Chapter 20
Maren
We reached the shores of Sarnala in the evening.
Between the sex and his singing, Kye had succeeded in calming my nerves long enough for us to catch a nap that afternoon.
I felt rested and far more at peace now.
Thanks to Daria’s healing efforts, my bruises had paled to hardly visible even in the long, sleeveless gown that the maids had dressed me in.
I stood on the main deck next to Kye, curious about this new-to-me land as the ship approached its shores.
That this was indeed a different world became immediately apparent.
The air felt different—slightly colder and less humid already even though we were still on the ocean.
The narrow sandy beach on the shore was surrounded by rolling hills with a dense forest that seemed dark even with the sun still above the horizon.
Half of the ship’s siren crew swam alongside the vessel, directing the water and keeping the ship afloat.
I wasn’t sure if it would float on its own since it had transformed to glass, but it certainly wouldn’t sail anywhere with no masts or sails.
Yet the sirens made it move swiftly. It looked like we’d be able to disembark soon.
“What do werewolves look like?” I asked Kye, with some apprehension.
He chuckled softly. “Just like you and me, darling.”
“Kye, don’t you see? You and I look nothing alike.”
He was tall, gorgeous, perfect, full of splendor, shimmer, and magic, no matter what he did or didn’t do.
And me...well, I was me—a human who had to regularly wash sweat from my body, brush my teeth, comb my hair, and do many other maintenance tasks just to remain presentable and accepted by the public.
Failing to do those tasks would turn me into a stinky, repulsive creature faster than a full moon transformed werewolves into beasts.
He tilted his head, dragging a slow gaze down my body. “Well, you and I each have two arms, two legs, two eyes, and one head, among many other similarities. As do werewolves. They all have gray eyes for most of the month, though.”
“Does their eye color change for the rest of the month?”
He nodded. “On full moon nights, their eyes turn red. They also grow fur, tails, claws, and long poisonous fangs, and then, my curious butterfly, they no longer look like you and me.”
Well, from that perspective, he had a point.
He turned back to watching the approaching shore, and my gaze drifted to his hands, the hands that had never touched me, but somehow I knew what their touch would feel like.
I knew that his strong, long fingers would glide over my body tenderly, flutter over my skin like butterflies, and stroke all my pleasure places until I moaned with need and desire.
I also knew that they could be firm and unyielding, rubbing, pinching, and kneading my body until I came harder than ever.
A wave of warmth rolled through my body, heating my face and dampening my underwear. Kye had already proven that he could easily make me come without touching me. And now, I was intensely aroused just from looking at his hands.
How did he do it, dammit?
Magic, of course. There simply was no other explanation.
The drumming of his fingers on the glass railing betrayed his impatience.
I could only imagine what getting the silk would mean to Kye.
He hadn’t touched a living being in more than a century.
He hadn’t touched me... I inhaled as anticipation skittered along my skin with a flock of tiny shivers.
It wasn’t just the sexual touches that I was looking forward to.
A simple hug from him would be a gift already.
The ship lifted with a swell, then lowered again.
This time, it remained stationary as the crew put it into shallow water.
I imagined they could put it all the way into the forest if they wished.
With their water magic, there were no limits for the sirens as long as they stayed in physical contact with the ocean.
Directed by Captain Sagara and his crew, a swell of water gently lifted Kye and me off the deck, then just as carefully deposited us onto the beach.
A cloaked figure emerged from the fog that drifted down the forested hills.
Her hood was down. The long locks of her silver-white hair were arranged in elaborate braids and pinned up with long, spiraled seashells.
The old woman looked frail but moved smoothly, as if floating along with the fog.
The illusion was made even stronger by the fine veil of mist streaming down her pale-gray cloak.
The only other aged person I’d met in Olathana was Jearda.
The sorceresses, or “the hags” as they were called in Nerifir, wielded a strong magic in this world, but it demanded that they give up their youthful looks in exchange.
It didn’t mean these women were actually as ancient as they looked though.
Apprehension seized me as the hag approached. My hand drifted to my neck where the phantom memory of Jearda’s pearls lingered. Cautiously, I stayed back as the woman I assumed was Odine faced Kye.
