Chapter 13
Torin
“You must be cold,” Finch says to Reva like it’s only just occurred to him. He then turns to me. “She’s soaked through. Can we get her a towel and some fresh clothes?”
I fight the urge to roll my eyes at him. Cap’s a great captain and a loyal leader I’ll no doubt follow to my doom, but he’s not always the most observant when it comes to what’s right in front of him.
“We can.”
Reva squeezes my arm, and a surge of electricity flows from the point where we’re touching to the mark on my arm.
This woman is either very brave or slightly mad. Possibly both.
I catch the look Cap gives her after her attention has shifted onto me as I gesture for her to head out of the office ahead of me. It looks like she’s caught his focus in a way that few manage, and that’s always a dangerous thing.
The fact that she took her eyes off him at all while he was trying to bore a hole into the side of her head tells me something interesting about her.
I also note the way she doesn’t show me her back, clearly picking up some sense of the threat I pose.
While I’m not without claws in this form, I’m a puppy dog compared to Captain Finch.
I’m not so sure about our quiet friend here. He could be the most dangerous one of all of us, but until we can communicate with him, he’s remained a mystery. Although judging by the half-starved state he’s in, he might turn out to be less of a threat and more of a liability, but we’ll have to see.
The woman is shivering but trying to hide it behind gritted teeth. When she goes ahead of me in the passageway, I spot the gash at the side of her head and enough blood in her wild tangle of hair to turn it into a matted mess.
“Med bay,” I grunt, pointing to the doorway at the far end of the second-level passageway. “You’re injured.”
She glances up at me in surprise before gingerly patting the wound on her head with a wince. “Would you believe I’d forgotten about that?”
I nod, knowing exactly how it feels to lose yourself to the adrenaline of the moment and then come to hours later with broken bones and blood caking my skin.
The difference is that most of the time it isn’t my own. But there’s been the odd occasion where someone got a shot in.
I scratch at my forearm, which has been itching from the moment she stepped on board.
It feels a bit like she’s given me lice, rather than whatever magic brand she marked me with.
They’d have to be some pretty powerful, electrified lice, but I don’t know what’s usual in the cities these days.
It’s not often we spend time on land at all, except for the odd port stop to gather supplies and information.
“Come on. Food. Fresh clothes. Then a nap.”
My tone is heavy-handed, and I can see her bristling and trying to hide her instinctive reaction. It has me fighting a smirk, especially when I can feel the silent one glaring like I could ever be remotely influenced by one of his kind.
Reva swallows her argument and strides toward the med bay.
It’s clear she doesn’t know what she’s agreed to coming onboard this ship.
The fact that Finch’s name didn’t seem to have any impact on her tells me that much.
It should have put the fear of the gods into her, but her lack of reaction certainly wasn’t missed by me or by our captain.
She has no idea what kind of devil she just got into bed with.
Passing by the bustling kitchen, her eyebrows shoot up at the sound of Cookie’s bawdy singing and shouted orders for people to get out of his way. “That’s where we take meals,” I explain, waiting for her to translate to her silent mate. “You can get your food brought to your room, though.”
“We’ll be fine,” she replies.
We head inside the med bay. It’s a small, bare room with a single cot and a desk along with a wall of cupboards painted white. It always carries a faint scent of something astringent in the air, but it’s clean and quiet.
“Take a seat.” I nod toward the bed, and she hops up, cringing as her soaked clothes stick to her legs. The silent one hovers nearby, his eyes darting every which way before resting on the back of my neck, making the spines beneath my skin tingle with awareness.
“Is this what you do onboard?” she asks. “You’re the medic?”
I snort. “Not quite.” Cookie’s our usual go-to surgeon, and she doesn’t want him looking at her while he’s in a mood or mid-meal prep or she’ll wind up with more stitches than she needs.
I rummage through the cupboards, quickly amassing an armful of supplies, which I place on the bed beside her. Then, donning the reading glasses I keep on a chain around my neck, I inspect the cut at the side of her head.
