Chapter 31 Rada #2
While he’d spoken, the wind had changed.
It was warmer now, though still strong, and the sail billowed above us.
The boat was still moving so quickly, it seemed unreal.
Goran held his hand out to me, and I stood shakily, feeling almost as nauseous as he was beginning to look.
We were so far from the island, I couldn’t see it, though the dark gray storm that circled like a hurricane over the horizon, lightning crackling too fast to track, made it clear where the monsters were still battling.
I could make out what I knew were Kellin and Lachlan’s heads, bobbing in the waves behind us as they swam to catch up.
I pressed my free hand to my heart, wondering what Lachlan was sensing in our bond.
Could he feel how conflicted I was about Goran?
How disappointed I was that Lusca and Skadi hadn’t listened to me?
Alexios stood at the rudder, his attention on the sea and the billowing sail. He seemed slightly concerned, but he was a better sailor than me.
And a far better one than Goran, who was swallowing reflexively, his eyes tight as the waves rocked up against the hull. “You still get seasick, husband?” I was trying to tease him, but the way he closed his eyes on that last word made me wonder if I’d hurt him. “Sorry,” I muttered.
“No,” he whispered, drawing my back against his chest. “I dreamed of that so many times. Of you calling me your husband. Dreamed of the scent of you…” He leaned down and buried his nose in my wet hair.
I was fairly certain all I smelled of was the sea, but he stayed like that for a long moment.
Finally, he spoke again, his voice muffled in my hair.
“Will you tell me about your travels? All the apothecaries and your work. Alexios told me some of it. I’d love to hear… everything.”
“Only if you’ll tell me about what you did in Starlak.”
I felt his mouth curl into a smile before we sat, him cross-legged near the front of the boat, and me on his lap, both of us looking east. The wind still blew us in that direction, and for a moment, I wondered at the coincidence.
The prevailing winds were normally westerly here.
But these winds were probably a result of Lusca or Skadi trying to clear their battleground for their stupid fight.
I’d just taken a breath to start my story, when Kellin and Lachlan bumped their heads against the side of the boat.
Kellin changed forms, still in the water, so he could speak.
“I don’t like this wind. It’s taking you southeast too fast. We’ve gone around the eastern edge of Starlak already.
Hand us the ropes and trim the sail; we’ll pull the boat back south.
Starvale is only a hundred miles from where we are now.
If we work together, we can get back to the mainland. ”
Lachlan’s dark selkie eyes met mine. “No. We’ll be fine. I saw food and water on the boat. I need to get to Pict,” I said, squeezing Goran’s leg when I thought he might interrupt. “I just wish Lusca and Skadi were coming, too. What if one of them gets hurt?”
Lachlan shifted into his human form to speak. “Why do you care about the dragon?”
I sighed. “I know. He seems like an absolute arserag when you meet him at first—”
“Is he your mate?”
I swallowed. “I mean, no. Not ye—no, absolutely not. He’s got depth once you talk to him, that’s all.”
“He killed me, little thief!” Lachlan yelled louder than the rest of them, who were making an assortment of choking and sputtering sounds.
“He killed me, and you brought me back with a mate bond! He may be an interesting creature to converse with about how the continents were formed in the beginning of time, but he isn’t mate material. ”
“I didn’t say I was going to mate him!” I shouted back. “Just because I meet a morally questionable male with nice abs doesn’t mean he’s some kind of destined mate. Maybe it just means I’ve spent too many years sexually deprived—have you thought of that?”
“Oh fuck,” Goran finally said. He looked dazed, like I’d hit him in the head with the blunt end of my dagger. I took in the faces of all the others. Except for Alexios, who was muttering quiet prayers at the rudder, they all had that same horrified, vacant look.
“He’s a mate, too,” Kellin said, not really making it a question this time.
“I just said not necessarily. Can’t I just have some meaningless, insignificant fantasies about sex with a double-knotted ice dragon, without everybody acting like I’ve added him to some imaginary harem?”
No one dared speak now, but Dustin held up two fingers questioningly to Goran, who closed his eyes.
“Don’t piss me off,” I muttered. “Lusca didn’t stick around long enough to listen to what really happened in the ice house.
Skadi was trying to protect me. He just overstepped.
But Lusca should’ve known better than to try and fight my battles for me.
I’m mad at both of them. But what if they do something stupid and kill each other? ”
Kellin blinked. “Do you want me to go back and make sure they’re not hurt? The ice god and the Emperor of Emperors?” When he put it like that, it did sound a bit silly.
