Chapter Fifteen
“What a night, am I right?” says Ronan loudly as he approaches first on his own, his voice not even disguised though he still wears a Nithyrian face. “What do you have there?”
“Get your own. This one is ours,” says the brute. Even missing a hand, he seems like the leader of the group.
His face is every bit as hateful as I remember it, anger contorting his already too small features until it looks as though his head is being held in a vice. His stump of a hand is still bandaged from Seth’s unscheduled surgery.
I hope it still hurts.
The other soldiers shift and straighten their posture, but they don’t draw their weapons—Ronan has kept his sword sheathed.
“Doesn’t look like she agrees with you,” says Ronan, gesturing to the woman.
She’s hunched over, trying to assess whether she should run towards or away from the stranger.
Her face, from the glimpse I get of it as she looks down the bank to where the rest of us are creeping around the group in the shadows, looks young, several years younger than me. Fifteen, maybe. Sixteen at best.
Not a woman. A girl.
It makes me sick.
The brute laughs cruelly. “Spoils of war. Doesn’t matter if she agrees.”
“You see, sister? This is what you get for mercy. You try to think practically. It’s wartime, and tempers are high.
You need soldiers, and if you kill every person in your army that steps out of line, you’ll fight the enemies’ battle for them.
You try to give someone a chance. And this is what you get in return. ”
The soldiers and the girl look around for Seth’s voice. They twist from side to side, trying to track his movement, but all they see is an unnatural darkness. A place where their torches just won’t reach.
They reach for the swords at their sides, but what they didn’t feel as Seth was talking was the tendrils of shadow, silent and precise, pulling them from their sheaths one by one.
“Say, Tarsus, what happened to your hand there?” says Ronan, his voice falsely warm and genial, filled with strange, alluring comfort.
“Tarsus? Who the hell is Tarsus? I’m Remus—”
Ronan draws his sword and stabs Remus the brute in the groin, striking up under his chainmail, as Seth fires a flame into the forehead of the guard to his right, dropping him instantly.
Larus cuts down the one to the brute’s left by the neck and then the soldier next to him as well as he turns to see what happened to his companions.
The remaining two turn and run. The shorter one starts to scream, but I’m there with my shadow. I restrain them both, drawing on Ronan’s rage to split the tendril in two. Then Taran cuts their throats with the dagger.
“I’m Remus,” the brute chokes out. He’s doubled over, blood pouring from his lower body.
The woman is near him on the ground watching him bleed out, but there’s no relief in her eyes. Only fear.
Larus reaches a hand to the girl, helping her up. She takes it cautiously, relaxing only when I lower the shadows to let her see me clearly.
Ronan looks at me, sensing what I want. I know he’ll kill this man for me if I ask it of him. I know that he wants to, that Seth wants to, that they’ll all want to once they learn what he did to me. What he wanted to do.
But this is my fight. And I want to be the one to finish it.
“Please. I’m not Tarsus; I’m Remus. You made a mistake—”
“There’s been no mistake,” I say, my voice sounding strange and unfamiliar in its cruelty. In its cold malice. “You’re exactly who I thought you were.”
He looks up at me, and his eyes flash with recognition.
I lean down close, whispering to him as he whimpers. “You’re no one. You’re nothing. And you will never hurt anyone ever again.”
I thrust the sword once, cleanly, into his windpipe, and then I withdraw it.
Remus stumbles forward, grasping for me but finding only air.
And blood. A seemingly endless spray of blood that pours from his body into the marshy ground before fading into the murky water as he collapses, his body lost in moments among the reeds.
“Damn. Did I miss all the action?”
An Enezian woman in Nithyrian armor helps us onto the deck. Only once I’m onboard do I realize that it’s Octavia.
“I thought you were headed to the fleet,” I say to her, accepting the hug that she gives me.
“I could hardly call myself Captain if I left behind someone taken from my own ship. Plus, that lover of yours is quite convincing.”
My heart skips a beat at hearing Ronan called my “lover,” but I suppose it’s true. “Thank you. I appreciate you helping me.” I know how she feels about Selara.
“Who is this?” she says, looking at Seth.
“My brother,” I say without thinking.
Octavia draws her sword. “The one who had you kidnapped?”
Seth ignites a flame on the tip of his finger. “I’d really suggest you don’t. It’s been a terrible night. They made me destroy my own tent.”
I gape at Seth. I think he actually believes that the worst thing that happened tonight was him voluntarily destroying his own tent, which he said was no big deal at the time.
