46. Pippi
Those first moments after Alistair turned human were a whirlwind of activity.
Alistair pleaded for help as his long-limbed body struggled against the sea. Confusion rippled around the ship, and there was a flurry of movement as people scrambled to throw him the life preserver and hauled him aboard.
He collapsed onto the deck, naked and shuddering, and his eyes found mine again.
And I didn’t even think . Didn’t care that Jackson was on board, or that the people around me were belching up bubbles of horror and shock. I let it all slide off me as I ran, plopping into a sitting position and smashing into Alistair’s side.
He gave a hollow “ Oomph .” But then his jittering arms closed around me, smooshing me against the solid wall of his chest in the biggest bear hug—the sort that was pure comfort. Like being wrapped in a fuzzy blanket after a long day out in the snow.
And we did, actually, get bundled into blankets. From Elisabeth, who stammered apologies in my ear. And Kian, who was too shocked to say anything. And others—a nameless carousel of faces.
Alistair pressed his face into my hair.
I flinched when his cheek brushed against the section of scalp Jackson had mangled.
Alistair stiffened and made a sound of distress when he carefully parted my hair and found the wound. “I’m sorry.” He touched his lips to the gash. “I’m sorry.” The words quavered off his lips as he gathered me more firmly against him. “I’m sorry.” He cried. Tears of joy and relief and heartache.
And I cried too. Because this was a dream, being held by him, but better. Because it was real .
I could have stayed there for the rest of my life. Wrapped in his warmth, with the secure weight of his arms around me. Smelling his scent—the briny tang I was so accustomed to—combined with a crisp musk of his human skin.
But the mottles of terror dragged my head away. Had me turning.
People ran from the other side of the ship, trying to avoid the massive eel wriggling around the deck.
Massive , as in that grey-skinned creature had to be at least eight feet long.
It flopped, smashing its body against the wood, and writhed, swinging its beady eyes around the deck.
“Help! I…Don’t run . For fuck! Help me .”
Rune.
That was Rune’s voice.
Coming from the eel ?
Alistair caressed my back. “He d-d-didn’t read the fine print.”
Stars, it was an incredible feeling to have his words ghosting over my skin with his breaths.
“What?” I asked.
“Rune.” Alistair nuzzled me. “It’s a figure of speech.
Although there are warnings in old textbooks—which I assumed he read, since he likes dabbling in old magic, but he probably skipped over the warning sections.
Curses are…well, there’s a reason they’re outlawed.
One being that they’re h-h-horrific. The other being that if they’re broken, the magic rebounds onto the caster.
Rune made me and my employees beasts. The curse is broken. So now he gets to live as a beast.”
Alistair had not been lying about being a fast talker. Words zipped out of him—almost too quickly for me to grasp. Which made me laugh. Because I realized this was how he’d felt when I’d talked before: like his mind was in rear-wheel drive, spinning itself stuck in muck.
And my mind really churned fruitlessly through that mud. Because it took me several seconds to register what he’d said.
“Rune Bloodworth is an eel ?” I gasped.
“Aye, likely forever. In all the texts I’d read, none say a rebounded curse can be reversed.”
That drawling response came from Onyx.
I whipped around. Too fast. Not only did I crack my shoulder against Alistair’s cheek—he laughed as I blabbered an apology—but I put a wicked crick in my neck.
Onyx stood back, watching the melee with her hand propped on her hip and her lips pursed.
“I’m glad you couldn’t wield that curse, Onyx,” Alistair said. “It would’ve been terrible to see it rebound on you.”
Onyx flashed him a look that could have melted the skin right off his face, and then barked at the crowd, “Oi! Ye lot wanna keep standin’ and wringin’ yer hands while the eel suffocates? How about ye make yerself useful and throw him overboard?”
And when Onyx commanded, people obeyed. I was half tempted to spring to my feet and go help them heft the massive, wriggling eel over the railing—I might’ve, if Alistair hadn’t been holding me with an iron grip.
“Rune Bloodworth, though, Onyx. Why?” Alistair prodded gently.
“He was willin’ to do it.”
“Of course he was. Rune would do anything to put money in his pocket. He doesn’t care who he hurts along the way.”
“You know him?” I asked.
Alistair squeezed my hip. “I knew Magix. They gave me some wicked headaches…I…hmmmm…I don’t know how many years ago. Onyx! How long have I been a sea monster? I swear I knew this before, but I’m blanking now.”
