Chapter 28
ACKER
The sound of something heavy hitting the wharf has me pivoting in place and I find Wells standing with his bag at his feet.
I level an unimpressed look at him. “What the hell are you doing here?”
He lifts his chin in determined defiance. “When it comes down to it, if you’re set on killing your father I don’t want you to have to live with being the one to do that.”
He knew something was wrong the moment I walked out of the cottage bedroom after Jovie pulled me with her this morning.
I told him the horrifying truth about my mother, about how my father has managed to regain magic and what it costs.
It took everything I had to keep my voice from trembling as I told him what I saw.
My mother, withered beyond the point of recognition.
I recall the days leading up to my mother’s death.
No one explicitly told me she had fallen ill with the same sickness that was sweeping through the territory, but I was able to put the pieces together myself.
After, when my father called me into his sitting room to break the news, it felt unreal.
I was numb. I remember feeling as though she couldn’t be dead, because …
wouldn’t I be stricken with sadness, if she were?
But the sadness never came. The tears never fell.
Aside from the slight pinch in my chest, all I remember feeling was lost. Confused, as my father poured me a glass of wine.
My first ever. He spoke to me like an equal, something I hadn’t experienced from him before, and I was perplexed by it.
His change in demeanor was not enough to satisfy my cravings for his attention, but I was also oddly relieved.
As if I’d finally accomplished what I had always wanted, which was to make my father proud.
Now, I realize, none of my feelings were a natural reaction to being told my mother had died, regardless of how minimally she participated in my upbringing.
I never felt unloved by my mother, but moments when I received her affection were few and far between.
Once Greta came into our lives, my mother became a shell of her former self.
Whether it was my father’s doing or her own, I may never know.
Bearing witness to my mother’s remorse muddles the image I’ve held of her for most of my life, and I’m not exactly sure what to do with it.
Taking a breath, I shake myself from my thoughts and try to take the emotions welling up inside me and meet my friend’s gaze. “Olivia,” I say, letting his wife’s name hang between us as an unspoken question.
“She knows I’m here.”
“And she’s fine with it?”
He shakes his head with one quick motion.
“Not in the least. She’s afraid, and she hasn’t had the utmost faith in you as of late.
But she also doesn’t want our child to grow up without our families.
” Shrugging, he lifts his brows. “If given the chance, we’d like to return to our lives in Kenta.
I want to try to help make that happen.”
Wells and Olivia have long been hinting that I should be the one on the Kenta throne.
They’ve been critical of my father’s leadership and laws since we were young.
I can’t help but feel undeserving of their friendship and it makes the weight of my mother’s revelations somehow heavier and lighter at the same time.
“I’m not sure I’m going to do any better as king.”
I inspect the crew loading our ship with goods—the exact amount for the time needed to sail home.
No more, and no less—under the supervision of the Maile soldiers that congregate on the wharf, and then the flags flying on the masts of the Maile ships moored nearby, displaying the tallies of the men they’ve killed—men from Kenta.
“Kenta’s territory has already been ravaged by my hands,” I tell him.
“Hands your father has tied behind your back.” His presses his hand to my shoulder, drawing my gaze toward him. “You were his puppet.”
Wells had wanted to flee Kenta, was willing to cross swords with me to ensure Olivia’s safety. And now he’s offering me something worth more than a king’s ransom—to be the one who ends my father’s life so I won’t have to do it myself.
“I can only live with your choice if it doesn’t come at the cost of your life.”
He grins, cockiness peeking through. “It won’t.”
“Wells, you have a baby on the way.”
“And she’ll be here waiting to meet me when I get back.”
I give him a skeptical look, and he sobers, tension lines bracketing his mouth right before he pulls me into an embrace.
It catches me off guard. Wells doesn’t hug.
Ever. The only person I’ve ever seen him be affectionate with is Olivia.
I take a deep breath, prolonging the embrace for as long as I can until I’m forced to let him go.
“Adorable,” the archer chirps as he approaches, motioning for us to embark from the end of the gangway. “Let’s go.”
We grab our bags and board the ship and I turn toward Irina, already waiting on deck.
She’s sullen and I know there’s nothing I can say or do that will lift her mood.
I didn’t tell her about the offer Jovie gave to allow us to cross the gulf to Strou.
It wouldn’t do any good. I have to order the ship to return in the direction of Kenta, and if she were to find out the reason why I didn’t bring her home, it would crush her.
The Maile ships escort us outside the breakwaters, watched nervously by the crew of our ship, who are as concerned as they are relieved to see our return.
“At least I’m not going to be worked half to death this go-around,” Irina mutters. “I’m taking the first officer’s cabin.” She doesn’t wait for anyone to dispute her claim and takes the stairs leading below.
We waste no time setting the sails and moving while the wind is on our side, and by dusk we’ve put enough distance between us and Maile’s shoreline that the wharf and city beyond are no longer visible.
Once I’m sure we’re out of sight, I issue the command for the crew to drop anchor.
I ask the helmsman about our position in relation to the nearest shoreline.
We’re orientated toward Kenta, and no more than a mile offshore.
I order the crew to keep a close eye on the water as we wait.
I’m anxious.
The sun is dipping toward the horizon fast and it’ll be hard to find anything in the water after dark.
The Bond has been smothered most of the day, but I can’t tell if it’s Jovie’s doing or if it‘s due to the sedative Fredrich planned on using to subdue her. There’s no way to know if he succeeded, having most recently spoken to him last night, but the lack of tension from the tether is pissing me off.
One of the deckhands yells and I follow his pointed finger to the starboard side. The dingy rocks alarmingly in the swell and the crew is quick to get ropes cast in order to hoist it up to safety.
