Chapter 23
Quinn
We spent most of the drive back to Daytona Beach in silence. Torrent tuned the radio to some weird new wave rock station and let it blare through the car. With the brightening sunlight, I slathered on some sunscreen and then tried to doze, since it was well into the morning already. Unfortunately, none of the car’s surfaces made the most comfortable pillow.
I didn’t feel right leaning on Crag, who’d taken the back seat with me again. I was harboring a power that wanted to enslave beings like him. And he’d already done so much for me.
Why should these three shadowkind men protect me at all? I wouldn’t have blamed them if they’d abandoned me to the creatures stalking me. It wasn’t as if any of us had any clue what might happen next.
When I couldn’t drift off, I ran through the mental exercises Sorsha had walked me through. I breathed deep and slow and tried to tap into my sense of the tremoring energy in my chest that it now seemed almost certain was emanating from my transplanted heart.
I couldn’t feel much of anything right now, though. It seemed that shadowkind beings could pick up on a low-level vibe no matter what, but I’d only been aware of the energy when the stronger surges had rushed through me. I couldn’t see any pattern to when that had happened, other than Sorsha’s suggestion that the reaction had been heightened once more shadowkind had been prowling nearby.
I’d been very near at least three shadowkind for several days, which might have been why the surges had been feeling increasingly unnerving. But those shadowkind men were the only reason I hadn’t been torn apart or gobbled up or whatever else by the other creatures out there. I couldn’t call it a bad trade-off. The murderous creatures had been on my trail regardless.
In the front seat, Lance was swaying with the latest song on the radio, clicking his claws against the dashboard at a slightly off-kilter rhythm that somehow complemented the tune. I studied what I could see of his profile, my stomach clenching.
He’d seemed okay since we’d left the sorcerer’s house behind. The hyper, almost desperate energy that’d gripped him there had simmered down to what at least looked like his usual odd but easy-going self.
I couldn’t shake the memory of his voice when he’d talked about his past even in vague terms, though. The anguish that’d rippled through the words and tensed his stance…
He’d backed away from me. Yes, after we’d talked, he’d seemed to take some kind of comfort in my embrace, but I had trouble believing it was enough. I was going to be a constant reminder of the people who’d enslaved him and hurt him in who knew how many other ways. And there was nothing I could do about that.
The sorcerer family must have felt they were doing a good deed by allowing their daughter’s heart to be used as a donor organ. Maybe they hadn’t realized that certain effects would be passed on with it. Or maybe they’d hoped her powers would live on elsewhere.
Had she donated other organs? Were there other people out there with a lung or a liver that was giving off the same vibes?
Although, if there was, I’d have thought at least one of the shadowkind we’d talked to would have heard about it. Maybe her heart had been the only organ still viable after her death. I didn’t know how she’d died. Or maybe other organs didn’t carry quite the same concentration of residual magic.
What could I have done about it even if there were other recipients out there? I was barely managing to keep myself alive with the help of these three men. We knew I was carrying my donor’s genetic legacy of magic, and that was plenty for me to worry about on its own at the moment.
Wouldthese guys want to keep sticking their necks out to protect me now that they knew why all this was happening? I hadn’t expected their help to begin with, and now it seemed like the stakes had only gotten higher. They were up against formidable foes we knew nothing about and who were determined to get what they wanted by any means necessary.
I stewed in those thoughts as the sun rose higher in the sky beyond the windows. Daytona Beach finally came into view up ahead.
When we reached the marina, the men disappeared into the shadows as soon as we’d parked. I knew they’d travel through the marina and to the boat faster than I could walk, confirming that no scary beasties were lying in wait for me, but a terrible sense of loneliness settled over me as I walked along the docks between the other boats to our yacht at the end closest to the ocean access point.
No one leapt out with any warnings, so presumably the boat hadn’t been made a target yet. I stepped on board, and Torrent wavered into view in the captain’s seat. I crossed the deck and ducked into the cabin.
“Crag is doing a broader circuit checking for beings in the area,” Torrent said without looking up from the controls. “And Lance has gone to collect edible supplies, although it’s hard to say what in the realms you’ll end up eating with his tastes dictating the selection.”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine.” I hesitated, and then sat down on the edge of the storage container next to the navigation area, just a couple of feet from his chair. The strap of my messenger bag chafed at my shoulder, and I slid it off. All the questions and worries that’d been whirling inside me bubbled up to the surface.
Torrent was obviously the de facto leader over the other guys. They looked to him for orders. I had the sense he was older than them, however much seniority mattered to shadowkind. There was a definite air of authority around him, anyway, and a sense of weary experience.
