Текст книги "In the Veins of the Drowning"

Автор книги: Kalie Cassidy

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“It was necessary.” He held the little vial closer. “Drink.”

Anger burst through me. Keeping the sheets in place, I clumsily pushed myself up to sit. A sharp pain hit my thigh and hot liquid gushed over my skin. “I will not drink,” I said, ignoring it. “You tricked me. Why didn’t you tell me that severing our bond could kill me?”

He raked a hand through his waving hair. “I did not trick you. You do not understand the complexity—” He tried for some control and failed. “Gods damn it, you have forced me to make impossible decisions, to do things I never thought I would, and yet you make me the villain.”

“I forced you to do nothing! You agreed.”

“Do you truly think I had any other choice when you broke into my room, all wet and winged—” He cut himself off with a scowl. When he finally looked back down at me, he winced. “You’re bleeding through the sheet. I’ll ask once more that you drink this and let me close that wound on your leg properly. We can scream at one another after.”

The bright stain in the bedding spread quickly, but my anger did too. I glared at the little vial in his hand and spoke through my teeth. “What is it?”

“Nepenthe,” he said, evenly. It riled me further that he sounded so composed. “It’ll get rid of the pain.”

Nepenthe did more than rid a body of pain. It blunted the faculties too. And the most I’d ever taken at once had been a handful of drops in my tea. I expected a vial’s worth would send me into a dream-riddled sleep that I’d not wake from for half a day. I shivered at the thought and shook my head. “No nepenthe. Just do it.”

Theodore looked at me like I was mad, but he knelt at the edge of the bed and waited as I struggled to slip my leg free of the covers. The small movement made me whimper. My thigh was a flap of bloody flesh. Only a thin layer of skin, that I assumed Theodore had coaxed into existence, had kept it from bleeding. When I’d moved it had torn.

“Hold this.” He pressed the nepenthe into my hand. “You’re going to change your mind.” Then he set a tentative, but warm, grip on my knee. He swallowed hard and stared at my thigh, which was exposed all the way up to the curve of my hip. He didn’t move.

I threw a fist into the mattress. “What in the bloody Gods are you waiting for?”

His mouth opened and closed. “Can I touch you?”

“You’re already touching me.”

“I need to touch you here.” The wound was large, curving around my leg toward the underside of my buttock.

“Oh, for Gods’ sake. Yes. Touch me.”

For a tense moment our gazes locked. Anger and concern and annoyance churned between us until finally he palmed the flesh at my hip with such a firm hand that I gasped. He’d not hurt me, but his touch was fervent, frustrated, and somehow tender too. A heavy exhale slipped past my lips as he slid his hand down my rounded hip to the edge of the wound. His touch left a trail of gooseflesh in its wake. Then he met my eye. “Last chance.”

“Do it.”

He didn’t hesitate. He tugged the flap of skin closed in one skilled motion as his hands filled with fiery heat. I screamed, then drained the little bottle of nepenthe in one swill.

“That’s what I thought,” Theodore mumbled, and his touch grew hotter and hotter.

I squeezed my eyes shut as the nepenthe carved through me. It trimmed away my pain until all I could feel was Theodore’s power and the pressure of his fingers. It cut the flimsy ties that kept my anger in place too. “You’ll come with me,” I said, in an odd voice. It was not a question, or an order, or a plea, but some nepenthe-laced thing in between. “To the Mage Seer.”

His fingers paused on my skin. “I’ve already said that I can’t.”

“Because of your dearest betrothed,” I snapped.

His keen eyes found mine and I worried I’d let my asinine desire to guard him like some sort of treasure I’d never be able to claim slip into my voice.

“Yes,” he said, carefully. “When we arrive on Varya, I am to meet immediately with the Empress of Obelia and her daughter, whom I am to marry.” His grip on my leg tightened and a new flood of heat radiated through the healing skin. “That is why I cannot go with you.”

I pushed up onto an elbow and scowled. “And why can’t you send a rider?”

He kept his gaze on my wound. “Because it’s not just the severance you need while you’re there. You need a prophecy too.”

I stared at him. My mind swam with worry over his words, his commands, over everything he withheld. I was overcome with fury and fear, but still, I could not help but notice that King Theodore was appallingly, tragically handsome. Fucking nepenthe. I squeezed my eyes closed. “A prophecy.” The words slurred. “Is that your third condition?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then I don’t need to do it.”