He’s insane.
But he’s also undeniably useful. We likely wouldn’t have made it through the camp without him, and if he can reveal some of his and Adria’s plans to Ronan’s war council, we have a real chance of ending the fighting.
I place my hand on Octavia’s forearm. She flinches, but she doesn’t lower her blade. “It’s…it’s fine. We’re a complicated family.”
Octavia hesitates, eyeing me to confirm I’m acting of my own free will. I nod to her, and then she shrugs. “You know what? I understand completely. Wait until you meet my aunt.” Then she turns to Ronan. “Your Majesty. The Pegasus is yours.”
I can’t feel any of Octavia’s feelings—I can’t even feel the girl we saved anymore, Prima, although she’s onboard the ship, having agreed to let us take her to Faros to see if she can reunite with her family there.
But I recognize the look Octavia gives Ronan, and I know exactly what she’s feeling—attraction.
Oh, he won her over, alright.
Jealousy flares in my chest. I know Octavia understands our relationship, and although I haven’t known her long, she doesn’t seem like the type to get involved in anything too messy.
I also know that she’s far from the only person to be attracted to Ronan.
I’ve seen the way others are around him, at court and elsewhere.
And yet, after a week apart from him in which they’ve clearly met, in which they’ve clearly spoken and established some sort of mutual trust and respect, I can’t help but feel jealous. Jealous that they spent time together. Jealous that they admire each other.
Ronan raises his eyebrows at me. I’m certain he can sense my envy.
He smiles politely at Octavia, carefully avoiding making too much eye contact with her. “Set sail. Land us as close to the city on the southern bank as we can make it by daybreak.”
“Yes, sir,” says Octavia. Then, as he turns his back to her to join me, she looks at me, mouthing good god and giving me a gesture of approval.
I laugh, the tension loosening from my shoulders as I understand her admiration. I can hardly blame her for wanting him. It’s difficult for me to be near him without wanting him, and I’ve had him.
Several times.
“That feeling you just had,” Ronan whispers to me, his voice a caress against my ear. “That will drive me to madness if you’re not careful.”
I feel the pulse of his desire as it flows between us, echoing in my own feelings.
“Is there somewhere we can go?” I ask him. “Below deck?”
“Yes, but—” He braces himself against the overwhelming wave of our mutual desire. Then he reaches for me, cradling my head in his hands. “Are you alright?” He looks out over the ship’s railing to where we fought near the docks.
“I am now,” I say, reaching up to kiss him.
Somewhere across the deck, Seth retches even though we haven’t gotten underway yet.
Ronan returns the kiss tentatively, his feelings still troubled.
“Let’s talk about it,” I say. “Lead the way.”
Ronan leads me to a staircase midship, and I stumble down the stairs after him as the boat takes off from the dock. He catches me by my waist, and though I’m worried by his shift in mood, I can’t stop a pulse of heat from running through me at his touch.
Gods, I hope he still wants me. I can feel that he does, but I can also feel something holding him back. Something beyond whatever he had to do to keep me from feeling him during the rescue.
The captain’s quarters are small, much smaller than Seth’s tent. There’s only room for a single bed with a neatly tucked wool coverlet and a desk, which is covered with maps and trade ledgers. One of my Selaran outfits is waiting for me on top of a chest at the end of the bed.
I doubt I’ll be needing it just yet.
The moment the door closes behind us, Ronan takes me into his arms, and I’m hopeful for a moment that whatever dark cloud that has formed over him has passed.
But then he grips me tightly to him, his grasp so firm that my hands are pinned to his chest, unable to roam his body as I so desperately want to.
I freeze, trying to read the turmoil in his emotions.
His desire for me is still present under the surface, but it’s been overwhelmed by his guilt. I feel his anguish as he clings to me, his regret, his doubt. “Ronan,” I say softly, tugging my arm up his chest until he releases it, allowing me to caress his cheek. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”
He stumbles back a step from me, running into the bed.
I follow him there, gently nudging him to sit on the edge with me.
His shoulders tense at my touch, but he doesn’t stop me from softly running my hands over his arms. He lets me twine my fingers with his, exhaling quietly as I pull his hand to my lips.
“It’s alright. Everything is alright. I’m alright. ”
The words snap something in him. He turns to me suddenly, grabbing me by the shoulders. “Tell me what happened to you,” he says urgently. His voice catches on his next question, his voice soft and painfully strained. “What did he do to you?”