Chapter Thirty-One Arion
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
ARION
The sight of blood does not usually sicken me.
But right now, watching Zephyra’s arm weep crimson rivulets over the four seas makes my stomach turn and my mouth pool with hot, copper saliva.
I cannot be sick. She is counting on me.
She is a mermaid, her life is in my hands now, and for some wild reason, I don’t contemplate ending it.
Not even for a second. Not even if our bond didn’t exist.
I grasp her wrist with firm fingers, holding her steady even as her pulse slows.
We perch on the end of a wide plank that juts out from the starboard side of the ship.
Her nails curl into my thigh as she struggles to maintain her balance, her teeth grinding whenever the ship swoops too low or too fast from one of Amaya’s magical winds.
Zephyra’s hair whips between us, until it almost looks as if it’s part of the sunset skies.
A gilded horizon streaked through with pretty pink. “Are we done yet?” she hisses.
“Is bleeding profusely the reason for your foul mood, or is that due to the flying?” I ask, trying to keep my voice light. Casual. As if this isn’t affecting me in the slightest.
She glowers at me, a peach flush spreading across her round cheeks.
“I’m sorry, warlock. Are you enjoying this?
” She glances down at my own wrist, which bleeds in the same controlled rhythm as her own.
But I merely mask my own pain, my own agony.
The magic I’m using… it could be enough to kill me. Tomorrow. Next week.
Soon.
I’m not thinking about that, however. Just as I’m not thinking about how fucking angry seeing her hurt is making me.
“More than you,” I answer her. “Definitely.”
The ship cuts straight through a cloud, and mist dampens the pale blue of her blouse and the black of her vest. Behind us, on the deck, Amaya’s crew shifts the sails, following her brusque command to head north toward the Sol.
Vesper sulks near the mast, sitting on a jute stool she must have stolen from the galley and trimming her hair with a dagger she didn’t have thirty minutes ago.
Beside her, Gavriall has started drawing a new map to replace the one we damaged with fire and rain.
I scoff under my breath. Some crew—and now our futures are in their hands.
“If I pass out,” Zephyra says, “make sure I don’t tumble to my death.”
I glance up to find her gaze burning through mine.
“I mean it, warlock. If I splatter against the rocks below, I’m making it everyone’s problem. I’m haunting this entire ship for eternity.”
“You know if that happens, I’ll be dead too.”
“I’m aware.” Her gaze falls to our wrists.
My blood collects in a bucket, while hers collects in the sea.
The Syl first, then the Sel, now the Sol, and then on to the Sal.
We’ll make another full trip around the globe after that, visiting the seas in a different pattern, zigzagging over every inch of the world so the sorcerer can’t begin to guess Zephyra’s true location.
It’s as sound a plan as any we’ve had so far.
Zephyra volunteered it when she returned with Vesper.
When Vesper announced that she wouldn’t be attempting murder—at least, not anytime soon.
I trust her even less than I trust the others, but there’s nothing we can do about that now.
She’s here, and Zephyra won’t let us kill her or lock her up again.
Zephyra’s nose wrinkles at the sight of the crimson sloshing in the pail. “This is revolting,” she declares, blinking slowly. Too slowly. “My head is swimming.”
“I believe it’s actually flying,” I say, my wings spread wide behind me, reveling in every second of the wild breeze. My feathers rustle and preen.
“If you start telling jokes now, I might jump.”
I arch a brow. “Is that all it would have taken? One bad pun, and you’d have strung the noose around your own neck.”
“Happily,” she deadpans. Her nails slice through the thick fabric of my pants, bruising my skin, but I ignore the fragments of pain. She really does look as if she’s going to faint. “What can I do?” I ask, even as I bloodlet her with my magic.
The effort of it—the control of inflicting wound after wound while trying to simultaneously replenish her veins—steals half my breaths, but there is no other way.
She leans forward, bracing her head on my bicep. “Make the earth stop spinning.” She groans. “I’m starting to think Vesper only suggested this for her own perverse enjoyment.”
“Oh gods, you’re right,” I say, my voice dark and hard. “She just moaned. And—shit—she’s pulling up her skirt, and Gavriall is kneeling between her thighs—”
“What?!” Her eyes fly open and she bolts upright. Too fast. Her face pales, and she falls back against my arm. “You fucking liar.”
I laugh. Harder and louder than usual.
She hisses. “It’s not funny.”
I grin down at her, at the claw marks on my pants and the pink hair splayed over my chest. My pulse stutters at the sight. At how easily she fits here, with me. “I’m not going to let you die, Zephyra.”