“Greetings, my boy.” She smiled.
“Evening, Grandmother,” Kye bowed his head to Odine with more deference than I’d ever seen him greet anyone with before.
She narrowed her dark eyes at me with a dry chuckle. “You brought the brack’s collateral with you, I see?”
The dreadfully familiar bulky frame of Leslo rose from under the tree behind her where the brack had been sitting, chewing on a blade of grass and looking bored.
The reality of why we had all gathered here this evening hit me full force.
I’d been so absorbed by Kye’s excited anticipation, I’d forgotten what it really meant for me.
It was so easy to get lost in everything Kye—his life, his voice, his curse, his sorrow—that I struggled to hold on to anything of my own.
Just a very short while ago, I used to have my own hopes and plans.
I hadn’t been thinking often about them since coming to Olathana.
Instead, I’d been drifting with the flow of time in Kye’s glass palace, hiding from reality behind the magic of his voice while trying to survive the attacks of the monsters.
What was to come of it now? What did the future hold for me in this world?
Two women followed the former royal hag out of the woods.
Dressed in long, midnight-blue robes, with silvery veils draped over their hair and glowing moonstone crescents hanging on the long cords around their necks, I assumed they were either the nuns or the priestesses of the Moon Goddess from the monastery where the hag was staying in Sarnala.
The nuns held a long, thick roll of shimmering white silk between them, and my heart thudded with excitement for Kye. That was what he wanted, even at the expense of making me his captive.
Odine gestured at the silk. “As you ordered, Your Majesty. The silk is ready. It will take any thread to sew clothes or anything else you may desire. The magic in the cloth will make the thread impervious to the curse too.”
With his eyes on the silk, Kye walked to the women with slow steps, as if needing time to absorb the whole enormity of what that bolt of fabric represented in his life.
The nuns shifted as he approached, but not in fear.
Unlike the sirens of Olathana, who largely ignored Kye’s nudity, the werewolves’ customs on that seemed to be different.
The women were clearly flustered, casting furtive glances at Kye’s crotch while trying very hard to appear as if they weren’t looking at all.
“Are you sure it works, Grandmother?” Kye asked.
Carefully, as if accepting a long-awaited newborn, he took the roll of fabric from the nuns. I exhaled in relief and wonder when the silk retained its white color. It didn’t turn to glass, and Kye’s posture relaxed a little.
“So, it does,” he muttered, running a hand along the smooth surface of the fabric.
For the first time in one hundred years, he touched something other than glass, and he wouldn’t stop touching, stroking the silk reverently as if it were the skin of a lover.
“But can I touch others through it?” he asked next.
“I did what I had to do to the best of my abilities, my boy,” the hag replied. “But only you can test it fully.”
Leslo’s patience proved thinner than the silk.
“Well.” He sauntered toward me. “If I have your word that our deal is now complete and my goddess will get womora every month, I’ll take this one here and be on my way.”
He grabbed me under my arm. The gentle wonder I experienced while watching Kye finally get what he so fervently wanted disappeared with the brack’s rough touch. Irritation zapped through me, making my eyes roll and my fingers curl like claws.
Kye’s diamond-sharp eyes sparked cold and lethal, but his posture remained casually relaxed. He unwound a length of silk from the roll while sauntering toward Leslo and me.
“Oh, but I can’t close the deal yet, my simple-minded friend,” he drawled with lazy elegance.
“Why not?” Leslo scratched the back of his bald head, with a dumbfounded expression.
Kye smirked. The focus in his look narrowed, darting over the brack like a viper selecting the best spot to strike. If he ever looked like that at me, I’d run for my life. But Leslo couldn’t read Kye as well as I did. He let himself be fooled by the king’s smooth voice and his casual stance.
“I can’t accept the wares without testing them first,” Kye said with a sly smile.
With a gesture as fast as a snake bite, he shot out a hand wrapped in the silk and grabbed the brack by his thick, tattooed throat.
Leslo croaked, barking out choked, unintelligible sounds. His tanned face turned red, the thick muscles in his neck bulged, and the veins on his forehead protruded. But he remained alive and breathing.
“Huh, what do you know?” Kye mused. “It works. On bracks at least, it does. Now, about the rest...”