Chapter Ten
Finnick
The third morning in Guivre, I slowly gain consciousness to find myself pressed between Lonan’s and Kai’s hard bodies. I shiver as I fully take in their bodies against mine. A shimmer of sadness hits me. Oleander.
She belongs here too. My future wife.
She’s finding pleasure with Vale, I imagine, as I stretch. I shiver, wishing I could join them again, but I think the boys here would find that totally unacceptable. I bite down a laugh. Possessive creatures, both of them.
I carefully slip out from between them, trying to let them get some more rest.
Kai sits up, obviously wide awake. Lonan mutters in his sleep, rolling into the warm divot I had just been occupying.
“Hey pretty boy,” Kai says, voice gruff with sleep.
I smile at him, “Morning, flame. Been up long?” I blush at my boldness but he smiles winningly back.
“Yes. Want to take care of that for me?”
I blink but his joke registers. I laugh and start to come around the bed.
“No,” mumbles Lonan, face pressed to the pillow. “No fooling around. Let’s find Ollie before that dragon fucks her forty-two times.”
I chuckle but Kai grumbles and stands up, pulling on breeches, immediately ready to ’save’ Ollie from Vale.
As I pull on a lightweight linen shirt, I hear Ollie call down from the roof, “Head to the patio!”
I leave the bedroom and take the spiral stairs upward, the canopy door already open to the outside. I can hear birdsong filter through. Different birds than at Larkstead, and different than what I’d heard at Thistle Grove too. I wonder how many of them are actual birds and how many are shifters.
As I step up onto the rooftop patio, Vale looks over his shoulder. He’s in just breeches and has a wicked bruise over one eye.
“Tea, Finn?” he asks, voice chipper.
“Please,” I respond even as he picks up the pitcher and pours me a cup of the steaming black tea.
Kai and Lonan emerge onto the patio, eyes landing on Ollie instantaneously. I stand to pour them tea as they start to discuss plans for the day.
“We need to see that old dragon,” Lonan says, voice hinting on urgency.
Kai nods, thinking, as he lifts his cup to blow on the hot tea smoothly.
“I thought you and... Vale,” the word seems to pain him, “had delivered the suit yesterday?”
Lonan starts to explain that apparently commissioners need to return regularly for some asinine reason.
But my attention jumps to Vale, whispering.
“Oleander, treasure,” Vale says, his voice low but serious. “Come here. Come get where you are meant to be.”
I look to her and her cheeks pink as she blinks quickly.
“Vale...”
Suddenly his tail whips out, long and tapered and blue.
Ollie stands and crosses to him. She backs up to his lap and from my position next to him, I see his hand, and his tail, rustle into her skirts.
I catch a glimpse of a large blue cock covered in scales before I see Ollie’s pale scarred thighs.
She gasps as she sits onto Vale’s lap whilst he takes a sip of tea.
My eyes turn, slightly panicked, to Kai and Lo, who are quietly disagreeing over who will be going with Vale to wait on Balthazar.
Vale looks at me with a secret grin before he dips his head to speak to Ollie, who’s eyes have fluttered closed.
She needs to get it together or Kai and Lo are going to figure out what is going on, I think frantically.
Kai may be over his urge to kill Vale but I imagine it will come raring back the moment he realizes Vale is fucking her in front of them.
But Ollie sits still and lifts a bite of sweet bread to her mouth even as Vale’s hand digs into her skirt.
I jump when I feel something on my leg. It’s the tip of Vale’s tail, curling around my bare ankle. I turn and give him a dirty look. He grins back, unrepentant, and shifts Ollie on his lap. Her little noise is swiftly turned into a cough.
“Hmm,” Vale says sweetly, leaning forward to set his teacup down, “You’re squirmy this morning Ollie. Perhaps you should get out of town, get your toes into the soil for a bit.”
Kai glares at him but doesn’t seem to know what is going on. Thank Stones.
“Yes,” I interrupt the looks passing around the table as Vale leans into Ollie’s neck again to whisper. “Yes, please, Oleander, would you take us to the ocean? I would love to see it.”
A sweet look crosses her face. “Oh Finnick, I’m so sorry, of course I will. Lonan, you should join us. That leaves Kai and Vale to wait at the rotunda. Assuming you can keep from bashing each other’s brains in.” She looks annoyed.
I watch Vale’s tail disappear up her skirts. Fuck. My eyebrows furrow just as she lets out a tiny noise. I cough loudly.
Vale shoots me a loaded look which I pointedly avoid.
