Chapter 28
My back and thighs ached. I groaned as I slipped into the satin nightdress Rei had asked a servant to bring for me to wear to bed. The moon was finally visible since it had stopped raining, but the hour was late enough I was concerned Ash might be asleep.
“Get a move on, Your Royal Laziness,” I said, yanking the bed covers away from Reiven. At some point, we had moved from the shower room to the bed, though I couldn’t quite remember when through the whirl of steam and pleasure.
He yelped and tried to grab the blankets back, but fell back in defeat when I hurled a clean shirt in his face. “Oh calm down, he’s probably fast asleep. Drink your tea.”
The tea the servant brought alongside the dress was a soft green that reminded me of Ash’s eyes, earthy and sweet. “He’s probably tying himself in knots with worry about tomorrow. We need to make sure he’s okay and that he gets a few hours of sleep.”
Reiven yanked the shirt over his head, pulled on the trousers I threw at him next, and meandered to where I examined myself in the floor-length mirror, pulling a comb through my still damp hair.
He circled his arms around my stomach and pressed a few soft kisses to my bare shoulder.
“You sure you don’t want to go for one more—”
“You’re terrible. We’ll have plenty of time for sex after we retrieve the Voidtome, Rei. I mean…Your Highness,” I teased. “Prince Reiven.”
He pressed his face against my hair and dug his fingers into my shoulders in a gentle massage.
The way he took care of me after we slept together melted my heart into a puddle, but something…
something felt off about his quiet. I watched his reflection in the mirror, how he focused on my skin and hair.
Like he was memorizing how it felt, how it smelled.
“You know,” he said quietly. “I’m not really a Mourner prince anymore. The curse blocks my power. All I’m good for are a few sparks.” He held out his hand, and sparks of flame crackled from his palm, then sputtered and disappeared.
His aunt had thrown a fireball with no effort. I began to wonder just how strong Reiven was before he was cursed and his power locked away. Perhaps that was the true source of his pain: the fire that flowed through his veins had nowhere to go.
“Well, I kind of like hearing my old title from your lips,” he said abruptly. “Let’s get going.”
Our bare feet were nearly silent on the stone as we walked hand in hand down the torchlit corridor. We turned a corner, and my blood froze.
Vaetrik stood at a window in the hallway, staring out across Ghrysim Isle. The soft, orange glow of the lava trailing down the volcano in the far distance lit his face as he looked up and shot us a calm smile. “Evening.”
His gaze traveled down to our interlaced fingers, the blue of a Siren and the black of a Mourner.
“You ought to be resting, preparing to venture into Hell tomorrow, don’t you think?” Rei offered coolly.
“I’m perfectly well rested, and more than prepared to steal the Voidtome right out from under all of you. I still can’t decide if I should put it on the black market or if I should keep it and find out what kind of power it can give even a Human like me.”
A chill ran across my skin at the even tone in his voice, the way his eyes locked on me when he spoke.
Reiven prevented that chill from spreading further, stepping in between us, fixing a glare on the man who caused me so much heartache.
“Good thing you won’t have to decide between the two. We’ll make sure of it.”
A door further down the hallway creaked open, and Ash’s golden head of hair poked out. His eyes glinted in the firelight as he took in the standoff between Vaetrik and Reiven, and my silence.
Vaetrik laughed and approached us, hands in his pockets. “I knew there was something strange about you, but you’re a pathetic excuse for a Mourner prince. No crown, no fire, and come tomorrow, you won’t have a Siren lover anymore, either.”
Reiven’s palm against mine burned a hundred degrees hotter, and I almost whined and pulled away.
“Don’t listen, Rei,” I told him. I could feel the temptation writhing inside Reiven to make this worse, to throw a punch and find out what happened next, but all I wanted was to escape. I tugged on his arm, and we moved past Vaetrik silently, until he spoke again.
“Do you know why you won't have a Siren lover after tomorrow?”
Reiven froze, and so did I. He tightened his grip on my hand, like all the fire buried inside him was desperate to come out to play. I felt like a mere statue built of loosely packed sand, ready to blow away at another word from Vaetrik's mouth.
He laughed, soft and condescending. “Because she will either be my pet, or she'll be dead.”
“Let me make something perfectly clear to you, Human,” I snarled before I could stop myself.