She scowled. “Six years.”
“Oh, damn. I’m almost forty now. Right?” He muttered numbers under his breath. “Uggh, it’s May? I’ll be forty in August. Pippi, be honest, do I look like an old man?”
He tucked one of the blankets around his naughty bits before he leaned back and spread his arms, giving me an open view of his leanly muscled and long-limbed torso, which was exactly as I’d remembered from the dreams. But his face—the one thing that had always eluded me before—was ethereal .
The more I stared at it, the more the shapes fascinated me.
High and wickedly sharp cheekbones curved toward his pale eyes, giving him a rather severe expression.
The wet-and-grey speckled hair plastered to his head didn’t help to soften that impression, although he’d have a proper mop of curls when the strands dried.
His mouth was his defining feature, though. Those plump, luscious lips formed a sexy smolder when at rest, but they also shaped themselves into the derpiest smile I’d ever seen.
And he smiled at me now, watching me inspect his face.
“I think you’re handsome,” I said.
He beamed.
“A perfect silver fox.”
His lips flattened into that smoldering line. “I’ve grey hair now?”
And he looked so adorably flustered, as though someone had snagged a cookie right out of his hand.
I kissed him.
My lips caressed that fascinating mouth of his, drinking in the soft groan as it lumbered out of him. Lavishing over the shape of him, all the hard angles and soft flesh.
His hand went to my cheek, stroking feather-light patterns.
Mine smoothed over his pecs, and a tingle of delight shocked me when the long lines of delectable muscle bunched and rolled under my palm.
He murmured, breathing nonsense words against my mouth, as he suckled and nibbled on my lips. Words meant to be felt more than heard. Expressions of love, of adoration, of relief, and of sorrow, all branded into my very soul.
And it was too much.
His vibrant emotions overwhelmed me.
Which, if I was being honest, I was already overwhelmed, with the frenzy still happening around us. Alistair made me over-overwhelmed.
Tears burned my eyes. Clogged my throat. Made it too hard to breathe.
I ripped myself away from the kiss and buried my face in the crook of his neck as the tears took me.
“Oh dear.” Alistair stroked my back and wrapped a blanket around me.
And I loved the way he said that, “ Oh dear ,” in his hemming and hawing way.
I loved the way he felt. Physically, of course, but emotionally most of all—so squishy and happy. A big teddy bear.
I loved how easily he gave affection. Kissing my brow. Nuzzling me. Soothing me.
And when he sniffled, shedding tears alongside me, I loved that too.
Alistair was warm and open and soft and kind. All the things Jackson hadn’t been. All the things I’d been missing but hadn’t realized I was missing. Hadn’t realized I’d needed , until now.
We soothed each other’s tears. And calmed each other, resting brow to brow, breathing each other in.
“Ye two make me sick,” Onyx grumbled.
Alistair sighed and kissed my forehead. “Why did you use love as the key then, Onyx? That is what broke it, yes? Or am I barking up the wrong tree?”
Irritation boiled off her. “Because I figured no human’d be mad enough to fall for a feckin’ sea monster. And I figured even if ye did love, and were loved, ye’d never be selfless .”
“Ah. So it wasn’t that Pippi needed to fall in love with me. I had to…?”
“Put her ahead of yerself. Like ye didn’t do for Indigo.”
Alistair hummed thoughtfully. “That was a good key, Onyx. Complex, but not impossible. I’m surprised Rune let you build it in.”
“He didna have a choice. There needed to be one. And he figured the same as I. For what it’s worth, Alistair…
I’m not entirely mad I was wrong. I dunna know that ye deserve to be absolved.
I guess time will tell. But I didna like ye bein’ used the way yer were—a clown for tourists.
Blegh .” Her heels clinked as she stomped along the deck away from us.
“For what it’s worth, Onyx, I’m still your friend,” Alistair called. “And always will be.”
She muttered a thick, “Feck off,” and kept walking away.
“Was I supposed to follow any of what just happened?” I murmured.
Alistair cupped my face between his hands and kissed me. Hard. “I’m afraid I got distracted telling you the first half—I do that, sometimes. Actually, I do it a lot . But—Pippi, your hands!”
I’d reached up, swiping my floofy hair out of my eyes, which gave Alistair a gander of my mangled knuckles. He hissed lightly and drew my hands to his mouth, peppering feather-light kisses over the cuts. “I’m so sorry,” he murmured.
