it up. She dosed him again. The cloths took two minutes before they crinkled.
Then three. And then Mini replaced two lengths of saltwater-soaked cloth onto Nick’s arms, and rather than the cloth sucking in the heat, Nick absorbed the cold.
At the first bout of chills, awareness snapped back, as if he’d woken suddenly from a blurry nightmare to stark reality.
The room came into focus. Kit was at his bedside.
Anna stood at an awkward distance behind him.
She cast a silent snarl at the back of Kit’s head when his lashing tail whipped dangerously close to her.
“What happened with the mermen?” Nick asked.
Kit’s gaze snapped to his face. “How do you feel?”
“What happened with the mermen?” Nick repeated.
“They did not approach.”
Anna shot Kit a sharp look, but Kit didn’t notice and continued.
“They circled a ship far to our rear and then went on to examine a ship ahead. They passed by us,” Kit explained.
Nick frowned. “They skipped us?”
There was something very troubled in Kit’s expression. “Yes.”
“You’re kidding.”
Nick didn’t understand. And then he was abruptly furious with himself. Even if his arms burned, that was his chance. That was his chance to get out of this situation. “For fuck’s sake.” He displaced the cloths as he scrubbed frustrated hands over his face. “I’m always useless when it counts.”
“Even if you had got above deck, we would have kept you prisoner,” Kit said in a soothing tone. “Or held your life as a bargaining chip to keep the ship safe.”
A strangled laugh choked its way up Nick’s throat. “That isn’t exactly reassuring.”
“You aren’t useless,” Kit insisted.
“You need to –” Anna began.
Kit growled, swinging his face towards her. His tail slashed as if to hit her, and she stepped back sharply. They glared at each other, the animosity of an argument Nick had no knowledge of simmering between them.
Anna’s jaw clenched, genuine annoyance in her eyes.
“In the hall, Captain. I need to make a formal report about our prisoner.” She turned on her heel and stormed from the room, picking her way through a floor covered with buckets and dirty cloths.
She left the door wide open and advanced only a handful of paces before stopping.
Kit dipped a fresh cloth into the basin on the bedside table and reapplied the cool cloths to Nick’s arms. “I will be back in a moment,” he murmured.
Nick watched him step out and then quietly rose from the bed and put his ear to the door.
“You need to assign him to someone else,” Anna was saying.
“No.”
“He’s going to be handed over to the council the moment we set foot in Aridia. Playing in bed and some light scenting are fine, but this is not. How do you think you’ll feel handing him over after imprinting?”
“I’m not –”
“I’m not stupid, Kit. And I have a functioning nose. Have you changed your mind about handing him over?”
There was a beat of painful silence.
“That isn’t a choice,” Kit said.
“Exactly. You have to hand him over, and imprinting on him will only make it all the harder for you. I know you don’t want this, neither do I, but that’s our lot.
Either we do this, or it’s us that pay for it.
The council already have it out for our family; they’ll jump on any excuse to punish us further. ”
Kit didn’t argue.
“Not that it matters if the damned merfolk catch us. It’s a miracle they didn’t today. I want to say it’s not necessarily him they’re looking for, but –”
“It’s him,” Kit said. “Our contact in the city said as much.”
There was a shift in the air. Nick moved away from the door, went to the porthole letting in a small shaft of daylight and opened it.
Fresh air washed in, alerting Nick to the stench of sweat that his nose had grown accustomed to.
He leaned against the wall, gazing out at the ocean, puzzling out the mermen’s behaviour. Why skip the ship? Why go around?
Kit re-entered the room.
“Which merman was it?”
“I am not personally acquainted with any merfolk,” Kit replied. There was a new stiffness in him. Without meeting Nick’s eyes, he stripped the bed.
“Could you see the colour of their tails?”
“They were at a considerable distance.”
Nick studied the tense line of Kit’s spine and turned from him with a sigh.
He gazed out at the horizon line, watching.
As always, it was empty of land, the sunset an undisturbed orange that stretched across the sky.
Nick’s favourite days of the year came in summer, when Ireland got a rare two or three weeks of blistering heat.
But this heat? This sun? Nick wanted it to rain.
He wanted clouds to blanket the sky and turn the blue to grey.
He wanted to be home.
Kit changed the sheets and gathered the buckets, tossing all the dirty clothes into one.
A faint smell of iron wafted from the pile.