“You do.” He rose in a huff and went to a clean washbasin beside the bed. He washed his hands, wrung out a rag, then brought it to my healed leg to clean away the thick smears of blood. “Because I am your king, and you swore fealty to me. And because the third condition, which you have already agreed to, hinges upon the prophecy.”

My hand shot out and grabbed his hard forearm. I yanked him toward me, leaning in close enough to feel his breath fanning over my cheek. “I know you did not bind yourself to me out of the goodness of your kingly heart. You did it because I have something you need. Something, I expect, that you cannot get from anyone else.” My words were sloppily strung together, but not without bite. “I will not live another life like my last, honoring the whims of a king who wishes to use me. I bent the knee to you, yes, but it will cost me nothing to denounce you and leave your kingdom with my blood still running through your veins. I will happily let our bond plague you with unending worry over my well-being until you are old and gray if you treat me like I am some palace maid to be ordered about. If you want a severance, if you want me to receive a prophecy so that I can fulfill your final condition, then I have some terms of my own you must agree to.”

Theodore did not blink as he stared at me. I wasn’t certain he breathed. His handsome face was unreadable, until his mouth parted in the barest look of offense. I wondered if anyone had ever spoken to him as I just had. I waited for him to rail at me for doing so. But his bewildered eyes merely slipped from mine and landed on my lips. One breath. Two breaths. Three. Then he jerked his arm from my hold.

“Later.” His voice was rough, clenched. “When you’re not flying from the nepenthe, we’ll…” He rolled his jaw. “… negotiate.” He strode to a built-in bureau and pulled a white nightshirt from within. He tossed it over my now clean and healed leg. Only a fine, silvery line of new skin remained.

Brooding, he went from lantern to lantern, turning them low. “A rule: If you somehow wake before I do, you are not permitted to leave this cabin without me at your side.” He strode to the door and clicked the lock over with a key. Then he tucked it deep inside his trouser pocket. My heart thundered, the fog over my mind grew denser, and I watched the shadow of his strong body curl onto the settee. “Good night, Lady Imogen.”

I fumbled the nightshirt over my dizzy head before falling back into the pillows. Sleep held me in its palm, but I could not help picturing it as the clawed, slick-skinned hand of the monster from my dream. I thought I could feel it writhe through the water below me, thought I could hear its roaring heart in my ears. Despite how I tried, my eyes wouldn’t stay open. A terrified whimper filled my head as I finally slipped into midnight darkness.

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The dress draped over the foot of the bed was made of the finest cobalt silk I’d ever seen. The distinct smell of armoire clung to it, and the hard creases in the skirt told me it had been shoved into a forgotten corner for some time, but there was no mistaking how expensive it was. I ran my fingers over the whirling stitches on the bodice, when my gaze snagged on my engagement ring.

The large, rare stone glittered and shone. Perhaps it would fetch me enough money to start a new life. New clothes and a small home. The king’s discarded dresses and goodwill would very soon run out.

I tightened the dress’s laces over my stomach and tied them into a bow at the swooping neckline. It was a perfect fit, and somehow I did not question that Theodore had known it would be. “You bastard,” I mumbled, not knowing if I intended the curse for Theodore and his flawless gown or Nemea and his torturous one.

Frustrated, I shook out the wrinkled skirt and swallowed back a flood of saliva. It was sickness that had pulled me from a nightmare-suffused sleep. And from the way the light coming through the massive wall of windows had begun to melt into a luxurious evening gold, it had been a long sleep too.

The minutes passed and I only managed to nibble at a bit of apple as I paced the room. Then to the basin to heave up what little I’d eaten, and then toward the cabin door in hopes that Theodore would return and give me some relief. The golden light began to deepen, and I stood at the window watching the lambent sea ripple and slice. The spume haunted the peaks of the waves, there and gone, and there once more. I awed, and wondered if I should love it, or if I should fear it. If I should see something of myself in its changeability, in its ceaseless, churning want. In how I could never truly know what lurked in its depths.

My mind was yanked from its thoughts with my next round of dry heaves.

“Priggish ass,” I groaned, wiping my mouth. “At least you’re sick too, wherever you are.”

I trudged back toward the door and tried the handle. Locked. I pulled back the green velvet curtain that hung neatly over the door’s glass and stilled.

There, in a leadlight window, was a depiction of a Siren hovering over a rocky shore and a vine-covered ship. There was nothing ominous in her portrayal. Rather, she looked like she had been… adored. Her black wings were wide. Rays of yellow glass shone down on her from above. In comparison, the ship below her looked small, overshadowed.

I stared, curiosity swirling, for a long moment before I pounded on the door. “Let me out.”

