Page 14 of Blood on the Tide
Oh gods, what have I gotten myself into?
chapter 7
Lizzie
When you said there were boats on the island, I didn’t expect you’d lead me to a death trap that will sink the moment we put it in the water.”
Maeve looks at me with such exasperation it almost makes me smile. Or I would if I wasn’t fighting down a tight feeling in my chest that makes it hard to breathe. Because what she’s crouched next to is not a vessel meant for the open sea. It looks more like something children put together during a game of pretending to be pirates. Yes, there’s a sail, and yes, it’s technically boat shaped, but the first high wave will sink us. To say nothing of a storm.
“It’s not a death trap. It’s our only way off the island.” She shakes out the sail and sneezes as a cloud of dust erupts. It’s a cute sneeze. Maeve wrinkles her nose. “Besides, Khollu is only three days away, and it’s not the storm season. We’ll be fine.”
“That reasoning sounds like bullshit from where I’m standing.” The boat is so shallow, I’ll be able to reach out and touch the water if I want to. The very idea has my skin prickling. This thing doesn’t look like it will last an hour once we put it in the water. There are storms and sea beasts, and all manner of things that are only too happy to murder us before we reach our destination. To say nothing of the Cwn Annwn.
The prickling under my skin gets worse. I need this selkie and I need this boat, but fear has wrapped its arms around me and holds me immobile. I can’t do this. “When I asked you to be my guide, I thought you were smart enough to know a suicidal plan when it was staring you in the face. Getting in that thing and sailing for another island is the very definition of suicide. We’ll never make it.” We’ll drown, and that will be the end of both of us. Foolish to the point of suicidal. And who will mourn us? Well, me. Maeve has people who love her. My mother will simply be furious to have lost one of her heirs, and my brother will breathe a sigh of relief that I’ll never darken his doorstep again.
Maeve steps into the boat and starts attaching the sail. I’m pretty sure it has moth holes in it. There’s no way she’s being serious right now. “Like I said, it’s only a few days to get to Khollu. It won’t be a comfortable trip, but between the two of us, we should be able to row even if we’re becalmed.”
Becalmed. With so many air elementals in the crew of the Audacity, it never occurred to me to worry about that. Another thing that could befall us. Damn it, I hate admitting that I’ve made a mistake, but clearly the selkie is not the asset I anticipated. “There’s no way I’m getting on that thing.”
“Okay,” she says easily. She yanks back the tarp covering the back half of it and bends down to grab a crate tucked up against the side. The motion brings my attention to her wide ass, and I almost forget my reservations as my mouth waters. She is so damned bitable.
“What do you mean ‘okay’?”
“I mean, okay, I’m not going to force you to sail with me.” Maeve straightens and dusts off her hands. “If you follow the path back to the village, Nox will likely still be in the tavern. You can join up with them again and wait for however long it takes to run across the Crimson Hag.”
I glare. I had thought to keep all the leverage in this little partnership, but the selkie is proving to be smarter than is comfortable. She knows I can’t afford to walk away from this opportunity. If I could, I never would have offered this bargain in the first place. “Let’s get this pathetic little death trap in the water.” I have been tortured for longer than the trip to Khollu will take. I can survive this. And the first thing we’re doing when we reach that island is taking over a real ship.
The shore here is made of the same small smooth rocks as the bay to the south. They shift under my feet, making me grit my teeth. Viedna isn’t a very large island—we made the hike from south to north in a few hours. I caught sight of a few houses along the way, bright patterns little more than a flash deeper in the trees, but there’s no buildings near us. I send my power pulsing out cautiously, pleased that there isn’t anyone lurking nearby. We’re in the clear. The sun is barely a hint on the horizon, pale fingers of light doing little to combat the darkness.
The perfect time to steal a boat.
Maeve holds up her hand. “Give me just a second.”
I watch with interest as she darts up a little incline, scrambling over the rocks like she’s part goat. She’s obviously done this a number of times before. I can’t pretend to know this woman, but anyone willing to jump on a boat and sail off after her stolen skin is someone I can’t imagine being content living on this tiny little island.
The island is beautiful. Even in the short time I’ve been here, I can acknowledge that. Low pale gray cliffs, rocks that cause the waves to crash and roar in a way that’s very pleasing when you have two feet planted firmly on the ground. Enough greenery to keep things interesting and probably provide for the people who live here. I didn’t get a good look at the people themselves, but every building I saw was well cared for, even if they’re all painted with those damned bright patterns that give me a headache. I can understand, at least in theory, that it’s a nice place to live.
But it’s so... constrained. It has to irk Maeve to be trapped here, relegated to hearing tales of sailors and Cwn Annwn and traders rather than experiencing them herself.
I shake my head. What am I thinking? I don’t need to have sympathy for this woman. I have none to speak of. I just need her assistance for the time being.
Even so... I know what it’s like to be trapped. Both by family obligation and by an inability to travel freely. It doesn’t matter where I go, the responsibility of being a member of the Bianchi family follows, crowding closer than my shadow. There’s no escaping it. But at least I had a change in location to keep things interesting. My family maintains residences in several key locations across Europe and Asia, and in the last couple of centuries, we’ve expanded into North America. It’s important to make your presence known; otherwise, other people will begin to forget you. Or, rather, they’ll forget to fear you.
My mother’s worst nightmare.
Most leaders rule through either love or fear. I’ve never met a vampire who’s chosen the former. Well, I suppose that isn’t quite true any longer. My brother’s paramour is certainly doing her best to rule her people with an even hand instead of terror, but Mina is only half vampire, so she hardly counts.
My mother certainly is never going to rule through love. The emotion is completely foreign to her, and if she had the capability for it, she’s long since purged it. Fear is all that’s left. Fear is all that I’ve ever been taught. I’m quite good at it.
Granted, this selkie doesn’t seem to fear me all that much.
It’s just as well. I find traveling with cowering, weeping messes to be increasingly irritating. If that were the type of person she is, I’d be far more likely to eat her and be done with it.
As Maeve reappears, a bag of what is obviously food dangling from her fingertips, my mind decides to offer up all the different ways I could... eat... Maeve. I am a vampire, after all. Eating people is baked into my very DNA. More than that, she’s a beautiful woman. It’s enough to make me wonder what she’ll taste like. Salty or sweet or some combination thereof?
I look at the bag with interest as Maeve gets closer. It’s larger than I first thought, filled to the brim in a way that makes the fabric stretch to contain the items inside. “What do you have there?” I ask, mostly to delay the moment when we have to enter the water and leave the safety of dry land behind once again.
“If we’re very, very lucky, then it will only take three days to get to Khollu. Maybe you can go that long without eating or feeding or whatever you want to call it, but I can’t. If I had my skin, it would be easy enough to hunt, but since I’m stuck in this form, the only option is bringing food with us.”