“It sure feels like you are,” she mumbles into my skin.
“If you’ll recall, this was your plan.”
“Vesper’s plan.”
“The suggestion came from your mouth.”
“Have you ever had someone bite your dick off, Arion? Because I’m this close.”
My cock twitches at the thought. Not of her biting it off, but at the sudden image of her lips wrapped around it. I clear my throat and shake my head. Which jostles her enough that she groans again. “Fuck flying,” she spits. “I hate this shit. Mermaids aren’t meant to be above sea level.”
I sigh and place a hand on her spine. Though all the energy in my body is currently directed at bleeding her, I search deep in my stomach for just a pinch more, just enough to spread soothing warmth through her belly and settle her stomach.
Her nausea has begun gnawing at me, and I can almost convince myself that’s why I do it. That’s why I comfort her.
It isn’t at all because Zephyra being hurt, injured, weakened, or sick makes me want to set fire to the ship. To the world. Starting with that fucking sorcerer.
“Oh,” she breathes, her grip loosening on my thighs. Loosening but not leaving. She tilts her head back and looks at me. “Did you just—”
“Yes,” I say shortly, because I’d rather not discuss it at all.
Her lips part. “But… but…”
She smacks my bicep, the force behind it nearly throttling her off the plank. I steady her with a hand around her waist, even as she glares at me.
“What the fuck was that for?” I ask roughly, jaw clenched as I try to keep her blood off the ship.
“You need to stop using your magic!”
“Zephyra, I am bleeding you as we speak, and replenishing that blood so you don’t die. We’re traversing the world twice over. How much life do you think this costs us?”
She ponders this sardonically. “Not enough, probably.” She licks those plump lips, and the sight is infuriating.
I slide my hand away from her waist, setting it back on her arm, where we’ve reopened her past scars in order to avoid creating new ones.
And then, as usual, she changes the subject and tone drastically.
“I don’t feel it. When you use your magic,” she says, “I can often feel your exhaustion or your pain. Even if it’s buried beneath a layer of everything I’m feeling. But right now… there’s nothing.”
I nod once. Terse. “For the best.”
She watches me closely, her head tilted. Her gaze roaming my body, my face, before narrowing. “Are you shielding it, warlock?”
“No,” I lie.
She curses under her breath. Then, “Arion.”
“Zephyra.”
“Stop wasting your magic. I’m not going to ask you again—”
“Do you want to taste decay on your tongue, Zephyra? Do you want to feel ash in the back of your throat? My ribs hurt, my lungs are bruised, and my organs feel fucking mangled. But I’m used to it, okay? I’m used to repressing it. It doesn’t affect me.”
She searches for another lie, but there isn’t one. I am used to repressing it. It doesn’t affect me. And I’m sure as shit not going to put her through my trauma when she has so much of her own. “It’s fine, mermaid.”
She glares at me. “How long?”
“Eleven inches,” I say dryly. “Though I’ve never bothered to measure it, so that’s more of an estimation.”
“Enough with the jokes. You’re terrible at it.” She glares harder. “How long do you have left?”
“Long enough,” I say.
“If you can estimate the size of your dick, you can estimate how long we have before we drop dead.”
I use my free hand to ruffle my hair. Concentrate on the surrounding breeze, and the distant sound of waves, and the rare glimpses of coral reefs through the crystalline waters of the Sol.
Coral reefs and the fat, meaty tentacles of a kraken lashing a megalodon half its size.
I inhale deeply, though I don’t feel the breath.
It doesn’t ease the ache in my lungs. Gods, I don’t want to have this fucking conversation.
The truth is, I don’t know. I don’t know how long I have left.
There’s nothing to measure this against, especially without warlock records and journals in front of me.
I shouldn’t have survived as long as I have.
I should already be dead. “I’m… running out,” I say quietly.
“I don’t have access to as much magic as I have in the past, and the pain is worsening by the hour. ”
She tucks a rogue tendril of hair behind her ear. “You have to stop, Arion. Please.”
I glance at our bleeding wrists as the ship takes a sharp turn east. Toward the Sal. Almost halfway. It’s not as reassuring as I hoped.
“I know. I know,” she says. “You’re spending it now because you have to, but after this… no more.”
I chuckle at that, though none of this is funny. I’m dying. She’s dying. We have no way of knowing when, only that it’s barreling toward us as we’re barreling toward a far worse situation. “You want me to stop using my magic now?”
“Yes,” she says firmly.