“It doesn’t look too deep, and it’s stopped bleeding, so no need for stitches,” I tell her. “I’ll clean it, though. Try to avoid getting it wet.”
When I glance down at her, I see how close my face is to hers. Two twinkling hazel eyes are observing me without any hint of subtlety.
“What?”
She swallows hard and then shakes her head. “Nothing. I’ll try my best not to get thrown overboard.”
I don’t think much about what I’m doing as I apply cleansing fluid to a pad and dab at the cut. But as soon as my fingers brush against her scalp, another shock travels up my arm like the kickback from electrocution.
Ignoring the way my entire arm is tingling right the way up to the itchy spot on my arm, I clench my teeth and focus on cleaning her up. The faster I can do that, the faster I can kick them both out.
“Any more injuries I should know about?”
She hesitates for just a second before leaning forward to show me the various cuts and scrapes along her arms.
“This is all from as we were getting on the ship?”
She shakes her head. “I had a fight a few days ago. Some of these are from then.”
I can’t help the growl that rumbles out of my chest. The beast in chains inside me doesn’t like how most of these look like defensive wounds. She clearly fought back, although it looks like she was the one who came out worse off.
“Anything else?”
She shakes her head before turning to look at her mate in the corner, whose avid gaze has been fixed on us this whole time.
“Aster, how about you?”
He shakes his head, and she frowns, reaching her arm out. As soon as his fingertips touch her flesh, another unwanted grumble makes its way up my windpipe. I swallow it down, but the sound doesn’t go unnoticed.
I feel the tips of my ears going hellishly hot as I refuse to avert my eyes, staring them both down resolutely.
The beast inside me is usually quiet. Always watchful. But he rarely lets himself be known until it’s too late for his prey.
He definitely doesn’t growl at people like he’s a disgruntled cub who hasn’t had enough sleep. But today seems to be the day he lost his damn mind.
I eye their soaked clothing and abruptly stride for the door. “Wait here.”
Making my way to the laundry, I return barely minutes later with a pile of oversized clothing for them both, along with a toothbrush and bar of soap I scrounged up. “Donations.”
My ears have cooled down by this point, but the skin on my arm is itching like crazy. I scratch at it once before shoving my hands into my pockets.
Reva nods, pulling the clothes toward her, and I jerk my head toward the door. “Come with me. I’ll show you where you’re sleeping.”
I get through the tour of the lower level as quickly as I can, fighting the urge to twitch and scratch at my arm. It’s distracting as all hell.
My beast is scratching at my insides with metal-tipped claws too. For some reason, he doesn’t want me to leave them. Just like Finch, she seems to have captured his attention.
Which means she has no idea how much danger she’s in.
A chorus of yells sounds from up on the deck, and I chuckle under my breath.
“The lads are a bit rowdy at the minute,” I tell them.
“They’ve all been cursed to stay onboard the ship and until we can get it lifted, we’re all going a little stir crazy, stuck onboard.
” I hesitate and then feel the need to add, “You’ll be safe, though. ”
Once they’re safely ensconced in their cabin, I head back to my own. Away from curious eyes. Tugging my sleeve up to properly inspect the flesh-eating bug touching the woman has infected me with, my eyes practically bulge out of my head.
It’s worse than I could have imagined.
Not a worm burying its head into my flesh, or even some kind of blood-sucking tick. Instead, there’s a faint golden circle etched deep into my skin. It’s intersecting one of the many thick, white scars that litter my body. My new golden scar is etched even deeper into my flesh than any scar.
I’ve only seen a few before when I was much younger, but I have a strong suspicion of what it is and why it occurred when I first touched Reva’s skin. I’m pretty certain it’s a mate mark.
Which means the little woman with the cloud of hair is my mate.
Poor Reva.
She has no clue what she’s in for, having a monster like me for a mate.