“I’ll behave, Oleander,” Vale purrs, his eyes on Kai. “Like I would disgrace my bloodline by acting like the vagrant that I am in their seat of power.”
Kai says nothing but he’s gripping his fork hard enough I’m surprised it hasn’t bent.
“Great,” I say in a forced happy tone, “That’s great then. Let’s go.” I push to my feet just as I realize that Ollie can’t very well dismount right now.
“Uh, Lonan, Kai, will you help me carry dishes to the kitchen and pick up?” I hurriedly ask.
Vale’s voice is utter triumph, “Oh star, your husband is quite useful, don’t you agree?”
I grab his teacup and turn, trying to hurry Lo and Kai downstairs.
As we take the staircase down, I hear a tiny noise from Ollie which is quickly cut off, I’m assuming by a hand over her plush lips.
Annoyance flows through me, but I’m almost certain it’s because I’m not playing too, not that she’s fucking Vale. Almost.
THE CITY OF GUIVRE Shores is on a peninsula that juts out into the Forsaken Sea to the north, and the Dannet Sea to the south.
My parents had made sure all six of their sons were well-educated.
Their intent for us, even when we were small, was to make alliances via marriage.
My father, a young ruler, seemed to crave the security that he thought binding families through marriage would bring.
But knowing the shape of a map and seeing where the seas meet, where the sand changes color, was another thing entirely.
My gaze sweeps back to the right, to the colder Forsaken Sea, its waters a rich blue-green, lazy waves lapping.
I look to the left, where the warmer Dannet Sea’s turquoise waters stand calm, lapping at Ollie’s feet sweetly.
And directly in front of me, the waters merge, like a line drawn in mud, a tiny dip where dark meets light and nothing looks real.
I blink at it again and Ollie’s joyous giggle sounds out.
“I love to see folks’ faces when they see this,” she says as she steps behind me, winding her arms around my middle. I feel her face press against my back as she continues, “Was there nothing like this north of Gaeba, Lo? Where the Forsaken met the Gelid Ocean?”
He steps into us, his hand going to Ollie’s back. “No, sweetheart. Not that I ever saw or heard of.”
She lets go of me even as she says, “Well, why don’t you go swim?” She sits right on the division, one foot in the pinkish sand and one in the rich brown sand.
“Will you join us?” I ask tentatively.
“Naw, you water Fae will probably try to drown me.” She winks.
“Last one in is a rotten egg,” Lo calls as he whips off his shirt, tattooed arms looking delectable. He charges into the water, still in his pants.
I laugh and tug my shirt off and follow him, feeling genuinely happy.
WHEN LONAN AND I HAD had enough horseplay, we climbed out of the water to find Ollie laying on her belly, in just her bra and panties, head pillowed on her arms and her eyes closed.
Soaking up the sun. My smile dropped off my face as my eyes caught sight of her scars: the magical restraint ones on her calves and ankles, and the wide, slick ones that almost looked like burns on her thighs.
But Lonan purrs, “There’s my little Queen,” and he kneels on all fours over her.
She squeals, “Ack! You’re dripping all over me!”
“And you’re about to be doing the same,” he says roughly.
Oleander laughs and rolls, pushing him off her as she sits up.
I chuckle as I sit near them. “You were right, wife, he did try to drown me.”
He snorts. “The fact that I have gills is not my fault.”
I smile, able to laugh about it, for I feel so accepted with Lonan, and Kai, and Ollie.
Ollie looks to the south. “Do you think the boats are waiting? On this very sea.” Her voice is small.
Lonan and I exchange a glance.
“I do,” he says simply. “And we’ll win the battle.”
“How can you be so sure?” she asks, still gazing over the water, using a hand to shade her eyes.
“I haven’t lost yet.”
“You have a big head.”
“Two of them, in fact.”
Her hand swings out to swat his chest and he grabs it, raising it to his mouth to kiss her knuckles.
“We’ll win because losing means I lose you.” He looks to me, “Lose all of you. And I won’t let that happen.”
She smiles and removes her hand from his. “But that means we have to kill more Fae.”
Lonan looks to me for help. He’s long since lost his fucks about killing enemies.
“Ollie,” I say, moving to get behind her on the sand, slowly pulling her to my body, giving her the time to resist if she doesn’t want the contact.
But she settles against my bare chest easily.
“It’s a war. Yes, folks will die. But it’s us or them.
” I pause to kiss the top of her head. “We’re already deep on this path. The only way out, is through.”
She makes a sad, accepting sound, and reaches out to Lonan, tugging him into our embrace as we hold her tightly.