Chapter 11 Lachlan
LACHLAN
The little thief had been running away again, like she did.
I was almost certain she hadn’t seen me, though she stared into the waves for a little longer than she should have, before she returned to the house.
As soon as she was gone, I swam to shore and took off my skin, wrapping it around my waist. I needed answers from my best friend, ones that couldn’t wait until dinner.
To my shock, he tried to run as well when I made my way to the center of camp. He slipped behind a group of warriors mending their leather armor and ducked his head when I called out. Maybe cowardice was contagious.
“Goran, stop right there,” I commanded when I caught sight of his blond hair again. He groaned and stepped toward the ale barrels with a scowl, then filled a horn cup and drained it before turning to face me at last.
I smiled at a few of the warriors I recognized, but they all gave me a wide berth.
These warriors knew me as their warlord’s best friend and selkie advisor.
Some of them also knew what else I was, and they were carefully herding the less mature Alphas away from me and upwind.
My scent wasn’t rich and sweet like a female Omega, but one or two of Goran’s men had failed the test of resisting it before. There was no reason to take chances.
“You heard all that?” he asked.
“Heard that little brat’s pet priest saying things he should know bet—” I squeaked. Goran’s hand was wrapped around my throat, half-crushing my larynx.
“Never call her that,” he said, his voice dark.
“She is my wife.” He let go immediately, as shocked as I was that he’d choked me.
I punched him in his arm as retaliation, and also to erase the hint of shame I’d spotted.
He was constantly worried that he’d become like the other warlords of Starlak, the ones he’d spent the last decade rooting out of their positions of power, so the nation could thrive again.
“Does she know she’s your wife, asshole? I didn’t see any braids in her hair.”
“It makes no difference. I still have mine,” he whispered.
“Not that she could see or know,” I reminded him. “You had me hide yours, put shells over her beads. You said the moment you saw her again, you’d make sure she knew the ceremony hadn’t been completed. You said you’d hand her the knife.”
He flinched, the tops of his cheeks going ruddy. “I say a lot of things.”
I let out a laugh. “You don’t want her to know they’re still there, that you’re still married.
Does she know what your ring says on the inside?
” He curled a hand protectively over the ring he wore on the wedding band finger.
I was the only person—besides the jeweler who’d made it—who knew what had been inscribed on the inside.
I whispered the words now. “Only. Ever. Rada.” He flinched.
“Do you truly want to stay mated to her? Do you want her, even if she doesn’t want you? ”
“She wants me.” He tapped his nose.
I hated to be cruel, but he had to remember what she’d done to him.
I’d only known him well for the past five years, after he’d helped my mother find a safe place to live, close enough to Wren and her mates that she could be there for the birth of Wren’s second child, the kraken baby.
But we’d clicked like brothers from the first moment, and had shared all our secrets over the years. Or at least I had.
“She was running again, vasyl.” I used the word that meant brother in blood in my language.
“She tried to kill me, nearly killed Kellin, and left him with a new mate mark and his sealskin covered in her slick. She had her bags with her on the beach while she watched you and her toy priest fighting.”
He stayed quiet for a moment, and I waited, though I knew my mother would box both our ears if we lingered much longer. “I think I made a mistake, Lachlan. What the priest said… that I hadn’t asked what her mission was.” He went silent.
“To become Rimholt’s master spy,” I prompted after a moment.
“I went through her bags while she was unconscious,” he said quietly.
“Alexios saw, but didn’t stop me. The only jewels she had were the same ones from the dragon’s lair.
She always said she would return them, that she’d only stolen them to be able to say she’d done it.
But there wasn’t even a half goldani in the bags. Almost no food.”
“She steals whatever she wants,” I argued, though it didn’t make much sense to me either.
“All she had was a couple of maps and a collection of letters and drawings, most of them from children. Thanking her for saving them. Nothing of value.”
“Maybe she has caches all around the countryside, like a dragon.”
That made him grin. “She always did act more like a dragon than a lady.”
“Well, I hope she has a lady’s table manners, or Mother will smack her fingers with the wooden spoon.”
