Chapter 17
Reva
The next morning is a bad one.
Despite my exhaustion after leaving Torin in the small hours, I tossed and turned for hours.
By the time I finally wake, I feel like a soggy dish towel left twisted and forgotten in the laundry basket.
I ache all the way from my skin down to the hollow in my gut.
A steady reminder of the nightmare yesterday turned out to be.
Keeping my face pressed into the pillow, I suck in some deep breaths as panic tries to wrestle me into its clutches.
After all the chaos yesterday, it’s hitting me all over again just how dire this situation is.
It’s been one blow after another, tides shifting around me as I struggle to keep my head above water.
I have two... now three males who are connected to me by magical forces I have no control over.
Kit, who I’d come to for help, is now in the wind and likely in worse danger than any of us if it’s the same sorcerers that held Aster who took him from his bed.
And that seems pretty likely, unless Port Yarrow is a hotbed for dark magic all of a sudden.
I force myself to focus my thoughts. I’ve always thought of Noush as my soul mate, but I suppose that isn’t exactly right.
Noush is my soul, neither of us can exist without the other.
Right now, it seems like an insane biological failing that I’m not able to communicate with Noush as soon as I remove her skin.
But maybe I can find a way of sensing Noush, just like I did with Kit yesterday.
I try to recreate the feeling from yesterday when Aster helped me to follow the connection with Kit.
This time, I concentrate all my attention directed on that hole in my gut as I mentally revisit that feeling I get when the two of us are connected.
The soaring, floating sensation when Noush surges forward and the memory of her voice fills my head, followed by how it feels when she wiggles our tail in joy.
I’m filled with a giddiness I don’t get to experience when I’m on two legs as all my human worries fade into background noise.
I go back to the last time we dove deep underwater, how we were filled with glee as bubbles surrounded us. She was so happy, so joyful at the smallest things.
I keep on zeroing in on embodying her form, sending out a silent message that feels a little too much like a heretic praying for salvation.
And then I wait, searching for any sense of connection between us.
... nothing happens. No bolt from the blue, or whisper in my ear.
Just me, stuck inside my own head.
I take a deep breath, pushing down the deep disappointment that it didn’t work. Shoving the covers off, I sit up and peer up at the other bunk, searching for Aster. My head aches and there’s a pinch at my side and—
Freezing in place, I pull my shirt up to inspect my torso.
That last one, the pinching at my side feels different. Like a ghost is prodding and poking at me.
The next thing I know, there are invisible hands on me. Touching. Groping.
Ghostly fingers slice my stomach open, sticking their hand inside my ribcage and caressing my lungs. Like a foreign entity is touching parts of me that shouldn’t ever be disturbed.
Wrong. So wrong.
I’m instantly bowled over by a wave of nausea. Staggering out of the cabin, I’m just in time to reach the nearest toilet as I collapse onto my knees and lose the contents of my stomach.
But the feeling doesn’t abate.
I force myself to my feet to wash my shaking hands while my own stricken face stares back at me in the mirror.
Stricken. That’s exactly what I am. Because what I’m feeling right now? I’m pretty sure it’s someone touching Noush’s skin.
I drop to my knees, throwing up again. This time it’s mostly bile that burns the back of my throat and leaves tears streaming down my cheeks.
I desperately tug on the connection between us, like it’s a dodgy wire. Trying to sever it so I can stop feeling this way.
The connection to Noush is gone, and my empty gut twists with a terrible ache, corkscrewing into my soft flesh.
I rinse out my mouth, scooping handfuls of cool water from the basin onto my face and taking a few shuddering breaths to try to steady myself. The world tilts slightly, and I can’t tell if it’s the movement of the ship, or if it’s me. I cling to the wall, regardless, as I stagger back to my cabin.
And then I see him.
Aster. My mate.
He’s standing in the doorway, clutching a tray of food with concern written all over his face
Dumping the tray on the chair in the corner, he’s then right in front of me, tugging me into his chest in a bone-crushing hug. My skin aches, but it feels too good to be in his arms for me to mind.
“I’m all right,” I croak.
I’m not. And I don’t know why I bother lying, not when he can feel my heart pounding and the rest of me shaking like a leaf.
“What happened? Food poisoning? Seasick?”