A shape rippled through the stained glass. The lock clicked. The door swung open, and there stood Lachlan. He seemed even taller now than before. A dark stubble had grown over his jaw. I stared up into his scrutinizing eyes, yellow-green shot through with brown, and said, “Ugh.”

Lachlan arched a brow. “Not happy to see you either, but let’s make the best of it, shall we?”

“Where’s the king?”

“Working.”

I looked over my shoulder at the paper-cluttered desk on the wall opposite the wide bed. Then at the long polished table that held two trays of food—the breakfast and lunch I’d slept through. “Why isn’t he working in here?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Theo likes his privacy.”

“Please,” I begged, “I need this sickness to stop. Please, go get him.”

Lachlan gave me a flat, unbending sort of assessment, and I knew he wouldn’t.

“I hope he’s vomiting all over his paperwork,” I seethed. “All right. Agatha, then. Where is she?”

Lachlan’s entire countenance changed. His shoulders fell and a long exhale pushed through his lips. “She’s locked herself in her cabin.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What did you do to her?”

“You sure it wasn’t you?” He counted my sins on his fingers. “What with your murdering, and your almost getting yourself killed, and your king-stealing?”

We glared at each other for a beat.

“Fine.” I crossed my arms staunchly over my chest. “I’ll concede that I’ve very likely helped send her into a fit, but only if you tell me what the hell is going on with the two of you.”

“There’s nothing going on.”

“Liar,” I said, just as my stomach muscles clenched. I ran toward the basin and retched and retched until my ribs ached so badly, I moaned. As I wiped my mouth with a cloth, I heard the door close and lock.

Lachlan strode toward the settee and collapsed onto its cushions, propping up his feet. “I’m not lying. There is nothing going on between us, however much I would like there to be.”

“But last night the two of you had obviously been kissing at the very least.”

“That we had.” He massaged his brow like it hurt. “She also yelled at me for writing so often, even though she always wrote back. Apparently, I have not let her ‘move on’ and we are ‘no longer compatible,’ but we felt pretty damn compatible last night, so I don’t know what I’m supposed to fucking do with that.”

“I think we’re tied,” I said, before I dry-heaved once more into my fist.

He snorted, then gave me a pitying look. “You’re almost a full day into your bond now. One more day to go.”

“I don’t consider myself a petty woman.” I made for the shelf where the box of little glass vials sat and searched for some tonic that might give me relief. “But I hope that the king is curled up in a ball right now, spectacularly miserable.”

“Liar,” Lachlan quipped. “I know for a fact that you’re both riddled with worry for each other and that the only reason he hasn’t run back in here is because the contracts he’s poring over are eating away at him with sharper teeth than yours.”

The glass clinked as I lifted one after the other to read the labels. “Contracts! Not war plans, or something else confidential? Why in the bloody Gods wouldn’t he look through them in here, then?”

“They’re marriage contracts.”

A slash of envy lit my body green. My hand tightened around a vial. “Why would I care about his marriage contracts?”

Lachlan smirked. “Don’t you?”

Silence stretched for a long moment before I relented. “Yes. I care,” I admitted in an agitated rush. “Though I can’t understand why.”

“It’s the blood bond.” He lifted his wistful gaze to the ceiling. “It makes you believe you are the person best suited to care for him. To see that he isn’t harmed. The thought of him marrying another person should drive you mad.”

“Why on earth would anyone want a blood bond?” My stomach cramped again with sick, and I pressed a hand to my sternum, praying it would settle. “I can’t think of a more insufferable arrangement. It’s like I’m being thwacked with a stick over and over and over… until I throw up.”

Lachlan rose and strode to a little cabinet hidden in the gilded wall. He took out a crystal decanter and filled a glass with a healthy pour of honey-colored spirits. “Well, it’s very nice when you love the person. Or can at least stand to be in the same room as them.” His eyes twinkled—not with nostalgia, but with mischief. It was both charming and infuriating and I could see how Agatha might be at war with herself over someone like him. He held his glass up as if in a toast. “But alas, that’s not the case for you two.”

“And that pleases you, does it?”

“No.” He made his way back to his spot on the settee. “I’m mildly amused. Theodore is so good. These last few years, he’s followed every single rule every minute of every day. It’s a little entertaining to see him flounder.” He looked at me pointedly. “Despite the repercussions.”

“I see.” I gave up on the tonics, most of which were mixed with dream-inducing nepenthe, and made for the drink cabinet.