It was up to him more than the others whether they kept protecting me. And he might have a deeper sense of the consequences of that choice, of this entire situation, than any of the rest of us did. But he never seemed exactly eager to chat. I didn’t know where to start.
He’d draped his usual tentacles over the sides of the chair, which at least didn’t have arms to get in the way. My gaze slid down their sloping path, taking in the slightly awkward angle at which he’d set his legs as if bracing them straight against the floor would have been painful. He’d held his physical form for an awful lot of the past twenty-four hours.
A comment that had nothing to do with any of my problems tumbled out. “It’s too bad you can’t steer from the shadows.”
Torrent shot me a sharp look. “I manage just fine. I’ve been managing for decades longer than you’ve been alive, so you don’t have to worry about coming up with any more helpful solutions, Ms. Fix-It. You have enough other things to worry about anyway.”
“Yeah.” I sagged in my seat. “Well.”
All my other words clogged in my throat as he finished preparing whatever he’d been doing with the controls in advance of our departure. When he dropped his hands from the console, a jolt of panic rushed through me that he might vanish into the darkness like I’d just suggested, leaving me essentially alone again. The fear propelled another question from my throat.
“What are we going to do now? I mean, I can’t really expect the three of you to keep spending all your time and energy keeping me safe.”
“We haven’t minded so far,” Torrent said evenly. “Remember that this is a much smaller blip in our extended lives than it’ll seem to a human.”
“So comforting,” I muttered. “I just—it’s not only protecting me. You’re protecting a piece of someone who’d have been your enemy. Powers that could activate more, in ways we can’t predict. I could tell what we found out bothered all of you. Lance was really upset.”
Torrent turned toward me, his voice outright flat now. “I’m sure both of your boy toys will get over any hesitations they have about you quickly enough, if they haven’t already.”
I winced at his phrasing, my cheeks flaring. Was that what he thought I was bothered about—losing my sexual partners? Neither of the encounters I’d gone along with had even been my idea.
“That was the last thing on my mind,” I said shortly. “And I don’t see them as toys. I don’t see any of you as toys.”
Torrent shrugged as if he didn’t totally believe me. “Whatever the case, I’m sure any tension over this discovery will evaporate. We’ll continue resting during the day and making inquiries about the shadowkind who’ve targeted you by night, and hopefully we’ll come across more information sooner rather than later.”
Hesounded tense. It occurred to me that I hadn’t really talked to him, not one-on-one, since yesterday when I’d had my interlude with Lance and Crag.
I’d assumed Torrent had removed himself immediately because he hated the idea… but maybe he felt excluded somehow? Or like he’d been put in an uncomfortable position? By Lance, technically, but I could see him blaming me.
“You know,” I said tentatively, “what happened yesterday—I had no idea Lance was going to suggest any of that. It must have been kind of awkward for you when we’re all stuck here on this boat. I probably should have shut him down.”
“It’s perfectly fine,” Torrent said in a terse tone that suggested otherwise, returning his attention to the navigation console. “Why shouldn’t you all enjoy yourselves? I don’t have any illusions about being appealing in that department these days, so I wouldn’t have expected an invitation.”
His last remark jostled free a spark of understanding. Did he think the invitation hadn’t included him? Or rather, he’d left because he’d assumed I would reject him, not because he had no interest.
Maybe he hadn’t been interested anyway, but then why wouldn’t he just say that?
How long had it been since the days when Goldie had known Torrent as a ladies’ man? Decades before I was born, Torrent had just suggested. Had he simply closed himself off from desire for all that time?
I guessed if he’d normally pursued human women in the past, he couldn’t easily do that now, what with the necessary tentacles and all. But I wasn’t put off by his monstrousness, and the damage on his face didn’t repulse me the way he obviously assumed it would.
I pushed myself to my feet before I’d thought through what I was going to do, driven only by my sense of his loneliness hidden under all his cool curtness. My hand rose to his caved-in cheek, resting lightly on the rough skin of the scar, moving with the jerk of Torrent’s head as his gaze snapped back to me.
“I’d have been happy for you to stay,” I said, holding his startled gaze. “It seemed like you were offended by the suggestion, or I’d have made that clearer.”
Maybe I needed to make it even clearer still. I dipped my head and brushed my lips to his scarred cheek.
Torrent drew in a rasp of breath. When I pulled back, his gaze had hardened. “Are you just looking to collect a full set of notches in your belt?”
I couldn’t hold back a full flinch at the barb in the question. Anger rushed in to burn away the sting. I folded my arms over my chest, taking another step back.
“Of course not. Yeah, I go chasing excitement sometimes, but I wouldn’t be hooking up with anyone in a situation like this if I didn’t like you.”
“Like us,” Torrent repeated in a scornful tone that only made me more annoyed.
