Chapter 36
I WANT TO WASH YOU
ODELIA
By the time we make it back to the ship, the sun is set. Tavi drops the ropes down as Rune rows us to the hull of The Gilded Hart, which sits high and proud on the dark, quiet water. At the top, Elio stands from where he was sitting with his back to the main mast.
“We were starting to think we’d have to go after you,” he says. His eyes are tired as they flick between Rune and I, then to the dagger still at my waist.
Rune doesn’t pause to chat, and we all fall into step as he moves towards his room. “We got lucky. There were only two tunnels this time.”
“Oh goody.” Elio still limps but the pain doesn’t colour his voice. “And what sort of beastie was it? Giant bird? Basilisk?”
“Flesh-eating monkeys,” I answer, which turns his wry grin to more of a grimace.
Rune’s smile is brighter than I’ve seen it in days, and it cracks my heart wide open.
I can still feel the burn of his song beneath my skin, like a magnetic pull between us.
“The important part is we got the last key,” he says.
“Expect to wait for any other juicy details in the morning.” He opens the door to the captain’s quarters and gestures for me to go in first.
Seeing the blanket bundled on the chair, breathing the faint, lingering scent of him makes my heart ache with need. As soon as the others go I’m dragging him into bed and not letting him go for a week.
“Right now, we’re in sore need of sleep,” he says.
Elio says goodnight but Tavi hangs back. I dig through the clothes in my bag as Rune sits to unlace his boots.
“Otto left food ready for when you got back,” Tavi says. “Do you need any bandages? Salve?”
“Both, please,” I say, turning as I toe off my soaked boots.
Rune’s head whips towards me. “Are you injured?”
“No, but you are.”
He follows my attention to a scrape on his forearm. It’s long, but shallow. “It’s not even bleeding.”
Tavi offers me a nod. “Odi’s right. After those barbs, it’s better we don’t take any chances.”
“She would have brought them anyways,” I say, sitting next to him on the bed. “There’s no way she didn’t notice.”
“Ah, princehood.” He tugs his shirt up over his head and tosses it into the floor before brandishing a smile. “The sweet and constant illusion of choice.”
I bark a laugh, mainly because my face flames from the heat and proximity of his bare skin. “You should let people take care of you too, once in a while.”
“In that case”—he stands and presses a kiss into my hair—“I’ll wash so all of me is clean and ready for you. We can’t let Tavi do it, or I’ll lose circulation in this arm by morning.”
I shake my head and try not to listen too hard as the washroom door closes and the water begins to pump. One part of me wants to lie down, the other part wants to see the look on his face if I decided to join him.
A knock jolts me from the thought. Soraya grins wide when I open the door. “Hey! Tavi sent me. Well. Actually, I insisted.” The cheer of her greeting takes me by surprise. She carries two plates on one arm, with two rolls of bandages and a tin of salve tucked in the other.
“Thanks.” I can hear the washroom water turn off, so I close the bedroom door as close to closed as I can and bundle everything into my arms. I’m fairly certain Rune hadn’t taken clothes to change into, which means at any second he might walk out in only a towel. Or less.
“Odi—” Soraya stops me just as I turn away. “In case we don’t get the chance to talk alone again before the treasure stuff is over, I’m . . . glad I got the chance to know you.”
The words sink deep before I can fully register them.
She nods at my speechlessness, her parting grin a star in the night.
I thought for sure there’d be none on the ship willing to offer me a soft word, but a warmth tucks itself away in my chest. For once the hope isn’t unwelcome.
Nothing stands between us and the final island.
We’ve got all the keys. All that’s left is to make the trip.
When I turn back into the room, Rune stands in the washroom doorway with a towel across his waist. The sight stops me long enough that a self-satisfied grin spreads across his face.
I press the edges of my smile down and move to set everything on the desk.
I keep waiting for him to remember my other name, the one he hates.
When we walked into the ruins, he’d been cordial, but aloof.
Cool enough to chill me with a look. But ever since it spit us back out, he’s clung to me.
Not his hands, but his awareness, like if he looks away too long I might disappear.