Lachlan eyed me over his shoulder. “You sure that’s wise?”

“It might take the edge off the worry.” I poured my own glass.

“Or make you more nauseated.”

“Not possible.” I took a deep drink and met Lachlan’s gaze. “You said the king has been following rules ‘these last few years.’ What was he doing before that?”

“Oh no.” He laughed, the sound warm and easy, and despite myself, I smiled. I liked him. I liked him for Agatha. “I’m not telling you a single private detail about him.”

I rounded the settee and sat on the low table before him. “I’ll put in a good word for you with Agatha.”

He went still, his hazel gaze narrowing in interest.

“Please.” My desperation was too potent for me to rein in. “I cannot find a single crack in his facade. I don’t trust that he’ll do right by me if I can’t find something, one small detail, that will knock him off his frustratingly perfect balance.”

Lachlan leaned back and considered me over the rim of his glass. He tapped his fingers against the crystal. “All right.”

“All right? You agree?”

“I do. You don’t seem to understand just how off-balance you’ve already knocked him, but I want a good word with Agatha.”

I straightened my shoulders and looked him square in the eye. “You really think I forced him, don’t you? You think I stole him.”

He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “He mentioned that you climbed into his bed, in the dark, half-naked. At the very least you were very persuasive.” I glared at him, and he gave me a defeated smirk. “Okay—I believe wholeheartedly that he agreed to your binding. Listen to me, though, I don’t want to hurt him. I love him like a brother, so don’t you dare.” His gaze darted as he thought of what information to volunteer, until finally it landed on the wrinkled blue dress I wore. His eyes lit up. “Got it.” He put his elbows on his knees. I leaned in too. “When Theo was a very new king, about six years ago, he would take this ship and turn it into a somewhat sordid pleasure cruise. Went on for a couple years. He’d fill it with beautiful women and his best wine and men from his court and sail it around from sundown to sunrise.” He pointed to my dress. “That’s where your dress came from. Left behind. No idea what the poor woman wore off the ship.”

I looked down at the musty blue silk and back up to Lachlan. “Somewhat sordid. That’s it? Not debauched. Or sickeningly immoral. Wasn’t he nineteen or twenty? That’s incredibly normal behavior for a young king. What on earth am I supposed to do with that information?”

Lachlan’s mouth pulled into a wide smile. “It haunts him. He’s disgraced by it. He thinks it was a massive, embarrassing waste of the crown’s resources, and he’s spent the years since trying to rectify the light that he thinks it cast him in with his chancellor. You’d think he’d killed an innocent man with his bare hands the way he carries on about it.”

I took a sip of my drink. “Duty-bound to his core.”

He dipped his chin. “That’s right. Now, you tell Agatha that I’ve done nothing but think of her since I last saw her, and had she let me, I would have come to Seraf and whisked her away without a second thought.”

“She told you not to?”

He nodded. “I suspect her refusal to leave had something to do with you.”

“Oh.” I felt the accusation, the touch of resentment. I cocked my head. “But is that true? That you’ve done nothing but think of her for nearly twenty years?”

He downed the rest of his drink, then pursed his lips. I was surprised when the pretense fled his voice. “I’ve taken lots of lovers over the years. Women and men, all of them witty and beautiful. All better than I could ever deserve. But one letter from Agatha makes me feel more alive, more full of hope and calm and elation, than touching any of them ever did.”

His genuine smile tugged my mouth into a crooked one. “I’ll tell her that.”

He shook his head. “Please don’t. Tell her the other thing I said.”

“I’ll tell her a variation—I’ll skip the part about all the lovers.”

He hesitated, scratched the dark stubble on his chin, and finally nodded. He paused. “You haven’t thrown up in a while.”

My gaze slid down to the glass I held, and I raised my eyebrows, hopeful I’d found some cure, when the door to the cabin flew open and Theodore strode in.

My spine straightened. Theodore was pallid, with deep grooves of lingering discomfort between his brows. He stood just inside the door, a thick leather folder of papers at his side. He met my eyes, and then his gaze dipped to the dress I wore.

“It fits,” he said, his tone oddly flat.

“Yes. Do you like it?” I flounced the skirt over my lap and added in an overbright voice, “I’m fortunate that you kept it on your ship all these years.”

Theodore’s gaze sharpened and darted between Lachlan and me. A sudden flush of red colored his pale cheeks. “I beg your pardon?”

