Page 5 of Blood on the Tide
Nox waves two members of the crew over. “Make sure the fire takes the ship to the bottom of the sea. Quickly.” They’re already turning away, barking orders at the rest of the crew.
If I don’t catch them now, they’re going to take me right back to Viedna.
I rush after them and grab their arm. “Nox, I need you to listen to me. I have to go to Khollu.” Bronagh lives there. Even if he’s not there right now, he’ll return there eventually. I just have to hope he still has my pelt when he does. It’s a long shot. My pelt could be anywhere by now, sold for a tidy profit. I might chase rumors for the rest of my life and never find it. The thought makes me shake. “Nox, please.”
Nox shakes their head. “Things are moving faster than we expected. I need you in your home village and keeping an eye on the southern route.”
My skin heats, and it has nothing to do with potentially flirting with the pretty blonde. No, it’s shame making me wish the deck would open up and swallow me whole so I don’t have to admit the truth. “I won’t be much use to you as a spy. Not in my current condition.”
Finally, they slow down enough to turn and face me. “What are you talking about?”
“My pelt.” I can’t make myself meet their gray eyes. “It was stolen. I have to get it back. I can’t go home until I have it.”
chapter 3
Lizzie
A selkie who’s lost their skin. What a cliché. I hang back and wait to see what Nox will say. Even taking this detour to save the selkie was a risk. We’re supposed to be hunting some... I forget. It’s not mermaids again, and Evelyn has argued long and hard against “murdering” dragons, but there’s some monster of the deep that we’re supposed to be dispatching right now. It’s all wasting my time. Hunting monsters might get my blood going with the thrill of facing down an opponent who actually has a chance of taking me out, but I can’t fully enjoy myself with the damn sword of my family hanging over my neck.
At the beginning of all that, my mother paid a surprise visit, which led to a series of increasingly frustrating events. In order to ensure my lovely mother didn’t skin my paramour alive, I told Evelyn to run. Evelyn, being Evelyn, ran right through a portal—and took my family’s priceless jewels with her.
And then promptly lost them.
Or, rather, got herself kicked off the ship currently in possession of said jewels. It’s an unmitigated disaster, and it’s compounded by the fact that Nox refuses to chase down the Crimson Hag. If they won’t do that for me, when I’m actually valuable in a fight, they certainly aren’t going to change course for an asset they obviously want back on her home island, coaxing secrets from the Cwn Annwn ships that pass through.
Sure enough, Nox is already shaking their head. “I’m so sorry, Maeve. I’m on a hunt right now, and we’ve already diverted too much time. If we take any more, someone’s going to start asking questions.” They hesitate. “And your position is too vital to remain vacant for long. It’s not your skin that made you valuable to the rebellion. It’s your human form.”
It’s harsh, but one doesn’t win rebellions with a bleeding heart. If they have a chance in hell of succeeding—and I’m not certain they do—then they can’t prioritize one person’s loss over the benefit to the collection. It’s something I understand intimately. My mother considers the Bianchi family to be a single unit rather than a gathering of multiple people with their own thoughts and feelings and ambitions. If you’re born into our bloodline family, then you are expected to obey first, second, and last.
Maeve doesn’t burst into tears like I expect. “Nox, you don’t understand.”
“I do. Better than I’d like to.” They actually sound remorseful, which makes this whole conversation more uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, Maeve.”
Maeve. A sweet name for a sweet little thing. Short and curvy in a way that makes you want to grab for her hips and pull her against you. Her curly red hair is a tangled mess, but it intrigues me all the same. And the damn freckles. I haven’t had a lover with freckles in a very long time.
Not that I’m thinking about taking this quivering creature to bed. I prefer my partners to have a little more spice, a little sharper teeth. I don’t know what selkies are like in Threshold, but in my realm, all the stories surrounding them are tragic and bittersweet. Victims in waiting—that’s all they are.
I force myself to turn away only to be faced with Evelyn and Bowen. He’s a big brawny brute with shoulder-length dark hair and a perpetual frown on his face. Except when he looks at Evelyn. He pulls her in for a quick kiss and then he’s off, doing whatever it is that he’s supposed to be doing to get us the fuck away from the burning ship.
Evelyn practically has stars in her eyes as she watches him go. It makes my stomach curdle. The feeling only gets worse when she turns to me, gentle understanding in her expression. I hate when she looks at me like that. There’s an intimacy there that I used to crave, but now it feels like sandpaper against my skin.
She’s not mine any longer. And while I’m not too proud to murder to get what I want, I know a losing battle when I see one. I lost Evelyn the moment I told her to run. Continuing to chase her will only make me look like a fool, and she’ll still end up in that asshole’s arms.
She scoops a bag off the floor that I hadn’t noticed previously. “I brought you some dry clothes. I thought you could use them.”
“I’ll change in my cabin. There was no reason for you to go to the effort.” I pluck the bag from her hands and move past her, ensuring my long stride carries me away from her as quickly as possible.
I head down the stairs, and there’s a small part of me that continues to be surprised at the fact that the inside of the ship is larger than the outside. I’ve experienced pocket realms before, but this one is so sophisticated it feels absolutely seamless. There’s no staggering moment where you’re not sure which way is up or down, not even a dip in the floor from the ship to the pocket realm. It’s more impressive than anything we have back home. Add in the fact that there’s running water and indoor plumbing—and apparently a hot water heater in some capacity—and there are worse places to live.
But none of that changes the fact that I shouldn’t be here.
We already know that time moves differently from realm to realm. It took me the better part of a year to find the portal that would bring me to Threshold. And yet, for Evelyn, it was a couple of weeks at most. I don’t expect the conversion to be static, either, so there’s no denying the fact that a significant amount of time is passing while I’ve been here, failing to retrieve the family jewels.
I can’t go home without them. Heir or not, my mother will rip out my throat for failing so spectacularly. We can’t have someone weak leading the family when she’s gone. If she’s ever gone. At this point, I have no doubt that she intends to live forever.
If I was anyone else, I wouldn’t go home at all. My mother isn’t known for her patience, and if she didn’t need me to create little vampire babies, she wouldn’t have deigned to give me a second chance after my failure to protect the family heirlooms. She simply would have killed me then and there, and moved on with her life.
I fight down a shudder. Best not to think too deeply about how she’s taking my absence. Successful or no, there will be a price to pay when I return home. I’ll endure it just like I’ve endured all my mother’s lessons and then come out stronger on the other side.