Chapter 35
Arlo sat looking out to the sea, despondent. Lost in his mind, as Raylik had said.
The rage had come and thundered through him, followed by soul-swallowing sadness. Now nothing. He needed to feel. Needed something to return for. I couldn’t drag him through this bloody castle and into Hylos’s private chambers to the portal if he was completely unresponsive. I needed his help.
“Sit and eat with me,” I said, walking to the small table set with a loaf of bread, cheese, and some cooked fish laid out for our midday meal.
“I’m not hungry,” he said, dismissing my offer.
He hadn’t eaten since the news of his men.
“I didn’t ask if you were hungry,” I bit back at him as I sat and unfolded my napkin on my lap. “I told you to sit and eat.”
He stood quickly, irritated, but sat at the table. I poured us both brimming glasses of wine. Arlo took a sip. I did the same.
Then there was a long, deep silence. The absence of his arrogant remarks or quick quips was a new form of torture. Especially when there was so much to say. He only sat rigid, looking out that damned window, his true cell bars, as I served us both our meal.
“Eat,” I demanded again.
He let out a huff but obliged.
“Do you want to know the plan?” I asked.
He forked at his food and took a large bite. Good.
“We’ll need to get into Hylos’s bedchamber. That’s where the portal is.”
He continued stabbing at his food.
“Did you hear me?”
He was taking in another large bite but stopped and drank the wine to the dregs.
“I thought you weren’t hungry?” I said, trying the sarcasm that was so easy before.
“Didn’t say I wasn’t thirsty,” he snapped.
He was still in there. If he needed to be angry with me, that was fine. I could work with that.
“The sirens have a holy holiday at the end of the week. It’s the perfect time for us to follow through with my plan and make it out of here.”
“What’s the fucking point?” He poured another glass of wine for himself. “I’m captain of a dead crew, a complete and utter disgrace.” He leaned back in his chair, avoiding my gaze. “Once again.”
“It’s not your fault—”
“Not my fault? A captain’s duty is to ensure the safety of his ship and crew. Or die trying. Instead, I’m here on my ass, drinking wine and eating off fancy plates with a fucking princess.” He shoved the meal away.
“Arlo. It is not your fault.”
“I was too complacent.” He crossed his arms and scowled. “I sat back and let this happen. I could have fought them. Stopped them. But I didn’t. I did nothing. Just worked on a fucking instrument instead.”
“Is that what your men would have wanted? For you to give up?” I snapped. Delicate cooing was not working. “What of your daughter. Does she not need her father?”
He said nothing. I was losing him. He was walling himself off, brick by self-loathing brick. He needed to fight. Fight to leave here. Fight to save himself. Fight to live. We both did.
I slapped my plate off the table, sending it shattering on the floor and exploding into shards.
He looked at me, dark brows knitting.
Good. I had his attention.
He let out a controlled breath, then got up and stalked toward the bathing chambers.
“Where are you going?” I demanded, following him.
He walked faster, reaching for the door, trying to shut it in my face, but I wedged my body in the way.
His eyes widened, then settled into a glower. “Leave me alone.”
“Is that what you want? For me to leave you alone so you can give up entirely? If it is, say it again. But this time, mean it.” I pushed in further and he relented.
“Say it and I’ll leave you alone so you can rot here.
I’ll try to figure a way out without you.
But I’m telling you now, I don’t know if I can.
Not alone. But just say the word, Arlo, and I’ll fucking leave.
Or I can be here. You can throw whatever you have at me.
But then we need to pick up the pieces and get out.
” It was true. It wasn’t just that I needed his help.
I needed him. Needed to know he was still in there.
That he would still be there after this.
His eyes fell to my hips, reminding me of the tight, red silken shorts and matching top I wore to training.
My thick thighs on full display, exposed like my midriff.
Arlo’s hungry look reminded me of what had simmered between us from the start.
What he had been avoiding so we didn’t lose sight of saving his men.
Now that they were gone, fuck it.
His jaw flexed, eyes darkened, and he didn’t ask me to leave.
This. I could work with this.
Devouring the space between us, I marched forward. He inhaled sharply at the advance, eyes closing for one brief second.
“You can be angry. You can be furious, even, but you cannot give up. I won’t let you.” This could be the way to bring him back. To keep him anchored to reality and not lost in hopelessness.
Inches away from my face, he let loose a breath.
“I don’t know if I can, Elowyn,” he said in a whisper.
I shoved him hard into the wall.
“We can.”
He needed it. The force. The pain. The anger. He needed to be shaken from the sad daze and slammed into earth.
Slammed into me.
His eyes met mine, crosshatching my face.
“You don’t want to give up and you sure as Infernum do not want me to leav—”
He grabbed my waist and pulled me into a bruising kiss, deep and greedy. Straining on tiptoe, I pushed into him and parted my lips as he sent in a sweeping tongue. His taste of salt and wine was intoxicating as I angled my mouth wider.
Together we would feel.
His grip clamped onto me, persistent, driving my body into the hard lines of his.