Lachlan’s eyes bulged at Theodore’s biting tone. “Good luck,” he whispered before he rushed to stand and made for the still-open door. “If you’d both like some relief, may I suggest a hug?” He tried for seriousness, but there was no missing the delight that filled his voice. “A blood bond is happiest with some level of closeness, especially as it settles.” He swung the door shut before I could throw my glass at him.

I set it down on the table instead, feeling a twinge of guilt for embarrassing Theodore. Perhaps I could charm my way into his good graces. I stood and swayed a little from the drink and lack of food, but I met Theodore’s gaze with my chin high. Even if I’d drunk nothing at all, the whole room would have seemed to tilt. The king of Varya did that without even trying. He drew the air toward him, made the solid floor practically bow beneath my feet. I felt a sort of pain to look at him, his beauty and rigid authority. It made me want to flee.

Since I couldn’t, I smiled fully and inclined my chin toward the folder he held. “What’s that? Do you need my signature on some official paper once you finally reveal our third agreement?”

He gave a grunt. “That’s not a terrible idea, but no.” He looked down at the folder and a lock of dark hair fell over his brow. “These are the contracts the Empress of Obelia sent over with her stipulations for my marrying her daughter.”

“Oh.” I stepped around the settee to stand closer, a soft smile still on my lips. The bunched bond in my stomach loosened and I let out a soft breath of relief. He looked at me with disarming intensity. “Are you… eager?” I asked. “To meet your bride?” I regretted the question instantly.

He considered for a moment. “If I’m honest,” he said, carefully, quietly, “no. But eagerness isn’t necessary. It’s an advantageous match for my kingdom and fulfills what is required of me.”

My brow buckled. “What if she’s awful?”

He shrugged like he’d never considered it.

I half envied the ease with which he could deny himself so much and half pitied him for it. “Have you at least seen her portrait?”

“Yes.”

I waited in vain, smile long gone, for him to say more. “Well… if you find yourself inspired to shirk your responsibilities…” I tried for levity, despite the frantic claws scraping through the inside of my chest. “… Perhaps I can offer you some guidance on how to rid yourself of an unwanted fiancée.”

He shook his head and strode away from me to set the contracts upon his desk, but as he did so, he smiled. A real, full smile. It dimpled one cheek and crinkled his green eyes at the edges. His teeth were white and straight, and I found myself staring after him like an addle-minded girl.

“Is it so hard for you to imagine?” he asked, as he set the folder within a polished wooden box and locked it with a silver key. “To fulfill one’s duty and be satisfied by it? I don’t need a charming or beautiful wife. I don’t need her to be a friend. None of that will benefit my kingdom.”

“And you are your kingdom? There’s nothing you need that it doesn’t?”

He perched on the edge of his desk and crossed his arms. He beheld me with one of those frustratingly unreadable looks of his. “Like what, my lady?”

“Like…” Like passion or humor or friendship, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak it. My mind went slippery with his attention locked on me. I shook my head and curled my hands into my wrinkled skirt. “You never answered me,” I said, softly. “Do you like my dress?”

He regarded me, lips curling mirthlessly, then looked me up and down, very, very slowly.

I held my breath as his green eyes roamed.

“You look lovely.” His voice was filled with graveled admiration, but it somehow did not sound like a compliment.

I bit into my cheek, annoyed by that tilting feeling he cast over me. “I cannot tell whether you mean what you say.”

“I always mean what I say, my lady. It’s my implication that you cannot grasp.” He uncrossed his strong arms and gripped the edge of the desk he perched upon. “You are lovely. You’re charming, and if our circumstances were different, I’d likely enjoy a meal with you, bask in your wit, but as it is your beauty and charm are like gnats that I must swat away from my eyes to keep my vision clear. Your qualities are wasted on me. They do not matter, because your purpose and power exceed them.”

The silence between us contorted, a mirror to my insides. I kept perfectly still, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing me shrink, of making me into some pest when it was his own self-importance that riled. “My purpose and power,” I said in a glacial voice. “And what might that be?”

For once an emotion flickered over his face, but to my frustration, I could not place it. He let me see him tense. He made a moment of pulling in a full breath and slowly releasing it. “Your purpose—the reason I agreed to bind myself to you—is to ensure that you will help me track down and kill King Nemea’s water deity, Eusia. And it’s your power that makes me believe you can. That silent lure you possess is Gods’ power. It’s beyond what a normal Siren can wield.”

I stilled. Blood raged through my ears. “Gods’ power…” I breathed through the light feeling that began to fill my head. “No. You’re… no—”

His acerbic tone fled, and he sounded suddenly like he was speaking to some spooked creature that was a moment away from a rampage. “I believe you’re the daughter of the Great Goddess Ligea.”

