CHAPTER FOURTEEN
IT WAS THE LAST HIPPOCAMP breeder, Duke Pastainell, hidden on a tiny, self-sufficient isle in the Vauxterel chain, that gave me the idea to stay.
Why leave when we had this beautiful secret place? The only others who knew of the island were now feeding the sharks and crabs.
Captain’s Log, Mayhem
Captain Fraser Connell
Relief ran through me, and I pulled back to slap Bastion’s neck in welcome.
“Good to see you at last, old friend.” I looked him over. His smooth hide and scales were glossy, and he was sleek with health. It seemed he’d had no problem living a wild life as he crossed the open ocean. “I was worried when it took you so long.”
He shook his head, and his long, cascading mane shimmied and danced; droplets of salty water scattered everywhere.
With ears swiveled back halfway, and eyes narrowed, he bobbed his head and lifted his shoulders as if to say, ‘who me?’ Through the bond, I sensed he hadn’t exactly hurried, that he’d been. ..distracted.
“Enjoy your trip here?” I asked. It was easy to guess what had slowed the stallion in his travels, then he confirmed my suspicions and flashed me a series of images.
Vivid recollections of a band of wild hippocamp mares filled my mind, and a sense of smugness, which explained why it had taken him so long.
“You could’ve let me know.” Bastion only snorted and tossed his head with equine laughter, along with the impression he didn’t think I’d welcome a distraction. An additional set of images flowed through the bond, of me and Ozora.
“That is not true. You know nothing about her!” He jerked his head back in surprise at my outburst, and rolled his eyes with a snort of derision. His doubt and scorn were clear as they pulsed down the bond.
++ Not true. ++ Laughter rang in my skull, as did a flood of images of me and Ozora together.
My bond with Bastion was the strongest I’d had with a hippocamp.
He was the only one to speak so clearly, or laugh at me, or accuse me of lying.
From what he communicated, he’d sensed my secret desire for Ozora, and figured if I was distracted by a pretty mare, he had time for the same.
He hadn’t picked up on the overt animosity between us.
I didn’t know how to explain the reality to him, and it didn’t matter if he understood.
“At least you got lucky,” I muttered, giving his crest another good scratch.
My lips twisted in amusement as his twitched with pleasure.
His eyelids fluttered, and he sighed, leaning into the scratch.
“Just glad you’re here,” I murmured, and gave his neck one last affectionate slap, then stepped back and up a couple of stairs.
“But I don’t want people to see you. Yet.
” His wickedly sharp teeth snicked together as he snapped them in protest. I ignored him and insisted.
“Stay hidden, either under Mayhem or out beyond the breakwater.”
His teeth clashed again, this time inches from my face, but he backed off the stairs.
A hard shove with his forehooves and a strong pull with his thick, powerful tail propelled him away from the quay and sent him into the deep water beyond the steps.
As he sank, he paused long enough for one last reproachful look before he disappeared below the surface.
The ripples from his passage spread, then shattered against the stones under my feet, until the water was again glassy and still.
“Is this where you come every morning?” Ozora’s voice drifted over my shoulder. No edge. No bite. A tinge of curiosity.
I’d heard her soft footsteps. Those strappy leather sandals she loved to wear made almost no sound when she tried to be quiet. Still, I’d heard her approach, felt the pressure of her presence behind me as she paused, held her breath. Waited. Not for what I’d say, but how I’d say it.
The last two weeks had been...tumultuous.
I know I’d said things I regret.
“Yes.” I turned to face her. “I like to check in on Mayhem.” Neutral. Like her.
A thick braid was coiled around her head like a crown with thin loops of braids draped from it in a lacy pattern.
The rest of her hair fell in a long straight curtain of night that spilled over her shoulders.
I knew just how soft and silky those inky strands were and caught myself rubbing my fingers together.
It was an effort to yank my memory away from how they felt running through my hands and across my palms.
“You’re wet.” Her brows twitched, and she waved a finger in my direction.
“Yes, I know, Miss Obvious, thank you.” I managed to keep most of the sarcasm within but, some inevitably slipped past my resolve.
“You like to swim in the harbor?” Ozora’s widened eyes and pinched lips indicated distaste. “In your clothes?”
“Did you come all the way down here to discuss my morning routine or—”
“Cleobah and Cassyrra sent me. Said you might have something to show me?” She cut me off but, her response remained uncharacteristically neutral.
So, even though a slew of answers raced through my mind, most either rude or raunchy, I gave a non-answer to avoid sparking something I didn’t want to finish.
“Not sure what they’re talking about, except the view out here is pretty. Closest I can get to being out at sea right now.”
That sardonic expression meant Ozora wasn’t buying it.
She had this way of half-frowning that said she didn’t believe a word of my bullshit, and she considered no more effort was needed to show her scorn.
Maybe the sphinx she’d been so buddy-buddy with of late had given her tidbits from my past. Cleobah had no trouble talking about that and where I’d messed up.
Ozora kept her doubts to herself but, they were plain to see in the depths of her gaze. Much to my surprise, she took the last few steps to join me, and the tense friction between us eased somewhat, as if we both had let go of something.
