Chapter 36
Reva
When I come to, someone is holding my hand.
My brain sleepily supplies that it’s probably Aster and I’ll wake up to his face far too close while he’s watching me sleep with a dopey smile on his face.
I shift slightly, and it’s only when I’m rudely introduced to the aches all over my body and my pounding head that I remember. I must have blacked out in the Deadwood Cove labs, so where am I now?
My eyes flutter open, squinting against the light that seems far too bright and into a face I was afraid I might not see again.
“Kit?”
“Morning, sweetheart.”
There’s a rhythmic thumping from somewhere above us, and it’s freezing cold, despite the mountain of blankets I’m piled under.
I stare up into Kit’s warm eyes as he smiles down at me, and I can barely catch my breath. “You’re all right?”
He reaches out to cup my cheek, running his thumb over my jaw with enough reverence to leave my heart pounding. “None the worse for wear, thankfully. How are you feeling?”
“Pretty fucking ropey,” I croak, then peer around at the massive basket we’re seated inside. Through a gap just above Kit’s head, I can just make out two great wings flapping.
“How long have I been asleep?”
“Unconscious,” he corrects me softly. “Almost three days. You woke up briefly but didn’t seem to be aware of what was going on. You got hit on the head pretty hard.”
I suck in a sharp breath. Three days? That cannot be right.
Patting the back of my head, I find a thick layer of dressing just under my mass of hair.
“Three days? Seriously?”
He nods gravely and I struggle to sit up. That explains why I feel so odd and my mouth feels so dry.
“Where are we going? What happened? The gryphon—”
It seems like I can’t formulate a full sentence yet, but Kit understands me well enough.
He wraps an arm around me, tucking me against his warm body and handing me a canteen of cool water to drink.
I gulp it down eagerly and he graciously ignores me spilling it down my front before I pass it back to him.
“It seems like Jack borrowed the gryphon to take you back to the ship a few days ago?” At my nod, he continues with a slight smirk, “Well, it seems he never returned it. The others headed back to the ship, but after I broke the curse onboard, it was decided that we should take some space for a few days. I thought we could head back to the shop. Then, once you’re recovered, you can decide what you want to do next. ”
My mind goes completely blank. I’d only got as far as finding Kit and Noush and getting them both back. Kit’s still smiling and he’s being very gentle with me, like I’m a porcelain doll.
Most of the time, I wouldn’t appreciate it. But right now, while my head feels fit to split in two, I’m appreciating the delicate handling.
I rub my throat and swallow hard. “I remember her cutting off our airways. What happened after that?”
“Finch happened.” Kit chuckles, and I shift so that my front presses up against his side and I can feel the vibrations through my chest. “Aster managed to shut down whatever spell she was using to suffocate us before we all passed out. By that point, Finch and Torin had fully lost control of themselves. Finch isn’t particularly attuned to his other form, and it sounds like the others had decided Torin should be the one to keep him in line.
” He clears his throat, running his hand up and down my arm like he can’t stop himself from touching me.
I press even closer, feeling the same need to have his body close to me.
“Torin didn’t react very well to—” Kit taps his forearm and the spot where the mate mark used to be etched into his skin. My gut sours as I’m faced with the patch of bare skin.
And then the words sink in. I was with Aster, so I knew what was happening, and that was bad enough. But for Torin, it must have been like...
“He thought I was dead?”
Kit nods, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. “Together, he and Finch tore down the entire town to get to you. All the labs, every building in Deadwood Cove, they’re all rubble now.”
“Oh.”
“Araminta Stone’s jars of magic all got destroyed too.”
I suck in a deep breath, not sure I want to know the answer even as I voice my next question. “Wh-what happened to her?”
I feel him shaking his head before resting it against mine. “We don’t know. Couldn’t find her among the rubble, but we didn’t exactly look too hard to find her.”
“I still don’t understand what it was all for.”
What she did to Aster. Dragging Kit around only to wind up in the cursed labs of Deadwood Cove. Getting pretty damn close to murdering the three of us.
He lets out a weary sigh, tugging on one of my blankets so that it’s enveloping him too, and then wrapping his arm more firmly around me.
“She talked a lot about it. Sometimes she seemed to be trying to persuade me to understand, and at other times, she just seemed to like the sound of her own voice. She kept saying she was going to be a businesswoman, renowned around the kingdom.” Kit shifts slightly, readjusting our bodies so that his hand is rubbing small circles on my thigh.
“That was why she needed me; the famed cursebreaker from Port Yarrow. She’d decided that I was going with her and I was going to make her a perfect hidey-hole for her stash of stolen magic. ”
“We’d thought as much,” I tell him. I shift in my seat again, pulling the blankets closer since it really is cold as shit up here.
Then I spot the broken wooden box on Kit’s other side and pounce on it, pulling it into my lap.
My skin is sitting inside, looking like nothing more than a bundle of thick, grey material. I stroke my hand over it, but it feels odd.
“Reva, I—” When I glance up at him, Kit’s face is drawn and serious, and I have no doubt I don’t want to hear what he has to say next.
“I didn’t really want to do this here, but you deserve to know.
” He takes a deep breath. “I didn’t go with Araminta willingly.
And I wish I’d left Noush at home, safely under the bed like I should have. ”
I try to swallow the lump in my throat before I can speak. “Aster said that the sorceress can make people do things they wouldn’t otherwise.”