Nick looked down at himself. His arms were slightly red, but the skin didn’t look puffy or bothered.
Nick had no idea what that was, what caused it, or if there was to be a repeat.
“There are fresh clothes for you,” Kit said. “And boiled water for you to wash.”
Nick grunted his acknowledgement.
Kit hesitated by the door, tail lashing.
“Do you require assistance?” he asked. His tone hadn’t softened at all since re-entering the room, and Nick’s anger grew at the renewed distance.
Anger with Kit, for reasserting that he was a prisoner, and anger with himself for feeling the way he did about that. For hating it so much.
He’d grown complacent. He’d stopped thinking of Kit as an adversary, considering him solely as a fellow prisoner. Nick knew he had good reason for thinking that, but he’d let himself forget that, even if it was under threat, Kit would do as Desre told him.
“Very well. I will send in Mini to –”
Nick shifted his weight, pressing his face closer to the window, the soft tinkle of metal on metal reaching his ears.
“You are armed,” Kit hissed.
“Armed?”
Silence answered.
Nick twisted away from the orange sunset. Kit stared intently at him, eyes a storm of anger and determination.
Nick frowned. “I’ve just been half-conscious for hours, I’m exhausted, and now you’re acting like a total dick. I’m not in the mood for it.”
Kit’s tail, that weapon that gave away every emotion, was still. Kit was tense, his focus fixed on Nick. “You are right. You are spent, and I do not wish to worsen your condition. Hand it over.”
“I’m not armed.” Nick scowled, pushing away from the wall to face Kit. As he moved, Kit’s eyes flicked down, fixing on his trousers. Nick was too angry to find it funny, even as he realised the misunderstanding. “It’s not a weapon.”
“Hand it over.”
Gentle Kit was gone. Understanding Kit never existed.
His captor stood there, demanding something that didn’t exist. The almost rescue, combined with his exhausted state, combined with Kit’s sudden switch-up on him, was too much.
Nick was angry and tired, and he just wanted to be at home in bed, with his caring dad spoiling him while Laurence chattered, completely oblivious to the fact that when someone was homesick, it didn’t mean they were there to entertain him.
“Fine,” Nick said, voice coming out low and angry. He approached Kit, not stopping until he was an arm’s length away, and Kit was braced for an attack. And then he yanked the strings of his trousers free, hooked his thumbs through his underwear and outer layer, and shoved.
Kit’s nostrils flared as his eyes shot down, seeking out the weapon Nick was concealing. Nick glared right at Kit’s face, watching the moment his eyes widened in realisation. Kit sucked in a sharp, horrified breath.
“Proud of yourself?” Nick asked. “Making your helpless prisoner strip in front of you? Enjoying the power trip now, are you?”
“Nick.” Kit’s voice cracked, the coldness vanishing into concern and empathy. But Nick had seen how shallow the roots of that empathy ran, and he knew not to trust it. Nick turned from Kit, righting his clothes.
“I am sorry. I did not see—I thought I was keeping you safe. I did not see someone maim you in this manner.” Kit tracked close behind Nick, a distressed purr bursting from his chest. “Who did it? I will punish them. I know that will not erase the pain, but I can make sure that they do not get away with it.”
“I’m not maimed,” Nick snapped. He whirled on Kit, who flinched, and as Nick turned, he saw distress in Kit’s widened eyes.
His tail was curled around Nick’s legs, hovering close without touching him, and his chest heaved.
“It’s just some piercings, for fuck’s sake.
Calm down.” Nick wanted to be angry, not deal with Kit having a meltdown.
Kit’s mouth shut, but his eyes didn’t lose their stress.
Nick saw that and growled, as frustrated now with himself as he was with Kit. “I got the piercings done myself.”
The stressed rumble in Kit’s chest ceased. “You…” He tilted his head. “You put metal through—through –”
“Through my cock. Yeah.”
Kit’s mouth snapped shut. His eyes flicked down to gaze at Nick’s covered-up privates. “On purpose?” There was a distinctly horrified note in Kit’s voice.
“Yeah.”
“You were forced.”
“Nobody forced me. I went to a piercing artist and had it done.” Nick’s anger waned. He went to the washbasin, shrugging off his shirt. Kit shadowed him.
“Does it not hurt?”
“No.”
“That cannot be true.”
Kit sounded so damn prim. God, did Nick want to tease. He shoved down the feeling. He was angry, he reminded himself. Annoyed.