“I do,” I retorted. “Lance makes me laugh and is weirdly sweet even when he’s acting like a psychopath, and Crag is so brave and unshakeable, and you—even if you’re being a real jerk right now, you stepped in to protect me and I can tell you look out for the other guys too. You’re smart and dedicated, and you don’t let your physical limitations stop you, which it shouldn’t surprise you is a quality I can appreciate.”
Torrent opened his mouth, but I barrelled on over anything he might have said. I needed to finish.
“If you don’t want to go there with me because you’re not attracted to me or whatever, that’s fine. No insult taken. But if it’s only because you’re assuming I couldn’t possibly admire you or I’ve got some other unsavory intentions, then… then I don’t know why, even after all the time we’ve spent together, you’d think the worst of me.”
I spun around, planning on soothing my wounded spirits by flinging myself onto the bed where really I should be trying to sleep anyway. But before I made it more than two steps, one of Torrent’s tentacles caught me, snagging around my waist.
I halted and turned at his tug. He’d swiveled all the way around on the seat, his mouth tight and his gaze searching. His grasp loosened, but he nudged me closer toward him, and I came.
When I was close enough that his knees grazed my thighs from his perch on the raised seat, he touched my cheek with his hand like I had his. His fingertips skimmed across my skin. Warmth unfurled in their wake. I suddenly found it difficult to breathe, held in place by the strange mix of anguish and hope in his sea-green eyes.
He swallowed audibly. “It looks like I’ve been giving you the wrong impression there too,” he said, his voice gone hoarse. “The problem is that I can’t think the worst of you.”
Before I could even try to make sense of that statement, he pulled me to him.
Torrent’s mouth crashed into mine with so much passion I gasped against his lips. Neither Lance nor Crag had been particularly skillful in their kisses. The tentacled man might not have had much recent practice, but there was no missing the assurance with which he claimed my mouth now that he knew I’d welcome the gesture.
He coaxed my lips apart to deepen the kiss with the perfect amount of pressure. His fingers stroked down my neck, setting off a trail of giddy shivers. I kissed him back hard, clutching the front of his shirt, not wanting to give him any chance to doubt whether I really did want this.
Torrent’s other hand dropped to my waist. It almost brushed the handle of the silver-and-iron dagger I’d taken from the sorcerers’ house and then jerked a little higher to avoid it. I was about to pull back to see if I should set it aside completely, but he grasped me so tightly I had no doubt that he was perfectly okay with me as is.
I had the urge to sink onto his lap but wasn’t sure if that would hurt his legs. Instead, I clambered onto the captain’s seat with only the slightest break in the kiss, bracing my knees on either side of his thighs without putting any weight on his limbs.
An approving sound thrummed through Torrent’s chest. “Fuck,” he muttered against my lips, and then, in a very different tone, “Fuck it.” He yanked me to him again, devouring my mouth so thoroughly my entire body quivered.
While one hand teased into my hair, the other slid up to cup my breast. He thumbed my nipple, deftly drawing it to a point, and I whimpered. My fingers curled against his neck, fingernails digging in just a little, and he chuckled. “Bringing out your claws?”
I smiled, stealing another peck. “They may not be as impressive as Lance’s?—”
He let out a guttural sound that was almost a growl and gripped my hair harder. “Don’t even say his name. Right now, you’re only mine.”
His mouth collided with mine again. In the depths of my mind, his voice from all those nights ago echoed up, ringing through the darkness as it pronounced me theirs. His.
Why wouldn’t I want to be? I’d never met any human being who’d have stood by me through everything these three men had. Who’d have let me find the sweet parts of this horrifying adventure. Who’d have made me feel so terrifyingly yet electrifyingly alive.
Torrent pinched my nipple through my bra, making my breath stutter. But even with the bliss already coursing through my veins, I couldn’t help noticing that he’d left his less typical limbs motionless around us.
I tipped back a few inches to catch his eyes. “I like all of you. I want all of you. This”—I stroked his cheek again—“and these.” I lowered my hand to trail my fingers over one tentacle. “They’re not a problem.”
A strained noise worked from Torrent’s throat. He recaptured my mouth, but at the same time, one tentacle slipped around me.
Its warm, flexible tip dipped under the hem of my shirt and traced up my spine as his fingers continued to work over my breast. One sucker and then another came to rest against my bare skin, provoking a gentle tingling that felt like a promise of so much more to come.
I ran my fingers down his chest encouragingly, tilting my head so our mouths slid together with an even headier sensation. Torrent’s tentacle wrapped right around me, teasing along the base of my bra. My breath caught, I arched toward him?—
And Crag burst out of the shadows on the deck.
“Torrent!” he said in an urgent voice. “Rollick’s here.”