My thoughts came clipped and quickly. Theodore telling me he knew me. The Great Goddess Ligea’s statue in Nemea’s ritual room, her face chiseled to dust. I supported myself against the back of the settee.

I’d already given my word to Theodore, and it was my bleeding duty to honor it. I’d likely die trying. “Not possible,” I squeaked. The sickness from our bond had settled, but I still felt ill.

“You have her face.”

I shook my head. “That’s why… that’s why you look at me like that… isn’t it?” I needed air. I needed to move. On weak knees, I bolted for the unlocked door and ran out onto the ship’s deck. It teemed with sailors.

My feet slapped over the damp planks as I wove through the crew. The sky was a fiery red now and the salt wind whipped at my hot cheeks. Sea mist fell over me like the gentlest rain, sparking over my skin, clinging to the silk of my borrowed gown. I ran straight from the stern of the ship to the bow.

Behind me, Theodore’s voice boomed. “Everyone belowdecks. Now.”

I only heard the clomp of boots as the crew obeyed. The ship captain echoed the king, hurrying the sailors away. But I didn’t watch them go; I bent over the ship’s rail, not taking my burning eyes off the water. Though it frightened me to no end, though I dreaded what sort of monster it might make of me, I preferred its horrific mystery to what Theodore seemed so certain of.

He came up behind me with slow steps. “Lady Imogen…”

I whirled. “You ass. You sneaky, egotistical—this is just another ploy to keep me under your thumb, to use me.”

The wind ran through his dark hair like fingers; it tugged at his black shirt. “No. That’s why I need you to get the prophecy from the Mage Seer,” he said, soft, impassive. “She will tell you the truth.”

“What do you care whether I believe it or not?” My hands were fists, clinging to my now-damp dress. “I have this power—that I cannot control in the slightest, mind you. Why not just force me to use it regardless of whether a prophecy proves you right?”

He gave me a sullen look. “I do not wish to force you—”

“Oh, how good of you. Thank you, Your Majesty.” I gave an angry laugh. “You want me to want to go on a mortal hunt for a powerful deity, because it’s my divine duty.” My anger was wholly untethered, whipping through me. “And what could possibly be more rewarding than fulfilling it? Who wouldn’t want to die a hero in service of one’s king? I have no desire to be like you—” I jabbed a finger against his chest. “To scrape myself empty for others and call it noble.”

He’d gone rigid, eyes locked with mine. There was only the sound of the wind snapping through the sails. The sea crashing against the hull. That plucking sensation came again in my chest, deep in the middle, and I wished I could cut it out. Theodore and I stood still before one another, an abyss between us. I saw no way of bridging it.

I didn’t bother trying to stifle the tears that rolled down my face. Theodore looked… stunned. Helpless. He blinked too much; his full mouth opened and closed as his mind clearly reeled.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I demanded, through my weeping.

He shook his head. “I… I don’t know what to do with you.”

I swiped the windblown hair from where it stuck to my wet cheeks. “You do. You’re sending me to my death—”

“Stop. No.” He covered his face in his hands for a moment. “Right now. With you… emotional… in front of me.”

I cast my gaze out over the horizon, toward the red, sinking sun. I tried to school my features, steady my breaths. The ship pitched and swayed, and even I knew that the crew would need to return to their posts soon to keep us on course. One last deep breath of salt air. “Another day and this bond will settle. Then we can both enjoy some space from one another,” I said, gaze stuck on the last dash of sunlight. Without glancing back at him, I started for the confines of the stateroom. His warm hand wrapped around my wrist. I glared down at it, then up into his eyes.

They bored into me with a fathomless expression. “An embrace,” he said.

“A what?”

He tugged on my arm, forcing me a step closer. “Lachlan said an embrace—closeness—might help ease things.”

Had he not had the direst look on his face and a patch of red creeping over the top of his collar, I would have thought the suggestion was in jest. I might have laughed at the ridiculousness of it had my chest not felt like it were caving in.

I gave my head a confused shake. “You hate me.”

His brow pinched. “I don’t—”

“You called me a gnat.”

“Imogen.” His grip tightened on my wrist, and I stopped breathing. “I would like to find a way to make you feel better right now.” His voice was all warmth, curling around me. “This is what I can offer.”

I thought of our escape, when he’d held me to calm my shaking body and how the bond in my belly had glowed. I remembered the outline of him, the feel of his heart beating against my spine. The memories alone filled me with frisson.