I shake my head against his chest. I don’t know exactly how to explain what I just felt. It sounds mad, but I manage to stutter through an explanation.
He keeps me wrapped in his arms, not letting go for a moment.
“I could feel it. I could feel that they were touching her... it. It felt like they were touching some part of me no one should have access to.”
He squeezes my slick palm in both of his. “We’ll get her back.”
I peer up at him and, for a moment, I believe him.
Then I take a step back, very aware that we’re standing awfully close and I just spent the past few minutes throwing up.
“Will you tell me about her?”
I step back, dropping onto the side of the bed as he takes a seat beside me.
“We’re not actually born with our skin,” I tell him. “It just appears one day when we’re old enough to be able to take care of it.” Not that I did a good job of that.
“How old were you?”
“Eleven, maybe twelve,” I say. “My mother and I were living just outside of this little commune close to the northern sea border. There was never enough food, and my mother was getting increasingly irritated that we couldn’t travel by sea.
And then one day, I woke up and my sealskin was right there.
I remember the exact feeling when I first slipped it on and met Noush.
It was this instant connection as if we were both saying, ‘Oh, hello, I know you’. ”
My eyes meet Aster’s for a moment before I have to look away. It wasn’t too different from how it felt when Aster first touched my skin. That instantaneous moment of connection.
It was a little different with Kit, since I already knew him. With him, it felt more like things were clicking into place and that the trust I’d put in him over the past couple of years was suddenly starting to make sense.
“Noush has always been braver than me. She’s also more fun than I am.
According to her, I spend too much time worrying about food, money and shelter.
Boring things, you know?” I swallow hard.
“Anyway, right now, it feels a bit like I’m missing a limb.
I keep going to put my socks on and then I realise that there’s no foot there. ”
Aster gives a small smile, pressing a light kiss to the top of my head. “Was the commune you lived outside close to a place called Little Wyverton?”
You’d think it would be harder to track back through two decades of travelling from place to place, but that one sticks in my brain like a thorn in my heel.
“Yes.”
His expression has my stomach flipping over itself. “I know it. I think the commune you lived near was close to our farm. They didn’t last more than a couple of years before they moved on, but we used to sell them eggs.”
It takes a moment for his words to sink in. “You mean we could have met back then or seen each other in passing without realising?” I reply. “Do you think we’d have recognised each other?”
Probably not, since I didn’t fully recognise Kit until he touched Noush’s sealskin.
Aster gives a half shrug, his eyes darting away from mine. “Who knows?” He squeezes my hand. “We’ll find her. I don’t know what good I can do. But I’ll do anything I can to find her and your other mate, and we’ll get them back safely.”
And once again, I find myself believing him. Something about the deliberate way he traces every letter and the earnest look on his face has me trusting his words.
“You should be a healer, or a midwife.”
He gives me a bemused smile, holding out his hand, one finger up before slipping out of the room. Meanwhile, I slump down with my head in my hands, groaning.
I don’t move from my position, but before I know it, something cool and damp is touching my forehead. I blink my eyes open right as Aster presses a cloth to my forehead. He places the tray of food beside me with a questioning look.
“What’s wrong with you? Are you ill? Seasick?” Torin’s voice has my head jerking up.
“What did you do to her?” This last part is directed at Aster, who understandably gives no reaction.
“He didn’t do anything. Keep your hair on, Grandma.” I turn back to Aster. “Did you really have to bring him with you?”
“I had no choice,” Aster replies, trailing the words gently over the top of my hand. “He was right outside.”
Torin snorts. “You think he had a choice? I saw him sneaking food and decided to follow. Good job I did, since he can’t exactly sound the alarm if there is something seriously wrong with you.”
“I’m fine,” I grunt, taking a long swig of the water Aster is holding out to me.
“You don’t look fine,” Torin replies. “You look like death.”
“And I thought we were getting on so well.” I eye him up and down, looking for something I can nitpick about his appearance, but he looks irritatingly put together.
From the long dirty blonde hair tied up behind his head, which could look ridiculous but somehow combined with his size just makes him look like a legendary warrior.
“Well, good thing you’re feeling hunky-dory—” Torin says, determinedly ignoring my amused snort.
“—such a grandma thing to say,” I mutter.
“Because the captain wants to see you,” he says. “Jack thinks he’s found something.”