Reiven started beside me. I threw a glance over my shoulder, an odd confidence flooding through me when I saw the shock on Vaetrik’s face, just like when Rei blew up his cannons.
“Before you met me, you were nothing. I made you what you are, Captain Vaetrik Tynedall. And tomorrow...I will unmake you.”
Stillness and silence reigned over the hallway.
Until Ash burst out laughing and limped over to us to grab my hand with a huge smile. He cast a look at Vaetrik. “Oh, I should pause time for a few minutes so I can commit that face to memory.”
He nodded at Vaetrik's open mouth and furrowed brows. I had never spoken to him like that before, and he clearly wasn't taking it well. He sputtered, trying to come up with something to say. But there was no refuting the truth.
Ash said, “Now, I think she just told you to fuck off, so why don'tcha go on and do that?”
“Ash!” I hissed, but Vaetrik just growled a quiet curse at us and stormed down the hallway. If it weren’t for Tamayo’s words about not causing trouble, he probably would have taken on all three of us right then and there, but with those two at my side, it didn’t sound so frightening.
Reiven picked me up and spun us in a dizzying circle, pressing a wet kiss to my cheek as he followed Ashkade into his room.
“Perfect,” I snapped. “As if you two weren’t already on his list, you just had to make things worse.”
“I’m so proud of you, Zephra!” Ash said, and Reiven echoed his sentiment and set me down.
Ashkade’s room was almost identical to the other guest rooms, although instead of a window, this one had a huge glass door that led out to a stone balcony, overlooking the flickering lights of the cityscape. There were also three others in his room, sitting on the bed, playing cards.
“Zephra!” Calinia jumped up and embraced me, checking me up and down for injuries.
Reiven’s siblings cautiously made their way over to greet us.
Akina bowed at the waist at first, then flung her arms around me just like Calinia had. “Thank you for taking care of our brother. I’m sorry I ever thought he’d hurt you to—to…” She bit her lip, and Jin jumped in to save her.
“Spilling Siren lifeblood is an ancient self-worth quest for Mourners, like slaying a giant shark or something. No sane person nowadays would do that.” Intelligence and defiance shone in his eyes. “Old people are so weird.”
“So you’re…Jin?” I looked him up and down.
“What, did Rei tell you he killed me?” Jin slapped his scarred hand to his forehead.
“Flames Below, can’t stop breathing for a few minutes without people crying about you being dead.
The healers brought me back. I was just unconscious for a week or two after someone let me get crushed by a building he set fire to.
I got these awesome scars though—you have no idea how many dates they’ve gotten me. ”
I had to smile at his laid-back, overconfident air. He reminded me a great deal of Reiven.
Apparently Calinia and Ash had been teaching Jin and Akina the card game “Deception,” but they made Rei and I take over their hands while they wandered over to the worktable Ash had brought to the castle.
All his tools and platinum jewelry littered the surface, just as chaotically organized as his room on the ship.
They seemed to be working on something together.
I tried to focus on the game and not them, but Jin was an excellent strategist and liar. He beat us soundly within a few rounds.
“I was always smarter than you two,” he said, waggling his eyebrows at his siblings.
“Even without my power, I’d still kick your ass without breaking a sweat,” Rei said. His brother made a face and mockingly croaked at him, like a raven might.
No wonder he doesn’t like being compared to a bird…
They tussled for a minute, and Rei had just put Jin in a headlock when a harsh rap at the door startled all of us except Calinia. She rolled her eyes and flung it open, glaring at the person she found on the other side.
“It’s about time! I told you to come here an hour ago!”
“Oh, shut up. You’re lucky I even decided to grace you with my presence.” Shaddan stepped into the room, golden eyes flashing as he marked every single one of us. His gaze lingered on Akina for a moment before he returned to Calinia. “What do you want?”
“I want you to ally yourself with us,” Calinia said. “That pirate has a grudge against Reiven and Zephra, and I won’t have you helping him to kill them, especially not if he’s only going to stab you in the back.”
Shaddan threw back his head and laughed.
“I’m not stupid enough to throw in with that Human.
Especially now that I don’t need him or the merchant ship we took over after you destroyed ours,” he said pointedly to Reiven.
“I can just take your ship and crew when I locate the Voidtome. I have no interest in joining hands with you now, down there in Hell, or afterwards.”