He nods, rubbing his brow with a heavy sigh.
“That makes sense. I... I remember her tapping on my window and the next thing I knew, I was falling out of it.” He swallows hard.
“I also vaguely remember opening the box for her at one point, but when I came back to myself I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t a dream. ”
“I felt someone touching my skin,” I say. “Could feel someone’s hands all over it right after she took you.” Staring down at the limp material in my lap, I stroke my hand over it again and again like I can coax some life back into it.
“I can’t feel Noush at all.”
Kit lets out a low grumble that would be more familiar coming from Torin than him.
He then carefully shifts my skin from my lap before shoving the rest of the blankets off us and scooping me into his lap.
He doesn’t speak again as he rearranges the blankets around me, with my sealskin right on top.
It takes a good couple of minutes before he’s satisfied with how I’m positioned and he buries his face against my chest.
“Jack took a look at your skin while you were unconscious,” he tells me softly.
“He thinks that Aster should be able to help you to restore its magic, but they didn’t want to try it without you knowing what was happening.
And Aster, er, didn’t think you’d want to be around him right now.
” He straightens up, squeezing my leg. “But just say the word and we can turn this gryphon around and go right back to the ship, if that’s what you want. ”
Just then, the gryphon starts to descend, and I let out an involuntary yelp as the basket swings more violently. Kit grips the bottom of the basket with one hand, keeping me firmly in his lap.
The wind whistles around my ears as we drop lower and lower, swinging slowly from left to right. And then we’re landing with a bump that feels like an ice pick in my brain.
We both scramble to our feet, peering over the side of the basket to Port Yarrow town square.
“Well, that’s certainly one way to make an entrance,” Kit mutters.
He unwraps the tangle of blankets that are still swaddled around my ankles and legs and then helps me onto my feet before helping me to scramble out of the basket.
I wrap my skin around my shoulders for safekeeping, ignoring the pang in my chest when I don’t feel any answering warmth or magic from Noush.
Kit then hauls himself out and pauses beside the basket.
“Reva, before we go any further. I wanted to talk about the mate bond.”
“I—” I rub my aching head. It’s really not something I want to talk about right now. Or even think about. My body is one giant bruise, but the biggest ache of all is coming from the centre of my chest where I still feel as though I’ve been hollowed out.
“I don’t feel any different without it,” Kit blurts. “You’re still mine just the same.”
I suck in an unsteady breath. He takes a hesitant step closer, eyes darting between mine as he takes in my expression.
“I regretted everything the night she came for me and forced me out of the window,” he grumbles. “But do you want to know what I regretted most of all?”
“What?”
His eyes fix on my lips as my tongue darts out to wet them.
And then he presses his lips to mine in a kiss that’s so gentle and perfect and right that all the other stuff just melts away.
His lips are warm and firm against mine, and then he brushes his tongue over the seam of my mouth, and I open for him.
His tongue tangles with mine as I’m filled with the taste of him, feeling his body press against mine and losing myself entirely in him.
He hauls me up against him, pressing his thigh between my legs, and I wrap my arms around his neck, holding him just as tightly and burying my fingers in his hair.
Kit pulls back, his eyes slightly wild. “The shop,” he pants. “We should get inside before I decide it’s a good idea to bury myself between your legs in the middle of the street.”
I glance around and see that the town’s empty, no witnesses to us dry humping each other like horny teenagers. Other than the gryphon, who tosses its head in disgust.
“Right. Yes. The shop.”
My legs feel a little unsteady as we abandon the gryphon in the middle of the square. Kit grabs my hand and hustles me along toward the alleyway leading to his house.
“Shouldn’t we check downstairs first?” I ask, still not quite able to catch my breath after that kiss.
“We can check on it later. I’m sure Frannie’s done a great job in taking care of things.”
“She seemed to be enjoying herself when I last spoke to her,” I murmur.
We reach the door and Kit comes to an abrupt halt, so abrupt I narrowly avoid smashing my face into his back.
“Fuck.”
“What is it?” I try to peer over his shoulder and then wrap my arms around his waist from behind, resting my cheek on his warm back and sucking in a deep breath.
Because he’s here and he’s safe.
“Maybe we should have stayed on the ship, after all,” he murmurs, turning around and pulling me against his chest. He holds me tight to him for a long moment that soothes so much of the tension I’ve been carrying for the past few weeks.
Then with a reluctant sigh, he pulls back, gazing down at me before stepping aside.
There’s a piece of paper nailed to the door and I frown at it. “Has Frannie taken the day off or something?”
Kit snorts, wrapping himself around my back and moulding his body to mine. “No. It seems like Aster might be even more powerful than we realised.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you remember how he broke the glamour on the labs so that you could reach me?”
I nod, feeling a deep sense of dread unfolding in my gut. “Yeah, why?”
“It seems like he might have also broken the other curses I left on the place.”
“Which means...”
“The memory curse has been broken.” He reaches forward to rip the paper from the door and thrusts it into my hands. “And the people who were cursed to forget the place have remembered its existence.”
I stare down at the paper in my hand and the royal emblem at the top and a list of names that includes Kit, Finch, Torin and at least a few dozen more.
It’s a warrant out for their arrest.