That’s when Wells chooses the worst possible time to appear from below. Not that I intended on hiding my plans from him, but it would be so much easier to explain myself after the fact, instead of him being here to witness this happening firsthand.
I twirl the blade in my palm, needing something to alleviate the restless anticipation of her arrival.
The sound of the mangi chains clanking as she thrashes against her bindings makes my chest tighten.
My back is to them as they’re hauled aboard.
I stand between Wells and the proceedings, but I hear Fredrich grunt during the commotion.
I keep my eyes on Wells’s face as he comes to understand exactly what’s happening, his expression contorting in anger.
“You stole the fucking queen of Maile.”
“No,” I correct him. “I stole my Match.”
Her screams are muffled, her mouth gagged, if I had to guess.
Wells’s eyes watch them avidly over my shoulder and I begin to turn around just as Fredrich finally hauls Jovie out of the dingy and onto the deck.
There’s a heavy thunk, followed by a cuss from Fredrich that brings a smile to my face.
Then a sharp, stinging sensation echoes across the Bond, and I still the twirling blade in my hand.
“Watch it,” I snarl, head turned just enough to see my friend out of my peripheral vision.
He bends down and hefts the writhing queen over his shoulder. “I’m not hurting her,” he assures me. “Whatever pain she’s feeling, she’s inflicted on herself.”
He somehow manages to keep hold of her flailing body as he marches toward the main cabin.
I risk a direct glance in the last moment before they disappear behind the cabin’s door.
Jovie’s hair is a wild mane around her head as she thrashes, hands threaded together in a prayer position with rope to block her ability to call her blade, feet cinched together tightly to stop her kicking.
I once threatened to hog-tie her, when she thought I would ever leave Alaha without her, and a deranged part of me is bothered by the fact that Fredrich is the one to actually do it.
Her head twists in my direction but I divert my gaze before she’s able to make eye contact.
The door swings shut behind them, and as if snapping out of a trance, the crew returns to their normal tasks.
“The oath,” Wells says, eyes wide as his gaze swings to me. “How?”
I return my dagger to the strap across my chest and begin rolling up the sleeve of my shirt. “She’s safest with me,” I explain. “By taking her, I am protecting her.”
“Bull. Shit.” He points to the cabin’s closed door and the muffled noises emanating from beyond it. “He wasn’t in Maile by chance.”
The door to the cabin swings back open and Fredrich steps out, looking a little worse for wear. He jerks the door closed behind him and scrubs a hand over his mussed hair, before straightening the collar of his shirt and turning to lock eyes with me.
He already knows what’s coming, because he holds up a placating hand. “Before you start, you should know I was saving a comrade’s life. If it wasn’t me, it would have just been someone else and you would have undoubtedly killed him.”
Wells is rightfully confused, his head swiveling between the two of us as we close in on each other.
I finish rolling up my other sleeve. “Does it look as though I give a fuck?”
“You should be thanking me.” Fredrich’s smug grin ratchets my anger up another degree. “I could have fucked her.”
My fist connects with his jaw before he can take his next step, sending him stumbling backward. Wells cusses as all work ceases around us, the crew once again distracted.
“Shut your fucking mouth,” I snarl at him.
Rubbing the sore spot on his jaw, he has the nerve to hold a finger up to me. “That was your one free pass. Try to hit me again and you’ll regret it.”
It’s doubly infuriating to know he’s only speaking the truth. He let me hit him. If he hadn’t dropped his shield, it’s likely I would have broken every bone in my hand and wrist. Over water, it would have taken forever to heal, maybe even incorrectly.
“You could have told her ‘no.’”
He gives a half-hearted shrug, as if the effort to give a whole one is not worth the effort. “Where would the fun have been in that?”
Retrieving a dagger from my harness, the metal like an extension of myself, I sling it directly at his throat.
It hits the wall of invisible resistance surrounding him but doesn’t shatter or rebound, not as I continue to drive it forward, my hand outstretched as I take a menacing step toward my friend.
The blade vibrates as it creeps closer to its mark.
His eyes don’t even stray to the weapon, gaze unwavering as he looks at me. “I watched the sacrifices she made for her own men. Saw her go days on end without sleeping. Stare down death without an ounce of fear.”
A crack sounds and my hand shakes as I struggle to keep up the pressure on the dagger. The distaste in his expression makes my stomach twist.
“And I wish you could have seen her face when she was informed of your arrival. It was so fucking filled with hope. It was the first time I’d ever seen that level of emotion in her in all the years since you asked me to keep watch over her.
Only for you to fucking crush it by showing up with your wife, wanting her men instead of her. ”
My tone is warning enough as I say, “You know better than anyone exactly why I came, and it has nothing to do with her men.”
He huffs. “You may want to kill me right now, Ace, but I think we both know it’s not me you’re really upset with.”
His words are clearly chosen with the intention to piss me off and it fucking works.
There’s no way I’m mistaken about exactly who I’m angry with, and it’s definitely the friend I entrusted with my Match’s safety.
Not that Fredrich would ever be able to understand.
The few times in the past we were able to drag him to a tavern for a drink or two, he turned down every person who ever made an advance on him.
He’s never spoken of a fling, never even hinted at a love interest. I mean, we all thought the man was fucking celibate, for godssake.
Fredrich slaps Wells on the shoulder. “It’s good to see you, my friend,” he says, sending one last glare in my direction before heading below to find a bunk.
Wells’s gaze slides to me and there’s a look on his face that I can’t identify. “You’re a rightful mess,” he says, then leaves me alone on the deck with my thoughts.