I freed one hand and touched his cheek. “They’re okay, Alistair.”
“They’re swelling,” he murmured. “I’ll get you a tonic. As soon as we’re…not on this ship.” He peered around us blearily. “Hopefully they’ll not have issues sailing it. Anyway, what was I saying before? Oh! I wanted to fill you in on the basics.”
And he did.
People scuttled around us, wild-eyed and pale-faced as they looked at Alistair—the man who had been a beast—and then leaned over the railing, ogling at Rune—the beast who’d been a man.
There were spiels of confusion. Calls to sail the ship back to the isle.
The crackling and popping as the anchor was raised and the geriatric vessel, damaged by the breaking of the curse, began to move.
From the sea, Rune exploded with curses, demanding that someone help him, and whining plaintively when the ships sailed away.
Through it all, Alistair smoothed his hands over me, fretting and fussing over my bumps and bruises as he told me his story.
Of Indigo, the woman he’d loved, who perished on a ship he’d championed—and the grief and guilt he’d felt after, unable to understand why the tragedy happened.
Although, after seeing Rune’s involvement in the curse, he now suspected foul play.
He told me of Onyx’s rage, as she believed Alistair’s negligence had stolen her twin. He told me of her powers, and of mine. Sensitives . I still couldn’t wrap my head around that. And he held me, vowing to teach me to better guard my heart.
Rune’s tale was a more complex one—an insidious yarn of a man who bent and broke rules on a whim and charmed his way out of the lawsuits.
“Rune’s operation didn’t take kindly to mine,” Alistair said. “Which is why I’m wondering if he did something to Saturn . And maybe I should’ve wondered about it before because he lobbed so many empty claims against SorcerSoft over the years, and lost all of them.”
“SorcerSoft?” I asked.
“Yup.” Alistair popped the p . “My pride and joy. Or it was .”
I gaped. And squealed. “Oh my goodness, I used to work with you! Well, not you…but your company. That’s…
You were my favorite supplier. You were so efficient and everyone on your staff was always so sweet.
I hated seeing your company go belly up.
But…Oh. Oooh. Oh no, I didn’t connect that.
” I clapped a hand over my mouth. “The curse sent you belly up?”
Alistair’s mouth thinned slightly. “We might’ve been heading there anyway, with what happened to Saturn , but the curse made sure the company rotted.
Because it wasn’t just me, some of my employees were cursed too.
The ones who worked with me on the Saturn project.
” He quivered with nerves and excitement.
“I owe them all an apology. More than an apology. I’ll need to round them all up and take them to dinner.
Multiple. Open bar, five-course meal, dinners.
I’ll probably need to grovel… lots of groveling.
Do you think they’d forgive me if—no, that probably won’t work.
It’d be like trying to buy forgiveness.” He heaved a lumbering sigh.
“I just want to see them. And hug them. And promise I’ll never put them in the middle of my shit again.
I’ll never put you in the middle again.” Alistair’s knuckles grazed my cheeks.
“ Ever . Pippi, I…My life is going to be a mess. For a while. So I don’t want to…
When this kind of news gets out…the legal ramifications…
I’d rather not start our relationship—if you still want a relationship—by dumping all this on your shoulders. I?—”
I kissed him again. Briefly. Sweetly. Quieting his spiraling thoughts. “Of course I want to be with you, ya goof. You’re my person. Y’know?”
“I do.” He pressed his brow to mine, exhaling. “You’re my person too. I love you, Pippi.”
His adoration nuzzled against my heart, making me feel buoyant and euphoric and giddy. I pecked a kiss to the tip of his nose, grinning when he made a purry sound. “I love you too, Alistair. But my life is going to be a mess too. I nuked it, remember? So we’ll take things one day at a time.”
“That’s a plan I can follow. One day at a time.” He gave my brow a lingering smooch. And then asked, “Do they have chips on the isle? I really, really, really want chips. You don’t understand, Pippi.” He laughed when I burst into giggles. “I’ve been craving them for six years .”
At some point—I couldn’t quite remember when, with fatigue and shock making my brain woozy—Jackson wandered near us.
I called to him. Untangled myself from the blankets, and the warm security Alistair provided, to reach for him. I would’ve tried to set things better between us, so we didn’t go our separate ways festering on hate and hurt and rage.
But he spat at me.
Which made me mad, so I spat right back at him.
As Alistair boomed with mirth, Jackson wrinkled his mouth into an unattractive pout and walked out of my life.