Heat follows me, and I know he’s watching my every move. “Washroom is all yours, little doe.”
“I still have to wrap your arm.” I turn, bandages and salve in hand. I should eat too, but my heart races too fast as I meet his eyes. “Sit.” I toss my chin to the bed, daring him to argue.
He obeys, settling down and resting his forearm on his knee.
I avoid his gaze and kneel in front of him, immediately surrounded by the scent of salt and sweet oranges.
Anticipation thrills through me, but I temper it as well as I can.
The scrape on his arm cuts through the swirling shimmers of the marks on his skin.
He doesn’t resist when I reach for it, keeping my touch light as I dip my middle and ring finger into the salve and apply it in short circles.
The air grows more charged as I move, slow, feeling the weight of his unwavering gaze.
The sound of his song still drifts through my head, the memory enough to make me shiver.
Next is the bandage. I cut a length and make sure to wrap it just tight enough, watching the muscles of his arm flex against the pull, ignoring the need that aches between my legs.
There’s so much we still haven’t said. What this is. What’s changed. And if the end will be the same.
I work. All the while, the call of his voice plays in my head. Haunting and lovely and life giving. The strength of his power is undeniable. It wove itself through me until I needed it as much as I needed the blood in my veins. With it, he could command legions. Command the sea.
But he’d called me through the dark.
He found me when I was lost. Gave me breath when I had none.
I’d given up, willfully this time, but when I heard him .
. . my very soul was called back from the brink.
His voice, his grief, had tethered me. Tethered us.
If there were any chance of resisting this before, it was left behind in that water because—
“You sang to me.” My heart stops as I speak. Finally, I let my eyes meet his. There’s no hiding how I’m feeling now. My voice trembles too much. My sight is blurred with tears. He reaches his big hands around my face, catching the first tear to fall with his thumb.
“I didn’t know how else to find you,” he says softly.
He doesn’t understand. I try not to let my voice crack.
“Every time you sing, it's like the magic of it stays in me. I hear it in my sleep. I feel it calling me to you, even when you’re silent. There’s this constant pull.
I can’t . . . I can’t get it out of my head, Rune.
I’ve never wanted anything more than I want you.
” He goes still. “But what if the feelings I have are influenced by your power? How am I supposed to know—”
“Little doe,” he says, shaking me slightly to halt the words.
“Mine is not a magic that lingers. I’ve no real power outside of the water.
When the song ends, it ends. I did sing for you.
I had to. I poured every ounce of power I had into that ruin.
If I hadn’t, you would have been gone. And what would I have done then?
” His blue eyes bore into mine. “What would I have done then?” he repeats, softer, before sliding his grip on my shoulder down past my elbow, lifting my arm to plant a soft kiss on the inside of my palm.
“But . . .” My mind reels, trying to make sense of how his lips press into the skin of my hands like he doesn’t see the blood that stains them. “I’m Nisse.”
He reaches down to pull my other hand to his lips, this time, kissing the knuckles. “Not anymore.”
Relief crashes over me at the tenderness, but his giant hands pull me in. “Come here,” he says, and though I move to kiss him, he scoops me up and carries me to the washroom, his towel falling on the way in a rustle alongside the soft footfall of each of his steps.
“What are you—?”
“Shhh.” He pulls me up so the words brush my ear. “I want to wash you.”
There’s an oil lantern flickering in the corner, joining with the brush of light from a full moon that ghosts through the window.
“I hope you plan to make it quick,” I say lightly, even as something in me weeps for the idea.
He sets me down beside the tub, his lips brushing the sensitive skin below my ear.
I shiver as he speaks. “I don’t.” Sensation zaps from where his breath skims my neck all the way down to where I’m already slick for him.
“Take off your clothes, Odi.” I tug at the hem of my shirt and he helps it over my head in one motion, revealing the scars on my body and the viper-shaped ink on my arm.
Slowly, he slips gentle fingers under my wraps, loosening them until they fall away.
As I go for the tie on my pants, he steps around me to get into the tub, and I realise it’s filled with clean water and the aroma of salt and oranges.
Like he’d already planned to coat me in his scent.