I felt him grow hard as his searching hands explored me. Breasts, waist, hips, ass, again and again as he claimed every part of me.
I pulled away from the kiss, pressing my forehead into his. “We will get out of here, Arlo,” I said, stroking him long and slow, admiring his length and that blessed hardness.
“Fuck,” he moaned.
“Say it,” I demanded, slowing my touch.
“We will get out of here,” he repeated.
Urgently, I tore at his buttoned shirt, exposing his strong chest. I continued down in kisses past his chiseled stomach, hips, and the glorious, deep V of his muscles that led me straight to all of him.
I fell to my knees, working at the lacing separating us. With one pull his length was freed, exposing him completely. Smooth, hard perfection.
Captain Arlo Fynn was naked before me, in all his glory, looking down at me, completely and utterly transfixed. We both needed this.
I took him in both hands and licked him shaft to head, fiendishly slow. His mouth parted open and wanting as his hands tangled in my curls. Our eyes locked, watching one another. That look alone rushed between my legs, making me hot and wet for him.
Rising, I met his gaze and found my hand around his jaw, forcing his head to one side. Forcing him to be here and now. I licked the strong column of his neck slowly, just as I had his cock.
He released a throaty moan from deep within his chest that vibrated through my body.
“Tonight we do this,” I whispered into his ear.
“Tomorrow we fight.” He nodded slowly, those long lashes fluttering.
Then, forcing his chin back to me, I kissed him again.
Deeper. Hungrier. He kissed me back, desperate for more.
His strong hands gripped around my thighs, lifting me up and guiding my legs around his waist with ease.
His rough, sea-worn hands cupped my ass as he carried me to the bed.
Collapsing on the bed, our limbs tangled as we centered ourselves without sacrificing a breath apart. He slipped off the minimal fabric that still separated us with ease. His lips were on me, sopping kisses over my neck, chest, breasts. Gorging on me.
We flipped, and I was on top, straddling him naked. Rising from our kiss as I watched his heavy stare trace my body.
“You are unreal, Elowyn.” My name on his tongue was symphonic.
I lifted myself, his cock in my hand, and rubbed the head of him slowly, diabolically, against the entrance of my drenched core. Showing him exactly what he did to me. How wet he made me.
“Do you want this?” I asked.
“Absolutely,” he breathed.
“I do too,” I said.
He shuddered, then pushed into me, his chin raised to the ceiling, that glorious, smart mouth gaping as he filled me. Stretching me beautifully.
My inner walls fluttered at the feeling of him.
He sat up quickly, eyes aflare.
“Please,” he begged, “do that again.” I clenched my core around him and he let out another moan into my ear.
“That?” I asked.
He nodded into my collarbone. I clenched around him again and again, riding him mouth-wateringly slow, the clenching and moving sending me over the edge.
Drenched for him. For the captain. For Arlo.
For the man who was here, below the sea, with me.
For me. Who saw me, not my dead mother or king father.
But me. Just Elowyn. Although he was not mine to keep, in that moment, he was mine to have.
My core flexed and grasped him with every rise and fall of my body.
His eyes stayed on me as I leaned back, one hand seizing my breast, the other on him for stability.
My head lolled back in pure paradise as he thrust to meet my apex and held my hips in place, speeding us to a sinister tempo that had me tumbling toward climax.
“Unreal.” His voice broke through another brilliant moan.
I leaned into him. His strong arms wrapped around me, understanding that I needed more of him, closer.
Grasping that strong neck for balance, my body moved frantically as he paced into me.
Until it was inevitable. I spilled over again and again onto him as he spilled into me.
We moaned in unison into the void, back at destiny, at circumstance, at all that tried desperately to destroy us both.
We roared back at it. In its face. Because here and now, we were together. Despite everything, we found pleasure in a sea of misery.
Winter 5343 AT
The news has officially broken that I am with child, no longer able to hide the growing swell of my belly.
Reluctantly, I accepted the whispers and a physician visit confirmed it.
Many are excited. My father is happy to make good on his debt to my husband on more children, and my husband seems to accept the pregnancy.
But something in his demeanor tells me he knows the child is not his, and instead he schemes against me.
A delicate nature, bastards are. If the babe is his, by some miracle, he would be the happiest man in the entire world if it was a male.
An heir. But if it is not, and he waits too long, then it would be his burden.
Aegir begs me to flee, his voice weighted with urgency as he claims that every day closer to the birth, I place the child and myself in danger.
He’s right. Who’s to even say what the babe will look like.
Aegir is plain-featured, with dark-gray tresses and human-colored flesh, but sirens can be an array of utterly inhuman colors.
There’s no telling what this child will look like.
Yet leaving my daughter seems unthinkable, and taking her with me?
What life is there for a young girl below the waves?
And what future does she give up here on land?
Her father is powerful, affluent, and she is his only child.
Women do not inherit property or title from men but maybe that could change.
Perhaps her very existence could herald a new world.
I am uncertain what I should do, but I know for certain that I am running out of time.