But Lachlan growled and pulled himself toward me. I shuffled over and pressed my lips to his, tasting him again. “Damnit, woman,” he murmured against my mouth, then kissed me once more. “Don’t worry about them. What do you need from us? Let us help you finish saving the Omegas.”
“I like the sound of that,” I said, knowing the others were all listening.
“It takes weeks to get to Pict. They’ll be fine.
Lusca’s a kraken, and he’ll sense me on the sea.
Even if the wind picks up, there should be time for him to swim to find me.
” I pressed a hand to the empty place where my pendant had hung.
I hated that it was gone, and not just because it had protected me.
I’d lived in so many places that the few things I kept with me—my cloak, my poisons, and my pendant—somehow felt like home.
“You can all help. You and Kellin can do something in particular.”
“What do you need?”
“Take Dustin back to the mainland.” Dustin started to protest, but I glared at him.
Lachlan asked, “With what boat?”
He had a point. “Can you swim, Dustin?”
He nodded. “But, ah, not back to Starlak, my lady.”
“Can you put together a net or something, to pull him?” I called back to Alexios. “Something the two of them could use to pull him.”
“Too slow. Give me an hour. Maybe two.” Kellin changed into his selkie form, swimming back the way we’d come.
“What’s he doing?” I asked.
“Going to find something to get Dustin home,” Goran said. “If anyone can do it, it’s Kellin. He’s mapped every inch of the Northern Seas.”
“Mapped?”
“It’s his hobby,” Goran explained.
“Obsession,” Lachlan corrected, climbing aboard. He used his sealskin to dry himself, then wrapped it around his waist.
Obsession? I’d seen baskets filled with rolled-up maps in the house… Suddenly, the one I’d used to get to Starvale sprang to mind. “I borrowed a map from your general,” I muttered to Goran. “His?”
“Borrowed?” His eyebrow arched up, but he nodded.
“It was a good map. It had a sea monster.”
“He puts sea monsters on all his maps,” Lachlan said as he sat beside me. “Ever since he started making them. Sea monsters, and compass roses with a gemstone of some kind. Maybe a––”
“A diamond,” I finished for him, my voice shaky. I’d told him I wanted maps, all those years ago. He’d listened, even if he hadn’t talked to me. Listened and remembered.
Damnit, I really shouldn’t have poisoned him.
The guys spent the next few hours taking care of me.
Alexios steered and filled me in on what had happened since Skadi took me.
Dustin found some trousers for me in the hold, to go with Alexios’s boots and Goran’s shirt.
Once I was dressed, he bailed the slightly leaky hull and caught me up on their past few days.
Half of Goran’s warriors had stayed at Stellina’s, with the rest camped out in Starvale in case they were needed.
“We’ve stayed near that town before. Nice folk, mostly older. Farmers and fishermen, of course.”
Kellin was nowhere to be seen, but Lachlan caught tuna and brought them to the boat for us to eat, singing selkie love songs in his gorgeous voice to cover the sound of Goran being sick. After the first hour, Goran only puked every so often, but very sweetly did it as far from me as he could.
After a while, I grabbed Dustin and took him into the tiny cabin for a private conversation.
“You can’t tell Goran about this,” I said first off.
“He’s overprotective, and he’ll try to stop me.
And you can’t let Kellin or Lachlan know what I’m up to, though it’s fine to tell them what I need them to do. ”
“I swear it on my honor. I serve you, my lady,” Dustin said firmly. “The Warlord cut off my token. I’m your man.”
“Good.” Then I whispered instructions for him and for him to give the selkies, his expression growing more and more serious as I sketched out variations of the plan I’d made since Mirren.
“A fire god, my lady. You’re going to go straight to him? I know you can do it, if anyone can.” He whispered, “But you don’t have your fancy knife, your pendant, or your poisons, even. How do you plan to survive?”
“The same way I have so far. By being too mean and fast to die. But the most important thing is to get those Omegas out, even if I can’t.
Now listen.” I covered everything from the best case to the very worst that might happen.
He looked like he might throw up by the end, but he only nodded and agreed to make it happen.
“If you do this, your name will be in the history books someday.”
His eyes grew wide. “Glory and fame are nought but a game; Take my life if you need, I pledge it to your name.”
I grinned. “Have you been working on that one for a while? It’s almost good.”