Goran snorted with amusement. “You think she’s faster than my wife?”
I shrugged as we returned to the house. “When it comes to running away like a coward? No. When it comes to sneaking the best bit of the pie crust off the table? Not even lightning is faster than Mother’s wooden spoon.”
Goran made sure his men had all they needed in camp, then we walked back to the house. He was quiet, and my mind was far too noisy to risk speaking. I was filled with anger and indignation, and something else I didn’t want to reveal.
When my brother had opened the door to his room, and the scent of her––sweet rain and mint––whirled around me, I’d almost spent in my trousers.
I’d complained that I wanted her to leave, and I knew she would, and soon.
She hadn’t stayed in one place in her whole adult life, from the stories I’d heard.
She’d stolen hearts and purses and crown jewels in every country, a thief to her very core.
The smell of her on my brother’s pelt, though, had almost stolen my dignity and honor.
She can’t be mine, I thought angrily, glad for once that Goran’s legs were so much longer than mine, so he didn’t see my face flushing as I thought of her, or see the uneven gait I adopted as my cock rose up like she was right there with us.
With us. Between us. Both of us pleasuring her, me holding her long, dark hair to one side, my teeth on her nape as I pressed into her from behind, while he took her from the front…
Fuck. I adjusted myself and picked up the pace. She can’t be mine, I insisted to that part of me that had emerged a few years before. She was an Omega, and even if she smelled like paradise, that scent didn’t make her my destined mate. It just made me pathetic.
As an Omega myself, I would be no use to her in her heats, when she had them. I had no Alpha knot thickening at her scent. No, it was my own scent she provoked. With no seawater to wash it away, it clung to my clothes like a signpost. Omega here! Ignore the cock and balls, this one’s an Omega!
She’d stolen my best friend’s heart, had almost stolen my life, and had claimed my brother as her mate. I wanted to hate her, but I longed for her instead.
It was hopeless. She would never need me. And I sure as hells wouldn’t have a chance at her, even if I’d wanted her since the first time I caught her scent. Even if she was the reason I’d become what I was now.
“Gor, give them my apologies. I have to go,” I called, ignoring his shout as I took off for the beach to our right. I could handle Mother being pissed. I didn’t think I could handle facing Kellin and his new mate at the dinner table, not without embarrassing myself.
The sea was far icier than it should have been this time of year, which was just what I needed. I had my pelt on before I was past my knees and swam out to the chunk of black volcanic rock that sat a few hundred yards away.
I leaped onto the rock just in time to glimpse something odd on the distant horizon.
The Northern lights sometimes played in the sky at this latitude, though usually only in the deep winter months at that time of the day.
The sun had only just slipped below the horizon in the west, though, and an iridescent light flickered bright, like a falling star had hit the ocean and exploded just past my sight.
Staring directly at it did no good, but when I let my eyes glide to one side, I was able to make out more. It wasn’t a star, and it wasn’t the lights. It was a shape, flying low on the horizon, just over the sea. Flying, or running, on the surface of the waves.
What in the hells? I dove in and swam straight for it, knowing I was being a curious fool. But curiosity had always been my greatest failing, and strength. So I swam faster, somehow sure that I didn’t want to reach the… whatever it was… in full dark.
I’d swum in cold seas for years, though I’d lived with Kellin in warmer climes for most of our adult lives, until I’d become an Omega and learned to rely on the cold water to nullify my scent.
I missed the calm Eastern Seas, with their coral reefs and warm currents, but I believed I’d acclimated to the north.
I’d never swum in anything like this before, though.
As I got closer to the shape, the seas grew colder, the water taking on a brittle quality.
I was less than a mile away when the chunks of ice around me became something closer to icebergs, and I had to stop swimming. The ice was reflecting or refracting the light from the thing. Was it some sort of freak summer storm?
I couldn’t see well enough, so I dove down, underneath the ice at the surface and swam in the direction I’d believed the thing was in.
The creature, I thought, swimming lower and as fast as I could, against a frigid current.
I wasn’t certain why I felt like there was an intelligence in the thing, but it felt as if something was watching me.