Some six feet below, the water was deep and clear, and the sheer stone block wall disappeared into the depths.
Silent, she peered over the edge. It was only a slight twitch at the corner of her lip, and a tiny shudder of her shoulders, but she seemed to find the view upsetting.
Swiftly, she straightened and fixed her gaze out to the horizon, where the ocean met the sky.
An unbroken line divided the blue of the deeps from the blue of the heavens, but I wasn’t looking out to sea. I was looking at her. Tried to drag my eyes away from her face before it got awkward.
Well, damn, it already was.
The silence stretched between us, filled with all the things we couldn’t say. Words piled up like blocks knocked over by a rampaging toddler. Disjointed, half-formed thoughts that wouldn’t come together.
“Cassyrra wants us scouting the town today.” Ozora kept her eyes on the horizon, as if that were easier than looking at me when she spoke into the awkward silence.
“Wants us searching for signs of magic. Says it’ll be good for you and might help kick in your magesight.
” There was nothing in her voice, the anger from our last fight either cooled or buried.
I couldn’t see the mage energies, the numin; I’d never learned how, and that was the root of the previous night’s fight. It shocked them all how brutally explicit I was about how very little I cared to learn magesight or magecraft.
Numinous energies were seen with magesight, but elder-blooded elementals like me used numin as naturally as breathing, and thus had no need to see this energy. At least that’s how Cassyrra had explained it, but she was emphatic that I learn magesight.
Since day one, in every training session, Ozora had some reason to scoff or nitpick. The magesight discussion was an ongoing fight, and since I hated the training, I didn’t care that we got very little accomplished. Cassyrra more than once scolded us for behaving like children.
I suspected Ozora’s quiet and somewhat chastened attitude meant she’d felt the brunt of the dragon’s ire for our screaming match.
It was Ozora who started it, but I’d finished it, called her all the names; first, she paled, then a red flush of rage washed over her.
She even raised her hand to cast something, a blurry gold orb that burned in her palm, visible without magesight, but Cassyrra intervened.
The orb vanished, and her flounce and stomp were pure fury, but she obeyed the dragon’s silent command.
At least she didn’t hit me with some nasty spell when my back was turned. Hopefully that meant she wasn’t angry any more. Or at least, not angry enough to try to blast me with a spell.
“I have some ideas, about helping your magesight kick in,” she said at last, still with her gaze locked out to sea. I didn’t say anything, so she filled the void between us. “Do you think we could...talk about it?” She turned from the horizon, hesitantly, as if she were unsure of my reaction.
“I have an idea, but I don’t know yet if it’ll work. Want to come and have breakfast, maybe we figure it out?” I think that was the first time I’d heard her sound tentative. Unsure.
The tension that had clenched my neck and shoulders let go; at least she wasn’t going to continue our fight. Before I could answer, her mouth opened, but for once, nothing came out. She snapped it shut on whatever she was about to say, and looked away for just a moment to study the horizon again.
Maybe it was my imagination, because when she turned her gaze to mine, what had seemed like uncertainty was gone, replaced by amusement.
She waved her hand at me. “At least that’s what I was going to ask you, but I didn’t expect you to be taking a dip.
” The familiar, sardonic twitch to her grin, and the wicked sparkle in her eyes, brought back a rush of warmth for what we had, and from the quick drop of her gaze, she’d felt it, too.
Whatever that moment had been, it slipped past, and neither of us were willing to reach for it.
“I’ve got extra on Mayhem. Let me change and check in with the shipwrights,” I said, and changed the subject.
Her quick nod wasn’t much of an answer, and apparently all I would get; she spun and took off toward my ship, as if she couldn’t get away from the edge quick enough.
“I know of a place nearby,” I called to her retreating backside, “the food’s pretty good, too.”
She stopped, much to my surprise. What I didn’t expect was the look of contrition on her face as she spun. “I know, I’m a handful,” she said, “and... I’m sorry.” She twisted her fingers together, and wouldn’t meet my eyes, rather, she kept hers downcast.
“I-I have to ask,” she stammered slightly before her question rushed out, “what would you have said?” Her breathless question hung between us, unfinished.
She tried again. “If I’d come to you that night, instead of—” Her quick, indrawn breath came back out just as fast, but without words, so I answered what she couldn’t ask me.
“Cordana was nothing to me. I never slept with her.” It was true, the sexy leopard shifter’s wiles lost their appeal once I met my feisty mage. It was easy to believe Gordon when he told me she’d gone to Ozora with lurid tales. She’d always been spiteful cat, and jealous of other women.
I hoped Ozora would believe me, maybe we could forgive each other. She raised her eyes to mine at last but, instead of relief, or understanding, her deep brown eyes were wide with confusion.
“Who’s Cordana?” Her brow puckered, as if she’d never heard the name.
“I was going to ask you why your ship was fitted to carry hippocamps.” The tilt to her head completed her look of utter bewilderment.
“Gordon came to me about a planned raid of the ‘camp pods, and then we found Skirmisher rigged with all those slings.”
Clarity struck like lightning when she said his name.